Amanderella and the Mystery of the Disappearing Vicar Chapter 2

Chapter 2.

 

The Mystery is Revealed.

 

Amanderella closed the door behind them. Lady Spruckmedder remained standing for a moment, as though arranging her thoughts into the correct order before allowing any of them out.

“You may be wondering,” she began, “how I came to hear of your… abilities.”

Amanderella smiled faintly. “The world is remarkably leaky when it comes to secrets."

“It is,” Lady Spruckmedder agreed, “but most of them spout nonsense. I prefer information from reliable sources.”

She placed the bundle of papers on the writing table and rested her gloved hand upon it.

“It was my niece,” she said. “She attends an exclusive school in the north of the city.”

Amanderella nodded. She knew it by reputation: a place where the daughters of the well‑to‑do were taught deportment, French, and how to avoid unsuitable acquaintances.

“She,” Lady Spruckmedder continued, “was taught games by a Miss Maudline Ppockingstull.”

Amanderella’s eyebrows lifted. “Maudline? I know her well.”

“So, I gathered,” Lady Spruckmedder said. “The girl wrote to me some months ago, quite full of excitement, because Miss Ppockingstull had told the girls about the Ppockingstull family treasure, the one you found.”

Amanderella felt a small warmth of fondness. Maudline Ppockingstull had always been generous with her stories, especially the ones that made her family look faintly ridiculous.

“Maudline exaggerates,” Amanderella said gently.

“Possibly,” Lady Spruckmedder allowed. “But she also said, and my niece repeated this with great solemnity, that if ever one had a problem involving old papers, missing people, or anything that smelled faintly of mystery, one should consult Lady Amanderella Gottsnobbler, because she had a way of sorting things out without making a fuss.”

Amanderella felt a small, reluctant smile tug at her mouth. “That does sound like Maudline.”

“There is one further detail,” she said. “My cousin, the archaeologist, is working on the ruined chapel above Pentegfawr. He is forever sending me oddments he digs up, most of which turn out to be roof tiles or sheep bells. He said that it was you who found this long lost and forgotten religious site.

Amanderella nodded. She knew the type. “I just happened to be there,” she said.

Lady Spruckmedder nodded once, briskly.

“And so,” she said, tapping the bundle of papers, “here I am.”

She untied the string with careful fingers.

“And here,” she added, “is the trouble. I should probably tell you about my husband’s family. There have been Spruckmedders in the county for as long as anyone can remember or find out. But and this is important, they were not wealthy. If the family had owned land further along the coast, they would have made a fortune from sheep. Sadly, Spruckmedder land is very poor. It produces a magnificent crop of rocks and very little else.”

Amanderella nodded. “Lots of families grew rich from the wool trade.”

“Not us,” said Lady Maudy firmly. “However, my husband’s great‑grandfather was a gardener. A very ambitious one. He decided he wanted to turn one of the valleys running down towards the sea into a spectacular garden, terraces, waterfalls, exotic shrubs, the whole thing.”

She patted the papers with two fingers.

“These show exactly how much he spent on those gardens. And believe me, Lady Gottsnobbler, it was a great deal. Far more than any gardener, or any Spruckmedder, ought to have spent.”

Amanderella leaned forward slightly.

Lady Maudy drew a slow, steady breath, as though preparing to speak a truth that had sat uncomfortably in the family for generations.

“My husband’s great‑grandfather,” she said, “was an ambitious man, and a very astute one. Too astute, perhaps. He realised early on that there was only so much profit to be made from hauling a few barrels of brandy up a beach in the middle of the night.”

Amanderella nodded. She knew the pattern: small‑scale smuggling was risky, messy, and rarely lucrative.

“But he understood something the others did not,” Lady Maudy continued. “The real money was not in bringing contraband in… but in getting it out again. Quietly. Efficiently. To the big towns and cities where no one asked questions, provided the tea was good and the brandy better.”

