The Bee's Kiss(83)

‘Aren’t you going to open the box?’ he asked, seeing her eyes stray to it for the hundredth time.

‘No. Not until you’ve left.’

‘That’s an unusual way of going on! I’d like to see you open it.’

‘I don’t care. I mightn’t like what’s in there and I wouldn’t want you to see my disappointed face.’

‘But you don’t mind if I’m disappointed? Very well. Here’s my disappointed face.’

She burst out laughing at the sight and Joe was happy to think that normal relations had been resumed.

‘And now tell me what you’ve really come for, Joe,’ said Dorcas as she tidied away the cups.

He told her. He didn’t think that lies, concealment or flannel would get him far with this girl. She listened intently to what he had to say and was silent for a while before answering. ‘I thought as much. I’m sure you oughtn’t to be doing this and Granny would fly into one of her rages if she ever found out I’d let you in. But something rather awful’s come up. Something you ought to investigate, I think. So glad you’re here, Joe! Come on. I’ll take you up to Aunt Bea’s rooms.’

Joe stood in the centre of what had been the Dame’s sitting room and his jaw dropped in dismay. There were few pieces of furniture left and those that remained were shrouded in dust sheets. The shelves were bare, the drawers were empty. In the adjoining bedroom, the same scene. ‘What on earth . . .? What’s happened here, Dorcas?’

‘They’ve taken her things away. All her things. They’ve been put on the bonfire or in the furnace. Granny’s orders.’

Joe’s shoulders slumped. He was confounded at every turn.

‘Not quite all her things though,’ said Dorcas. ‘Audrey came in here on Sunday night – after you all left. I was putting Aunt Bea’s dress away and I slipped into the wardrobe. She didn’t see me. She seemed to know exactly what she wanted. It was a file. A big one the size of a large ledger. She took it away with her. Just that, nothing else.’

Joe shot out of the room and down the stairs to Audrey’s apartment, Dorcas clattering after him. She watched from the doorway as he looked again at a sterile room, dust-sheeted and cleaned. The only remaining personal possession lay in the middle of the floor with a note on it: ‘To be sent by rail to Miss Blount’s sister’ and the address in Wimbledon followed. Joe didn’t hesitate. He forced open the lock using one of the house-breaking devices he’d brought with him, anticipating just such an emergency, and plunged his hands into the piles of clothes it contained. Nothing interesting came to the surface.

‘You won’t find it in there,’ came an amused voice from the doorway. ‘When we heard that Audrey had been drowned, I came in and took it away. Made it safe.’

Trying to keep his voice level, Joe asked, ‘And where did you put it, Dorcas?’

‘It’s difficult when you haven’t got a room of your own. But I thought of a place. Somewhere no one would ever dream of opening it!’ she said proudly. ‘Come to the kitchen.’

They went along to the family dining room and kitchen in the old part of the house. No stew was cooking today and no one was about.

‘Mel’s been left behind with the others,’ said Dorcas. ‘They’re all over in the orchard.’ She grinned. ‘You call yourself a detective, Joe . . . go on – detect!’

Annoyed, he ran an eye over the room, remembering what had been there when he’d first seen it, looking for any changes and not seeing any. What should he do? Shake the child until she told him? Wring her neck? Swallowing his irritation he said, ‘All detectives need a clue. Come on, Dorcas – give me one clue!’

‘You hardly need one as it’s in plain sight but let’s say . . . um . . . The author of the Georgics would have been very surprised to see these contents!’

‘Virgil? Latin poet? Georgics . . . agriculture . . . crops . . . trees . . . and . . .’

He walked to the one row of books the room contained. On a shelf high above the dresser lounged, shoulder to shoulder, a rank of dusty tomes, unread for years. He glanced at their titles. The inevitable Mrs Beeton’s Household Management, one or two French ones by grand-sounding chefs, How to Cook for a Family with Only One Maid, The Vegetable Garden and, with a title printed in black ink running down the spine – Beekeeping for Beginners.

‘Beekeeping – the fourth book of the Georgics. Am I getting warm?’

Joe took it down, put it on the table and eagerly opened it up.

He slammed it shut at once.