The Purloined Parure 11

 And the news that 'Quester amongst the Flowers' has gone live! 

I'm putting together in a hurry all the short stories Simon and I have which are approximately fairy stories, ghost stories etc, as a book for Halloween - I've put Castle Ravencrag in there too, and some poetry, and Simon is finishing off the second tale of 'Tales from the Green Man,' which he hopes to make into a braided novel eventually, but it may as well go in to the anthology in the mean time. It will be called 'Tales from the Unknown.'  

 

Chapter 11

 

It was a few minutes only before Sunderland was shown in by Gladys.

He was a younger man, perhaps in his thirties, with a handlebar moustache and he looked Ida up and down insolently. Gladys had no need to sign anything, as he bore a red hand mark on his face.

“Dear me, you don’t start out making a good impression if you have insulted my maid sufficiently that she has had to discourage your advances physically,” said Ida. “Are you chewing gum?”

Sunderland shifted the wad in his cheek to the other side.

“Picked up the habit in the RFC[1],” he said.

“It’s a habit you can get rid of in my presence,” said Ida. “Get rid of it.”

“You don’t want me parking it on the furniture, do you... madam?”

“You can swallow it,” said Ida. “Go outside to do it and come back in with a bit more decorum and respect.”

“Not sure I want to work for a cold bint like you,” said Sunderland.

“Just because Mrs. Beauchamp was prepared to accept almost any half-live one in her bed at her age doesn’t mean that a woman who can pick and choose would settle for something out of the gutter like you,” said Ida. “If the only reason you want the job is in the hopes of seduction and to hunt for the parure, you’re out of luck. You aren’t a sheik whatever you think, and the parure has been found.”

“Well, nuts to you then, doll,” said Sunderland. “You’re no sheba, and I bet your husband suffers frostbite.”

Alexander emerged from behind a bookcase, put Sunderland in a half-nelson, pushing the arm high enough to make the man walk on his toes and escorted him down to the front door, which he opened and then let go suddenly enough that Sunderland had to fight to keep from falling over.

“And be pleased even the old lady didn’t welcome your advances, and that your dabs weren’t found upstairs, or I’d have you in the cells as one of those who tortured and killed Mr. Marty,” said Alexander.

“What, she’s a female bull? No wonder she’s so frosty,” said Sunderland.

“You flatter yourself,” said Alexander.

 

Ida rang the bell again.

 

Ethel Grimshaw sniggered.

“Mister Sunderland got himself thrown out,” she remarked with spiteful glee.

“Serve him right,” said Maud Peters.

Ada Murfitt giggled.

“He can be fun,” she said.

“Only if you’re easy,” said Ethel. “You’d do better to steer clear of Mr. ‘I was a pilot’ Sunderland, because the part of that name that really counts for him is the ‘I’ at the beginning.”

“Ethel Grimshaw?” asked Gladys. “You’re next.”

“Thanks,” said Ethel.

“I overheard; you don’t reckon anything much to that chauffeur either.”

“He can fly a plane, but he was a sergeant pilot, and he can’t hardly drive a car, I swear he wants to treat it like an aeroplane.”

Gladys sniggered.

“My mistress’s brother was a pilot, he reckoned the best pilots treat their planes like they treat their wife.”

“How’s that?”

“Give her tender loving care, and set her on the neighbour you don’t like,” said Gladys. “He reckoned the bad pilots treat their planes like they treat a cheap woman on the town; take her up and down without caring for her, and end up dying of someone else’s bullet.”

“He has Sunderland’s number,” said Ethel. “Was?”

“Survived the war and crippling injury to get murdered,” said Gladys, shortly.

“You were sweet on him?”

“Maybe a little,” said Gladys. “But don’t tell my best boy. He was his man, and you know what they say, like man, like master.”

It stretched the truth; Gladys had liked and admired Basil Henderson. But a seeming confidence got confidences returned.

“It doesn’t do, anyway,” said Ethel. “Ooh, I could of gone for Mr. Marty, he’s a right one!”

“Marty Beauchamp? He’s dead,” said Gladys.

“What? How?” gasped Ethel. She had gone white.

Gladys hustled her into the library and sat her down.

“Madam, Ethel was fond of Marty, she didn’t know he was dead,” she said.

“Oh, my poor girl, what a horrid shock,” said Ida, pouring water from the carafe she had into her own glass and setting it in Ethel’s hand. “Ethel, are you discreet?”

“I think so, madam,” said Ethel, round chattering teeth on the glass.

