Cloche and Dagger (26 page)

“Scorched?” Viv and I asked faintly.

“Cooked, toasted, fried,” she confirmed. “Let’s go upstairs and set the stage, shall we?”

Viv looked at me and I knew what she was thinking. If we went upstairs, we were done for. She tipped her head imperceptibly toward the table. Fiona had left several wooden hat forms she’d been using on the table. I frowned at Viv. I had no idea what she was thinking.

“Go on, upstairs with you,” Elise ordered. “I have places to go and people to see.”

“I wonder what Mim would say about this,” Viv said.

“Who cares?” Elise asked.

“It’s just that she was so particular about her things in the shop,” Viv said. “Remember, Scarlett?”

She looked again at the table and then at me. I was standing closer to the table so I knew she was trying to tell me something. And then, I remembered.

One summer on my vacation to London, Viv and I had taken a few of the wooden hat forms for brims that Mim kept in her storage closet to the park. We used them as toy boats in the fountains and as clunky Frisbees. We tied one to a tree branch and used it as a swing.

Mim had been furious. These had been two of her favorite hat forms and we had battered them beyond repair. We’d spent all of the next day scrubbing every floor in the three-story house. Lesson learned.

That being said, I had developed a knack for flinging the round wooden form pretty far. Is this what Viv wanted me to do now? Did she think I could grab it and hit Elise with it before she stabbed one or both of us? I didn’t think it was possible, and even more than not wanting to be stabbed myself, I really didn’t want Viv to be harmed. I’d just gotten her back.

“Scarlett!” a voice called from out front. It sounded like Nick.

“Oy, Scarlett, you’ve left your door unlocked,” Andre called after him.

Elise whipped her head in the direction of the door. As soon as she did, I snatched up one of the circular hat forms and heaved it at her arm. There was a solid
thunk
and with a yelp, Elise dropped the knife. Viv dove forward and sacked Elise in a tackle worthy of an American football player. I kicked the knife away.

Nick and Andre dashed through the open doorway, yelling, “What the bloody hell is going on?”

Elise was struggling but Viv had her pinned. I snatched some ribbon from the table and used it to tie Elise’s hands and feet. When I stood, I saw my friends staring open-mouthed at us.

“Oh, Nick, Andre, you’re here,” I said. “Excellent timing. My cousin Vivian has returned.”

They stared at Viv and then at me and then Elise, who was struggling and cursing on the floor, trying to wrench her hands free of the ribbons.

“Pleasure to meet you,” Andre said as he extended his hand to Viv. “Although, you seem a bit tied up at the moment.”

Nick chuckled and said, “No, she’s just stringing you along.”

Vivian laughed and said, “I’m a frayed knot.”

The three of them were hooting, when I said, “I knew you were all bound to get along.”

They all stopped laughing and looked at me. “Aw, come on. That was a good one. ‘Bound’? You have to give it to me.”

Nick shook his head and threw an arm about me. “Don’t unravel on us now, Scarlett.”

The others laughed and I pouted.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go call the police.”

“Fine,” I said.

• • •

We called Inspectors Franks and Simms and Harrison and all three arrived within moments. Simms bagged Elise’s knife and hauled her off to the station with a couple of uniforms while Franks stayed to interview us.

Andre and Nick made their departure when it was apparent that this would take a while. They promised to return the next day to get the full story.

When Harrison finally walked Inspector Franks to the door, the detective was positively beaming, and as the door shut after him, I heard him break into a rich baritone as he belted out an Alan Jackson song.

Vivian gave me a perplexed look.

“He fancies himself a country-western singer,” I said. “We really should go and see him at the pub sometime.”

Harrison collapsed onto one of the empty chairs, looking relieved. “Is it finally over?”

“Yes, I do believe the mystery of who killed Lady Ellis is solved,” I said. “But there is one thing I’m unclear on.”

“What’s that?” Viv asked.

“I still don’t understand about the wardrobe,” I said. “Elise said it was locked the night she broke in to search it for Vicks’s hat.”

“And?” Viv prodded.

“And, I’ve never locked it and I don’t think Fee did either,” I said. “So how could it have been locked?”

Viv and Harrison exchanged a look and then Viv got up and started whistling. She didn’t say a word. She just disappeared through the door that led upstairs and finally even her whistle faded into nothing.

I turned to look at Harrison. “What was that about?”

“No idea,” he said. He rose from his seat and headed for the door.

“Harry, what is going on?” I demanded as I followed him. “You and Viv are keeping secrets. Even Fiona said something about the wardrobe just doing what it does. What did she mean?”

