Mum's the Word (22 page)

“Honey”—Ernestine met her eyes unflinchingly—“There's no easy way to say this. Your mother's there. Inside.”

“No!” Mary fell back. “Even Theola cannot be so great a monster as to deny me this one small corner of the earth!” Clutching her middle, mouth sagging, she looked the way I had felt in the throes of morning sickness.

I had to get her out of there, away from the mother whose acclaimed antics now made her daughter the darling of the talk show circuit and the
Publishers Weekly
bestseller list. Taking charge of our little group, I led them back to Pepys and the boat.

When we reached Mendenhall, we were met by the news that Bingo was missing.

The entire household, inclusive of my husband and the infamous Valicia X, was gathered in the great hall. But no one gasped at the sight of Mary's wan face or rushed forward with a stretcher. Ernestine was the one who finally offered her a seat.

Mary was obviously looking forward to being laid out on the sofa, damp cloth pressed to her brow. A servile scurry of footsteps would answer the frantic pulling of the bellrope. An order would go forth for a double brandy, on the double! The mistress of the house had suffered a frightful shock. Monster Mommy was in town. And none could tell what evil would befall.

Ms. X stood under the pawnbroker chandelier, a stunning authority figure in spotless cream linen. Ben maintained a discreet distance—about three feet—from her. I ground his smile underfoot. His companion in slime was informing Ernestine there was absolutely no reason for alarm. None whatsoever. Bingo had participated in the morning session, had eaten lunch with his fellow candidates and had departed the dining room, but had failed to reappear for the afternoon session.

“I was all for scratching his name and proceeding without him, but Mr. Haskell”—Ms. X shone her golden smile on Ben—“made an eloquent plea on young Mr. Hoffman's behalf. I therefore requested that Jeffries try and locate the
boy. Her efforts coming up shorthanded, I have decided the Mangé Society will be best served by everyone present assisting in a search of the house and grounds.”

Ben was still trying to catch my eye. But this seemed neither the time nor place to ask for a divorce.

Hair spiking, eyes blank, Ernestine turned helplessly toward the Mangé candidacy. “Late for a meeting! That's not in my Bingo's nature. An A for punctuality on every one of his report cards since he entered kindergarten at eighteen months of age. I tell you he'd never do anything to jeopardize becoming a Mangé. No! Someone has it in for my boy. Someone who's afraid to compete fair and square with genius. A cowardly grown-up picking on a poor little boy—”

“Madame”—the comte juggled plastic fruit without missing a beat—“your son is a damned—pardon my English—pain in the bottom. But there
is
honour among chefs!”

Lois Brown, a comfy figure in beige silk, rustled over to put her arms round Ernestine. “Hush now, your Bingo is somewhere safe and sound. Perhaps shut in the bathroom. Didn't you get stuck there last night?”

Ernestine's face turned the sickly yellow of her frock. She shook the other woman off. “A mother has a seventh sense! I knew someone was trying to frighten Bingo off last night.” Her voice broke down into splutters. “Someone playing at ghosts.”

Miss Rumpson, wearing a black hat with a multi-coloured fish on the brim, looked vastly worried. Henderson stood by, mute. On the sofa, Mary moaned. The sherry-coloured eyes of Ms. X, so like those of my cousin Vanessa, missed nothing. I pictured her mind as a score pad. Points added or discounted according to the candidate's performance during this break in official procedure. Suddenly everyone was putting in their twopenny worth, while Jeffries jockeyed from group to group, her white cap low on her forehead, face scrunched up like a thirsty sponge. Where, by the way, was Pepys?

“How long are we going to stand here?” Ben inquired. “The boy isn't lost on some mountain. He's in this house. Or on the grounds. He's not in the bathroom, Jeffries checked. But could he be locked in a cupboard or a shed?”

Whatever our differences, I mentally applauded my husband
for not mentioning the river. Was Ernestine already battling the fear that Bingo might have taken out one of the rowing boats? My heart began thumping wildly. Surely if he were trapped somewhere close we would have heard him. Remembering the coffin, my blood chilled. What if Bingo had indulged a whim to play Dracula and the lid had jammed?

