The Importance of Being Ernestine (20 page)

“Then we won't disturb Mr. Edmonds.” I did a good job of keeping the relief out of my voice.

“That might be as well, madam. Miss Meeks is an excitable lady under normal circumstances and she was displaying a great deal of agitation, when I went in a few moments ago with the tea tray, at the prospect of the inquest. It will make for something of an occasion in Biddlington-By-Water, and Miss Meeks was concerned that she did not have the right hat. She had hoped to find one in the attics. Something neither too plain or too fancy.” His eyes went to Mrs. Malloy's headgear, but he did not ask where she'd had the good fortune to purchase it, perhaps because it was looking rather the worse for wear following its tussles with Mother Nature. Instead he apologized for allowing his tongue to run away with him, to which Mrs. Malloy responded kindly that it was entirely understandable in the circumstances.

“An inquest you say, and I suppose there had to be a post-mortem? Horrible it must be for you to think that just the other night the poor old codger was cutting into his dinner and now . . . well, best not to go thinking about it, ducks. I suppose the police are sure it was an accident? They wouldn't go thinking that it was anything else, would they? I mean that he threw himself down that well on purpose, while the balance of his mind was disturbed over the disappearance of his little doggie?”

“Constable Thatcher was here a half hour ago. I met him outside the kitchen door and presumed to have a word with him. He made it clear that the inquest would be a formality. Mr. Krumley was over ninety and very tottery on his legs, all the more so at the time because he had indulged in a glass or two of brandy to calm himself down before he went looking for Pipsie. He had informed me upon his arrival that he had given up drinking and would not partake of wine at dinner, so perhaps he was more strongly affected than he would have been in the past.” Watkins again cleared his throat, and I felt my heart sink. From the sound of things the police weren't going to be of any help. I pictured Mrs. Malloy and myself showing up at the police station and reeling off our tale off deathbed curses, missing brooches and Krumleys dropping of the family twig like windfall apples. The only thing that might make this Constable Thatcher sit up and listen was our encounter with Have Gun, but then the question would arise, why hadn't we reported on him sooner? My head started to spin. I hadn't eaten much breakfast, I'd had that terrifying experience with the birds, and it was more than time for lunch. Steaming away in the kitchen was Mrs. Beetle's steak and kidney pudding. My mouth watered. If Mrs. Malloy and I didn't hurry we would be late for our appointment with Laureen, where with luck we would again get to settle for baked beans on toast. I thought about giving the attics a pass, but we had to check for those birdcages. Mrs. Malloy had brought them up to Mr. Watkins and he was already requesting that we follow him up the staircase. Perhaps he regretted not having escorted us on our prior trip.

After toiling up several additional flights above the bedroom floor and in the process meeting the steely-eyed gaze of a series of family portraits, we reached a door crouched below a sloping ceiling, which Watkins opened with the aplomb of a museum curator. His hand found an inner light switch that murkily illuminated a labyrinth of caves with wooden rafters festooned with cobwebs, below which stood forlorn groups of furniture and trunks. I thought of Kathleen Ambleforth and how she would have had the removal vans loaded within five minutes of being told she could have this lot for her charities.

“I really must speak to the girls who come in to clean about keeping up with their dusting up here.” Watkins shook his head and said that he hoped we would be successful in our endeavors. “No doubt it will do Lady Krumley a world of good upon her recovery to involve herself in redecorating the house. If you will forgive the presumption, the addition of a handsome library table and secretary desk should particularly lift her spirits. The library was, to my understanding, Sir Horace's favorite room, and Lady Krumley enjoys tending to her correspondence.”

Mrs. Malloy and I thanked him, whereupon he retreated down the stairs, leaving us facing what now struck me as a hostile mob of wardrobes, armchairs and chests of drawers. We stood for a few minutes regretting the bag of lemon drops she had given to Mrs. Hasty, then discussed how desperately we both wanted a cup of tea and whether Laureen would already be waiting for us at The Copper Kettle. I climbed over a footstool in search of the birdcages, while Mrs. Malloy parked herself on a rush-seated chair. As might have been supposed I was the one who spotted them. There were two behind a brass bed piled end to end with boxes. They had been used and duly replaced. Methodical, I had to hand that to our murderer.

