Femmes Fatal (33 page)

The unreal part is that I wasn’t gibbering with terror. My only explanation is that in my case horror had exercised an anesthetising effect. My mind told me I was destined for the fate which had befallen poor Mrs. Fisher and all those dinners I had burned to a crisp. But I didn’t believe it, even when the villain of the piece gave a start which I would have considered artsey-fartsey if Freddy had enacted it on stage.

“Someone’s coming!”

I heard it too—the sound of a car pulling into the alley and, breath catching in my throat, the fading throb of the engine being turned off. Whoever it was didn’t matter. I wasn’t asking for the sheriff or the troops with Rin Tin Tin woofing up the rear, only your off-the-street Joe with adequate hearing. Time for the scream of a lifetime! I had my mouth open and my vocal cords primed when Mr. Fisher reminded me that he had a gun by waving it under my nose. And the next thing I knew, he was hustling me through an archway hung with purple velvet, to where the smell of death was strongest—into the Chapel of Rest.

“Hurry!” A savage poke at my back sent me stumbling towards the altar where Miss Thorn’s coffin reposed in all its mournful splendour.

I strained my ears for the sound of the outside door opening and couldn’t be sure if I was indulging in wishful thinking. “Don’t let me keep you, Mr. Fisher,” I said, “if you have a customer in the back.”

“One more peep and I kill you and whoever comes in.”

“You won’t get away with this.”

“And, like all women, you talk too much.” Mr. Fisher was now practically treading on my heels and his breath came out in chesty wheezes as he said, “Lift the lid.”

“You heard me.” A really painful jab this time, as I strained to catch the sound of footsteps. None were forthcoming as I slowly raised the coffin lid. What was I supposed to say to Miss Thorn: Move over and make room for me?

She wasn’t there.

“Get in.”

Oh, the sick slippery feel of that white satin, but I kept telling myself this wasn’t happening, even as Mr. Fisher hauled off his … my raincoat and—persnickety man—tossed it in after me. Mustn’t raise eyebrows by being caught in ladies’ attire, must we, Walter? I hope my jeering smile chilled his blood as he closed the coffin lid. One does so like to have the upper hand at such times.

Darkness. Even when I opened my eyes.

Instinctively, I sensed that the air was rationed and I would have to recycle like crazy. And there wasn’t a lot of elbow room (or nose room for that matter), but other than that things could be worse. I could already be dead, instead of waiting for Mr. Fisher to come back and finish the job once he got rid of his customer.

The darkness grew rank with terror, which eased a little when I thought of Ben and his claustrophobia. Thank God he wasn’t the one in this pickle. And thank God for my miracle! That thud wasn’t my heart. I had jostled my raincoat. And inside the raincoat pocket was Mrs. Malloy’s gun. Forget the morning nap, Ellie, there are nappies to wash and the day to be saved. My fingers inched sideways and felt the gun. Any moment now I would weasel it into my hand, and with my finger on the trigger, burst out of my narrow cell, the quintessential Fully Female woman.

So much for heroics. I wasn’t to be allowed the privilege of rescuing myself. At least not as planned. Before I could say boo, my coffin lid was inched upward and I found myself gaping into the ever-handsome, if ashen, face of Lionel Wiseman.

“My word! Mrs. Haskell!” He backed down the altar steps, kicking aside a couple of wreaths in the process.

I sat up in my satin coffin pointing the gun at him. “Sorry, Miss Thorn isn’t receiving callers.”

“What is this? Some kind of dare you cooked up with the other Fully Females?”

“Your questions,” I said, sitting up, “are best addressed to Mr. Walter Fisher, who I would assume is currently lurking behind one of those purple hangings.”

“My dear lady, I think I should call a doctor.”

“Shush!” I silenced him with a lift of the hand, the one holding the gun. I heard escaping footsteps, then a car starting up outside very close to the building, and it dawned on me why I was having this conversation with Mr. Wiseman undisturbed. Walter Fisher, Murderer, had hopped it, possibly because even he thought that getting away with three murders in one day was pushing it, but more probably because he had seen the gun in my hand. “I really don’t think you should bother Dr.
Melrose,” I told Mr. Wiseman. “He will be having a quiet day at home with Flo, talking about his retirement as he poses for one of her paintings. Much better to phone the police, they’ll have a grand time chasing down Mr. Fisher. Life is so dull in Chitterton Fells.” Stretching my arms above my head I took a deep, reviving breath of gardenias. “Oh, Mr. Wiseman, before you make that call, would you mind telling me what brings you here?”

“The ring.” For a large man his voice was awfully small.

“What?”

“Frightfully embarrassing, Mrs. Haskell.”

“Go on.”

“If you insist.” He straightened up without managing to look as tall as usual. “At the time of Gladys’s death I made the foolish gesture of saying I wanted her engagement ring buried with her. However, upon reflection I realized that sentiment has its place …”

“In your pocket?”

“My dear lady, it is a very expensive piece of jewelry. Where can it be? Where is Gladys?”

“You didn’t …” My heart suddenly went out to him. The poor two-timer. “You didn’t decide it would be more fitting to have her ashes scattered inside the church organ, and arrange for her to have a Show Case funeral?”

“No! Never heard of such a thing.”

“Then my guess is that the next of kin—in this case, Miss Thorn’s brother Gladstone—stepped in and requested it in the interests of economy and …” I looked away from him. “… and making absolutely sure she wouldn’t turn up again, twenty years from now.”

I reached up a hand and let him help me onto my feet. “Life is very expensive, but dear Mr. Wiseman”—a smile was growing inside me ready to burst out and shine—“it is worth everything you pay for it.”

