Andrea Frazer - Holmes and Garden 01 - The Curious Case of the Black Swan Song (4 page)

Millicent Fitch joined in at this juncture to point out how sad it was that his daughter had died, and how gallantly he had stepped in, as she was divorced, in continuing the upbringing of his granddaughter.

Agatha Crumpet butted in to say that the man was sorely in need of an heir, as his daughter had been an only child, when Marion Guest – aka Mabs – stole the limelight with a paean of praise about what a lovely young woman Philipa Bellamy was growing into. She was only to be violently shushed by the woman next to her with whom she had been in cautious conversation – Lesley Piper – who now looked exceedingly out of sorts.

At this point, Holmes leaned towards him and said in low tones, ‘I shall wander off at this juncture and see what I can get out of the staff. You stay here and ask them about when ‘the incident’ occurred. I think we can identify those who cared, those who didn’t, and those who were indifferent from what we’ve heard already. See what you can do.’

He rose and made a small bow towards the ladies. ‘I’m just off outside for a breath of fresh air, although you wouldn’t think so when you consider that I am really going out to have a short puff on my pipe. I shall return soon.’

His attitude had gone down well, for there were murmurs of opinions like, ‘Oh, I do like a man who smokes a pipe.’

‘Such a manly thing to do.’

‘I just love the smell of the smoke.’

‘My father always smoked a pipe.’

Garden girded himself up for throwing himself to the lionesses, in a conversational sense, and smiled all round, his stomach churning with a sudden influx of butterflies. He had started his new job.

Chapter Four
Still Friday

Very shortly after Holmes’ departure, a loud and unexpectedly penetrating voice sang from the doorway, two words. ‘Quiet, please.’ Having been sung, they were instantly obeyed, and silence fell in the bar.

The person accompanying the unknown nightingale now spoke. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I am Inspector Streeter of the CID, and this little songbird is Sergeant Port. We are here to look into the death of the owner of this establishment, and I shall need to speak to you all. Should you need to leave the premises before this has happened, please leave your name, address, and a telephone number we can contact you on with my sergeant here.’

He was a bone-thin man with what looked like it could be a permanent drop at the end of his nose, which was beak-like, and red from the effects of a summer cold. Even on this warm evening he was dressed formally in shirt and tie, with a jacket held over one shoulder. His hair was steel-coloured, his face gaunt, and there was a steely glint in his grey flint-like eyes.

His companion was far easier on the eye, being of a rather more normal build, and also quite a few years younger. His face had a certain roundness to it which reminded Garden of a contented baby’s, and he was more casually attired in chinos and a white T-shirt. He looked much more the pussycat of the two.

As this was going on there were mutterings afoot at the table about getting another round in, and one of the ladies asked Garden if he would like another drink. Having been brought up with good manners, he immediately offered to buy the round. Suddenly, requests for orange juice or lemonade changed to calls for more alcoholic beverages, all with the word large in front of them. Here he was, hardly used to his new, bright, honest and investigative persona, and he’d already been rooked by the members of a ladies’ guild, old biddies to a man – or woman in this case.

At the bar, where just a single member of staff toiled, he watched while he waited for another large order to be filled, noticing, as he did so, that a man in chef’s whites had come in to speak to those customers who had chosen to eat in this more informal setting. Following a short chat with them, the man he presumed was responsible for the cooking in this establishment wandered over to the bar, went casually behind it, and pulled himself a half pint of best bitter.

‘Oi, Burke!’ hissed the barman. ‘Get out of my side of the bar this minute. I don’t go into your kitchen without permission and you shouldn’t be this side of my bar, especially when you’re in uniform.’

‘Oh, piss off, Byrd! Written any good madrigals lately?’

The barman stiffened at this last remark, glared at his colleague, and asked, seemingly innocently, ‘Introduced any original recipes lately, Tony?’

The chef nearly choked on his drink, and glared furiously at this evident taunt. ‘Why don’t you mind your own bloody business, William? I’m off back to my kitchen where at least I get treated with a modicum of respect.’

‘So you think.’ The barman wasn’t giving in that easily – then he noticed Garden staring at him in surprise, smiled unexpectedly, and turned away from his tormentor. ‘Sorry about that, sir. What can I get you?’