“Nice to be proved right.” Mrs. M. was already heading out. “Where's your bag? You won't want to come back for it.”

“I left it in the hall.”

“And don't forget we promised to bring Mrs. Beetle an autographed copy of one of Mr. H.'s cookery books,” she reminded me as we scurried down the first set of stairs. “Tina, she said her name was. I wonder what that's short for? Christina most likely, don't you suppose?”

“Probably.”

We had descended to the bedroom floor with speed, but even with thoughts of lunch abounding my steps slowed. All this exercise might be good for me, but my legs were starting to complain. Pain, however, was not what brought me to a dead halt outside a door that was cracked open an inch.

“You could have signaled,” Mrs. Malloy complained.

“Shush!” I backed up along the wall, drawing her alongside me.

“Don't you go shushing me! We're not back at Merlin's Court, you know!”

“Listen!” I whispered. “There's someone in there talking. . . . Something about the brooch.”

“That's Cynthia Edmond's voice.”

I nodded, pressing a finger to my lips as I strained to catch the words, spoken with a deliberation that intensified their venom. Mrs. Malloy was breathing heavily down my neck.

“I know you put it there.” Cynthia gave a throaty laugh. “I came across it in your jacket pocket the previous day. I wouldn't put it past you to have suggested to gullible Aunt Maude that it would be a good idea to have that girl Laureen give the skirting board a good dusting, by way to making sure she learned the importance of being thorough. What a crafty thing you are, with your blank face and that voice that drives me up the wall. How we have all underestimated you. And how you are going to be made to pay, in substantial installments adding up to a great deal of money. Don't worry, you won't have to take it out of the piggy bank. It should be a simple matter of fiddling the books.”

“I bet that's gone down like a plateful of fish and chips,” Mrs. M. whispered in my ear.

“Quick!” I mouthed back at her. “They're walking about. They could be coming out!” I caught my breath. Something silky had brushed against my ankle. I looked down and a Maltese terrier looked up. First it gave a pitiful whine and then it nosed growling and yipping toward the door. This was all we needed! Yanking my fellow snoop's arm I tiptoed at a run toward the stairs and only ventured to look back when we were almost at the bottom. That door hadn't opened. And no one was in the hall where I grabbed up my bag. But my breathing didn't slow until Mrs. Malloy and I were in the car driving toward the gates.

“So that's what Cynthia Edmonds meant by that remark in the drawing room about a business venture bearing fruit, Mrs. H. She was talking about blackmail. Who do you suppose was with her that she got the goods on?”

“Her husband springs first to mind. He's an accountant. He handles his aunt's financial affairs. Who better to fiddle the books?”

“Well,” Mrs. Malloy said, applying fresh lipstick, “I could almost feel sorry for the man. As for that Cynthia she's playing a dangerous game. He may love her, but a man who'd kill his own parents won't likely let that stop him.”

“We don't know that he did kill them. It probably was an accident. And it may not have been Niles in that bedroom with Cynthia. It may not even have been a man,” I said as we parked outside The Copper Kettle, which as Laureen had promised was on the other side of the green from the Biddlington-By-Water police station.”

“You've got a point.” Mrs. M. sounded only vaguely interested.

“A pity that little dog can't talk. There was someone in that room that it didn't like.”

“Mmm!”

“What have you got ticking away inside your head?” I asked sharply.

“Oh, nothing all that exciting.” She returned the lipstick to her handbag and snapped the clasp. “I've just solved it, is all.”

“But you can't have. We haven't found Ernestine yet.”

“Oh, I don't mean the case.” Mrs. Malloy swung her high heels onto the pavement. “It's even better than that. I know why Watkins's face seemed so familiar. He's the man I told you about, the one I talked to a few years back when I came to play bingo with the Biddlington-By-Water senior citizens.”

