Newcastle upon Tyne, Monday 19th August 1929
Her legs were lithe and long, draped at an anatomically dubious angle. The burnished orange of her bathing suit, cinched just above the knees, offset her lightly tanned arms and calves, while her impossibly white smile was framed by a cloche sun hat, casting not a shadow on her flawless face. Below the woman, who was perched on the wall of a seaside promenade, were the tiny figures of beach revellers, playing games or walking hand in hand past candy-striped tents, while children in knickerbockers and bold young men in bathing vests braved the cold North Sea.
‘Next stop Newcastle upon Tyne, ladies and gentlemen. Please gather your belongings.’
Clara nodded her thanks to the train guard, then turned her attention back to the smiling young woman in the LNER poster. As she buttoned up her fur-trimmed coat, she wondered how far Whitley Bay was from Newcastle upon Tyne. Not that Clara had packed a bathing suit, of course, but that could be remedied.
‘Are you going to the exhibition?’ asked a lady in the next booth as her husband folded his newspaper and straightened his fedora hat.
‘The exhibition?’ asked Clara.
The woman smiled and pointed to another poster on the opposite side of the carriage. ‘Yes, the North East Coast Exhibition. That’s where we’re going.’
‘In Whitley Bay?’ asked Clara, hopefully.
‘No,’ said the woman. ‘In the Toon.’
Clara had no idea where the Toon was. But she smiled anyway.
The Flying Scotsman was crossing a river and gasps went around the carriage at first sight of the newly built Tyne Bridge, like the top half of a giant iron wheel, silhouetted against the August sky. Through the spokes Clara could see the higgledy-piggledy buildings of the northern city, and she wondered if she’d be able to find her way around.
‘So, you’re not here for the exhibition?’ asked the woman.
‘No,’ said Clara, ‘I’m here on family business.’
Clara was very relieved to learn that the Royal Central Station Hotel had not been misnamed and was, literally, a few dozen steps from the classically pillared entrance of Newcastle Central Station. Not like the Central Hotel in Paris where she’d once stayed, which turned out to be nowhere near the centre and was barely a hotel – but at least it had been in Paris. She had put that down to her poor grasp of French when she made the booking, and the spurning of her mother’s suggestion that she really ought to have consulted the Bradshaw.
She was greeted by a liveried doorman in top hat and tails at the bottom of a short flight of marble steps, who carried her suitcase up and into the hotel. The foyer was all faience tiles and wood panelling, but a spectacular mosaic floor with fleur-de-lis motifs and an impressive atrium towering six floors above a magnificent chandelier gave a light, modern feel to an otherwise traditional Victorian hotel. Clara nodded in approval, thanked and tipped the doorman, then turned her attention to the receptionist.
‘Will Mr Vale be joining you shortly?’ he asked, after taking her name and checking against his booking list.
‘It’s Miss Vale. Miss Clara Vale. And no. No one will be joining me.’
The mutton-chopped gent – who appeared not to have been updated in the last twenty years – cleared his throat.
‘Very well, Miss Vale, I have your reservation right here.’ He busied himself getting her a key, then asked: ‘May I ask if you were named after the village?’
‘The village?’
‘Clara Vale.’
‘I had no idea there was a village of that name.’
‘Indeed there is, miss. Just south of the river. Not far from here.’
‘Well, how very interesting,’ said Clara as the receptionist instructed a bell boy to take Miss Vale to room 310. On the way up in the lift the boy also asked if she were there for the exhibition. Again, she said no. But apparently almost all of the other guests in the nearly full hotel were – ‘some of ’em has come from foreign lands’, the lad informed her. Clara informed him that she’d only come from as far as London.
As Clara unpacked in the well-appointed bedroom – with a view of the densely packed rooftops of the city – she decided that once she’d finished her business at the solicitor’s she would have to visit this exhibition or she’d never get any peace. And as for being named after a village, she’d have to ask her mother about that!
