Prior Engagement, or Plagued to Death! Read online

  Tim nodded.

  ‘He said the wood ash would be good for his orchard,’ he said, glancing around. ‘There must be more to the Priory than we can see. Augustus said it was quite extensive, which is why his father was so keen to buy it. An enormous amount of stone has been taken away over the centuries for buildings elsewhere, probably all over Priorton. Pity no one ever bothered to make a plan.’

  ‘Isn’t there anything in the County Archives?’

  ‘Not a lot. Because Augustus’s family died off, to all intents and purposes in 1605, the estate was legally obliged to remain pretty well as it was until we inherited it. There really wasn’t much need to keep proper paperwork.’

  ‘What about earlier records from when it was occupied by monks?’

  ‘Canons, not monks,’ he corrected her. ‘I haven’t had a chance to find out yet. I’ve been too busy concentrating on the Old Lodge ruins. It doesn’t pay to research too many things at the same time.’

  ‘You’ll have time now though, won’t you?’

  She could see his eyes lighting up at the prospect of another challenge. The Priory had obviously been neglected for so long and never excavated. And it wasn’t as if Tim would be distracted by having to write articles for history magazines as he had before they inherited the Hall and all its grounds. Thanks to Augustus and the family treasure, they had more than enough to live on.

  Tim nodded, deep in thought.

  They strolled around the ruins for a good half hour. Tim made a few notes on features that caught his eye.

  ‘It’s a lovely setting,’ said Sarah. ‘Legend has it that it was once a deer park, but I don’t know when. A few of the older locals have mentioned it several times and claim to have spotted the odd deer roaming in the area. Perhaps Lady Cynthia might know.’

  She was referring to Sir Cedric Foot-Wart’s eccentric wife who, in a moment of boredom, had inaugurated the Priorton History Society. It hadn’t lasted long but it was thanks to her that Tim came to Priorton and eventually married Sarah who, at the time, ran the Priorton Arms public house. In fact, Sarah still owned the pub but no longer had anything to do with its day-to-day operations.

  ‘That’s most unlike you, calling Cynthia an old dear.’ Realisation dawned when he noticed the look on Sarah’s face. ‘Oh, I see what you mean. Yes, there could well have been a deer park here, but I should think it was more likely to be medieval than Tudor. I can check that out in the County Archives.’

  ‘Pity there aren’t any ghosts around here,’ said Sarah, half joking. ‘You could ask them.’

  ‘They’d certainly reveal more than I could hope to discover from looking at old papers,’ he agreed.

  Sarah made a great show of creeping around a wall.

  ‘Anybody there?’ she called. There was no reply.

  ‘Stop messing about! I couldn’t cope with more spooks in the house!’

  ‘I thought you said they couldn’t travel very far, so how would they get to the Hall?’

  ‘Be serious. I’ll have to get aerial photos taken. They might give more information on the layout. Priories had living quarters for guests as well as for their own clerics and servants,’ he mused. ‘Yes, there must be loads more. Look at those flat bits between the rows of raised earth.’

  Sarah shook her head yet again. He was the most attentive person you could hope to meet . . . but only when his mind wasn’t full of history. On the other hand, it was his hunch about the Old Lodge that led to the truth about Augustus and Elizabeth and the court hearing where Judge Sir Cedric Foot-Wart awarded the inheritance of Priorton Hall to them.

  Perhaps something similar would come to light here.

  She shuddered at the thought.

  II

  Sarah sat at the breakfast table, opening the post while nibbling a thick slice of toast dripping with honey. Tim was editing a report, occasionally putting his pen down to take a sip of coffee. Strains of gentle music drifted from the radio: Company by Philip Glass (Tim’s favourite composer for several years) was a good way to start any day.

  ‘Well, you’ll never guess!’ exclaimed Sarah.

  ‘Hm?’

  ‘’Put that down and listen!’

  He meekly did as instructed. He recognised the tone; do as you’re told and don’t argue!

  ‘Cedric and Cynthia have asked us to lunch at Blister Grange! Just a small gathering. Apparently Cedric’s been under the weather and needs cheering up.’

  ‘Why us?’

