‘Sadly no,’ I said. ‘I never had the opportunity to learn when I was young. Lady Hardcastle has been trying to teach me, but progress is slow. I do play an instrument from your own country, though.’

  ‘Please tell me it’s not the banjo,’ said Adelia.

  ‘I could,’ I said, ‘but it would be a lie.’ I smiled.

  ‘Heaven save us from the banjo,’ she said.

  ‘Aunt Adelia!’ said Eleanora with an uncharacteristic sharpness. ‘Don’t be so rude. I love the banjo. Do you . . . ? Are you familiar with ragtime music, ma’am? I love it.’

  ‘It happens that we know a couple of young ragtime musicians,’ I said. ‘We’ve played with them at the house.’

  ‘Good lord,’ said Adelia with a huge sigh.

  I ignored her. ‘There’s a ragtime band playing in town at the end of the week. At the Arundel. Would you like to come with us?’

  ‘I should like that very much,’ she said. ‘You don’t mind, do you, Aunt Adelia?’

  ‘As long as I don’t have to hear any of that ungodly racket,’ said Adelia, ‘you can listen to it until your brains seep out through your ears.’

  ‘That’s settled, then,’ said Lady Hardcastle with a smile. ‘Richard’s Ragtime Rollicks at the Aristotle on Friday.’

  This time I knew she was doing it on purpose, so I felt more confident in wearily saying, ‘Robinson’s Ragtime Roisterers at the Arundel.’

  ‘That’s right. What did I say, dear?’

  ‘Something else,’ I said. ‘As you very well know.’

  ‘Well, whoever they are, it’ll be a splendid evening. And look, here comes our first course.’

  The food, as before, was absolutely delicious. And despite my misgivings about the Wilsons – Adelia Wilson, at any rate – they turned out to be rather pleasant company and we had a most convivial meal.

  We parted company shortly after ten o’clock. The Wilsons had declined our invitation for a nightcap, saying that it was already past their bedtime. Lady Hardcastle was disappointed, but salvation was at hand in the form of Ribble, the salon waiter.

  ‘Ah, Ribble,’ she said. ‘The very man. Would you be an absolute poppet and bring a couple of glasses of brandy to my room, please?’

  ‘Certainly, my lady. I shall be just a few moments. Would you like anything else?’

  ‘Some cheese and biscuits, perhaps? Our dining companions were eager to get away before I could summon the cheese board. A little fruit. And the rest of the brandy bottle?’

  ‘I shall see what I can find,’ he said.

  ‘You’re an angel,’ she said.

  We set off upstairs.

  Back in our rooms we made ourselves comfortable while we waited for Ribble to arrive with the tray.

  ‘That was rather more fun than I would have predicted,’ said Lady Hardcastle as she fastened her robe.

  ‘Getting dressed for bed?’ I said.

  ‘No, silly – dinner with the Wilsons.’

  ‘It was. Adelia’s a grumpy old bird, and she wears far too much perfume, but she’s not so bad once she’s got some champagne inside her.’

  ‘Not so bad at all.’ She regarded her discarded corset with animosity.

  ‘Do you think I’d be shunned by polite society if I stopped wearing these wretched things and allowed my weary body to assume its natural shape in public? I’m sure a talented dressmaker could design something fashionable and flattering without my stomach and liver having to find new lodgings every time I went out.’

  ‘But what would become of me?’ I asked. ‘What use would you have for me if you didn’t need a competent pair of hands to lace you into your corsets? I’d be out on the street.’

  She laughed. ‘I’d not let you starve, dear,’ she said. ‘We could make a room for you in the garden shed. You’d be perfectly comfortable.’

  A knock at the door heralded the arrival of Ribble and his Tray of Wonders. It contained everything Lady Hardcastle had asked for as well as a few extras.

  ‘Chef sent up some of his petits fours with his compliments, my lady,’ said Ribble as he placed the tray on the writing desk. ‘So I added a pot of coffee. I hope you’ll find everything to your liking.’

  ‘I should say we shall,’ said Lady Hardcastle happily. ‘Thank you, Ribble.’ She discreetly palmed him a few coins and sent him on his way.