“Marty was murdered and we are seeing what the staff know to try to find his murderer,” said Ida. “My fiancé is with Scotland Yard, but as you are more affected by this than most, you have a right to know.”

“Murdered! But why? He’s a nice chap, never did anyone any harm,” said Ethel. “He could be a bit familiar, but not if it wasn’t welcomed... and he never went further than an arm round the waist or a peck on the cheek.”

Ida reflected that, had he lived, Marty could have gone further and done worse than a sensible well-trained maid to look after him.

“Someone thought he had found the parure, and they wanted to find out where it was,” she said, gently.

“They hurt him? They hurt Mr. Marty? You tell me what to do, Madam, and I’ll do it to get back at them,” said Ethel. “I knew where that there parure was, I found it accidental-like when I was dusting. Ugly thing if you ask me! I put it all back in the box and shut it all up again. And I ain’t blabbed about where it was, either,” she added.

“Did you clean up behind Mrs. Beauchamp?” asked Ida.

“Oh, yes; her upstairs as nursed her wasn’t a bad sort, but bedpans, that she left for us,” said Ethel. “Poor old dear, the runs one day, constipated the next. We had a lot of curries to try to sort her out; I dunno that it worked, but better out than in, I always say, and better than crying in pain from how hard it could be.”

“Did you ever wonder if she had been poisoned?” asked Ida.

“Poisoned! Mercy me, no, madam, I never thought those young limbs would do that. You think it was an accident, and they put too much Exlax in her sweeties?”

“Was this something they did?” asked Ida.

“Well, they poisoned us all with it, with a chocolate gateau once, and laughed as we all wanted to use the facilities at once,” said Ethel. “I think it was only the servants’ hall, though. But they did take her chocolates from Betty’s Tea Rooms; Mrs. Beauchamp liked the lids, you know, the ones with the papier mache flapper in orange pyjamas sitting on a bearskin, and a good bit of bare skin on her too.[2] She did like her cherry ganache!”

“I wonder if the police surgeon will find cyanide as well,” said Ida, dryly.  “But sugar of lead would go as well with chocolate.”

“Or they might have nothing to do with anything beyond nasty practical jokes,” said Alexander. “Ethel, my girl, you know too much and you’re in danger. Ida, does your room have space for two servants?”

“Easily,” said Ida. “Gladys, you keep a watch on Ethel. Which one is she?”

“Grimshaw,” said Gladys. “I’ll pop her in the parlour to lie down and bring her and you a nice cup of tea.”

“I think if I hadn’t met Ida first, I’d have had to have married you, Gladys,” teased Alexander.

“Get away with you and all that flannel, Mr. Armitage!” said Gladys, severely.

 Alexander laughed.

“Cor, I would like to be a maid with such folks,” said Ethel, “Half of them who interview you nowadays don’t know how to have a laugh but keep the distance.”

“Oh, it’s the war; it shook everything up,” said Alexander. “I’ll vanish between the shelves again, while you fetch up Dikenda and Harriet, now we’ve found out that Thomasina is Ethel.”

“Maud Peters, and Ada Murfitt,” said Gladys severely.

Alexander winked at her, and she sighed heavily.

 

“Maud Peters, Madam,” said Gladys.

“Sit down, Peters,” said Ida. “I hear that you don’t encourage fellows like that Sunderland.”

“Absolutely not, madam! I’m not about to lose a good place for what he calls a bit of fun and I call being enticed further than a girl ought to go without a wedding band on her finger.”

“Quite right,” said Ida. Ethel had been in her late twenties; this one was nearer to Gladys in age. Of course, most maids wanted to marry, even if not permitted followers, and managed to find someone. The exception either managed to become housekeepers or ended up old and embittered. A well-trained maid was guaranteed to be a good wife, well versed in cleaning, and often in cooking too, and no man with any sense turned such a chance down. It was why Ida was glad that Gladys was going out with Campbell.  Ida went on, “I expect you know this house well.”

“I’ll say, madam,” said Maud. “And it might not be the most convenient, but I know my way about it blindfold.”

“A young couple would be a different proposition to an elderly lady, and the odd relatives visiting,” said Gladys.

“Coo, yes, madam, and parties, I shouldn’t wonder,” said Maud. “One can put up with the extra work when there’s gaiety, where them grandsons of the old lady made work without being gay at a all.”

“Oh, what sort of work did they make?” asked Ida.

“Well, it wasn’t so much the mud they tracked in, which wasn’t good, but that’s men for you,” said Maud. “It was practising witchcraft which gave me a turn.”

