Beatrice (19 page)

“Oh,
alright,” Maud sighed, completely oblivious to the undercurrent of
tension that hovered between the couple. “Beatrice, I was going to
ask if you would mind if I went over to Esther’s, to help sort out
the things for the rummage sale today. If you are out for lunch, I
don’t have to hurry back.”

“Don’t
hurry back just for me. I can manage,” Beatrice assured
her.

“The
Circle is due tonight, so I will be back in time to make sure there
is enough to eat. Is there anything you want me to pick up while I
am in the village?” Maud asked, but included Ben in her look of
enquiry.

“I am
alright, I don’t need anything,” Beatrice assured her.

“Me
either, but thank you anyway,” Ben added, delighted that Maud had
indeed started to treat him like one of the family. “We will drop
you off at Esther’s house now, if you are ready?” He lifted a brow
to Maud, who nodded and hurried off.

Within
minutes they were heading toward Tipton Hollow.

“Marchwell Bishop should take about an hour to get to,” Ben
reported once the door to Esther’s house had closed behind Maud. He
gave Beatrice a somewhat secretive smile. “I have a little surprise
for you.”

“Do I
get any hints?”

In spite
of the sunny day, Beatrice firmly pushed her worries to one side
and snuggled contentedly into her shawl as she sat back to enjoy
the day. Although it was a little cooler than usual, the sun was
out and, luckily, there was no sign of any thunderclouds in the
beautiful blue sky. It was going to be a very fine day
indeed.

“Not
yet,” he grinned as they left Tipton Hollow. “Just sit back and
enjoy our day out.”

He
didn’t tell her that when he had gotten out of bed earlier, he had
intended to spend the day catching up on the huge mound of
paperwork on his desk. However, as soon as he had taken a seat, he
had realised that he would prefer to be outside with Beatrice
instead. He had tried to ignore the urge to go to her, but had been
unable to think about anything other than where she was, and what
she was doing. Eventually he had given up, put his pencil down and
hurried over to Brantley Manor.

“What
had you intended to do today?” He asked as they left the worst of
the village traffic behind them.

She
smiled at him. “I was contemplating whether to offer Uncle
Matthew’s old books to the university. Luckily, you saved me from
having to pack everything up.”

He
grinned at her. “Have you thought about asking Mr Harrington if he
would like them?”

She
nodded. “I cannot really see many people in Tipton Hollow having
the need for a lot of botany books,” she replied
ruefully.

“Now
that you have made contact with Archie, I am sure he wouldn’t mind
if you asked him,” Ben replied thoughtfully. “I will come with you,
if you want me to?”

If he
was honest, he wanted to meet the old man again. Now that he had
had a chance to think over the meeting a bit more carefully, there
were several things about the old man’s behaviour that was a bit
odd. He could just about overlook the mistake over the handwriting;
but there was something about the man’s fluid movement that bespoke
of someone who was considerably younger than their purported age
that warned him something was seriously amiss.

He
quickly shoved his thoughts aside as he read the signpost up ahead.
“Right, Marchwell Bishop it is.”

“We are
going to get in awful trouble with the police for doing this, you
know,” Beatrice murmured ruefully when Ben had taken the turn into
the road that led to Richard Browning’s house.

“We are
not getting ourselves involved in the murder investigation,
Beatrice,” Ben reasoned. “We are just trying to establish who owns
the plant so we can either move it on to its rightful owner, or you
can prove it is yours and get rid of Sigmund Hargraves once and for
all.”

“I know,
but I can’t help but feel that Mark is going to be cross,” Beatrice
argued weakly.

“Yes,
but he also said that he would get the cultivation notes translated
and sent over to us, but we haven’t seen anything of the detective
who is supposed to be dealing with the case while Mark is away.
Look how quickly we got the notes translated ourselves. We now know
that the cultivation notes go with the plant that was delivered,
and the four people on the list were involved in the cultivation.
By visiting Richard Browning, we can hopefully find out who owns
the plant, and get it out of the house before Mark comes back from
London.”

She had
to agree with him. The sooner she could close the door on this
entire ordeal, the happier she would be; not only for herself, but
for Ben as well.

Ben
sighed and glanced at her. “If the plant was owned by Brian
Mottram, and he delivered it to you before he died, then I think
you have every legal right to go to a solicitor. He can prepare a
letter for you to hand to Hargraves the next time he calls. If
Hargraves, or his boss, has any legal claim to it, they can contact
the solicitor directly.”

“I
understand, but I really don’t know if a plant is worth the
trouble,” Beatrice sighed. “My uncle was the botanist, not me.
While I love to garden, and enjoy spending as much time as possible
in mine, I have no interest in rare and tropical species. To be
honest with you, Ben, I really don’t like the plant, and cannot see
why I should go to the trouble of trying to keep it.”

“You
want
to hand it over to Hargraves?” Ben asked incredulously.
Although the plant belonged to Beatrice, everything within him
objected to the thought of her giving it to someone like their
persistent caller. To his relief, Beatrice seemed to echo his
sentiment.

“No, oh
no. Of course not. I wouldn’t give Sigmund Hargraves anything.
Unfortunately, at the moment, I cannot prove that he isn’t the
rightful owner though.”

“Do you
want to forget about going to Richard Browning’s house, and just go
for a day out?” Ben suggested hopefully after several minutes of
contented silence. He suddenly didn’t want to do anything that
would spoil such a perfect morning.

Beatrice
thought about that for a moment and sighed. “Given that we are
already heading in the direction of his house, we should at least
drop by and see if he is available to meet with us,” she reasoned.
“I want to at least see him so I would recognise him if we ever met
in the future. I have to confess that I liked Archie, he appears to
be a nice man. However, Uncle Matthew never mentioned him and I
cannot help but wonder why. I mean, if they were good friends like
Archie claimed, why did he not call by to at least share a cup of
tea? I have never heard of the man before.” She glanced at Ben with
a frown. “Not only that, but he said that your handwriting on the
packaging paper was Uncle Matthew’s.”

