Andrea Frazer - Holmes and Garden 01 - The Curious Case of the Black Swan Song (14 page)

‘I never thought of that.’

‘Well, how many ragamuffin children do you know who would do our spying for us for just a ha’penny or a farthing?’

‘I get your point.’

‘You’re going to have to stop being such an upright citizen, Garden, or we’ll get nowhere.’

Holmes could surprise John H. at every turn. Maybe he wasn’t as useless as he had thought earlier. Only time would tell.

When they returned to The Black Swan, Holmes suggested that they go up to his room for a snifter, to take stock of just what they had purchased today, and to consider whether they needed anything else before they started publicly trading. As they passed the little library room in which the Ladies’ Guild had held their committee meetings, they both noticed a sign on the door. As well as a ‘do not disturb’ sign on the door, there was another one in block capitals. ‘PLEASE DO NOT ENTER. PRIVATE MEETING IN PROGRESS.’

‘I wonder what all that’s about?’ queried Garden.

‘No idea, but I’ll ask Byrd when we get downstairs. He’ll know, because there’ll probably be an order for liquid refreshments at some point during the evening.’

It took only one nip of malt for them to realise that all they were really missing was stationery, signage, and advertising. Printers, telephones, and answering machines they had picked up at the high-tech store, as well as their top-of-the-range computers and slightly less-expensive laptop for what Holmes regarded as an actuality – their secretary in the outer office. Garden had argued with him that such a person did not exist but so insistent was Holmes that she would in the very near future that he had given up the unequal battle.

Both men were quite tired after their day of high expenditure, so they just had a bar meal that evening and both retired early. On his way into his room, Holmes noticed that the private meeting still seemed to be in progress in the small meeting room.

Chapter Fifteen
Thursday

Garden spent rather a disturbed night, as there seemed to be quite a high level of noise both inside and outside the hotel, but he merely put in some earplugs, without which he never stayed anywhere, and achieved a sufficient amount of sleep to satisfy his minimum needs.

The same could not be said of Holmes, however, whom he found sitting in the bar room with a large mug of coffee before him, and eyes that could only be described as p*ss-holes in the snow. His hair was rumpled, and he was incongruously dressed in a pair of old jogging bottoms and a ragged out T-shirt.

‘Whatever happened to you?’ asked Garden, aghast. ‘Have you had an accident?’

‘I haven’t, but a lot of other people have,’ he mumbled enigmatically.

‘Has there been a car accident or something?’

‘Nothing like that,’ Holmes denied, ‘but do you remember that private meeting that was taking place last night?’

‘Of course I do.’

‘Well, they ordered food to be served there, and all of them were carted off just before midnight with what looked and sounded – and smelled,’ here, he grimaced at the memory ‘very like food poisoning.’

‘So why do you look like you’ve had hardly any sleep at all?’

‘Because their cries of pain and distress woke me, and when I went to see what was wrong they were vomiting everywhere – and worse – and I had to call an ambulance and alert someone here. There are hardly any live-in staff, so I was helping get the poor victims out of the room, get them into two ambulances, then helping clean up. It was absolutely disgusting.’

‘How foul for you. How many of them were in there?’

‘Five,’ replied Holmes in a hollow voice, as he remembered the sight that had met his eyes when he had first entered the room.

‘And who was having the meeting?’ Garden’s interest had been piqued now.

‘It was the three we spoke to last night, plus the solicitor, and the estate agent, Budge.’

‘No! What on earth did they have to eat? I thought Chef was really on his toes now.’

‘A share-it seafood platter between all of them.’

‘What on earth was in it?’

‘Oysters, prawns, scallops, lobster, blue-lipped mussels … You name it, it was on the platter, and enough for each of them to have some of everything.’

‘What a ghastly coincidence. My grandmother said never to eat seafood unless there was an R in the month,’ Garden informed him.

‘And never eat in a hotel where you’re in some sort of dispute with ownership.’

‘You don’t think one of the staff did this on purpose to protect the hotel, do you?’

‘I think it’s highly probable. So we now have someone else to unmask – someone who wants to protect the place as it is.’

‘Have you spoken to anyone?’ asked Garden, wondering if they now had two crimes, or just the one, getting bigger and bigger.

‘I had a quick chat with Byrd when he came in early for a delivery, and he said that he’d actually witnessed the booking of the room.’

‘I wouldn’t have thought Pippa would have let that lot meet on the disputed premises.’

‘Apparently it was her who took the booking. Byrd said that she charged them an outrageous price for it, to include food and drinks, then slipped half the money into her back pocket for “a treat for what I have to put up with in this hotel.”’

‘Anything else?’

