Mum's the Word (35 page)

She remained on the bed when I got up. Was she hoping
Marjorie Rumpson would come up and she'd be forced to confess? Turning back from the door, I held out my hand. “Let me have those things. Don't worry. With the meeting in progress, returning them to the dining room should be a snap.”

“No, really! I couldn't let you!” A martyr positioning herself on the stake, Ernestine moved to plump down on the knives, but I was too quick for her. Little did she know that under my righteous exterior lurked a fellow snooper. My parents had raised a meddler. Uncle Merlin had said so on that first visit, when I had told him he should attend church, get married, and leave me some money in his will.

I knew I had no business returning those knives. Would God have invented policemen if he wanted people like me interfering? Creeping down the stairs, hand clutching my smock, I hoped that should anyone see me they would fail to realize I wasn't far enough along for the baby to be jabbing out an elbow. Was there a plea of prenatal insanity in this land of lawsuits? I could see all this was becoming a sickness with me. I couldn't go on believing
everyone
innocent. Although, surely, Bingo had been punished enough for behaving like a child for once. Those moments under Marjorie Rumpson's bed could not have been fun. As for Marjorie, I couldn't expect Sheriff Dougherty to accept, without question, that she had been framed. Unlike me, he had not the benefit of several days' acquaintance with her.

Light, breaking through the stained glass door panel, made a mosaic on the ceiling; otherwise the mahogany hall was as dark and stuffy as a sealed up church. The closed doors had the look of confessionals. Had Theola Faith confessed yet? The sour puss face of the blackened grandmother clock said ten thirty. How long before the sheriff brought news? Or was he here already? Hands shaking, I plunged into the dining room. Back out again ten seconds later and pounds thinner, having delivered the knives to the closest drawer. I'd buffed them off and done the final handling with the front of my smock, but after taking only a couple of steps I came to a dithering halt. What about my fingerprints on the sideboard? Could I explain them away by saying I must have touched the drawer when helping myself to breakfast? There had been
some very handsome croissants and rhubarb buns between the coffee pot and fruit bowl.

“God, according to the Book of Enoch, is gonna punish you, Miss Interference.” The voice popped up behind me.

“Pepys!” Was that silly squeak
me
? Or a canary being trodden on by a cat? I backed toward the staircase wall. “You really shouldn't speak of God that way as though he's some sort of bogey man. And you shouldn't scare me like that. You might give me triplets!”

“Good!” His bald head shone smooth as marble. His eyes were chipped ice as he let loose a laugh, convincing me a neon sign flashed the word
knives
from my forehead. Naturally I didn't expect to be in high favour after last night. And I couldn't blame Pepys for favouring his own skin over that of his employer. My mental babbling was cut short by the bell. The door bell.

“Tarnation! Here comes the sheriff dropping by uninvited. Man should read Ann Landers on that subject!” Pepys' eyes let me go. Off he shuffled down the centre of the hall, leaving me feeling small and feathery and chewed. I couldn't tell if that was the sheriff's head behind the glass, although the set of the shoulders looked decidedly official. Could I make it up the stairs before he entered? No, I couldn't. But neither could I face the law until I had taken something to settle my conscience. Should I make a dive back into the dining room or—my heart was trying to break through my ribs—take the lift?

Pepys is about to admit the caller; he turns and looks my way as I open the outer wooden door and shove back the accordian-pleated brass one. I feel cornered again, which is stupid. My finger is on the button; I am lurching upward. The concrete walls, seen through the fenced sides of the lift cage, don't exactly flash past. There being no ceiling, I do feel rather as though I'm a skier in a chair lift. But how long can it take to go up one floor? That depends I suppose on whether or not … you come to a full stop. I heard a faint wheezing sound as though the contraption were out of breath. And then nothing. Sorry, I'm exaggerating—something
did
happen. The overhead light went out.

This is not a good time for panic. Panic is only fun when you get to share it with someone. If Ben were only here, we
could turn this into a romantic interlude—pretend we were a couple of Victorian chimney sweeps. Scratch that! He would be dead by now from claustrophobia. This was much better, I could think of myself, feel free to fall luxuriously apart. But should I? Pause, Ellie. You can redeem yourself in the eyes of all who resented your theory: Theola Faith did not kill her daughter, ergo someone else is guilty. Here is your chance to prove yourself fit to be a Mangé wife. Come through this crisis with flying colours and you may one day rise to some influential position in the Auxiliary. Groping left, I found the buttons and punched away. Does a passenger on a high-jacked plane care whether he is going to London or Istanbul?

The lift budged neither up nor down. Sweat broke like morning dew on my forehead. I no longer cared to be the sort of wife who held up well under tough conditions—like the pantyhose in the advert that could have danced all night. I began jumping up and down in what probably looked like a crazy dance; luckily I couldn't see myself. Halfway into a leap there came a dreadful thought. What if the lift had stalled because a cable had snagged on a roller, and what if all this vibrating caused the cable to slip, sending the cage smacking down through the shaft, straight through the cellar floor to the rocks on which Mendenhall was built? I knew nothing about the mechanics of lifts, but nothing is more convincing than an imagination fueled by terror. Moments dragged by before I dredged up a more comforting possibility. There might be nothing wrong with the lift at all. What if Pepys had left Sheriff Dougherty on the step and nipped after me? What if he had done something—opened the outer door for instance—to stop the lift in its tracks? How long would the crazy man keep me imprisoned here? How long before he thought I had learned my lesson?

A shadow moved—my arm, as it turned out. Would screaming be in my own best interests? I yelled until my ears rang. No answer. Paranoia set in. A conspiracy was afoot below. Sheriff Dougherty had persuaded the household, including Ben, that I was a threat to the happy solving of the Mary Faith case. Best that I was to be put out of everyone's misery for a while.

