Auntie Mayhem (11 page)

But there was no opportunity to complete the thought. Charles was shouting in the hall, apparently berating Arthur Tinsley. The cousins hurried to the door and peeked out. Arthur had his arms over his head, protecting himself. Charles was making wild windmill swings at the solicitor.

“You're a bloody moron! Incompetent! Unethical! I'll sue! Where are the police when I really need them?” He swung again, missed, and lost his balance. Charles sprawled on the parquet floor.

“Really, Mr. Marchmont,” Arthur said meekly, “it's no good. Being angry with me, that is to say.” Kneeling, he helped Charles to regain his feet. “I was merely acting on Miss Ravenscroft's instructions. There wasn't time to change the will. And even if there had—” He stopped abruptly, seeing Judith and Renie step into the hall.

Judith's smile was tense. “Are you two okay?”

Charles was brushing himself off. “No,” he replied sharply.

“Yes,” Arthur answered, then back-pedaled away from Charles, who was still looking thunderous. “That is to say…there's some…ah…confusion.”

“About what?” The voice belonged to Mrs. Tichborne, who had apparently returned from serving Dora and was standing in the door to the dining room. She regarded both men as if they were a pair of schoolboys fighting on the playground.

Charles let out a heavy sigh. “Aunt Pet—Miss Ravenscroft—had a puckish sense of humor.” Scathingly, he glanced at Arthur Tinsley. “She was in the process of
changing her will. But in the meantime, she left everything to God. Or at least to her nephew, George, and his mission in Swaziland. It seems she really did intend to buy her way into heaven. But,” he went on, raising his voice and his fist, “I'll be in hell before I see that will hold up in a court of law!”

J
UDITH COAXED
R
ENIE
out of her proposed nap. A brisk walk would do them good. If Alex woke up in time to drive them to Yeovil, they could catch the one o'clock train to London. Meanwhile, they would escape the tense atmosphere of Ravenscroft House by exploring the neighborhood.

A fine mist hung in the air as they strolled down Farriers Lane. Risking wet feet, they crossed the deserted village green to examine the flower beds and the memorials. As Judith had guessed, the simple pillar commemorated Little Pauncefoot's dead in both world wars. Given the village's small population, there were fewer than three dozen names. Nevertheless, Judith recognized one of the deceased soldiers: Oakley Ravenscroft, born 1904, died 1940.

Following a dirt path to the larger monument, Judith noticed that many of the spring flowers were still drooping from the hard rain. The damp air didn't smell as fresh as Judith would have thought fitting for the English countryside.

“Is this mist—or smog?” she asked as they approached the statue, which depicted a man in Jacobean attire.

As church bells pealed, Renie wrinkled her pug nose. “It can't be smog. Or can it? It's something rancid.”

Judith gave a shake of her head. “I suppose there's a
tire factory or a pulp mill in yonder vale. We can't seem to get away from progress.”

The large base on which the statue stood apparently bore the Dunk coat-of-arms. The shield displayed a vertical band decorated with three lions rampant. To Judith's left were three batons with bells, presumably signifying Sir Lionel's post as Master of the Revels; to her right, a trio of money bags bearing the pound sterling sign attested to the family wealth. The inscription below read “Sir Lionel Dunk, 1567–1621. The best plan is to profit from the folly of others.” The quote was attributed to Pliny the Elder.

“I guess you could say that Sir Lionel did just that,” Judith remarked, wandering around the other side of the monument. “I'm surprised the statue's not wearing a dress.”

“So what about Lady Dunk?” Renie inquired, staring up at the stone figure in its high-crowned hat, wide ruff, slashed doublet, and hose. “Fetishes aside, Sir Lionel must have been married. The line continued down through Aunt Pet's mother, Cordelia.”

Judith started back along the path. “They must be buried in the village church. We should explore the crypts and the graveyard.”

But St. Edith's was holding its early communion service. The bells in the ancient tower stopped just as the cousins saw a couple of late arrivals hurry through the lych-gate. One of them was Colonel Chelmsford, marching as to war.

“Hmmm,” Judith murmured.

“What?” Renie had already strolled over to the burial ground with its crooked crosses and tilting headstones.

“Well…” The mist was beginning to evaporate, as if dispersed by the church bells. She waved one hand in an uncertain gesture. “Should we?”

Renie scanned the scarred oak doors, the wavery glass in the windows along the nave, the statues of the Four Evangelists who had stood in their niches for seven hundred years. “What the heck,” said Renie. “It
used
to be Catholic, before Henry VIII got a bug up his bodkin. And I wouldn't hike ten miles into Yeovil if the Pope was saying Mass in tennis shorts.”

