Summary:
Cambridge, 1906.
On the very day Jonty Stewart proposes that he and Orlando Coppersmith move in together, Fate trips them up. Rather, it trips Orlando, sending him down a flight of stairs and leaving him with an injury that erases his memory. Instead of taking the next step in their relationship, they’re back to square one. It’s bad enough that Orlando doesn’t remember being intimate with Jonty—he doesn’t remember Jonty at all.
Back inside the introverted, sexually innocent shell he inhabited before he met Jonty, Orlando is faced with two puzzles. Not only does he need to recover the lost pieces of his past, he’s also been tasked by the Master to solve a four-hundred-year-old murder before the end of term. The college’s reputation is riding on it.
Crushed that his lover doesn’t remember him, Jonty puts aside his grief to help decode old documents for clues to the murder. But a greater mystery remains—one involving the human heart.
To solve it, Orlando must hear the truth about himself—even if it means he may not fall in love with Jonty the second time around…
On the very day Jonty Stewart proposes that he and Orlando Coppersmith move in together, Fate trips them up. Rather, it trips Orlando, sending him down a flight of stairs and leaving him with an injury that erases his memory. Instead of taking the next step in their relationship, they’re back to square one. It’s bad enough that Orlando doesn’t remember being intimate with Jonty—he doesn’t remember Jonty at all.
Back inside the introverted, sexually innocent shell he inhabited before he met Jonty, Orlando is faced with two puzzles. Not only does he need to recover the lost pieces of his past, he’s also been tasked by the Master to solve a four-hundred-year-old murder before the end of term. The college’s reputation is riding on it.
Crushed that his lover doesn’t remember him, Jonty puts aside his grief to help decode old documents for clues to the murder. But a greater mystery remains—one involving the human heart.
To solve it, Orlando must hear the truth about himself—even if it means he may not fall in love with Jonty the second time around…
Summary:
The ghosts of the past will shape your future. Unless you fight them...
Cambridge, 1907: After settling in their new home, Cambridge dons Orlando Coppersmith and Jonty Stewart are looking forward to nothing more exciting than teaching their students and playing rugby. Their plans change when a friend asks their help to clear an old flame who stands accused of murder.
Doing the right thing means Jonty and Orlando must leave the sheltering walls of St. Bride’s to enter a labyrinth of suspects and suspicions, lies and anguish.
Their investigation raises ghosts from Jonty’s past when the murder victim turns out to be one of the men who sexually abused him at school. The trauma forces Jonty to withdraw behind a wall of painful memories. And Orlando fears he may forever lose the intimacy of his best friend and lover.
When another one of Jonty’s abusers is found dead, police suspicion falls on the Cambridge fellows themselves. Finding this murderer becomes a race to solve the crime…before it destroys Jonty’s fragile state of mind.
Warning: Contains sensual m/m lovemaking and hot men playing rugby.
Cambridge, 1907: After settling in their new home, Cambridge dons Orlando Coppersmith and Jonty Stewart are looking forward to nothing more exciting than teaching their students and playing rugby. Their plans change when a friend asks their help to clear an old flame who stands accused of murder.
Doing the right thing means Jonty and Orlando must leave the sheltering walls of St. Bride’s to enter a labyrinth of suspects and suspicions, lies and anguish.
Their investigation raises ghosts from Jonty’s past when the murder victim turns out to be one of the men who sexually abused him at school. The trauma forces Jonty to withdraw behind a wall of painful memories. And Orlando fears he may forever lose the intimacy of his best friend and lover.
When another one of Jonty’s abusers is found dead, police suspicion falls on the Cambridge fellows themselves. Finding this murderer becomes a race to solve the crime…before it destroys Jonty’s fragile state of mind.
Warning: Contains sensual m/m lovemaking and hot men playing rugby.
Summary:
This time, one touch could destroy everything…
The suspected murder of the king's ex-mistress is Cambridge dons Orlando Coppersmith and Jonty Stewart's most prestigious case yet. And the most challenging, since clues are as hard to come by as the killer's possible motive.
At the hotel where the body was found, Orlando goes undercover as a professional dancing partner while Jonty checks in as a guest. It helps the investigation, but it also means limiting their communication to glances across the dance floor. It's sheer agony.
A series of anonymous letters warns the sleuths they'll be sorry if they don't drop the investigation. When another murder follows, Jonty is convinced their involvement might have caused the victim's death. Yet they can't stop, for this second killing brings to light a wealth of hidden secrets.
For Orlando, the letters pose a more personal threat. He worries that someone will blow his cover and discover their own deepest secret… The intimate relationship he enjoys with Jonty could not only get them thrown out of Cambridge, but arrested for indecency.
Summary:
He thought he knew who he was. Now he’s a stranger to himself.
When Jonty Stewart and Orlando Coppersmith witness the suspicious death of a young man at the White City exhibition in London, they’re keen to investigate—especially after the cause of death proves to be murder. But police Inspector Redknapp refuses to let them help, even after they stumble onto clues to the dead man’s identity.
Orlando’s own identity becomes the subject for speculation when, while mourning the death of his beloved grandmother, he learns that she kept secrets about her past. Desperate to discover the truth about his family, Orlando departs suddenly on a solo quest to track down his roots, leaving Jonty distraught.
While Jonty frantically tries to locate his lover, Orlando wonders if he’ll be able to find his real family before he goes mad. After uncovering more leads to the White City case, they must decide whether to risk further involvement. Because if either of them dares try to solve the murder, Inspector Redknapp could expose their illicit—and illegal—love affair.
Praise for Charlie Cochrane
“This quick novel reads well, and shows the deep affection some men have for one another, as well as the hatred others have of them” History and Women
When Jonty Stewart and Orlando Coppersmith witness the suspicious death of a young man at the White City exhibition in London, they’re keen to investigate—especially after the cause of death proves to be murder. But police Inspector Redknapp refuses to let them help, even after they stumble onto clues to the dead man’s identity.
Orlando’s own identity becomes the subject for speculation when, while mourning the death of his beloved grandmother, he learns that she kept secrets about her past. Desperate to discover the truth about his family, Orlando departs suddenly on a solo quest to track down his roots, leaving Jonty distraught.
While Jonty frantically tries to locate his lover, Orlando wonders if he’ll be able to find his real family before he goes mad. After uncovering more leads to the White City case, they must decide whether to risk further involvement. Because if either of them dares try to solve the murder, Inspector Redknapp could expose their illicit—and illegal—love affair.
Praise for Charlie Cochrane
“This quick novel reads well, and shows the deep affection some men have for one another, as well as the hatred others have of them” History and Women
Summary:
An invitation to stay at a friend of the Stewart family’s stately home can only mean one thing for Jonty Stewart and Orlando Coppersmith — a new case for the amateur sleuths. And with two apparently unrelated suicides, a double chase is on...
But things never run smoothly for the Cambridge fellows. In an era when their love dare not speak its name, the chance of discovery (and disgrace) is ever present—how do you explain yourself when a servant discovers you doing the midnight run along the corridor?
The chase stops being a game for Orlando when the case brings back memories of his father’s suicide and the search for the identity of his grandfather. And the solution presents them with one of the most difficult moral decisions they’ve had to make...
Re-Read Review July 2016:
My heart still broke for Jonty and Orlando when Orlando took his fall, even knowing the hows and whys it still tore at me. I love this series even more the second time around.
Original Review from August 2014:
After reading the first chapter in this entry, my heart was breaking for both Jonty and Orlando. For Orlando, because he was missing the past year of his life, for Jonty, because he didn't know if his lover would ever be his again. My heart pounded throughout the story wondering just how that part of the tale would work itself out. As for the mystery put before the pair, I knew they would be able to come to the truth of the historic debate but when solving a centuries old caper would proof ever be able to be definitive? You'll just have to read to find out. Now I'm off to read book 4: Lessons in Power.
Lessons in Power #4
Re-Read Review July 2016:
I didn't think it possible that I could love Jonty & Orlando more but this second time around is amazing!
Original Review Summer 2014:
Another great Jonty and Orlando tale. My heart was breaking for Jonty having to relive the ordeals he suffered in his earlier years. My heart also ached for Orlando having to watch the man he loved relive those horrors and not be able to help other than be there for him. Which of course meant more than Orlando realized it did. This mystery hitting so close to home again brings in Mama and Papa Stewart in loving and interesting ways. Mrs. Stewart may be a woman of her time but she isn't one to be scoffed at either, she's a delight to read. Off to start number five.
I didn't think it possible that I could love Jonty & Orlando more but this second time around is amazing!
Original Review Summer 2014:
Another great Jonty and Orlando tale. My heart was breaking for Jonty having to relive the ordeals he suffered in his earlier years. My heart also ached for Orlando having to watch the man he loved relive those horrors and not be able to help other than be there for him. Which of course meant more than Orlando realized it did. This mystery hitting so close to home again brings in Mama and Papa Stewart in loving and interesting ways. Mrs. Stewart may be a woman of her time but she isn't one to be scoffed at either, she's a delight to read. Off to start number five.
Lessons in Seduction #6
Original Review from September 2014:
As much as Orlando has grown since his fateful meeting of Jonty, he still keeps his innocence and it's still so endearing. When Jonty had to explain just what a "gigolo" was, I laughed so hard. As much as I love seeing Orlando and Jonty sleuthing together, it was a nice change to see Jonty doing a good share of his investigating with his father, Mr. Stewart. We get a brief introduction to Orlando's grandmother which foretells possible future detecting and maybe (hopefully not) tension between the two lovers. As for the mystery that they are asked in to investigate, it seems calmer than some of their previous cases but still keeps your interest. Another winner so I'm off to start number 7.
Lessons in Trust #7
Original Review September 2014:
Another great entry in this series. We find Jonty & Orlando in London partaking in the exhibits of the White City when they find themselves a dead body and it's surrounding mystery, although they don't know it's a dead body at the time. Dealing with a new detective who clearly doesn't want any help from Cambridge's version of Holmes & Watson, they find themselves digging into this one on their own, with the aid of Jonty's father of course. Before too much headway is made, Orlando is dealt a serious blow to who he thought he was. Determine to discover the truth on his own, he leaves Jonty in the middle of the night to solve the mystery of him alone. Well written and two intriguing mysteries to solve, we are rewarded with yet another classic entry.
Lessons for Suspicious Minds #10
Original Review August 2014:
Suspcious Minds finds us back in 1909. It's nice to see the parental Stewarts back and sinking their teeth into Jonty and Orlando's investigations again. I think Papa Stewart is more eager to join in the hunt but Mama Stewart, once given an assignment is actually even more determined to assist her boys find the truth, even if it might reach a little too close to treasured loved ones. The mystery of suicide or not is intriguing and seeing how both Jonty and Orlando deal with the personal memories the subject conjures up is well written. I very much enjoyed the non-mystery related subplot of Jonty and Orlando having to deal with not being able to "do their duty" because of their location. Added some much appreciated humor when the investigation begins to way down both, our favorite couple and the reader's hearts.
Original Review August 2014:
Suspcious Minds finds us back in 1909. It's nice to see the parental Stewarts back and sinking their teeth into Jonty and Orlando's investigations again. I think Papa Stewart is more eager to join in the hunt but Mama Stewart, once given an assignment is actually even more determined to assist her boys find the truth, even if it might reach a little too close to treasured loved ones. The mystery of suicide or not is intriguing and seeing how both Jonty and Orlando deal with the personal memories the subject conjures up is well written. I very much enjoyed the non-mystery related subplot of Jonty and Orlando having to deal with not being able to "do their duty" because of their location. Added some much appreciated humor when the investigation begins to way down both, our favorite couple and the reader's hearts.
Lessons in Discovery #3
St. Bride’s College, Cambridge, November 1906
Champagne. A dressed Cromer crab. Strawberries.
How Jonty Stewart could have got hold of strawberries on the fifteenth of November only the angels could say, but there they were on the table along with a jug of cream and a bowl of sugar to indisputably prove their existence. Orlando Coppersmith reached across to take one of the little ruby-like fruits but a sharp slap to his hand stopped him.