Having delivered his list and been served with his financially depleting order, Garden plucked up the courage to ask what had been going on with the man in chef’s clothes.

‘He picks on me because my name is William Byrd – a really long-ago composer – and occasionally I snap at him. He’s really restricted with his menu here, which I understand causes a lot of frustration and black moods in the kitchens, so I thought I’d have a poke back at him this time for a change. I’m sick of being the butt of his jokes about motets and madrigals, and other sorts of ancient music.’

‘Good for you,’ Garden congratulated him. This was the way to deal with people who took the mickey out of you, and he had just learnt something from this barman. That was how he needed to deal with disapproval and outright criticism of the consequences of his changed lifestyle. He was adamant. He would take no shit from anyone. Faeces would no longer be tolerated in his life.

He’d need to grow a spine first though, he remembered, realising what a coward he had been all his life. That, in fact, was why he found himself in this position in his late twenties. If he’d been brave and honest about who he was many years ago, he’d be accepted by now, or at least thick-skinned enough to deal with his detractors.

Pulling back his shoulders and straightening his back, he took up his heavily laden tray and wove his way back to the table where the old tabbies were sitting, with their tongues not quite hanging out.

The place had thinned out considerably when Holmes eventually re-entered the bar. Inspector Streeter and his colleague were steadily working their way round the patrons, but a lot had just passed on their details to Sergeant Port, and decided to call it a day, not wanting an interesting trawl for gossip to turn into a late night out.

Seeing that the others seated at the table were almost ready for another drink, Garden rose, waved to Holmes, and made his apologies. ‘I’m very much afraid I must leave you now, for I see Mr Holmes is back, and we have quite a lot to talk over in respect of our new business venture. Please excuse me.’

There were expressions of dismay as the women surveyed their nearly finished drinks, and one of them even tried to get him to stay just for another ten minutes or so – i.e. just long enough for him to get another round in – but he remade his apologies and sauntered off to where Holmes was standing at the bar.

‘How did you get on?’ he asked of his new business partner, sniffing greedily at the smell of smoke that still clung to his clothes.

‘Meeting, later, in my room. What about you?’

‘Plenty of gossip. I think I’ve managed to commit it to memory. I’ll save that for later, too, but now, I’ve got to go outside; I’m absolutely gagging for a cigarette.’

‘Stout fellow. I’ll see if I can secure a free table for us while you’re gone. I don’t fancy going back to that gaggle of old women. Not good with women. Never been married, you know, although there’s nothing dodgy about that – begging your pardon, of course. No offence meant.’

‘None taken. As a sex, they’re pretty daunting, aren’t they?’

‘I’ll say. See you in a few minutes,’ Garden said his farewells, and headed off towards a fix of nicotine, explaining his mission to a uniformed constable on the door, who was seeing that nobody tried to slip off without leaving contact details.

‘I’ll be right outside this window, where you can keep an eye on me,’ he explained. ‘You can come with me if you don’t believe me, but I won’t be responsible for my temper if you don’t let me out.’ The constable accompanied Garden to a bench outside the window and left him there, fumbling around in his pockets trying to locate his lighter.

When he returned to the bar, feeling a lot more relaxed and calm, he spotted Holmes at a table by himself in a far corner, and joined him, as he’d already spotted a glass on the opposite side of the table already waiting for him.

‘Campari and soda OK?’ Holmes greeted him, then leaned forward in confidential mood. ‘I’ve had my talk with the policemen, you know. You’ll never guess what the inspector’s name is.’

‘Streeter,’ replied Garden, looking superior. ‘I was here when he did a general introduction just after you left.’

‘Well, don’t you see what this means – what this purports?’

‘No.’ Garden didn’t believe there was any point in giving a longer answer, as Holmes was dying to tell him something.

‘Streeter – 
Lestrade
. It’s just like Holmes facing his old sparring partner in criminal investigation. Our business co-operation is meant to be – it’s written in the stars. It’s an omen, is that name.’

‘If you say so.’ Garden was unconvinced.

