Femmes Fatal (28 page)

“Why don’t you go back to the living room and lie down,” I suggested.

“What, leave you here on your own, Mrs. H?”

“Oh, go on with you,” I said as I herded her out the door. “She won’t bite, will she?”

Bravely spoken, but the moment I was alone with Miss Thorn, a chill enveloped my bones like a shroud. Those teeth looked ready to chew off a couple of fingers if I moved a hand in her direction. And the bulging eyes promised another kind of vengeance; they would haunt my dreams for many nights to come.

“Look”—I sidled around the bed on my way to the telephone—“I don’t blame you for being thoroughly cheesed off, but please don’t look daggers at me.”

Amazing how the sound of my voice breathed life not only into the room, but into the body of Miss Thorn. I don’t mean she returned from the dead with the
aplomb Flo Melrose had shown the previous night. But talking to her dignified her personhood.

“Excuse me.” I picked up the phone and dialled Dr. Melrose’s number. Force of habit. It never occurred to me to waste time asking the operator for the number of the Cottage Hospital’s emergency room.

“Dr. Melrose, this is Ellie Haskell.”

“Yes?” I could almost hear the alarm bells going off around his head before he converted them into a hearty laugh. “Flo’s fine, as you must have seen yourself this evening at the Wisemans’ aborted party.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” I snapped. “This isn’t about blackmail; it’s about Miss Gladys Thorn.”

“Splendid!”

“She’s dead!”

“Super!”

Words failed me. But presumably my shocked breathing brought Dr. Melrose out of his euphoria at realizing that all he was being asked to do was pay a house call. After telling him I was phoning from the Wisemans’ home, I hung up and returned to the bedside to keep the late Miss Thorn company.

“The doctor will be here in a few moments,” I soothed. Enough said; I could have busied myself praying, but typical of yours truly in times of stress, I went babbling away like a mindless brook. “Miss Thorn, I haven’t always harboured the kindest thoughts toward you, not so much because I disapproved of your amorous lifestyle, but because I viewed you as a figure of fun. And a person of my insecurities and physical shortcomings should have known better. Tell me, Miss Thorn”—I smoothed the sheet, well aware those vile cupids were smirking at me from the headboard—“did you decide to revenge yourself upon all womankind by proving that sexiness is more than skin deep?”

Voices out in the hall. A scurry of footsteps. Opening
the bedroom door I fully expected to see Dr. Melrose. Instead, I found myself face to face with the missing blonde in red satin. Welcome home, madam.

“Ellie!” Bunty’s hair stood all on end as if it had been pulled through one of those bleaching caps with the tiny little holes. And her eyes were equally wild. “What’s bloomin’ going on? Has Mrs. Malloy been at the booze?”

“Not as far as I know.”

“Then why’s she talking rubbish?”

“Bunty!” I stood blocking the view to the bed, while the pillar of Fully Female sagged against the doorway as if her legs had turned to rubble. Not much doubt as to who had been at the bottle. “I know it’s an awful shock, but Gladys Thorn is dead.” I put out a hand to touch Bunty, then lowered it. As a child, I had found the pressure of anyone’s touch unbearable when I fell down and scraped my knees. And when I was in labour, even the weight of Ben’s breath on my face had been too much. Every ounce of energy had to be directed toward the pain.

“I don’t believe you!”

Before I could say “Look for yourself,” poor Bunty did just that. She staggered and would have collapsed facedown on the corpse if I had not corralled her under the armpits.

“Bloomin’ heck, Ellie! They’ll say I
murdered
her.”

“Nonsense.” I bundled her down on the same chair upon which I had positioned Mrs. Malloy earlier. “She died of natural causes.”

“Are you a bigger sap than you look, or what?” Her shriek sent me hurtling halfway across the room. “Natural causes are never this convenient. I threatened to kill her and she’s dead. Does that sound like a heart attack to you?”

“Life is known for its coincidences,” I babbled.

“Oh, talk sense!”

“Bunty, you have to get a hold of yourself. Dr. Melrose is on his way.” Tiptoeing up to her, I smoothed down the haywire blonde hair, and after a few moments her breathing evened out.

“Where’s Li?” she said meekly.

“Mrs. Malloy said he went looking for you.”

“Hell’s bells, Ellie!” Tears rained down from the heavenly blue of her eyes. “Li will hate me for this. He’ll never believe I didn’t murder her. But you believe me …” She grabbed hold of my hand, crushing my fingers. “You think me innocent, don’t you, sugar?”

