The Importance of Being Ernestine

Thirteen

Mrs. Malloy and I were forced to scotch our idea of immediately searching the attic after leaving Lady Krumley’s bedroom. Daisy Meeks said she was going up there to look for a black hat, which she thought she remembered having seen in a trunk, that she could wear to Vincent Krumley’s funeral.

“More likely she intends getting rid of them birdcages,” Mrs. Malloy muttered as we plodded downstairs to the hall. I longed desperately for a cup of tea and even the smallest biscuit. Immediately ahead of us, half obscured in shadow, was a baize door. I pushed it open and, closely followed by Mrs. Malloy, entered a large and surprisingly cheerful-looking kitchen-very old world in general appearance, but with an up-to-date cooker and fridge. A tabby cat dozed on a chair by the brick fireplace and standing at the scrubbed wood table in the center of the room was a comfortably built woman, swathed in a white apron. Her age could have been anywhere between thirty-five and fifty. She had a couple of chins and bundled-up hair, escaping in wisps around her red face, and she was occupied in slapping a circle of pastry into a pudding basin.

“Come on in,” she wagged an elbow in our general direction. “No need to stand there like you’re waiting to go into the confession box.”

“Thank you,” Mrs. Malloy and I responded together.

“You’ll be the decorators I take it from what Watkins was saying. And about blooming time, if you ask me, that someone was brought in to bring this place out of the dark ages. Oh, the kitchen’s not too bad. I wouldn’t have come to work here if it had been, although I did insist on the new appliances and the stainless steel sink. There’s no point in being a Muggins I always say and letting your employers treat you like dirt.”

“How right you are!” Mrs. Malloy shot me a meaningful look.

“Not that Lady Krumley’s all that difficult. Likes her meals to time, but that suits me fine, and she gives me a free hand with the menus. Why not sit yourselves down while I finish up this steak and kidney pudding and get it into the steamer?” The woman had picked up a rolling pin and was rolling out another circle of pastry. “Then I’ll brew us up a pot of tea.”

“That sounds lovely.” I set down my bag, perched on a stool and watched Mrs. Malloy do likewise. “Have you worked here long?”

“A little over four years. I came about a twelve-month after Watkins, which worked out well. Never lorded it over me, he hasn’t. In fact, I’ve had to set him straight about a few things: laying the table for special dinners, that sort of thing. Mrs. Edmonds can be nasty if all the wineglasses aren’t lined up just right. Comes from not being used to much before she married His Wheezyness. Read all she knows about etiquette in books; you know the type. I’m Mrs. Beetle, by the way, and in goes the pudding.” She cleared away the pastry scraps and wiped off the table before bustling over to the sink to fill the kettle and get down cups and saucers from an overhead cupboard.

“My partner here is married to a chef.” Mrs. Malloy proffered this piece of information with her nose stuck up so high it hit the brim of her hat. “You may have heard of him, seeing as how he writes cookery books.”

“Well, I don’t know.” Mrs. Beetle did not look ready to swoon with excitement. “What’s his name?”

“Ben Haskell,” I told her.

“Not… not Bentley T. Haskell?” Now she did clutch a hand to her bosom and, at my nod, her eyes widened to the size of the saucers she was setting down on the table. “Why I’ve got all his books! Wouldn’t be without them! Every one of my favorite recipes come from… oh, I don’t know if I’m on my head or my heels. Who would have thought it? To be standing here talking to his wife. Just wait till I tell my husband.”

Mrs. Malloy was beginning to look somewhat miffed under the fancy hat. “I may not be married to him, Mrs. H. here having met him first you understand, but there’s not much I couldn’t tell you about the way he whips his egg whites and tosses his pancakes. And it could be, if you hurry up with that tea and come up with a slice of fruitcake, that I’ll get his autograph for you.”

“You think he might? Oh, I would be thrilled!” Mrs. Beetle put both feet forward, producing not only the cake but also a plate of potato scones. The tea was hot and strong. A blue and white striped sugar bowl and milk jug appeared in the middle of the table, and I sat contentedly listening to her sing my husband’s culinary praises.

“What a way that man has with ingredients! And his measurements! Exact to the quarter teaspoonful. When he says the recipe makes four dozen biscuits that’s what you get. No going round pinching off bits of dough to eke out two or three more. The other night when that Mr. Vincent Krumley showed up I’d made the ragout on page 336 of The Edwardian Lady’s Cookery Book.” Mrs. Beetle’s face glowed a deep shiny red. “Two and a half hours in a moderate oven and the Queen herself couldn’t have asked for better. It comforts me to think,” she said, again passing me the scones, “that the poor man had a thumping good dinner his last night on earth. You’ll have heard what happened to him, I suppose?”

Mrs. Malloy and I nodded in unison.

“Went out looking for his little doggie the next afternoon, soon after Lady Krumley went off in the car.”

