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

believing he was involved. Cora was in the right place at the right time for both murders and her family held a longstanding grudge against us, but he trusted every word she said. George was not the misunderstood innocent that Grandfather had taken him for, but I was rushing to judgement by condemning him as our likely culprit.

If this was my training, I think I needed a little more clarification on some of the lessons.

The next day was dark and grim. After a week of sunshine, it came as a shock to feel the cold air rush at me when I threw my windows open in search of warmth. The clouds over Cranley were dark blue with rain and a light drizzle had already coated the gardens with a layer of gloss.

In my thickest woollen jersey and slacks, I went down to breakfast, still unable to shake the chill of my room. Albert looked even more distraught than normal, but would soon be heading back to university to find a new ex-girlfriend. He sat at the end of the breakfast table, staring at Cook’s selection of strangely coloured food and feeling hard done by.

“I suppose you’ve been palling around with Grandfather again,” he said with a huff. “Has he changed his will in your favour yet?”

I have to say, I find my brother’s bad moods rather amusing. “Yes, that’s right. I’m going to inherit the lot. And I’m under strict instructions not to share a penny with you. Grandfather says you’d only have it fished back off you by a bunch of silly girls.”

His outraged face was as fine a composition as any portrait in the National Gallery. His mouth hung at a lopsided angle, his lip was raised and I swear that he stopped breathing altogether for a few seconds.

“Mother!” he finally wailed as my parents appeared in the doorway. “It’s simply not fair. Why should Christopher get to inherit everything? I’m far more charming than he is; everyone says so. I know what it takes to be a gentleman while he spends his day picking worms up in the gardens and bothering birds with them. It’s simply not fair!”

For a grown man of twenty-one, Albert could sound an awful lot like a child of two.

Though father looked put out by our argument, my mother failed to suppress a smile. “Really, Albert. Chrissy’s just pulling your leg. I know for a fact that my father would never do anything so rash or unthinking as changing his will to leave the rest of us penniless.”

I felt a tad guilty so reassured my brother that our mother was speaking nothing but sense. “Mater is right, old bean. All Grandfather and I talk about is dead bodies and criminals. I don’t think he’s particularly concerned about the family fortune and, if I’m honest, neither am I.”

This went some way to quelling his jealousy, but he still didn’t look happy. “Well, I have to say, I feel left out. How do you know that I’d be no help in solving crimes?”

I was fairly certain that corpses were the last thing my preening, perfumed brother would be interested in.

“Come along then,” I told him. “Why don’t you tell us who you think the killer is?”

He looked rather shaken then. “Oh… I… Well, I couldn’t possibly say without having a good think on things but… Well, I don’t see why no one is considering batty old Clementine.”

My parents both erupted with delight. I managed to control myself and would have laid out exactly what was wrong with the supposition that our octogenarian great-aunt was guilty of a double killing, when my grandfather arrived to do it for me.

“Are you sure about that, Albert?” He swooped into the room like an elderly vampire. Dressed from collar to soles in his traditional dove-grey morning suit, he came to a stop a mere foot away from my gloomy sibling. “Do you really think that a woman of eighty-something has been zipping about the place like a firework, dispatching our relatives with the ease of the grim reaper?”

Albert emitted an awkward giggle and cleared his throat before speaking. “Um… no, of course not. It was just a silly joke of mine. You know how I love to tease.”

Grandfather’s beetling brows drew together. “Though, of course, it isn’t out of the realm of possibility. And it’s certainly true that old Clemmie’s apparent decrepitude would be the perfect cover for her crimes. Not to mention the fact that, by wiping out our side of the family, she would have ensured that Cranley Hall would go to her own granddaughter. As it should have anyway, had my brother not died before he could inherit it.”

Albert was greatly confused by all of this. He laughed once more, then grew serious, then raised one finger before putting it back down again. With no obvious rejoinder in mind, he went for a nice, nonspecific, “Well, quite!”

Grandfather fixed him with a penetrative stare and Albert positively quaked. The old man finally took pity on him and his thunderous laughter shook the room.

“You love to mock, Daddy,” my mother commented as she sat down beside me at the table. “Don’t be so cruel.”

Grandfather puffed up his chest rather proudly. “If any of you know anything about me, it’s that I never rule out a possibility until all evidence suggests otherwise. As long as old Clemmie is capable of putting one foot in front of another, she’s a potential murderer in my book and Albert really wasn’t being as silly as you might think.”

“Very droll,” my father added, and then his face fell as two policemen marched into the room. Inspector Blunt pootled along some distance behind.

“Walter Prentiss?” he demanded, as though he didn’t know the answer already.

My father could only muster a nod as Mother rushed around the table to place her hand on his shoulder.

A smile spread across Blunt’s face, but even as he delivered his big line, it was his old rival who he directed