The Importance of Being Ernestine (19 page)

“Was he also employed at Moultty Towers?” I was genuinely interested.

“No, Mr. Hasty was the milkman. And although he made a good living he was agreeable to me continuing working, seeing we wasn't blessed with little ones. When Mrs. Snow finally retired I took over from her. Mr. Hasty's been gone ten years now, but her ladyship let me have this cottage, and I still manage to get out and about a bit. So all in all it's not been a bad life.”

“What happened to poor little Flossie?” Mrs. Malloy displayed eagerness to get the conversation back where it belonged, and I couldn't blame her. We had been sitting with Mrs. Hasty for close on an hour, and Laureen was liable to stick her head in the door at any minute to be told by the elderly lady that we hadn't yet got round to talking about specific pieces of furniture.

“Flossie?” Mrs. Hasty was beginning to sound sleepy. “Went to live in a bed-sitter. In Mucklesby. Twenty-one Hathaway Road was the number.”

“My, you've got a good memory.” Mrs. Malloy inclined her hat in salute.

“I've a friend that still lives on that street. And every time I pass the house where Flossie was I get a tear in my eye. You see she had her baby there and died not long afterward. The little girl was given up for adoption. It was all so sad, and I often wonder if there was something I could have done to help. I did write—several letters—but Flossie never answered them. Perhaps she was too ill or didn't want any contact with anyone from Moultty Towers. I can't say as I blame her.” Mrs. Hasty's head had begun to droop and after several moments said in a drowsy voice: “About this business of the furniture, what exactly are you looking for?”

“A rosewood secretary desk with brass ring handles that Lady Krumley believes used to be in one of the bedrooms, an oak library table with lion claw feet and a gentleman's wardrobe with marquetry panels,” I told her.

“Don't remember any of them.”

This was not surprising, since I had invented the lot on the spot.

“Then we'll just have to go and look in the attics.” Mrs. Malloy got to her feet and signaled for me to follow suit. With a few murmured words of farewell to the now gently snoring Mrs. Hasty, we swiftly exited the sitting room and were about to walk out the front door when Laureen Phillips came down the stairs. She had probably been up and down several times, fetching and carrying as she tidied up. I told myself I was silly to have had that prickling feeling of unease that she or, even more unlikely, that someone else, had been eavesdropping on our conversation. She looked so sane and sensible in her severe gray blouse and cardigan. She couldn't possibly be involved in something as distasteful as murder. I was sure that Mrs. Malloy would concur that we would be wasting precious time by including this woman on a list of suspects in whatever nasty business was underway at Moultty Towers.

“I wonder if I might have a word with you both?” Laureen Phillips held open the door and followed us out into the garden. It was pleasantly said, with just the right touch of deference—something that had been missing upon our arrival at the cottage. Perhaps she wanted some advice for herself on the choice of lampshades or some tips on wallpapering. She might want to elaborate on her fondness for Mrs. Hasty or her concern for Lady Krumley's health. But I read Mrs. Malloy's glance as if she had spoken and agreed with her wholeheartedly—there'd be no standing chatting by the wishing well for either of us.

Fifteen

“I've been sitting upstairs in Mrs. Hasty's bedroom thinking about how to approach this,” said Laureen Phillips, “and I've decided the only way is to say it straight out.”

“Say what?” The wind tried to ram my voice back down my throat. And Mrs. Malloy, ignoring the fact that her hat was trying to turn itself inside out, kindly repeated the question.

“That I know you came here posing as interior decorators.”

“What a bloody load of rubbish!” Mrs. Malloy added her own bluster to that going on all around us. “You need to sit your bottom down on a psychiatrist's couch, you do. It's a sickness going round being suspicious of people. Paranoia—that's the word for what you've got! For your information my partner and I have great big diplomas from R.A.D.A.”

“That would be the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts,” Ms. Phillips pointed out.

“Same as for the decorative arts,” Mrs. Malloy continued to hold her head high due to the fact that she was standing on tiptoe to retrieve the hat that had blown onto the lamppost outside the cottage. Her blonde coiffure had flattened to her head like a bathing cap, leaving her all painted eyebrows and purple lips. As for myself, I was sure I looked every bit as ruffled as I felt, which left only one of our trio with every hair in place and with a composure to match.

