The Trouble with Harriet (27 page)

“We don’t smoke.”

“I just thought you might. They were popular years ago. Almost antiques, you could say. We’re being lent a proper stage gun, but not in time for the dress rehearsal.”

“I don’t hesitate to ask”—she beamed at me— “because being an interior designer, you’re sure to have lots of unusual things and possibly even some furnishing samples.” She waved a hand at the bureau, possibly indicating it appeared to fall into such a category. “We really do appreciate your support of the play. As Freddy has probably told you, the dress rehearsal is tomorrow evening.”

“That’s lovely,” I said, because clearly Ben had made up his mind that opening his mouth again would encourage her to stay for a week. We were getting to the point where we really didn’t have any more spare bedrooms.

“I’m hoping that earlier in the evening Dunstan will hold a prayer service for the victim of last night’s car accident.” Kathleen stood with her hand on the doorknob. “Ruth told me about it just as I was rushing out of the house to come here. She said she’d heard from Mrs. Potter half an hour before that the victim was a woman, as yet to be identified. But whoever she was, we must not lose sight of the fact that we are all one in Christ.”

“Very true.” Ben broke his vow of silence.

“Did you know that Mrs. Potter’s nephew is a policeman?” Kathleen finally allowed us to trot her out into the hall. “Single and eager to settle down, from the sound of it. So call me a meddlesome old aunt,” she said with a deep-throated chuckle, “but I can’t help thinking that it might be an idea to try to find out if he and Ruth would suit. At the moment, she has this mad crush on your cousin, Ellie, but I’m really not sure he’s for her. Too much of the free spirit, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“Not at all.” I didn’t add that Freddy would be delighted to hear it.

“And fond as I am of her, I believe Ruth is a girl who needs a strong man.” Kathleen sent a couple of peaches toppling. “Behind that meek exterior of hers there is a wayward streak. I’ve got an idea that she sometimes leaves the dog tied to a tree and bikes on down to the pub. Her uncle and I aren’t against her having a bit of fun. But if she’s out late, she wants to lie in bed all the next morning. And that just won’t do when she gets a real job. Which we know has to be what she wants, because all girls are wild to go to London and live in hostels on a shoestring. It’s part of being young, isn’t it? But Ruth doesn’t believe us when Dunstan and I say we don’t want to stand in the way of her making her own life after he completes the current manuscript. Then again, if she were to marry this policeman ...” Kathleen went out the front door still talking. And I finally got to ask Ben the all-consuming question.

“Is the urn gone again?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“How?”

“Remember, Ellie, I told you I left it in the kitchen?”

“On the Welsh dresser.”

“That’s right.” He took a couple of turns around the hall, glaring, as he did so, at the twin suits of armor that stood looking hopelessly craven. “When I came out of the drawing room after my interminable stint with the vicar, the kitchen door was open, and I saw your father and Aunt Lulu and Ursel sitting at the table. They were chattering away, so I went into the study to read through the work I’d done yesterday on the cookery book. And when I came out about fifteen minutes later, Morley was gone. So, for that matter, was Aunt Lulu. Ursel said she had gone back to the cottage to cook Freddy’s breakfast.”

“A likely story.” I was fuming. “And where did Ursel say Daddy had gone?”

“To Cliffside House to hand over the urn to the Hoppers.”

 “And she didn’t try to stop him.”

“She said she offered to go with him, but he refused.”

“Oh, Ben!” I stopped being angry in order to feel terribly frightened. “And he’s not back. What if those Russian dolls have come to life and are doing away with him as we speak? Dead men don’t get to talk their lips off, do they?”

“Who said that, Shakespeare?”

“This is no time for feeble attempts at humor.”

“Ellie”—he was using his reasonable voice, the kind guaranteed to drive any wife right up the wall— “if I had thought for a moment that your father was in danger, I wouldn’t have sat listening to Kathleen Ambleforth dropping her fruit all over the floor, now, would I? It’s the fact that we never got the chance to examine the urn that infuriates me.”

“We’ll just have to get it back,” I said, “along with rescuing my father. You wouldn’t happen to remember where we put Mr. Price’s gun, would you, darling?”

