Nancy Atherton - Aunt Dimity's Death

By the time we were both ready to leave, everything was clear enough to satisfy the Supreme Court.

20

We didn’t lose our heads entirely. I took the precaution of calling Willis, Sr., before we left. It was the middle of the night in Boston, so I left a message informing him that I was so far along in my reading that I had decided to spend a few days exploring the countryside, with Bill in tow to look after things. I added that we would telephone him the minute we got back to the cottage.

Bill phoned ahead and Miss Kingsley responded with characteristic efficiency. Our rooms were waiting for us when we arrived, and a late supper was ready in one of the Flamborough’s private dining rooms. At Bill’s invitation, Miss Kingsley joined us, and she lived up to her redoubtable reputation by remaining undaunted even by the vague nature of our quest.

“Robert MacLaren?” she said. “Well, the name certainly doesn’t ring any bells, but I’m a relative newcomer. I’ve only been at the Flamborough for fifteen years. I’m sure we’ll be able to find someone who can tell you something about the old days, though. Retired military gentlemen are our mainstay. I shall make some inquiries, and I should be very surprised if I have nothing to tell you by tomorrow evening.”

Miss Kingsley’s inquiries took a little longer than that—two days, to be precise—but the results were spectacular. Archy Gorman was worth a whole army of retired military gentlemen. He was a stout man with a magnificent head of wavy white hair and a drooping handlebar mustache, and before opening his own public house, he had spent seventeen years as the bartender at the Flamborough—including the war years. Archy had long since retired from bartending, but Paul had kept in touch with him, and Miss Kingsley had been able to reach him at his flat in Greenwich. Paul drove the limousine round to pick him up, and the two of them met us in the Flamborough lounge two hours before opening time. The polished dance floor shone in the light from the fluted, frosted-glass wall lamps as we gathered at one of the round wooden tables near the bar. Paul sat with us, but Archy immediately made his way to the taps and began pulling pints for the assembled group.

“Have to keep my hand in,” he explained, with a wink at Miss Kingsley, “and I never was a stick-in-the-mud about the licensing laws, was I, Paul?”

“No, you weren’t, Archy. And there’s many an airman who thanked you for it.”

“Here you are, now.” Bill got up to carry the tray of drinks to our table and Archy joined us there, puffing slightly with the effort. “To happier days,” he said, and raised his glass. I watched over the top of my own as he expertly avoided dipping his mustache into the foam.

“Now, you might be wondering why I was here at the Flamborough for the duration instead of out there doing my duty,” Archy began, folding his hands across his ample stomach. “The plain and simple fact is, they wouldn’t have me. Rheumatic fever and a heart murmur and no-thank-you-very-much said the board.” He thumped his chest. “But here I am, closing in on seventy and never a day’s bother with the old ticker. Never understood it, why they sent the healthy lads off and left the tailings at home, but there you are. You can’t expect common sense from the military, can you, Paul?”

“Not a bit of it, Archy.”

“What was it that Yank told us that one time? Snafu, he called it—you remember, Paul?”

“‘Situation Normal, All Fouled Up’,” Paul recited dutifully.

“That’s your military, the world over.” Archy took another long draught, then set his glass on the table. “Now, tell me again about this chap you’re looking for.”

When I had recounted the little we knew about Bobby, Archy pursed his lips. “He must have flown during the Blitz,” he said. “The Battle of Britain, they called it. Not many survived to tell the tale, did they, Paul?”

Paul shook his head soberly. “After a while, it was hard to strike up friendships with the lads. They were gone so fast, you see.”

“Here today, and gone tomorrow, that’s the way it was, eh, Paul?”

“A truer word was never spoken, Archy.”

“You don’t happen to have a snap of this MacLaren fellow, do you?” asked Archy. “The old memory is sharp as a tack, but there were so many boys through here…”

“No,” I replied, “but I do have some pictures of his girlfriend.” I handed him several photographs from Dimity’s album. “This is Dimity Westwood,” I said.

“Dimity Westwood, you say? Well, there were a lot of girlfriends coming into the old Flamborough in those days. It was a lively place back then, not the museum piece it is now—begging your pardon, Miss K.”

“That’s alright, Archy, no offense taken,” said Miss Kingsley. “Things are rather quieter around here nowadays.”

“Dull as dishwater,” Archy muttered, with a conspiratorial wink at Paul. Stroking his mustache, he looked carefully at each picture. “I couldn’t say that I recognize…” He paused. “Wait, now…”

The rest of us craned our necks to see what had caught his eye. He had come to one of my favorite pictures, a shot of Dimity standing in front of a shop with shattered windows. She had reached inside to touch the dress on a toppled mannequin, and was grinning mischievously at the camera. Archy contemplated the photo for a moment; then his eyebrows shot up and he slapped the table with his hand. “The belle of the ball,” he exclaimed. “You remember, Paul—the beautiful belle of the ball—that’s who she is.”

“By heavens, you’re right, Archy. That’s who she is,” said Paul. “The sweetest girl you’d ever want to meet…”

Archy cupped a hand to his mouth and in a stage whisper explained, “Paul took a fancy to her.”

“Look who’s talking,” Paul retorted. “I seem to remember you being rather fond of her yourself.”

“So I was, so I was,” Archy conceded. “But who could help being fond of her? She was… something else. Something you don’t find every day, I can tell you. You may know her as Dimity Westwood, but we called her Belle. She came in here all the time, on the arm of that Scottish fellow. Frightful accent, mind you, but how he could dance. Bobby… yes, Bobby and Belle. What a pair.”

“Lit up the whole place when they came in,” said Paul.

“I kidded them about spoiling the blackout—you remember that, Paul?”

“I do, Archy.”

Archy put his arm around Paul’s shoulders and the two men gazed, misty-eyed, at the photograph before Archy returned it to me. They emptied their glasses, and stared stolidly into the middle distance.

“It’s easy to remember the happy times,” Archy said. “No one likes to think of the rest, but it was there all the same, wasn’t it, Paul?”

“It was, Archy.”

“I remember the last time Belle came in here. She was on her own that night and I could tell just by looking at her what had happened. I’d seen it so many times before, but my heart broke for her all the same. I gave her the message and off she went, without saying a word. She never came back after that.”

“That’s how it was in those days,” said Paul. “Dancing one minute, and the next—”

“There was a message?” I said.

“Oh, yes,” Archy replied. “The chaps were always leaving messages with me here at the Flamborough, billets-doux for their sweethearts and the like.”

“That’s why they called it the Telegraph,” said Paul.

“Do you remember what the message was?”

Archy was taken aback. “I never opened it,” he said. “It wouldn’t have been proper.”

My face must have fallen, because he pushed his chair back and lumbered to his feet. Raising a crooked finger, he said, “Now, you come over here, and I’ll show you something. It’s not something I show to everyone, mind you. You can be sure I didn’t show that young bloke who came in after me. He got very snippy when I tried to show him the ropes—you remember him, don’t you, Paul?”