Amanderella and the Mystery of the Silent Statue.Chapter 1.

Amanderella and the Statue.

 

Chapter One

 

A Sudden Death.

 

Life for Lady Amanderella Gottsnobbler had settled into a fairly regular routine. She went off to various places and lectured and showed her magic lantern slides, answered the silly questions from people who had not listened and the sensible ones from people who really had.

The lodgings  at No. 9 Wimple St were owned by Mrs. Gaffletter, a very respectable lady. Her boarding house ran on four principles, clean floors, clean consciences, and clean lodgers and no gentlemen callers. She disapproved whole-heartedly of any form of excitement, so Amanderella did her best not to cause any upset to the routine workings of the establishment.

If the truth be told, Amanderella was bored.

Not dramatically bored, she was not the sort of woman who flung herself on sofas and declared life meaningless, but bored in the steady, creeping way that comes from too many tidy days in a row. Lectures, lantern slides, polite applause, polite questions, polite lodgings. Even Mrs Gaffletter’s disapproval had become predictable, which robbed it of its entertainment value.

To help matters, she had recently exchanged her trusty motor‑bicycle for a Sunbeam 12/16 horsepower open tourer. It was a handsome machine, all clean lines and sensible engineering, with an engine that purred like a well‑fed cat and a gearbox that behaved itself even on steep hills. Amanderella had chosen it for the simple reason that it made sense. Everything was where it ought to be. Nothing rattled. Nothing sulked. It was, in short, a machine designed by someone who understood that a driver might wish to arrive at her destination without having to rebuild half the vehicle on the roadside.

Mrs Gaffletter had taken one look at it and gone quite pale.

“Lady Gottsnobbler,” she said, “that is not a conveyance. That is a statement.”

Amanderella had not been entirely sure what it was a statement of, but she suspected Mrs Gaffletter disapproved of it on principle, which was almost a recommendation in itself.

The Sunbeam did not cure the boredom, but it made it more noticeable. The countryside slipped past too easily. The roads held no surprises. Even the weather, for once, behaved.

So, when her mother’s letter arrived, thick, dramatic, and underlined, Amanderella felt, beneath the dutiful concern, a small, undeniable flicker of relief. At this stage she might even have welcomed one of her mother’s attempts to find her a husband. That is how bored she had become.

 Mrs Gaffletter had taken the missive from the postman’s hand before he had been able to touch the highly polished letterbox with his no‑doubt grubby fingers. She brought it up to Amanderella’s room with the solemnity of someone delivering a medical diagnosis.

“Your mother seems to have a lot to say,” she observed, holding the envelope between finger and thumb as though it might leave a residue. “Judging by the weight. I hope there is no problem at Gottsnobbler Hall.”

Amanderella accepted the letter.

“Not that I am aware of.”

Mrs Gaffletter did not leave. She hovered, not in a fluttering way, but with the rigid stillness of a woman who believes that information, like dust, should be intercepted before it settles in the wrong place.

“It is a very thick envelope,” she added, her tone implying that thickness in correspondence was rarely a sign of virtue.

“Yes,” Amanderella agreed.

“And underlined,” Mrs Gaffletter said, lowering her voice as though underlining were a moral failing.

“So, it appears.”

Mrs Gaffletter gave a small, decisive nod, the sort that suggested she had formed an opinion and would be filing it away for future reference, and withdrew without a sound.

Amanderella opened the envelope. Her mother’s handwriting marched across the page with its usual air of authority, and the contents were, as expected, dramatic, urgent, and liberally underlined.

The letter began, ‘My Dearest Amanderella.’ This annoyed Amanderella immediately, ‘Dearest’ assumed that her mother knew at least three Amanderellas which she obviously didn’t.

My Dearest Amanderella, I hope this finds you as well as it leaves me.

Family news first. Your dear Papa has taken up a new hobby. He has taken it into his head to classify the rocks by personality. He insists that the one shaped like a potato is “amiable”, while the flat grey one is “morose”. I do not know what this says about his state of mind, but I am sure it is nothing good.

He is no longer writing to all sorts of people who never answered anyway.

Amanderella was quietly relieved about the latter. His letters had been masterpieces of rambling goodwill, dispatched to explorers, bishops, minor politicians, and once (by accident) the Sultan of Johore. None of them had ever replied, which had never discouraged him in the slightest.

Amanderella smiled despite herself. Her father’s hobbies were always harmless, if occasionally eccentric. The garden at Gottsnobbler Hall was large enough to contain a thousand amiable potatoes without troubling anyone.

Your father, has now classified twenty‑three rocks. He has given them all Latin names of his own invention. I told him Latin should be left to scholars. He said the rocks did not mind.

