Page 164 of One More Christmas at the Castle
‘Of course – andIcan hardly wait to clean out those curio cabinets!’
‘I can see that’s your idea of fun,’ Sabine said, looking amused.
‘I think before you start work again, Xan, you really should take Dido to buy a ring,’ Nancy suggested, twinkling.
‘Good idea,’ Sabine agreed. ‘I know an excellent jeweller in Hexham, and you can take those earrings of mine to be mended at the same time!’
It was after lunch next day when I entered the study, armed with cleaning materials, and found Xan on his hands and knees by the desk.
‘Dropped something?’ I asked.
He looked up, now running one hand under the bottom drawer on the side nearest to me.
‘No, it’s just that I suddenly remembered an old murder mystery novel I’d read, where the key to a locked drawer hadbeen taped to the underneath of it …’ His eyes suddenly widened. ‘It would appear that Asa read the same book!’
‘It’s there?’ I said eagerly, dumping my feather duster and going over, just as he sat up, holding a piece of brown tape with a key stuck to it, like a bluebottle on flypaper.
‘This stuff has gone horribly tacky over the years,’ he said, unpeeling the key, before inserting it into the lock of the bottom drawer and turning it, with some difficulty.
‘Bluebeard’s Drawer!’ I said. ‘I wonder what’s going to be in there? A secret bottle of brandy, or a stash of forbidden chocolate …?’
‘Wrong on both counts. It’s just more letters,’ he said, sitting back with a thin bundle in his hands. ‘And if I’m not mistaken, they’re yet another exchange between Asa and my grandfather, Tommy.’
He got up and put them on the desk and the inevitable shrivelled remains of a rubber band crumbled away.
‘Definitely Tommy,’ he said, flicking through them. ‘And Asa’s pinned carbons of his replies to them, as usual.’
He frowned. ‘But I’ve already found loads of Tommy’s letters, so why lock these away?’
‘There must be something important in these particular ones, Xan. Look, why don’t you read through them while I make us some coffee, and then you can tell me what they’re about – unless it’s something really private, of course.’
‘I don’t think there can be any family skeletons left in the cupboard,’ he said. ‘Not even a mouse-sized one!’
When I got back, he had the letters spread out and was still frowning over them.
‘Any skeletons?’ I asked, putting the mugs down.
‘One small, unsavoury one I didn’t know about …’ he saidslowly. ‘Tommy talked to me quite a lot in his last few years and I knew that Asa, even though he adored Sabine, had a few flings with other women. He couldn’t resist them and to him, they meant nothing.’
‘They’d have meant a lot to Sabine, though, if she’d found out about them!’ I exclaimed, my picture of the idyllic couple fracturing slightly.
‘Asa was a kind and generous man, he just had this … weakness.’
‘If that’s what the letters are about, no wonder he locked them away from Sabine!’ I said.
‘There’s a bit more to it than that. It seems that when Faye was staying with them on Corfu, he had a bit of a thing withher, too.’
‘Oh, no!’ I cried. ‘Surely not? I mean, she was his wife’s half-sister and also, in his care.’
‘I said it was an unsavoury secret,’ he reminded me. ‘It’s clear from the letters that it only happened the once and he was very guilty about it, but Tommy’s telling him not to beat himself up, because the seizure he had that stopped him diving, right afterwards, was punishment enough.’
‘He certainly did pay for his weak moment,’ I agreed, thinking about it.
‘Hedidsee it as a punishment – for that, and also for another moment of madness: he says that on the day of the diving accident, when he went to help Faye, who’d managed to rip her mouthpiece out and was panicking, he took her by the shoulders – and for a brief instant wanted to hold her there till she drowned!’
‘But he didn’t!’ I said quickly.
‘Well, no, because sanity came back almost instantly. He says he let her go again and was just going to get her to the surface – they weren’t deep, she would have been in no dangerif she hadn’t lost her head – when he had his heart attack, or seizure, or whatever it was. And we know the rest of the story – how they got him to hospital and Faye ran off.’
