We stood like lemons. She finally said she'd make some fresh tea and have a slice of toast, then we could be on our way. I said fine, fine. I honestly don't know what we're playing at half the time.
'Oh, Lovejoy,' she said in the kitchen, safe from past reminders, 'there is good news.
Tinker comes out of rehabilitation today. I have ordered a motor car to transport him.'
The Lydias of this world can't say words like gaol.
'Thanks, love.' Good fortune at last. I'd have the world back on its axis in a trice, the three of us together.
'One question puzzles me, Lovejoy,' she said, dabbing her mouth with a napkin. It had been ironed into folds. I remembered the old trick challenge: How many times can you fold a standard piece of foolscap writing paper of average thickness? Answer: Eight. No more, not even if you're Morgyn the Mighty. I'd bet Lydia could iron a napkin into a million folds without effort. I ate her toast because she was slow.
'Yes, dwoorlink?'
'Who injured you, and why?'
She'd spotted my wince and my limp. Sometimes she's a right pest. 'Oh,' I said heartily,
'good heavens! I stumbled off the kerb.'
She rose, cleared things away.
'Please do not dissemble,' she said. 'You may enlighten me should you feel so inclined.
Come now. We have a journey.'
Which is how, at a breathtaking nineteen miles an hour, bumping onto every gutter grid for mile after mile, we reached the ancient manor of Saffron Fields Hall.
Where at last we found Arthur Goldhorn, but not his missing lady.
We alighted at the ornate gate. I was all but asleep from Lydia's reckless driving. With her, you've time for a coffee at every crossroads. In Lavenham we'd been overtaken by an invalid chair.
'Why not drive up to the house?' I suggested. The drive is five furlongs long. 'Seeing it's our destination?'
'Certainly not, Lovejoy!' she said, scandalized. 'Didn't you tell me that Mr Goldhorn is possibly deceased? The present incumbent might not wish it.'
Give me strength. 'Good point,' I said.
Saffron Fields Hall is imposing. Queen Anne style, twelve windows across, four storeys high, red brick covered in that green creeper thing, set in immaculate grounds. Once, the lawns hadn't been quite so stencilled. Several gardeners slogged away. I called out to one I recognized but he ignored me. They had orders.
'How rude!' Lydia exclaimed, preparing for war. 'Not even to answer when…' et Lydia cetera.
'We'll visit a friendly neighbour instead, and find out.'
We stuttered along the rough track that led beside the Saffron Fields estate. It was three furlongs off, took us a couple of aeons.
'Where are we, Lovejoy?'
'This friend's nice. You'll like her. She grows grapes,' I quipped, now troubled by my investigation's tardiness. With Lydia's help I'd be even slower. Dosh Callaghan would come along any minute, wanting answers about his gems.
The vineyard is one of those places in East Anglia where the Romans supposedly grew their grapes. I actually believe it of Carting's Vineyard. It's set back from the main road, a mere twenty acres, with two large ponds trying to be lakes in truly rural surroundings, woods, a bridge over a freshet, thickets. Countryside gets me down.
Two wooden buildings stood adjacent to a reeling farmhouse. Nothing stirred. Lydia exclaimed at its prettiness.
'Oh, look!' she cried. 'A kingfisher!'
Something red and blue zoomed over the water, vanished among trees. I winced. Great to be reminded that Nature was carnage, just when I wanted to find out if my old pal Arthur really had died.
'It caught a little fish, Lovejoy!' she carolled. 'How sweet!'
'Not for the fish.'
'That you?' a voice exclaimed to my relief. 'Wotcher, Dottie.'
There she stood, pleasantly plump, garbed to battle agriculture in Wellingtons, a shift thing smocked at collar and hem, with frayed brown cuffs and an amorphous canvas hat garlanded with hedgerow flowers.
Dottie Kelvedon was born and raised on Carting's Farm, back when it had been a smallholding with cows and pigs and a dog called Goon. Dottie had evaded the various forms of penury planned by successive governments. She'd turned it into a vineyard, bottling her own red and white wines -Cymbeline Red and suchlike. I'd sold a stock of antique farm implements for her. She'd paid me in kindness.
'Who's the grumble?' Dottie speaks like a rough soldier sometimes. Comes from delivering calves, foals, and rearing chickens for unspeakable purposes. Grumble and grunt is Cockney slang for a female.
'Dottie Kelvedon,' I said with gallantry, 'may I introduce my apprentice Lydia?' I sounded like Beau Brummel.
They wittered a bit, those irrelevant non sequiturs with which women fence on meeting.
Lydia decided she liked Dottie. I was surprised. Dottie insisted on showing us round the barn where she organizes wine tastings and supper evenings. She has a lover called Tory, dunno why.
'We've done the fish pond since you were here last, Lovejoy.' Dottie walked us over the little bridge. 'Koi carp cost a fortune. Don't worry,' she said with a laugh I remembered,