Ben
sighed. “Do you think that Archie was lying because he was involved
in the plant in some way, only doesn’t want us to know about
it?”

Beatrice
hated to think that someone as nice and affable as the elderly
scholar could be an outright liar, but she had to be honest. “I
have to consider the facts, Ben. It galls me to think that I was
drawn in by the man’s niceness yesterday. However, I cannot help
but feel that there was something wrong with the entire
visit.”

“I
know,” Ben sighed with relief. “I completely agree.”

“What
about that man in the entrance hall?” She asked with a
frown.

Ben
turned to look at her. “What do you mean?” He felt tension creep
over him as he thought about the strange vanishing act the man in
the entrance hall had done. “Do you think that he deliberately sent
us to Archibald Harrington?”

“It all
sounds too wild to be true, but I cannot help but wonder why he
would suddenly vanish from his duties. If he was supposed to be on
the desk to help people, why had he not returned to the desk by the
time we came back down the stairs nearly an hour later?”

“Do you
think the two men were linked in some way?”

“Oh, I
know it sounds too far-fetched to be true. To be honest with you, I
am not sure if I believe it myself, but I have to tell you that I
would feel a lot easier about yesterday’s visit to the university,
and Archibald Harrington, if I knew what the men on that list look
like.” She turned to him. “We know what Brian Mottram and Jules
Sanders look like. How do we know that we didn’t meet the two
surviving men on that list at the university yesterday?”

Ben
puffed out his cheeks on a sigh and shook his head. He had to agree
with her. It galled him to think that they had been duped so
easily, but they had very little in the way of actual facts to go
on. She was right, they at least needed to know what the men looked
like.

He
sensed that there was something else she was not telling him, and
gave her a gentle nudge. “You can confide in me you know,
Beatrice.”

“I don’t
know if it is just me being silly,” she confessed. “There is
something about the creation of that list that bothers me. Why did
uncle write it? If the four people knew my uncle, and were friends,
Matthew would not need to write their addresses down. He put that
list of names and addresses in a book, where it may never be found.
Why? If it held any importance, surely he would have spoken to me
about it, or at least put it somewhere where it would be found?”
Frustration rang clearly in her voice.

“It
doesn’t make sense,” he conceded.

Ben
scowled off into the distance while he thought over their meeting
with Archie. Had the scholar lied about his association to Matthew?
If so, why? Was he just trying to gain an invitation to Brantley
Manor so that he could get his hands on that plant? The thought
gave Ben the chills and turned his attention back to
Beatrice.

“Did
your uncle seem worried about anything at all in the last months
before his death?”

Beatrice
shook her head. “No. Right up until the day of his death, he seemed
fine. He spent most of the last few days of his life buried in his
study, but that was nothing unusual.” Ben reached out and held her
hand in silent support. She smiled at him. “I am sorry. I just find
this entire situation so confusing that I could rip my own hair out
with the sheer frustration of having so many questions, and no
answers. I just wish he was here so I could ask him. Why did he
keep so many secrets from me? I mean, if he had just included me in
his life a bit more, maybe we could have operated as a family. Even
a small, slightly eccentric family would have been better than the
cool, almost aloof duo we made.”

“He was
a bachelor, Beatrice. He didn’t expect a beautiful young lady to
turn up on his doorstep and probably had no idea what to do with
you,” Ben reasoned. He could only sympathise with the man’s
predicament because if he was faced with the same situation, he had
no idea how he would handle it.

“Maud
did take over as parent, nurse-maid, and surrogate mother,”
Beatrice acceded. “If it wasn’t for her, I don’t know what would
have happened to me.”

He
couldn’t help it; he drew her closer until she was sitting right
beside him; then slid an arm around her waist.

“Look,
let’s go and visit both men on that list so we know what they look
like. We will then know if they had anything to do with yesterday’s
visit to the university. We need to see if we can at least get one
of them to tell us about that plant. If their story is different to
Archie’s, then we can make a decision about whether it is worth
mentioning this to a solicitor, or Mark.”

Ben
sighed and took a moment to turn the carriage into another lane
that took them directly to Marchwell Bishop. The village came into
sight in the valley below them, and looked so blissfully tranquil
that he couldn’t believe for one second that anyone with any
nefarious purposes could live in such a place. Southside in Great
Tipton – yes; a sleepy little village like Marchwell Bishop –
definitely not.

He was
suddenly very glad that he had decided to surprise Beatrice, and
couldn’t wait to get the visit to Browning out of the way so that
they could get on with enjoying the rest of the day.

“How
delightful,” Beatrice whispered moments later as they made their
way down the main street.

The
sleepy village was as beautiful as she had first thought it would
be. The street was lined with an assortment of quaint little
cottages of various indeterminate ages, complete with little window
boxes beneath the windows and brightly painted front
doors.

Unfortunately, given that he was unfamiliar with Marchwell
Bishop, Ben was forced to stop and ask for directions from a man
who was walking along the path. When he asked where to find
Browning’s house, the man stared at them for several moments as
though they were completely mad. They looked at each other in
concern when he seemed to give himself a visible shake before he
pointed down the road behind them.

“Turn
around. Go back up there. At the end of the road go right and
follow the road. The house is down the narrow lane at the end of
that, but is barely visible from the road.” His voice had trailed
off and he had stared hard at Ben for a moment before his gaze
wandered to Beatrice. His mouth opened as though he wanted to say
something else but, at the last moment, he closed it again with a
snap and hurried off.