The Importance of Being Ernestine (17 page)

“When did you get news of the accident, Mrs. Beetle?” I asked.

“It was in the evening around 8 or 9:00, give or take. There hadn't been any big excitement about him being missing. Mrs. Edmonds isn't the type to worry about other people, and I imagine Mr. Edmonds was busy pining for his Auntie. Terrible dependent on her he is. Daisy Meeks, some sort of cousin, was here for dinner.”

“We just met her upstairs,” supplied Mrs. Malloy. But Mrs. Beetle was still thinking about that dinner. “A lovely lamb roast if I do say so myself—another of your husband's recipes, Mrs. Haskell. Miss Meeks is always in some dreamworld of her own. Probably quite clever, but looks and sounds daft, if you understand me. I was just sitting down after finishing the washing up when the doorbell went and Watkins went to answer it. It was Constable Thatcher on the doorstep, but whatever he'd come for couldn't have had anything to do with the accident because just then the phone rang. And he was as surprised as anyone. Watkins said you could see it in his face, when it turned out to be a call from the police station. Seems Mrs. Hasty had reported seeing a foot sticking out of the well when she got home and would Constable Thatcher go down and investigate.”

“Horrible to be a policeman.” Mrs. M. reached for a slice of cake. “Or to do any sort of crime work—like them private detectives, for instance.” She pensively sighed. “But then it takes all kinds, don't it?”

“Constable Thatcher's a decent sort. A bit strict with his nine-year-old son, Ronald, but that's better than being too lenient, some would say, and then having the lad grow up to be a disappointment.” Mrs. Beetle wiped her floury hands on her apron. “Which from what I've heard is the case with Mr. Featherstone, the vicar's nephew. Seems he refused point blank to go up to university because he'd set his mind on being an actor and when nothing came of that had to settle for any job he could get.” She got up to refill the teapot.

“When did the little dog turn up?” I asked, wondering if anyone had much cared.

“Showed up that evening or the next morning. Poor little orphan!” Mrs. Beetle looked misty eyed, but that could have been the steam coming out of the kettle. “Now where's he got to? It crept in here about fifteen minutes ago, and I didn't see it go back into the hall. I wonder if it could have got shut up in the cellar when Watkins went down with the bottles of wine we didn't use for last night's dinner.” She looked toward a door to the left of the fireplace and had crossed the room to place her hand on the knob when Watkins came in from the hall. “Oh, good, you're here!” She nodded at him. “We need to check and see if the dog's locked in the cellar.”

“I think that doubtful, Mrs. Beetle. I am sure I would have seen if he had slipped in behind me when I went down just now, but if it will ease your mind I will make the necessary search.” Producing a key from his jacket pocket, Watkins unlocked the door and could be heard descending the stairs.

“I was offended when I came to work here and was told the cellar door was always kept locked.” Mrs. Beetle refilled our teacups. “I thought it was because Lady Krumley didn't want the help getting into the wine. A waste of time where I'm concerned because I never touch alcohol, except for cooking. My parents drank more than was good for them, and it put me right off. But it give her ladyship her due, I've come to think she's mostly worried about the steps being steep. Watkins knows better than to run up and down them, but the young girls that come up to help in the house a couple of days a week don't have his sense. It's Mrs. Edmonds that gets upset when she can't get hold of Watkins to borrow the key so she can go down and get a couple of apples if we don't have any up here.”

“Apples?” I said.

“We usually have a store of them down there.”

“And Mrs. Edmonds is particularly fond of apples?”

“She likes to take them to Charlie, her horse. Passionate about that animal, she is. And I've got my suspicions that Lady Krumley quite enjoys putting her nose out of joint. The two women don't get on, not that I want to gossip.”

“Of course not,” Mrs. Malloy and I responded in unison.

“It'll be interesting to find out what Madam Cynthia thinks about this redecorating scheme.” Mrs. Beetle mopped her damp brow with her sleeve and began gathering up the crockery and putting it in the sink.

