Malice in Miniature (5 page)

A door banged somewhere nearby. Sir Mordred stopped talking as if a switch had been flipped, peered down the hall, and then stood, quickly replacing the little clock in his pocket. Heavy footsteps sounded and a woman appeared at the corner.

A hundred years ago she would have been described as “a fine figure of a woman.” Today the kind term would be “queenly”; of unkind terms there are many. Tall, with iron-gray hair pulled into an uncompromising bun, she was dressed in unrelieved black, which may have been intended to minimize her rigidly controlled bulk. It certainly did nothing for her sallow complexion.

“Ah, Mrs. Lathrop.” Sir Mordred's voice came out in a squeak. “May I present Mrs.—er? This is Mrs. Lathrop, my housekeeper.”

“Dorothy Martin,” I said, smiling.

She inclined her head perhaps half an inch, then turned to Sir Mordred and favored him with a smile that displayed a superbly crafted set of white, even teeth. “You have not, I trust,” she said in a voice whose steely quality was not quite hidden, “forgotten we were to meet this afternoon about the dinner.”

“No. No, indeed! I was just taking my leave—you must forgive me, Mrs.—er—Martin, a matter of a fund-raising function, I must—”

“Of course.” My smile was just as wide as the gorgon's, and my teeth, if not quite as perfect, had the advantage of being original equipment. Acting on mischievous impulse, I loaded my voice with honey and put my hand on his arm. “I don't mean to detain you, but let me just ask you where I could learn more about miniatures. I'd like to be less ignorant by my next visit. Are there shops, or maybe the library . . .”

“But, my dear Mrs. Martin, you must use my own library.” He gave my hand a little squeeze. “It is open to anyone who wishes to do research, and you will find it most complete. You're welcome to browse now, if you like, and Mrs. Cunningham will be happy to help you. It's just off the great hall, to your left as you enter from the corridor.”

“That's in—let me see, which direction—”

“'Ullo, 'ullo, 'ullo!” The nasal voice reverberated from marble surfaces, creating unpleasant echoes. “Naow, this
is
cozy, innit? All one 'appy family, are we?”

I removed my hand from Sir Mordred's arm and looked at the interruption.

He was youngish, in his late twenties I guessed. His hair, what there was of it, was dead white, sticking straight up in spikes The left half of his head was bald. He wore a large safety pin in one ear, a black ring in his nose, and a silver stud in his lower lip. His leather vest flapped unbuttoned over a naked, hairless chest; torn and filthy jeans hung low enough to reveal a large portion of grayish shorts. An odor of unwashed flesh and marijuana surrounded him; the cigarette he was smoking at present, however, smelled more conventional.

“What are you doing here, Claude?” Sir Mordred's voice rose to an agitated squeak. “I thought you were in London. And smoking is not allowed in the museum; you know that. There are signs—”

“Aaoow, ever so sorry, I must've forgot,” said Claude in a high, affected voice, blowing smoke in Sir Mordred's face. “Come to visit me lovin' mum, 'aven't I?” He smirked at Mrs. Lathrop. “Me and mum need to 'ave a little chat, don't we? Alone,” he added pointedly, dropping the fake Cockney for a moment.

I know when I'm upstaged. “Yes, well, I'm sure I can find the library, thank you so much, you've been most . . .” I gabbled, and beat a rapid retreat.

I
waited until I was out of sight, around a corner or two, before I paused to regroup.

I didn't really want to see the library. I had, truthfully, developed an interest in dollhouses, but not so great a one that I wanted to spend the rest of the afternoon reading about them. I'd intended, mostly, to irritate Mrs. Lathrop, and I hadn't achieved even that unworthy ambition; the egregious Claude had provided far more irritation than I was capable of in my very worst efforts.

However . . .

It wasn't even three o'clock, and I didn't intend to look at yet more dollhouses for an hour. For one thing, I was developing a fine case of museum feet, and for another, I didn't want to run into Claude when I was alone. Call me a coward, but young thugs have always terrified me, and though Claude wasn't all that young, his thuggery looked as though it had survived the aging process remarkably well. The library sounded like a safe haven; I couldn't imagine that scholarly pursuits came high on Claude's list. And Mrs. Cunningham might be glad of a little company on a dreary day.

