Murder at the Spring Ball: A 1920s Mystery by Benedict Brown (simple ebook reader txt) 📕

my tone isn’t clear enough, I think it’s fair to say that I’ve never been a fan of my school’s educational methods. Though my father always insisted that Oakton Academy was where he learnt to be a man, I’ve yet to discover what he would have otherwise turned into.

My three best friends were all called William. They were shy, bookish types who looked and talked just like me, but weren’t the sort you call for help when someone wants to knock your block off. As we snuck about the school each day, with our eyes peeled for Marmaduke Adelaide’s attack force, William, Will and Billy were good company. It was a little like having my own personal guard, except, instead of a trained squad of career soldiers, I had three podgy boys who liked nothing more than a spot of afternoon tea.

I managed to escape any more physical punishment that week, both from my sadistic teachers and my sadistic peers. When Friday finally arrived, and I found Todd waiting for me at the school gates to drive me to Cranley, I forgot all about Oakton with its red bricks and screeching blackboards and dived back into my grandfather’s world.

He was even more animated than the last time I’d seen him, and things were changing faster than I could have imagined. Work on the front façade of the hall was nearly completed, the ballroom had been refreshed and modern equipment had been installed in the kitchen – including Captain William Howard Livens’ hand-powered dishwasher, which I had to try myself as I simply couldn’t believe that such a convenient device could exist.

I didn’t see as much of Lord Edgington that weekend. He had purchased a new gramophone and a library’s worth of records and spent most of his time catching up on modern music. He did pop down to the kitchen on Friday night to compliment Cook on her canard aux asperges creation though and ended up staying for a hand of cards.

My grandfather had never been a man to stand on ceremony, but even for him this was unusual behaviour. During his career, he had become acquainted with every type of character from Britain’s great human tapestry, so it wasn’t exactly a surprise that he would treat his staff with the respect they deserved. And yet, since his reawakening, I felt that he was making a concerted effort to show me that the barriers I had viewed my whole life as both rigid and ingrained were nothing of the sort.

The subsequent weeks went by in much the same way and being at school felt like a punishment for some dark crime. I avoided Marmalade, got my friends to teach me rummy, as that seemed to be the game that was played most often below stairs, and read Martin Chuzzlewit for the third time, even though it’s far from Dickens’s best.

I also did my part for the preparations for the spring ball. Fellowes provided a contact for a dance band that he assured me were top notch. There was no time to audition them sadly but, as rude as he often was, I trusted Grandfather’s old faithful to come through. I even created a menu that went beyond cakes, though I did have to overrule some of Cook’s more exotic suggestions out of fear for my family’s reputation.

Those weekends passed in seconds while the weeks took years, but then the spring ball was finally upon us. School would be closed for a whole three days for the Whitsun holiday weekend and there was an air of expectancy, even within the gloomy corridors of Oakton Academy. Students who came from further afield would stay behind with Mr Hardcastle and the other teachers but I was finally free!

When Todd came to collect me, my friends peered down from the upper floor of the building like convicts on a ship to the new world. For their sake, I attempted to hide how happy I was as I waved goodbye. For a moment I had an inkling of what my father meant about Oakton making a man of me. It was not the school itself, but the years I had spent there and now, already sixteen and getting taller by the day, I was helping to throw a society ball in one of the grandest houses in England.

This is exactly what I was thinking of as Marmaduke Adelaide came flying towards me. My joie de vivre had set me off guard and he appeared out of nowhere. His immense fist caught me right in the eye and I crumpled to the ground like a house made of straw.

“Whoop!” he yelled in celebration as he lined up his knuckles for a second blow. Like a rabbit who knows its only defence is to play dead, I lay on the ground, as stiff as a mummy.

Luckily, Todd was quick to action and sped from the driver’s seat to confront the marauding Marmalade. The chauffeur grabbed the bully by his lapels, and I don’t like to think what would have happened if the headmaster hadn’t arrived.

“Is that what you teach your students?” Todd spat the words at the teacher who blustered and faffed in reply.

Mr Hardcastle had seized my attacker to cart him back inside and attempted to recover from the insult by shouting a belated retort over his shoulder. “You’re a darned chauffeur. You’ve no right to talk that way to me!”

“Enjoy the ball, Cinderella,” Marmalade added for good measure.

Todd crouched down to talk to me. “Are you all right, Master Christopher?”

I opened my one good eye to check that we were alone. “I could be worse but… Well, I suppose I could be better too.”

He held out his hand and pulled me up to standing. “You shouldn’t let toffs like him push you around.”

I didn’t know how to reply to that, so I pretended I hadn’t heard and got inside Grandfather’s Silver Ghost. It was not the most fashionable vehicle in the Cranley collection, or even