The Importance of Being Ernestine

Ten

“Five thousand pounds!” Mrs. Malloy folded her arms and looked up at the ceiling with a beatific smile on her face. We were seated in a café halfway between Mucklesby and Chitterton Fells. There were bottles of tomato sauce on the tables and a menu scrawled on a chalkboard behind the counter. This was definitely not the Sistene Chapel, but I could understand why she felt heaven was within our grasp.

“That’s only if we find Ernestine within the week,” I pointed out as the waitress bustled our way with plates of baked beans on toast and a pot of tea for two.

“And why shouldn’t we, if we set our minds to it? The point is, Mrs. H., that Lady Krumley wouldn’t have offered us a tenth as much if that Vincent bloke hadn’t taken a nosedive. No getting round it. His misfortune, not to sound callous, is our good luck. Her ladyship’s panicking, the poor duck. Probably thinking it won’t be any time at all before the curse gets her too. Leastway, that’s the way I see it.”

“Do you?” I bit thoughtfully into a forkful of beans.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Mrs. M. eyed me as if I were a genie who had just popped out of the bottle of tomato sauce. “That funny look on your face is what I’m talking about.”

“I was just thinking.”

“About what?” She picked up the teapot.

“Mr. Featherstone.”

“So?”

“He looked rather nice.”

“Being a vicar; that’s his job.” Mrs. Malloy dabbed irritably away at a drip of tea that had landed on the bosom of her powder pink raincoat.

“Somehow I don’t think he just came to minister.”

“Am I getting this right? You think he’s involved with the bad guys and you just walked me all light and breezy out of that there room, leaving him to strangle her sweet little old ladyship in her hospital bed? Well, I think you should be downright ashamed of yourself Mrs. H.! The least you could’ve done was hand her a bedpan so she could hit him over the head.” Clearly, Mrs. Malloy could see the five thousand pounds vanishing as we spoke.

I laid my knife and fork down on my empty plate. “What I am saying, and it is only a feeling, is that I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that Mr. Featherstone is very fond of Lady Krumley.”

“What sort of fond?”

“Come on, Mrs. Malloy! Didn’t you notice the way he looked at her when he took her hand? Didn’t that faint tremor in his voice make you think that here was a man fighting desperately to control his emotions?”

“Could be you’re right. But it’s kind of hard to grasp right off the bat, seeing that her ladyship, through no fault of her own,” she spoke piously, “isn’t what anyone could call passable, let alone a raving beauty. And then there’s her age.”

“Mr. Featherstone may be younger,” I said, “but I doubt by much. Not that it matters if he’s thirty-five to her seventy odd, if she has none but friendly feelings for him. And I didn’t see anything in her manner to suggest that her heart was throbbing a mile a minute at the sight of him. When we left she seemed to be more concerned about why her nephew Niles was taking so long to show up. Besides, Mr. Featherstone could be married, and Lady Krumley may be the sort of woman for whom there is only one man.”

“Go on!” scoffed Mrs. M. “She’d have to be a fool if you’re talking about that hubby of hers. She as good as said he married her for her money and then off he goes and gets another woman pregnant right under her nose. Think on the humiliation! That Mrs. Snow, the sneaky housekeeper, rubbing salt in the wound for all she was worth. And all them other tongues clacking. If I’d been that Sir Horace I’d have run for me bloody life.”

“And Lady Krumley could be a woman who knows how to hold onto a grudge.” I poured myself another cup of tea and looked longingly at the toasted teacake being handed to a woman at a nearby table.

“Out with it, Mrs. H., what is it you’ve got ticking away inside that clock of yours?”

“I’m just trying to look at the situation from another point of view.”

“Meaning?”

“That maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to take Lady Krumley at her word when she talks about wanting to locate Ernestine to make up for the wrongs done to her. What if there’s another reason? A darker one, born of old hate and a desire to protect the interests of someone near and dear to her?” The waitress passed by, and I ordered a toasted teacake.