“Yes, Bunty.” The words were propelled by compassion not conviction, but the moment they were out there in the open I knew I meant them. Murder had been committed, that I didn’t doubt, but the culprit wasn’t the wronged wife. Bunty was the hands-on type. I could picture her in a white-hot rage pushing Miss Thorn down a flight of stairs or cracking her over the head with a bronze candlestick, but I couldn’t imagine her slipping a deadly compound into the woman’s champagne glass. And if we were indeed looking for a poisoner—which seemed a possibility considering the absence of a bullet hole in the middle of the deceased’s sallow forehead or a dagger protruding from her sunken chest—did I have to look any further than last night? If a human agent were responsible for Tobias’s near-death experience, wasn’t that person the most likely murderer of Gladys Thorn?

Shivering, Bunty stood up. “By golly, I’m cold, so imagine how she must be feeling!”

We were both staring at the bed when the door opened and in walked Dr. Melrose, little black bag in hand and a furrow to his brow. He waved us out of the
way, setting the tone for the brisk examination of the corpse delectable that followed. Not a word was said about her plastic wrap or the cherry in her navel.

Bunty was the one who spouted off on that subject. “Bloomin’ cheek really! She stole the idea for that getup from my manual to use on my husband.… But what the hell, so long as they were happy in each other’s arms, I had no complaints. I’m in the business of spreading love, not hogging it for myself.”

Dr. Melrose eyed her with dislike verging on hatred. If he could slip the noose around her neck and yank it tight, I had no doubt he would do so with alacrity. To have the head of Fully Female at his mercy must be sweet revenge indeed for all he had suffered as a result of his wife’s passionate quest for sexual awareness.

“Have you phoned the police?”

“Not yet,” Bunty and I stammered in unison.

“Then I will do so!” Laying Miss Thorn’s hand down on the bedspread, Dr. Melrose stood up. Was he smiling? Or was it the light from the overhead bulb flickering over his face that created the illusion of a puckish lift to the narrow lips? He was heading for the telephone when Bunty dodged around him, picked it up, and held it behind her back.

“Wait!” She stood there like a child at bay, her face framed by tufts of angelic blonde hair. “Why all this fuss about one middle-aged woman who dies in her sleep? Why can’t you just write out the death certificate and—”

“Mrs. Wiseman!” Dr. Melrose clicked his black bag shut and came at her, holding out his hand. “Please hand over that phone,” he said sternly. “You are obstructing me in the fulfillment of my Hippocratic duty.”

“She’s upset!” I bleated.

“Understandably so.”

“Then you do think—”

“My suspicions, Mrs. Haskell, must await the results of the autopsy.” Plain speaking from a plain man. It was unjust of me to think of Dr. Melrose as the enemy. He had always treated me well and was now doing his job as queen and country would have him do it.

“Please …” Bunty dropped the phone with a terrifying thud. “Can’t we talk about this? Doctor, I didn’t kill that gift-wrapped baggage, but if you turn me in, I’m done for! Why look further for the murderer when I’m right there under everyone’s nose—with a motive sky-high?”

“A difficult position to be in.” Some humanity had edged into Dr. Melrose’s rusty voice and Bunty immediately picked up on it. Her voice took on a wheedling tone and I detected a wiggle to her scarlet satin hips as she stepped up to him. “Doctor, dear, haven’t you ever found yourself in a situation where the whole world was about to cave in?” she pouted prettily up at him. “But you could be saved if someone would be sweet and kind and keep his … or her … bloomin’ mouth shut.”

“Yes.” Voice of a robot.

“So couldn’t you possibly”—Bunty reached out a hand to smooth down his coat collar—“couldn’t you find it in your heart to write out that death certificate, citing, say, a nasty old heart attack for finishing off dear Miss Thorn?”

“If you insist.” As slowly and stiffly as the world spinning on its axis, Dr. Melrose turned to look at me, and the contempt I read in his eyes made my knees go wobbly. The man thought I had betrayed him to Bunty. He thought she knew about his attempt to dispose of his wife’s body and was now blackmailing him into silence. The enemy here was his guilty conscience because I hadn’t said a word to anyone, let alone Bunty, about the Flo fiasco. And Ben, having given his word, would definitely have kept mum. Which only left Flo … 
assuming she had regained her memory of the incident and had felt called upon to report it to Fully Female. So what now? Should I do my civic duty by whispering into the doctor’s ear that he had nothing to fear by picking up that telephone? Or should I remember the bond of fellowship between one Fully Female woman and another?