Harrison turned to face me, and I felt caught in his emerald-green gaze as he asked, “Are you staying?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, but he didn’t explain. Instead he turned and continued to the door.

“Come on, Harry,” I cajoled. “We’ve been through so much together. Tell me.”

He was almost at the door when he turned abruptly and I slammed into him. He caught me by the arms and steadied me on my feet.

“It’s Harrison,” he said, but he was grinning as he laced his fingers with mine. “Who do you suppose would lock the wardrobe to keep a hat safe?”

“I don’t know. Who?” I asked.

“Think about it,” he said. He stepped forward and kissed me gently on the forehead. Then he let go of my fingers and strode out the door.

I stomped my foot. This was positively maddening. I locked the door and set the alarm. As I crossed the room to go upstairs, I glanced at the wardrobe.

“All right, Ferd,” I said. “You win this round, but I’ll have your secrets yet.”

It may have been a trick of the light, but I was quite certain this time that he did wink at me, and then the faint scent of Lily of the Valley filled the air. It was Mim’s scent. The same scent I had smelled in my room after Elise had almost suffocated me. But instead of feeling the grief of Mim’s loss this time, I felt engulfed in warmth like I was being hugged. I stood perfectly still until the scent dissipated.

“Mim?” I asked. There was no answer. Duly spooked, I raced up the stairs, slamming the door behind me.

Viv had obviously gone to bed, so I tiptoed up to my own room as quietly as I could with my heart racing and my knees trembling. I was being ridiculous. I knew it, and yet, I couldn’t seem to help it.

Then I thought of Mim and her no-nonsense ways, and I stiffened my spine. I was no coward. Was I going to stay and find out what my cousin wasn’t telling me? That Mim was still here in some mystical way? That it was Mim’s ghost that had locked the cupboard and comforted me when I needed it?

Embraced by the hideous pink as I walked into my room, I smiled as I switched off the light.

“Heck, yeah,” I said out loud. “I’m staying.”

Turn the page for a preview of
Jenn McKinlay’s next Hat Shop Mystery . . .

D
EATH OF A
M
AD
H
ATTER

Coming soon from Berkley Prime Crime!

“Take it off, Scarlett. You look like a corpse.”

My cousin Vivian Tremont stared at me in horror as if I had in fact just risen from the grave.

“Don’t hold back,” I said. “Tell me how you really feel.”

“Sorry, love, but pale redheads like you should avoid any color that has gray tones in it,” Viv said. Then because calling me a corpse wasn’t clear enough, she blanched.

I crossed the floor of our hat shop to the nearest free- standing mirror. Our grandmother Mim had passed away five years ago and left her shop, Mim’s Whims in London to the two of us. Viv was the creative genius behind the hats, having grown up in Notting Hill just down the street from the shop, while I was the people person, you know, the one who kept the clients from running away from Viv when she got that scary inspired look in her eye.

Being raised in the States, I had chosen to go into the hotel industry. Things had been going well until I discovered my rat bastard boyfriend was still married. At Viv’s urging, I escaped that fiasco and came here to take up my share of the business. So far London had done quite a lot to take my mind off my troubles. Viv in particular kept me on my toes, making sure I didn’t lose my people skills.

In fact, the last time she’d gotten swept up in an artistic episode, she’d tried to convince the very timid Mrs. Barker that wearing a hat with two enormous cherries the size of beach balls connected by the stems and with a leaf the size of a dinner plate would be brilliant. It was—just not on Mrs. Barker’s head.

It had taken me an afternoon of plying Mrs. Barker with tea and biscuits and pulling Viv into the back room and threatening to put her in a headlock to get them to an accord. Finally, Mrs. Barker had agreed to a black trilby with cherries the size of golf balls nestled on the side and Viv had been satisfied to work her magic on a smaller scale.

I ignored my dear cousin’s opinion and stood in front of the mirror and tipped the lavender sun hat jauntily to one side. It was mid-May and summer was coming. I’d been looking for a hat to shade my fair skin from the sun and being a girly girl, I do love all things pink and purple.

“Oh, I can just see the headstone now,” a chipper voice said from behind me. “Here lies Scarlett Parker, mistakenly buried alive when she wore an unfortunate color of sun hat.”

I glared at the reflection of Fiona Felton, Viv’s lovely young apprentice, in the mirror.

Viv laughed and said, “I can dig it.”

“In spades,” Fee quipped back.

“Fine,” I said. I snatched the hat off my head. “Obviously, the hat is a grave mistake.”

They stopped laughing.

“Oh, come on, that was funny,” I said. They shook their heads in denial.

