The Importance of Being Ernestine (27 page)

“Yes?”

“You're not the only one that can do it. Or keep their little inspirations to themselves till they're ready to talk about them. What I want you to do, Mrs. H., is stop the car. Outside the café where we met Laureen Phillips will do nicely. We're coming up to it now.”

“What's this about?” I asked upon dutifully parking.

“We can't let things drag on any longer. Not with the bodies beginning to pile up. It's clear to me that our best hope of cracking this case is to talk to Constable Thatcher's son, young Ronald. I'm not saying you haven't been thinking along them lines too,” she said and poked her head sideways to peer in the rearview mirror, “but the question has been how to go about it.”

“And what have you come up with?”

“I'm going to be the truant officer.”

“But you don't know he's ever been improperly absent from school.”

“Well, I don't think it likely he got back on time from his dinner hour after throwing them flower pots at Lady Krumley's car and all the rest of what went on. I'll find out where he lives and march over to his house and insist on talking to him. He was off school yesterday and with luck he'll have stayed home another day. And I'll want to know why, won't I? If not I'll have to slide one by the headmaster or whoever I talk to and have Ronald pulled out of class.”

“But he won't even talk to his parents.”

“That's different. I'll be official. But I won't be his constable Dad, or his Mum, who sounds the soft sort, going out to buy him them comics after him being so naughty, on the face of it that is. I'll make it clear to young Ronald that he can't have anyone better on his side than yours truly, so long as he don't keep me twiddling me thumbs while he tries to feed me some cock-and-bull story. My George knew how far he could play me; I'm sure it'll be just the same with Ronald. And it will end up with him sitting on me knees feeling a whole lot better for getting things off his little chest.”

Her confidence boosted my spirits. Having arranged that she would walk over to Moultty Towers when she was done, I waved and after seeing Mrs. Malloy disappear into the café to ask directions to the Thatcher's house, drove the short distance through gathering gloom. It made the day seem closer to evening than early afternoon and gave the house a grimmer aspect than on yesterday's visit as I proceeded up the drive. Upon ringing the doorbell, my feelings of trepidation returned full force. Cynthia Edmonds might not have been a nice person, but I shrank from hearing that something awful had happened to her.

I hadn't completely gathered myself together when I was ushered into the house, not by Watkins the butler, but by Mr. Featherstone the vicar. He recalled in the kindest of voices having met me at the hospital and simplified the situation by saying that he was aware, from having talked with Laureen Phillips, that I had been hired by Lady Krumley as a private detective, not as an interior designer, and he had told her ladyship a short time ago while driving her home from the hospital that he was privy to the secret.”

“Your partner is not with you this afternoon?”

“She'll be here shortly. But tell me about her ladyship?”

“I think under different circumstances she would have enjoyed making her escape.” His distinguished face creased into a smile. “Maude has always been a woman of remarkable spirit. She telephoned me from a kiosk near the hospital, and asked me to come and fetch her. It was unfortunate that when Niles rang her, he made Cynthia's condition seem worse than it was, an understandable reaction on the part of a husband. But I do feel he leans too heavily at the best of times upon his aunt for emotional support. However well she has come through this episode, she has had a couple of heart attacks.”

“I've been fearing the worst,” I said. “That Cynthia was dead.”

“Neither has she suffered any severe injury. You had anticipated she would be the next victim?” There was no one visible in the hall or on the stairs, but Mr. Featherstone beckoned me into a small room fitted out like a parlour. “This is better. It wouldn't do to risk being overheard.” He looked and sounded profoundly concerned. “For quite a time now, I have felt something in this house—the presence of a disturbed personality. Call it evil if you will. This could come from my subconscience, triggered by some half-formed recognition. I've tried to puzzle it out, with no success, Mrs. Haskell. Do I have your name correctly?”

“Yes, Mr. Featherstone. Please tell me what happened to Cynthia Edmonds.”