“I hope she'll be pleased with the results,” I responded with my best professional smile and began to wander around the kitchen. “You won't mind if I take some measurements? I had just produced my tape from my bag when Watkins emerged from the cellar to announce that the dog was not down there. After relocking the door he returned the key to his pocket, removed his jacket and hung it on a peg inside an alcove, very like the one by the garden door at Merlin's Court.

“A cup of tea, Mrs. Beetle, if you will be so good and then I will retreat into the butler's pantry to straighten up the newly polished silver; unless,” he eyed Mrs. Malloy and me in quite a kindly manner, “you two ladies require any immediate assistance from me.”

“We are finding our way around, thank you,” I told him.

“Don't let us keep you from your work, not that we wouldn't enjoy watching you flexing them muscles of yours.” Mrs. Malloy peaked coquettishly up at him from under the brim of her hat, her expression becoming thoughtful upon watching his stately retreat. It seemed the time to allow Mrs. Beetle to return to her cooking. After thanking her for the tea, cake and scones I eyed the kitchen up and down in my most professional manner and said that my partner and I would discuss our vision for the necessary improvements before returning to take further measurements.

“We believe in maintaining the integrity of the structure,” Mrs. M. piped in with all the aplomb of having coined the phrase rather than parroting a bit of my coaxing. She was saved from getting carried away by Mrs. Beetle's response that she wasn't any too sure that there was all that much integrity on the parts of some people at Moultty Towers.

“Well now,” intoned my partner, practically smacking her lips, “a good thing you mentioned that, seeing as how it could make a big difference to the paint colors and . . . the curtains we was to choose. Isn't that right, Mrs. H.? There's some shades of red and some fabrics, especially satin, that can bring out the beast in people. I remember one of my ex-husbands . . .” Her eyes took on a dreamy glow, and I wasn't any better. I was picturing Freddy's mother, Aunt Lulu, in a soft shade of pink; she said it always put her in the mood for a successful day's shoplifting. The golden opportunity was lost. We had given Mrs. Beetle the necessary few seconds to remember that gossiping was frowned upon by the Catholic Church, as was bribery. But without a qualm of conscience I promised her, with what I hoped was a winning smile, that I would bring her a first edition copy of
The Edwardian Lady's Cookery Book
on my next visit.

“Oh, that is good of you!” Her face was wreathed in smiles. “Would he . . . do you think you could ask your husband to autograph it?”

“He'd be delighted.”

“And would he . . . not just write his name . . . but put ‘To Tina'?”

I assured her that this would be no problem before asking if it would be best for us to go out the kitchen door to get to Mrs. Hasty's cottage.

“It's at the bottom of the garden, but that's not as close as it sounds. The grounds are large, and there's a copse you have to go through. But at least it's not raining at the moment, although it looks like it's trying.” Mrs. Beetle escorted us outside with a good deal of waving about, still apparently in a fluster. “We need some information about some pieces of furniture, the ones that Lady Krumley recalled having been in the house when she first came to Moultty Towers. She thought Mrs. Hasty, having been working here at that time, might remember if they were disposed of, or stored in one of the attics.” This fib rolled off my tongue convincingly, something which the Church of England would have frowned upon in full accord with the Catholics. I pictured Kathleen Ambleforth having a chat with God on the subject, saying that in her humble opinion, I didn't deserve to get back the items I had donated from Ben's study. Not that she was trying to do his job for him, but as a vicar's wife she knew better than most that he was overworked and once in a while needed a sound woman to keep him organized.

“Mrs. Hasty's the chatty sort. There's not much she won't tell you for a bag of sweets.” Mrs. Beetle laughed and went back into the kitchen, leaving me with the lowering feeling that we were about to prey upon a lonely old lady well into her second childhood. I said as much to Mrs. Malloy as we walked down a shallow flight of stone steps into the extensive garden, where statues of nymphs shivered in lifeless flowerbeds under the bare branches of the trees. Her response was to tell me that I would never harden myself to the life of a private investigator if I didn't stop thinking soppy. I apologized meekly, and we trudged on along meandering paths, among gently undulating lawns that would have made for a fairly decent golf course.