“You need to bury that one and back away,” Viv said. They both chortled.

“I think you’re being a bit harsh,” I said. I replaced the pretty hat on its stand and shook out my hair.

“No, harsh was that hat on your head,” Fee said. She smiled at me, her teeth very white against her cocoa-colored skin. Her corkscrew bob was streaked with blue, she was always changing the color, and one curl fell over her right eye. She blew it out of her face with a puff of her lower lip.

“But I need a sun hat,” I complained.

“Plain straw would look nice,” Viv said. “Maybe with a nice emerald ribbon around the crown.”

“I’m tired of plain and I’m sick of green.” I knew I sounded a tad whiney but I didn’t care. I was jealous of Fee and Viv. Fee’s dark coloring looked good with everything and so did Viv’s long blond curls and big blue eyes, which she had inherited directly from Mim. So unfair!

The front door opened and I glanced up with my greet-the-customer smile firmly in place. It fell as soon as I recognized the man who walked into the shop.

“Oh, it’s you, Harry,” I said with a sigh.

Harrison Wentworth, our business manager, gave me an annoyed glance.

“Harrison,” he corrected me. “Pleasure to see you, too, Ginger.”

I felt my face get warm at the childhood nickname. Yes, Harry and I had a history, one in which I did not come out very well.

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” I said. “I was just hoping you were a customer so everyone could stop telling me how gruesome I look in lavender.”

“I didn’t say you were gruesome,” Viv corrected me as she rearranged the hats on one of the display shelves. “I said you looked like a corpse. Good morning, Harrison.”

She stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek.

“Now that’s a proper greeting,” Harrison said, giving me a look.

“Hello, Harrison,” Fee said. She also kissed his cheek and smiled at him. He returned the grin. I glanced between them. They seemed awfully happy to see each other.

Harrison was Viv’s age, two years older than my modest twenty-seven, but Fee was only twenty-one, entirely too young to be considering a man in his advanced years, in my opinion. And no, it had nothing to do with the fact that Harry and I had a history, if you consider me standing him up for an ice cream date when I was ten and he was twelve and breaking his adolescent heart a history. I did mention that I didn’t come out very well in it, didn’t I?

As Fee stepped back, Harrison looked at me expectantly. Before I could stop myself, I found myself looking at him from beneath my lashes and giving him my very practiced, secretive half smile. Sure enough, the man looked as riveted as if I had just propositioned him.

Ugh! Honestly, I am a dreadful flirt. It’s like breathing to me and I don’t discriminate. I flirt with everyone, kids, pets, old ladies, men, you name it. Probably, that’s why the hospitality industry was such a natural fit for me. I am very good at managing people.

I blame my mother. After thirty years of marriage, she still has my dad wrapped around her pinky and it’s not just because of her charming British accent either. My mother is an incorrigible flirt.

After my last relationship disaster, however, I made a promise to myself that I would go one whole year without a boyfriend. So far it had been two months. Prior to that the longest I’d gone was two weeks. Shameful, I know.

I shook my head and forced myself to give Harrison my most bland expression. He looked confused. I really couldn’t blame him.

Mercifully, the front door opened again and this time two ladies entered. I charged forward, relieved to escape the awkward moment.

“Good afternoon, how may I help you?” I asked.

“You’re not Ginny.” The older of the two women frowned at me.

“No, I’m Scarlet and this is my cousin Vi—”

“Ginny!” The older lady shot forward with surprising speed and hugged Vivian close.

Vivian looked startled, but she hugged the woman back, obviously not wanting to offend her.

I quickly examined the two ladies. The older one had gray hair and wore a conservative print dress that had Marks & Spencer all over it, while the younger woman, a pretty brunette who looked to be somewhere in her twenties, was much more fashion forward, wearing a tailored Alexander McQueen chemise.

“You haven’t aged a day,” the older woman exclaimed. She cupped Vivian’s face and examined her closely. “How have you managed that?”

Vivian gave an awkward laugh as if she was quite sure the woman was teasing her but the woman frowned. “No, really, how have you managed it?”

“Um, my name is Vivian,” she said. “I think you might be confusing me with my grandmother Eugenia, everyone called her Ginny.”

The older woman stared at her for a moment and then she laughed and said, “Oh, Ginny, always such a joker. Didn’t I tell you, Tina?”

“You did at that, Dotty,” the other woman said as she stood watching.

“Oh, heavens, where are my manners?” Dotty said. “Ginny, this is my daughter-in-law Tina Grisby. Tina, this is my friend, the owner of Mim’s Whims, Gi—”

“Everyone calls me Viv,” Vivian interrupted as she extended her hand to Tina. “This is my cousin Scarlett, our apprentice, Fiona, and our man of business, Harrison.”

