Slipping the blackmail letter into the breast pocket of his jacket, Frank turned back to his desk and caught his breath. For some minutes he stared at the black cast iron safe with gold lettering in the corner of the room. There was another option, one that he hadn’t thought of until now. He could borrow the money. Take £50 from the safe and put an I.O.U in its place. That would give him time to put the money back before banking the takings on Friday. And if he wasn’t able to put the money back, it would at least give him time to think up a decent reason for borrowing it.
Frank went to the door and put his ear to the wood. He could hear voices, but none were Bess’s. No one except his wife walked into the office without knocking. Even his sisters-in-law knocked before entering. They didn’t always wait to be asked to come in, but they always knocked. Frank looked at his watch. Bess was dropping their breakfast tray off in the kitchen before going up to the library and the smoking lounge with copies of the Advertiser. Even if she changed her mind and called into the office before going upstairs, she would be at least five minutes. Time enough to take £50 and scribble a note.
Frank moved quickly to the safe. Opening it, he took out four five-pound notes and thirty one-pound notes from the blue hessian bag that Barclays provided. He then wrote the note saying that he had borrowed £50 and would replace it tomorrow. He added his signature to the note, but not the date. Tomorrow would be the day after whichever day it was that his wife noticed the money was missing.
Closing the safe, Frank put the wad of notes in an envelope, slipped it into his pocket next to the blackmail letter, and went out to reception. ‘There was a letter addressed to me personally in the post this morning, Maeve.’
The receptionist looked up at her boss. ‘Yes, Mr Donnelly.’
‘It didn’t have a stamp on it and I was wondering if it had been delivered by hand. And if it had, perhaps you saw who brought it.’
‘No. No one has delivered a letter while I’ve been here.’ Maeve looked into the mid-distance, thoughtfully. ‘There wasn’t anything on the desk when I got here this morning. If there had been,’ she explained, ‘I’d have thought it strange and would have remembered. And it was only a few minutes after the post arrived that you came down, picked it up, and took it through to the office.’
‘And you’ve been on reception all the time?’ Frank asked. ‘You didn’t leave at all, not even to powder your nose?’
Maeve took a sharp breath. ‘Yes. I did leave the desk.’ She put her hands up to her mouth. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Donnelly, I forgot. I went to the toilet and when I got back the post was here. I wasn’t away for more than a couple of minutes, but I suppose it was long enough for someone to nip in and put a letter among the pile the postman had delivered. I can’t think who would do such a thing, or why. I think it’s more likely that the stamp just came off.’
‘Thank you, Maeve.’
‘I hope I haven’t caused you a problem by not being here when the post came?’
‘No, dear, not at all. I was just curious as to how an envelope without a stamp got past the postmen in the sorting office,’ Frank said, ‘and, if it did, why the postman hadn’t waited and asked you to pay the postage cost.’
‘He did once before, when there wasn’t a stamp.’
‘Well, there’s nothing we can do about it now,’ Frank said, with a smile. ‘I think I’ll go for a walk; get a breath of fresh air. If my wife comes looking for me, tell her I won’t be long.’
CHAPTER THREE
Bess pulled back the bedroom curtains, pushed up the sash window and revelled in the fresh air. After three days of showers the sky was blue with wispy clouds that were being dispersed by the warm sun as soon as they wafted into view. She sat on the window ledge and looked out over the grounds. Daffodils dwarfed the snowdrops in the park, and forget-me-nots and crocuses peeped from beneath the hedgerows. Spring had finally arrived.
This time last year Bess had wondered whether she and Frank had taken on too much by agreeing to oversee the building work and refurbishment of Foxden Hall. It had seemed that for every step forward the builders took, turning the Hall into a hotel, they took two steps back. At the end of the summer Bess had serious doubts about the hotel opening at all, let alone on New Year’s Eve.
They had taken a huge risk. Not only had Frank given up his job at the aerodrome, which would have been a job for life, to take charge of the interior maintenance, they had gone into partnership with Lord Foxden, and they had taken out a loan from the bank to pay for more workmen. Even then it was a gamble as to whether the work would be finished on time.
Ena came up from London at the beginning of the autumn to help Bess with the refurbishment. They measured the bedrooms for carpets and curtains and decided where furniture would be best placed to maximise space.
In 1940, when Ena was still working at Silcott’s Engineering, she had helped Bess turn Foxden Hall into a convalescent home for local servicemen coming home from Dunkirk. Then they had cleared the rooms in the west wing for hospital beds and medical apparatus, and had stored the furniture. Now they