“No pudding until firsts are done with, you know that.” Jonty grinned like a schoolboy and heaped crab upon their plates.
“Why all this opulence? I’ve not seen such a lunch in ages.” The bright noontime sun slanted in through the latticed windows of Jonty’s study, the mellow gold stone of St. Bride’s college shining with a warm lustre.
“Do you really not know, or are you teasing me again, in revenge for all the times I’ve teased you?” The blank look on Orlando’s face seemed to show that he really had no recognition of the significance of the date. “It’s exactly a year to the day that I came back to St. Bride’s and so underhandedly stole your chair in the Senior Common Room. Don’t you remember?”
Orlando smiled. “The day is forever etched into my memory. That afternoon was the last time I enjoyed any peace and quiet, for one thing.” A crab claw came flying through the air but he swerved neatly to avoid it. “This champagne is truly extraordinary.”
“Mother sent it, she always has champagne on her wedding anniversaries.” Jonty admired the sunlight-kissed bubbles then took a deep draught. “Do you know, the man who invented this compared it to tasting stars. He was absolutely right.”
Orlando looked at his glass with a degree of suspicion. “Just why did your mother send us champagne?”
“For our anniversary, of course. Do I need to spell it out to you like I spell out As You Like It to my dunderheads of students? She wanted us to have something special today, as she and Papa do.”
The answer didn’t mollify Orlando. He knew that Helena Stewart was aware of exactly what went on between him and her son, but this gift seemed a touch too blatant. He drank it nonetheless, enjoying the food, which he guessed Jonty’s mama had also had a hand in providing.
“Seems appropriate, really—” Jonty had finished his seafood and was ready for more chatter, “—as I often feel like we are a married couple in all but name. Oh, I say, let me slap your back.”
The food and drink had conspired to attempt an attack on Orlando’s lungs and he began to choke. A whack from Jonty’s strong hand dislodged the offending items, enabling him to take several breaths, and another glass of bubbly, to recover. “You feel like we’re married?”
“Of course I do, don’t you?”
“I’ve never thought of it. Still, I guess that marriage of any kind has never really entered my head.” Orlando frowned, having to mull over that common thing, a revolutionary thought from Jonty.
“Consider this. We spend as much time as we can together, we often share a bed, we take holidays with each other, we are absolutely faithful—well I am, I have my suspicions about you and that chap from the college next door—so many things that any respectable married couple would do. It’s only the matter of getting children that makes us different and neither of us have the anatomical requirement to oblige on that score.”
“And we can’t take the vows, Jonty, the marriage vows. No respectability for us.” Orlando knew it galled his lover, not being able to walk hand in hand together along the river, never to be able to dance together or show any untoward display of affection. Perhaps one day the world would be a more understanding place, but not now.
“Bit of a shame, if you think about it, because we live by them. ‘For better or worse, cleaving only to one another’ and all that. Think we might do a rather better job of it than some of my father’s friends.” Jonty sighed, refilled their glasses and ushered his guest from the table to the deep armchairs before the fireplace. “Such a shame that I can’t show everyone how much you mean to me.”
Orlando’s chest swelled with pride. He knew exactly how much they loved each other, and couldn’t help but bask in the glow every time Jonty said something like this. He reached for Jonty’s hand. “You mean the world to me, too.”
Jonty looked at him as if he was making absolutely sure of what he was about to say, which wasn’t a usual Stewart trait. “The university is modernising. These are new times. We don’t need to live in college anymore, you know. We could take a nice property up on the Madingley Road and set up house together. As long as we had a housekeeper who wouldn’t be too fussy about how many beds had been slept in. Miss Peters could probably find us a suitable one.”
“A house?” Dining out of college had been shock enough, going on holiday a jolt to the system, but to live outside of St. Bride’s, that was unheard of. “And why Miss Peters? You don’t think that she suspects about us?” Ariadne Peters was the sister of the Master of St. Bride’s, and the only woman apart from the nurse permitted to live in the college’s hallowed grounds.
“I think it quite likely that she does, she being possibly the most perceptive person in St. Bride’s. In any case, she’d be far too discreet to say anything as this college has seen enough scandal. Nonetheless think on the idea of a house. I don’t propose it idly.”
“I will think on it, but you must let me recover from my surprise at the suggestion before I can make a rational decision.”
Jonty nodded and they refilled their bowls with the last of the fruit. When there wasn’t even the merest hint of the existence of a strawberry left, Orlando wiped his hands with great precision then reached into his pocket. He drew out a small red box, which he handed to his friend. “Thought you might like this, as a memento of the last year.”
“So you did remember, you cunning old fox.” Jonty opened the lid and immediately shut it. “I can’t accept this, it must have cost you a small fortune. Take it back, get the money and put it in your savings.” He flushed red and couldn’t even look his lover in the eye.
“I will not take it back and you will accept it. You were the one who spoke of marriage, so perhaps this is an appropriate gift.” Orlando opened the box himself, taking out an exquisite signet ring—Welsh gold, of an amazing hue—that had been made specially to his order, great subterfuge and a piece of string having been used to gauge the size of Jonty’s little finger as he slept. “Please put it on for me.” He admired the golden circlet as it twinkled in the late-autumn light. Jonty could walk around Cambridge wearing his ring and it would always be symbolic of their union.
Jonty slid the band over his finger, pronounced amazement at the accuracy of fit, and grinned. “I’m ashamed to say I have no equivalent gift for you.”
“No need, strawberries in November are priceless. And you’ve given me the best year of my life.”
“Truly? Even including murder most foul, an unwanted suitor and our lives endangered?”
“Absolutely. Never been so happy.”
“And is that you talking or the champagne?” Jonty put his head to one side, like a bird.
“Oh, definitely me. The drink would make me say much naughtier things.”
Jonty smiled, indulgence lighting his face. “Let’s take a walk up to the lock and enjoy this unseasonably mild weather.” Through the latticed window the piercing blue of the sky, found only in England in spring and autumn, mirrored Jonty’s eyes. “Then we can come back here and read the sonnets together. Even number eighteen.”
Jonty liked the early sonnets, although Orlando had been terribly shocked to find out that the intended recipient had been a man. When he’d discovered number twenty-nine it had brought tears to his eyes, speaking to him so clearly of his own situation—the death of his father, the years of brooding and then the arrival of Jonty.
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate…
Orlando always read it every time he felt low, which was less and less often, now.
*****
It was such a fine afternoon, they ventured far beyond the lock to a stretch of river where a few rowing eights were practicing, their red-faced coaches cycling along the towpath, scattering ducks and little old ladies as they went.
“Did you ever attempt rowing, Dr. Coppersmith?” They’d been content to use Christian names when they were in public on holiday, but back in their own city they’d gone back to their usual formality.
“I did, with no great success. Every time I took to a boat I seemed to have acquired an extra pair of knees and all four of the bony things kept trying to smack me in the ear.”
Orlando laughed and Jonty laughed with him. Orlando’s attitudes had changed beyond all recognition this past year. Before Jonty had come and stolen his chair, he’d been sullen, unsmiling, someone who viewed intercourse as akin to the preparation of Egyptian mummies—he knew the procedures existed, but the mechanisms were a puzzle and the process itself of no interest. Neither love nor easy laughter would have been possible before Jonty came along. Anything was possible now, even intimacy. Now they made love for all sorts of reasons, not just for gratification but in friendship, for consolation, because they were happy or because they were sad.
Jonty smiled indulgently as they walked along, even while he was sniggering just a little at the sight of a seven-foot oarsman suffering a tongue-lashing from a cox who was all of four foot eleven. He could see this idyllic life stretching long into the future, God willing, with his true love by his side and a bank balance full of his grandmother’s money to support them in whatever they decided to do. To buy a little house, with an apple tree in the garden and a flowering cherry outside the bedroom window, that would be ideal. Some of the furniture held in store for him up in London or down in Sussex could grace it, although it might seem rather grand for a little villa up the Madingley Road. If Orlando would ever agree to their buying one.
The two men tired of watching the rowing, turned and began to amble back to the college, a slight anticipation starting to bubble up in Jonty’s stomach. There was every chance that he could get Orlando into a bed this afternoon, and that would be an absolute delight. Even if the mattress wasn’t visited there would still be at least a hug or two on the sofa which was always very pleasant. They’d reached a stage where the last favours were not the be-all and end-all, wonderful as they were. Jonty cast a glance across at his lover and caught him, unquestionably, in the same act of anticipation.
Orlando blushed, something that hadn’t happened for a long time. I know what you’re contemplating, Jonty mused. Great minds definitely do think alike.
Their pace quickened and by the time they reached the Bishop’s Cope they were no longer just ambling but striding along with great purpose. Their tempo was brisk by the time they passed the porters’ lodge and they positively sped up Jonty’s staircase, eager to find themselves alone and safe to express their affection.
Orlando was taking the steps two at a time, as usual, in his desire to be in the room as soon as possible. He misjudged the edge of a particularly worn stair, which had endured hundreds of years’ worth of treading and wasn’t inclined to be kind anymore, then slipped. Perhaps nine times out of ten a man might have done that and suffered no worse than bruised knees or a scraped hand. Orlando suffered the ignominies of the tenth, and went clattering halfway down the flight.
It was ironic. Orlando normally led the way, making the joke that Jonty should be behind him in case he slipped, so that there would be adequate padding to break his fall. But this day Jonty was ahead, even more eager to reach the room than his friend was. He heard the tumble, turned—dismayed—and rushed back.
“Orlando!” Their rule about names was immediately broken. This was a moment of crisis, as the minute Jonty looked down he could see that his friend wasn’t moving. “Can you hear me? Are you all right?” He reached the crumpled body, was relieved to see the chest rising and falling and to hear that the breathing sounded clear.
But there was no response, not even a moan, and blood had begun to trickle from the back of Orlando’s head.
Jonty leapt up, his heart racing and a nauseous feeling filling his stomach. He knocked at the nearest door, demanding that the occupant go to the lodge to make the porters fetch a doctor. The inhabitant of the next room was sent for Nurse Hatfield. He returned to keep an eye on Orlando, making sure that he was comfortable and not about to do anything dramatic like swallow his tongue. It was all he could do, apart from worry himself sick.
*****
Nurse Cecily Hatfield steamed up the stairs like a great ocean liner, cleaving a path through the knot of ghoulish students who’d formed to observe the scene and who’d ignored Jonty’s instructions to “bugger off”. They didn’t dare ignore the nurse’s rather more politely worded invitation to do the same.
“Don’t know why they do it,” she complained, kneeling down and efficiently checking Orlando over for breaks or bleeding. “Nothing interesting in another person’s distress, is there? Well, there are no bones broken as I far as I can see and I think—” she gingerly felt around Orlando’s head, “—the skull’s intact too. Bit of bleeding, but his breathing’s nice and steady. Not been sick, has he?”
Jonty shook his head, afraid to speak in case his voice betrayed him. He was petrified that the words No, he’s just lain there would actually come out as Please don’t let him die, I love him so much.
The doctor arrived promptly, the same man whom Jonty had first met over the dead body of a murdered man, years ago it seemed now. He made his own examination, confirming Nurse Hatfield’s initial diagnosis and advising that the man could be moved on a stretcher to the sick bay.
Jonty sped off to the porters’ lodge to organise the people and equipment to do this, glad to have something to do that was helpful and practical. Something which took his mind off the poor bloodied head lying on his staircase.
Time became distorted and things passed in a daze. It seemed to take forever to get Orlando onto the stretcher, then only a matter of seconds before he was being put onto a bed in the sick bay and the nurse was thrusting a piece of paper into Jonty’s hand. It was a list of things the patient might need, carefully written down,
“Because I’m not sure you’ll remember otherwise, Dr. Stewart. Not in your present state.” She’d no doubt recognised his need to be busy, filling him up with heavily sugared tea to give him the resources to do it. “I don’t want another young man falling down those stairs, this time because of fainting or delayed shock.”
While Jonty was away fetching Orlando’s nightclothes and wash bag, Orlando recovered consciousness and the extent of his injuries became clear. Or so Dr. Peters informed him as they met outside the door to the sickroom, his firm grip stopping Jonty barging straight in to greet his now-awakened friend.