  ‘Don’t be so ungrateful!’ she chided. ‘If it weren’t for him, we wouldn’t be here.’

  ‘No, you’re right. When is it?’

  ‘First of June. A week on Thursday.’

  ‘Fine. Not formal, is it?’

  ‘Casual. I’ll call them later.’

  The telephone in the cavernous main hall at Blister Grange rang. Julio Hives picked it up.

  ‘Blister Grange,’ he announced in a doom-laded voice more suited to the gothic surroundings of a horror movie. Sub-consciously, he polished the silver buttons on his jacket with a white-gloved hand while he listened attentively.

  ‘Thank you, madam. I shall pass your message on to Lady Cynthia when she returns. Just yourselves and Chief Inspector Young and his wife. Goodbye, madam.’

  He replaced the receiver, wrote a note on a yellow Post-It pad and stuck the sheet on a silver salver next to the phone, taking great care not to smudge the ink.

  He ambled through to the kitchen. Euphemia Crimp, once renowned at the local Women’s Institute for her excellent pastries, heard someone approaching and hastily took a swig from the catering-size bottle of peppermint essence before slipping it into her wrap-around apron pocket. She was relieved to see him. Julio always looked so smart and handsome, even if he did overdo the hair dye. Jet black was so unnatural in someone his age . . . but then, so was tangerine for someone of hers, although she had no idea how it happened.

  ‘Ah, it’s you, Mr Hives,’ she said, removing the peppermint and putting it back on the table with an unsteady hand. ‘Can I get you something?’ she added with an obvious wink, jerking her head towards the cellar.

  ‘Not at the moment, thank you,’ he replied emphatically. ‘You really should be more careful, Euphemia.’

  ‘I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,’ she replied huffily.

  The butler-cum-general factotum pulled a chain attached to his belt loop and removed a ring holding several keys from his trouser pocket. He selected one and unlocked the cellar door. He raised a hand when the cook-cum-housekeeper made a move to follow him.

  ‘No, Euphemia. One of them may be back any moment.’

  ‘But it’s Thursday. He’ll be off playing Bridge and she’s in Wellingley doing her business accounts.’ She crossed the large and ill-equipped kitchen to reach a rusty tin from one of the shelves.

  Hives shook his head. Much as he liked her, Euphemia’s ability to keep up with current events was very much in decline.

  ‘Lady Cynthia is certainly in Wellingley but Sir Cedric’s habits are no longer . . . regular. Or predictable. He could return at any time.’

  Without saying another word, he entered the cellar, switched on a light and locked the door behind him. He had only gone four steps down when he heard the unmistakable crash of a tin hitting the floor. No doubt Euphemia now had the appearance of a ghost. Covering herself with flour had become the latest sign that she was well past her use-by date. He shook his head.

  The cellars of Blister Grange were divided into several dank, gloomy and cobweb-ridden chambers and had, in Sir Cedric’s grandfather’s time, been so well stocked as to be the envy of every well-heeled family in Shropshire’s county seats. But no longer.

  Hives moved from one room with half empty racks to another, switching lights on as he went, until he reached the furthest chamber. It was a stark contrast to the others: a small off-cut of faded Axminster carpet lay beneath an equally small table and two ornately carved upright dining chairs. The stub of a candle was all that
was left in the filigree silver candlestick set in the table centre; beside it were two bulbous crystal wine glasses of generous proportions.

  Euphemia had added one or two feminine touches to otherwise stark surroundings. Chintz curtains hung from a length of copper pipe to cover the iron grille embedded in the stonework frame of a long, narrow window through which daylight struggled to penetrate dried mud on the outside and thick dust on the inside.

  Hives took a notebook with well-thumbed, browning pages and a stiff, dog-eared black cover from his inside jacket pocket, and teased a short pencil stub from the book’s spine. He sat down, thoughtfully thumbing through the pages. His brow furrowed.