“She was out riding several miles from here at around noon, when her horse bolted onto a main road—something it has never previously done. Cynthia is an excellent rider of many years' experience, but even that might not have saved her. It is a heavily trafficked road, but God was with her. One could call it a miracle. It happened when there wasn't a vehicle in sight.”

“Does she routinely ride in that area, at the same time of day?”

“I believe so. Maude describes Cynthia as a creature of habit. She keeps a detailed calendar and rarely varies from it. An exacting woman in many respects. I say this,” Mr. Featherstone met my eyes squarely, “because for you to accomplish what you have come here to do, it is imperative that you have an insight into the personalities of all those involved.”

“Yes,” I said. Exacting was very likely an excellent description of Cynthia Edmonds. It meshed with the fuss about her hairdresser making her the wrong shade of blonde. And when taken further it could provide the sort of ruthlessness necessary for blackmail. “How badly was she hurt?”

“A few bruises and a scraped elbow. The worst injury appears to have been to her pride in falling off her horse.”

“You don't think she will take it out on the animal?”

“No.” Mr. Featherstone smiled. It was a gentle and serene smile. “Cynthia loves that horse. It brings out what is best in her. We all have something that does that for us. A redeeming force. And sometimes in the end it is enough to turn back the darkness.”

I was tempted to say it was a pity Cynthia ever had to get off the horse. Instead I asked if I was right in assuming that Mr. Featherstone didn't believe her to be the source of what was going on at Moultty Towers. He replied that he did not, and then brought up the subject of Laureen Phillips and his nephew.

“Laureen told me she had confessed to you and your partner about the stunt they hatched up between them. I very much regret and disapprove of Tom scaring you by showing up with that gun.”

“We should have realized it wasn't real.”

“That doesn't lessen the seriousness of his shocking behavior.”

“There was no harm done, in fact quite the reverse. It convinced Mrs. Malloy and me that there might be something in Lady Krumley's story that needed investigating.”

“You're very kind, and there is another bright side.” Mr. Featherstone's eyes twinkled. “His performance convinced my nephew that acting wasn't the career for him, and he has decided to go into the church. Laureen also seems to have discovered her true calling. She has found so much pleasure spending time with Mrs. Hasty and other elderly people in the village that she has decided to make working with them her chosen path.”

“That's wonderful!” I really meant it and could not resist asking: “Any hope of wedding bells?”

“An engagement is imminent.”

What a special man he was, so freely rejoicing in the romantic happiness of others when his own hopes for a life with Lady Krumley had not been realized. But surely it wasn't too late even at this stage in their lives. Maybe, once she was able to put all this business of Flossie Jones and Ernestine behind her, she'd come to the realization that the years she had left could be filled with renewed happiness. I thought of my grandmother who had recently and blissfully married the love of her life and I made a wish for Lady Krumley and Mr. Featherstone. I completely forgot that I'd harbored suspicions of her motives for searching out Ernestine, and they didn't reoccur when I asked Mr. Featherstone if it was possible for me to see her ladyship.

“Or is she in bed?”

“She wouldn't hear of it and threatened another health episode if anyone brought pressure to bear. You'll find her in the drawing room with Sir Alfonse. Niles and Cynthia are upstairs in their rooms, but I believe Daisy Meeks is with them. No one in the family had met her prior to a few years ago, when she came on a visit to Moultty Towers and shortly afterward bought a house in the village.” Mr. Featherstone then led me across the hall and walked with me into the drawing room. As on the previous day my appalled gaze fixed on the array of game heads on the walls. All those furry faces with their antlers and reproachful glass eyes! They reduced everything else—including the people in the room—to a backdrop for a powerfully visual appeal for animal rights. I jumped when a voice spoke from a chair near the fireplace.

“Admiring the family portraits?” A man got to his feet. He was of a portly build and of medium height with a head of glossy black curls and a luxuriant moustache. His accent was faintly continental and his attire—a beige linen suit and a yellow and navy blue bow tie—also suggested that he wasn't English or liked to project the image of a widely traveled man of the world. So this was Sir Alfonse Krumley, inheritor of the title, but not the heir to Moultty Towers.