“Dr. Coppersmith’s just with the doctor at present.” Peters saw Stewart’s worried look and smiled kindly. “He is in no danger, our medical friend seems quite confident about that. But there is something you should know before I let you in there. He’s lost some of his memory.”
“I don’t understand. Is this usual with a head injury?” Jonty was full of renewed concern. He’d heard Orlando go flying and seen the way his skull had struck the step; it worried him enormously.
“The doctor assures me that it is not abnormal. He may regain all that he has forgotten, eventually. He can remember the students coming back for the start of Michaelmas term…”
“Poor Orlando. He’s been hard at work on a treatise these last few weeks and now I suppose he’ll have to rethink it.” Jonty smiled tentatively.
“No, Dr. Stewart, I have expressed myself poorly. It is the Michaelmas term of last year he remembers, nothing since. I think it’s even possible that he will not recognise you.”
Lessons in Power #4
Cambridge, February 1907
“I’ve been reading a book.”
“I remember you saying that once before. We were both stark naked in front of a fire just like this one and by rights should have been making a first consummation of our passion.”
Orlando Coppersmith swatted at his friend’s head with the first thing that came to hand, which luckily for Jonty Stewart wasn’t one of the fire dogs but a bread roll. “It’s a constant amazement to me that you’ve ever shut up long enough for a consummation to take place. Blether, blether, if they made it an Olympic event you’d be so certain to be champion that no one else would turn up to oppose you.”
“And the point of this conversation was?” Jonty flicked some toast crumbs from his cuff.
“This book concerned the meaning of names and it struck me how apt yours was. Well, it struck me at the time—after the latest bit of tomfoolery I’m not so sure.” Orlando, once a potential Olympic frowning champion, smiled happily.
“Handsome, lovely, is that what it means? Statuesque? Desirable?” Jonty chirped away like a little bird, full of the joys of a day which suggested that spring might be just around the corner, if the light filtering into the dining room was any indication.
Orlando grabbed his friend’s hands. “Stop it. I’m in deadly earnest. It means ‘God has given’. Now if that’s not an apt description of you for me then I’ve no idea what is.”
Jonty had the grace to blush. “You’ll have to tell Mama. She alleges the choice of Jonathan was all Papa’s. She wanted to call me James.”
“I think I’ll start calling you Godgiven or some such thing when you’re at your most annoying. It might get you to calm down.” Orlando buttered his toast with great energy, as if it were his friend’s bottom that was getting a whack.
Jonty poked out his tongue, although his lover couldn’t be sure whether he was thinking or being insulting. “And what does Orlando mean? Irritating? Insatiable?”
“It’s from Roland.”
“Well, I’m none the wiser with that.”
“Neither was the book, to tell the truth, although it’s supposed to be something to do with a famous land. I suspect it means ‘he who gains fame throughout the country’.”
Jonty turned up his nose. “More likely ‘he who spends hours in the bathroom’. Luckily we have two in this place or I’d never be ready in the morning.”
In fact there were three bathrooms in their house, but the one in the self-contained annexe—which itself contained Mrs. Ward, their housekeeper—never got taken into the reckoning as they never got to go near it. It was part of the “servant’s quarters”, as the house agent had referred to them when they’d first enquired about the property, only connected with the rest of the building via a rickety flight of stairs which led to the kitchen.
Not that Mrs. Ward ever complained. Her suite of rooms had been decorated and kitted out beautifully, along with all the rest of the house, prior to the men taking occupation. A sailor’s widow in her mid-forties, and with her only son now himself at sea, she’d been recommended to them as a lady who relished the prospect of something to set her abilities to. As the recommendation had come from Ariadne Peters, sister to the Master of St. Bride’s college, Jonty and Orlando had paid close attention to it. They didn’t want their jobs at the college proving surplus to requirements overnight. Mrs. Ward had a big heart, an open mind and a light touch with pastry, which were the best possible qualifications, and in the fortnight they’d been in residence, the men had no complaints.
Their house, a cottage dating to Tudor times but adorned with later extensions and amendments, had previously belonged to an old lady who’d died. Jonty had spied the property out before Christmas and fallen in love with it. He’d whisked Orlando up there the very evening he agreed to buying a house and the cottage had weaved its magic on him too. They’d bought it before anyone else could, then set to with plans for improvements.
Or, to be accurate, Helena Stewart, Jonty’s mother, had descended on her broomstick and taken all the plans for enhancements in hand, as “her lads” were so busy with university business. Soon the Madingley Road was alive with decoration, renovations, plumbing and installation of proper central heating, all without losing an ounce of the property’s charm. It was only a matter of weeks before it was habitable and on February the first they took possession.
“Should I carry you over the threshold?” Jonty had been barely able to restrain the bliss in his voice when they’d taken possession. “Or you me? We could even go in, then come back out so we both get a go…” His words had been stopped in the most effective way, by a single, protracted kiss—allowable only as no one else was within a half a mile’s sight.
Now it felt as if they’d lived in this house forever. Orlando, whose home for many years had consisted of a set of rooms in St. Bride’s in which no one but his students and the Master were allowed—and a chair in the Senior Common Room which no one cared to sit next to—was amazed that his horizons had expanded so far. He kept a room back in college for supervisions, as did Jonty, and their chairs still stood side by side in the SCR, inviolate, but now Orlando had a cottage which he shared in joint names with his lover. He also had second, third, call-them-what-you-would homes in both Sussex and London with the rest of the Stewarts, for whom he was a cross between a fourth son and a favourite son-in-law.
Forsythia Cottage was spacious, affording them each a study to fill with their books, pictures and general clutter. It was well appointed with bedrooms for household and guests, although only one of their beds ever seemed to be slept in on any given night. They always took breakfast together, Mrs. Ward serving up ridiculous quantities of bacon and eggs or—as this morning, when talk turned to names—kedgeree, which was spicy and succulent.
“Shall we have Matthew Ainslie up to Bride’s for High Table?” Jonty’s little nose rose above the newspaper, making him look even more like a small inquisitive mammal than usual.
“Why?” Orlando had managed to avoid having the man visit them through the Michaelmas term, and didn’t want things to change now.
“Because we’re meeting him at the rugby on Wednesday. It would be terribly rude to just shake his hand after the match, say ‘Sorry the university slaughtered Blackheath’, and then just leave him there.”
It was true; Orlando had to admit that would be shoddy treatment. Even for someone who had once made a pass at him up in the woods. He no longer hated Matthew for past indiscretions, nor wanted to kick him in the seat of his pants, but he was sometimes jealous of the affection Jonty felt for a man they’d only met on holiday. “I suppose so. We can let Miss Peters get her teeth into him if he gets out of hand.”
“I’d pay money to see that happen.” Jonty drained his cup and poured another. The late Mr. Ward had tasted the excellent coffee supplied in foreign parts and had taught his wife how to make a good brew.
“I suppose in that case we should see about accommodation for him?”
“No need. He’s been talking about staying at the University Arms, which seems a better idea than having him here. Then he won’t have to listen to your snoring.”
“For the one-hundred-and-ninety-third time, I don’t snore.”
“Don’t you?” Jonty stood up and reached over the table for the marmalade, which his lover had appropriated. “Well, some bloke comes in my bed of a night and reverberates. Perhaps it’s a farmer driving his pigs to market. Ow!”
Orlando had taken advantage of Jonty’s position and landed a hearty slap on his backside. “You’ll get another one of those every time you accuse me of snoring.”
“Seems a positive incentive to keep on doing it then.” Jonty sat down gingerly, although he didn’t mind being whacked by his lover—it often led on to something much more pleasant. “I’ll ring Matthew at lunchtime, then.”
*****
“Coppersmith! Orlando Coppersmith!” A chap the size of the great north wall of the Eiger came into view, cutting a lane through the throng of people along the touchline. He grabbed Orlando’s hand and pumped it up and down until all the blood flow seemed to cease.
“Morgan.” Orlando was pleased to have remembered the name. “I thought you’d have been playing.” He jabbed a finger at the pitch, a field as muddy as only Cambridge could produce in early spring.
“Dodgy leg.” The man mountain grimaced. “Come to cheer the team on.” He offered his hand to Jonty.
“This is Dr. Stewart.” Orlando made the introduction with pride. “He played here in about 1876.”
“Turn of the century, thank you. I think I may have played against you at some point, Mr. Morgan.” Jonty eyed the man’s broken nose and had the vaguest memory that he might just have been responsible. “You beat us then, but I hope we’ll make amends today. Ah, please excuse us…”
A hubbub broke out pitchside, which seemed to consist of repeated sayings along the lines of “Matthew, you old dog” or “Jonty Stewart, when are you going to get a decent haircut?” Together with muttered harrumphs from Orlando, which might or might not have been welcoming, this was all accompanied by an outbreak of backslapping, handshaking and general bonhomie. At least two of the three present were pleased at the reunion. For Ainslie, meeting Jonty and Orlando was the one positive thing to have come out of last summer’s holiday on Jersey, during which his father had been murdered and these two bright young men had solved the case.
“It’s wonderful to be here at last.” Ainslie breathed deep of the fresh Cambridge air, so much healthier than the latest London smog.
“All we needed was for you to get here.” Jonty’s grin couldn’t have been wider. “Now we can get a pint of IPA inside ourselves before kick-off. Need the warmth and sustenance.”
It proved just as well; the first half of the match was slow, more laboured than they’d hoped, and only the thought of another pint of beer was going to see them through if the second half turned out just as dire.
Orlando went off to find the little boys’ room and discussion turned to matters of dangerous binding in the scrum, when Morgan clapped Jonty on the back, sending him sprawling.
The man had been standing close by for the first half, obviously privy to the flow of wit and repartee which passed between the two fellows of Bride’s and their guest. “I’d never have thought to see old Coppersmith in such high humour. What happened to him the last few years to make such a change?”
“Oh—” Jonty was, for once, lost for words. Why did people have to ask such bloody awkward questions? Ones to which the wrong answer could lead to two years’ hard labour? “Ah, he, um, met a lady who had an extraordinary effect upon him.”
“The old dog. I was always convinced he would turn out to be a confirmed bachelor. Any sign of wedding bells?”
“I doubt it. She loves another, you know. Still, he burns a light for her.” Jonty was surprised by Orlando slapping his shoulder. He wasn’t certain whether his lover had heard what he’d said, although the man would have to be blind not to notice Ainslie’s secretive grin.
The game began again, with a bit more swashbuckling spirit on display and, as always seemed to happen, some wag asking whether the referee might benefit from borrowing Stewart’s spectacles. A stiff talking-to had no doubt been delivered with the half-time oranges and the end result of two goals all was regarded as being fair.
“Close call, eh?” Ainslie kept his voice low.
“The match or what he asked?” Jonty looked sidelong at his guest.
The crowds were wending their way back to colleges, pubs, the train station, wherever they’d come from. Morgan had buttonholed Orlando and was bending his ear up ahead on the path from Grange Road to the river. It was getting dark, the lights of Cambridge appearing like stars in the gloaming.
“It’s always the same old story, isn’t it? Lies and subterfuge.” Ainslie shivered, as did his host. The growing coolness in the air didn’t chill them half as much as the thought of the many little deceptions which pervaded their lives.
“I know.” They’d reached the river Cam, Orlando still being regaled with rugby tales and looking like he was desperate to escape. “We’re off to college to change. Meet us in my set for a sherry before dinner.” Jonty shook Ainslie’s hand, watched his neat, strong frame make its way along past St. Catherine’s, then set off to rescue his lover.
*****
“Why did you have to say that?” Orlando’s room in St. Bride’s provided a sanctuary; here a man could talk freely.
“Say what?” Jonty had forgotten all about the halftime banter. That was forty minutes of rugby, a pleasant walk and a glass of sherry ago.
“About me meeting a lady who loved another. I could hear your voice a mile away. What sort of an impression will they have of me? I thought you didn’t approve of lies.” Orlando was fuming. Far from making him mellow, the beer had turned him belligerent.
