Dear Diary
Tennis can be such an elegant game, but it is also a competition. I organised a championship at Aunt P's house, she may not like sport – of any kind – but she has a lovely tennis court in her grounds, and she was away at the time.
We went to the house to see Constance practicing with her coach and husband, Stanley, when Bert called us over to the changing room – one of the other players was lying dead on the floor – apparently from a spider bite. I HATE SPIDERS! Not something I was planning on advertising but when one crawled out of the bag I jumped up onto the bench now Dot and Hugh know, and Jack. This of course gave Jack someway to tease me.
The shoes Belinda was wearing were actually Constance's, she lent them to Belinda. Our first suspect was the opponent, Angela Lombard, American, whose career was on the downward spiral and she was in the middle of an acrimonious divorce.
In amongst this we were all prey for a photographer, Frederic Burn, who never missed an opportunity to get a picture with a salacious caption, including me and Jack – which we can cope with apart from the commissioner's opinion on our 'association'. Jack made me a special constable to keep him off our backs. He gave me a badge he has been saving since he was 10 for Buffalo Bill, a sheriff's badge – I felt ... warm, sort of ... how to describe it? Valued, dare I say – loved.
Burn had been warned away from Constance, he was taking pictures that could be seen as obscene.
Dot found a photograph of Constance with another player, Terrance, and it turned out they had had, what she termed, 'a youthful dalliance' – it turned out to be more than that.
Somebody put a spider in my room, on my dressing table! Dear god, I was so scared! I managed to throw my diaphragm over it, a brilliant shot given how terrified I was, and called for Dot, who had to call Jack and Hugh as it seemed someone was trying to frighten me off. Hugh, the dear boy, took the spider out, sliding a piece of paper under the device – I confess my cheeks were a little warm at seeing him handle such an intimate piece of my life.
My cocktail party was in full swing, I even managed to persuade Dot to attend though she was still mortified at the picture in the paper of Hugh brushing leaves off her coat. Angela tried to goad me into jealousy over Jack, I have pithy put downs when I need them.
I found a contract on the yacht for tennis shoes between a company owned by Mormons and Angela, and torn trousers that belonged to Terrance that made it look like he was the one who put the spider in my room. Jack is keeping the spider in his desk, not fair! Constance's husband, Stanley had a photograph of Belinda in his briefcase; we found it when it fell of my hallstand. Apparently he had a very short dalliance with her.
To get information out of Burn I offered to pose, one question, one item of clothing removed. I got enough before I was too far undressed, thankfully, it wasn't a pleasant experience but as I pinched the roll of film as I left at least they won't get into the papers.
I don't think I liked Constance much, she asked Belinda to seduce Stanley because she didn't have time for 'his needs'. Stanley is an old friend of mine he doesn't deserve that and why marry him if she wasn't prepared to have sex with him.
It turned out Constance murdered Belinda, she was blackmailing Constance with a photograph of her with her baby, a baby she had from that 'youthful dalliance' with Terrance. The poor boy had no idea, he should have been told, they should surely have discussed it, but Constance only cares about tennis, not her baby, not Terrance and not Stanley.
Jack plays a rather good game of tennis, he retired me as special constable as my arrest paperwork was not up to scratch, but let me keep his badge.
I'm sure Jack is going to continue to use spiders as a tease, but he will tease and not attempt to scare me, given that he has been subject to Angela's flirting perhaps I can use the idea of her to scare him off!