She lowered her voice as if the very walls of Number 9 had ears." “He organised the routes. The carts. The safe barns. He made sure the right excise men were looking the other way. Everyone in the neighbourhood profited, the farmers who lent horses, the innkeepers who provided rooms, even the magistrate, who had a remarkable talent for not seeing what was directly in front of him.”

“It was not only brandy,” Lady Maudy said quietly. “There was tea, a great deal of tea, and tobacco, and sometimes silk or lace from the Continent. Whatever the boats brought in, he found a way to move it inland. That was his gift. Others hauled the barrels up the beach. He made sure they reached London.”

Amanderella could picture it: a whole valley cooperating in silence, each person taking a small share, each pretending not to know what the others were doing.

“But when the government finally made a serious effort to stop it,” Lady Maudy went on, “he did not cling to a dying trade. He moved his money, quietly, sensibly, into things no one could object to. Pilchard fisheries along the coast. Curing sheds. Smokehouses. And later, when the railways came, he invested in those as well. Sidings. Warehouses. Even a small station.”

She rested her hand on the papers again.

“That is why the family is still wealthy. Not because of the smuggling itself, but because he had the sense to turn illicit profit into respectable enterprise before anyone could ask awkward questions.”

Lady Maudy’s hand remained on the papers for a moment longer, then she withdrew it, smoothing her gloves as though preparing herself for something far less comfortable.

“That is the story of the family,” she said at last, “which is somewhat disreputable, but not unusual in those parts.”

She hesitated.

Amanderella waited. Lady Maudy Spruckmedder was not a woman who hesitated without cause.

“There is another mystery in these papers,” Lady Maudy continued. “He wrote down everything that happened and when. He kept very accurate records of all the things that were brought in, how much they cost, and how much he sold them for. But there is one thing he never wrote down, the identity of a man called only ‘The G’.”

Amanderella tilted her head. “The G.”

Lady Maudy gave a small, tight nod.

“Yes. Always just that. Never the full word. Never an explanation. Only what this man did. Let me show you.”

She opened the documents at a page where she had turned down a corner and read aloud:

“He is mentioned here, ‘G. to see to the wagons.’

And ‘G. says the excise men are restless.’

And here, ‘G. will handle the inland route.’

Always like that. Always brisk. Always essential.”

Amanderella leaned forward. “But no full name.”

“None,” Lady Maudy said. “Not once. And then, quite suddenly, the references stop. No explanation. No farewell. No note of dismissal or death. He simply… disappears. As though he walked out of the valley and never returned.”

“Odd,” Amanderella murmured.

Lady Spruckmedder nodded. “Even though there is now no one alive who was around then, the villagers still speak of him, not openly, but in that quiet manner country people have when discussing something they would rather not explain. They refer to a figure who appears and disappears on the marsh paths. They never say it is a ghost, but they never say it is not. They talk about him in whispers.”

She closed the papers gently.

“I need someone who can discover who The G was, what became of him, and why his letter, or his memory, is still spoken of as though it were something dangerous.”

She hesitated, smoothing her gloves again, though they were already perfectly straight.

“I need to know,” she said at last, “even if it is something really quite bad that my husband’s great‑grandfather did. The payments to this ‘G’ stop so abruptly. No explanation. No note. In those days people could be… brisk in their dealings. And now there is a chance that the story of my family will appear in a very popular magazine, and we wish to be ready for anything that may emerge.”

Amanderella regarded her with calm interest. Lady Maudy Spruckmedder was not a woman who concerned herself with gossip columns or society chatter; if she feared a magazine article, the matter was serious indeed.

Lady Maudy went on, her voice low but steady.

“The journalist in question is… persistent. He has been asking questions in the village. He has spoken to people who remember stories told by their grandparents. And if he has found these papers,” she tapped the bundle lightly “or even heard rumours of them, he may well publish something sensational and entirely inaccurate.”

A faint line appeared between her brows.

“I would rather know the truth, the real truth, before someone else invents a version of it for public amusement.”

She drew a breath.

“And that is why I need your help. Not to clear the family name, necessarily. But to understand it. To know who this ‘G’ was, what became of him. If there is something dark in our history, I would rather face it than be taken by surprise.”