“Witchcraft? Are you certain?” asked Ida, nonplussed.

“Cor, yes,” said Maud. “I don’t know rightly which one or ones it was, but when I seen all that in the box room it gave me a turn, I can tell you.” She was relishing her story so Ida thought that she was not too scared.

“Perhaps you’ll tell me what you found,” said Ida.

“I’m not imagining it, madam,” said Maud.

“Oh, I don’t think it of you,” said Ida. “I’m just intrigued. There may be a more rational explanation; or it might be silly games.”

“Well, I suppose so,” said Maud, plainly not convinced. “But what would you think, Madam, to come upon a load of cabalistic symbols on an old blackboard taken from the nursery, a heap of dead rats in cages, and some of them pinned onto boards and cut about? And one of them still alive and squealing something piteous. I hit it on the head with my broom,” she added. “And then there was vials and flasks and things with stuff in, and they had a cauldron with a brew in it, think of that!”

“How singular!” said Ida. “What did you do with it?”

“I left it there,” said Maud. “I wasn’t about to mess with witchery; I only killed the rat because I couldn’t bear to think of any animal living cut open like that.”

“No, quite, and it does you credit,” said Ida.

“And I ain’t going up there again; if you hasn’t had it cleared out, I ain’t doing it,” said Maud, her proper speech slipping in agitation.

“No, it would be unfair to ask it of you,” said Ida. “Very well. Oh, what do you know about the rumour of the parure?”

“Load o’ nonsense if you ask me, Madam,” said Maud. “Stands to reason, like fishermen’s tales, some tawdry bit of jewellery grew with the telling.  I don’t suppose it even exists. If you’re buying the house to get it, I reckon you’ll be disappointed, if you forgive my plain speaking.”

“Oh, I like plain speaking,” said Ida. “Please wait back in the old servants’ dining room.”

“Excuse me, madam, Ethel didn’t come down....” she twisted the corner of her apron.

“Ethel Grimshaw had a funny turn and I permitted her to go and lie down,” said Ida. “Women understand these things.”

“Oh!” said Maud. “She’s never had problems before.”

“It might be her age,” said Ida.

“I suppose so, madam,” said Maud, who had wondered briefly if Ethel had been misbehaving, but dismissed that out of hand.

 

Gladys signalled with morse of Ada Murfitt, ‘Silly piece, might be trainable.’

Ada giggled.

In fact, she seemed to use giggling as a means of punctuation.

Asked about the parure, she giggled.

“Oo, isn’t it romantic, a treasure hunt,” she said. “Of course, in a movie, one of us girls would find it, and take it to one of the young masters, and marry him, and live happy ever after.”

“Of course, it isn’t a movie,” said Ida.

“No, and there isn’t any fabulous treasure either,” said Ada. “Pity, but these things never are real in real life.”

“I hear the old lady thought she was being poisoned,” said Ida.

“Don’t you worry about Mister Colworth, madam he might of made outlandishly hot currys but he’s a good cook when he’s cooking good plain food,” said Ada. “And you can ask him not to make any o’ those foreign kickshaws.  Pore old dear, they get funny at the end, they do,” opined Ada.

“Not an observant girl,” said Ida, when she was dismissed. “Now Josephine known as Fifi Lambeau.”

Fifi Lambeau did not suit her chosen pet name at all, being at least fifty.

“Ah, la parure! Such romance, such follies in her past! La pauvre madame!” she declared. “She lived in the past of course, when her life was exciting and rivals might try to poison her, at least to make her ill. She had such fluctuations in her bowels, poor woman! It was exciting to make up things to make her life more exciting. I agree.  We forget to pass on such things, because it is nonsense, n’est-ce-pas?”

“What if it had not been?”

“Oh, no, such things do not happen in real life,” said Lambeau.

 

Dismissing her, Ida and Alexander exchanged speaking looks.

“I want to see this... witchcraft,” said Alexander.

“Then let us go and look now,” said Ida. “We can have the lab boys in if we find it – but I suspect it will have been cleaned away.”

“But we know where to look for some traces,” said Alexander. “A wiped chalk-board, perhaps, a cleaned cauldron; an old pewter guzunder[3] perhaps, or some sort of crucible as they had to boil lead with other ingredients.”

“What are we waiting for?”

 

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[1] Royal Flying Corps, only later the RAF when combined with the Royal Naval Air Service 1918.

[2] The original lid from 1919 was considered too risqué for modern users and pictures on nostalgia tins show her with her pyjama top buttoned higher.

[3] Something that ‘goez under’ the bed