“To keep an appointment with my partner and me,” I said.

“About the decorating.” A certain person, with the initials R. M., was eyeing my scone, presumably to see if it was bigger than the one on her plate.

“Poor Mr. Krumley! Not Vincent the Invincible, was he?” Mrs. Beetle crossed herself. “And no one to give him the last rites. Well, they couldn’t do, could they? Not with him stuck down that well, and no one knowing. Mrs. Hasty from the cottage being away for the afternoon like she always is on a Tuesday. But then maybe he wasn’t Roman Catholic like me. And the other churches don’t give much of a send-off, do they?” Mrs. Beetle went on to explain that she had been happy to convert to her husband’s religion, seeing that her parents hadn’t brought her up in a faith and she had always felt there was something missing in her life, to which Mrs. Malloy responded that she was deeply religious herself, never missing Wednesday night bingo at the church hall.

“When did you get news of the accident, Mrs. Beetle?” I asked.

“It was in the evening around 8 or 9:00, give or take. There hadn’t been any big excitement about him being missing. Mrs. Edmonds isn’t the type to worry about other people, and I imagine Mr. Edmonds was busy pining for his Auntie. Terrible dependent on her he is. Daisy Meeks, some sort of cousin, was here for dinner.”

“We just met her upstairs,” supplied Mrs. Malloy. But Mrs. Beetle was still thinking about that dinner. “A lovely lamb roast if I do say so myself-another of your husband’s recipes, Mrs. Haskell. Miss Meeks is always in some dreamworld of her own. Probably quite clever, but looks and sounds daft, if you understand me. I was just sitting down after finishing the washing up when the doorbell went and Watkins went to answer it. It was Constable Thatcher on the doorstep, but whatever he’d come for couldn’t have had anything to do with the accident because just then the phone rang. And he was as surprised as anyone. Watkins said you could see it in his face, when it turned out to be a call from the police station. Seems Mrs. Hasty had reported seeing a foot sticking out of the well when she got home and would Constable Thatcher go down and investigate.”

“Horrible to be a policeman.” Mrs. M. reached for a slice of cake. “Or to do any sort of crime work-like them private detectives, for instance.” She pensively sighed. “But then it takes all kinds, don’t it?”

“Constable Thatcher’s a decent sort. A bit strict with his nine-year-old son, Ronald, but that’s better than being too lenient, some would say, and then having the lad grow up to be a disappointment.” Mrs. Beetle wiped her floury hands on her apron. “Which from what I’ve heard is the case with Mr. Featherstone, the vicar’s nephew. Seems he refused point blank to go up to university because he’d set his mind on being an actor and when nothing came of that had to settle for any job he could get.” She got up to refill the teapot.

“When did the little dog turn up?” I asked, wondering if anyone had much cared.

“Showed up that evening or the next morning. Poor little orphan!” Mrs. Beetle looked misty eyed, but that could have been the steam coming out of the kettle. “Now where’s he got to? It crept in here about fifteen minutes ago, and I didn’t see it go back into the hall. I wonder if it could have got shut up in the cellar when Watkins went down with the bottles of wine we didn’t use for last night’s dinner.” She looked toward a door to the left of the fireplace and had crossed the room to place her hand on the knob when Watkins came in from the hall. “Oh, good, you’re here!” She nodded at him. “We need to check and see if the dog’s locked in the cellar.”

“I think that doubtful, Mrs. Beetle. I am sure I would have seen if he had slipped in behind me when I went down just now, but if it will ease your mind I will make the necessary search.” Producing a key from his jacket pocket, Watkins unlocked the door and could be heard descending the stairs.

“I was offended when I came to work here and was told the cellar door was always kept locked.” Mrs. Beetle refilled our teacups. “I thought it was because Lady Krumley didn’t want the help getting into the wine. A waste of time where I’m concerned because I never touch alcohol, except for cooking. My parents drank more than was good for them, and it put me right off. But it give her ladyship her due, I’ve come to think she’s mostly worried about the steps being steep. Watkins knows better than to run up and down them, but the young girls that come up to help in the house a couple of days a week don’t have his sense. It’s Mrs. Edmonds that gets upset when she can’t get hold of Watkins to borrow the key so she can go down and get a couple of apples if we don’t have any up here.”

“Apples?” I said.

“We usually have a store of them down there.”

“And Mrs. Edmonds is particularly fond of apples?”

“She likes to take them to Charlie, her horse. Passionate about that animal, she is. And I’ve got my suspicions that Lady Krumley quite enjoys putting her nose out of joint. The two women don’t get on, not that I want to gossip.”

“Of course not,” Mrs. Malloy and I responded in unison.

“It’ll be interesting to find out what Madam Cynthia thinks about this redecorating scheme.” Mrs. Beetle mopped her damp brow with her sleeve and began gathering up the crockery and putting it in the sink.