Sixteen

Trust Mrs. Malloy to have added Watkins to the list of men included in what she was fond of referring to with capital letters as Her Past. I told her I was happy for her, that I vaguely remembered her mentioning some old geezer from that night at bingo. But I didn't recall her sounding all that smitten. Hadn't there been something about his feeling guilty about gambling because his wife didn't approve?

“No one's perfect, Mrs. H., and seen in daylight he's not a bad-looking chap.”

“And handy around the house. That's not to be sneezed at.”

We were entering the café, typical of its sort, with closely grouped tables between which a waitress with a fierce look of concentration on her face was squeezing her way. One turned head, one shift of a customer's foot, one poke of an elbow and there would go the loaded plates she was carrying. The wall, shelf-lined with copper kettles, provided another hazard, being at just the right height to ensure that anyone seated at a table beneath it would get a cracked head if failing to exercise extreme caution when getting up from a chair.

“It wasn't his wife.” Mrs. Malloy narrowly missed being side-swiped by one of the plates. “It was his daughter or granddaughter or maybe a niece.”

“Not a nephew?” I was sidling toward the only empty table.

“Oh ho, aren't we getting snippy, Mrs. H.?”

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I'm hungry and worried that we're only going to make matters worse by sticking our noses in this business. It will probably take ages for us to be served. And it has begun to dawn on me that we have too many nephews cluttering up this case.”

“Do we?” Mrs. Malloy looked genuinely nonplussed.

“Don't get me wrong,” I said, moving the bottle of sauce as though it were a pawn on a chess board, “I'm not blaming you for insisting that there be a nasty nephew involved, but one per murder plot is usually considered adequate.”

“That's all there is, Niles Edmonds.”

“Wrong.” I shifted the pepper pot. “I can count two more already. Mrs. Beetle mentioned the vicar had a nephew who was something of a disappointment because he'd gone on the stage. And Mrs. Hasty told us that Mrs. Snow, the horrible housekeeper, paid her nephew's boarding school fees.”

“And I'll bet he's been made to pay through the nose ever since, the poor sod. He's probably at her beck and call this minute, trotting up and downstairs with cups of tea and extra pillows for her poor old back. And then there's someone like Milk”—she threw out a hand, knocking over the salt shaker that I had just set up in position—“off doing what real men do: getting mugged in alleyways and boozing it up in some back room. It just don't seem fair.”

“You're right. It isn't the least bit fair to Lady Krumley that we're playacting at handling her case because we've no means of getting in touch with Mr. Jugg, who must surely have enough credibility with the police to get them to take a closer look at Vincent Krumley's death. He might also tell us how to set about finding Ernestine pronto.” In my agitation I shot back in my chair and pilloried the waitress.

“You all right, ducks?” Mrs. Malloy asked her. “There's not room to swing a cat round in here. Now, what was it we was saying, Mrs. H.?” She began unbuttoning her raincoat as the woman sucked in her stomach and sidestepped away.

“That you and I are caught up in something we're not equipped to handle.”

“Rubbish! Faint hearts never won diddle, let alone the five thousand pound her ladyship has promised us. I'd say we've made a lot of headway in one morning, what with Laureen Phillips falling all over herself to spill the beans. And we'd do a lot better if you'd stop fixing on piddly stuff like who's got a nephew and who hasn't. Now, don't go telling me it's always them little details that helps solve the case in detective stories. I know that and I'm not saying they aren't important in real life, but the point is we need to keep our eyes on the big picture first and then see how and where the small things fit in to be important. If they do, which probably most of them don't, being mainly red herrings as they say. Ooh, and that does make me think . . .”

“What?” I leaned forward hoping to hear that she'd just had a brilliant revelation as to who was the most likely person behind all the peculiar goings-on at Moultty Towers.

“That I could kill for a couple of kippers with poached eggs on top.”

“Is that all?”

“You rather I dropped dead of hunger before Laureen Phillips shows up?”

“If she ever does. Maybe she's had second thoughts.” Not so, it would seem. I glimpsed a shadow, felt rather than heard someone approach our table, and a moment later Laureen Phillips, wearing a raincoat gaped open to reveal her gray blouse and cardigan, sat down.