Ben and I reached the old inn that was now Cliffside House within seconds of each other. We had decided to drive separately because we still had to return the Honda Prelude to Lady Grizwolde. Stepping out into a wintry chill under sullen skies, I shivered even though I was wearing my warm hunter-green jacket and wool slacks. The brave, bright splendor of autumn seemed to have vanished in the night. There was frost on the hedges. Ben jogged over to me from his parking place alongside the Rent-A-Wreck, and hand in hand we crunched across the gravel and mounted the steps to the door.

“Things are looking up, Ellie. He’s still here.”

“Yes, but is he still in one piece?”

“Of course he is.” Ben lifted the knocker and let it fall with an iron thud. “Even if the Hoppers got into their heads to harm him, they wouldn’t do it here.”

“Not in the reception room, perhaps, but Daddy, as we both know, is an easy prey. They would only have to ask him to come up to one of their rooms to see some of Harriet’s etchings and he would go like a lamb to the slaughter. Then they’d be out of here like a shot with the urn.”

“Come on, Ellie, it doesn’t help to assume the worst.”

“Why not?”

“Because Morley’s only trouble right now may be that he’s sitting drinking a cup of weak instant coffee and eating a stale biscuit. Served to him by Mrs. Blum, who, if she is anything like her sister Mrs. Potter, won’t have left him alone with the Hoppers for fear of missing something worth gossiping about.”

“They’re nothing alike,” I said while he again attacked the knocker. “Mrs. Blum is a very dour woman. It may come from living in a house that was a smuggler’s den of iniquity.”

I realized that I was carrying on in a way that would have tried the patience of St. Ethelwort. But I couldn’t stop myself. The suspense of waiting for someone to open the door was killing me. Even Ben conceded that it seemed to be taking ages. I was about to suggest that he go down the steps, come back up them at a run, and kick the thing in when we heard the groan of hinges that must have needed oiling for at least twenty years. We were suddenly looking at Mrs. Blum. She was a tall, gaunt woman with a face that would have frightened away children willing to brave green slime monsters rising out of swamps for a bag of sweets on Halloween night.

“Mr. and Mrs. Haskell? Come in,” she urged in a voice that reminded me of a Hoover with something caught in the works. “I was wondering when you’d get here. Wipe your feet on the mat. No need to bring in half the outdoors. That’s right.”

Ben and I knocked heads in obeying. She stepped around us to close the door and then proceeded on down the hall. The sloping pine floor creaked with every step, and under the faint smell of mildew I thought I caught a woody whiff of seawater-soaked brandy kegs rolled ashore in response to a lantern signal. But I didn’t obsess on the Old World charm.

“What did you mean, you were wondering when we would get here?” I inquired of Mrs. Blum’s back as she glided past the table with the visitors’ book lying open next to a vase of flowers that might have wilted more from fright than a lack of water.

“Didn’t you get my phone message?” She turned a corner into a narrow passage with only a couple of low-wattage wall lights to make it possible to walk without hoping a ghostly guide dog would materialize out of the gloom.

“What message?” Ben’s voice had a hollow sound to it.

“The one I left for you with Mrs. Malloy.”

“We left the house without seeing her.” My heart was now pounding as if a dozen of the king’s men were demanding admittance at the old inn door. “What was it you wanted to tell us, Mrs. Blum?”

She didn’t ask what had brought us to Cliffside House if not for her message, but she did slow her stride, although without turning her head. “Mr. Simons showed up here about an hour ago. When I opened the door, he practically fell into the hall. There was no getting anything coherent out of him. I couldn’t smell alcohol on his breath, but I’m sure he had to be drunk from the way he was staggering about and bumping into the walls.” She stopped to place her hand on a doorknob. “Knowing my Christian duty, I brought him down here, where I wouldn’t have to explain him to the other guests. This isn’t that sort of establishment, you know. I left him to sleep it off on the sofa while I went to phone you. When I returned to check on him, he tried to sit up and babbled something about wanting to see the Hoppers, who are staying here. But I didn’t go and get them. They’re perfectly respectable people. I couldn’t subject them to any unpleasantness, whatever their connection, if any, with him. My guests come here for peace and quiet.”

“I’m sure my father-in-law did not show up here drunk.” Ben returned her look for look.

“He has the nose for it.” Mrs. Blum’s lugubrious face revealed a resigned acceptance of the medical evidence as she saw it. “An uncle of mine had a red nose like that, and it didn’t come from the tomato sauce he poured on his bacon and eggs.”

“It’s a cold day,” I responded stiffly. “I expect my nose is red, too.”

