T Kinsey - A Picture of Murder (A Lady Hardcastle Mystery Book 4)

‘I calls him “our dad”,’ said Daisy. ‘So does Wilf.’ Wilf was Daisy’s older brother. He was a junior rating in the Royal Navy and I’d never met him but the whole family was proud of him.

‘But Miss Armstrong can’t call him “our dad” because he’s not her dad,’ said Mrs Spratt. ‘Anyway, ignore Daisy, she’s all of a tizzy because this Cheetham fella and his – what did you call ’em, Dais? His troupe? – they’s all coming to the village.’

‘Is that right, Daisy?’ I said. ‘Then you’re going to love my news.’

Daisy looked up from the ledger where she was carefully totting up her father’s takings.

‘They’re staying with us,’ I said.

‘They’s never!’ she said. ‘That’s so excitin’. I don’t suppose you needs an extra maid? I could do the books. Or sommat. I won’t get in the way. I’d love to meet ’em. Introduce me.’

I laughed. ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Do you want me to put in a good word for you? I might be able to get you a part in his next picture.’

She all but swooned. ‘Wouldn’t that be the best thing that ever was, though? Me . . . in a picture . . . ’

‘You’ve been in a picture before, my love,’ said Mrs Spratt.

‘What, that bloke down at Weston?’ said Daisy.

‘’S right.’ Mrs Spratt turned to me. ‘Few years ago it was, mind. We all went down to Weston-super-Mare on the train. A proper village outin’ it was. And while we was there, we saw this bloke with one o’ they cameras, like. You know . . . ’ She mimed cranking the handle on the side of a moving picture camera. ‘We larked about when he pointed it at us – dancin’ and that. Then his assistant comes over and gives us these flyers sayin’ that if we comes along to a church hall off the promenade at four in the afternoon, we could see ourselves.’

‘Course,’ said Mr Spratt, ‘we could’a seen ourselves anyway, just by lookin’. Not like we was difficult to spot, all paradin’ up and down in our Sunday Best.’

‘So anyway,’ continued Mrs Spratt, undeterred, ‘a few of us troops along to this church hall they was on about, pays our ha’penny each, and sits down. Afore long, in comes the bloke we seen with the camera. He sets up this magic lantern thing and starts turnin’ the handle. And there we are, larger than life on this huge white sheet he’s got stretched on the wall.’

‘How exciting,’ I said.

‘Course, it weren’t nothin’ we’d not seen before, mind. But it’s a bit more fun when it’s you what’s on the screen, i’n’t it?’

‘I imagine it is,’ I said. In truth, I’d seen myself captured in moving pictures when a friend of Lady Hardcastle’s in London had brought a camera to a party a few years before, but I wanted Mrs Spratt to have her moment.

‘I reckon folk round here would get a thrill from it. You think your Colonel Cheetham could do sommat like that for us?’ she said.

‘We can lose nothing by asking him. What do you reckon, Daisy? We could get you in one of his pictures that way.’

She tutted. ‘’T i’n’t the same, is it? I fancies bein’ one o’ they actresses. All glamorous, like. I reckon movin’ pictures is gonna see the music hall off.’

‘Rubbish,’ said Mr Spratt with a laugh. ‘Can’t no flickerin’ shadows on a wall replace proper performers. Where’s the songs? Where’s the jokes? Can’t walk out of a kinematograph show hummin’ the tunes. It’s a fad. Nothin’ more.’

‘You’re such an old fogey, Dad,’ said Daisy.

‘I might well be,’ he said good-naturedly. ‘But I’m right. You mark my words. Now, then, enough of all this chatter. We’re keepin’ Miss Armstrong from her business. You’ve got things to be gettin’ on with, I’ll be bound. Can’t be standin’ here jabberin’.’

‘Believe me,’ I said, ‘after visiting Mrs Pantry’s, it’s a relief to find myself welcome in a village shop.’

‘I don’t know how she gets away with it,’ he said. ‘I s’pose there i’n’t nowhere else for folk to go. But what can we get you now you’ve escaped her? I got some lovely pork chops.’

‘I have a list,’ I said, and handed over the last of my scraps of paper.

He took it and looked at it for a moment before laughing explosively. ‘Well, blow me down. How many did you say you’ve got comin’?’

‘Just four,’ I said. ‘But Lady Hardcastle is keen that we should present them with a groaning board.’

‘It’ll groan, all right,’ he said, still chuckling. ‘It’ll take me a little while to get this little lot together. I’ll send the lad over later.’

‘No rush,’ I said. ‘We’ve enough for tonight.’

‘Between these kinematograph people and Mr Hughes and his merry men and women . . . ’ began Mrs Spratt.

‘Mr Hughes?’ I asked.

‘The leader of that motley bunch outside the village hall with their placards,’ she said. ‘With one lot here to promote their kinematograph show, and this Hughes bloke rollin’ into the village to preach the evils of the kinematograph show, I’d say we was goin’ to ’ave a profitable week. Mr Holman has already ordered more meat to make pies for them all.’

‘I’m glad to be the bearer of glad tidings, then,’ I said with a smile. ‘And meat orders.’

I left another Littleton Cotterell shopkeeper to contemplate the unexpected benefits of a visit from the moving picture people.

Back at the house, all was calm. Edna was bustling about, and chattered inconsequentially when I arrived as though nothing were amiss. She was very much inclined towards inconsequential chatter and I should have thought nothing of it, but it was also obvious that Dora was keeping out of my way, so I suspected that all was not fully resolved.

Dewi, bless his little cotton socks, did his best to be polite and friendly. When I first met him at The Grange, he was lazy and surly. One day he had sworn colourfully at our friend Inspector Sunderland in Welsh and I took him by surprise when I admonished him in the same language. As I got to know him, I found that his cantankerousness was born of a dismaying lack of self-confidence. He wasn’t always quick to understand what was going on and had managed to convince himself – no doubt with plenty of unkind prompting from others – that he was ‘just a stupid mutton-head’.

He dealt with his imagined inadequacies in the traditional way by adopting an aggressive and antagonistic manner. It kept people at arm’s length, which helped to protect him from further mockery, but also prevented all but the most determined from offering him friendship. For some reason, though, he was never quite as brusque with me and we always got along passably well. Perhaps it was a Celtic thing.

‘I think I’ve done all I can for now, Miss Armstrong,’ he said as he came into the kitchen a little while later.

I was making a pot of tea while Miss Jones carried on quietly and efficiently preparing the brace of pheasants we were planning to cook for dinner.

‘The gentlemen’s rooms are ready, then?’ I asked.

‘I’ve checked the wash stands and put out fresh towels,’ he said. ‘Dora made the beds. The wardrobes is cleaned out and we’ve opened the windows to give the rooms a bit of an airing. I’ll close them up in a bit, I reckon, and one of us can light the fires if they needs it, like.’

‘Splendid. Then you’re just in time for a cuppa and a sit-down. Miss Jones has made some scones, too, if you fancy one.’

‘Don’t mind if I do,’ he said, sitting down at the new table. We’d spent more than a year without a kitchen table because, apparently, we didn’t need one. Except, of course, that they really are terribly useful. After I’d put up with altogether too much grumbling from Edna, I had finally persuaded Lady Hardcastle to buy one.