‘Oh, come on. Can’t you see how fate has conspired to bring us together, when both of us are at important crossroads in our lives? Both of us are avid Conan Doyle fans; we both need to move on, for varying reasons; we’d both like a crack at detective work; there’s a perfect-looking place up for rent in the town. It’s our destiny to work this first case and solve it before that lanky ape, Streeter.’

That ‘lanky ape’ proved to be right behind Holmes’ shoulder, waiting for the opportunity to interrupt this urgent speech, and interview Mr Garden. ‘If I may, sir,’ he said in a deep rumbling voice. ‘I understand Mr Garden was actually present when the body hit the ground. Do you gentlemen mind if I take a seat for a moment or two?’

At this mention of what he had witnessed when sitting outside earlier on, Garden lost all the colour from his face, and looked as if he were about to be sick. ‘Feel free,’ invited Holmes, suddenly gaining all the facial colour that Garden had lost in his embarrassment that the inspector had overheard what he had said about him.

‘I’m afraid I can’t be of much use to you,’ Garden said, his voice husky with horror. ‘I was just sitting on one of the many benches in the gardens, reading my newspaper and having a quiet smoke. I stood up to stretch my legs, when this thing whizzed past my head, there was an absolutely terrible sound as it hit the ground, and the next thing I knew, I was covered in yucky debris, and there was this body.’

‘You didn’t see whether Mr Ballard was pushed or whether he just fell?’

‘I wasn’t looking. As I just said, I was reading my newspaper, not looking about me.’

‘And you didn’t hear anything said – angry voices, or anything like that?’

‘Nothing at all,’ Garden replied.

‘And you know I can confirm that,’ interjected Holmes. ‘I was up on the landing he fell from, and I didn’t hear a thing until he went out of the window. The next thing I knew, there was this woman from the Ladies’ Guild – over there – breathing down my neck.’

‘And you really can’t tell me anything more?’

‘I heard a sort of wail or cry as he must have been falling, but it was all over in a couple of seconds, much too fast for me to be sure of anything except that he was absolutely stone dead.’

‘Thank you for your frank co-operation, Mr Garden. Give your details to Sergeant Port, and I’ll be off to speak to the ladies you say belong to the local guild.’

‘He doesn’t stand a chance beside us two,’ commented Holmes, with a chuckle. ‘We’ll beat him to the murderer, hands down.’

‘You’re very confident, considering that we have no experience,’ retorted Garden dubiously.

‘No experience? Why, haven’t we both read and re-read the Sherlock Holmes stories many, many times? What more experience do we need? Now, shall we finish our drinks and adjourn to my room?’

‘Do you think we could make it my room?’

‘Don’t worry about finding it again. I’ll see you back to it when we’ve had our little chat.’ So, Holmes had sussed out his poor sense of direction. At least that boded well for his detecting instinct.

Chapter Five
Still Friday

When they got up to Holmes’ room, the older man immediately got out his pipe. ‘Steady on,’ Garden warned him.

‘Oh, this is a smoking room. Didn’t you book one?’

‘I didn’t know they still existed,’ replied Garden, immediately reaching into a pocket for his cigarettes and lighter.

‘They do in these individual establishments out in the sticks that haven’t been gobbled up by the chains yet,’ replied Holmes, enthusiastically stuffing a dark tobacco mixture into the bowl of his pipe. ‘Why don’t you ask if yours is a smoking room and, if not, request that you be transferred to one?’

‘I don’t like to be a nuisance,’ replied Garden.

‘Then I’ll do it for you. You must shake off this air of self-effacement – no good at all in a detective. You must have an enquiring nature and not be too shy to pry.’

Garden nodded his agreement as he held his lighter to the end of a cigarette. As he exhaled smoke, he said, ‘This change of career will be very good for my self-confidence.’

‘That’s the spirit. Get everything you can out of a new experience. I feel like a new man since we came to our little agreement, and we shall view the prospective premises tomorrow afternoon. I can hardly wait. Now, what did you find out from the old dears?’

‘From what I can gather, some of them might have been a bit sweet on the owner. If you remember, three of them were actually in tears when I joined them at their table. Another one of them had a look of such disapproval on her face that I thought she looked rather like a “hanging judge” – I wouldn’t fancy crossing her. Oh, and two of them seem to be rather close, with one of them maybe being a bit sweet on the owner’s granddaughter.’

