Murder at the Spring Ball: A 1920s Mystery by Benedict Brown (romantic novels in english .txt) 📗

over herself as she bundled out from behind a row of chairs. She settled at his feet and I realised it was my turn to speak.

I couldn’t think what else to say, so I went with, “Woodpecker.”

“I beg your pardon?” Master and dog looked at me in bemusement.

“The lesser spotted woodpecker.” His brows met at diagonals and I thought I might crumble out of existence. “That’s my favourite bird. I think they look rather comical and I like their name.”

He grunted his acknowledgement in a similar fashion to the way my teachers dismissed me at school. I decided it was better not to say anything more and waited for the old man to speak.

“Well, I just wanted to say…” He sighed then, as if communicating such information was simply too much effort. “… that I’ve spotted you dashing about in the gardens and I’m glad you’ve had the run of the place during the weekends. It’s nice to see someone making the most of Cranley for once and you seem like a thoroughly…” He paused to find the right words. “You seem like a boy who knows how to enjoy himself.”

I dared a glance in his direction. He peered through the window, out towards the grotto with its terrifying sculpture of Prometheus having his liver eaten by an eagle – a sight I’d had nightmares about since I was four.

Though he’d never been in the army himself, my grandfather had a military air about him. He was as straight as a set square, and his clothes were always impeccable. Every cuff and collar was neatly pressed and his buttons, cufflinks and watch chain looked as though they’d been arranged to the eighth of an inch by a mathematician or master painter. I always picture him in dove-grey formal attire as that is what he wore most often and, on that particular day, the shiny fabric of his morning coat sparkled a little in the afternoon sun.

“Grandfather, is that why you chose me?” I asked, then immediately regretted saying anything and went back to my shaking. I won’t lie, I was just as terrified of Lord Edgington as I was of poor old Prometheus’s punishment in the underworld.

He looked at me as if he couldn’t quite recall who I was. “Oh… No, not at all.” He fell silent for a moment and there was no way I’d have found the courage to ask him again, so it was a good thing he coughed up the answer on his own. “I chose you because I knew how much it would annoy the others.”

He looked me dead in the eyes and I felt like a mouse staring up at a hawk. His pale, whiskered face retained its typically stern expression. Then, for the first time I could remember, I heard my grandfather laugh. It was a staccato burst of sound which reared up out of nowhere. For some reason, when he fell quiet again, I was even more scared of the formidable ex-policeman.

Without warning, he put one foot in front of the other and set off for a turn about the ballroom. I assumed that he wanted me to follow, so I scampered along to keep up.

“I have a lot of plans, Chrissy,” he announced, and I was too polite to point out that I hate it when people call me that.

I hadn’t been inside the ballroom in years and the furniture was covered over with heavy, burgundy blankets. The opulence of the gold and pastel stuccoed walls was in evidence though, and a scene of devils and angels in battle floated above us on the ceiling.

Coming to a stop at the far end of the long, rectangular space, he cast his fierce gaze across the room. “I want to bring Cranley Hall back to its best before I die. I want music and laughter, discussion and joy.” I could tell from the way his eyes etched out a pattern in front of him that he was seeing the place as it had once been. “But that’s just the beginning. There’s a litany of things I want to do and I need a companion for all of them.”

His gaze burned through me once more and I was a gibbering wreck.

“Wouldn’t… Wouldn’t you be better off with one of the others? My cousin Eleanor can juggle and Big Francis can do a stunning impression of Aunt Belinda. They’d be much more fun. I’m not sure there’s anything I can do which-”

“Stop it, boy!” he roared, and I almost jumped out of the window to escape. “You’re blathering. I can’t stand blatherers.”

I smoothed my hair down with the palm of my hand and he waited for me to compose myself. “Sorry, Grandfather.”

“And don’t say sorry, either. It’s a terrible habit.”

I thought about apologising again but caught myself just in time.

His silver-grey hair seemed to wave at me in the breeze of the open window before he spoke again. “I chose you, not Eleanor nor Francis, but the boy who’s been running around my gardens for the last six months with a pair of binoculars and a smile on his face.” He put one hand on my shoulder and his confidence surged through me. “There’s no doubt about it, Christopher. You and I are going to take on the world.”

Chapter Three

The following day was a Saturday, but I woke to the sound of workmen hammering away in the distance. I’d always thought of Cranley as the seat of luxury and, compared to our own humble manor house on the other side of the Surrey Downs, my grandfather’s home was a palace. I’d spent every holiday of my childhood there and still hadn’t run out of rooms to explore.

Built in a rather too flamboyant style by my great-great (plus several more greats) grandmother, it was bedecked with fine Romanesque carvings, more Doric columns than the whole of Greece has to offer and countless de-armed statues. Subsequent generations had built on to the original structure so that the