With his emergence the rest of the room sprang to life. My eyes went to Lady Krumley who beckoned me forward with an imperative hand. Seated beside her on the sofa was Daisy Meeks. Her badly permed hair gave her every right to complain to her hairdresser, but her frumpish frock suggested she had little interest in her appearance. I stood in a whirl of introductions made by her ladyship in a voice charged with vigor and found myself seated in the chair vacated by Sir Alfonse, who remained standing. Mr. Featherstone left us, saying he needed to return to the vicarage and when the door closed behind him the room sank into a silence that had a muffled sort of quality to it. A small fire burned in the very large grate and it wasn't until a log broke apart with a sharp crack that animation returned with Lady Krumley addressing me in her deep voice, while her black eyes snapped glances at Sir Alfonse and Daisy Meeks.

“So, Mrs. Haskell, how are you proceeding with the plans for the decorating?”

“We've come up with some ideas, but this may not be the best time to talk about it with you so upset about your relative's death.” Would this clue her in that I would return at a more convenient time?

“Alas, poor Vincent! He came to Moultty Towers to meet his fate.” Her ladyship now looked at Sir Alfonse, who was to be congratulated on looking suavely anguished.

“I was fond of the old roue.” The foreign accent deepened, the moustache quivered and the rather protuberant dark eyes moistened to a shining gloss. “Many's the night we sat in a Parisian nightclub, discoursing on the most eclectic of subjects—Russian art, the advent of Esperanto, the proper making of porridge. A man of many parts was Vincent. Do we remember him as a drunkard, a gambler or do we recall only what was in him sublime? His devotion to that little dog?”

As if summoned to contribute to this eulogy, Pipsie, if I remembered the name rightly, appeared out of nowhere to leap at a linen trouser leg and begin devouring what I guessed, from the forthcoming reaction, to be a cherished cuff. Far from smiling fondly down at Vincent Krumley's dog, Sir Alfonse attempted to shake it off with a vengeance, and I thought I caught words, “revolting animal.” Meanwhile Daisy Meeks had entered the conversation in a small flat voice that strained the ears of her listeners.

“What's comforting is that we were all together when Vincent passed away.”

“We weren't all with him,” Lady Krumley contradicted. “And he didn't pass away. He went down a well.”

“What I meant to say,” Daisy continued, shuffling her feet away from Pipsie who was trying to burrow under the sofa, “is we were all with him the night before he left this earth.”

“He hasn't left it.” Lady Krumley was growing more provoked, which explained perhaps why she hadn't thought to ask me to return at a more convenient time or suggested that the other two leave us to talk. “He's still on a slab in the morgue. That's what we've been sitting here talking about: how to get him buried.”

“Before he get's too well settled in and refuses to move.” This quip from Sir Alfonse was in line with his initial remark to me about the family portraits. Clearly the man prized his sense of humor as much as his trousers. I was sure that there were women somewhere who would appreciate his well-practiced charm.

“We must decide on the hymns for the funeral,” barked Lady Krumley.

“It's some consolation to remember how much he enjoyed the stew Mrs. Beetle made for dinner that night.” Daisy turned to me. “Do you make stew?”

“Yes.”

“The coffin must be selected,” her ladyship addressed Sir Alfonse.

“May I lift that burden from you, Aunt Maude? I believe I know just what Vincent would like.”

“That's all very well but I don't think we can put him in a brandy cask.” Lady Krumley's hooded eyelids were beginning to droop.

“I always put turnips in my stew.”

“If you would also be so good, Alfonse, as to arrange for the flowers.”

“And a couple of bay leaves.”

“The service is set for noon, followed by internment in the family plot.” Her ladyship's voice had grown gravelly with fatigue.

“We must make it an occasion. It's what Vincent would have wanted.” Sir Alfonse turned away to hide his emotion.

“And a little garlic powder.”