“I don’t. Everything I said was true. You met my mama, who is without doubt a lady, and she has had a great effect upon you. And you could never marry her, could you, even if you wanted to?” Jonty looked with regret at the old leather chair by the fire. A nap would be nice but he didn’t suppose he’d be allowed one.
“That’s being pedantic. It may have been the literal truth but it told a misleading story.”
“Well, would you rather I’d said that you’d discovered the delights of my bed, which is the reason why you’re so much more confident and worldly wise? Think of the impression that would have caused, Dr. Coppersmith.” Jonty knew that he was in the right, and he always made the most of moral superiority.
Orlando was about to argue, then sighed and shook his head. “No, I think this was one occasion when the truth wouldn’t have paid.” He stared out of the window, musing. “I did wonder why he was being so friendly. He never used to make a point of talking to me.”
“You probably used to tell him off for sitting in your chair. Or standing on your bit of the pitch. Now that you’re a man of wide social experience, you give off a notable aura of bon viveur. Morgan no doubt sees that you’ve become much more fun to associate with and wishes to become one of your intimates.” Jonty began shifting his clothes, or else they’d never make Hall.
“Don’t rag me. I was incredibly lonely at times at Oxford. I could have done with a bit more beer and camaraderie then.” Orlando hated referring to the loneliness of his pre-Jonty days (or “the blessed times of quiet” as he called them) and if he was doing so now, he must be feeling the emptiness of them.
“Oh, my love. If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride. We can’t ever go back and change things can we? If we could, our formative years would all have been quite different.”
“I’m sorry.” Orlando’s loneliness now seemed very small beer compared to the horrors Jonty had been forced to endure at school, experiences it had taken him a great deal of time to recover from. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Of course you didn’t, whatever it was. Look, we’re neither of us the men we were and I daily thank God for it.” Jonty, the beer still making his body and spirit glow, felt as though he’d made the wisest pronouncement since the days of Solomon, one which was beyond answer. He was wrong.
“Quite right, too.” Orlando fiddled with his cufflinks. “I know you hate it when I speculate about what would have happened if we hadn’t met, but I can’t help doing it.”
“What if we’d met earlier? I mean what if we’d been opponents in the Varsity Match? I couldn’t have failed to notice you, all gangly legs and unruly curls. I’d have thrown you into touch a few times then we’d have shared a few beers in the bar. It would have been so nice…” There was something about the combination of rugby and beer which made the best of men maudlin.
Orlando snorted. “Well, we could hardly have commenced a relationship out there on the pitch, could we? No, please don’t favour that with an answer. It gives you far too much capacity for making obscene jokes about releasing the ball in the tackle.”
“I do fantasise sometimes, about what it would have been like to find myself at the bottom of a maul with you on top of me. Shame you mathematicians think it beneath yourselves to rummage up a rugger team—the English mob could organise a fixture and, assuming your old Achilles was up to it…” Jonty drifted off into pleasant reverie. He’d never seen his lover play the beautiful game, so it had become a favourite pastime to try to imagine it.
“Perhaps I can persuade them.”
Jonty almost dropped his collar stud. “Do you mean it?”
“Indeed. There’s a few chaps new to the university who could well be encouraged to turn out. And I’d enjoy it, too.” He smiled, full of mischief.
“Oh yes, Orlando? Being able to take me down in the tackle?”
“And rubbing your little nose into the mud a few times. Can’t think of anything better. On a rugby field that is,” Orlando added with a grin. “In here, that’s another matter…”
But the other matter was never explored, any investigation cut short when Matthew Ainslie knocked on the door in search of his glass of sherry.
High Table was excellent, a corner cut of beef being set off with fiery horseradish, and Yorkshire puddings as light as a feather. Ariadne Peters, whose plain looks were always eclipsed by her sparkling conversation, proved as entertaining as ever, and her brother charmed Ainslie with his intelligent interest in publishing.
They took coffee, cheese and fruit in the Senior Common Room, and when Ainslie accidentally sat in Orlando’s chair, the company waited with bated breath for the inevitable explosion of wrath. He astonished them all by sitting in the chair on the other side, letting Jonty take his normal seat. It was a gesture at once simple in its hospitality and profound in its sacrificial nature.
Jonty felt immensely proud of his lover’s good grace and resolved that he’d get an adequate reward when they returned home. The conversation meandered on, the wine, quantities of food and warm atmosphere having a soporific effect, so that Orlando soon suggested they take a little air before they all fell asleep. As the three men strolled along, the night air immediately counteracting the feelings of sleepiness, Ainslie spoke.
“Are you free for coffee tomorrow morning at, shall we say, eleven? I didn’t want to spoil this evening with business, although tomorrow I’d be grateful if I could—” he seemed to be thinking of the correct term, “—consult you on a professional basis.”
Jonty bowed, with only a hint of facetiousness. “That makes us sound conspicuously like Holmes and Watson. I’m available—are you, Dr. Coppersmith?”
Orlando’s face illustrated all the frustration he felt. “No, I’ve college business. And on a Saturday too.” He rolled his eyes.
“Then Dr. Stewart will have to take excellent notes, won’t he?” Ainslie smiled and strolled off, leaving his friends to find a cab to take them back up the Madingley Road.
*****
Ainslie had found a part of the University Arms where he and his guest could take coffee and talk without being overheard, an important element in his plan, given the potentially delicate nature of the discussion. A University College London man himself, he was enjoying his visit to such a hallowed seat of learning (still hallowed despite Jonty’s tales of his less-than-bright students).
Ainslie had ended up with a degree in literature, a taste for port and some interesting connections, which meant he could indulge his inclination towards other men with both discretion and pleasure. A discretion which had temporarily deserted him on Jersey although, thank the Lord, not one which had stood in the way of his friendship with Stewart and his more aloof companion.
He welcomed his guest at eleven on the dot, pouring out a cup of what proved to be an excellent brew. They chatted amiably for a few moments, mainly about the university’s prospects in the forthcoming cricket season, then Stewart felt it was time to open his own batting.
“You wanted to talk to us about some sort of case, I take it?”
“Indeed. I remember with extreme gratitude your help on Jersey and I know of your success both before and after it.”
Stewart grinned. “You’ve been reading The Times, I suppose, and now you want us to poke our noses into something?”
“That’s an unusual way of putting it, but yes.” Ainslie was impressed to see Stewart produce, along with his glasses, an elegant notepad and an equally elegant propelling pencil with which he began to make notes. The air of objective authority helped to make a painful situation rather more bearable. “I won’t beat about the bush. I have a friend who has been accused of murder. He assures me that he’s innocent and I believe that to be the truth. I would like you to see if you can find any evidence to support his case.”
“When is this due to come to court?” Stewart’s pencil tapped on the page.
“There’s likely to be a delay while an important medical witness is recalled from abroad, but we can’t be looking at much the other side of Easter.” The window gave a faint reflection. Ainslie, catching sight of his face, was shocked at how pale he’d turned.
Stewart was concerned. “And does his own counsel give him any hope?”
Ainslie stared out of the window, at the children playing on Parker’s Piece, their delight in running on the grass meaning nothing to his unseeing eyes. “Not very much.” All he could see was a face—not his own this time—a handsome young face. One that, time was, had been his greatest delight.
Stewart considered his next question. “If we find evidence that your friend is indeed guilty, what then?”
Ainslie turned, his keen eyes fixing his guest’s equally candid ones. “Then he hangs. I’ll not have facts suppressed just to bring about the desired result. I want the truth.” It hurt to speak every word, yet each had to be said.
Stewart patted his friend’s arm. “Good man. Couldn’t have taken the job without you having said that. Now can I have some details? What’s your friend’s name?”
“Alistair Stafford.”
“Should I know him? I’m sure I’ve heard the name before.”
“He’s the man who sent that letter to Jersey, detailing my alleged sins to someone who wished to besmirch my reputation.” Ainslie watched the children playing yet didn’t see them, still registering in his mind’s eye a happier time and place.
“Matthew, I don’t understand, why should you choose to defend him of all people?”
“We were once lovers, Jonty, very fond and close. We had a misunderstanding, a series of them really, and we couldn’t come to any sort of a resolution. We separated under very unsympathetic circumstances—there was a lot of bitterness on his part.” Ainslie’s gaze remained fixed outside. “Which is why he was keen to give information to my business rival. Spite. Or revenge.”
“It’s very magnanimous of you to be going to his aid. Was there some rapprochement over the last few months?”
“No, it was his sister who approached me.” Ainslie remembered Angela Stafford with fondness—she had never betrayed his friendship. “His mother and father decided to sever ties with him when they discovered where his affections lay. Miss Stafford knew we’d been very close, knew we’d parted, but had no idea, obviously, of Alistair’s subsequent betrayal. I didn’t enlighten her.” He at last brought his gaze back into the room.
“Of course not. Yet you still agreed to help?” Stewart looked so outraged that Ainslie smiled, despite the turmoil in his mind.
“Not there and then, but I agreed to meet him and hear his side of the tale. I was sufficiently convinced—well, to be here now.”
Stewart laid down his pencil for a moment. “I feel unworthy to be given such a responsibility. The things we’ve been involved with in the past haven’t been that important, or rather our role within them hasn’t. The police would have solved those first two crimes anyway, irrespective of our input. Is there no one else you could ask for help? Someone more competent?”
“There may be, but there’s no one I trust half as well as I do you and Dr. Coppersmith. I can be completely candid with you and I’m learning to be so with him. If there’s anything to be found, I’m sure that you’re the men to find it.”
The intellectual detective tried hard not to beam and poised his pencil again. “Can I take a few details?”
“I have some notes here for you—” Ainslie produced a large envelope, “—although I can give you a summary. A man was found dead in his house in Dorking, down in Surrey, the back of his head smashed in with a poker. Alistair was known to have argued violently with him just days before, threatening his life.”
“And the man’s name?”
“Lord Christopher Jardine.” Ainslie almost flinched, so sudden was the change in Stewart’s normally good-humoured face. “Did you know him?”
“There was a boy of that name at my school.” Stewart was making his face a blank, a mask over it to hide all feeling.
“He’d be a few years older than you.”
“Then I did know him.” Stewart fiddled with his pencil, some deep emotion welling up, threatening to engulf him.
“I’m sorry.” Ainslie’s words were sincere but they sounded feeble.
“So am I, Matthew. Sorry I ever made his acquaintance."
Lessons in Seduction #6
Dr. Coppersmith and Dr. Stewart felt nervous, as anyone in their situation would, standing outside the hallowed sanctum of the Master of St. Bride’s like a pair of naughty schoolboys summoned to see the headmaster over fighting in the dorm. It felt like the end of the world. Their future at the college, or at least the immediate part of it, was at present being discussed in Dr. Peters’ study the other side of the heavy oak door. No matter how hard Orlando stared at the thing, willing it to yield its secrets, it was keeping them in ignorance.
“Now I know how young Ingleby felt when he was summoned here for playing his ukulele too loudly. I’m scared enough—he must have been petrified.” Jonty grinned, but he was obviously nervous and not at all his usual witty, confident self.
“This is a serious business, Dr. Stewart. I just wish they would reach a decision more quickly. How long can it take to work out whether we’re leaving the college?”
“Perhaps the longer they take, the better, assuming…” Jonty didn’t have the chance to finish his sentence, as the door swung open, making Orlando jump and produce what Jonty always alleged afterwards was a squeal.
“Gentlemen, come in.” Dr. Peters beamed, beckoning them into the room. Tall, handsome and rather austere, when he smiled his appearance changed from medieval abbot to chevalier. “Chief Inspector Wilson has persuaded me that he needs you much more than your university will these next few months. You’re both to be granted a sabbatical.” He indicated two august figures behind him. “And these gentlemen have reluctantly agreed, given the special circumstances of this case, to allow it. Mr. Wilson can be very persuasive.”
Anxiety turned to smiles, they shook hands all round and a decanter of sherry appeared almost from thin air.
