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

side, as though he didn’t know what to say next. “I’m sorry to spring this on you, considering what you’ve just been through, but I have to invite some guests over this evening. Tell the staff to be prepared. We’ve another party to plan.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

Despite my best attempts to save his blushes, Grandfather clearly wouldn’t listen to what I’d discovered. He was committed to his plan for the evening and so we headed to the petit salon to invite our guests.

“George?” the old man asked but didn’t wait for a reply. “I need you to be here by nine o’clock and bring young Adelaide with you.”

“Why should I?” I heard him grumble down the line. He’d clearly been asleep when the telephone rang. “I’ve only recently returned from my ancestral backwater. Why would I want to go back so soon?”

“Because if you don’t, I’ll change my will and leave everything I own to Battersea Dogs Home!” He slammed the telephone down on its hook and, with a satisfied smile on his face, stroked his long white beard. “If someone had spoken to your cousin like that a decade ago, he might not be the disaster that he is today.”

With George crossed off his list, he informed Great-Aunt Clementine’s staff that he’d be sending a car to pick her up for dinner. It was a widely known fact that the old thing was always up for a party, so we didn’t imagine any resistance on her part. Cora was still on the property and so, with these arrangements made, there was only one suspect left to include. Straightening his back regally and sucking his stomach in, Grandfather needed to ask his enemy for a favour.

“I’m telling you that if you bring Walter Prentiss to my house this evening, I’ll hand over the killer.”

Inspector Blunt’s tone was so gruff and aggressive that I struggled to work out what he said in reply.

“IF YOU £*+> $%&* %-& FOR ONE SECOND THEN, I’LL $%&* £%*!…”

Grandfather was not intimidated. “What harm can it do, man? You can bring as many officers as you like and leave Walter in irons for all I care. He’s not likely to escape.”

The scratchiness of the line decreased as Blunt replied in a marginally less agitated manner. “Fine, but I’ll be watching you, Edgington. Don’t go getting any funny ideas.”

“Well, that set me straight,” my grandfather barked back. “I can promise you this, Blunt, by the end of the evening, you’ll be thanking me.”

The inspector let out an oddly witch-like cackle. “I look forward to you proving me wrong.”

Grandfather put the phone down but stayed rooted to the spot, peering off through the window at the dramatic black sky. “What a very unpleasant man he is.”

I, on the other hand, was a very cowardly man. I knew that my lovely old grandfather was setting himself up for ridicule, and should have grabbed him by the arm and made him listen to reason.

Instead, I meekly enquired, “Grandfather, are sure you want to go through with the meal this evening?” The least I could do was check.

His eyes became tiny slits and I knew how all those criminals he arrested must have felt being interviewed by the steely Superintendent Edgington. “I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life.” There was a definite, unspoken why? in his voice which I felt I had to answer.

“I just thought you might prefer to do things quietly, instead of making a big performance of it.”

He leaned on the telephone table, as if the effort he’d already undergone was too much for him. “That’s where you’re wrong, my boy. It may sound petty, but any chance I get to show up that repugnant inspector is very much worth taking. Now, fetch your tailcoat as this evening’s soiree will be a white tie event.”

He nodded with his usual military air and marched off to get ready. I did as instructed and, a little while later, was the first to arrive in the large, airy dining room. I was convinced that the evening would not go to plan and sat waiting for the others in a fog of nerves, as Halfpenny laid the place settings around me.

If nothing else came from the dinner, at least I got to see my father again. After a day in a cell at St Mary-Under-Twine police station, he was in a sorry state. His normally perfect hair was bedraggled, his clothes were somehow stained and he looked like he hadn’t slept in days. Two constables escorted him into the room, with the diminutive inspector hurrying along after them.

“Walter, you poor thing,” my mother pronounced, when she arrived in the dining room moments later. Dressed to the nines in her best crimson gown, she positively sparkled as she ran over to him.

“Um, stand back please, madam.” Blunt lunged to place himself between my parents. “That is a prisoner whose hair you are currently stroking. As far as I’m concerned, he is not here in his role as your husband.”

The inspector hadn’t opted for irons and shackles at least, but set the two constables to guard the door. Once my mother had apprehensively sat down beside my father, the veteran officer retreated to an alcove to watch the proceedings.

George, Cora and Great-Aunt Clementine were the next to arrive and took their places alongside me, but there was no sign of Marmaduke.

“Grandfather won’t be happy you came alone,” I whispered to George, in an attempt to be discreet.

“Oh, do be quiet, Chrissy.” Any charm that he’d displayed that morning was absent once more. “Just so you know-”

He didn’t have to finish his statement as, at that moment, a tall, heavily set man with arms like tree trunks and legs like Nelson’s Column barged into the room to sit in Grandfather’s chair at the head of the table. He had wavy red hair and wore a flamboyant suit of thick, purple damask. He looked like a well-dressed boxer, which wasn’t far from the truth.

“Good