“I hope she’ll be pleased with the results,” I responded with my best professional smile and began to wander around the kitchen. “You won’t mind if I take some measurements? I had just produced my tape from my bag when Watkins emerged from the cellar to announce that the dog was not down there. After relocking the door he returned the key to his pocket, removed his jacket and hung it on a peg inside an alcove, very like the one by the garden door at Merlin’s Court.

“A cup of tea, Mrs. Beetle, if you will be so good and then I will retreat into the butler’s pantry to straighten up the newly polished silver; unless,” he eyed Mrs. Malloy and me in quite a kindly manner, “you two ladies require any immediate assistance from me.”

“We are finding our way around, thank you,” I told him.

“Don’t let us keep you from your work, not that we wouldn’t enjoy watching you flexing them muscles of yours.” Mrs. Malloy peaked coquettishly up at him from under the brim of her hat, her expression becoming thoughtful upon watching his stately retreat. It seemed the time to allow Mrs. Beetle to return to her cooking. After thanking her for the tea, cake and scones I eyed the kitchen up and down in my most professional manner and said that my partner and I would discuss our vision for the necessary improvements before returning to take further measurements.

“We believe in maintaining the integrity of the structure,” Mrs. M. piped in with all the aplomb of having coined the phrase rather than parroting a bit of my coaxing. She was saved from getting carried away by Mrs. Beetle’s response that she wasn’t any too sure that there was all that much integrity on the parts of some people at Moultty Towers.

“Well now,” intoned my partner, practically smacking her lips, “a good thing you mentioned that, seeing as how it could make a big difference to the paint colors and… the curtains we was to choose. Isn’t that right, Mrs. H.? There’s some shades of red and some fabrics, especially satin, that can bring out the beast in people. I remember one of my ex-husbands…” Her eyes took on a dreamy glow, and I wasn’t any better. I was picturing Freddy’s mother, Aunt Lulu, in a soft shade of pink; she said it always put her in the mood for a successful day’s shoplifting. The golden opportunity was lost. We had given Mrs. Beetle the necessary few seconds to remember that gossiping was frowned upon by the Catholic Church, as was bribery. But without a qualm of conscience I promised her, with what I hoped was a winning smile, that I would bring her a first edition copy of The Edwardian Lady’s Cookery Book on my next visit.

“Oh, that is good of you!” Her face was wreathed in smiles. “Would he… do you think you could ask your husband to autograph it?”

“He’d be delighted.”

“And would he… not just write his name… but put ‘To Tina’?”

I assured her that this would be no problem before asking if it would be best for us to go out the kitchen door to get to Mrs. Hasty’s cottage.

“It’s at the bottom of the garden, but that’s not as close as it sounds. The grounds are large, and there’s a copse you have to go through. But at least it’s not raining at the moment, although it looks like it’s trying.” Mrs. Beetle escorted us outside with a good deal of waving about, still apparently in a fluster. “We need some information about some pieces of furniture, the ones that Lady Krumley recalled having been in the house when she first came to Moultty Towers. She thought Mrs. Hasty, having been working here at that time, might remember if they were disposed of, or stored in one of the attics.” This fib rolled off my tongue convincingly, something which the Church of England would have frowned upon in full accord with the Catholics. I pictured Kathleen Ambleforth having a chat with God on the subject, saying that in her humble opinion, I didn’t deserve to get back the items I had donated from Ben’s study. Not that she was trying to do his job for him, but as a vicar’s wife she knew better than most that he was overworked and once in a while needed a sound woman to keep him organized.

“Mrs. Hasty’s the chatty sort. There’s not much she won’t tell you for a bag of sweets.” Mrs. Beetle laughed and went back into the kitchen, leaving me with the lowering feeling that we were about to prey upon a lonely old lady well into her second childhood. I said as much to Mrs. Malloy as we walked down a shallow flight of stone steps into the extensive garden, where statues of nymphs shivered in lifeless flowerbeds under the bare branches of the trees. Her response was to tell me that I would never harden myself to the life of a private investigator if I didn’t stop thinking soppy. I apologized meekly, and we trudged on along meandering paths, among gently undulating lawns that would have made for a fairly decent golf course.

My mind shifted to Ernest the under gardener, who had been thought to be the father of Flossie’s baby girl, without bringing him into focus. He remained a shadowy figure on his haunches plucking up weeds with his back to us, and it suddenly seemed vital to the investigation that he be fleshed out. We had reached the copse, dark and somewhat ominous looking under the overcast sky. Through the shift and shadow of its branches could be glimpsed the cottage, and I wondered if Mrs. Malloy feared as I did that we were Hansel and Gretel about to knock on a door that would open onto unforeseen dangers, where evil hid under chintz covers and sugar-coated words would send us skipping away down one wrong path after another until the truth was hopelessly trodden underfoot like breadcrumbs tossed by an unseen hand.