My mind shifted to Ernest the under gardener, who had been thought to be the father of Flossie's baby girl, without bringing him into focus. He remained a shadowy figure on his haunches plucking up weeds with his back to us, and it suddenly seemed vital to the investigation that he be fleshed out. We had reached the copse, dark and somewhat ominous looking under the overcast sky. Through the shift and shadow of its branches could be glimpsed the cottage, and I wondered if Mrs. Malloy feared as I did that we were Hansel and Gretel about to knock on a door that would open onto unforeseen dangers, where evil hid under chintz covers and sugar-coated words would send us skipping away down one wrong path after another until the truth was hopelessly trodden underfoot like breadcrumbs tossed by an unseen hand.

Fourteen

Seeing the wishing well in the cottage garden heightened the feeling that Mrs. Malloy and I were trapped in a fairy tale with all its attendant horrors. My mind squeezed shut when it veered toward the horrific moment when Vincent Krumley met his end. But Mrs. Malloy was not so squeamish.

She stood, shaking her head vigorously. With the wind picking up it would not have surprised me had her hat started to spin around to the accompaniment of merry-go-round music. “The only way as I can see for him to have fallen in by accident is if he'd been kneeling on that wooden ledge peering way over to see if the dog was down there. And he couldn't've been pushed because then he'd have gone sprawling over the top. It's quite a big well, but we're not talking the size of a swimming pool. Meaning Mrs. H., that if it was murder someone had to wrestle with the poor old blighter and shove him in headfirst.”

“Or,” I said, turning away to face the cottage, “someone pretending to help him look for the dog encouraged Vincent Krumley to kneel down and peer into the well and then toppled him in.”

“There you go, taking the words out of me mouth!”

“And did the dog get outdoors by accident, or was he removed as a key part of the plan?”

“As if I wasn't just about to say that!”

“Did the murderer tie him up somewhere, where he could be heard frantically barking but not be easily found? Somewhere close to here so that Mr. Krumley could be maneuvered this way.”

“Again what I was thinking!” Mrs. M., still sounding peevish, followed me up the short path with its little lawn on either side to the cottage door. It was a charming place, with cobbled stone walls and tiny latticed windows overhung by a thatched roof. But Mrs. Malloy could be counted on to keep the Grim Reaper scything away in the shadows. “Led like a lamb to the slaughter, was Vincent Krumley. Poor old gent!”

She might have gone on at length if the door hadn't opened before I could lift the doorknocker, and we found ourselves confronted by a tall slim woman with thick coppery hair plaited around her head. She was in her mid to late thirties, I decided, and unlikely to be Mrs. Hasty unless she had participated in a test study of rejuvenating tablets. It was apparent from her expression that she took us for a couple of Jehovah's Witnesses or door-to-door salespeople. Her expression remained doubtful, as I explained why we wished to see Mrs. Hasty. But after a prolonged stare, she edged back into the narrow hall and instructed us to come in.

“When was it you last spoke with Lady Krumley?” She still struck me as liable to take an umbrella from the brass stand by the staircase and dish out a series of pokes if either Mrs. Malloy or I so much as looked as though we might make a false move.

“Yesterday, at the hospital during a consultation about the redecorating.”

“How did she seem to you?” The woman's hazel eyes probed my face.

“Not too bad,” I replied cautiously, “and insistent on keeping her appointment with us.”

“Depressing places, hospitals. Worst sort of place to be when you're feeling poorly.” Mrs. Malloy got in before I could hog more of the conversation. “We saw Lady Krumley's nephew, Mr. Edmonds, there. His wife was parking the car, so we didn't have the thrill of meeting her until today. And her ladyship's vicar—he showed up to see her too. So you mustn't go thinking,” she added comfortingly, “her ladyship was left sitting on her bedpan all day with no one to talk to.” Feeling perhaps that she had dropped a clanger, Mrs. Malloy flexed her butterfly lips and said, “And very dignified I'm sure she would look, even under them circumstances. Good posture. It's drummed into the aristocracy, and very handy when it counts.”

The woman's face assumed an expressionless mask. “The vicar has the highest regard for Lady Krumley. I'm sure she found his visit comforting. Did she tell you about what happened the night before last right outside this door?”