‘I say, thank you. Thank you very much indeed.’

  ‘It’s no fun being a stranger in a new town. You might not like them all – God knows Patty Ballantine gets on my nerves, for one – but at least you’ll have a few people to call on. And they know all the swell places to go.’

  ‘You’re very kind. What say I take you all to dinner once my plans are finalized? You can show me the “swell” places to go in London before I leave it for good.’

  ‘Even better,’ said Dunn. ‘We can help you brush up on your jazz knowledge before you ship out. Make you look less like a rube.’

  ‘It’s a date,’ said Howard, brandishing Ellie’s card. ‘All I need now is to figure out what on earth Veronica might want to have with her in hospital.’

  Ellie laughed. ‘Get Elizabeth to help you.’

  Howard waved over his shoulder as he mounted the steps. ‘Capital idea, Mrs M. Will do.’

  ‘I think they’re all going to be all right,’ said Skins.

  ‘Seems that way,’ agreed Dunn.

  Ellie linked arms with them both and led them back towards the house. ‘Then let’s get the rest of our gear on the coach and we can go home and see if the children even noticed we were gone.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  The journey home was a long but largely jolly and uneventful one. The usual groups had formed, with Elk, Benny and Eustace still trying to play pontoon on the bench – with exactly the same lack of success – while Puddle read her book and Vera her magazine.

  Skins and Dunn occupied the rear seats and were still bickering about Dunn’s song lyric, leaving Mickey sitting alone once more by the door with his paper bag and a tinge of green about his handsome face.

  Ellie sat with Katy and they looked out of the window at waterlogged Oxfordshire.

  No homes had been flooded when the river burst its banks, so the visible effects of the inundation were, for the most part, muddy roads and a herd of displaced cattle sheltering forlornly beneath some trees on a small hillock.

  ‘How was your first proper engagement with the band?’ asked Ellie.

  ‘I’ve a lot to learn, but it was rather thrilling.’

  ‘A lot to learn?’

  ‘Oh my word, yes. I thought I knew all about musicians – having one in the family made me imagine I had them worked out – but there’s a lot more to it, isn’t there? And they’re all so . . .’

  ‘Infuriating? Badly behaved? Dim-witted?’

  Katy laughed. ‘So damn good, I was going to say. Eight of them, all playing and singing together. It’s like magic, isn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose it is when you put it like that. I think I take it a little for granted, but you’re right – they really are uncommonly good.’

  ‘I just have to get used to all their little ways. I felt such a fool asking for eight chairs, for instance. A decent manager would know they only need five.’

  ‘It’ll come. They’re not a very complex bunch. And they like you – that definitely helps.’

  ‘They do? Have they said anything?’

  ‘Not a word – that’s how I know they like you. None of them is terribly good at expressing their appreciation, but they’re not at all shy about complaining when things don’t go their way.’

  ‘That’s good to know. As long as all the touring engagements aren’t like that, I’m sure I’ll be fine.’

  ‘Like what? The murder? Oh, we seldom have murders.’

  ‘Aside from this weekend, and last month at Tipsy Harry’s.’

  ‘Aside from those two, no one’s ever been murdered at a Dizzy Heights gig, as far as I know.’

  Mickey, still looking very sorry for himself, turned round. ‘We’ve murdered a few tunes in our time, mind you,’ he said. ‘We’re not always as good as all that.’

  ‘Even at your worst, I’m sure you’re better than many of the bands I’ve seen over the years.’

  ‘That’s the kind of flattery we need in a manager.’ What little colour remained in his face drained rapidly. He turned back to address the driver. ‘Pull over here, would you, mate?’

  While Mickey was still leaning groggily against the front of the motor coach, trying to get his stomach and spinning head back under control, Katy knelt up on her seat so that she was facing the rest of the band.

  ‘I know everyone’s keen to get home as soon as possible,’ she said, ‘but I also know one or two of you live alone and won’t have any food in. If our driver knows of a suitable one, I propose we stop at a pub before we get to London and have a bite to eat. Any objections?’

