Andrea Frazer - Holmes and Garden 01 - The Curious Case of the Black Swan Song (12 page)

‘Absolutely not, old boy, but we need a complete picture of events before we draw any definite conclusions.’

This sounded, to Garden, the fudge that it actually was, and he went on more forcefully, ‘Do you not fancy any of those women? Come on, tell me. In the order that we visited them, we’ll start with Miss Fitch.’

‘Guilty,’ replied Holmes.

‘Motive?’ asked Garden.

‘Jealousy,’ replied Holmes.

‘OK, Miss Merrilees?

‘Guilty.’

‘Motive?’

‘Jealousy.’

‘Miss Crumpet?’

‘Guilty as charged.’

‘Motive?’

‘Revenge.’

Revenge? At least it was a different answer.

‘Or, perhaps jealousy,’ replied Holmes, this time hedging his bets.

Garden sighed. ‘Mabs and Lebs?’ He couldn’t wait to hear what Holmes had to say about this couple.

‘Guilty.’

‘Why?’

‘Mabs, to get access to Pippa. Lebs, because she’s really bisexual and not lesbian, and was jealous of all the other women with whom Bellamy had had relationships. But, on the other hand, Mabs might do it out of jealousy, because she knows Lebs is really bisexual and wants to remove the competition,’

Garden threw his hands in the air and declared that he gave up. ‘How can they all be guilty?’

‘Well, they just might be. I haven’t made up my mind yet who has the strongest motive.’

‘I’ll tell you now, if anything happens to you, it’ll be me that’s responsible, because I could throttle you, the way you’re sitting on the fence. I thought you were going to be the great detective?’

‘I am. That’s why I’m being so cautious. I don’t want to say something rash and then be proved a fool. Can we get on with our new suspects now?’

His expression was so like that of an eager puppy that Garden agreed just so as not to upset his new friend, but great detective he was not proving to be, which he confirmed unequivocally by looking Garden straight in the eye and saying, ‘If I think they’re all guilty, at least I’ll be right on one of them. Unless, of course, it’s a conspiracy, and they’re all in it together.’

‘Oh, grow up. Who do you think you are, Agatha Christie? I see no trains,’ replied Garden, waspishly, in a reference to one of the queen’s more famous books.

Chapter Thirteen
Still Tuesday

The news swept round the hotel like wildfire. Chef had been arrested and taken into the police station for questioning. The place was buzzing with speculation. It had been no secret that the cook and the previous owner disagreed about the contents of the menu, and those who lived locally were all on Chef’s side. A bit of variety would make them return more often to eat there, and it was only fair that the man be given a chance to prove his worth. His attitude was injurious to business, and had definitely held the place back.

The thought that Chef could have actually done away with him just to cook more interesting and up-to-date food though, seemed ludicrous. Then there was the general memory of how short Chef’s fuse was, and how quick his temper to rise to storm force. Maybe he
had
found it in himself to commit such an act.

When they heard what had happened, Holmes and Garden went straight to the bar to cross-question William Byrd and seek his opinion of the likelihood of the head of catering being a murderer.

‘He had a rare old temper on him when roused,’ Byrd told them. ‘I have known him lump one of the sous chefs just for cutting the onions across instead of down, and dicing the cucumber instead of slicing it. Everything had to be done his way – I suppose because he had no control of the dishes that his kitchen served, he exerted his power over how things were prepared and served.

‘And I did hear Bellamy and he having a scrap when we first got here,’ added Garden, suddenly remembering what he had heard on one of his, now familiar, wanders.

‘But I would have expected a chef to use one of his kitchen knives,’ said Holmes, a little predictably.

‘Why? Shoving him out of a window was a lot more anonymous. If the police had found his body attacked with a kitchen knife, they would have taken Chef away within half an hour of the murder. It was his idea of being subtle, maybe.’

‘Did anyone hear him issue any threats to the previous owner?’ asked Garden, becoming pragmatic.

‘After an argument, he was always thinking up ways to get his own back on the man, but it was all hot air. He used to make some of the waitresses’ hair stand on end, though. He could sound very bloodthirsty.’

‘And was he believed?’ Garden again.

‘No! Everyone knew it was just bluster and injured pride, along with his professional frustration at being so controlled.’

‘So, you don’t think he did it?’ asked Holmes, suddenly joining in the conversation again.

‘Now, I didn’t say that, did I?’ squirmed Byrd. ‘I just said he was usually all hot air.’

Giving up on nailing the man down to anything like an opinion, Holmes ordered a pot of coffee to be served to them in the guests’ lounge, and set off at a brisk pace to this objective, with Garden in his wake, waving apologetically to the barman, and wondering whom his new partner would turn to next as main suspect.