“It so happens that I trained at R.A.D.A.,” Ms. Phillips informed us. “I was a stage actress for some years. One can be a good actress, working steadily without acquiring either fame or fortune. And one thing you do learn is how to recognize when someone is playing a role.”

“As it happens, I am an interior designer,” I said.

“But that's not what brings you and your colleague to Moultty Towers.”

“So what does, Miss Clever Dick?” Mrs. Malloy had recaptured her hat and was punching it back into shape.

“Why don't I paint a scenario for you?” suggested Laureen. It being regrettably clear that we were in the process of becoming matey, it made sense to think of her on a first-name basis. “Lady Krumley drove off in her car a couple of days ago—something she hadn't done in years—which would suggest she wasn't keen on having anyone know where she was going. She became unusually flustered on her departure when her nephew Niles Edmonds, whom you have both met, said he felt an asthma attack coming on. He has them frequently, which leads one to wonder if her ladyship's agitation was due to a fear of being late for an appointment. Are you both with me so far?”

“One might also ponder,” I deliberately matched her manner, “whether Mr. Edmonds had a suspicion as to the nature of that appointment and was eager to prevent her keeping it.”

“What an interesting thought! Congratulations. You sound just like the detective in the last play I was in! Is it coincidence, or could Lady Krumley have left to meet with a private detective? Or, better yet, a pair of them.”

“No wonder the poor old ducks don't go out often if it caused all this fuss.” Mrs. Malloy had her hat back on and looked ready for the fray. But I had a strong suspicion that she and I were on the losing side of a game whose rules were yet to be made clear. All I could see to do for the moment was try to keep my eye on the ball.

“Getting back to Mr. Edmonds, why would he be worried if what you suggest were correct?” I smiled to prevent my face from caving in under the buffeting the wind was giving it. Laureen continued to stand with her arms at her sides, seemingly impervious to the elements.

“He's the nervous sort. It's probably a result of having blown up his nursery and his parents along with it when he was a kiddy.”

“Boys will be boys!” Mrs. Malloy replied loftily. “I almost married a mad scientist once.” She forgot herself sufficiently to smile fondly. “Talk about chemistry! Could he ever make the sparks fly!”

“A sense of humor helps in any business, and I am sure you need one in yours.” Laureen paused and, when neither Mrs. Malloy nor I replied, went on: “So far as I know, Mr. Edmonds is principally occupied with three things: his health, keeping out of his wife Cynthia's way and handling his aunt's business affairs.”

“Fiddling the books, you mean?” Mrs. Malloy prided herself on being receptive to the helpful hint.

“I'm a maid, not a spy.” Laureen gave a dismissive wave of the hand. “I don't poke and pry through private documents, or listen at keyholes—unless I feel a moral obligation to do so.”

“As you did just now in the cottage?” I stared her straight in the eye.

“What do you mean? I never came downstairs until I heard you come out of the sitting room. But let's stop all the fancy footwork.” Other than waving her hand that once, Laureen hadn't moved a muscle. “You two women know what was on Lady Krumley's mind that day, because it was you she went to see. We made the mistake of thinking the investigator was a man, but there was no doubt about what had put her ladyship in such emotional turmoil. It was that wretched brooch turning up.”

“And you're the one what found it!” The words shot out of Mrs. Malloy's mouth in the form of an accusation, but her subsequent apologetic look was directed at me. “There! I've gone and done it, Mrs. H.! Let on that Lady Krumley told us that!”

“So did Mrs. Hasty just now.”

“I forgot and thought I'd blown our cover. Sorry. Too late, now.”

“There is something Lady Krumley wouldn't have told you.” Laureen glanced back toward the copse and for the first time looked uneasy, although it was highly unlikely that anyone lurking there could have picked up even a few isolated words of what we were saying. We were standing close to the cottage, a good hundred yards from the closest trees, meaning that even without the wind we should have been safe from pricked ears. And surely by standing out in the open we would appear less likely to be discussing anything of a secret nature. Even so, I was glad that when Laureen continued it was even more quietly. “Lady Krumley wouldn't have told you because I didn't tell her. . . .”