“Are we to be told exactly what’s going on?” Jonty could barely stop the glass shaking in his hand, from what Orlando hoped was excitement, not fear. Whichever it was, this was clearly going to be a two sherries, at least, conversation. “All we know is that Chief Inspector Wilson requires our services but we don’t know how long or what for.”
“As much time as is required.” The dean, Dr. Peters’ second-in-command, spoke through clenched teeth. No one would have been pleased at being deprived of two such shining stars.
“I have negotiated a little something with the relevant parties to oil the wheels.” Chief Inspector Wilson resembled neither abbot nor chevalier. He looked like a headmaster with an enormous intellect and radical views, and he carefully avoided the use of the words “bribe” or “douceur”. Whatever had been employed, it had at least stopped the bursar vetoing things. He was clutching his sherry in a happy financial haze.
“Gentlemen, I refuse to agree to anything until I know who these parties are and what they expect of us.” Orlando’s commanding streak, which only appeared in moments of great importance—or high passion—asserted itself.
“A lady has been found dead, in a fashionable hotel just outside Pegwell Bay in Kent. I believe you know the area, Dr. Coppersmith?” Mr. Wilson raised both an eyebrow and his sherry glass in enquiry.
“I do. My grandmother lives nearby.” The combination of a suspicious death and familiar ground eased the tension; so far, so good.
“Two doctors couldn’t agree whether it was due to natural causes. A third doctor, one who said he could see nothing suspicious, swayed official opinion.”
“And?” Jonty had finished the first sherry and was eyeing the decanter hopefully.
“The identity of the victim meant cogs got set into motion.” Mr. Wilson inclined his head. “Lady Jennifer Johnson was the mistress of the king for the best part of two decades when he was still Prince of Wales. Those initial doubts have put a bee in His Majesty’s bonnet. He wants his old friend’s death investigated properly.”
“I wonder if there would have been all this interest if it had just been one of the chambermaids found dead?” Orlando sniffed, derisive of the class system which seemed to make one death worth more than another.
“I can just imagine him talking to Papa.” Jonty produced an uncanny impersonation of the king’s tones. “I have a feeling in my bones that she’s been murdered, Richard.” He turned to Dr. Peters. “I’m right in assuming my father got involved in this somehow?”
“So I believe.” Dr. Peters nodded his austerely handsome head. “The chief inspector says His Majesty knows all about your penchant for sleuthing.”
“No doubt. Papa must have bored him about it enough times.” Jonty seemed pleased to see his glass refilled; one needed all the help one could get in this sort of situation. “I can imagine the palace applying pressure on the University.”
Wilson nodded. “Quite so. And on the constabulary. What’s needed here is efficiency.”
Peters glowed with pleasure—probably totting up how many high calibre students would be attracted to St. Bride’s on the back of another successful investigation. “I feel we should be paying for the privilege of you taking on the case.” The Master ignored the bursar nearly dropping his glass. “This college’s name was in the descendant at the turn of the century and the case of the St. Bride’s murders didn’t help. But for a college to have its own Holmes and Watson is without precedent.” Of course it was—now Bride’s star shone and its fame had been renewed throughout the land.
Wilson inclined his head. “When I was asked in to solve a case needing the utmost diplomacy, where else would I turn? I wanted the very best men alongside me. Having someone—” he nodded towards Jonty, “—with a connection to the nobility will be a great advantage. This pair will prove invaluable.”
Orlando was deep in thought, wondering what attributes he could possibly possess which would make him invaluable. Apart from his brains.
“We’re to travel down there as soon as possible, I take it?” The sherry had worked its emboldening effect on Jonty. “Have we rooms booked?”
“Ah. For Dr. Stewart, yes.” Wilson suddenly found his sherry glass to be of great interest. “Dr. Coppersmith, we have a special commission for you. Almost in the nature of espionage.”
Orlando’s ears pricked up, like a horse in sight of the winning post. “Are you suggesting I take a post at this hotel to spy from the inside?”
Wilson nodded, at last brave enough to face Orlando eye to eye. “You would gain the confidence of both staff and guests, while Dr. Stewart works in a more obviously formal capacity.”
Jonty grinned. “Splendid. Even old Sherlock Holmes puts on his dressing-up clothes to further investigations.” It wasn’t the best example to give.
Orlando started. “Dressing-up clothes?”
“We thought the role of professional dancing partner would be an ideal one.” Mr. Wilson addressed a spot just behind Orlando’s left ear. “For accessing confidential information. His Majesty is relying on us. On you.”
The door bursting open forestalled Orlando’s disgruntled reply.
“Is it settled then?” The Master’s sister swept into the room, grinning broadly. “Dr. Coppersmith’s off to be a gigolo?”
*****
Jonty almost danced all the way back up the Madingley Road, full of the prospect of the seaside, dancing and high society.
“Of course, you’ll love every moment of this investigation.” Orlando took a swipe at a branch which had dared to get in his way.
“Absolutely. And so will you. Don’t pretend you won’t be thrilled to have a murder to solve. You like them as much as your beloved mathematical puzzles.” Jonty’s broad, handsome grin made him look like a boy at Christmas, bouncing with excitement at the prospect of the weeks ahead.
“I suppose so. Only…”
“Yes?”
“I was just wondering—” Orlando felt himself colour, not just with annoyance, “—what a gigolo actually does.”
“I love Miss Peters more than any other woman to whom I’m not related, but I could cheerfully have killed her today, coming in and saying that. In front of the bursar and all. You will not be a gigolo.” Jonty sighed. “No one expects you to be anything more than a professional dancing partner at the hotel.”
“Why can’t you do the gigolo bit? Why does everyone say it has to be me?”
Jonty threw up his hands. “If we were going to the farthest-flung parts of the empire perhaps, but some of these people will have met me. Besides, look here.” He turned Orlando’s face towards his own. “This face, the Jonty Stewart fizzog, it’s a case of once seen never forgotten, isn’t it?”
Orlando looked at his lover’s fine profile as if seeing it for the first time. The bright blue eyes were as stunning and unnerving as when they’d first met, the nose perfectly formed and the mouth full of promise. He snorted. “It’s a face getting too big for its own flannel if you ask me.”
“For once I wasn’t being vain. My mother and father are both striking-looking creatures and anyone who’d met them would take one look at me and think there’s a Stewart sprog if I ever saw one. It just can’t be done.”
“But I’m hopeless with women. I can’t flirt or make small talk. They’ll turn their noses up at me.”
“You don’t have to flirt. You can dance, can’t you?”
Orlando nodded.
“In fact you dance very well. That’s all you’ll need to do, dance with them and talk a little about current affairs. You’ll be stern, aloof and handsome and it will drive them absolutely insane, just like it did me when we first met. They’ll be like putty in your hands and you’ll get all sorts of information out of them.” He drew closer to Orlando, laid his hands briefly on the man’s lapels and looked into his eyes. “Besides, you look absolutely gorgeous in a dinner suit. If there are any women who don’t fall in love with you they’ll either be followers of Sappho or have hearts of absolute stone.” He quickly spoke again, grinning as he did so. “And I won’t under any circumstances give an explanation as to the significance of that minx.”
They’d reached their house, a little Tudor cottage with a lot of recent refurbishment, and turned in by the gate and through the door into their haven of security from a world which wouldn’t approve of how they lived.
“But that can’t be all a gigolo does or why would everyone keep smirking when the term is used?”
Jonty produced a radiant smile. “Ah, well, you see, it’s a term that can also be applied to a man who—um—sells his services to women.”
“What sort of services?”
“If you have to ask the question I’m not sure you’ll understand the answer. Bed. You know.” Jonty tipped his head towards the stairs and winked.
Orlando worked his mouth, temporarily unable to speak. This was scandalous. “They never do.”
“Oh yes, it goes on all over the place. I told you when we were in Bath that there had always been male and female prostitutes.”
“But I assumed they were like the boys we came across in the course of solving that very first murder. Sold themselves to men, I mean.”
“They don’t restrict themselves to that, although whether it’s the same chaps doing the selling, or others, I have no idea and don’t want to find out. Women pay and these men oblige.”
“Well, I’m shocked. The absolute cads. And however did Miss Peters learn such a disgraceful term?”
*****
Forsythia Cottage was becoming used to being the scene of discussion of crime and Mrs. Ward, the housekeeper, had become accustomed to the arrival of members of the constabulary to consult her gentlemen. Just so this fine late September afternoon when Mr. Wilson appeared bearing his most solemn look and praising her baking to high heaven. She’d borne forth the fruits of her kitchen then retreated there to leave her lads to their endeavours.
“I’ll have to find some excuse for being there, at the hotel.” Jonty had indulged in some pastries and while his inner man was satisfied, he wasn’t pleased about his position in the investigation. “It’s easy for you, you just change your name to hide the fact that you’re the Dr. Coppersmith of The Times fame and you can get away with anything. But even if I change my name, there are plenty of folk who would recognise me in the circles in which we’ll move. I bet some of them even remember dear old grandmamma and I’m said to be her image.”
“Could you invite your family along and make it some innocent Stewart excursion?” Wilson raised a distinguished eyebrow and gestured with his teaspoon.
Orlando shook his head. “I won’t have Mrs. Stewart seeing me dressed as a dancing partner. If she’s involved then I’ll give up the case, immediately.”
“What about Papa? We could pretend he’s had an operation or something and needs the sea air for convalescence. We’ll have to find a way to make him look in less than ruddy good health of course, but it might just work.” Jonty found the idea more and more appealing. “Then I could have a legitimate reason to be there, to look after the old geezer. And, Chief Inspector, if you think Dr. Coppersmith does the business in terms of charming the ladies, you should see my father. He can turn the heads of girls young enough to be his granddaughters.”
“I can’t believe that. Your father is such an adherent of the Ten Commandments—no adultery and all the rest.” Orlando found this a shock to top all the rest. “He’s the scourge of—what does he call them—those who ought to know better. I can’t imagine him chatting up women.”
“That’s half the appeal of him, Dr. Coppersmith. The women know they’re absolutely safe and so do their husbands or fathers, so he’s told all sorts of things that other men wouldn’t be privy to.” A thought occurred to Jonty. “Actually, do we need to have an innocent excuse? Ever since The Times printed that story we’ve been labelled as Holmes and Watson. No one would believe I was at Pegwell Bay for any other reason than to look into this business. Why not use that fact to our advantage?”
“It might work, you know. If people there think you’re doing the sleuthing they might be more likely to let some little indiscretion slip to Dr. Coppersmith. No secrets then—you can be there with your deerstalker and everyone can know it.”
Jonty grinned; he was looking forward to this case, not least because it postponed meeting his dunderheads of students. This new intake was said to be particularly obtuse. “Now, Chief Inspector, I have my notebook to hand and no doubt Dr. Coppersmith has his, sharpened pencil and all. Before he gets to the matter of writing his packing list, might we have a resumé of the case as you know it?”
“Of course, Dr. Stewart. I’ve prepared a set of notes for you to read—perhaps you might peruse them now, and then I can try to answer any of your questions?” Wilson produced two identical documents and let his hosts read them.
The matter as set out was fairly straightforward. Lady Jennifer Johnson had been found dead in her suite on September 21st 1907, just the previous week, at the Regal Hotel, Pegwell Bay. The chambermaid, bearing early morning tea and a biscuit, had found the body, spilt said tea and run to fetch the housekeeper and, via her, a doctor. His report said the woman had died peacefully in her sleep, probably of heart failure. Agnew, the hotel manager—who had seen Lady Jennifer taking plenty of exercise and always appearing hale and hearty—had called for a second opinion.
The second physician had some doubts that the matter had been entirely natural, but by this time the police had already been called in and the chief constable notified, via his godson, who happened to be the same Mr. Agnew. The third medical opinion—heart failure—had proved decisive in most people’s minds. No one had been ordered to stay at the hotel as the police supposedly had no case to pursue. They’d just taken contact details from all who had been present at the time, under the police’s favourite guise of Routine, sir. Normal procedures, ma’am.