In other words, she might be persuaded to talk. So far I had learned very little of interest. True, Claude looked capable of any amount of skullduggery, but there wasn't much point in identifying a villain until I knew for certain that villainy was afoot. For that certainty, I needed more information.

I set out to find the library.

It took some searching. Brocklesby Hall was not laid out in any logical fashion, or if it was, the logic escaped me. Corridors seemed to appear in the oddest places and lead nowhere in particular. I hadn't paid much attention when Sir Mordred was shepherding me around, and now I couldn't get my bearings.

It finally occurred to me, as I turned down a corridor I had certainly traversed at least once before, that the original eccentric Brocklesby had built himself an instantly old house, as he had caused instant ruins to be erected in the gardens. A genuine manor house would have additions here and there, new wings tacked on over the centuries; therefore, his house would have wings everywhere, and in various styles, at that. This particular one was done in high Gothic, with pointed arches everywhere and sinister little gargoyles leering nastily from dark corners.

The effect was not comforting. I shuddered. Jane had a point about this house.

Just when I had decided I was doomed to roam the house forever, like poor Charlie on the MTA, I rounded a corner and found myself in the great hall, next to a set of heavy oak doors sporting carved books as decorations. Library, I deduced brilliantly, and pushed down on one of the brass griffin handles.

It was a big, gloomy room, octagonal in shape and Gothic, again, in design. Perhaps on a brighter day the narrow lancet windows would have admitted some light, but not much, since they were almost entirely obscured by heavy velvet draperies of a color I couldn't determine. Books in dark bindings lined the walls from floor to high ceiling; bookshelves filled most of the floor space as well, with a few tables and chairs crammed in. The green-shaded lamps on the tables and the heavy brass chandelier hanging from the ceiling provided just enough light for me to see the desk in the center of the room and the person seated behind it, her eyes fixed on a computer screen.

If I had entertained a mental image of Mrs. Cunningham, curator for a bunch of dollhouses, this person didn't match it. No untidy gray hair or granny glasses, no sensible suit with a frilly white blouse, not even a three-year-old Laura Ashley print. This woman couldn't be anywhere near thirty yet, and her no-non-sense white shirt, a couple of sizes too big for her, was hanging over a pair of blue jeans. Her hair was untidy enough, certainly, but it was a bright shade of copper. And she wore no ring. Divorced, I gathered.

I cleared my throat. Not even looking up from her work, she spoke indistinctly around the pencil clenched between her teeth. “Sorry, this part of the house is not open to the public. The lavatories are through the corridor to your right, then down the stairs. Follow the signs.” She consulted the card in her hand and clicked the mouse.

“Thank you,” I said apologetically, “but I think I'm in the right place. This is the library? And you are Mrs. Cunningham?”

She looked up, curiosity alive in her blue eyes. “I am. And you are . . .?”

“My name is Dorothy Martin, and Sir Mordred said I could do a little browsing in here. I won't interrupt your work, if you don't mind my poking around.”

“Oof!” She pushed the mouse aside with an explosive little sigh. “A pleasure to meet you, and I'm delighted to be interrupted. It's boring work I'm doing at the moment, trying to get this new program up and running, and I feared no one would pop in today and I'd be chained to this computer. I'm Meg.” She held out her hand and grinned. The freckles on her nose crinkled appealingly.

“Dorothy then, please,” I said, returning the hand and the smile, “and you were very nearly right. I took a wrong turn somewhere and thought I'd be lost till my bones bleached. This is quite a house.”

She raised her eyes to the ceiling and ran both hands through her hair (which didn't improve its appearance). “A madhouse—in every sense of the word. You're American, aren't you?”

I admitted it. “And you're surely Irish.”

The grin grew broader. “Exactly one quarter. Except when I'm mad and it all comes to the top. I'm an O'Brien by rights; my father's father was from Wicklow.”

“But I know Wicklow! My late husband and I visited there once on a brief tour of Ireland. Beautiful, beautiful country.”

“It is that. Terribly poor, though. Are you over here on another visit? Not the time of year I'd have chosen; the weather . . .” She gestured to the windows; the rain streamed down.