‘That was a good haul. Anything else?’

‘The chef and the barman don’t get on at all, and seem to be waging a bit of a war between them. What about you?’

‘I managed to engineer bumping into a few people and, as luck would have it, managed to run into the chef as he was heading in your direction. He was happy to have a moan, and it seems that he is very constrained with the menu – Ballard won’t let him experiment, or introduce anything on to the menu that hasn’t been a firm favourite since the seventies, or resembles something from a school dinners menu.

‘He, in his turn, has given up caring, and the food is now very mediocrely cooked and presented. It doesn’t sound like a very happy kitchen to me.’

‘It doesn’t bode well for us eating here, either,’ pointed out Garden.

‘But we must, dear boy, so that we can eavesdrop. While we’re staying here we must act like guests at Gosford Park, and listen in whenever we get the opportunity. We must become undercover spies.’

‘Good grief.’

‘You won’t starve. Once we’ve made the pretence of eating in the hotel, I noticed there was a fish and chip shop close by which should serve us admirably, if the food has been too unsatisfactory. Although, I rather think that the menu will expand now, with the owner gone. I wonder who inherits?’

‘Who else did you speak to?’

‘A couple of the guests.’ Here he consulted one of his small notepads. ‘Ah, yes, a Mr Niles Carrington, and a Ms – 
dreadful
title – Harrison. Very interesting conversations, both of them.’

‘Dish the dirt,’ ordered Garden, now thoroughly enjoying himself. This was the life – time spent with someone with a similar mind to his own (in most respects) and no one to kowtow to in a pecking order. He couldn’t wait to get on with the other aspects of this new life, including moving out of Mother’s house, although he quailed anew at actually explaining his new lifestyle to her. How easy was it to get hold of a suit of armour, and would this be considered a little over the top? But if St George faced up to his dragon, so should he face up to Mother.

He became aware that Holmes had begun to speak, and immediately wrested his conscious mind away from fire-breathing monsters and back to the case in hand.

‘Mr Carrington says he is here on business, but this is not quite the case. This hotel, as is evident from the outside, consists of many smaller buildings which have been joined together over a great expanse of time. It would appear that this gentleman’s maternal grandfather suffered financial loss when he sold a piece of the building to the Bellamy family about forty years ago.

‘There was some sort of chicanery in the deal, and it was Mr Carrington’s grandfather who lost out. His grandson has come here to scout out the property and try to find a way of making a legal case out of it now. He and his kin are evidently not fans of Mr Berkeley Bellamy, and the swindle, whatever it was, still rankles today.’

‘And he just happens to be staying in The Black Swan when its current owner dies. I say, Holmes, you don’t think it could have been suicide, do you?’

‘Absolutely not! He simply wasn’t that sort of man, in my opinion, and I would expect someone like him to have left an accusatory note, pointing the finger to whomsoever or whatever had driven him to such a drastic action, if that were the case.’

‘What about the other person – a woman, I think you said – that you “buttonholed”?’

Holmes again consulted his small notepad, flicking over a page as he did so. ‘Jane Harrison; coincidentally, a very similar case. Her family has a long-running dispute over some of the land that now, ostensibly, belongs to The Black Swan, but she says it was simply stolen from them and added into the already large parcel of land that the hotel covers.’

‘Another one who just happens to be a guest here when the owner pops his clogs. Well, well, well,’ mused Garden, his interest definitely piqued. How many others were staying or visiting here with other grudges against someone who must have been a prominent man in the town?

‘That disapproving woman from the Ladies’ Guild – Margery Maitland is her name, if I remember correctly – was moaning about how many positions he held in local committees and things. She so obviously resented him: I could practically see the poison dripping from her fangs.’

‘Now, now, young John H. No need to be fanciful,’ Holmes chided him gently, slipping over to his wardrobe and extracting a nearly full bottle of malt whisky. ‘Fancy a slug?’

‘Please, Holmes. Where was I? Oh, yes, there were, I think, three of the ladies who were actually in tears – you must have noticed them before you went out for your pipe – so I suppose that there were a certain amount of crushes on such a – manly, I think is the word – man: a bit of hero-worship.’