Orlando and Jonty were struck by the similarity between this and the last case they’d tackled, except the thing seemed to be turned on its head. The last time, a suspicious death had been deliberately treated as natural to deflect attention from the important personages who’d been involved with the victim. Here was a case where what might well turn out to be an innocent event was being treated as suspicious, partly because the victim had contacts in very high places, ones who were determined to see that justice would be done.
“What was she like, Mr. Wilson?” Orlando laid down the papers and smoothed them.
“Lady Jennifer wasn’t a great beauty like her alliterative counterpart Lillie Langtry.” The chief inspector smiled. “I understand she was plump, pretty and more like a dairymaid than a great lady. They say she was sweet natured and exceedingly discreet.”
“I suppose she was.” Jonty rubbed his nose where his reading spectacles pinched a bit. “I’ve been on the telephone to Papa. He says her relationship with royalty went on for years, but it’s only coming to light now. Was she a great favourite of the prince, as he was then? I don’t remember her name being mentioned by my father until now.” Mr. Stewart had always taken a pretty dim view of the morals of royalty. Jonty remembered seeing some lady at a function wearing a huge brooch which she’d been given for services rendered. Papa had muttered under his breath that it would probably be easier to give some sort of a badge to those women who hadn’t rendered services to His Royal Highness. It would certainly involve fewer pieces of jewellery.
“I think she was someone with whom he could relax and be entirely himself. I’ve spoken to someone else who knew her and their opinion is that she was a genuinely nice woman who rarely spoke ill of anyone nor sought to further herself above her station. She was content in life and didn’t nag others about how they lived theirs. Both of them are endearing qualities.”
“And yet she was the mistress of a married man.” Orlando’s voice was quiet, disapproving.
“That’s the rub. Some nice people do things which horrify you and some nasty people obey every jot and tittle of what they believe to be the law. Remember Mrs. Tattersall?” Jonty smiled, knowing full well that the world was full of people who did things Orlando didn’t approve of. No wonder he got on so well with Papa.
“I shall never forget her.” Orlando shivered, even though it remained a mild and pleasant day.
“We must never judge those we seek to find justice for.” Wilson stared out of the window, addressing his sermon to the trees. “The law must be absolutely neutral, in spite of what some of my colleagues feel. Although I do worry that the investigation of this crime will be given much more precedence than if the victim had been of less illustrious stock. Money and influence talk.”
“I’d still seek to find the killer whatever the station in life of the victim, and even if I absolutely hated them.” Orlando cast a sideways glance at Jonty; they were both aware of the consequences of such a course of action.
“What happens next I will leave to you, but I believe the truth must be served, whatever the circumstances.” Wilson stared into his empty cup, as if he might find some desperate criminal hidden under one of the stray tea leaves at the bottom.
“Had the lady any family? Papa and Mama would be useful in gaining information about and from them, I’d warrant.” Jonty had his pencil ready to take down the names.
“She’d been widowed these last ten years, but she has a son, Sir Laurence Johnson—he’s been travelling in Egypt with his bride and was contacted with the sad news as soon as possible. Otherwise there is a sort of cousin who acted as companion, a Miss Lynette Jordan, and she was at the hotel at the time. Those are the only close kin. You’ll be able to see both of them in Kent, I hope.”
“Are there any enemies spoken of?” Jonty had little hope that some threatening letter or wronged acquaintance might turn up and make life easy. In his growing experience, nothing about murder was straightforward and the only constant between their cases was that Orlando would try to seduce him at every opportunity. The thought that the chances for such fun would be rather limited this time around made him suddenly sad. Finding opportunities to be together would present just as much of a challenge as the solving of the case.
“Lady Jennifer doesn’t seem to have made enemies, or so the initial gossip has it. But the fact remains that someone must have disliked her enough to kill her in cold blood—if this is murder—and we need to find out everything we possibly can about what’s been going on down at Pegwell Bay.” Wilson fixed Orlando with an intent but kindly gaze, like a headmaster outlining his expectations of a pupil’s performance in an entrance examination. Orlando wouldn’t let the policeman down. “Now, we have to find you an alias.”
“An alias? Why?”
“Oh, for goodness sake.” Jonty punched his friend’s arm. “If I can’t hide my face you can’t hide your name. Coppersmith is becoming a bit too well known, with all those newspaper reports of our detective prowess. Here.” He fetched a dictionary of names from the bookshelf.
What seemed like hundreds of names and their meanings were consulted, but the intended bearer rejected every one of them as inapt.
Jonty soon lost patience. “What about Duncan Disorderly or Ivor Grumpyface?”
“Don’t be stupid.” Orlando ignored all the suggestions, even when they verged on the obscene. “I rather like the name Hugh.”
Jonty couldn’t hide an enormous grin. “I can think of lots of surnames which would work well with that. What about Jamp…” Before he was allowed to divulge any more he was unceremoniously bundled out of the room and not allowed to return until he could be sensible.
Wilson suggested they use the initials O.C. “It would mean any monogrammed articles won’t seem out of place and you might have more of a chance of remembering to respond to it.”
“Oliver Carberry.” Orlando put down books and notepad. “That’s a name I could use.”
“Oliver Carberry it is.” Wilson made a careful note. “Now, you should travel to Kent as soon as possible—probably tomorrow—and have a day or two to settle in as the new dancing partner, escort, or whatever smart title they bestow upon you.”
“And you can assure us that this Agnew is beyond all suspicion of murder?” Jonty had been looking through the police report again. “We can’t have Mr. Carberry walking into the lion’s den.”
“White as snow. He was staying with the chief constable of the county the night in question. We’ve had him party to the plan from the start and we’ve turned his scepticism around. He sees it would be much better to have respectable persons, albeit ones incognito, conducting the investigations rather than clodhopping policemen getting into everything and upsetting the guests.” Wilson knew the value of maintaining the hotel’s reputation. “Once Oliver Carberry is ensconced and beginning to make headway, you can arrive, with your father.”
“Then the fun can really begin.” Jonty rubbed his hands in anticipation. “And I suppose you’ve some strange lines of communication established as neither of us can be in touch directly with Orlando.”
“And I daren’t talk directly to the police.”
“It’s all in hand, gentlemen.” Wilson rose to take his leave.
Jonty began to be excited at all these little aspects of the case. He loved subterfuge and playing games so the whole thing struck him as enormous fun. Only when he looked at Orlando, to find him casting a peculiar longing glance in his direction, did the glamour begin to wear off things. They would be apart but together, close but not intimate, able to talk but not in any depth, separated socially and physically. Most importantly of all, not able to kiss or touch, and this status quo would remain until the end of the case.
Suddenly, playing at detectives didn’t seem such an attractive prospect.
Lessons in Trust #7
White City, London, 1908
“If you think I’m going up on that thing…” Orlando Coppersmith looked at the great metal creation. It seemed to reach up miles into the sky, higher than the Eiffel Tower or anything he’d ever seen. Even though the measurements, the beautifully accurate and logical measurements, meant it couldn’t be as high as he perceived it was, his eyes wouldn’t believe his brain.
“Why not?” Jonty Stewart’s eyes were ablaze with awe and wonder. “Everyone goes on the Flip Flap.”
“I’m not everyone.” Orlando knew all about his lover’s delight in bell towers, follies, any high places which gave panoramic views. “Anyway, you’ll be sick.” It was a feeble, inaccurate shot, inevitably missing its target.
“I’m never sick. Sorry.” A wide grin crossed Jonty’s handsome face, attracting the attention of two passing maidens. He raised his hat to them and carried on blithely, “I correct myself. I was once sick when some idiot took me on a helter-skelter two hours after a sporting dinner at St. Bride’s, but that was when I was a mere stripling.” No fellow of such an august Cambridge college was going to admit that he’d also been horribly ill just three years previously, after sledging with his nephew down a snow-covered hill. That was before he’d met Orlando and therefore both pre-historic and confidential.
“I’ll be sick.”
“Ah. Good point. I’ll never forget the ferry crossing to Jersey.” Jonty looked crestfallen, so disappointed at thwarted ambition that it knocked any argument out of Orlando’s mind.
“Oh, blow it. Let’s go on the thing then.” It was worth suffering just to see the delight on his friend’s face. “And if I’m sick I’ll do it in your hat.”
The Flip Flap. Everyone was talking about it, even the people who hadn’t yet been to the Franco-British exhibition at the great White City which was the talk of the country. There were songs about it in the music halls and Ella Retford wasn’t the only one singing “Take me on the Flip Flap”. Jonty and Orlando had heard a group of youths warbling it just the day before as they’d been wandering down Regent Street. Even Jonty’s father had been on the contraption, becoming so loquacious about his experience that Mrs. Stewart had been forced to have words. “I told your father, Jonathan,” she’d addressed her youngest son so loudly over the telephone that Orlando had been able to hear from the other side of the hall, “that if he doesn’t shut up, I’ll be filing for divorce and naming the Flip Flap as co-respondent.” Much to her dismay that conversation had made Jonty decide he and his lover had to visit the White City as soon as possible to see for themselves.
Orlando had been reluctant despite Mr. Stewart’s glowing reports. He’d seen Paris and been stunned by both the simpering Mona Lisa and the oddly masculine Venus de Milo. He’d strolled through Monte Carlo, as urbane a boulevardier as if he’d been born to the role, or at least a good imitation of one. Why should he want to see imitations of glory when he’d encountered the real thing? The unanswerable argument was that Jonty wanted to see these things and what Jonty wanted, he got. The dunderheads had gone home from the university, back to families who would be astounded by their brains even if Cambridge wasn’t, and the long vac stretched ahead, full of promise. And a visit to the White City could incorporate a visit to the Stewarts’ London home, which would brighten anyone’s summer.
So they were here, in the Court of Honour, Orlando with his eyes as wide as a child’s, taking in the sights. He was pleased the skies were slightly overcast, certain he would have been overwhelmed if the white buildings had been in full sunlight, dazzling against a piercing blue background. Dull white against hazy blue-grey made the whole thing manageable. It was still astounding. He knew it wasn’t real, just a form of structural prestidigitation, wood and concrete and plaster creating a wonderful illusion of buildings which had stood since time immemorial. It wasn’t the Louvre, or Sacre Coeur, but it was magnificent.
“Flip Flap it is, then I’m off to look at the jewellery.” Orlando picked up his pace.
“Jewellery? Isn’t that coming it a bit effete?” Jonty’s blue eyes were alive with excitement. “I thought you’d be dragging me off to the Machinery Hall to look at the lift turbines or whatever it was Father was getting in such a state about.”
“I’ll get round to them eventually, but I think I’ll be needing something a bit lighter and less taxing than mechanical contraptions after going up in that thing.” Orlando pointed towards the Flip Flap, visions going through his mind of being dragged off to the scenic railway and any other pleasure rides Jonty could find before he’d be allowed a sniff of something like a nice noisy engine or a big gun.
“There’s plenty of time to do it all. We can stay late tonight and see the lights then come back tomorrow and the next day. You’ll be satiated.” Jonty’s walk was almost a series of dance steps, the obvious excitement he felt bubbling into all parts of his being. “Imagine that.” He lowered his voice. “You, satiated. Wonders will never cease.”
Wonders certainly didn’t cease over the rest of the day. It would have been impossible for anyone to tread the paths and bridges of the White City and not feel all their senses being assaulted. The magnificence of the buildings, the press of people, the sheer volume of sights and sounds and information—it would have exhausted lesser men. But the fellows of St. Bride’s were made of sterner stuff and no Palace of Fine Arts was going to defeat them nor any exhibition of education be allowed to bore them.
They stopped for a late lunch, glad to rest weary feet and take a break from endless exclamations of, “Have you seen that?” or “Isn’t this amazing?”
“Mother will kill me, but I’ll have to side with Father.” Jonty placed an order for a chop, some new potatoes and a little salad—a light meal just in case the scenic railway was to be attempted again, but enough to sustain a man through an afternoon of seeing the sights. “It’s extraordinary. Like having the whole world in your back yard.”
“It’s certainly an interesting way of seeing things, even though I have to keep reminding myself it’s not authentic.” Orlando poured a reviving drink of water. He wasn’t going to risk alcohol in view of Jonty’s eagerness to be on the rides again.