  ‘If you could do the honours, dear,’ she said once he was gone, ‘I’ll get back to the old journal.’

  At home, it was Lady Hardcastle’s habit to make notes about a case on a large blackboard. It would be my job to set the cumbersome thing on its easel – usually in the dining room or drawing room – and she would fill it with sketches and notes until the mystery had been solved. She had learned this method of ‘thinking aloud’ while studying at Girton College and despite the scepticism of almost everyone who heard about it, it seemed to work. Away from home, though, she had to resort to keeping her notes in her journal.

  ‘I know needs must when the devil butters the parsnips,’ she said, holding up the octo-sized notebook. ‘But I’m starting to find this a little restrictive. There’s barely room for one thought to the page – I much prefer to be able to see the whole picture.’

  ‘If you need to see the “picture”,’ I said, ‘why not use a sketchbook?’

  ‘I say, you are a marvel, aren’t you? I was so caught up in the idea of making notes in a notebook, that I never thought of sketching ideas in a sketchbook. There’ll be much more room to think there.’

  While I continued to divvy up the treats on the tray, she retrieved one of her large sketchbooks from the wardrobe.

  ‘It doesn’t look as though I’ll get much of a chance to do any drawing on this trip,’ she said. ‘But we can make good use of this, after all. Your packing shall not be in vain.’

  ‘Always good to know,’ I said. ‘So where are we?’

  ‘Let’s start with the strongbox,’ she said. ‘I’m reasonably certain we can follow its path. It starts with Dr Goddard, obviously. Kusnetsov stole it from him.’

  ‘And then person or persons unknown stole it from Kusnetsov.’

  ‘Correct.’ She spoke aloud as she wrote: ‘Whereabouts of strongbox . . . currently . . . unknown.’

  ‘But we suspect it’s still here at the hotel.’

  ‘Do we?’ she said, still writing. ‘I suppose we do. So one of the other guests has it. The Wilsons. Schneider. Takahashi. Martin. The simplest thing would be to search each of their rooms.’

  ‘Risky,’ I said. ‘The odds are three-to-one against us starting with the correct room and word would get around. By the time we reached the box’s latest possessor they could have spirited it away – we’d still never find it.’

  ‘Agreed. We need to fathom it out before galumphing in. So we move on to other matters. Dr Goddard is missing and Sergei Kusnetsov is dead.’

  ‘Different culprits,’ I said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Honestly? Just a feeling,’ I said. ‘Let’s say Dr Goddard died in the struggle. That would mean the killer went to a huge amount of trouble to remove the body and leave little to no evidence of what had happened. Why would he go to all that effort and then just leave Kusnetsov lying there? Whereas if Dr Goddard were taken alive, it was presumably to try to extract information about the contents of the strongbox, or perhaps to ransom him. Why then risk detection and the foiling of carefully laid plans by murdering Kusnetsov? It’s all a bit flimsy, but it feels like the work of two different people.’

  ‘Men?’ she asked.

  ‘No way to say for certain,’ I said. ‘The Wilsons could drug Dr Goddard and carry him between them. And there’s no reason why a woman couldn’t garrotte Kusnetsov. I could, certainly.’

  ‘Hmm. All right, then. And we’re sure the burglars are different people again?’

  ‘Of course. Kusnetsov had the strongbox – what did he need Dr Goddard for?’

  ‘To explain the contents of the strongbox?’

  ‘But he’d have done a bunk, wouldn’t he?’ I said. ‘If he had the box and the scientist, what would he need to hang about here for? He was still here and making preparations to leave just before he was killed. If he had Dr Goddard he’d be in some hidey-hole somewhere, torturing him for information.’

  She was still making notes. ‘Granted,’ she said. ‘And Kusnetsov’s killer?’

  ‘That’s not so cut and dried. My instinct is still that the person who took the strongbox from Kusnetsov didn’t turn the room upside down. It’s a big box by all accounts – you wouldn’t need to fine-tooth comb the room to find it. It would just be there. All big and box-like. But as to which of them killed Kusnetsov . . . I’m not certain. He could have disturbed either of them.’

  ‘Wait,’ she said, looking up from the sketchbook. ‘If the box is so obvious, why turn the room over at all? The most cursory search would reveal its absence.’