The Black Cloud had descended. I found myself huddled on the floor of my cage. Time was a circle always bringing me back to right now. Never had I felt more alone.

And then something magical happened. I remembered the baby was with me, and that if I didn't mind being stuck here, my friend might have other ideas. Hard on the heels of that insight came something else, a wild craving—similar to that which had caused me to pirate a rowing boat and head over to Mud Creek. This time I didn't want tacos—indeed, the very idea of spicy hot food revolted me. No, I wanted—
needed—
plain ordinary toast with an inch of butter accompanied by a steaming, soothing cup of that herbal brew described in Primrose Tramwell's letter. Balm, horehound, pennyroyal … I could almost taste them, although I never had. Sound good, baby? And to think there's an herb garden outside and we're in here! 'Tis enough to make you start climbing the walls!

The silence spoke loud and clear. “Finally, Mum, you are making sense.”

I was on my feet in a trice. “Yes, my dear! I imagine your average athletic mother could climb that checkerboard iron siding. But this is me. I never met a gym teacher I didn't hate, or one that could get me to climb an inch of the rope without using an electric cattle prod. And think, even if we do this brave thing I don't know how far we are below the second floor. Or if I could manage to get out.”

Stuff and nonsense. The Craving was in control. I was already hanging on to that railing like a monkey in a blackout at the zoo. I would have toast or die in the attempt. Common sense told me this part wasn't dangerous. No more difficult than climbing a ladder—with very narrow rungs. I went up a slow hand hold at a time. The dark became a blessing; I couldn't look down. If I was the least bit dizzy it was with excitement at the hope of getting us out of here, until—suddenly I had gone as far as I could go. Either the grating swayed or I did … a feeling similar to being on the deck of a ship and leaning too far over the rail. My hand made a desperate grab upward and grasped a door lever. Freedom.

Not yet. The door wouldn't open. Curses! Outwitted by a safety feature. I tried to be happy for all those people who had been saved from plunging down the shaft when they thought they had dodged into the bathroom; but it was a bleak moment. At least when people conquer mountains they get to stick a flag on top. Drearily I took my first step back down
and a light went on inside the lift. And there it was, that glorious rusty hum! “Baby, we're moving!”

Wrong. It was the floor that travelled. The wrong way. Down it went, leaving me a prisoner perched on the wrong side of freedom's fence. Ellie, if you ever want to see Ben again, so you can kill him for bringing you to the good old U.S.A.—Don't look! Don't think! And whatever you do, don't scream! The least tremor and you'll go hang gliding for the first time. But it was no good, my lids were fixed, my eyes frozen in horror. My arms were giving way. The urge to jump, to make this quick, was tugging at me … The floor had stopped well below the bottom of my grill, but what was this …? Oh, miracle! It had remembered me, it was coming back to the rescue. Ready, set—just step down as though you are getting onto an escalator. That's it and now—the great moment. Only when the door opened did I wonder who would be waiting for me on the other side.

“Sweetheart.” Ben's voice enclosed me, holding me safe. “How do you feel?”

“Wonderful.” I felt not only free of the lift, but of so much that had gone before. When the doors had opened and he lifted me out, every member of the household had crowded around. And the most worried of all was Pepys.

“My fault, I done it.”

Too shaken to feel animosity, I thought the skeletal Mangé was confessing to having deliberately, and with malice aforethought, set the trap, but no—he was explaining that he had failed to fuel the generator.

“You've had a lot on your mind.” Forgetting he was Pepys and not Jonas, I patted his head, before sagging back against Ben.

“Too blooming horrible for words! She could have lost the baby!” That was Marjorie Rumpson.

“She'll be all right, won't she, Mum?” Bingo stood close to his mother, clutching a bag of potato crisps.

“Sure, hon!” She didn't look convinced.

“She should be off her feet.” That was Jeffries.

“Should I boil water—for tea, I mean?” Was that Valicia X speaking? Looking more beautiful than ever because she was misty-eyed.

“How was I to know she was having a baby?” Pepys definitely looked in worse shape than I. “Thought she was
buxom. She did say something about me scaring her into having triplets, but thought it was an expression. Same as having kittens.”

Suddenly I was floating on air. My husband had swept me up in his manly arms. When we entered the bedroom, Jeffries was already smoothing back the bedclothes; Pepys skedaddled past to close the curtains while the rest milled around doing nothing, but looking as though they couldn't do enough. As Ben eased me back against the pillows, fear did return like a familiar friend. Was Pepys lying about the generator? Or, I remembered Ernestine was upstairs when I got into the lift. Perhaps she heard it coming and managed somehow to jamb it.

“A baby!” Bingo approached the bed as if it were a board room table. “A member of the most unproductive segment of society and yet … kinda neat.”

“Nicer even than a puppy.” Marjorie Rumpson put a stout arm around him.

“I'm jealous!” Valicia's bountiful smile divided itself between Ben, seated on the side of the bed, and me. “Waiting for new life to begin. I can't think of anything more incredible.”

“Yes!” The word went up as a collective sigh. And I got the strangest feeling that right here and now this was everyone's baby. Searching the circle of faces I felt cocooned in warmth, and certainty surged through me. What had happened in the lift was an accident. I was no longer on the Most Hated list. How sad that Mary Faith's death had brought us together like this—almost as a family. There
couldn't
be a murderer in this room …

“Darling …” I asked Ben when we were alone. “Did the sheriff come with news? I sensed that the others were holding something back.”

He straightened the tray on my lap and tweaked the rose in its jam jar vase. “Ellie, I want you to finish that last piece of toast and drink your herbal brew.”