“Even Father admits it’s all a bit unreal here, although he felt that was half the appeal. Like the theatre—you know that fairy can’t be flying across the stage but you suspend disbelief. It’s magical.” Jonty swept his arm around. “And, if we can get around all of it, there’ll be all sorts of places you can tick off your list for future holidays as you’ll have already ‘done them’.”
Orlando grinned at the shared joke. For years he’d been reluctant to travel farther than one of the outlying Cambridge colleges. “You mean I won’t have to be dragged to Australia if I visit their exhibition hall? That sounds splendid. I wish all travel could be as simple.” He settled into his chair in pleasurable anticipation of steak, new potatoes and peas, although whether the meat would be as good as that which Mrs. Ward, their housekeeper, regularly roused out from their butcher, he wasn’t sure. That was another thing about spreading one’s wings and taking to pastures new—you couldn’t guarantee the quality of the nosebags’ contents.
“You know what would make this even better? Seems sinful to want it, but…” Jonty shrugged.
“I know. I’d feel guilty if it came about, of course I would, although I wouldn’t complain.” A look passed between them, the years of closeness bringing about a form of communication that no longer needed words. They’d reached the point where looks and some sort of telepathy built of familiarity sufficed. “Been a long time.”
Murder. Mystery. Anything which presented a problem and let a man get his wits around solving it. The last time they’d had anything really worthy of their skills had been the autumn of 1907, and the year before that had been full of unexplained killings to be solved. Since then they’d barely got a sniff of a case, certainly not any they’d like to take on. There’d been a stream of correspondence addressed to Drs. Coppersmith and Stewart, Detectives, St. Bride’s College, Cambridge, which had galled Orlando and made the porters snigger. There had been times he’d been grateful for the notoriety produced by Mr. Stewart’s article in the Times about their sleuthing—it had helped in more than one case. But when the letters began to trickle in, asking for help in finding missing husbands or getting to the bottom of whether Granny really had been poisoned for her savings in 1873, he’d been increasingly annoyed.
They’d responded to them all with polite refusals—Jonty took charge of that, his lover not to be trusted in case he made some caustic remark in the process. One poor soul had written that they’d already been in contact with Mr. Holmes but to no avail and now they were turning from Baker Street to Cambridge. Orlando had wanted to take the first train to Manchester, where this unfortunate correspondent lived, and upbraid him on his own doorstep. Whether he’d taken umbrage at being compared to the dreaded Sherlock or whether it was because he’d been turned to second, not first, Jonty wasn’t sure, but he’d almost had to lock Orlando away to prevent him being a murderer himself rather than a catcher of them.
Other than that it had been a nice enough and highly productive time. Jonty had got his book on the sonnets proofread and published, and Orlando had been doing some excellent work both on Boolean algebra and for his grandmother’s fund for brilliant but impoverished students. All worthwhile, all—along with teaching in college and doing further work on their cottage and garden—enough to keep them busy, although something had been lacking. And while it felt wrong to be actively hoping a corpse would somehow appear and the police would be so baffled they’d have to call the two amateurs in, Orlando was beginning to feel desperate, worried he’d never feel the thrill of that particular chase again.
Jonty could quite happily have gone another twelvemonth without a killer to catch, especially after the emotional traumas of the last few cases, but he hated to see his lover unhappy. Especially on such a glorious summer’s day as this.
“Maybe they’ll find my father dead at the foot of the scenic railway.” Jonty took a swig of beer. “No, belay that, I’d hate to see the old chap go. Perhaps he could just be found beaten up—nothing too serious, nothing worse than the sort of thing you’d get from a nasty scrum—and you could solve who’d done the ghastly deed.”
Orlando laid down his glass of water, rolled his eyes and gave his lover a withering look. “I suppose studying Shakespeare doesn’t require an ability to think logically. There’d be nothing to investigate. If your father was found here in a state of disarray, the culprit would clearly be your mother, fed up with his obsession with the place. Like everyone would know it was me who’d done it, if you were found strangled with a pair of driving goggles.”
“And why would you want to kill me, my dearest friend and colleague?” Jonty thought he could guess the answer, but it was fun riling his lover.
“Because of it. The great metal monster.” Orlando looked as if murder really was about to be committed and Jonty was pleased to see the arrival of the waiter with their order. He deftly turned the conversation to other things, like whether rump was a tastier cut than sirloin and why vegetables always tasted better when they came out of your own garden. It was by far the safest route to take.
Fires stoked up for the work ahead, they started off around the exhibition again, admiring a picture here, sampling a glass of champagne there, buying a box of chocolates to take home for their hostess. Their enthusiasm never palled, even if there were no dead bodies in the offing. By the time the illuminations began to twinkle over the lake in the gloaming, Orlando was stifling yawns.
“Think we’ve done enough for today, old man.” Jonty clapped him on the shoulder. “There’s always tomorrow.”
Orlando nodded. “Aye. I think I’ve had an ample sufficiency today. I need a good night’s sleep to ready myself for another dose.” He looked around, the lights’ reflections dancing in his dark eyes. “I’m so glad we came. Now for the journey home.” He drew himself up to his full height, as if about to face the executioner.
From the first time they’d met, nearly three years previously, Orlando had been prone to dramatic moments, rolling his eyes for emphasis and generally overacting when cross at something his lover or the dunderheads of students had done. When he’d had to mark a particularly useless set of algebra exercises, his eyes would almost disappear around the back of his head. He was at his most theatrical now.
“For goodness sake, it’ll be fine. Nice fresh air—better than being stuck with the hordes of humanity on the train.” Jonty tugged on his arm. “Come on, Mama will be waiting for us with coffee and port.”
“I’ll need both.” Orlando gave another roll of his eyes, shuddered and trudged towards the exit.
Any decent human beings would have arrived at the White City by underground railway, alighting from the Central London line at Wood Lane and joining the masses as they headed for the exhibition. But Jonty Stewart wasn’t, as Orlando often averred, a decent human being. He might have been an angel in a very effective disguise, or an overgrown cherub who’d lost his wings and his way, but in the matter of his uncivilised—as far as Orlando was concerned—humanity, he was unique. They’d arrived at the White City in a motor car, Jonty’s brand new Lagonda, or, as he told people interminably, his six-cylinder, twenty-horsepower Torpedo. It was black, sleek, shiny, beautiful, and Orlando hated it.
He knew it was stupid, feeling so jealous of a car, but jealous he was. Ever since it had arrived, Jonty had seemed to lavish huge amounts of praise and affection on it, affection which by rights belonged to Dr. O. Coppersmith alone. He polished and buffed it, soothed and caressed it. Orlando wouldn’t have been surprised if Jonty would have liked to spend his nights curled up in the thing, caressing its curves and lines in his dreams, as he often caressed his lover’s. For two months it had been polluting a small piece of hard standing at Forsythia Cottage, their little home up the Madingley Road, far enough from the dunderheads to make it a haven of peace and refinement.
At least it had been a haven until the metal monster had arrived, and there was still no sign of Jonty tiring of it and sending it off to the scrap yard or some other place where it deserved to be. If it hadn’t presented a risk to his lover’s life, Orlando would have been happy to see the Lagonda in a ditch, a twisted and tormented lump of steel or whatever Godforsaken stuff they used to make such things.
He had been forced out in it, of course, more than once—and once should have been enough for any man with a speck of decency about him. Now he’d been dragged through London in the monster, a city in which the natural way to travel was foot, horse-drawn cab or railway. And he was having to process back through the city to the Stewarts’ home, hiding his face in case he was seen by any eminent mathematicians from the capital’s seats of learning.
“Well, what did we think of it?” Richard Stewart must have been watching from the window, given the speed with which he’d opened the front door. Perhaps he’d even barged Hopkins the butler out of the way en route. The man was bouncing on his toes like a big schoolboy, just like Jonty did when excitement overcame him.
“Wonderful, Papa. Everything you said it would be and more.” Jonty took off his gloves and goggles, laying them on the little lacquered table where they might send out a siren call to his father. If Mr. Stewart wanted to convert his son to the glories of the Anglo-French exhibition, then his son wanted to reciprocate by getting him interested in motoring.
“You went on the Flip Flap?” Mr. Stewart’s eyes were aglow.
“Richard!” Mrs. Stewart’s voice cut through the air like a sabre through butter. “What are we not to mention in this house?”
“Tell me later,” Mr. Stewart whispered as his wife swept into the hall and scooped up her favourite boys.
Mrs. Stewart must have been stunning in her youth—the portraits on the stairs were evidence of it—and even in late middle age she was striking, silvery gold hair and blue eyes mirroring her son’s colouration. She and her husband still turned plenty of heads, not all of them mature.
Supper was excellent, as it always was when Jonty’s parents entertained: smoked salmon, lightly scrambled eggs, tiny tomatoes sweeter than honey, all washed down with champagne. As they ate, Orlando waxed lyrical about the sights they’d seen, allowed much more leeway to praise the exhibition than his almost-father-in-law was clearly allowed. But then he avoided all mention of a certain ride which took you up in the air and left your stomach on terra firma.
“And you’ll go back tomorrow?” Mrs. Stewart scooped up the last bit of her egg onto a piece of toast.
“Certainly. We’ve not covered the half of it, not properly, anyway.” Jonty wiped his mouth on the thick damask napkin. “Will you come with us?”
“I would love to, my dear, but there’s a meeting I must attend. My fund for unfortunate girls. Maybe another time?”
“Helena!” Mr. Stewart smote the table. “I’ve offered on four occasions to take you to the White City and every one of them you’ve refused to even consider.”
“That’s because you’re not Orlando, Papa. Mama wants him to squire her around the site so that all the other women will look and be jealous.” Jonty cast a sidelong glance at his mother, who was wearing an unusually demure expression. “Or is it the lure of the car?”
“It might be nice to be taken for a little drive…” Mrs. Stewart’s ears turned a delicate shade of pink. “It’s such a fine machine—very comfortable-looking and with such beautiful upholstery.”
“Oh, Mrs. Stewart, not you too.” Orlando would have put his head in his hands if such a gesture wouldn’t risk being told off for having his elbows on the table. “Is there no one in the world who isn’t smitten by these awful contraptions? Has everyone—” he was about to say lost their sanity but the vision of being strung up by his bootstraps from the Stewarts’ lintel forestalled him. “Has everyone got to be besotted with them?”
“I can’t say I see the appeal, Orlando.” Mr. Stewart raised his hand to silence any dissent from wife or son before he’d had his say. “I don’t mind a nice journey on a train or a steamship—there’s grandeur for you, and science in action, applied for the benefit of mankind. But automobiles…” His face looked like he’d found something unpleasant on his boot.
“Richard.” Mrs. Stewart didn’t raise her voice to the volume she normally applied to an argument. It was all the more chilling for its measured tone. “Jonathan has always been a forward-thinking young man, and I’d like to think myself a woman whose mind and spirit are younger than her contemporaries. I’d be delighted to embrace the twentieth century and go for a ride.”
“That’s the spirit, Mama. At the first mutually convenient moment I’ll make sure you get your heart’s desire. Not like some old fuddy-duddies I could mention.” Jonty looked sideways at his father. “And make sure you get Papa to buy you a suitable outfit. A nice coat and skirt, lightweight but warm, a new hat and a dashing scarf to tie said hat on would be a good start.”
“I’ll call in at the milliner’s on the way home from my meeting—the sooner I’m kitted out the better.” Mrs. Stewart looked more like a schoolgirl contemplating her first ball than a respectable grandmother. “Now, are there any rules I’ll have to know? Will I need to join the Automobile Association as you have?”
“How did you know about that?” Orlando had never before been quite so bold with his almost-mother-in-law but the situation was reaching crisis point.
“I inspected that handsome badge on the—is it called the grille, dear?”
“That’s right, Mama. But you won’t need to join, not as a passenger. I only became a member to…” Jonty hesitated, “…to be a responsible driver and learn about keeping the Lagonda in decent nick.”