He was beginning to get the feeling that, if they gelled as a partnership, he was the one who would be doing the bulk of the detecting, while Holmes just blustered and took care of the bills. Not that he minded. He’d just like to know where he stood.

In the guests’ lounge, settled on matching chesterfield sofas, Garden poured their refreshment while Holmes scanned the other residents scattered around the large room. With a sigh of triumph, he carefully pointed at two figures at the bookcase which was situated against the opposite wall. ‘See those two?’ he asked, in a very carrying and sibilant whisper.

‘Shh!’ Garden ordered. ‘And don’t point in such an obvious way. There’s no reason to give away the identity of the people you’re about to talk about. Anyway, what about them?’

‘When I stayed down the other night, they’re the ones I joined, in conversation with another man. They’re the two who are in dispute about ownership of parts of this hotel. The other man, I believe, was a solicitor. We need to speak to them.’

‘Don’t you think we need to approach the solicitor first, just so that we don’t make monumental fools of ourselves? He won’t talk to us, you know.’

‘He might,’ said Holmes with a superior smirk, ‘if we present him with our official business cards. He’ll no doubt see us as allies on the road to justice for his clients.’

Garden was not so sure of this, but didn’t dare suggest going straight to the other hotel guests and accusing them of murder. ‘Do you reckon it’s a local solicitor then, that they’re using?’

‘I believe so,’ replied Holmes, with his fingers crossed out of sight, for luck. ‘And what was the name of that woman who wants to buy the place?’

‘Ms Hughes. I suggest we go and consult with Mr Budge, whom we saw when we viewed the office premises. If she hasn’t already been to see him, then I’m sure he’ll have his snout in the local gossip trough, and know who
is
dealing with her. He seemed that sort of person to me.’

‘Well said, Garden. And we can have a bit of a puff on the way, without any dirty looks. No one can complain about us having a smoke out in the open air. This is still a free country.’

‘And I’d better have another little batch of our cards printed. We do seem to be giving them out at a rather fast rate.’

Justin Budge was in his office and available to see them when they turned up just after lunch for a little chat. Business was definitely not booming, as evidenced not just by his lack of appointments, but by the lack of sold signs on the few properties he had on display in his windows. Maybe the very slight recovery in the property market had stalled.

He greeted them heartily, however, and bade them take a seat as he used the internal phone to order coffee for three. ‘How can I help you?’ he asked, a big, cheesy grin on his face, rather like that of the wolf when it saw Grandma was too weak and ill to run away from his ravening jaws.

Holmes reached into his inside jacket pocket and took out one of the little cards that were hot off the press, and handed it over without a word.

‘Ah, I see. So that’s why you were after office premises. Is this a new venture, or an expansion of an existing successful business?’

Cheeky-looking ornament, thought Holmes, as he tapped the side of his nose with a knowing wink, in the hope of giving a very dishonest impression. Garden had to hold on to the muscles of his jaw so that it didn’t drop open with surprise. What was the old man playing at?

But Justin Budge was just the sort of person to fall for Holmes’ feint to the left, and he winked back conspiratorially. ‘Got you, Mr Holmes. How can I be of assistance?’

What? Was it going to be so easy with this character? Yes. ‘We’re currently making enquiries about a lady called Josephine Hughes,’ declared Holmes with great confidence, having dredged the lady’s name out of one of the obscure recesses of his memory, even though he had only recently filed it.

‘Ah, the charming Josephine. She’s not all she seems, is she?’ Budge asked, with another knowing wink. ‘I had an appointment with her just after you first viewed your new offices’ – he emphasised these last three words, infusing them with a degree of personal pride – ‘and she’d told me at a previous meeting that she was looking for a property in the area.

‘I, of course, had looked out several substantial residential properties for her perusal, but it turned out that what she wanted to get her hands on was The Black Swan. A very successful businesswoman, is our Josephine, and she could certainly afford to buy it. The only fly in the ointment had been Bellamy’s absolute refusal to budge on the fact that he would never let the hotel go out of his family, and they were at stalemate.’

‘So, what was she expecting you to be able to do for her?’ asked Garden astutely.

‘She thought if I went round and opened a casual conversation about values in the area and how they’d risen, and how his place would be worth a fortune, he could sell up his old pile, buy Pippa something smaller to work on while she was learning her trade, and still walk away with shedloads of money.

‘Thing was, she’d made her first approach to me a couple of days before I met you guys and, although I said I’d talk to him the very next day, by the time I got around to seriously considering going up there, he was already dead. The day you looked over your office premises, we were going to discuss where to go next.

‘I reckoned the whole lot would go to his granddaughter, and that she’d be greedy to become a rich woman at her age, set up for the rest of her life.’

‘And have you talked to her yet?’ asked Holmes, now very interested.

