Murder Goes Mumming (22 page)

“And where am I supposed to have gotten all these drugs I don’t even know the names of?” Babs was still fighting.

“I cannot believe that, traveling in fashionable circles as you do, you have never come upon somebody who could give you that information.” Rhys’s gentle dark eyes rested momentarily on Val. “By the way, you may be interested to know that it quit snowing rather abruptly a little while ago. The marks on the windowsill up there are still quite easily discernible. You might as well come quietly, you know.”

Babs looked around her, at all those other big, blond people. She was no longer one of them. She had broken the rules, and out she must go. Even her own daughter wouldn’t meet her eyes. As for her husband; he had, after all, been trained always to side with the majority.

“Yes, Babs,” said Donald in the same calm, cool tone he might have used to a hostile member of the board, “you might as well go quietly.”

“V
AL WANTED TO BE
on television,” said Janet. “I daresay she’ll get her chance now.”

Using his miniature radio, Madoc had sent for help, and got it. A photographer, a fingerprint expert, and most importantly a policewoman to take charge of Babs Condrycke had been flown in within the hour. There’d been more investigating, more taking of statements, much snapping of pictures. The slide projector with its ghostly transparency was taken away as evidence. So were the pillow from Granny’s bed and the curtain from the stairway window. So also was Cyril, though they had a terrible problem rousing him enough to travel.

Even on Christmas, a cortège containing two corpses, a man so befuddled he could hardly stand up, a group of RCMP personnel, a stony-faced society woman in handcuffs, along with her husband, daughter, family lawyer, and a much agitated young chap who was vaguely described as a friend of the family could hardly fail to attract notice.

However, the press photographers failed to observe and perhaps wouldn’t have believed that the diffident little man trailing along at the rear happened to be the legendary captor of Mad Carew; and that the charming though equally modest little woman clinging to his arm was the affianced bride of Detective Inspector Rhys. Madoc and his Jenny contrived to slip away without landing in the headlines along with the rest. Still, it had been an awkward business.

Less awkward than the departure from Graylings, to be sure. Taking leave of a host whose hospitality had been lavish and whose daughter-in-law one had got arrested for murder required a brand of etiquette that not even Lady Rhys would have managed comfortably.

There were, naturally, any number of royal precedents for bumping off one’s kith and kin with an eye to the main chance. Still, any such remark as, “Cheer up, Squire. Chances are Eleanor of Aquitaine would have done the same,” seemed hardly the thing.

Janet had decided their most tactful course would be simply to pack their bags and go away. Madoc could not have agreed more, though he did tell Ludovic on the QT to look them up in Fredericton if he got fired for testifying to having overheard Mrs. Donald’s confession.

Babs Condrycke, handcuffed to a policewoman as she was, had also realized she might as well heed the family’s advice and leave quietly. She’d begun to take the line that Madoc Rhys was an arrogant young booby trading on his connections and playing at cops and robbers like some provincial Lord Peter Wimsey, that Granny had died a natural death as a result of overindulgence in wassail, that Aunt Addie had committed suicide by hurling herself from the window while of unsound mind, having always been shaky in the intellect as everybody knew, and that Lawrence had better get her the best defense lawyer in Canada not because she needed one but because the honor of Graylings was at stake.

Mrs. Donald Condrycke would get her lawyer, of course, because she was quite right about the honor of Graylings, and Lawrence would have briefed the top man in any case. She might even get a jury to swallow her story. The policewoman had allowed her prisoner to change into traveling clothes. Babs looked so elegant in her mink coat and hat that Rhys thought it entirely possible she could breeze through to an acquittal on sheer force of personality. A few years from now she might be entertaining dinner parties with an amusing account of her ridiculous misunderstanding with the RCMP. Then again she mightn’t.

Madoc and his Jenny had at last managed to escape from Fredericton headquarters, all notes typed up, all depositions filed, all evidence tagged, all jokes about matrimony from envious colleagues patiently borne. They’d retrieved his unglamorous car from the parking lot where he’d left it when they’d set off on that fateful ride in the helicopter, put in the battery his kind fellow officers had been keeping warm for him back at the shop, and got started easily enough.

As he turned out of the lot, Janet remarked, “Well, Val wanted to be on television.”

Madoc nodded. “I expect Miss Val will get her innings on the news tonight, but let’s forget her and the whole blasted business for the moment. Jenny, I’m scared to ask this, but I have to. Now that you’ve found out what sort of thing you’d be getting yourself in for, do you still want to marry me?”

To his astonishment, Janet burst out laughing. “Want to? Madoc, you darling idiot, there’s no way I could get out of it. Can’t you imagine the talk there’ll be in Pitcherville tonight? They all know I’ve been at Graylings with you. The party line will be blazing hot five seconds after the news comes on. I only wish we could manage the wedding right this instant, while I may just possibly still have a few shreds of reputation left.”

“Let’s see. We might have ourselves dropped by parachute to a ship in midocean and get the captain to oblige. That does seem a bit complicated. Besides, I’d hate to have you too seasick to say I do. You do, Jenny darling, don’t you? I mean, Pitcherville notwithstanding?”

Janet managed with no trouble at all to convince him that she really, truly, honest-to-goodness did. Madoc then had the bright idea of hunting up the police chaplain with results eminently satisfactory to himself, Janet, the chaplain who was flattered to be asked, and the chaplain’s wife who thought they made a lovely couple and wouldn’t they stay for Christmas high tea?

They said thanks but they wouldn’t. By then both were half-starved and wholly exhausted, but what they needed more than food or rest was a chance to be alone together. Madoc’s drab little bachelor apartment didn’t promise anything more than a packet of tea, a few stale buns, and a lumpy single bed; but it was a place to go, so they went.

“I’d carry you over the threshold, Jenny love, but I’ll have to park the suitcases first.”

“Never mind me. After what you’ve been through, you’ll do well to carry yourself.”

“Oh, I’m not all that worn out.”

Madoc made rather a business of helping Janet out of her jacket. She was warm, she was sweet, she was his. She was still wearing her thermal underwear. After a long, long, time he said huskily, “Jenny, what do you want to do now?”

Janet’s own voice was none too firm, but she had her answer ready.

“Darling, remember last night when we got dressed up for the mumming? I said I didn’t know what I was supposed to represent, and you said I was your Christmas present?”

He kissed the tip of her nose, his dark eyes now far from wistful. “Yes love, I remember. And so?”

“Well, my goodness,” she whispered. “It’s Christmas, isn’t it? Aren’t you going to unwrap your present?”

The author is indebted to Stuart Trueman for information about the Phantom Ship of Bay Chaleur, to Chief M. T. Quigley of the Dalhousie Police Department for his kind assistance, and to A. Martin Winchester for his helpful comments.

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copyright © 1981 by Alisa Craig

cover design by Mauricio Diaz

978-1-4532-7744-7

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