‘With maybe a bit of history thrown in,’ added Holmes, coming out of the bathroom carrying the two still-tissue-wrapped tumblers that the establishment provided.

‘Well thought out. We seem to be quite good at this, don’t we?’

Both of them had availed themselves of the notebooks that Holmes had fortunately brought with him, so now each had a note of, not only their own, but each other’s conversations during the evening, and now applied themselves to a good two fingers of fine malt.

As the inches evaporated into their willing throats, the talk turned to the circumstances of what had led them to their present situation. More malt followed, and the talk became a little rambling in places, a little too vehement in others, as is the effect of such an intake of whisky. The air above them had turned a hazy blue with the smoke they had both added to the atmosphere, and Holmes opened a window when both of them began to cough. It was only a small room, and could not cope with a pipe and someone who chain-smoked when he drank more than usual.

When they had each consumed about six fingers and Holmes was surveying the depleted level of amber liquid in the bottle with a rather blood-shot eye, they decided to call it a night. Plans had been set for the next day during this conversational jumble sale of personal information.

They would hang around the hotel in the morning in the hope of speaking to a few more people and do a bit of undercover eavesdropping. After lunch, they would slip off to view the office in the town then, to really get the ball rolling, they would call at John H.’s home and expose all to his mother. This would entail collecting his things and taking them to Holmes’ apartment.

After that, they would need to get back to the hotel, as murders didn’t investigate themselves, and that should just about fill the whole day. For now, though, the target was getting Garden back to his room safely, and getting a few hours’ sleep to dissipate the effects of the large intake of alcohol, to which neither were accustomed.

‘I’ll see you back through the maze,’ offered Holmes, with one eye shut to aid his focus.

‘Thanks very much – very decent of you,’ accepted Garden, similarly focussing with only one eye. If he opened both there were two Holmeses, and he didn’t know which was the real one.

‘Here, take my arm, and we’ll walk together,’ suggested Holmes, as a good wheeze for keeping both of them upright. Alone, they would probably stagger like drunken seamen.

They set off, turning left at Holmes’ behest, wandering back and forth across the corridor, both of them frequently putting a finger to their lips and making loud shushing noises to keep the other from, probably, breaking into song. Finally Holmes drew to an unsteady halt, almost causing Garden to pitch forward on to his face, and pointed dramatically at the door in front of them.

‘’S room twen’y-seven. ’S your room,’ declared Holmes with a flourish, waving an arm at the metal number on the door.

‘’S righ’. ’S my room. Con … congra … well done, ol’ man,’ replied Garden, a tear of gratitude forming at the corner of one eye. ‘Couldn’ have done i’ withou’ you.’

‘Nonsense. Stout fellow. Could do anything. Goo’ nigh’.’

‘See you inna mornin’.’

Holmes turned and left Garden rifling through his pockets for the door key, happy that today had seen the formation of a momentous partnership. Garden just hoped he could find his key, and wouldn’t have to crawl back downstairs in search of Reception for a replacement.

For Holmes, it was another story. The amount of whisky they had imbibed had robbed him of his sense of direction, and he tottered from corridor to corridor, staggering from side to side and all but pinging off one wall to bounce off the other.

Never before had he become this lost inside a building, and he managed to visit many fascinating places on this unplanned sojourn. He found the boot cupboard where Sinatra was still in residence, and remembered not to attempt to pet him. He found the small room in which the committee of the Ladies’ Guild must have had their meeting. He found an unused gentlemen’s lavatory with the Victorian fittings still intact, and gazed with wonderment at the decorated pans in the cubicles, one with a bee on the back for gentlemen to aim at.

He found a number of charming dead-ends, many of them adorned with framed pictures, as if to charm anyone who had the misfortune to find themselves lost in such a hopeless place. He also found Garden’s room twice, not comprehending how he could have done that, when he had not tackled an ascending staircase. Without the courage to knock and admit his failed orienteering skills, he plodded on, losing hope by the minute.

Finally, he found the linen cupboard which Garden had described to him and from there, managed to locate his own room. He had never been so glad to see a bed with his belongings on it. What a day it had been – and tomorrow would be ever crazier, if his instinct was correct. A lot would be decided tomorrow, and things would be agreed that would affect the whole of his future.