Bainton Gray and the Hat Shop Mystery - Part 2

 

 

Part Two  (Contains the Solution to the Whodunnit)

Bainton sat down on the stool in the hat shop. The local police constable had arrived. He'd asked lots of questions. But the police were nowhere near solving the theft.

Bainton sighed and ran his hands through his thick wavy hair. His poor sister Penelope was distraught that her hard work had been taken away. They tried to tell themselves it was just a hat. But then again, it was such an expensive one. One that could have made them a good profit. The truth was, they'd really needed the money from the sale for the advertising.

Bainton ran over the names of people who had motives.

He didn’t know why Peter had given him such evil looks. He’d only been chatting politely with Cordelia, even though she was rather lovely.

Bainton shook himself, he needed to think clearly! Could Cordelia have been so secretly offended by his remark about her complexion, that she had taken the hat? But how? He didn't think that she had been alone in the shop. Unless Penelope had her back turned?

“Penelope, did you turn your back when Cordelia and Peter came in?” But his sister replied no,  she'd kept an eye on both of them. They were ruled out.

Mr. Stone had been furious with Bainton for kicking him. Bainton rubbed his chin regretfully. Perhaps he had acted rashly, but he was so angered to see an animal ill treated. Yet Mr. Stone had come into the shop.

Bainton looked at the handwriting. With a feeling of dread, he thought he recognised it. It looked rather like Mara’s! Yet when he examined it closer,  there were differences. But how could it be Mara that had taken the hat? He'd seen her leave the shop empty handed.

Bainton thought about the notes left under the door. Could there have been other notes, perhaps ones that he didn’t know about? May be someone else had discovered them? What if Mr. Stone had found them? 

It came to him soon, something he remembered….

Bainton suddenly realised that  it couldn't have been Mr. Stone.

Because no-one could enter without the door chime ringing.

So Mr. Stone couldn't have entered the shop while they were out the back, without being heard.

Peter had no way of taking it, nor did Cordelia. They would have been seen by Penelope.

And he knew that Mara had left empty-handed.

That only left one other person - Penelope. Could she have made the substituted hat?

It pained him to even consider his sister as a suspect, but he had to do so. For months he had spent his days working with her. He'd spent many evenings with her, planning the display and designing the hats. He doubted that she would have had the spare time to make one. But ordering the items for the hats was his job. He calculated that she simply wouldn’t have had enough materials left over to make an extra hat.

No, he concluded, it couldn't have been Penelope.

So it must have been Mara?

Bainton thought about when she'd been in the shop that day. Yes, she had talked for a while. He'd had his back turned. For how long?  It was always the same, whenever he did something she didn’t like. She’d use cruel words -  like arrows that struck deeply. Bainton always turned away from her. Sometimes he felt he had to hide his exasperated expression, whenever she was being so shrewish yet again!

He needed to find out if his instinct was correct.

He set off to her small cottage, where she lived alone. He knew the door would most likely be open. Her cottage was surrounded by trees, so he hid behind one of them. He could see Mara now, watering her flowers in her front garden. So Bainton took off round the back. He had to work quickly.

He opened the back door. If she did have the hat, it would be in her bedroom. So he crept quietly up the stairs and prayed that she’d be out in the garden for a while. He didn’t know which was her room, so he peeked into the first one that he came to. It turned out that it was her bedroom.

Where could the hat be? He thought for a minute. His sister always kept her hats in her wardrobe. So he opened the wardrobe door and peeped inside. Bainton spotted a hat box and eased open the lid.

He could not believe his eyes. There, before him, was the hat that had been stolen!

Bainton decided that it was time to leave.  But then, to his horror, he heard footsteps coming up the stairs! 

Thinking quickly, he crammed the hat and himself into the wardrobe and closed the door. He stood as still as possible and thought over and over again “don’t open the wardrobe”.

But his nightmare came true and the door was opened. Mara stood there before him in complete shock.

Bainton had to think quickly.

“Oh, hello Mara!   Don't be so alarmed...... I’m here for a reason...... I wanted to surprise you!"

He continued: "You see, I was thinking of you and me and the future. Well, I've changed my mind. I want to marry you!”

Mara looked astonished, but then a delighted smile appeared on her face. She gazed at him adoringly.
Mara thought to herself, "What does it matter about revenge now? Bainton loves me!" She was pleased to have him here. Mara threw her arms around him.

Bainton really was trapped now. He needed to plan his next move.

He remembered that Mara had certain fixations about some things. Apparitions was one of them.  She'd been so interested in the story he'd told her about seeing ghosts at Barnaby Hall. She was also quite superstitious. Knowing that Mara was so gullible where anything supernatural was concerned gave him an idea.

“Mara, I noticed there's an odd pattern in the wood in your wardrobe door. It's shaped rather like a religious figure. I swear it’s an omen!"

She peered inside, but declared that she couldn't see anything.

“No Mara, it only shows when you're inside the wardrobe, you have to close the doors slightly. You can only see it in a certain light. It’s quite eerie, have a look darling. Perhaps it's a sign that we should get married?"  

Mara clambered inside. Bainton quickly slammed the doors shut and turned the key!

She began hammering on the doors, calling his name and cursing. But Bainton was out of the door and heading back to town to find the local bobby.

He found Constable Wright and told him that he'd found the thief at last.

He took the constable back to Mara's cottage. Mara was still there, of  course, locked inside the wardrobe.  When she was let out, she shrieked such unlady like insults at Bainton, that the constable believed she should be arrested for using offensive language!

The evidence was there for the constable to see, so Mara had no choice but to confess.



Later that evening, Bainton had a lot to tell Penelope:

 Mara had done it all for revenge. She couldn’t accept that he'd broken off their engagement. She used to peer through the shop window. She'd seen Penelope working on that special hat, and she'd overheard them talking about it. Then she'd hatched a plan to get her own back by stealing the hat.

 Mara knew about hats, after years of courtship with Bainton. It hadn't been too difficult to make a substitute..... She wasn’t sure that she could pull it off, but it would be worth it. In her bitter state of mind she never really considered the consequences of getting caught.

She had planned to sneak in, but realised that she’d be caught by the door chime. So instead, she wore a small close fitting hat over her head, which she planned to substitute for the expensive hat in the window. She'd simply placed her much larger hat over the top of it to conceal it.

Then she'd gone to the shop. Knowing Bainton had such a soft spot for ladies, she'd deliberately used words that she knew would pain him. She knew that being sensitive, he would look away.

As soon as Bainton had turned away, wracked with emotion, she'd seized that brief moment whilst his back was turned to carry out the switch. She'd quickly taken off her huge hat, placed the substitute one on the stand, and put the really expensive one from the window on her head. Then she'd quickly covered it with her large hat. She was so pleased with herself.

She'd written the note beforehand;  altering her writing slightly. Her plan was to frame Penelope, so she'd tried to copy her handwriting. Who could substitute a hat so easily…but Penelope?

The stolen hat was returned and took pride of place in the window display. It wasn't there long before it was purchased by Cordelia. She and her older sister Portia started visiting his shop regularly after that. But her stern looking fiance, Peter, was nowhere to be seen.

When Bainton enquired after him, Cordelia explained that Peter was no longer her fiance. She'd found him too possessive and jealous.

Bainton told her he knew exactly how that felt! 

The End.

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