  There were none, and the driver did, indeed, know of a suitable inn just outside Beaconsfield.

  By the time they arrived, even Mickey was hungry.

  They invaded the pub with the coach driver in the lead. He knew the landlord and, Ellie suspected, was probably offered a small cash incentive to take his passengers there.

  The bill of fare was chalked on a blackboard. The choice was beef pie with boiled potatoes and carrots. Or nothing. They all opted for the beef pie.

  Skins and Ellie were dropped back at their home in Bloomsbury at about eight o’clock that evening. They had offered Dunn a bed for the night and he had gratefully accepted, so the three of them lugged their instruments and bags up the front steps together.

  Skins was fumbling in his pocket for his door key.

  ‘Just ring the damn bell,’ said Ellie from behind him. ‘Mrs Dalrymple can open it.’

  ‘I don’t like ringing my own doorbell. It ain’t right. It makes me feel like it’s not really my house. Oh, hello, Mrs D.’

  The door had already opened, and the Maloneys’ smiling housekeeper ushered them in.

  ‘I heard the motor coach pull up outside and I thought it might be you,’ she said. ‘Then I heard Mr Maloney refusing to ring the doorbell and I knew it was you. Let me help you with that bag, Mrs Maloney. I told Cook to put the kettle on and Nanny let the weans stay up past their bedtime, just as you asked.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Dalrymple,’ said Ellie.

  ‘Will you be wanting any supper?’

  ‘No, thank you – we ate on the journey.’

  ‘Right you are, then. You just settle yourselves and I’ll tell Nanny you’re here.’

  She offered to help them to bring the rest of their gear in, but they insisted they could manage.

  Ellie pointed at a spot next to the coat stand. ‘Just leave your bass there, Barty, it’ll be fine.’

  Skins began to stack his drums in the hallway, too.

  ‘Are you just going to dump those there, honey?’

  ‘We’re going to have to take it all to the Preening Parrot tomorrow night. They’ll only be here a few hours.’

  ‘But people will trip over them.’

  ‘If you’d let me have the “morning room” as a music room, they could go in there. But, as it is . . .’

  ‘But I like having a morning room.’

  ‘You never go in there.’

  ‘No, but I like being able to say I have a morning room. It sounds so grand.’

  ‘What actually is a morning room?’ asked Dunn.

  ‘It’s an extra sitting room,’ she said. ‘For use in the morning.’

  ‘What happens if you go in there in the afternoon?’

  ‘Then you’re drummed out of polite society and have to leave London at once.’

  ‘Probably better let the lad have it as a music room, then. Sounds like a liability. You could put the piano in there.’

  ‘Actually, Barty, that’s not a bad idea. Then I could get a lovely baby grand for the drawing room.’

  Skins brought in the last of his cases. ‘You’re a very expensive house guest, Barty boy. All I wanted was somewhere to practise, now you’re getting her to spend who knows how much on a new piano.’

  ‘Nothing to do with me, mate – that was all her idea.’

  ‘We should probably think about it,’ said Ellie. ‘When the children are a little older I’d like them to have music lessons. It would be somewhere for them to practise, too.’

  ‘That’s more like it. We could get a family band going.’

  Lottie the housemaid came up the stairs from the kitchen with a tea tray.

  ‘Where do you want this, ma’am?’ she said.

  ‘Oh, Lottie, thank you,’ said Ellie. ‘In the drawing room, I think.’

  They were just making themselves comfortable with their tea when they heard a thundering on the stairs. With a crash, the drawing room door burst open as Edward and Catherine Maloney burst in. They were, apparently, pleased their parents were home.

  By the time Nanny Nora had rounded them up again and taken them off to bed, the tea had gone cold and Skins decided it was probably time for something a little stronger anyway.

  With drinks in hand, they began discussing the events of the weekend.

  By half past nine they were all fast asleep in their armchairs.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Saturday, 4 July 1925

  Four days later, on Saturday, the fourth of July, Ellie woke early and tiptoed from the bedroom. The Dizzy Heights had played their regular date at the Aristippus Club in Mayfair the night before, so she imagined Skins wouldn’t have been home until at least three. She left him sleeping and made her way stealthily downstairs.