‘Yes. Uneaten food from the platter as well as samples from the fridge were taken away for analysis, and Chef was arrested as soon as he came in this morning, and has been taken in for questioning again.’

‘Good God! And I put in earplugs last night because it seemed so noisy. If only I’d got up to investigate, I could have learnt all this at first hand.’

Holmes winced and gagged. ‘You wouldn’t have like it. The smell was filthy, as was the mess.’

‘I’m going to the kitchen to speak to the other staff. I don’t like the sound of this one bit,’ declared Garden. Something was nagging at the back of his mind, and only a bit of questioning and letting things churn over together would satisfy him.

‘You can’t do that till later,’ Holmes halted his retreat. ‘I arranged for a van to deliver everything from the auction rooms this morning, and the computer firm, as I bunged them an unashamed bribe, said they’d deliver before lunch too. Your excursion to the kitchens will have to wait. It can’t be that important.’ Garden’s guns were spiked before he’d even had time to put balls down the muzzles.

At the offices, the ground floor seemed to be packed to the gunwales with furniture. There was hardly room to swing a Colin, although Garden would have executed such an action with glee, given his current relationship with the animal. ‘How did I manage to buy so much?’ asked a puzzled Holmes, surveying the sea of oak and other woods.

‘I think it’s just like the pieces of a jigsaw, Holmes,’ said Garden, giving the whole muddle the benefit of his critical eye. ‘If we start with one corner, and start to put things where they’re going to go, it’ll be like the pile of jigsaw pieces – a real muddle, but a tidy flat picture once everything is in the right place.

‘Let’s put everything that we can into the front office, all piled up together, and then move on to bringing in the pieces that we know go in the back room,’ he suggested. Holmes agreed with a nod. He hadn’t felt very energetic when Garden had first appeared this morning, after his disturbed night, but the thought of seeing his beloved business as it would be when it was operating gave him the buzz he needed to help lift the heavy pieces of furniture.

Garden was right. Once as much as possible had been removed, it was possible to place the wooden filing cabinets round the walls, and position the desks and their swivel chairs where they thought they would like to be seated. What was left turned out to be just the furniture for the front office, and order was restored within a couple of hours.

There were a few awkward moments when Holmes appeared to be imprisoned behind a huge filing cabinet, in a position that it shouldn’t, by the very laws of nature, have been able to get into, but all was finally sorted, and they surveyed their handiwork, abrasions, and minor bruising with pride.

They had only just finished when a van from the hi-tech superstore drew up outside with their order for computers and other electronic supplies and, by the end of the morning, it really looked as if a business had its headquarters in the building.

When the van drove away, Holmes surveyed his kingdom with pride, rubbed his stomach, and said, ‘I’m absolutely starving after that. Coming back for some lunch?’

‘Yes,’ agreed Garden, similarly empty, ‘but not before I’ve had a little chat in that kitchen.’

On his return, Garden refused to discuss what had happened in the culinary regions in public and, after they had eaten, Holmes was on his feet almost before Garden had the chance to use his napkin. ‘Where are you off to?’ he asked, puzzled, as he thought they would be talking about what he had learnt earlier.

‘Stationer’s in the town. They have a sign in their window that promises next-day printing. I want to go in and take a look at what quality of paper and envelopes they offer, and in what fonts they can print. We need some stationery, and we need it fast.’

‘Couldn’t you order it on the internet? It’d be much cheaper.’

‘Cheaper schmeaper!’ Holmes exclaimed. ‘I told you, I don’t need to count the cost of things, and I want to able to touch the paper and feel its quality before I commit myself. Come along. We haven’t got all day, you know.’

‘Haven’t we?’

‘No. We’re off to see about the design of the signage for the windows after that.’

‘You never said anything about all this,’ Garden complained.

‘That’s because I only thought of it while you were away doing whatever it was you felt you had to do in the domestic quarters, so I made a couple of calls and set up appointments for us. No hanging around in a queue for Sherman Holmes, private investigator.’ The man puffed out his chest in pride as he uttered these last words. He was really beginning to believe his own myth.

At the stationer’s, the woman at the check-out looked at Holmes in disbelief when he said he had an appointment with the manager but, after she was urged to use the internal phone system, he was proved correct. She watched almost in awe as such a personage as Mr Prendergast came from behind the office door to escort his visitor beyond the reaches of her experience.

Mr Prendergast was not thrown at all by Holmes asking for a personal appointment when his customer informed him of the size his order was likely to be. He also stated that he wanted a large quantity of business cards.

‘And what would sir like on the cards? I have a blank here. If you tell me what goes where, we can then get down to discussing the colour of the printing and the font we will use.

