A Mansion for Murder by Frances Brody

Author:Frances Brody
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CROOKED LANE BOOKS

Chapter Twenty-Three

When Mrs Sugden set out on her solo driving practice, I set off for the village. As I passed the orangery, I heard music and stopped to listen.

A gramophone was playing Will Fyffe’s music-hall song ‘I Belong to Glasgow’. A clear young voice sang along, making a good attempt at impersonating a drunken man.

‘I belong to Glasgow, dear old Glasgow town, well there’s something the matter with Glasgow cos it’s whirling round and round.’

Nancy Creswell twirled into view from behind a palm tree. She stopped twirling and singing when she saw me. Just for a second, I caught a gleam of hope in her eyes, as she looked beyond me for someone else. And then her arms dropped to her sides and her mouth turned down before she managed a greeting.

‘Hello, Nancy. What are you doing here?’

‘I had to come back to the Lodge for my coat and to Dad’s hut to tell him to come home for his supper.’

‘And have you done that?’

‘I’ve told Dad and he’ll come. I couldn’t get in the Lodge. Door’s locked.’

‘I’ll unlock it.’

‘We never locked the door when the Lodge was our house.’

The singer on the gramophone suddenly stopped belonging to Glasgow, dear old Glasgow town. The needle started to scratch, scratch, scratch.

Following the sound beyond a palm tree, I removed the record from the turntable and put it back in its sleeve.

Nancy took it from me and placed it in the gramophone cabinet, closing the door carefully. ‘I thought Pamela might come. It’s her gramophone. We sang and danced, her and Ronnie and me.’ She burst into tears. ‘He’s not coming, she’s not coming, and now I wish they’d gone to Gretna Green.’

‘Gretna Green?’

‘That’s what Pamela said they should do—to be married, no questions asked. She was sure but Ronnie wasn’t.’

‘I know. Ronnie can’t come any more, but you’ll always remember him singing and dancing. You’ll see Pamela again.’

She shook her head. ‘Not now. They’ll make her marry Napoleon Bonaparte.’

‘You mean the man who dressed up as Napoleon on the night of the ball? Kevin Foxcroft?’

‘Yes, him.’

‘Pamela loved Ronnie. She won’t think about anyone else.’

I believed that to be true, but perhaps Kevin and the Foxcroft family hoped that with Ronnie out of the way Kevin would comfort Pamela and win her, and her fortune, on the rebound.

‘I was going to be bridesmaid.’

‘Come on. We’ll call at the Lodge and get your coat and I’ll walk you home. You can show me the quickest way to the village.’

I unlocked the Lodge door. Nancy retrieved her coat from exactly where she said it was, behind the pantry door.

‘You can leave the door unlocked,’ she said.

‘Well, Mrs Sugden and I have moved into the Tower, so we will keep the Lodge locked, but just say if there’s anything else you need.’

We walked back through the wood through a patchwork of shade and light as the sun fingered its way between branches.

Nancy took a coin from her pocket. ‘Do you want to make a wish?’

‘Yes.’

She tossed the coin, caught it and slid it onto the back of her hand.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.