Tuesday 20th August 1929
The next morning, after a hearty North East breakfast, including black pudding and scrambled eggs, Clara followed the directions of the hotel receptionist into the centre of Newcastle. She could have caught the tram that ran past the hotel, but she worried that she would not know exactly where to get off and miss her stop. So, instead, wearing a pair of sensible walking shoes, she headed along Neville Street, past a memorial to George Stephenson – of the steam engine fame – then along Collingwood Street, with something called the Literary and Philosophical Society on her right. She was surprised that a city like Newcastle, famed for its industry and working-class image, would have something like a ‘literary and philosophical society’. But a lot was already surprising her about the city. Yes, there was a grim layer of coal dust over everything, but that was no worse (and perhaps a lot better) than the foul sulphuric smog that would settle over London from time to time. And the buildings, in beautiful honey-coloured Georgian stone, were as lovely as any in the capital.
She turned left into Grey Street and took a steep climb up a cobbled, curved street, hemmed on both sides by more Georgian architecture. It was a Tuesday morning, and the pavements were awash with gentlemen in dark suits, carrying newspapers under their arms and with bowler hats on their heads, marching to work in offices. Women, neatly but not poshly dressed in summer frocks, were out and about to do their shopping. Or perhaps, Clara thought, the younger ones, wearing Chanel-inspired two-pieces, might be going to work in the shops. The shops were a mixture of more well-to-do storefronts with mannequins in windows and pavement stalls with striped awnings, where Geordie men in flat caps called out to passers-by: ‘Two for a shillin’! Howay, pet, they’s fresh I swear ya!’ Or at least that’s what Clara thought they said. The dialect sounded almost foreign to her ears.
As instructed, she kept her eye open for the Grecian columns of the Theatre Royal on her right and the Victorian mosaic masterpiece of the Royal Arcade on her left. Carrying on up the hill, with the towering pillar of the Earl Grey monument as her marker – he of the tea fame – she looked to ‘eleven o’clock’ and found Emerson Chambers, an extravagant Edwardian fusion of baroque and art nouveau, towering six floors above Blackett Street. Clara stood for a moment and took it all in. It truly was an architectural extravaganza with its pillars and intricate mouldings. The ostentatious clock on the roof wouldn’t have looked out of place in Zurich, she thought.
The concierge at the hotel had told her the basement housed the high-class Emerson’s restaurant – a dining option for one of her evenings out, perhaps – complete with its own orchestra. While the ground floor housed a photography supply shop and studio, offering portrait sittings for five shillings.
She checked the letter she’d been sent by Uncle Bob’s solicitors – Jennings & Jennings – and noted that their office was on the third floor. Ten minutes later she was sitting in a comfortable chair in their office drinking a well-brewed cup of Earl Grey tea. Barnaby Jennings, her Uncle Bob’s solicitor, smiled beneficently at her across his solid mahogany desk. His half-moon glasses and full grey beard reminded her of old King Edward who had been on the throne when she was a young girl.
‘Well, Miss Vale, I can certainly see the family resemblance. You have the same dark hair and dark eyes as your mother – and her pale complexion.’
‘You knew my mother?’
Jennings interlaced his fingers over his full belly and twirled his watch chain with his thumb.
‘I did. We were at the same infant school, believe it or not!’
‘Goodness me!’
Jennings smiled. ‘And she grew up to be a fine young woman. No wonder your father snaffled her. I believe they met in Harrogate, when both families were taking the waters. And within a matter of weeks he had whisked her off to London to be his bride. London’s gain was very much Newcastle’s loss,’ said the solicitor wistfully.
‘That’s the story we heard growing up, too,’ said Clara, suppressing the desire to correct the gentleman’s rose-tinted impression of her mother. If anyone had snaffled anyone it was her mother who had set her sights on the eligible and wealthy banker, Randolph Vale, in the heady atmosphere of the Yorkshire hot springs. Vanessa had been very open about it to her daughters when coaching them on how to attract a suitable beau – a lesson that Clara’s younger sister Laura had taken to heart and successfully implemented when she ‘snaffled’ her eligible young stockbroker husband on a holiday in Leamington Spa. And to put the cherry on the cake, he was the son of a viscount, too!
