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

Alice and Halfpenny – who were standing in for our suspects – seized their glasses from the trolley and Cook mimed the pouring of the champagne.

“No, not like that, Cook,” Grandfather admonished. “Fellowes had already poured out the glasses in the drinks room by this point. In fact, you can go back to the kitchen if you’re busy.”

“Perfect,” she replied with a grin. “I’m making a cottage pie for supper and I must get on.”

“Your own recipe?” Grandfather enquired, sounding quite excited.

“That’s right. Beef and peanuts.”

“Delightful! Off you pop then.”

After our seasoned chef had left the scene, the old man turned his attention to Todd. “Right, at this moment, I was making my speech, but Belinda didn’t wait for the toast to drink her champagne and it was soon after that-”

Todd clutched his neck and, wandering back towards the row of chairs at the side of the room, collapsed with a noisy imitation of a death gurgle.

“No need to be quite so graphic, thank you, Todd.” My grandfather’s moustaches scrunched together in disapproval.

Unperturbed by the critique that his employer had provided, Todd bolted upright on the floor. “Actually, Milord, this doesn’t make any sense. I can’t be Belinda.”

His concentration broken once more, Grandfather let out a huff. “And why’s that, my man?”

“Because I was there on the night.” Todd spoke as if the significance of this fact should be wildly apparent. “If I’m Belinda, who’s playing me?”

Grandfather rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “Yes, that’s an admirable point, Todd. But we’re mainly focussed on the suspects to the murder here. As fine a job as you did behind the bar, I think we can manage without a stand in. Now, if it isn’t too much trouble, be a good chap and die.”

Todd gave a cheerful smile, emitted another stomach-churning noise from deep in his throat and collapsed once more.

Grandfather continued with the re-enactment. “So, George rushed over to his mother, we all thought she had imbibed a little too freely and then…”

He came to a sudden halt. Looking about at the various players, he was whispering something to himself, but I couldn’t work out what it was. We waited expectantly for him to reveal what he had discovered. Instead, he peered around the room, spinning slowly on the ball of one foot.

“No, it’s no good,” he finally declared, after everyone was tired of holding their positions like statues and our dead body had opened his eyes several times to see what was going on. “I appreciate your help, but you can all go back to your regular duties. I shall seek you out again if anything else occurs to me.”

“We have every faith in you, Milord.” Old Halfpenny, who has always been a bit of a bootlicker, bowed low before ushering the others out of the room. I had no doubt that he was enjoying his role at the top of the household staff in Fellowes’s absence. From what I’d heard in the servants’ quarters, it didn’t sound as though he would maintain this lofty position for much longer as Fellowes was clearly on the mend.

Whether or not Grandfather had learnt anything from this piece of theatre, yet another clue to our culprits’ guilt had clicked into place in my brain. Seeing the events unfold for the second time, I remembered Cora claiming that, having taken her time to check her appearance in a mirror, she entered the ballroom to find that the toast had started. But on both the night of the ball, and now in Grandfather’s re-staging, she had been the first of the two to appear. So why lie?

I’ll tell you why! Because their whole story from beginning to end was one elaborate concoction. There was no opportunity for anyone else to poison the champagne because Fellowes was the poisoner all along. Cora made sure that the job was in progress before running along to the ball to be seen there when the supposed killer was supposedly doing the deed!

Gosh! My skills of deduction had improved beyond recognition. What an incredible job my grandfather had done training me in such a short time. He’d still shown signs of his famous abilities, of course, but, in his dotage, he was simply too trusting. He’d been taken in by Cora and Fellowes’s innocent act, but I refused to be so easily led.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Once the others had left, I was at a quandary over how to present my discoveries to Grandfather. Luckily, he made it easy.

“What is it that I’m missing?”

It was the perfect moment to reveal the truth, but discretion is the better part of valour and all that, so I had to phrase it diplomatically. “Don’t blame yourself, Grandfather. It’s not your fault that you haven’t found the killer.”

He looked a little confused. “Finding the killer isn’t necessarily the problem. It’s in piecing every scrap of evidence together that things get complicated. I could prove to you that several of our suspects had the means and opportunity to carry out the killings. And I have no doubt that the evidence I have already assembled would be enough to convince a jury, but there are still so many question marks and contradictions to account for.”

His answer had knocked the wind out of me a little and I posed a question of my own. “Oh yes?” I tried to sound cool and disinterested, as though I weren’t checking to see whether he’d worked out something that I’d failed to. “Like what for example?”

His answer came out in a torrent as he zipped about the room, retracing the steps of our suspects at the ball.

“For one thing, we don’t know what Maitland saw on the night his sister was killed.” I thought, I do, but I let him continue. “There’s also the question of how the killer managed to plant the crossbow in your parents’ bedroom without being caught after the second murder.” Transparently obvious! “And why he only put Fellowes out of action temporarily instead of sending him to the