‘I was going to visit her yesterday, but I got a call from Josephine to say that she’d had a word herself, and the little cat had screamed in her face that she was a vulture who couldn’t wait to pick the dead flesh from her grandfather’s corpse, and that she’d see her in hell before she even considered selling to her.’

‘So you never did get up there to speak to either of them?’

‘No. I’m afraid I didn’t.’ Budge looked glum at this lack of success. A sale of this magnitude would have meant a considerable profit for him personally, and he mourned its loss as if it had been a flesh and blood friend.

‘I don’t suppose you could give us an idea of just how much the place is worth, could you?’ asked Garden.

Budge mouthed an impossibly high figure at them across the table, and his two visitors both whistled at the same time, at the magnitude of the sum involved. ‘I don’t suppose either of you gentlemen would be interested, if I could persuade the fair Pippa?’

‘Sorry, old chap,’ Holmes consoled him, ‘but that’s completely out of our league.’ Although he could have personally afforded it with his unexpected windfall, he wasn’t going to let anyone know that, not even Garden. He would be setting himself up as an Aunt Sally once word got around, and it would, almost by a process of osmosis. No, he wanted to keep that information so close to his chest, it would appear to be tattooed on to the skin.

Back in the hotel garden, where a weak sun was driving away the last of the persistent mist that had looked like it would remain for the rest of the day, Garden asked what their next step should be, although he now realised he could not rely on Holmes to anywhere near live up to his namesake.

‘We’ve got to visit the solicitor before we tackle any of the guests, but I believe a spot of refreshment is on the cards right now, just to bolster up our blood sugar before we tangle with a member of the legal profession. Eels are easier to handle than solicitors.’

Martin Pryke, on being contacted by telephone, said he could fit in an interview with them just before he closed for the day, but was rather sniffy when Holmes would not disclose to him the nature of their business, and evidently was dismissing them as time-wasters.

This was confirmed by his offhand attitude when he invited them into his office, evidently judging that it would not be long before they left it again. ‘How can I be of assistance to you gentlemen?’ he asked, with a tiny curl of his upper lip, giving just the ghost of a sneer.

Holmes handed over one of their now-indispensable business cards and waited for the man’s response. Pryke gave it a glance, then put his chin on to the bridge of his intertwined fingers and just stared at them. Garden stared back, but Holmes fell for the silent treatment and began to bluster.

Pryke’s face was growing a smile, and Garden butted in at this inauspicious sign, to save his partner embarrassment. ‘We’re here about the cases of unlawful acquisition of parts of The Black Swan hotel carried out in the past by the Bellamy family. We know there are two different cases involving two completely uninvolved parties. We would like to know exactly which parts of the hotel are in dispute, and what you think are the chances of a successful outcome for your clients.’ He was concise and to the point, and Holmes regarded him warmly with approval.

‘I am not at liberty to discuss my clients’ business with total strangers,’ replied Pryke, with a smug little grin.

‘Maybe not, but I assume these cases will wend their way to court, where the information will then be in the public domain. We only want to know which parts of the building are disputed, not the ins and outs of the legalities of the situations.’

‘No can do, old chap, what with professional confidentiality.’ Pryke was enjoying himself enormously at their expense, and using one of their own weapons against them.

‘But we’re fellow professionals,’ blustered Holmes, now going purple in the face with indignation.

‘I think not. I had to study for years to get my present qualifications. How long and what did you study to get to the point where you can hand out spurious business cards?’

‘I’ve never been so insulted in all my life,’ barked Holmes, rising to his feet.

‘You should get out more, then,’ replied Pryke, and gave an oily little giggle.

‘Come along, Garden. We don’t need to stay here to be insulted.’

‘No? Where do you usually go?’

‘Insufferable little man!’ were Holmes’ final words, as he stamped out of the offices and back outside. ‘How dare he?’

‘He’s right, though,’ replied Garden, unhelpfully.

‘That’s not the point. We’ll find out what we need to know straight from the horses’ mouths.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You wait and see. I have a cunning plan.’

‘Do you?’

‘Well, almost.’

Garden sighed deeply. Holmes may be a great name for a detective, but this one didn’t seem to have an investigative bone in his body. It looked like he lived the life of an easily distracted butterfly who couldn’t put two and two together nor make a decision about which suspect was the most likely to be guilty.

It looked like, in their future together, Holmes would have the name that would attract the clients and he, Garden, would be the brains of the outfit. It was all the wrong way round but, then, as Holmes had previously pointed out to him, fiction if fiction. This was real life, and not a mirror.

Both fledgling detectives were in the bar early that evening, in the guise of stalking horses. They knew that most residents popped in for a drink before dinner, and that the two guests involved in the legal disputes were likely to eat together to discuss tactics.