‘How flattering,’ I said. ‘Hairbrush?’
‘Ah,’ said Alec. ‘Well, you can borrow one of mine.’
‘And Nanny Palmer turns in her grave once again. But thank you, thank you and a thousand times thank you. Now we can use our teatime to have some tea.’
‘Better tea on the train,’ said Alec, displaying yet again the new concern with his own stomach which had been so very much to the fore in Joe Aldo’s and at the Horseshoe.
‘But at such close quarters one can’t talk freely,’ I said. ‘Come on, to the platform buffet with you and then we can go straight to the smoking lounge when the train sets off.’
We found a quiet table (or what passes for one amidst the hiss and clatter of the tea-making and plate-clearing which always go on apace in these settings) and over strong Indian and a plate of buns, I tried to explain to him what had come over me.
‘Demob fever after being sacked, perhaps. It’s lucky I’m not sitting on a sailor’s lap drinking stout from the bottle. No, in all seriousness, I think Pearl is too much of a hard nut for us ever to crack her. You possibly went a little tiny bit too far the other way with Aurora. So like Goldilocks we need to try the third one and steer a middle course. And I need to go back to Pereford where it all began. Something happened there, Alec, to turn Fleur from the child she was into the girl who became the woman she is now. And Mamma- Mrs Lipscott doesn’t know she’s missing. Pearl and Aurora are protecting her from the pain of it.’
‘But you think the pain might be useful if it joggles her into an explanation?’
‘Rather a brutal way to put it but… yes. Now, tell me about Taylor and Bell. I didn’t catch more than one word in ten on that nasty trunk line.’
‘Ah yes,’ said Alec. ‘Well, I’m more than happy to have done with the dread contraption for a while myself, actually, because I was fairly finely grated by various parties this morning.’
‘Oh?’
‘I tried Lambourne first. Charming enough to bring the birds down out of the trees, if I say so myself, and got short shrift. I reminded the girl who answered the telephone that she had helped me earlier with Miss Blair and I asked – all chummy: I even remembered her name, which was Beverley – if she could work her magic again and put me in touch with the other two. She instructed me to wait and the next thing I knew some dragon was breathing fire down the line, demanding to know who I was and what I was up to and whether I wanted the police after me.’
‘Really?’ I said, arrested with a bite of bun halfway to my mouth. It fell off my fork and landed icing side down on the doily. ‘Why the dramatic change?’
‘I think Beverley must have casually mentioned my first enquiry and the dragon knows more about what’s going on at St Columba’s than she wants anyone else to find out.’
‘You could be right, you know,’ I said. ‘Miss Glennie did say that Lambourne positively courted her. That’s not how scholastic agencies usually go on.’
‘I suppose not. So Beverley must have been well warned what to do if I ever rang again and she did it.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘Well, in for a penny in for a pound. I just plunged on and asked the dragon about Taylor and Bell anyway – hoping she’d say something useful if I rattled her – and I told her I didn’t mind if she called the police. In fact, maybe I’d call them to see if they could help me. And guess what?’
‘I give up.’
‘She slammed the telephone down. And when I got the girl to try the number again it was engaged and it stayed engaged from then until I left the Horseshoe.’
‘Hmph. So Taylor and Bell remain a mystery. Oh well.’
‘No, no, not at all,’ Alec said. ‘I did as you suggested, Dan, and got on to Somerville College. Stirred up a secretary.’
‘In a falsetto voice?’ I asked. ‘Pretending to be an old girl? I wish I’d been there to hear it.’
Alec blew a raspberry at me, attracting the glaring attention of a very respectable family at the next table who were eating ham and eggs as though stoking a boiler for a cold winter’s night.
‘No, I said I was writing an article on pioneering female scholars for a scientific journal and I particularly wished to speak to any of their early scientists.’
‘Which one was the science mistress?’
‘Tinker Bell,’ said Alec. ‘Do you know that was her nickname at Somerville too? So I was expecting some delicate little thing. Her voice down the line when I finally got through to her almost knocked me flat. I haven’t heard a pair of lungs like it since a fairground tout who made me drop my lolly when I was six.’
‘Down the line?’ I said. ‘You mean you actually spoke to her?’
‘And she’s still good pals with Miss Taylor too,’ said Alec, with a triumphant wiggle of his eyebrows. ‘But look, let’s powder our noses and get back on board, eh? I’ll tell you everything else on the way to London.’
‘Everything else’, though, did not get us much past the northern suburbs of Doncaster. We chose the smoking lounge in hopes of finding fewer ladies in there and in recognition of the shaming fact that gentlemen are less interested in others’ concerns and would not listen, and were so lucky as to find no ladies at all and only two gentlemen, both at one end of the car, both elderly, both reading, and both swaying with the movement of the train in a way that suggested they would soon be asleep. We settled ourselves into armchairs at the other end. Alec rummaged in his pocket and drew out not the usual equipment but a paper bag which he held out to me.
‘Pontefract cake?’ he said.
‘I’ve just eaten a bun,’ I replied. ‘And you ate two!’
‘They’re not really cakes,’ said Alec. ‘Pastilles, liquorice. A local delicacy. I got them while skulking outside your underclothes shop.’
I glanced at the two gentlemen but they were paying no attention.
‘Not bad,’ I said, tentatively rolling a pastille around my mouth. ‘Now, Alec, what of your two mistresses?’
At that, I rather thought one of the old gentlemen did stir. Laughing gently, Alec resumed his report.
‘Miss Bell is at St Leonards now,’ he said. ‘The secretary at Somerville was quite happy to tell me, and I caught her between breakfast and chapel which was handy.’
‘St Leonards, eh?’ I said. ‘Pretty hot stuff then, this Miss Bell. What was she doing in Portpatrick in the first place, one wonders?’
‘One wouldn’t have to if one would shut up and listen,’ said Alec. ‘She and Miss Fielding and Miss Taylor were at Somerville together.’
‘We knew that.’
‘And she and Miss Taylor agreed to join the staff of Miss Fielding’s new enterprise… not quite for old times’ sake, but certainly not for the advancement of their careers. The way she spoke made it sound like a kindness to an old friend.’
‘Quite a considerable kindness,’ I said. ‘How long would they have stuck it if Miss Fielding hadn’t died?’
‘Who can say, but Miss Taylor has returned to academia proper since she left St Columba’s. She’s currently in Greece getting excited about the deflation of the coinage in the ancient empire.’
‘Takes all kinds,’ I said. ‘So they what? They felt their loyalty was to Miss Fielding personally and dropped poor Ivy Shanks like a brick after the funeral tea?’
‘Again, if you would let me tell you,’ Alec said. ‘No. At least, they might have felt that way but they are both women of the stoutest ethical fibre and they would certainly have devoted as much more time as was wanted.’
‘But?’
‘It turned out that what was wanted was about six weeks. Six weeks after Miss Fielding died, they were both handed their pay packets and told to leave.’
‘Odd.’
‘Miss Bell said she assumed Ivy Shanks was in a fluster about money – she and Miss Taylor were on salaries commensurate with their great learning – and they offered to take a kind of furlough or whatever you would call it, while Miss Shanks got herself sorted out. Miss Taylor even offered to be a sort of acting headmistress and do the accounting. But no – they were thanked kindly and shown the door.’