Martin sighed. “It’s going to be rather awkward for the local officer to tell Mr. Brockman that his wife has been arrested, and then to ask about the future of the child.”

“Let me make a telephone call.”

Martin looked alarmed. “Not to Mr. Brockman? He is in ignorance of all this.”

“I’ll speak to his butler, Mr. Raynor.”

Something told me that the baby might fit in well at Thorpefield Manor. Perhaps the Bluebell Mine would prosper too, when those who would have raided its profits were absent from the scene.

Chapter 63

Chapter Sixty-Three

Easter Sunday came on the last day of March that year, and a fine day it was too. Good Friday is always a day off in Yorkshire, which makes for a long weekend.

Philip Goodchild and Alec Taylor closed the garage for four days. They hired a charabanc to go to Scarborough, where I had booked rooms at the Crown Hotel. Philip and Alec would take turns to drive. Benjie was persuaded to go, and to take the eight children, the baby, the nursemaid, Valerie Pennington, Harriet, Milly, Stephen Walmsley, Mr. and Mrs. Arkwright and Joan.

Raynor worried about the cost. The mine would do well, but that was in the future. I assured him that the holiday was thanks to a well-wisher, but did not name the well-wisher as the French Ambassador.

Sykes and Rosie went to stay at the Imperial Hotel, Blackpool over the Easter weekend. Keen ballroom dancers, they intended to spend most of their time at the Winter Gardens, reprising the success of their younger years, when they won many prizes on the dance floor.

I decided to stay at home with Sergeant Dog and my aged cat, Sookie. I would walk in the woods, read, and persuade my broken wrist to mend.

Mrs. Sugden thought this my best idea yet. As I lay on the sofa, thinking about going for a walk, she brought in a tray. “That’s it, you rest. Here’s a cup of tea, and a slice of my rhubarb pie.”

She can be very sensitive about her baking. “I’m sure it’s very good, but no rhubarb pie for me.”

Author’s Note

Author’s Note

The question writers are often asked is “where do you get your ideas?” The simple answer is, everywhere. If one is lucky, different ideas then come together. I was interested in the way investigations can become skewed by a false trail, or by a detective becoming obsessed with a particular line of enquiry. At the time of writing, there was a great deal of discussion about “fake news”, leading me to think of fake news in the 1920s. The letter that opens this book was inspired by a forged letter that contributed to the downfall of the Labour government in the 1924 General Elections. Known as the “Zinoviev letter”, it purported to be from a Ukrainian-born Russian Jewish revolutionary and politician, urging British Communists to incite revolution.