When I went home that night to Merlin’s Court, I longed to run straight into Ben’s arms. But how could I seek shelter in that sweet haven when I felt like a criminal? Keeping quiet about my involvement with the death of Norman the Doorman had almost done me in, and my complicity in that regard was nothing in comparision to the role I had played tonight. Silence can be unbelievably foul-mouthed. I wouldn’t feel halfway right until I had gargled with salt water, but alas, the path to the bathroom was blocked by my husband standing guard at the top of the stairs.

“There you are, sweetheart! I was starting to worry about you.” Many a man would have been taken for a ward orderly in those hospital-green pyjamas, but wouldn’t you know Ben looked as though he had been clipped from a fashion magazine featuring gentlemen’s loungewear. Every syllable of his concerned voice was a dagger through my heart. And deeper anguish was to follow when he drew me to him and lifted my hair out from under the collar of my coat. These last weeks had been a wasteland parched of passion, and now that love bloomed anew, I was cut off from it by a barbed-wire fence built of my own deceit. But did it have to be that way? Could I go on living in the same house with myself, let alone Ben, if I didn’t tell him I had joined Fully Female and where such folly had landed me? In a heady
rush of relief I opened my mouth—all set to spill the beans—when an inner voice piped up:
Great, Ellie! Unburden yourself by burdening him. Put Ben in an impossible position! Tell him that you stood silently by while Bunty persuaded Dr. Melrose to falsify the death certificate. Then leave the decision up to him. What will it be, Ben dear? Will you tear your heart out and cast it at my feet before shuffling sorrowfully down to the police station to report the whole sordid mess to a desk sergeant whose wife has just left him? Or will you bow to my woman’s intuition that Bunty is innocent and concede with a bittersweet smile that silence is golden and a murderer on the loose is a small price to pay for her freedom? Oh, my darling …
gently prying myself loose from his arms … 
No marriage is an island
.

“Are you asleep?” Ben’s laugh rippled through my hair.

“Almost.”

“Must have been some party.”

“The worst.”

“Poor darling.”

“How are the babies?” Head down, I followed him into our bedroom.

“They were a little fretful on and off, but when I checked five minutes ago, they were sound asleep.”

“Then I won’t go in and risk waking them.”

His smile enfolded me. “Do I get a gold star for waiting up for you?”

My throat closed and my eyes stung. How easy it would have been to drop my cares and woes in a pile on the floor along with my coat and let him lead me gently by the hand to the four-poster with the blankets turned down and sheets as smooth and cool as the feel of his skin under my wistful fingers. But it was no good. I would only hate myself in the morning. While I remained a fugitive from the law, Ben and I could not
be Man and Wife in the sublime sense of the words, which on a positive note provided a pretty compelling reason for tracking down Miss Thorn’s killer on the double.

“What’s wrong?”

I put the bed between us. “Ben, I respect you too much to make love to you when I am in mourning.”

“What?”

“For Miss Thorn. She died tonight at Bunty’s party.”

“By Jupiter!” Hand smacking his brow. “When you said the party wasn’t up to snuff, I thought you meant lousy food, which didn’t surprise me considering they didn’t ask me to cater it.” I knew what he was doing, of course. He was talking himself through the shock. “What a rotten business. What was it—a heart attack?”

“That’s … that’s what Dr. Melrose wrote on the death certificate.”

“Sweetheart!” Ben reached out for me, then withdrew, recognizing with that exquisite sensitivity of which I was so undeserving that I couldn’t bear to be touched. “Did she just keel over in the punch bowl?”

“She was found in the Wisemans’ bedroom.”

“Who found her?”

“Mrs. Malloy and … I.”

“Oh, my darling.”

“The whole situation is rather a mess.” Somehow I managed to lift my head to see my misery mirrored in his eyes. “Lionel Wiseman was leaving Bunty for Miss Thorn.”

“You’re not serious?”

“Could I make up something like that?”

“The announcement was made, out of the blue, at the party?”

“Bunty knew it was coming.”

“Whoa! Given the emotional climate, I’m surprised Miss Thorn was the only one whose heart gave out.”