“Spell it out, Mrs. H., before me nerves give out.”

“What if her ladyship has twisted the facts to suit her story? What if Sir Horace had plenty of money in his own right? What if he left a will bequeathing his estate upon his wife’s death-and in the event of there being no other living relations-to his out-of-wedlock daughter Ernestine?”

“What, including the house?”

“It may be entailed, just as her ladyship said, to that other nephew, Alfonse Krumley. And no great loss. A house of the size I imagine it to be must be enormously costly to maintain and horribly inconvenient to live in. Niles, with his asthma, might be a lot more comfortable living in a modern flat without big overstuffed sofas and voluminous curtains harboring a century’s worth of dust. Besides, if my idea is correct, it won’t matter that Alfonse is to inherit Moultty Towers, because he will shortly go the way of Vincent Krumley-the victim of another unfortunate accident.”

“Arranged by Lady Krumley is what you’re saying?” My toasted teacake arrived on the table, and Mrs. Malloy reached for the plate. “Just like she had all them others-like the old geezer in Australia that got mauled by a kangaroo and the woman that fell down a lift-bumped off.”

“I’m not accusing her ladyship of mass murder,” I responded coldly to Mrs. Malloy’s snicker. “What I am suggesting is that when she learned of those deaths, most of them the result of freak accidents that no one questioned because the victims were all old and possibly not in full possession of their faculties, it may have got her thinking.”

“Takes some thinking about.” Mrs. Malloy polished off the teacake.

“Just being a dear old auntie getting rid of the remaining family members so that Niles, whom she described as the closest thing to a son, could inherit a fortune.”

“But how many would she have to do in? That’s the question, Mrs. H. We’re talking about an old woman that you’d expect to be parked in the rocking chair most of the day. Murdering people’s got to take up a lot of time and energy, which would make for skipped meals. Maybe we should check with her doctor to see if she’s recently been in asking for a prescription for iron and vitamin pills.”

“Perhaps only Alfonse and possibly that woman Lady Krumley mentioned-Daisy something-now stand between Niles and what she considers his rightful inheritance. Apart from Ernestine that is.”

“Oh, good! Because I wouldn’t want to think of her overdoing things!” Mrs. Malloy sat back in her chair replete with baked beans, teacake and the wink received from a man on his way out of the café. “I suppose what you’re telling me is she dropped Vincent down that well before leaving for Mucklesby and she’s only pretending to be poorly enough to be in hospital. There wasn’t no car crash. No one threw no flower pots at her and all that business about Flossie Jones and the deathbed curse was just a load of malarkey? So who was it what sent the man with the gun to scare us off the case?”

“Or into taking it.”

Mrs. M. gave one of her most condescending smirks. “The way I sees it, sitting this side of the table, is that if her ladyship is up to no bloody good, wanting to find Ernestine to make sure she’s got rid of permanent, there’d be no need for all that stuff about deathbed curses and such. Now I’m a believer in such things, but I’m not fool enough to think most people, including yourself feels the same. So why make it up? Wouldn’t it have done better for her to keep things simple-tell us what happened between Sir Horace and Flossie Jones and how she kept him from helping the girl out?”

“You’re right,” I admitted.

“You don’t have to sound so snippy.”

“Why not? You just ate my teacake.”

“Oh, go on! Have the crumbs.” Mrs. Malloy pushed the plate my way and eyed me kindly. “There’s no need to sit there feeling silly. What you’ve got to realize is you’re a newcomer to this business. I’ve a whole three weeks experience on you working for Milk. And let me say this, I’ve nothing against the upper classes so long as they knows their place and keeps to it, but I can’t fault you for being cautious where her ladyship is concerned. It wouldn’t be right for us to go looking for Ernestine if we thought we was handing her over to be murdered. I’m sure there’s a rule somewhere in the private detective’s code book about that sort of thing. Now how do you suggest we set about this job?” It was clear she was asking mainly to help give my morale a lift, and I almost forgave her for eating the teacake.

