Died and Gone to Devon

‘Geraldine!’ cried Miss Dimont with feigned horror. ‘You’ll be eighty soon! Motorbikes? Strip-tease? At your age? What’s the Mayor going to say?’

Mrs Phipps’ finely painted lips crept into a wicked smile.

‘My dear, when we Gaiety Girls appeared on stage way back when, it wasn’t always a Salvation Army rally, you know. Some of us deliberately forgot to put on our frillies.’

‘Surely not!’

‘The can-can was a special favourite, just think. Very popular.’

‘Honestly, Geraldine, you’re a disgrace!’

‘No, my dear, I’m not. I’m not pregnant.’

‘I’m told there are eleven unwanted babies on the way. Those Urges and their urges.’

‘They should have been more careful. Never happened in my days on the stage.’

‘Really not?’ said Miss Dimont. ‘You do surprise me!’

‘Well,’ said Geraldine Phipps, gently reminding her lips of the gin glass, ‘not unless it was necessary.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘My dear, in my days at the Gaiety Theatre there were possibly as many as thirty or forty girls – dancers like me, darling – who married a lord. Some of them were well-born, but an awful lot of them weren’t.’

‘I don’t follow.’

‘The well-born ones would face no difficulty from the family should milord drop to one knee and pop the question. It was the others. The rule was – if in doubt, let nature take a hand.’

‘You mean they got pregnant deliberately?’

‘Cheaper to marry the gel than to defend a breach-of-promise action in court. You know how our noble families like to cling to their small change.’

Miss Dimont shook her head and took a sip of the Mac. It breathed fire into her chest and brought a tear to her eye. The vast first-floor sitting room, stuffed with big leather chairs and polished mahogany side tables, had emptied. Either guests had retired for a nap or had wandered off to the library to find a thriller. From where she sat in the window, Miss Dimont could see that nobody was entering or leaving the hotel by the front door – indeed, the wide semi-circular drive had altogether disappeared under the snow.

‘I’d better go and see if they have a room.’

‘Don’t worry,’ smiled Geraldine. ‘I had a word with Ethel while you were powdering your nose. You’re just down the hall from me and they’ve found you some pyjamas and things.’

I ought to phone the office, Miss Dimont thought lazily. She stretched and turned towards the fire, the idea escaping her brain the second it had been formulated.

‘So what is it you wanted to ask me about, Geraldine?’

‘A murder, dear. A murder long ago. One which touched the royal family and could have created an unprecedented scandal, had it ever become known.’

‘Good Lord!’

‘It happened around Christmas time, I suppose that’s what put the thought in my head. I’d forgotten all about it – but sitting here, seeing them putting up the decorations, getting out the punchbowl, brought it all back.’

‘How fascinating, Geraldine.’

‘I was there, Judy. I was there and it has puzzled and worried me ever since. I want you to solve it. I need you to solve it!’

Two (#ulink_dcc7cb9f-c28c-5a1a-8afb-ac1e365f3965)

Temple Regis, a mere twenty miles from the edge of Dartmoor, was enjoying very different seasonal weather. Here, the maritime climate meant that as the day faded, the darkening sky revealed its precious jewels one by one, stars so sharply defined you could almost pluck them and wear them round your neck. The evening was beautiful.

‘Shall we go for a walk?’ said Auriol Hedley, looking at the elegant old gentleman sitting in her kitchen chair, his legs neatly crossed and the shine on his brogues sparkling in the lamplight. ‘The air’s crisp, but if you wrap up warm it should be invigorating. We could go to the pub.’

‘I say,’ said her companion, ‘what a wonderful idea!’ as if nobody had ever thought of going to a pub before. Miss Dimont’s uncle Arthur was like that – still a boy through and through, though the occasional arthritic twinge was a reminder that he no longer was.

‘Come on, then.’ Auriol was already in her ancient fur coat and whizzing Arthur’s hat across the room. He caught it neatly and jammed it on his head. They let themselves out of the Seagull Café and set off through the deserted harbour just as the moon rose to light their way.

Out in the dark you could hear the crack of lines against the boat masts, and the sloosh of water slapping the sides of the craft anchored against the harbour wall. Towards the mouth of the estuary a few red lights moving slowly inland showed there was still life on the water, but otherwise it was silent.

‘So glad you’ve come for Christmas, Arthur, always a joy to see you.’

‘My final attempt to put Hugue and her mother together again,’ he said, using the family name for his niece. ‘After that I’ve pledged never to say another word.’ Both shared a love for Miss Dimont, both were concerned at her evasion tactics when it came to Madame Dimont, Arthur’s sister – both seemed powerless to intervene.

‘Did Grace ask you to do something about it?’

‘You know what she’s like,’ said Arthur, linking his arm through Auriol’s. ‘Grace is as difficult in her way as Huguette – two opposing forces. Grace says, My daughter never sees me, and then finds an excuse when I try to put them together. Huguette is naughty – never replies to her mother’s letters and is always on a story or solving a murder or something, just when it looks like the two of them might meet.’

From across the harbour the old man and his companion suddenly heard the piping voices of young choirboys singing, in descant, a melodious chorus of ‘Once in Royal David’s City’.

‘Cynical little brutes,’ said Auriol briskly, stepping up the pace.

‘I say, steady on,’ panted Arthur. ‘That’s the spirit of Christmas you’re giving a kicking! Where are the tidings of comfort and joy in your heart?’

‘You don’t know. I had them knocking on my door last night. When I opened up they were wearing choirboys’ ruffs and had a candle in a milk bottle. Such innocence, such sweetness!’

‘Well,’ said the old boy, pulling his leather gloves tighter into his palms, ‘think yourself lucky. In London I get nobody knocking on my door this time of year. No point in leaving a mince pie on the doorstep when you’re on the eleventh floor of a mansion block. Personally, I think it’s charming.’

Auriol did not agree. ‘They stand there, singing and singing, looking at you with goo-goo grins, begging with their eyes to give them a hefty tip. And when you do, they don’t stop singing, they keep on going in the hope you’ll give ’em a bit more.’

‘Good heavens, Auriol, are you by chance related to Ebenezer Scrooge?’

‘Choirboys?’ came the snorted reply. ‘Extortionists!’

They pushed their way into the saloon bar of the Belvedere. Inside, there was a sense of repressed celebration – this was, after all, Bedlington, lordly neighbour of Temple Regis where beer is served only in half pints (and then with some disdain) while there were at least half a dozen different kinds of sherry on offer.

‘Sherry?’

‘Good lord, no!’ said Arthur. ‘A nice glass of whisky to keep the cold out, if you please. And you, Auriol?’

‘Same.’

Since her retirement from Naval Intelligence, Auriol Hedley had made her home, and a thriving business, in the Seagull Café, perched enchantingly on the edge of Bedlington Harbour, and a magnet for the more genteel seaside visitor.