Holmes closed his eyes in thought for a moment, and instructed, ‘Top right, the address. Across the middle, “Holmes and Garden”. Underneath, “Private Investigators”. Bottom left, telephone number. Bottom right, “Confidentiality guaranteed”.’

‘Colour and font?’ They were really down to business now.

‘White card, black ink, copperplate script,’ stated Holmes, with absolute conviction.

‘And would sir like a logo?’ asked the manager, ever helpful. ‘I’ll just show you our choice.’ And there it was, right at the bottom of the page – a tiny magnifying glass.

‘That’s the one. That’s exactly right. Where would we put it?’

‘May I suggest that we put that in the top left-hand corner, which is currently without adornment?’

‘Perfect. And will they be ready tomorrow, as advertised by your sign in the window?’

‘Of course, sir. Satisfaction guaranteed – rather like your confidentiality, eh?’

Holmes looked at the man blankly, as the little witticism shot right over his head, but Garden made the effort of contributing a little titter of mild amusement.

‘Morning or afternoon for collection?’

‘Afternoon, I should say, sir, just so that sir is not disappointed.’

‘Pleasure doing business with you. Come along, Garden. Things to do, people to see. Good day to you, sir,’ he rattled off, and Mr Prendergast found himself looking at a space where they had stood just moments before, and his door swinging closed.

Holmes was just as determined to get what he wanted at the sign-writer’s establishment.

‘It has to be gold lettering, and I want it in a flowing copperplate.’

‘As sir pleases. And what is it you want your signage to say?’

‘I want it to say exactly what it does on our business cards, but I won’t have one of those to give you until tomorrow. How soon can you do it? I’ll pay extra if I don’t have to wait.’

‘I can do it tomorrow, if sir will pay the premium for quick service.’

‘Sir will.’

‘Give me the address and a time, and I’ll meet you there.’

‘You’re a gentleman, sir. Any time after lunch.’

‘Without fail, sir,’ replied the sign-writer, pleased at such a contract in hard times. Many new businesses put up with something painted onto MDF these days. No class, that’s what this credit crunch had resulted in – reduced everything to the lowest common denominator – and his business had suffered particularly hard.

Garden pleaded an errand to run before they went through what he had learnt that morning in the kitchen and, although it was exciting news, there was a little job that he had to do first which simply wouldn’t wait, so he said he’d meet Holmes in the older man’s room when he was finished.

Holmes, who didn’t like secrets, harrumphed a bit, but finally gave in with a bad grace and went off to his room, having had to be content with Garden’s promise of ‘all in good time’.

Nothing can keep an optimist down however, and Holmes positively glowed with pride and excitement as he sat on his bed thinking about how close the offices of his new venture were to actually opening its doors to the public. They’d have to wind things up here, then get Garden moved into his apartment in Farlington Market while they sorted out the decoration and furnishing of the upstairs flat for him.

The thought of seeing Mrs Garden again made him feel all wobbly inside, and he desisted, hoping he wasn’t just coming down with something he had caught during his Good Samaritan act of the night before, but pulled himself together when he heard a discreet knock on the door. Garden had arrived.

They sat themselves in the two club chairs that faced the window and Holmes rang room service for a pot of Darjeeling and a plate of crumpets. ‘Might as well have afternoon tea, mightn’t we? Don’t often bother at home, but I do enjoy it when the opportunity arises.’ Garden merely nodded, not ever having been in the habit of enjoying anything of the sort. It simply wasn’t a meal that was in his family’s normal repertoire.

‘I learnt some very interesting things in that kitchen earlier,’ he began, ‘And, on reflection, I think I ought to have told you about it earlier, but you had the first half of the afternoon all planned out, it seemed a pity to spoil your plans.’

‘Come on, then, spill the beans, John H.’ This sounded promising.

‘I spoke to the sous chef, you know, the one with the terrible acne and the greasy hair.’

‘Ugh! I certainly do.’

‘I was asking about a seafood platter in general, as if I were going to order one for us, when he ups and says that it’s not on the menu yet. Well, I said I know that something ghastly happened last night with one that was definitely served, and I knew lightning wouldn’t strike twice in the same place.

‘He told me that he couldn’t do one, even for a special order, and that Pippa had taken the order herself, and gone out to get the ingredients for it. She even insisted on preparing it herself as she’d charged so much for it – didn’t want to inconvenience any of us, and she’d even take it up herself. She even made the seafood sauce to go over it all.

‘When I made a comment about her diligence in seeing that special orders were filled to her satisfaction, one of the washers-up put in that it was no wonder she was giving it her everything. It must be sheer gratitude, because she’d heard that her grandfather was going to change his will if she didn’t buckle down to college in September, and pull up her socks with regard to customer satisfaction in the meantime.