Something had told me Mrs. Malloy would be all right. And so she was, because Ben had listened to his male intuition—that inner voice which told him that I hadn’t levelled with him. Halfway to London, he told Freddy he was turning round and they arrived back at Merlin’s Court to find Mr. Bludgett busily resuscitating Mrs. Malloy using the plumber’s mate—the trusty plunger. It did the trick so well that Mrs. M was able to spill the beans in record time, and before Freddy had the twins out of their coats, Ben was on the phone to the police. They caught up with Walter Fisher a half hour later; by which time neither the car nor he were in one piece. He had gone over the cliff on the far side of the point on the outskirts of Pebblewell. Mrs. Malloy, all stiff upper lip, insisted the case would have been different if the officer in charge had been female. Never send a man to do a woman’s job. When I received the news, my feelings were awfully muddled. The horror that I had submerged
came bubbling to the surface. There was relief that the bogeyman was gone, blotted out, never to return. And there was sadness for Mrs. Malloy, although I got the feeling she might recover when she telephoned me that evening to say she was dumping every drop of her Fully Female Formula down the sink.

“Good idea,” I told her. But much to my surprise, Ben wasn’t one hundred percent behind the idea when I told him what she had said.

“I don’t know, Ellie.” He was lying on the bed, a hand cupped behind his head, a book lying flat across his stomach. “I’m beginning to think I was looking at Fully Female with a closed mind. Just listen to this.” He turned the volume over and read in a gloating voice:

“That old saying about an Englishman’s home being his castle should be updated. How much sweeter, dear Fellow Female, to say that an Englishman’s bed is his castle. Whatever battles he must fight out in the cold, cruel world, between the sheets he is king.”

“Give that to me!” I snatched the manual from him. “How
can
you laugh like that?”

“How can I not?” He sat up very still, his eyes turning to darkest emerald. “I have to laugh from the sheer joy of having you safe with me.”

“I don’t understand why you aren’t furious with me for not telling you what I was up to. Particularly when we had just had that go-round about Fully Female.”

“This was different.” He moved over to make room for me on the bed. “What you did was crazy, Ellie, but I understand why you did it, and why you couldn’t tell me.”

“You would have stopped me.”

“You’re damn right.”

“I didn’t feel I had a choice.”

“Oh, Ellie!” He pulled me into his arms and scattered kisses gentle as flowers upon my face. “Don’t you see? I never asked for your soul—only your heart.”

Breathless, I lifted my face to his. “It’s yours, always and forever. I only went to Fully Female because I was afraid. I was afraid that childbirth had made me lumpy and unattractive. I was afraid to want you”—I buried my face against his shoulder—“in case you didn’t want me.”

His laugh rumpled my hair. “That’s funny. Because I felt the same way. I was afraid that the responsibilities of fatherhood had robbed me of my boyish charm.”

I wanted to stay in that magic place forever, but suddenly one of the babies whimpered. Not a hungry sound, but a scared one.

“I’ll go,” I said.

“No.” He pressed a finger to my lips, stood, put on his black silk dressing gown, and was off to fight the dragons as knights, bold and true, have been doing for centuries. As for the lady of the manor, she has her role to play in keeping the home fires burning. Stepping over to the table by the window, I started to light the candle that would bathe the sheets with amber light, but all at once I threw down the match and went out onto the landing in a whirl of flannel nightgown. If I couldn’t follow my love to the ends of the earth, I could at least follow him to the nursery. Together we would take care of our babies and afterwards …

Afterwards is always a mystery.

And sometimes a love story.

F
OR
M
EG
R
ULEY
, M
Y
F
RIEND
, A
GENT,
AND
P
ARTNER IN
C
RIME

Other books by Dorothy Cannell

*THE THIN WOMAN

DOWN THE GARDEN PATH

*THE WIDOWS CLUB

*MUM’S THE WORD

*HOW TO MURDER YOUR MOTHER-IN-LAW

*HOW TO MURDER THE MAN OF YOUR DREAMS

*GOD SAVE THE QUEEN!

*available from Bantam Books

A
BOUT THE
A
UTHOR

DOROTHY CANNELL is the author of seven mysteries featuring Ellie Haskell. They are
The Thin Woman, The Widows Club
, which was nominated for an Agatha Award as Best Novel of the Year,
Mum’s the Word, Femmes Fatal, How to Murder Your Mother-in-Law, How to Murder the Man of Your Dreams
, and
God Save the Queen!
. She is also the author of
Down the Garden Path
. She was born in Nottingham, England, and currently resides in Peoria, Illinois.

If you enjoyed Dorothy Cannell’s
Femmes Fatal
, you won’t want to miss Ellie Haskell’s next uproarious appearance.

Here is a special look at
God Save the Queen!
, from Bantam available at your local bookstore.

God Save the Queen!

Dorothy Cannell

When she was three years old, Flora Hutchins went to live at Gossinger Hall in the village of Nether Woodcock, Lincolnshire. Upon first seeing the gray stone house with its turrets sprouting up all over the place, Flora had decided it was bigger than the cottage hospital where her mother had died, so it had to be Buckingham Palace. And when her grandfather came down the steps to meet her, looking so distinguished in his pin-striped suit, she was surprised he wasn’t wearing a crown because she was so certain he had to be the King of England.

It took the little girl a few days to learn the true state of affairs. Grandpa was not the King, but Sir Henry Gossinger’s butler. But that didn’t mean Flora
turned into a downtrodden little thing kept hidden away behind the broom cupboard door. When she got bigger she liked helping the series of housekeepers, who came and went as regularly as the seasons, to make the beds, dust the furniture, and peel vegetables for dinner. Grandpa wouldn’t let her help him make up the special recipe he used to clean Sir Henry’s prized collection of eighteenth-century silver, but Flora loved sitting with him at such times because then he would tell her stories about Gossinger Hall.