A Crime at Christmas: Miss Hart and Miss Hunter Investigate, #5

By Celina Grace

It's 'Stir-Up Sunday', 1936, and kitchen maid Joan Hart is busy making the Christmas pudding. Her best friend Verity Hunter, lady's maid to socialite Dorothy Drew, is tasked with adding the lucky sixpences, and makes a wish that her mistress will finally find happiness after the grief and chaos of the last few years…

 

However, when Dorothy's prized diamond necklace vanishes during a glamourous evening soirée, the household is thrown into chaos. Distracted only slightly by her burgeoning romance with Scotland Yard's dashing Inspector Marks, Joan and Verity set out to unravel the truth behind the theft, determined to recover the stolen jewels and, perhaps, ensure a happy ending for everyone involved…

 

Also includes the story introducing the servant sleuths! Death at the Manor, the first Joan and Verity story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Isaro Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Nov 7, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223247548

Book preview

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Table Of Contents

A Crime at Christmas

Author’s Note

The Asharton Manor Mysteries: 1929

Miss Hart and Miss Hunter Investigate

A Crime at Christmas

Celina Grace

A Crime at Christmas

Copyright © 2023 Celina Grace.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

For my sister-in-law, Cheryl Beckles, with much love

A Crime at Christmas

Outside, I could see flakes of snow falling through the air like tiny white feathers, but inside the kitchen it was warm and steamy. It was ‘Stir-up Sunday’, the traditional day for making Christmas puddings, and I was doing precisely that, sitting at the table with the big pale-yellow bowl in the crook of one arm, my other stirring up the pudding mix.

Have you put the sixpences in yet?

Verity was sitting opposite me with a pile of Dorothy’s delicates, occupied in mending them. She was using the needle book I’d made for her last Christmas, a jolly little package of red velvet. I’d done my best to embroider her initials in gold thread, but I could never quite make the same neat little stitches as Verity could. It’s probably just as well I’m the undercook and she’s the lady’s maid.

I rolled my eyes at her question. Do you have eyes, V? They’re lying right there. I indicated the little pile of coins by the side of the mixing bowl.

Verity giggled. "Oh, sorry, Joanie. Maybe I am going blind from all this close work." She brandished a brassière at me.

You can drop them in if you like, I said. Make a wish at the same time.

Rightio. Verity folded the mended brassière and added it to the pile of completed needlework. She scooped up the coins and began to drop them into the bowl, trying to avoid my stirring arm.

Made a wish? I said, when the last one plopped into the bowl and was swallowed up by the raisin-studded sticky brown mix.

Mm-hmm. Verity looked serious for a moment. Shall I tell you?

Well, if you do that, it might not come true, I said, grinning.

Well, in that case I better hadn’t.

She wasn’t smiling. I felt the grin drop off my face. She may not have been going to tell me, but I could hazard a good guess as to what she’d wished for.

Mrs Watling, the cook, came hurrying into the kitchen from the courtyard, a basket over her arm. My word, girls, it’s absolutely perishing out there. I’m sure I thought my nose would freeze right off my face. She plonked the basket on the table, casting a swift glance over my mixing bowl. That looks good, Joan. Don’t stint the orange peel, now.

Obviously, I hadn’t stinted the orange peel. I cast a silent, eloquent glance over the table to Verity, who had sat herself back down again, and she gave me one right back.

But there, I was being unkind. Mrs Watling was no tyrant, but a good cook and manager. We worked well together. She bustled off towards the larder with the tins from her shopping trip. Verity blew out her cheeks and folded the last mended frippery into a neat square.

How is Dorothy? I asked, quietly. It might seem odd for the kitchen maid that Dorothy had hired to ask about her well-being, but Verity was far more acquainted with her mistress than I could ever be, and I knew she would give me an honest answer.

Verity turned the corners of her mouth down. Not all that well, to be honest, Joan.

I was silent for a moment, remembering. Poor Dorothy had suffered yet another blow to her romantic aspirations over the summer. This time, the wedding that she had so looked forward to had been called off. Not only that, but the would-be bridegroom with whom she had had such a whirl-wind romance with had – well, let’s just say he’d let her down. Badly. It was too cruel. Dorothy had been through so much loss and sadness in her life. She was young, rich and beautiful but I wouldn’t have traded places with her for all the tea in China, no, not even for her money.

Verity sighed. I’ve been trying to encourage her to see her friends again, perhaps go and stay with someone, find a new interest or something like that, but she won’t.

There was an indelicate question that I wanted to ask, without quite knowing how to put it tactfully. Is she – um— I meant is she drinking again.

Verity looked me in the eye. I didn’t need to say it. No, she’s not. Not as far as I’m aware. She was silent for a moment and added, I know how to keep an eye on her.

Well, that was something at least. I nodded, not really sure of anything useful to add.

Mrs Watling came back into the kitchen and Verity and I, by common unspoken consent, changed the subject.

You’ll be taking Monday afternoon off, will you Joan? Mrs Watling asked.