  ‘We still don’t know what’s in the box. If Thief Two thought that Kusnetsov had opened the box and removed its contents, the absence of the box itself need not be significant – the documents, or plans, or whatever is in there, could be concealed anywhere in the room. It wouldn’t necessarily mean that there’d been a Thief One who had already removed the box.’

  ‘I can’t say I disagree with any of your reasoning so far,’ she said. ‘Let’s move on to the contents of the box.’

  ‘We’ve still no idea what it contains,’ I said.

  ‘But everyone else knew exactly what was in it,’ she said. ‘And each of them thought it was something different. That’s more than a little significant.’

  ‘Much more than a little,’ I agreed. ‘It smells of misdirection. Dr Goddard was definitely up to something there.’

  ‘Telling each of them a different story, yes,’ she mused. ‘But to what end? What did he stand to gain from that?’

  ‘Just a bit of mischief?’

  ‘I’d never rule it out,’ she said. ‘Dangerous mischief, though. I might have thought he was a fantasist but for Harry’s stern admonitions not to get involved and the swift arrival of Barbel and Chub of the Special Branch.’

  ‘We’re back to misdirection, then. He told each of them something different to keep them off the scent. Oh.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Oh, indeed,’ I said. ‘He told each of them what they were most likely to want to hear. Mr Takahashi had worked on the Japanese railway system, and Dr Goddard told him that he was working on locomotive design. Mr Martin is something to do with shipbuilding in France, so Dr Goddard told him he had a new ship design.’

  ‘Kusnetsov was told about his weaponry work by his masters in Moscow,’ she said. ‘So he had nothing to do with that.’

  ‘True,’ I agreed. ‘And the Wilsons thought it was something to do with radio – I’m not sure why he would have thought that would impress them.’

  ‘Radio impresses everyone. It’s magical.’

  ‘What if . . . ?’ I began. ‘What if he suspected that one or more of them was a spy and fed them the stories to flush them out?’

  ‘How would that have helped? What would he have done about it?’

  ‘Told Harry?’ I suggested. ‘He could have Grayling and Rudd swoop in and arrest anyone who showed too much interest in what he was doing.’

  ‘Our fishy friends were suspiciously close at hand,’ she agreed. ‘They have the air of London men about them, and yet there they were in Weston to deal with Kusnetsov’s corpse in no time at all.’

  ‘Harry said something about them coming from Bristol, didn’t he? I come back to the idea that we need to talk to your brother,’ I said. ‘He’s just going to have to trust you.’

  ‘He really is. But what about Goddard? We can’t just leave him out there, wherever he is. What do we know?’

  ‘From Eleanora’s account it seems likely that Kusnetsov stole the strongbox while Dr Goddard was downstairs with us.’

  ‘Right. And she said that was at about ten o’clock. Actually, we should have remembered this – it’s another argument in favour of there being two different men. Kusnetsov picked the lock and took the box, someone else kicked the door in and took Goddard.’

  I could see that she was drawing a timeline on a fresh page in the sketchbook.

  ‘The only other event we can place with even vague accuracy is the presence of the fisherman in the alley at three in the morning,’ I said.

  ‘Do you think he could be our kidnapper?’

  ‘There’s not much against him other than his having piddled in the alley, but we can’t rule him out. Oh no, wait. In all the distractions I completely forgot about my trip to the kitchens.’

  ‘I had, too. What did you learn?’

  ‘Nothing very much,’ I said. ‘I don’t think there’s anything in the theft of the food – I’d bet that food goes missing from hotel kitchens all the time. But I strongly suspect the lock was picked.’

  ‘The outside door?’

  ‘Yes – fresh scratches on the escutcheon. Someone broke in.’

  ‘This afternoon?’

  ‘No, the door was unlocked – probably always is during the day. But it would be locked overnight, obviously. I’d say it casts our fisherman’s presence in a new light.’

  ‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘I’ll note it, but we need more before I’ll start looking for fishermen to question. What next?’

  ‘We met Kusnetsov in the salon not long after four o’clock this afternoon,’ I said.