“You changed your name?” Dotty asked Viv. “How extraordinary.”

Viv stared at her for a second and then clearly decided that it did no good to insist she wasn’t Mim.

“Yes, I feel more like a Viv than a Ginny,” she said.

“Huh.” Dotty patted an errant gray curl by her temple. “Maybe I’ll change my name. I always fancied myself a Catriona.”

Tina gave her mother-in-law an alarmed look. “Dotty, we really should explain our purpose so that we don’t keep these kind folks from their business.”

“Yes, you’re right,” Dotty said. “But I do love the idea of a new name.”

“Are you in need of a hat for a specific occasion?” I asked, thinking to get the conversation on track. “Fee, would you bring us some tea?”

“Right away,” she agreed.

“I’ll just go and attend the books,” Harrison said. “If you’ll excuse me, ladies.”

I watched as he and Fee shared a laugh as they left the room and wondered what they could be discussing that was so amusing. I suspected it was me in my lavender hat.

“Don’t you agree, Scarlett?” Viv asked. She was seated in our cozy sitting area with the Grisbys and all three of them were watching me.

“Um,” I stalled and when I glanced at my cousin, she had her lips pressed together as if she was trying not to smile. I sat down quickly.

“The Grisby family is hosting a tea in honor of Dotty’s late husband and they are thinking they’d like it to have an Alice in Wonderland theme,” Viv said.

“Oh, I like that idea,” I said. “How can we help?”

“Well, it’s to be a fund-raiser so that we can name a wing of the hospital after my late husband,” Dotty said. “Each family member will host a table and we’d like them to wear a hat that can be tied to a character from the book.”

I glanced at Viv. Being the creative quotient in the business, this was really her call.

“When would you need these by?” she asked.

“We’re hoping to have the tea in late June,” Tina said. She gave us an apologetic look. “I know it is short notice.”

“Ginny doesn’t mind, do you, dear?” Dotty asked. She patted Viv’s hand as if they were old friends.

I tried to remember Mim mentioning Dotty Grisby, but I couldn’t bring the name up in any of my memories. Of course, given that I was only here on school holidays, I wouldn’t have as broad a frame of reference as Viv would. Judging by Viv’s surprised expression when Dotty had hugged her, however, I was betting Viv didn’t remember her either.

Fee came out with a tray loaded with tea and biscuits, some cheese and fruits. The Grisby ladies enjoyed a cup each and nibbled some of the food. It was agreed that Viv would work up some sketches and they would come in to see them next week.

Dotty took Viv’s arm as we walked them to the door. The older lady looked so happy to see her dear friend that I was glad Viv had decided to go along with Dotty’s faulty memory. I fell into step beside Tina.

“Your cousin is being very kind,” Tina said. “Please tell her that I appreciate it.”

“I will,” I said. “It must be hard to watch Dotty struggle with her memory.”

“Honestly, she’s been like this since her husband left her thirty years ago. Her reality is different than everyone else’s and as my husband explained it to me, it is just better if we go along with her.”

“Thirty years ago?” I asked. “I’m sorry, but did I understand that she wants the wing of a hospital named after him?”

“Yes, well.” Tina lowered her voice. “They never divorced. He lived in Tuscany with his mistress until he died a month ago. She always told everyone that he was away on business, and I think she managed to convince herself that was the truth. One does wonder though . . .”

“What?” I asked.

“That if that is why she is slightly addled,” Tina said. “She never got over him leaving her.”

A driver was outside waiting for them and Viv and I waved as they drove away.

Harrison came out from the back room. “The books are done for this week and I’m pleased to announce you’re still in business. How did it go with the Mmes. Grisby?”

“They want a tea party à la Alice in Wonderland,” Viv said. “It’ll be tight but I think I can get it done.”

Harrison made a face.

“What? I think it will be great fun,” I said.

“You would,” he retorted. I was pretty sure this was an insult but I didn’t press it.

“What about you, Viv?” Harrison asked. “How do you feel about it?”

She was quiet for a moment, staring out the window as if contemplating something. When she turned around she gave us a wicked smile.

“If it’s a mad hatter that they want then it’s a mad hatter that they’ll get,” she declared.

I exchanged an alarmed glance with Harrison. Between Mrs. Grisby’s dottiness and Viv’s Cheshire Cat grin, I was beginning to feel as nonplussed as Alice when she fell down the rabbit hole. Oh, dear.