“No, actually I've moved to England and remarried. I've lived here in Sherebury for well over a year, in fact, but I somehow never made it out here to the Hall. I agree I chose an awful day.”

“Well, now you're here, what can I do for you? Is there anything special you were looking for, or do you just want to see what's here?”

I hesitated. I could bluff Sir Mordred, but this woman looked intelligent—and perceptive. I opted for honesty, at least modified honesty. “I'll come clean. I'm here under false pretenses.”

She laughed delightedly. “All right, then, let's see. Are you a CIA spy, looking for secrets hidden in dolls' houses? Or are you trying to sell me something? I warn you, I've no money at all, personally, and Sir Mordred won't spend his on anything but miniatures.”

“Neither of the above. It's just that I'm not really here to use the library. I don't know a thing about miniatures, and I probably wouldn't understand your books. I ducked in partly to find somebody to talk to in this mausoleum, and partly to escape a couple of unpleasant characters.”

She quirked her eyebrows. “Not dear old Mordie? He's more than a trifle odd, certainly, but . . .”

“He certainly is. Are all miniature collectors like that?”

“No, he's an aberration. Most of them are perfectly delightful people, adults who haven't forgotten what it was like to be a child.”

“I'm glad to hear it. Sir Mordred was my introduction to the breed, and . . . anyway, he didn't bother me. It was the housekeeper and—I don't know if you've met her son—”

Meg's grin vanished. She sat bolt upright and slapped both hands on her desk, hard. “
Damn!
”

“Oh,” I observed mildly. “You
have
met him, then.”

She didn't even smile. “I have. And to know him is to loathe him.” A thought seemed to strike her; she bounded out of her chair. “Where did you see him? In the car park?”

“No, in the house, but don't expect me to know where. This place is worse than any maze I've ever—no, wait, I
can
tell you. We were—let's see—we'd just left the room with the miniature circus, I think. There's a sort of lounge there, where two hallways cross?”

Long before I'd finished talking she had loped across to the door and turned a large key. “Right. What's he doing here?” she demanded.

This was an extraordinary conversation to be having with a total stranger. “He said he'd come to talk to his mother, but he sounded—oh, it was probably my imagination, but he sounded almost threatening, somehow.” I shuddered. “I was scared stiff of him, actually. I ran like a rabbit.”

“And quite right, too.” She sighed and sat back down at her desk with a plop. I glanced at the locked doors and then back at her.

“Oh,
Lord!”
she said, running her hands through her hair again. “I don't need this, I thought he was safe away in London, I—” She broke off and looked at me doubtfully. “Look, I'm sorry. I go off the deep end sometimes. This is my problem, not yours, and I'm probably making too much of it.”

“Well, I'm not sure of that. Claude looked to me like a first-class heel.”

“If he is, it's the only thing about him that's first class,” she said emphatically. “He's not even a particularly successful crook, but he's good at making trouble. Every time he's in the house there are ructions of one sort or another. Oh, I can deal with him; I just don't like the idea of him sneaking up on me. That's why—” She jerked her head toward the door. “Anyway, I didn't mean to lock you in. If you want to go—”

“Thank you, but if I'm not bothering you, I'd just as soon stay. To tell the truth, the more locked doors there are between me and that not-so-juvenile delinquent, the better I like it.” Well, that
was
the truth, if only part of it. I reminded myself that I was there for a purpose, from which I had so far been distracted. Was there a way to keep her talking without being too obvious about it? “Besides, my husband is meeting me here later, so I might as well stick around. But I really mustn't keep you from your work.” I glanced at the screen. Ah, that was it! “A new program, you say?” I asked innocently.

I know almost nothing about computers, but I do know that people who are good at them can't resist telling you all about whatever they're doing. Meg, who could change moods faster than anyone I'd ever met, positively leapt at the distraction.

“Yes, it's a new cataloguing system for the collection, and it's going to make things much easier, once I get all the revolting data entered.” She swung around to her desk. “Look, I'll pull up a template for you. See, the fields are already set up and labeled; all I have to do is fill them in. Here's one that's completed, with the cross-references to the individual items . . .”