“We’d better start by going to Moultty Towers to see what we can sniff out. We might even find someone that was there at the same time as Flossie Jones who might give us a tip as to who handled Ernestine’s adoption.”

“Just what I was going to suggest meself. Like that woman as lives in the cottage by the well. Give me a minute, her name’s coming to me… Mrs. Hurry.”

“Hasty.”

“Right. But will she or anyone else be falling over their selves to talk to a pair of private detectives? Even them as have nothing to hide, Mrs. H., could shut up tight as the shops on early closing day the minute we open our mouths.”

“Also, Lady Krumley will undoubtedly wish us to be as discreet as possible, which means we need to go in undercover.”

“Now you’re talking.” Mrs. Malloy positively beamed at me. “Who should we pretend to be? How about electrical inspectors? I rather fancy meself in a pair of overalls with a cap on me head.”

“I thought, and it’s only a suggestion, that the simplest thing would be to say we were interior designers, hired by her ladyship to redecorate Moultty Towers.”

Mrs. M. stopped looking thrilled. “That’s all well and good, seeing as how that’s your line of work. A nice chance for you to show off. And boost your ego back up after that upset with Mr. H. over his study. But what am I supposed to do while you’re preening about? Stand around holding the tape measure?”

“We’ll be the firm of Malloy and Haskell. You’ll be the expert in wall and window treatments.”

“Treatments?”

“That’s one of the buzzwords in the business. You’ll also need to talk a lot about maintaining the integrity of the structure.”

“You did say Malloy and Haskell?”

“You think it might sound better the other way round?”

Mrs. Malloy picked up the bill the waitress had deposited on the table and made a pretense of opening her handbag. “Look, I’m not daft. I can tell when you’re trying to butter me up. My question is what if someone got suspicious and went and looked us up in the telephone directory, or checked with some independent business group?”

“That’s what’s so good about the idea. I am listed and all I have to say is that I’ve recently taken you on as a partner and that Lady Krumley consulted with us yesterday. As for Niles seeing us at the hospital today and our allowing him to think we were social workers, we can get around that by saying we didn’t feel free to discuss her ladyship’s plans for redecorating without her permission.”

“No rest is there in this business? Still, it’s hard to complain when there’s that five thousand pounds.”

“Think how grateful Mr. Jugg will be when he returns-if we’re successful, that is.”

“Fancy! I’d forgotten all about him.” Mrs. Malloy looked suitably shamefaced. “Course, I’m sure he’ll be all broken up with gratitude. And if he don’t make me his Girl Friday on the spot it’ll shock me back to me old hair color, sure as my name is Roxie Malloy.” She was so moved by this image that she left a twenty pence tip on the table, insisting I was doing my share by paying the bill.

Upon venturing out into the gray chill of the afternoon she looked up and down the street, saying that we needed to get to a telephone kiosk in order to give Lady Krumley a ring and explain the setup before we set out for Moultty Towers.

“We can’t go now,” I said. “I don’t have a notebook or my measuring equipment in the car. More importantly the best part of the day is gone, and we don’t want to be urged off the premises before we’ve got properly started wheedling information out of people. We’ll go early tomorrow morning.”

Mrs. Malloy continued to look miffed as we drove home under stormy skies. It was with the promise of picking her up at 8:30 the next morning that I dropped her off at her house in Herring Street and breathed a sigh of relief. I was eager to get home. By now Ben would have collected the children from school and would very likely have dinner started. Perhaps it would be possible for us to sit down with cups of tea and have a good talk that would banish the lingering atmosphere of constraint between us.

When I reached St. Anselm’s I spotted Kathleen Ambleforth crossing the gravel space between the church hall and the vicarage. Rolling down the car window, I waved at her and saw her start toward me with a beckoning gesture. A moment later I was parked alongside her and sticking my head out into a wind that blew my hair around my face.