  The wine stock was greatly depleted. He would have to order several more crates but Sir Cedric was bound to raise questions, particularly since his employer only drank Glenlivet malt whisky while Lady Cynthia preferred Gordon’s gin. Wine, especially LBV Port, was only drunk at Christmas or when folk came to dine. And no one had dined at Blister Grange since the Americans first landed on the moon, almost forty years ago. What a disaster that was! Over eighty guests had been invited to watch the event live on television and it wasn’t until midnight that Sir Cedric realised he didn’t have one!

  Another notable event had been the cheese and wine party for the Priorton Young Conservatives Association. Not that Sir Cedric and Lady Cynthia were particularly active in the world of politics, but the prospective Parliamentary candidate for The Wrekin constituency had moved into the area (well, rented a flat on a short lease) and wanted to ingratiate himself with the electorate.

  The Foot-Warts had just returned from a trip to France where they had done a remarkable deal with an up-and-maybe-coming vineyard owner whose brother had recently gone into the cheese-making business.

  Visitors had, it must be said, acted with due decorum but the badly corked wine tasted more like vinegar and the cheese utterly rank (it permeated every floor at Blister Grange and lingered for weeks afterwards). Apparently, it was supposed to smell like that. Cheese makers, however blessed they may be, have a strange opinion on what is acceptable to normal taste buds.

  The prospective candidate vomited over Miss Young Conservatives 1967, with whom he’d tried to form an unhealthy relationship, as well as his agent, Lady Cynthia and some thirty others. The dry cleaning bill alone came to over £300. He left Priorton in a cloud and later found himself in Sir Cedric’s court for non-payment of rent and an outstanding bill raised by Scrubbits Authentic Chinese Laundry. He was fined £800 with costs. Although Cedric is not a vindictive man, vengeance can be sweet.

  Hives smiled. His thoughts drifted further back in time until he recalled family stories of how his goodness-knows-how-many-greats grandfather first arrived in England. Garcia Jivez had been a Portuguese ship’s captain involved in smuggling Port and Madeira (which the eccentric English called ‘sack’ for some unfathomable reason) to the Devonshire coast in the late eighteenth century.

  Constantly sea sick, he realised he could make a small fortune by betraying the wine merchant’s trust and sailing a little further along the coast to sell the whole shipment for cash to rival Cornish ‘entrepreneurs’ at Sennen Cove. Garcia did just that. What’s more, he made even more money by painting over the vessel’s name and selling it and its scurvy crew to an unscrupulous Bristol ship owner involved in the prosperous Slave Trade.

  Heavily laden with several chests of gold and silver, Garcia Anglicised his name to Jeeves and drifted from one high class hostelry to another, gaining something of a reputation for being an extravagant foreign refugee. It didn’t take very long for the number of chests to diminish and, after a few months of the high life, he made the acquaintance of a Shropshire earl who was taking the waters at Bath Spa. Actually, it wasn’t so much the water as the brandy plied relentlessly at gaming tables that rendered the earl the most suitable of hosts with whom Garcia ingratiated himself in the circles of English aristocracy. Unfortunately, the earl was not as drunk or stupid as he appeared and soon stripped the Portuguese impostor of his ill-gotten wealth. As a result, the penniless Garcia had little choice but to become the earl’s servant.

  However, Garcia was not the sort of man to give up easily. Realising that crime doesn’t pay (at least, not yet in his experience) and with nowhere to go, he threw himself into the job until, after almost thirty years of humble servitude, he became butler to the earl’s eldest son, a hopeless gambler and alcoholic like so many eligible bachelors of that period. It was a position to die for, giving the most wonderful opportunities for misappropriation of his master’s assets. On a small scale, of course; he didn’t want to arouse suspicion.

  Garcia’s sons and grandsons continued what became a family vocation. Until now. Julio Hives changed his name from Jeeves because he was fed up with prospective employers who, having had read the Jeeves and Bertie Wooster stories by P G Wodehouse, expected him to be as inimitable as his namesake.

  Perhaps ‘Hives’ was not the best name he could have chosen but he wanted something which sounded more in keeping with the original family name, taking Portuguese pronunciation into consideration. He had almost committed himself to ‘Heves’ but it sounded too much like someone throwing up, so he compromised on ‘Hives’.