But enough of that. I must come to the distressing matter. You may remember our neighbour Werlyn Noll. I do not think you ever met him as he did not mix with people. I say neighbour but Radboon Manor is a fair distance away. Anyway, the Village is in an uproar. Apparently he was found slumped over a wheelbarrow in his garden, quite dead. Most undignified.

The situation is most irregular. No one can get into the house. There is no key. There is, apparently, not even a keyhole. All the windows are shuttered and barred. His old housekeeper still lives in the village. He had to let her go when his money ran out some time ago. She says that the place is sealed up like a puzzle box.

It seems he had no close family at all. Only a great‑niece, Gurtie Noll, and she is far too distant to be considered next of kin. He refused to speak to her anyway. He was a strange man.

Anyway, his only friend, Sir Cottam Hoffey, came to see us. He has been left in charge of sorting out all of Werlyn’s affairs, the will, the funeral, the whole muddle. Poor man. He looked as though he had not slept since Tuesday. You may remember that Sir Cottam came to one of my afternoon tea parties once, and he brought along his nephew, young Percival Hoffey-Bramble.

Amanderella certainly did remember him. Percival was, earnest wealthy, hopelessly dull, had the conversational skills of a cold rice pudding. He was also the sort of man who believed he was “good at talking to ladies” because his mother told him so.

Amanderella remembered the short conversation they had, It went something like: Percival: “Do you enjoy embroidery, Miss Gottsnobbler?” Amanderella: “Not particularly.”

Percival: “Ah. I see.”

Amanderella: “Do you?”

Percival: “Good heavens, no.”

Silence.

When the tea was over and the  Hoffey Brambles had left, Amanderella had told her mother that Percy was about as interesting as a wet Wednesday in Manchester.

Amanderella read on.

Sir Cottam says that there must be a will, as he remembers witnessing it being signed. He was quite firm on that point. “I put my name to it,” he said, “and I do not sign things lightly.” But, and this is the ridiculous part, Werlyn insisted on taking the solicitor’s copy with him when he left the office. He said he did not trust “rooms full of clerks who spill tea on things.” So, the solicitors have no copy, and Sir Cottam cannot do anything at all until the original is found.

They cannot read the will at Radboon Manor because they cannot get inside the house He said that he had heard that you are very good at solving puzzles and was wondering if you would be interested? I told him that you have always had a knack for noticing things other people miss, and that you were quite wasted on lantern slides and provincial lecture halls. He agreed with me. (I am sure he did not mean it rudely.)

Amanderella raised an eyebrow. Her mother rarely noticed when she was being rude, let alone when others were not.

So, my dear, I told Sir Cottam that you would go. It is the sort of thing you enjoy, quietly, of course, without fuss. He will meet you there on Thursday. Do wear something sensible. And do not let that motor‑cycle of yours alarm the villagers.

The letter ended with a flourish that suggested Lady Gottsnobbler believed she had arranged everything perfectly.

Amanderella set the letter down on her writing desk and looked at it for a long moment. Outside, Wimple Street continued its usual afternoon performance of respectability: a cart rattling past, a maid shaking a rug with unnecessary vigour, a gentleman walking a dog that clearly wished to walk him instead.

Inside, her room was as tidy as Mrs Gaffletter required, which was to say, oppressively neat. Even the Sunbeam’s instruction manual, which Amanderella had left on the chair the previous evening, had been squared to the edge of the cushion with military precision.

She breathed out, slowly.

A sealed house.

A dead man in the garden.

A will that could not be read because the house could not be entered.

It was, she admitted, the most interesting thing that had happened to her in months.

She stood, crossed to the wardrobe, and opened it.. She selected a dark grey travelling dress, respectable, unremarkable, and unlikely to alarm villagers.

Behind her, Mrs Gaffletter appeared in the doorway. Amanderella was not surprised. Her land lady always seemed to know when Amanderella was going on an adventure.

“You are going out,” she said, not quite accusingly.

“Yes,” Amanderella replied. “A family matter.”

Mrs Gaffletter nodded once. “I shall pack you a modest lunch. Travel requires fortitude, but not indulgence.”

Amanderella did not argue. She had learned long ago that Mrs Gaffletter’s lunches were always modest, regardless of circumstance.

As the landlady withdrew, Amanderella glanced again at the letter.

Sir Cottam had remembered her.

He had asked for her.

And he believed she could solve the puzzle.

She felt a small, unmistakable spark of anticipation, not excitement, but something quieter and more satisfying. A sense of purpose. Of direction. Of a problem waiting to be untangled.

She folded the letter neatly, placed it in her travelling bag, and went downstairs.

The Sunbeam waited in the mews, gleaming with the quiet confidence of a machine that expected to be taken somewhere worthwhile.

Amanderella put on her gloves, settled into the driver’s seat, and turned the engine. It purred obligingly.

“Well,” she said to the car, “let us see what Radboon Manor has to say for itself.”

And with that, she set off.