Discreet stares greeted the cousins as they entered the small but exquisite old church. While Judith and Renie understood the difference in substance between the Catholic and the Anglican faiths, they couldn't make much of a distinction in style. The Book of Common Prayer had been modernized by no less a butcher of the English language than whoever had updated the Roman liturgy. Carnage by committee, Judith figured, and let herself become absorbed in the community of faith.

The vicar, whose name was Dunstan Truebone, was a pale, angular man of sixty with a plummy voice. His homily seemed to be about lust, which didn't seem particularly apt for most of the congregation, which was made up of plain-as-pudding women with limp gray hair. Judith noticed, however, that Colonel Chelmsford paid strict attention, as if his field marshal were giving him combat orders.

It was at the conclusion of the service that Vicar Truebone announced the death of Petulia Ravenscroft. “As you all know,” he said, diluting the plummy tones with a note of sorrow, “Miss Ravenscroft was a devout and longtime member of St. Edith's. I ask you to remember her in your prayers.”

Judith could have sworn that under his breath, Colonel Chelmsford said, “Pshaw.”

 

Renie wanted to walk in the direction of the High Street to admire the row of almshouses that had been converted into pricey condos, but Judith insisted on dogging the colonel's footsteps.

“We ought to get a glimpse of The Grange,” she declared as they tramped along the Little Pauncefoot Road. “Do you think it's anywhere near as grand as Ravenscroft House?”

“Sheesh.” Renie moved well off onto the roadway's verge as a family of five drove by on their way from the church service.

“What does
that
mean?” Judith demanded. Fifty yards ahead, in the bend of the road, they could see the colonel's
stiff figure. He was marching along so smartly that the distance was ever widening.

But Renie didn't reply. Two minutes later, Colonel Chelmsford had turned in, presumably entering his property. The cousins had just reached the mellow stone wall that marked the boundary between Ravenscroft House and The Grange.

Unlike those of its neighbor, The Grange's gates were locked. The moldering glass panes of a greenhouse could be seen off the winding dirt lane. Fifty yards beyond, the cousins could just make out a roof with a crooked weathervane. Perhaps that was a barn or stables. Judith and Renie peered off in the other direction, through walnut and paper birch trees. The colonel's house appeared to be two-storied, half-timbered, and possibly from the early Tudor era. The Grange was far more modest than Ravenscroft House.

“It probably has its charms,” Judith mused as they started back toward the village.

“I'm surprised you didn't try to vault the fence,” Renie remarked as a few drops of rain came down. “I thought you wanted to collar Colonel Chelmsford.”

Judith glanced inquiringly at her cousin. “Why would I want to do that?”

“Gee,” Renie replied, sounding slightly cranky, “I don't know. Maybe it's because you have a natural curiosity about other people. Maybe it's because you want to find a date for your mother. Maybe it's because you're
sleuthing
.”

Judith retained a placid air. “Maybe it's none of those things, coz. Hey, it's going on ten. We'll go pack and see if Alex—or somebody—can drive us into Yeovil.”

The church bells were ringing again as the cousins approached St. Edith's. Judith couldn't resist a stroll through the cemetery. But she found neither Dunks nor Ravenscrofts among the older headstones.

“Of course they aren't there,” Renie said, leaning against an alabaster angel. “They're in the church. Didn't you see the crypt in the side chapel?”

Judith hadn't. As usual, she'd been too busy studying the living to worry about the dead. “We can't go in now,”
Judith lamented. “The ten o'clock service is about to start.”

Renie, however, hauled her cousin by the sleeve. “Come on, we've got five minutes. They'll just think we're obnoxious American tourists. We're wearing
pants
, for Pete's sake.”

The side chapel was actually in the west transept, under a stained-glass rose window depicting a haloed nun with a royal crown suspended above her bowed head. Judith assumed it was St. Edith. An inscription on a timeworn stone in the floor said something about “forsaking the world, rather than knowing it.” Judith guessed that Edith had entered the convent at an early age and decided it was a good place to hang out. Maybe, given the state of the world now or a thousand years ago, she'd had the right idea.

“Dunks,” Judith whispered as worshippers filed into the nave. “All sorts of them, from the sixteen hundreds up to the nineteenth century. Lots of Sidneys, Johns, and Dorothys.”

Renie sniffed. “They took Lionel's house and money, but not his name. It figures. Sidney and John didn't look good in an Empire waist. Or a bustle. Ah! Here's the original Dunk tomb, back behind this little altar.”

Sure enough, just as the organ began to play the entrance hymn, Judith saw the effigies of Sir Lionel and Lady Eleanor Dunk. They lay side by side, enshrined forever in smooth white marble. Unlike the more imposing granite on the green, Lionel looked vaguely fey in repose. His wife wore a faint smirk, as if she knew a delicious secret.

“Gee,” Renie whispered as the vicar appeared on the altar, “Eleanor was only twenty-two when she died in 1591.”

