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

had trouble sleeping. My head was filled with all the evidence I’d overlooked and I wrote up my case notes so that, were I ever to be in such a situation again, I might learn from my mistakes. Point number one was…

Never underestimate the elderly!

It wasn’t just my embarrassing failure that stayed with me, I was still recovering from the vicarious thrill of assisting my grandfather’s investigation. My head, like my notebook, was crammed full of so many disparate thoughts and ideas, it’s a wonder that I ever fell asleep.

The morning eventually arrived, however, and, after passing up the offer of one final breakfast from Cook and packing my few transportable possessions into my Gladstone bag, I headed off to find Todd.

“Good morning, Christopher. Do you mind if I walk with you?” Grandfather was in the garden waiting for me as I stepped outside. I didn’t really think anything of it at the time but he had his silk top hat and his amethyst cane with him which he’d carried at the ball.

As a good alumnus of Oakton Academy, I tried to keep my emotions in check and not show how much this meant to me, but… well, I failed rather miserably.

“Oh! Grandfather you came to see me off?” I positively launched myself at him and gave him the biggest hug I could manage. “I was worried I wouldn’t see you before I left.”

If this had been almost any other family member, I’ve no doubt they would have gone running for a doctor to find out what was wrong with me. But then, my grandfather wasn’t quite like anyone else.

“I couldn’t let my trusty assistant go without saying goodbye.” He patted me on the arm and I finally pulled back from him.

“Are you feeling…” I searched for the right word, but apparently it didn’t exist. “…better?”

He spun on the spot in the direction of Todd’s garage and I padded along beside him.

“I’m not sure that I’ll ever feel better about the murder of my wife and two children, but I’m feeling…” It was his turn to run dry. “…alive, at the very least.”

“That’s jolly good,” I said, sounding more like my stony father than I’d intended.

I’d been considering some of the finer points of the case since our killer had been revealed and there were so many things I wanted to ask him, but wasn’t quite sure where to begin.

“What a sumptuous day and what a beautiful world we live in!” He looked up at the sky as he spoke and even in this jubilant proclamation there was a mournful note.

“Grandfather, would you mind explaining something?” As the now experienced assistant to a famous detective, I decided this sounded a little weak so quickly made it right. “I mean, I understand most of what went on over the last few days but there are a few minor details I’d rather like refreshing in my mind.”

His wonderful white moustache curled upwards. “Of course, dear boy. What exactly would you like me to refresh?”

This was the thing I couldn’t quite put my finger on so I went with, “Well, why don’t you start from the beginning, and I’ll tell you if we get to any parts that you can skip?”

I think he saw through my subterfuge, as he laughed before replying. “Very well. We’ll start with the ball, shall we?”

“Or your birthday even?” I suggested as our feet crunched along the gravel path in front of Cranley’s west wing. “There’s no sense doing things by halves.”

“That’s so true.” He paused to collect his thoughts. “Rather foolishly on my part, at a meeting with my every living relative, many of whom would be happy for me to meet my maker, I mentioned the fact that I would be opening a bottle of 1872 Veuve Clicquot champagne. Perhaps even more significantly though, I revealed that I had a lot more living to do and the woman who, as it turns out, had murdered my wife was not too keen on this outcome. Old Clemmie even spent the night here to plan her attack – passing off her supposedly accidental extended visit as the folly of her faltering mind.”

I was just about keeping up with him until this point, though I already had one question. “How can you be so sure that’s what happened?”

“I can’t, but it’s what I’d have done if I were her. Planning is paramount!” He continued straight on with his summary as if I hadn’t interrupted. “With her groundwork laid, she waited for the night of the ball. She arrived with Cora and would have encouraged her granddaughter to attract her boyfriend’s attention while she had a nap behind the door in the petit salon, where you and, fortuitously your father, could attest to her being. If she’d merely returned to where she’d been sleeping, no one would have noticed her absence and she would have got away with her crime. I have a feeling that the temptation was too great though and, having spiked the champagne, she tiptoed off to the terrace to watch me die.”

We had reached the steps up to the ballroom, and fell into silent thought for a moment, which I soon broke into. “One thing I never understood is why there weren’t any fingerprints on the bottle. We know that Clementine wasn’t wearing gloves as she wouldn’t have hurt her hands otherwise.”

“She didn’t need to touch the bottle to put the poison in it, Fellowes had already removed the cork and so she simply poured the cyanide inside. Perhaps she thought that wearing gloves would have drawn attention to her, but a white-tie ball is one place she could have got away with it.”

His voice rose theatrically as he made this supposition, but there were more facts to deliver and he didn’t get distracted for long. “I imagine that this was when she got the idea to incriminate your father. Maitland was killed merely to confuse the investigation. I fell for her trick and falsely