Clara had yet to do any snaffling and frankly was not in the least bit interested. At thirty years old she was already being referred to as the maiden aunt by Laura’s growing brood of future little stockbrokers. While her brother, Antony, treated her as a dull curiosity when he introduced her to his friends and colleagues as his ‘spinster sister – you know, the suffragette type’.
‘So,’ said Mr Jennings, ‘how is your mother? Better after her illness?’
‘Her illness?’
‘Yes, that dreadful influenza that prevented her from coming to your uncle’s funeral. I expect you had it too. Frightfully contagious, I believe.’
‘Yes, frightfully.’ Neither Vanessa Vale nor any of the Vale household – servants or family – had had influenza in the last six months. ‘She is much better, thank you. And of course, feels awful that she wasn’t able to come to Uncle Bob’s funeral. As do we all.’
‘I quite understand,’ said Mr Jennings, kindly.
Clara felt terrible about lying to the good-hearted solicitor and quietly cursed her mother for putting her in this position.
‘I never did quite understand Bob’s animosity towards Vanessa. She always seemed like a perfectly lovely young lady to me. Sibling rivalry, I suppose. But I deeply regretted that they had never been able to lay aside their bad blood over the years. However, I suppose Bob’s offer to you goes some way to healing that rift. Which brings me to the business of the day …’
Finally, thought Clara, who was wondering how much longer she would have to keep up the pretence of her ‘lovely mother’ who had been too ill to attend her only brother’s funeral.
‘As I explained in my letter, your Uncle Bob named you in his will. You are the main beneficiary, although he has also left some small endowments to various charities and a monetary gift to his housekeeper. None of that need concern you and I can assure you that it is only a small portion of his estate.’
She smiled, nodding her understanding. ‘Did Uncle Bob work for you, Mr Jennings?’
Mr Jennings gave her a curious look. ‘You don’t know what your uncle did for a living?’
‘I believe he worked with a solicitor as some kind of paralegal. He called it “criminolegal” work. I’m not sure what that entailed. Some kind of clerical job?’
Mr Jennings shook his head. ‘Oh no, Miss Vale, you are misinformed. Bob Wallace sometimes did work with me, not for me, on a contractual basis, a very well-paid contractual basis, I might add. He provided professional services as an enquiry agent. But I was only one of his clients.’
‘An enquiry agent?’ Clara was dumbfounded. ‘You mean, Uncle Bob was a private detective?’
Mr Jennings chuckled. ‘Indeed, he was. And a very experienced one too. I thought you knew.’
Clara shook her head. ‘It’s the first I’ve heard of it! Mr Jennings, what exactly has Uncle Bob left me?’
Mr Jennings opened a file, adjusted his spectacles, cleared his throat and read: ‘In the event of my demise, I Robert Wendell Wallace, being of sound mind, on this thirteenth day of June in the year of our Lord 1929, leave my house at 22 St Thomas’ Crescent, Newcastle upon Tyne, with all of its contents, and the remainder of my personal assets (after payment of bequests to the below-mentioned beneficiaries) – those are the charities and small bequests I mentioned, Miss Vale – now where was I? Ah yes … the remainder of my personal assets, including the business known as Wallace Enquiry Agency, registered at 41b Percy Street, Newcastle upon Tyne.’
Clara felt suddenly and inexplicably faint. She blinked a few times and took a deep breath until her equilibrium returned. ‘I – I – I’ve inherited a detective agency?’
Mr Jennings’ eyes twinkled behind his half-moon glasses. ‘You have indeed, Miss Vale. And I believe this letter, which your uncle asked me to give to you at the reading of the will, will explain to you why he decided you were the best person to inherit it.’
He passed across a sealed envelope with Clara’s name inscribed in an energetic hand.
Clara, her hands now shaking, took the envelope from him.
‘Well, I’d better have a read then.’