Judith noted the birth and death dates. “Childbirth, probably. Puerperal fever. Here's their son. Two of them, in fact.”

As discreetly as possible, the cousins slipped out through a side door, ending up in the vicarage garden. After some confusion, they made their way around the back of the church and found themselves once again in the cemetery. They stopped in their tracks. Someone was bending over
one of the graves, placing a bouquet on a headstone. It was Walter Paget, and his head was bowed in prayer.

Judith and Renie waited. At last, Walter straightened up and went on his way. Cautiously, the cousins tiptoed over to a sloping section of the graveyard where the steward had left his large bunch of jonquils and cherry blossoms.

The markers were relatively new in what was apparently an added section of the cemetery. The graves lay next to the fence that ran alongside the Great Pauncefoot and Yeovil Road.

“Fleur Ravenscroft Karamzin,” Judith said in wonder. “Born 1940, died 1990. I wonder why Walter put the flowers on her grave?”

Renie was half-kneeling above the adjacent marker. “Here's her husband, Viktor Karamzin, born 1936, died the same year as his wife. They were Nats's and Alex's parents who bought it in a car crash, right?”

Absently, Judith nodded. “The rest of them are here, too. Fleur's mother and father, Oakley and Genevieve Ravenscroft. Chauncey and Hyacinth Ravenscroft, Claire's grandparents.”

Renie straightened up. “And thus, their son, George, who is Claire's father, has inherited all this.” She made a sweeping gesture in the direction of Ravenscroft House, on the other side of the village green.

Judith grimaced. “I wonder if he knows. Or cares.”

“Claire will tell him,” Renie said, starting back towards Farriers Lane. “Charles can rant and rave all he wants, but the Swaziland contingent will have to be notified.”

“I guess.” Judith sounded dubious. The rain was coming down harder, and the cousins walked swiftly along the lane. The village green was still deserted on this Sunday morning, which seemed fitting. The great house which lay beyond the holly and horsechestnut and hornbeam trees was in mourning. Though Judith and Renie could not see the chimneys and turrets from Farriers Lane, they knew that in some atavistic way, the Ravenscrofts, together with the Dunks before them, and the Marchmonts who came after, exerted a deep, if subtle, influence on Little Pauncefoot. As
the heavy clouds hung low over the river valley, it was almost as if the heavens wept.

 

Alexei Karamzin was still asleep. “My brother has never met a drink he didn't like,” Nats declared when Judith asked if Alex might be able to drive them into Yeovil to meet the one o'clock train. “I don't expect him to wake up until dinner.” Then, as an afterthought, she asked if the cousins would like to have her take them to the station.

“Oh, yes, thank you!” Judith bordered on obsequiousness. “It's almost eleven. We'll run up and pack. Would it be all right to leave around noon?”

While not enthused, Nats had no objection. The cousins scurried upstairs, each to her own room. At precisely eleven-twenty, they emerged in the hallway, suitcases in hand.

“Now what?” Renie inquired. “We've got over half an hour to kill.”

“Don't use that word,” Judith retorted, only half-kidding. “Maybe we can round up a cup of coffee.”

“How about a sandwich?” Renie asked, lugging her suitcase down the corridor. “It's been a long time since breakfast.”

Judith was about to agree when Claire opened the door to the master bedroom. She was still wearing the pale blue peignoir and negligee that she'd had on in the wee small hours.

“Oh! What's this? You're leaving? Oh, no!” She looked as if she were going to faint.

Judith assumed a contrite air. “We didn't intend to run out on you. Nats is going to take us into Yeovil around noon.”

Claire's mouth worked in agitation, but no words came out. At last she stumbled into the hall and caught Judith by the arm. “No, no! You must stay! You promised to be here until tomorrow!”

Judith winced. “I know, but that was before…Aunt Pet died. Now, Renie and I are excess baggage, so to speak. You've got tons of things to do, and we'll get in the—”

At that moment, Charles came charging up the main
staircase. His face was very red and he was panting. “Duff's here, with Ramsey. And a couple of coppers from Great Pauncefoot. Get dressed,” he urged his wife. “We've got terrible problems. It seems that Aunt Pet was poisoned!”

 

The cousins left their suitcases in the hallway. By the time they entered the drawing room, Mrs. Tichborne was serving tea and coffee to Arthur Tinsley, Dr. Ramsey, P.C. Duff, and the policemen from Great Pauncefoot. The only member of the household on hand was Nats, who looked annoyed.

Charles had stayed upstairs with Claire, who was undone by the latest development. Constable Duff politely refused Mrs. Tichborne's offerings, and mumbled that he must be getting back to his regular duties.

“M'bike's outside,” he said, and with an air of relief, the young policeman bowed himself out of the drawing room.