“What?” Mrs. M. and I whispered back.

“That the brooch wasn't there jammed in behind the skirting board on the day before it was found.”

“Are you sure?” Again the words were barely mouthed in unison.

“Absolutely. I had dropped a hairpin”—she touched a hand to the heavy coil at the back of her head—“right in that same spot, and I bent down and searched along the whole board. I found the pin, but there wasn't any brooch. I'd have seen it. I know I would, just as I did . . . after it had been put there for me to find.”

I retied my raincoat belt that had come undone and been flapping about in the wind. “Why now? Why would someone choose this moment to resurrect the past?”

“Why not any other time in the last forty years?” Mrs. Malloy clapped a hand on her hat as it tried to make another break for it. “What's different about now? That's what I'd bloody well like to know.”

Laureen cast another glance back at the copse. “It could be that someone only recently got his or her hands on that brooch. What's needed is to find out who that someone is, so we can understand what's to be gained.”

“By scaring Lady Krumley out of her wits.” Mrs. Malloy's scowl did Milk Jugg proud.

“She didn't strike me as the type to be easily frightened.” I was picturing that face with its black hooded eyes and beak of a nose. “What I saw was a woman consumed with remorse. If that is the object to play games with her conscience then it's working perfectly. She has set about doing what is required to locate Flossie's child. But why? What is so desperately important about Ernestine?”

“We can't stay talking here.” Laureen looked at her wrist-watch. “I need to go back in and get Mrs. Hasty something quick for lunch and then return to the house. But I could make an excuse—pretend I need to go into the village to buy something. It's not as though I've all that much to do with her ladyship in the hospital. I could meet you at the café to the right of the green. It's called The Copper Kettle; you can't miss it. Say in about an hour's time?” She acknowledged my nod and started to walk away, but Mrs. Malloy caught hold of her sleeve.

“Not so fast. I've been wanting to know who you was talking about when you said ‘we'.”

“When I said what?”

“Don't look daft, ducky.” Mrs. M. stuck her nose in the air and should have thought herself lucky not to have it pecked off by the blackbird flitting past. “It was when you was talking about Lady Krumley going off in the car. You said ‘we' made the mistake of thinking the investigator was a man. Now that would be you and who else?” She shot me a triumphant look at having beaten me to the post on that one.

“Be at the café and I'll tell you.” Laureen disappeared into the cottage, and Mrs. Malloy and I headed back through a gathering mist to Moultty Towers to reenter the kitchen where we found Mrs. Beetle taking a rice pudding out of the oven. She nodded and smiled but did not attempt to engage us in conversation when we said were on our way up to talk to Mr. and Mrs. Edmonds about taking a look in the attics, something Mrs. Malloy and I had decided was a good idea in order to maintain our fast-fading aura of credibility. Besides, there was the question of the birds. We went out into the hall, but before either of us came within knocking distance of the drawing room door, Watkins came out of an apartment on the other side of the hall. In the glow from the vast overhead chandelier his white eyebrows appeared faintly orange and his bald head shone as if he took a professional pride in assiduously polishing it along with the silver. His stooped shoulders did not diminish his stately progress toward us.

“Ah, Mr. Hopkins!” Mrs. Malloy shot me another of her smug looks at having his name on the tip of her tongue.

“Watkins, madam. Hopkins was the name of the prior butler. A common mistake, one made by Mr. Vincent Krumley upon his arrival the other evening. Had I known that his visit was to be curtailed I would not have taken the liberty of correcting him. He was so delighted to see again, as he thought, someone from his past. A very great tragedy despite his advanced years.” He cleared his throat. “Do you wish me to advise Mr. Edmonds that you need to speak with him? He is currently engaged in the drawing room with Sir Alfonse Krumley, who is just arrived from France to discuss the”—another gentle cough—“necessary arrangements for Mr. Vincent Krumley's funeral. Miss Daisy Meeks is with them.”