  ‘And he was called away to the telephone,’ she said. ‘He’d not been in his room for a while – I remember him looking distinctly windswept, as though he’d been outdoors – so the box could have been stolen from him at any time this afternoon.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We left the dining room at five and went to the salon for an hour. By the time we left there at six he had long-since finished his call and returned to his room where we found him dead at, what, five past six?’

  She finished making her notes and closed the sketchbook.

  ‘We’ve at least seven hundred-weight of facts, a few stone of supposition, a pound of clues, but not an ounce of an idea what’s going on,’ she said. ‘I think it’s time to think of other things and let our subconscious minds work their wonders while we pay close attention to all this delicious scoff. I bitterly regret never having been to a boarding school, you know. Do you remember Lavinia and her pals reminiscing at Riddlethorpe? I should have loved to have raided the school kitchens for midnight feasts.’

  ‘You’d not have been so keen on lumpy beds and cross country runs,’ I said. ‘You’re the sort of girl who likes her comforts.’

  ‘You’re probably right. But I still might get up in the middle of the night and finish this lot off, just for the fun of it.’

  ‘You’re presuming we’ll have left any,’ I said. ‘And on past performance, I really don’t see that happening.’

  I was right. As we talked, we worked our way through the sweet pastries, the coffee, the cheese, and the biscuits. We’d made a significant dent in the brandy, too, before we called it a night.

  Chapter Nine

  We rose late on Wednesday and once again entirely failed to make it down to breakfast in time to see any of the fabled kedgeree. As before, though, we managed to cobble together a perfectly satisfactory repast from what remained on the sideboard and left feeling uncomfortably full.

  ‘We need to walk this off,’ said Lady Hardcastle, patting her midriff. ‘Or at least give it a chance to get past the corset.’

  ‘This is becoming an obsession,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you just take a stand and stop wearing it?’

  ‘Because none of my clothes would fit. I’m trapped by a sinister cabal of dressmakers. It’s a conspiracy.’

  ‘A conspiracy?’

  ‘Yes, it came to me this morning. The Dressmakers’ Guild – I’m sure there is one, though I’m equally sure they’d deny it – is in cahoots with the International League of Corsetmakers to ensure that fashionable women can never be comfortable.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘What do they hope to achieve?’

  ‘World domination.’

  ‘By dressing women in constrictive clothing.’

  ‘Exactly that. Think how strong and agile you are when you’re free of restrictive undergarments. You’ve burgled embassies and government buildings, foiled robberies and assassinations, solved crimes and baked delicious pies. Imagine if all of womankind were similarly unencumbered – we’d be an unstoppable force.’

  ‘We’d be a good deal plumper after eating all those pies,’ I said. ‘And there’d be nothing to hold it all in.’

  ‘I shall write a letter to The Times. They must be stopped.’

  I laughed. ‘Let’s get you out in the fresh air before you have what I’m sure Adelia Wilson would describe as a “conniption”. Your blood is up.’

  ‘My dander, too. Our colonial cousins have all the good words.’

  We were ready surprisingly quickly and stepped out into the watery sunshine. I had fully expected the wind to attempt once more to carry us off to Gloucester, but it was calm.

  ‘This is more like it,’ I said as we set off along the prom. ‘If the sun would actually come out it would be almost as good as being in the South of France.’

  ‘We should go back to Cannes one day,’ she said. ‘But without the gang of racketeers from Marseille chasing us.’

  ‘I’d like that,’ I said. ‘Although I’d miss the Punch and Judy show and the whelk stall. Oh, and fish and chips.’

  ‘They have moules frites instead.’

  ‘I thought that was Belgium,’ I said. ‘But I take your point.’ I looked out to sea. ‘There’s one thing I wouldn’t miss about this place.’

  ‘What’s that, dear?’

  ‘That vast expanse of mud masquerading as a beach. Has the tide actually been in since we’ve been here?’

  ‘Four times,’ she said with a laugh. ‘I still have the tide table I got at reception yesterday.’

  She rummaged in her bag and withdrew a folded piece of typewritten paper.

  ‘Here we are,’ she said. ‘High tide was at thirteen minutes past five on Monday afternoon, fourteen minutes to six yesterday morning, twelve minutes past six yesterday evening and four minutes past six this morning. It’ll be high again at seven minutes past seven this evening.’