Foxden Hotel (The Dudley Sisters Saga Book 5) by Madalyn Morgan (ebook reader ink txt) 📕

to a mound of papers on his desk. ‘I can work on the table in the sitting room.’

‘But you’ve had nothing to eat, Frank. You can’t keep going without food.’

‘I’ll get Chef to make Frank something, and I’ll take it up,’ Ena said, leaving the office.

‘I had better go up too, in case Aimee wakes,’ Claire said.

‘Bring the papers on my desk, Claire, and the reservations diary.’

‘You go, Claire, I’ll bring the papers,’ Henry stacked dozens of bills and hotel receipts on top of the diary. ‘When I’ve taken this lot to Frank, I’ll go back to the Denbigh, see who shows up. I’ll see you tomorrow,’ Henry said to Inspector Masters, before kissing Bess on the cheek.

When the family had bustled noisily out of the office, the inspector turned to Bess. ‘I was hoping I’d get to speak to you on your own.’ Bess felt a surge of panic rise in her stomach. The inspector must have sensed her discomfort, because he said, ‘It’s nothing for you to worry about, but while I was in London I called on Mr and Mrs Goldman. There’s nothing for you to worry about there either. Police procedure! Eliminate them from the enquiry.

‘They made me very welcome, offered me refreshment and showed me around the theatre - backstage too,’ he said excitedly. ‘And of course, they verified yours and Miss Dudley’s story at New Year. They are good people,’ he said.

‘Yes, they are.’

‘They told me Miss Dudley, Mrs Burrell, has had the baby and they are both doing well.’

‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you when you first came in.’ Bess looked quizzically at the man sitting in front of her. ‘I didn’t realise you had a personal interest in my sister. I don’t mean to be nosy, but you often call Margot “Miss Dudley.” Did you know her in London? See her at the theatre perhaps, in one of the shows?’

The inspector smiled sheepishly, as a teenage boy might. ‘Yes. I saw Miss Dudley in several shows at the Prince Albert Theatre. Whenever I was home on leave my uncle got me a ticket.’

Bess rocked back in her chair, open mouthed. ‘Your uncle was the lovely stage doorman, Bert Masters?’

‘Yes.’ Inspector Masters smiled with pride. ‘Uncle Bert told me about the girl Sutherland beat up at the time. He was very fond of all the dancers, especially those who didn’t have family in London. He had no children of his own and saw himself as a father figure. From what I’ve since been told, my uncle never forgave himself for not being able to keep Miss Trick safe. It’s for her--’

‘And for your uncle?’ Bess suggested.

‘Yes, and for me. Sutherland slipped through my fingers in 1938 and I joined up in the summer of thirty-nine. I’ve thought many times since then that, if I’d stayed a copper and put him away, he wouldn’t have been around to hurt Miss Trick, or anyone else.’

‘But you couldn’t have known Sutherland would do what he did. You left the police force to fight in a war that put an end to fascism and Nazism. You’ll never know how many women you, and men like you, saved from fascists like Sutherland.’

The inspector raised his eyebrows. ‘I’d like to think that’s true,’ he said, with concern. ‘When I heard that Sutherland had been found dead in a lake in the Midlands - and he’d been an associate of Gerald Hawksley’s - I was determined to investigate the case. Meeting Miss Dudley again was a bonus. Meeting you all was. I am not sorry that the Denbigh didn’t save my room. I feel as if I’m among friends here. And I think the Foxden Hotel is splendid. I love the marble hall and the sweeping staircase. From the little I’ve seen so far, the hotel is full of old-world charm and character.

‘It is probably because you and your husband have done so well for yourselves that Sergeant McGann has got a bee in his bonnet about you.’

‘We’ve worked hard to make the hotel a success,’ Bess said, ‘and we will have to work hard for many years to come. But it’s worth it. When Frank was signed off as fit after losing his eye, he couldn’t go back to the engineering factory where he had done an apprenticeship before the war; it would have been too dangerous. He got a security job at Bitteswell Aerodrome and I carried on working on the estate here at Foxden.

‘When the war ended the Land Army didn’t disband, but when the local lads were demobbed they naturally wanted jobs. Many of them had been farm workers, and so the Land Girls moved on to other work. I thought about going back to teaching, but I’d missed the beginning of the school year, so I got a job in a hotel in Leicester. At that time, Lord Foxden’s plan was to lease the Foxden Acres, which had been turned into farmland, to the tenant farmers and restore Foxden Hall to its former glory.

‘The servants’ quarters, kitchen and the library, were redecorated. And the ballroom, which had been a large open ward for recuperating servicemen after Dunkirk, was reinstated. The refurbishment of the rooms in the west wing, which was the main hospital wing, took a lot of work but they were eventually turned back into bedrooms.

‘The rooms where Lady Foxden had spent much of her time during the war, while her husband was in London at the War Office, had been decorated to her taste and her carpets and furniture brought out of storage. Everything was pretty much ready for her return.’

‘But she didn’t return?’ Inspector Masters said.

‘No. When Lord and Lady Foxden visited the Hall, just after the work was completed, Her Ladyship announced that she could never come back to Foxden to live. The memories of her son,