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

Fellowes swallowed before answering and Cook took this as a sign that more fluids were needed. She plied him with some steaming-hot elixir from a chipped china mug.

“In the night, I suppose.” He moaned out again. “Didn’t think too much of it until this morning when I could hardly stand.”

Grandfather stooped over the sick butler and produced a small, electric torch from his pocket to examine his pupils, before moving on to check his pulse. “Give me your hand.” When Fellowes was slow to respond, he barked at him once more. “Come along, man. Quickly.”

With great effort, Fellowes raised his right hand a few inches off the bed and Grandfather seized it. He held the flaccid wrist in silence for a few moments before delivering judgement. “Well, I imagine you’ve got a fair bit of vomiting to get through. The good news is that, if it was going to kill you, it would have done so by now.”

He smiled then, as though this made everything better. “I’ll call my doctor, but, from the look of things, you’ll recover before long.”

“Doesn’t feel that way now,” Fellowes peered around the room for a moment before clutching his stomach and closing his eyes.

“One last question,” Grandfather said. “How long ago did you come down here?”

Fellowes looked rather nervous then. He studied the old man’s face and I thought he was trying to work out how much trouble he would get into by telling the truth. “Less than an hour. I’m sorry I can’t attend to my duties, Sir, but I’m sure that Halfpenny can cover for me and Todd at a push.”

My grandfather looked pensive for a moment before replying. “You needn’t worry about that, old friend. We’ll manage without you for a couple of days.”

It was quite touching to see the affection which the two men had for one another and I wondered yet again about the history they shared, which I was not privy to.

“Alice, fetch some bicarbonate and keep the infusions coming. Ginger tea, garlic juice, anything that you think will ease his pain.” He nodded, satisfied with his plan, then rose to leave. “Come along, Christopher.”

I was beginning to see that my main task as Lord Edgington’s assistant was to fulfil the role Delilah usually occupied. As his lazy old golden retriever spent most of her time asleep by the hearth in the kitchen, it was my job to scamp along happily after Grandfather.

“Very interesting, don’t you think?” he asked once we’d left the staff quarters behind.

“Yes, very interesting,” I agreed, though I hadn’t a clue what he was referring to.

“Perhaps it was just an accident of course, or he helped himself to a few more cakes last night than he should have. But if the killer wanted Fellowes out of the picture, why not use the cyanide again?”

I hadn’t considered until this moment that our butler had been poisoned. “Well…” I began, hoping that something clever might come to me. “Perhaps he ran out. Perhaps the fiend used all his cyanide up last night and there was none left for anyone else.”

Ducking into the empty smoking room, he froze on the spot. His face was clouded over with a fog of questions. It was something of a thrill to see his mind running with ideas.

“I suppose it’s possible, but that seems rather foolish, considering…” He never finished that sentence as, just then, a new idea occurred to him. “More importantly, of course, we have to find out what it was that Fellowes saw that would have made him a threat to the killer.”

He took a seat near the unlit fire, where Cora had sat the night before. The smoking room still smelt like the inside of a pipe as no one had cleared the ashtrays. The vases of our flower arrangements were almost as pungent and I couldn’t help but feel proud of the colour they still provided to the musty old room.

Salacious ideas from boy’s own adventure magazines filled my head. “You said yourself that Fellowes was hiding something. He went out of the room after the champagne was opened for far longer than made any sense. How do we know he wasn’t working with the killer and the blighter double-crossed him?”

My grandfather waved the idea away with one hand. “Don’t be ridiculous, Christopher. If you can’t make a sensible suggestion, don’t say anything at all.”

This was the kind of thing my father always said to me. I didn’t like it from him and I couldn’t stand it from Grandfather either.

“Well, you’re supposed to be the master detective!” I raised my voice to quite a level. “Why didn’t you grill Fellowes a little harder yesterday? Come to think of it, why were you so kind to Cora this morning? And George for that matter?”

His steely eyes shot towards me then and I was petrified. For a softly spoken, modern-thinking man, he had an awful lot of anger boiling beneath the surface and I was worried he would shoot it straight at me.

Instead, he took a deep breath and replied at half his usual volume. “You don’t catch flies with vinegar, dear boy. And, besides, some questions don’t need asking. Some things are clear and it’s better not to upset the applecart if it can be avoided.”

I found myself shouting a line back to him that my English literature master had scrawled across the last essay I’d submitted.

“‘You’re mixing your metaphors!’” It wasn’t the strongest of ripostes.

“Is that a crime?”

“No, but failing to investigate a suspect because you can’t imagine them being involved in a murder is tantamount to one.” I don’t know why I was getting so angry. Perhaps it was because we’d been investigating all morning and I’d only eaten one measly cream horn.

He let out a sigh and, remaining calm, asked for my opinion. “Go on then, tell me what you think happened and how Fellowes could have been part of this terrible plot you’re