Orlando could stand the half truths no longer. He appealed to Caesar, in the venerable form of Mr. Stewart. “Do you want to know why your son joined the Automobile Association? It’s nothing to do with being a considerate driver and it’s certainly nothing to do with maintaining that…that…monster. It’s so he can be warned about the police speed traps.”
“No, it isn’t.” Jonty’s reddened cheeks gave the instant lie to his words. “Well, not entirely. And you have to admit that would be useful, if we wanted a jaunt down to Brighton. You wouldn’t want me to be caught by the constabulary, would you, Papa? Wouldn’t do the old reputation any good. Now, what would you say to Brighton, Mama? Fancy a spot of sea air?”
“That sounds lovely.” Mrs. Stewart turned her head, as sharp as any schoolmistress to the hint of a snort. “I heard that, Orlando. Don’t you appreciate the seaside?”
Orlando snorted again. “I always welcome the sea air, but the proper way to get there is in a train. Somehow the combination of your son, the open road and that machine seems like pure chaos. I get a headache just thinking about it.” He adopted his best lecturing-to-the-dunderheads tones. “I can see it now. ‘My lords’—he’d have to be tried by them, no ordinary jury could cope with him—‘I strongly believe that Dr. Stewart should never be permitted around anything both mechanical and more complicated than a pocket watch. The threat to public safety is too great. I have done the calculations.’” Orlando waved his napkin in lieu of the papers he’d have to exhibit in the House of Lords.
“Hear, hear.” Mr. Stewart, who was entitled to sit in the House of Lords but couldn’t be bothered to stoop so low, applauded.
“Please don’t encourage him, I’ve had weeks of this.” Jonty’s handsome face was screwed up in mock agony. “Still, if he doesn’t want to walk all the way tomorrow, he’ll have to swallow his pride—and his calculations—and get into the passenger seat.” A sly look crossed his face. “Maybe you could learn to drive, Orlando. It’s very logical, you know, almost a mathematical process. You’d take to it like a duck to water, just like you did with punting.”
“At least if I drove and you were just the passenger, there’d be less risk of killing the entire population of London.” Orlando drew himself up in his chair, changing his expression to the one he used for addressing particularly stupid undergraduates. “I wouldn’t need to fear any policemen as I wouldn’t be going too fast.”
“I don’t believe that for a moment. Not once you’d got the bit between your teeth. And don’t you think he’d look so handsome in a driving hat and goggles? Ow—no kicking.” Jonty rubbed his shin. “He kicked me under the table, Mama, just like Clarence used to do.”
“Then, like Clarence, he’ll have to go to bed.” Mrs. Stewart grinned. She’d sent them to bed before, even though both were nearly thirty at the time. And she considered neither of them too old for a whack on the backside. “Go on, off to bed. The pair of you. And separate rooms.”
“Your mother said separate rooms.” Orlando struggled into his nightgown, which seemed to be fighting back tonight. Perhaps it needed a kick and being sent upstairs, although upstairs from his room would mean it spending the night in the servants’ quarters.
He’d never have coped with such a bold remark being made to him a few years ago. Now he was either inured to other people—selected others—knowing about his relationship with Jonty, or he didn’t care. He still marvelled at the Stewarts being so understanding. His own parents would have sent him packing if they’d known that he and Jonty lay together, and not content with just a despatch to some far-flung part of the Empire, they’d have probably informed the police en route. The scandal could never have been borne, the Coppersmith name had to be protected.
Funny how the Stewart name, much more eminent, had managed to find itself untarnished, but then the Stewarts would never have reported their son for being in love. They’d even somehow managed to maintain, without actually lying, the belief amongst their social circle that Jonty would remain a confirmed bachelor only until the right girl came along. She was just taking a long time coming.
“I’ve only come in to say goodnight.” Jonty draped himself over the fireside chair. “And to show you the bruise on my shin.” He hitched up his trouser leg to reveal an elegant calf.
“That’s dirt from the scenic railway. And you deserved a kick for the me-in-goggles remark. I suppose you imagine me doing all the hard work behind the wheel and yourself sitting there in the passenger seat, looking attractive in a long buff coat and some rakish hat.” Orlando let out a sigh.
“Sitting and looking pretty is one of my most notable accomplishments.” Jonty’s sprawling posture confirmed his words—even just lazing in a chair looking insolent he was alluring. “I’ll wear that blue scarf Mama gave me, the one which matches my eyes. I’ll have to eschew goggles for the occasion as they’ll obscure the natural beauty of my gaze.” He sprang up, stabbing his lover in the chest with a particularly sharp finger. “And I heard that remark. You need to learn to whisper a little less loudly. I’ll give you ‘vanity, thy name is Stewart’. Don’t you think I’d look dashing in my scarf and hat getup though? I’d say I’d turn quite a few heads—you would, too, in some smart cap set at a jaunty angle on those curls.” Jonty ruffled the items concerned.
“I wouldn’t let you out on the road, passenger or not, if you weren’t wearing goggles. You’d get a piece of grit in your eye and make yourself blind.”
“I’m glad you take such care of my health.” Jonty slid his hand along his lover’s arm. “Old softy.”
“No such thing. I’m less concerned for your health than mine. If you ended up losing the sight of one eye, your mother would flay me alive.” Orlando pressed his lover’s hand, rubbing the flesh on the knuckles. “Seriously, get her to find you something in brass or some such outlandish material, whatever’s the height of fashion among the nobility who drive these wretched things. But please look after yourself.”
“Don’t I always?” They took a long embrace, a goodnight kiss which turned into a series of kisses. “Separate beds tonight. A long time since we’ve done that.”
“Maybe it’s as well. If I want to have energy enough for the Flip Flap tomorrow.” Orlando slapped his lover’s backside and shooed him towards the door.
“The Flip Flap again? You’re getting as bad as Papa.” Jonty turned his lover’s face to the light. “There are even times you look like the old man.” He ruffled Orlando’s hair. “More jungle here though, rather than desert wastes.”
“My father had a fine head of hair. Right to the end.” Orlando swallowed hard. There were times it didn’t hurt to refer to his family, many of them since he’d met Jonty and learned to be happy, but this wasn’t one of them. For some reason—maybe his lover’s flippant remark, maybe being in a house so awash with joy—he couldn’t help feeling melancholy at the memory of the Coppersmiths.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have been so frivolous.” Jonty took one last kiss. “See you in the morning.”
Orlando turned off the light and lay in bed, but sleep seemed very elusive tonight. His thoughts were filled with his mother and father, whom he’d loved and who’d not known how to love their son in return. And his grandmother, who’d been the light of his young life. And of a little boy who still didn’t really understand why there had been such a knot of pain, kept hidden, but clear in its effect, within the Coppersmith family.
Lessons for Suspicious Minds #10
“This island is a delightful spot.” Orlando couldn’t decide whether he preferred the lodge, the temple, or the pleasant grounds. That was like choosing between algebra, geometry, and calculus.
“It is that,” Jonty replied. “Do you know, there are two things which depress me about traditional depictions of heaven—no more sea and the equal light. Who would want a world in which there are no shadows to play on the grass or waves to play on the beach? I’ve always hoped that St. Peter, as a fisherman, would sort out the business of the ocean. Or else where will the whales disport themselves?”
“Will there be whales in heaven?”
“I sincerely hope so. Why would God create something so magnificent and then not make the most of it through eternity? I’ll be expecting glyptodonts too.”
Orlando didn’t answer. He’d tried to engage in sensible discussion on this sort of topic before, but he’d recently given up the exercise of pursuing whatever flight of fancy Jonty’s brain had gone on. There was no logic to his mental processes at times, nor was any logic expected in return. All that was required of the audience was to listen—or at least pretend to.
“I reckon we’ll have at least half an hour to disport ourselves here. Papa’s settled in that chair for a snooze and Mama, when she wakes, will force the gardener to talk to her about roses and peacocks and who knows what.” Jonty stretched again. “Bliss.” He turned over, leaning on his elbow. “Are you going to take advantage of the opportunity for a bit of shut-eye?”
“No, I’ve more important things to do.” Orlando sat hugging his knees. “I spent too much of my early life ignoring beauty and sticking my nose in books rather than looking around at the trees and the sky and the water. I want to take every opportunity now of drinking in the sublime.”
“You wonderful old softy. We’ll make a poet of you yet.” Jonty lay back again, arms behind head, staring up at the beech leaves. “Do you know, these are the best trees to hide from the rain under? Something about the arrangement of the leaves, designed to catch the most sunlight. It helps to keep out the rain as a wonderful side effect.”
“Where do you pick up all this stuff? Dr. Panesar been bending your ear again?” Maurice Panesar, fellow of St. Bride’s, possibly the most inventive brain in Cambridge. And with about as much practical common sense as a squid.
“This island is a delightful spot.” Orlando couldn’t decide whether he preferred the lodge, the temple, or the pleasant grounds. That was like choosing between algebra, geometry, and calculus.
“It is that,” Jonty replied. “Do you know, there are two things which depress me about traditional depictions of heaven—no more sea and the equal light. Who would want a world in which there are no shadows to play on the grass or waves to play on the beach? I’ve always hoped that St. Peter, as a fisherman, would sort out the business of the ocean. Or else where will the whales disport themselves?”
“Will there be whales in heaven?”
“I sincerely hope so. Why would God create something so magnificent and then not make the most of it through eternity? I’ll be expecting glyptodonts too.”
Orlando didn’t answer. He’d tried to engage in sensible discussion on this sort of topic before, but he’d recently given up the exercise of pursuing whatever flight of fancy Jonty’s brain had gone on. There was no logic to his mental processes at times, nor was any logic expected in return. All that was required of the audience was to listen—or at least pretend to.
“I reckon we’ll have at least half an hour to disport ourselves here. Papa’s settled in that chair for a snooze and Mama, when she wakes, will force the gardener to talk to her about roses and peacocks and who knows what.” Jonty stretched again. “Bliss.” He turned over, leaning on his elbow. “Are you going to take advantage of the opportunity for a bit of shut-eye?”
“No, I’ve more important things to do.” Orlando sat hugging his knees. “I spent too much of my early life ignoring beauty and sticking my nose in books rather than looking around at the trees and the sky and the water. I want to take every opportunity now of drinking in the sublime.”
“You wonderful old softy. We’ll make a poet of you yet.” Jonty lay back again, arms behind head, staring up at the beech leaves. “Do you know, these are the best trees to hide from the rain under? Something about the arrangement of the leaves, designed to catch the most sunlight. It helps to keep out the rain as a wonderful side effect.”
“Where do you pick up all this stuff? Dr. Panesar been bending your ear again?” Maurice Panesar, fellow of St. Bride’s, possibly the most inventive brain in Cambridge. And with about as much practical common sense as a squid.
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Because wherever Jonty and Orlando go, trouble seems to find them. Sunny, genial Jonty and prickly, taciturn Orlando may seem like opposites. But their balance serves them well as they sift through clues to crimes, and sort through their own emotions to grow closer. But at the end of the day, they always find the truth . . . and their way home together.
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Be sure and check the author's website for a complete chronological list of novels, novellas, free short stories in the Cambridge Fellows Mysteries Universe.
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Saturday Series Spotlight
Author Bio:
As Charlie Cochrane couldn't be trusted to do any of her jobs of choice - like managing a rugby team - she writes. Her favourite genre is gay fiction, predominantly historical romances/mysteries, but she's making an increasing number of forays into the modern day. She's even been known to write about gay werewolves - albeit highly respectable ones.
Her Cambridge Fellows series of Edwardian romantic mysteries were instrumental in seeing her named Speak Its Name Author of the Year 2009. She’s a member of both the Romantic Novelists’ Association and International Thriller Writers Inc.
Happily married, with a house full of daughters, Charlie tries to juggle writing with the rest of a busy life. She loves reading, theatre, good food and watching sport. Her ideal day would be a morning walking along a beach, an afternoon spent watching rugby and a church service in the evening.
EMAIL: cochrane.charlie2@googlemail.com
Lessons in Discovery #3
Lessons in Power #4
Lessons in Seduction #6
Lessons in Trust #7
Lessons for Suspicious Minds #10
Series #1-12
Series Novellas