“With Uncle George’s, it was the brandy. And in the end it was the death of him.”

I was about to make another protest, but then I remembered that we did seem to have been pouring that particular substance down Daddy’s throat at regular intervals since his arrival at Merlin’s Court. Catching Ben’s eyes, I realized he was thinking the same thing. We followed Mrs. Blum meekly into a small room. Its paneling was darker than that of the hall. There were dusty red-velvet curtains at the windows, and the scattering of furniture looked as though it had been relegated there when chair and table legs wobbled and springs began poking through the upholstery. Daddy’s legs extended over the foot of the beige sofa that was three sizes too small for him.

“I’ll leave you to him.” Mrs. Blum turned to go but remembered her Christian duty. “I suppose I could bring you some coffee. It’ll have to be instant. I still have some beds to make and the bathrooms to do.”

Ben and I thanked the closed door, and I scurried over to kneel beside Daddy and pat the hand that trailed the floor. Until that moment I hadn’t allowed myself to focus too desperately on what could have happened to him. I had clung to the fact that Mrs. Blum hadn’t thought his condition merited sending for a doctor. Such reasoning was, of course, nonsense. She had made an instant diagnosis, based on Uncle George, and had never considered any other possibility.

“Where am I?” Daddy opened an eye just as I had decided he was in a coma from which he would never awaken.

“Cliffside House,” I whispered, afraid to shock him back into retreat.

“What am I doing here?”

“You came to see the Hoppers.” Ben spoke from behind me.

“Never heard of them,” he said, sending my mind leaping to thoughts of amnesia.

“Harriet’s relatives.” I fought back tears. “You came to bring them the urn.”

Daddy struggled to sit up, winced, and eased back down. For a few moments he lay rigid; then his lashes flickered, and as if drawing upon every ounce of his strength, he opened both eyes and looked at me with bleary recognition. “It is coming back to me by painful degrees, Giselle. The vicar must have returned the urn, because when I went down to the kitchen this morning, it was on the Welsh dresser in the canvas bag. I remember Lulu and Frau Grundman coming in, and after that”—his voice faltered— “everything is fuzzy.”

“Give it time; it will come back to you,” Ben consoled.

“My confounded head!” Daddy moaned. “I feel as though I’ve been hit with an iron bar.” He lifted a hand, let if fall, and lay as if he were slipping back into unconsciousness. Then suddenly he gave a convulsive jerk. “I do remember. Light pierces the wayward darkness. I was in the car, and then I wasn’t. I was standing gathering my courage to fulfill my promise to Harriet when I heard something behind me, the crunch of a footstep on gravel. I started to turn, caught a glimpse of a face I recognized, and then, alas, oblivion.”

“Daddy,” I leaned over him. “You’ve got a bruise the size of an egg on the side of your head.”

“Who was it you saw, Morley?” Ben was sticking to the basics.

“I appreciate your interest, Bentwick. It was that man. The one from the airport and then again at the house yesterday.”

“Mr. Price.” I ground out the name. “I think we are now entitled to assume he made an unsuccessful attempt to get the urn from Ursel last night. And this morning he lay in wait and followed you here.” I could not keep the sigh out of my voice. “I suppose that this time he got it, Daddy.”

“No, Giselle. I can at least reassure you in that regard. You may rejoice in the knowledge that the miserable miscreant did not lay hands on the urn.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful!” I would have hugged him again if I hadn’t been afraid of inflicting permanent injury. “I suppose he must have been scared off by someone going in or out of the house before he could grab it. Where is it?”

“Still at Merlin’s Court.”

“You forgot to bring it with you?”

“Indeed not.” Daddy rallied to look at me askance. “I do not suffer from the vicar’s deplorable absentmindedness. It has come back to me now that conversation with Lulu and Frau Grundman in the kitchen. I was telling them that Herr Voelkel had selected the urn, and loath as I was to criticize the man in the performance of so anguishing a commission, I did believe he could not have done worse by Harriet. Both ladies were intensely moved by my impassioned rhetoric and the tears that I failed to stem. It was Lulu, whom I had intemperately taken for a foolish woman wallowing in self-absorption, who most generously provided a solution. She offered me a beautiful antique-silver powder box which she happened to have in the pocket of her skirt. The thought had crossed her mind that you might wish to have it, Giselle, and she was going to give it to you when you came down for breakfast.”