Yes please. For the last few weeks, I’d had Monday afternoons off, spending my time travelling to Hampstead to meet with Frankie Delaney, a theatre and film director who – very excitingly – was directing a production of my play Death at the Manor. I could see Verity was dying to ask me more questions about the development of the play (she virtually interrogated me every time I returned on Monday evenings) but Mrs Watling nodded and kept talking.

Well, only a simple supper tonight, thankfully. How are you getting on with the devilled eggs?

Alice has done them already. I opened the door to the refrigerator and lifted up the damp tea towel that covered a white dish. Alice, our tweeny, was getting rather good at the fiddly dishes, I thought. The eggs themselves looked most attractive with their piped yellow hearts and a sprinkling of black pepper flecking their surfaces.

Good. I had thought of vichyssoise as a first course but it’s far too cold for that. Mrs Watling looked across at Verity, who was neatening the line of the stack of clothing before her on the table, a snowy drift of linen and silk. Do we have any dinner parties at all this week, Verity?

Verity smoothed the lace of the topmost nightdress and shook her head. No, Mrs Watling. Not this week.

Mrs Watling frowned. Well, that’s less work for us, I suppose but, well, it doesn’t seem much like Madam. For a moment she looked as though she was going to comment further but thought better of it. Well, let’s get on.

Verity gave me a smile as she left the room. She looked tired, her usual vitality dimmed, although she looked as smart as ever in her tweed blouse with the silver neck-pin.

Nancy’s off this evening, Joan, so you’ll have to wait at table.

Yes, Mrs Watling. I didn’t mind. I wanted to see Dorothy, to see how melancholy she really was, whether she was eating properly or not. Over the years, I’d grown very fond of my mistress. Her current vulnerability made me want, more than ever, to take greater than usual care of her.

I gave the pudding bowl mixture one final vigorous stir, east to west (‘Why?’ Alice had asked earlier, and I’d told her it was because of the tradition of the three kings, journeying towards Bethlehem and the baby Jesus). Each of the girls had had their own stir, as was tradition, and so had Mrs Watling and Mrs Anstells, the housekeeper. By rights, Dorothy herself should have stirred the pudding, for luck, but after our recent conversation, I was reluctant to ask Verity to suggest it to her. Even though the poor woman could do with some luck.

I turned the pudding out into the basin, tied up the cloth and left the bowl to soak in the sink. A quick check of the state of my apron and cuffs – reasonably respectable – and I made my way up to the dining room on the ground floor, to check that all was in order.

As I climbed the stairs from the kitchen, I thought about how much I liked this house; liked it most of all the grand houses I had worked in. For a start, although we’d had murderers amongst us here, we had never had any actual murders within these walls. This was the house, as well, where I’d heard the good news about my play. Even though it had been months ago, I could still recall, with a glow of delight, exactly how I had felt when Tommy, Verity’s actor uncle, had told me that Frankie Delaney was interested in meeting me. What a hoot it had been, since! I knew that there would be many months before the play got anywhere near a stage, and goodness knows, it wouldn’t be the West End or anywhere grand like that. But it was still a thought to sustain me through the hours of arduous work that I endured every day.

I reached the dining room and pushed open its double doors. This room was one of the largest on the ground floor; only the drawing room was bigger. Beyond the tall sash windows in the far wall, their brocade curtains pooling in a swirl of gold on the parquet floor, I could see the snow outside thickening from feathery flakes to flurries. It was chilly in here. The fireplace was laid ready for lighting, but Verity had said that Dorothy would take a tray in her room for lunch. Would she eat down here at dinner? I frowned, unsure. Deciding to set the table anyway, I pulled white linen cloths from the sideboard, a napkin, a silver napkin ring.

I set the table, moving the vase of flame-coloured chrysanthemums to the middle of the snowy cloth, and stood back to observe it. Really, there was something too depressing about the long table being set for one person. But that was what I’d been told to do, so…

Alice and Mrs Watling would have lunch for both Dorothy and the servants underway, so I took the opportunity of hunting out Verity on the next floor. If she had been in with Dorothy in her room, then of course I would not have disturbed them, but she was next door in the bathroom, hanging fresh towels on the chromium rail and picking up Dorothy’s discarded nightwear. A steamy sweetness hung in the air and the last of the fragrant bathwater gurgled down the drain.

Hello, Joanie.

I returned the greeting and sat down on the edge of the bath. Are you dining with Dorothy tonight?

Verity looked surprised. She hasn’t asked me to. I don’t normally, you know that. She dropped the clothes she was holding into a mesh bag and pulled the drawstring tight. Why do you ask?

I told her about the sad little tableau that I had set up at the end of the table. Verity frowned.

"She’s not dying, Joan. She’s just sad."

I know. I was feeling so happy with my life at the moment that I felt more than normally sympathetic towards someone who’s life wasn’t going quite so well. Not only did I have the delicious thought of my play to sustain me, but I also had a