The hall was emptying. The comte and Solange volunteered to search the grounds. Henderson and Lois said they would take the lift up to the attics. Were the husbands unwilling to have their wives go unaccompanied?

Someone gripped my arm and I jumped. Mary! Rouge glared like welts on her pasty cheeks. “I know you are concerned about the coffin,” she whispered. “I'm going to check it out. But I don't think …” On a trail of unspoken words she was gone.

“Listen up, real good!” Ernestine was saying to those of us remaining. “If one hair of Bingo's head is hurt, the person responsible will have to answer to my husband Frank.” Her anger reassured me, at least on her account. She wasn't cursed with my overactive imagination. She wasn't fearing the worst. Jeffries marched her away, and now it was just the three of us, Ben, Valicia X and me. My spouse was smiling at me in a perplexed sort of way. Was he having trouble placing my face? She was talking to him in the for-your-ears-only manner. Cutting a wide swath around them, I headed for the Red Room where we had congregated last night.

“Mrs. Haskell,” the throaty voice said, laced with concern, “I was saying to your husband that this sort of commotion can't be what the doctor ordered. Why don't you go upstairs and rest?”

Was Ben to be kept from my clutches lest I make the ignoble attempt to get him back? Fat chance! Wrong word choice. Never had I been more certain that pregnancy was no excuse for gaining weight.

“Sweetheart”—Ben broke from her and reached my side—“Ms. X is right. You should go up and rest.”

“No! I won't be sent to bed like a naughty child.” Oh, how I hated everything about myself. My plaid smock with the bumble bee pockets. My country-and-western hair which was regrowing split ends even as I pouted. The glance Ben sent his Valicia spoke louder than words.
Remember her
condition, my sweet! We have to pander to her
. Should I bite the bullet and give them my blessing?

“Whatever you say, sweetheart.” Ben touched my face as if I were a mare to be gentled. “We'll look for Bingo together.”

Pulling away from him, I said, “Thank you, but we will find him three times quicker if we go our three separate ways.”

“You're right there.” Valicia glided up the stairs.

Arm around me, Ben walked me in a circle, ridding the mare of colic, “Ellie, Valicia was doing her damndest to show concern and you were ungracious.”

“Thank you, I work at it.”

“This isn't like you. You know that woman means the world to me. Professionally speaking.”

“When she smiles, you haven't noticed the signs of early gum disease?”

“My God, you don't sound well.” He was rooting around in his pockets for a copy of
Parenting for Pleasure and Profit
. “As a matter of fact, I haven't been feeling so great myself. No joke, I think I may have caught your morning sickness. I'm queasy. My head is fuzzy. And my limbs feel all of a jumble.”

Please, no! The man was telling me he was lovesick. Rage flared within me. “Nice knowing you.” His blank stare imprinted on my back, I dashed toward the Red Room.

The sweltering atmosphere was not conducive to lifting my spirits. The Victorian bric-a-brac, the bobbled velour, the sandbag sofa, and especially the Cat Cadaver portrait over the mantel provided a stage readied for Machiavellian melodrama. Never the bravest of the brave, the sudden spatter of rain on the windows unnerved me. Silly of me even to bother in here. There were few places for Bingo to hide, and why would he pull such a stunt? I lifted the curtains at the library end of the room. What if he had become despondent during the Mangé morning session. Even an adult might crack under questions such as, What were the cakes Alfred The Great burnt? Were they Eccles cakes, rock buns, butterfly cakes, or an assortment of the above? Poor Bingo. Failure may require no particular skill, but it is never easy to learn. Especially for a prodigy.

Wending my way between two maroon armchairs and several potted plants ready to bite the hand that tried to water them, I noticed a carpet stain next to one of the pots in the shape of Australia. A spill that had turned rusty.

Keep moving, Ellie! Don't listen for Ben's footsteps. Don't fume over his tame—nay, cowardly—acceptance of your demand to be left alone.