  Much to his personal regret, Hives had never married. The only woman in his life had been and still was Euphemia Crimp, and she was now well beyond child bearing, both in age and capability. Well, he hoped she was. There had been one or two Port-induced romantic moments over the last thirty years but, fortunately, successive surfeits of alcohol in their subterranean love nest had prevented anything untoward happening. It was both a relief and a frustration.

  It was unsettling to recall they had both started at Blister Grange at about the same time, almost forty years ago. They were both in their late twenties then, full of enthusiasm for their respective jobs and conscious of the need to maintain an air of efficient respectability at all times.

  The work was not onerous or difficult; all they had to do was make sure they were at Sir Cedric’s and Lady Cynthia’s beck and call but, since neither was over-demanding, Hives and Miss Crimp enjoyed a relatively easy life. However, they had both been well trained in their chosen professions . . . too well, because the social inhibitions instilled in them over a number of years hindered all attempts towards amorous spontaneity.

  As a result, neither had been able to form or even develop a normal relationship with the other. Hives found it almost impossible to drop a well-cultivated and long maintained air of aloofness, even when off duty. Euphemia knew her place, did as she was told and lacked the ability to make decisions.

  He glanced appreciatively around the cosy cellar room. Yes, they’d had a lot of good times here after Sir Cedric and Lady Cynthia retired to their bed, or rather, beds; they seemed to have had some sort of crisis a few years ago. Fortunately they were, as a rule, late risers which gave both Euphemia and himself a chance to sleep off the effects of the night before . . . also in separate beds. Appearances are everything in a respectable household.

  Julio wasn’t sure, but it seemed as though Sir Cedric was experiencing another late-life crisis. It was about six months ago, certainly before last December, that the octogenarian had fallen into a depression. His Bridge sessions on Thursday afternoons ceased abruptly; thereafter he spent hours wondering aimlessly around the many spacious rooms at Blister Grange, as if searching for something which didn’t want to be found.

  In fact, Cedric’s wanderings made it very difficult for Hives to locate him when, for example, the telephone rang and the caller wanted to speak to him. To begin with, Hives had to go from room to room until he eventually located his master, only to find that the caller had got fed up with waiting and rung off.

  To solve the problem, Cedric invested in a battery-operated door bell, whereby Hives carried the ‘push’ part in his pocket and Cedric had the buzzing box in his own. The idea was that Cedric would hear the buzzer and go to Hives to see why he had been summoned; the p
roblem was that Hives could be anywhere in the house, so Cedric was obliged to search high and low for his butler. Near misses were frequent because Hives often forgot to stand still and went off in search of Sir Cedric.

  Police Chief Inspector George Young came up with an even better solution, devised by one of his surveillance technicians. Two months ago he lent them a modern satellite navigation device which works on the same principle as the remote door bell but Cedric now carries a small LCD screen showing the ground floor layout of Blister Grange instead of the buzzer.

  When it beeps continuously at a signal sent by Hives, Cedric checks the screen to see where the butler is standing. However, the system is not without its drawbacks: it can’t show whether Hives is in a cellar, on the third floor or anywhere in between.

  Nor is it much use if Cedric isn’t wearing his glasses as the screen is quite small. So, if he chooses the wrong floor, he still finds himself wandering around the rooms but at least it isn’t quite in the same aimless fashion.

  Hives smiled at the fun he occasionally had by leading Sir Cedric on wild goose chases by pressing the control and then darting out of sight into another room . . . on a different level.

  His smile faded when thoughts returned to the depleted wine stock. It was entirely his own fault. It was, he knew, rather deceitful for him and Euphemia to have consumed several vineyards’ worth of plonk over the decades, but it was completely unforgivable to have sold so much, sometimes full crates, to Bert Nibbull. Mind you, Euphemia had her own arrangements with Bert as well. To all intents and purposes, Hives and Euphemia were partners in crime. It was a great pity they couldn’t make the giant leap and become partners in more mutually-satisfying ways.

  Julio Hives stood up, sighing heavily. He opened another bottle of Graham’s vintage Port, filled a glass almost to the brim and set about bringing the wine inventory up to date. The previous notes in his little black book revealed this exercise had last been done eighteen years ago.