  When Skins had been working she usually had a cup of coffee alone in the drawing room before calling Edward and Catherine down for breakfast. She was looking forward to some rambunctious silliness over the breakfast table, and to telling her half-American children what a special day it was.

  Still slightly sleepy, she opened the drawing room door, plodded in and pressed the bell to alert the housemaid, Lottie, to her need for coffee. She turned to sit in her favourite chair but stopped suddenly.

  The room, normally decorated in a tastefully discreet modern style, had been transformed. Miniature Stars and Stripes flags lined up on the mantelpiece. The mirror was bedecked with red, white and blue ribbons and matching paper fans. More broad ribbons were draped on the furniture and piano. Still more hung from the ceiling, together with a banner that read “Happy 4th of July”.

  She was still beaming when Lottie arrived with the tray.

  ‘Oh, my sainted aunt,’ said Lottie, apparently not sure whether to be thrilled or horrified.

  ‘I was about to thank you for being so thoughtful,’ said Ellie. ‘This isn’t your doing, then?’

  ‘No, ma’am. I checked all the rooms was in order before bed last night. It didn’t look like this in here.’

  ‘Mrs Dalrymple?’

  ‘She went to bed before me with one of her headaches.’

  ‘Then it must be Ivor. What an absolute sweetheart.’

  ‘I wish I could find a bloke who’d do something like this for me,’ said Lottie. ‘Not for the fourth of July, obviously, that’s your day. But . . . you know . . . maybe a birthday. None of the lads I’ve walked out with would ever think of this.’

  ‘He’s one in a million, all right.’

  ‘Will there be anything else, ma’am?’

  ‘No, thank you, honey. I’ll get the children down in a little while and we can sing patriotic songs until breakfast is ready.’

  Lottie left her to her private celebrations and heard Ellie strike up a familiar tune on the piano. She didn’t know it was Sousa’s ‘The Liberty Bell’, but she knew the mistress liked to play it from time to time to amuse her English friends.

  Skins surfaced close to lunchtime and was amused to find his family still in the drawing room, with the children making even more flags while Ellie told them the history of the American Revolution.

  ‘Daddy!’ yelled Edward as Skins came in. ‘Can we have a tea party?’

  ‘I’ve not even had my breakfast yet.’

  ‘Like they did in Busting. We can dump all the tea in the Turpentine.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure it’s “Boston”, mate,’ said Skins. ‘And you probably mean the Serpentine.’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, you did. Maybe Mrs Ponton can give us a little packet of tea and we can take your boat to the park. What do you reckon, Mummy? A little outing to celebrate your independence?’

  ‘Sounds perfect to me,’ said Ellie. ‘Why don’t you two run upstairs and get your shoes on? And find your boat, Teddy.’

  The children thundered off.

  Skins had brought something in with him from the table in the hall.

  ‘Whatcha got there, Limey?’

  ‘Just the post. The postman seems to be getting later and later.’ He put down a handful of envelopes and examined the package that had also been delivered. It was a box sealed with gummed paper, postmarked Oxford. ‘Looks like the Bilvertons have sent us something.’

  He tore off the gummed paper and opened it up. Inside were a number of shellac discs in cardboard sleeves, and a note. He read it.

  ‘It’s from Veronica,’ he said. ‘It’s the discs we recorded at Bilver-Tone. How fantastic . . . She says she’s feeling much better, and thanks you for taking good care of her. The doctor said you might have saved her life.’

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ said Ellie.

  ‘No, she said he was very impressed. Apparently she’d lost a lot of blood, and if you hadn’t been there, she might not have made it . . . Malcolm has been charged with two murders and an attempted murder, and will appear before the magistrates next week – they expect him to be indicted for trial at the next assizes . . . Baisley has been arrested on a number of charges thanks to John Bilverton’s investigations . . . Howard and Veronica are going to sell the French postcards to a mate of Howard’s from university and he’s already decided to go to America on the third of the month. Oh, but that was yesterday. Oh, yes, she says he said to tell us he was sorry he couldn’t call in, but everything happened rather quickly. Umm . . . Marianne and Charlotte are going to buy a flat in London . . . and Veronica wants Barty’s address.’