The red velvet curtains at the north end of the room were closed, to block out the glare from the sun I supposed, but now, with the rain coming down I drew them back without any real suspicion that Bingo might be hiding on the broad ledge.

Pepys lay there in his shirt sleeves—a smile branded on his waxen face, feet together, hands folded below the red stain surrounding the massive knife handle which protruded from his breast pocket.

The room swayed like a hammock. Hanging onto the curtain with one hand, I bit down on the other to stop from screaming. Ghastly! If only I could take back all my unkind thoughts of this unpleasant man! A sob went down the wrong way when he sat up. Knife still in place, he swung his bandy legs over the sill and screeched, “April Fool!”

I could have cracked his bald head like an egg. “Correction,” I fumed. “This is the third of July.”

“At my age,” he rolled his eyes until only the whites showed, “time ain't of the essence.”

“And the knife?” Arms folded, I tapped a foot.

He touched it fondly, as if it were a rose pinned to his lapel by the woman of his dreams. “One of the props left behind when
Melancholy Mansion
was done finished being filmed. That boy disappearing went and reminded me.” The ice blue eyes looked directly into mine, but I got the shivery feeling no one was currently living behind that wrinkled face. “Ever see the film?”

“Only an excerpt.”

“People kept disappearing. First old Lady Farouche, then Herbaceous, the butler, found just as you found me.” Pepys tenderly smoothed out the wrinkles I had put into the curtain. “Getting worried, ain't you?”

“Life up to a bit of plagiarism, you mean?” I managed a laugh which didn't ring true. That stain by the plant stand—was
it still damp? “You're trying to frighten me. Small wonder the Groggs decided to slip away unnoticed after being publicly humiliated over something as silly as baking powder!”

Pepys, plainly delighted at having goaded me into indiscretion, sat swinging his legs like a child on a wall at the seaside. Remembering one of the few pieces of advice my mother gave me—do good to those who hate you, nothing infuriates them more—I smiled at him. “Do you often play practical jokes? Last night for instance, did you write, This house is going to get you! on the bath or prowl the hall dressed up as Dame Gloom?”

“Wasn't me.” Smirk.

“I'm sure Bingo Hoffman has been found by now.”

“Here's hoping you're right, kid, and that Mr. Grogg and his lady are alive and well.” Again he fondled the knife handle. “That scene when Herbaceous the butler was found, Theola Faith cried buckets all over him. She was fond of him even though he'd been blackmailing her since he found out Lady Farouche was really her father—the mobster King Fido, and the night club act—a front for tuna smuggling. But all ended happy because Malcolm Morrow who played Herbaceous also played Sir Roderick, the heir returned from the dead.” Pepys lay back down, feet together, hands folded as I had found him. “I remember Herbaceous' last scene with her,” he mused. “ ‘Ain't none to touch you, Bubbles. That merry kitten smile of yours. The way you talk wicked and still sound like an angel. My whole day shines just from opening the door for you. Ain't nobody going to hurt you ever. I'm none so young as I once was and the armour's kinda rusty, but surely and forever I'm your knight.' ”

“So
Melancholy Mansion
had a happy ending?”

“Sailed off into the sunset did Sir Roderick and his Bubbles, and the boat blows up.”

Guilt dogged my footsteps as I returned to the hall. How could I have wasted precious Bingo-finding time? My nerves were as jumpy as Mexican jumping beans. I leaped three feet in the air when Mary caught up with me by the stairs to tell me she had checked the coffin and found it empty.

“Any news of Bingo?”

“Not as far as I know.” Her cookie cutter features were softened by the warmth of her brown eyes. “You ask me,
he's hiding out from his mother. All that pressure put on the kid! He's liable to flip out and she'll be wringing her hands looking to put the blame anywhere but four square on her own two shoulders.” Abruptly her voice changed to a rasping whine, as though she had used up her stock of sympathy for others. “My own situation was the opposite. Never any pressure put on me to be anything, do anything—except stay the hell out of the way. When the great Theola Faith said, ‘Go out, sweetie, and play in traffic,' she meant it.” It was an eerily accurate impersonation of her mother's voice.