Beatrice (The Tipton Hollow 2)

She had to agree with him. The sooner she could close the door on this entire ordeal, the happier she would be; not only for herself, but for Ben as well.

Ben sighed and glanced at her. “If the plant was owned by Brian Mottram, and he delivered it to you before he died, then I think you have every legal right to go to a solicitor. He can prepare a letter for you to hand to Hargraves the next time he calls. If Hargraves, or his boss, has any legal claim to it, they can contact the solicitor directly.?

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“I understand, but I really don’t know if a plant is worth the trouble,” Beatrice sighed. “My uncle was the botanist, not me. While I love to garden, and enjoy spending as much time as possible in mine, I have no interest in rare and tropical species. To be honest with you, Ben, I really don’t like the plant, and cannot see why I should go to the trouble of trying to keep it.”

“You want to hand it over to Hargraves?” Ben asked incredulously. Although the plant belonged to Beatrice, everything within him objected to the thought of her giving it to someone like their persistent caller. To his relief, Beatrice seemed to echo his sentiment.

“No, oh no. Of course not. I wouldn’t give Sigmund Hargraves anything. Unfortunately, at the moment, I cannot prove that he isn’t the rightful owner though.”

“Do you want to forget about going to Richard Browning’s house, and just go for a day out?” Ben suggested hopefully after several minutes of contented silence. He suddenly didn’t want to do anything that would spoil such a perfect morning.

Beatrice thought about that for a moment and sighed. “Given that we are already heading in the direction of his house, we should at least drop by and see if he is available to meet with us,” she reasoned. “I want to at least see him so I would recognise him if we ever met in the future. I have to confess that I liked Archie, he appears to be a nice man. However, Uncle Matthew never mentioned him and I cannot help but wonder why. I mean, if they were good friends like Archie claimed, why did he not call by to at least share a cup of tea? I have never heard of the man before.” She glanced at Ben with a frown. “Not only that, but he said that your handwriting on the packaging paper was Uncle Matthew’s.”

Ben sighed. “Do you think that Archie was lying because he was involved in the plant in some way, only doesn’t want us to know about it?”

Beatrice hated to think that someone as nice and affable as the elderly scholar could be an outright liar, but she had to be honest. “I have to consider the facts, Ben. It galls me to think that I was drawn in by the man’s niceness yesterday. However, I cannot help but feel that there was something wrong with the entire visit.”

“I know,” Ben sighed with relief. “I completely agree.”

“What about that man in the entrance hall?” She asked with a frown.

Ben turned to look at her. “What do you mean?” He felt tension creep over him as he thought about the strange vanishing act the man in the entrance hall had done. “Do you think that he deliberately sent us to Archibald Harrington?”

“It all sounds too wild to be true, but I cannot help but wonder why he would suddenly vanish from his duties. If he was supposed to be on the desk to help people, why had he not returned to the desk by the time we came back down the stairs nearly an hour later?”

“Do you think the two men were linked in some way?”

“Oh, I know it sounds too far-fetched to be true. To be honest with you, I am not sure if I believe it myself, but I have to tell you that I would feel a lot easier about yesterday’s visit to the university, and Archibald Harrington, if I knew what the men on that list look like.” She turned to him. “We know what Brian Mottram and Jules Sanders look like. How do we know that we didn’t meet the two surviving men on that list at the university yesterday?”

Ben puffed out his cheeks on a sigh and shook his head. He had to agree with her. It galled him to think that they had been duped so easily, but they had very little in the way of actual facts to go on. She was right, they at least needed to know what the men looked like.

He sensed that there was something else she was not telling him, and gave her a gentle nudge. “You can confide in me you know, Beatrice.”

“I don’t know if it is just me being silly,” she confessed. “There is something about the creation of that list that bothers me. Why did uncle write it? If the four people knew my uncle, and were friends, Matthew would not need to write their addresses down. He put that list of names and addresses in a book, where it may never be found. Why? If it held any importance, surely he would have spoken to me about it, or at least put it somewhere where it would be found?” Frustration rang clearly in her voice.

“It doesn’t make sense,” he conceded.

Ben scowled off into the distance while he thought over their meeting with Archie. Had the scholar lied about his association to Matthew? If so, why? Was he just trying to gain an invitation to Brantley Manor so that he could get his hands on that plant? The thought gave Ben the chills and turned his attention back to Beatrice.

“Did your uncle seem worried about anything at all in the last months before his death?”

Beatrice shook her head. “No. Right up until the day of his death, he seemed fine. He spent most of the last few days of his life buried in his study, but that was nothing unusual.” Ben reached out and held her hand in silent support. She smiled at him. “I am sorry. I just find this entire situation so confusing that I could rip my own hair out with the sheer frustration of having so many questions, and no answers. I just wish he was here so I could ask him. Why did he keep so many secrets from me? I mean, if he had just included me in his life a bit more, maybe we could have operated as a family. Even a small, slightly eccentric family would have been better than the cool, almost aloof duo we made.”

“He was a bachelor, Beatrice. He didn’t expect a beautiful young lady to turn up on his doorstep and probably had no idea what to do with you,” Ben reasoned. He could only sympathise with the man’s predicament because if he was faced with the same situation, he had no idea how he would handle it.

“Maud did take over as parent, nurse-maid, and surrogate mother,” Beatrice acceded. “If it wasn’t for her, I don’t know what would have happened to me.”

He couldn’t help it; he drew her closer until she was sitting right beside him; then slid an arm around her waist.

“Look, let’s go and visit both men on that list so we know what they look like. We will then know if they had anything to do with yesterday’s visit to the university. We need to see if we can at least get one of them to tell us about that plant. If their story is different to Archie’s, then we can make a decision about whether it is worth mentioning this to a solicitor, or Mark.”

Ben sighed and took a moment to turn the carriage into another lane that took them directly to Marchwell Bishop. The village came into sight in the valley below them, and looked so blissfully tranquil that he couldn’t believe for one second that anyone with any nefarious purposes could live in such a place. Southside in Great Tipton – yes; a sleepy little village like Marchwell Bishop – definitely not.

He was suddenly very glad that he had decided to surprise Beatrice, and couldn’t wait to get the visit to Browning out of the way so that they could get on with enjoying the rest of the day.

“How delightful,” Beatrice whispered moments later as they made their way down the main street.