  ‘He’s thirteen years older than her. It’ll never work.’

  ‘I’m not sure it’s our place to decide that. Umm . . . She wishes us well, and hopes to see us the next time she’s in London.’

  ‘Well, that’s very sweet of her. I’ll write to her later. What else have we got?’

  He picked up the envelopes again. ‘Nothing much – it’s just bills, and some letters for you. One from Flo, one from the solicitors and something from New York.’

  ‘The Old Country, eh? Hand it over. You can take a look at the solicitors’ letter.’

  Skins opened the envelope and scanned it quickly. ‘Meeting of the 1st inst . . . satisfied that your arrangements still meet the requirements of the will . . . yours, etc.’

  ‘Well, that’s that over for another year.’

  She opened the American letter and read it eagerly. She would savour the letter from her friend Florence Armstrong in Gloucestershire later, but news from the homeland couldn’t wait.

  ‘It’s from my cousin Clara. She’s married to some Wall Street high-flyer, remember?’

  Skins didn’t remember, but thought it best not to say.

  ‘Blah, blah . . . Hopes we’re well . . . Family news . . . Oh, here we are. Her husband is investing in a nightclub . . . He wants advice on the music . . . He wants more international acts, not just the usual New York crowd . . . Heard you were the best in London . . . Oh, and they want us to go over there and stay with them for a few weeks to help get things set up. She’s sent us tickets for a liner leaving Southampton in two weeks’ time.’

  ‘Us? You, me and the kids? I don’t know about that. They’re a bit young for the crossing, I reckon.’

  ‘No, she’s only sent three tickets – you, me and “that tall, good-looking guy”. She doesn’t mention the children at all. I think she’s probably forgotten we have any.’

  Skins laughed. ‘Well, that answers that, then. Why not? We could invite my mum to stay here with them. She’d like a break, I bet. And we haven’t been away on our own for years.’

  ‘We went away to Oxfordshire without the children last week.’

  ‘Yeah, but I want to go away on our own without someone getting murdered.’

  ‘That would be nice. Oh, but we won’t be on our own – Barty’s invited, too, don’t forget.’

  ‘We won’t have to worry about him – he’ll be in his element. London musician in New York? The girls’ll be all over him. I bet we don’t see him much.’

  ‘You’re probably right. Well, I’d love to go. I’ll send her a telegram and let her know we’re coming, shall I? You can tell Barty.’

  ‘I’ll tell him tonight at the Blue Pussycat.’

  Author’s Note

  Bilverton’s Biscuits and Bilver-Tone Records are, as usual, entirely fictitious, as is Bilverton House. I can no longer remember how I came to make up the name.

  The layout of the house is an amalgamation of ideas from a number of stately homes from around England. I drew a sketch plan of the house, and all the bits of it work together exactly as depicted, but the house as described would be architecturally impossible. There just aren’t enough interior supporting walls, and the staircases, though useful for the story, seem similarly improbable from an engineering point of view.

  I listened to a lot of Bix Beiderbecke while writing both this book and The Deadly Mystery of the Missing Diamonds, so if you want a feel for the jazz of the period, that’s a good place to start.

  The Sazarac Ellie drinks at the party is a cocktail invented in New Orleans in the nineteenth century. It features whiskey or cognac (it was originally cognac, but changed to whiskey in 1870 thanks to a cognac shortage in New Orleans), absinthe (or Pernod), simple syrup and a dash of bitters (Peychaud’s for authenticity, Angostura for a little more depth). Absinthe was unjustly blamed for many of society’s ills and production was banned in France in 1915, but Pernod Fils resumed production in Catalonia after the First World War. The Bilvertons would have had to go to some trouble to obtain a supply, but they would have considered it worth it for the cachet of having a ‘forbidden’ drink.