“I won’t keep you.” She stood tugging the brim of her hat down over her brow, with her coat flapping about her legs. “Looks like we’re about to get another downpour and, unfortunately, I don’t have much to report about your furniture. I did find cousin Alice’s dispatch list, but as there were a number of duplicated items, it’s impossible to be sure which ones were yours, or if they all went to the same place. Let’s hope Alice will remember, but she’s not always easy to get hold of; she plays a lot of bridge. I never could understand why people get so worked up about card games. But to each his own.”

“You weren’t able to narrow it down”-the wind tore the words out of my mouth-“to a few charitable organizations where the stuff might have gone?”

“There are half-a-dozen possibilities.”

“Look,” I said, “I’ll pay-more than it’s worth-to buy it all back. Don’t you think that would soothe any ruffled feathers? If you give me a list of the places, I could start ringing them up?”

“I think that could make a great deal of unnecessary work for a lot of people. My dear,” Kathleen, who tended to throw those two words in when her patience was wearing thin, said, “try to be patient. I may have the information you want by tomorrow.” With that she waved me off in a resolute fashion, and I watched her battling her way through the wind to the vicarage before I reversed the car out onto the Cliff Road and drove the short distance home.

Ben wasn’t in the kitchen when I entered through the garden door. Neither were the children nor Freddy for that matter. They could, of course, have been anywhere in the house. It was foolish of me to take it as a bad sign that there was not a whiff of dinner in the air. Stripping off my raincoat and hanging it on a hook in the alcove by the door, I allowed myself the luxury of self-pity. In the course of the day I had gone from being a housewife and interior designer, pretending to be a private detective and social worker, to end up pretending to be my very own self. Was it too much to expect to be greeted at the door by a husband who had been counting the minutes until my return?

Ben came into the kitchen when I was in the middle of telling him just what I thought of his ability to harbor a grudge. He didn’t hear a word because the entire conversation had taken place inside my head, but it was heartening to see that he looked suitably shamefaced.

“Sweetheart,” he said, standing and rumpling his fingers through his dark curly hair, “are you back already? I took it from what Freddy said that you would be gone until late afternoon. The children, all three of them are at the Thompson house playing with young Julian and Trevor.” His blue green eyes, always his strongest weapon in making me want to let him off the hook, stared at the wall clock. “Good grief! It’s gone 5:00. I don’t know where the time’s gone.” He came toward me with the quick stride of an impatient lover and drew me into his arms. The rasp of his bristly cheek against mine made me suspect that he had hurried shaving that morning. But then all other thought was lost in his kiss, which was long and deep and made me forget all about the cup of tea I had been aching for a moment ago.

“Oh, darling.” I gazed lovingly into those eyes. “You have forgiven me!”

“For what?” He sounded completely at sea.

“The study, of course. My insensitivity to your feelings. My manic desire to make the house over into my ideal, ignoring the fact that you loved that lumpy old chair and that dear little typewriter.”

“Hush!” He kissed me again. “Did I really make you feel that wretched about it? God help me, I’m becoming my father! Irascible and set in my ways. Have you been worrying about this all day?”

“I know it’s silly,” I said, cuddling in even closer, “but I let my imagination run away with me to the point where I wondered if our marriage was on the rocks.”

“Over some furniture?”

“I know. But when I was at the vicarage this morning to speak to Kathleen about the… upcoming meeting of the Hearthside Guild, Reverend Ambleforth came in and began talking about how you had been to see him, wanting advice on reading materials dealing with divorce. He said that you wanted it for a friend who had a controlling wife. Someone called Smith or Jones… one of those really common names. Or maybe he thought that was you. I should have realized that he had the whole thing wrong. He gets so hopelessly muddled when he’s got a nose in one of his books about St. Ethelwort.”

“I did go to see him.”

“Him being the vicar?” It was crucial to be absolutely clear on this.

“The one and only Reverend Ambleforth.”

“But not to ask for books on divorce?”

Ben cupped my chin in his hand so that his tender smile was just a breath away from my lips. “I’m afraid so, Ellie.”

My heart slowed to a dull painful thud. “What are you telling me?”

“Are you sure you’re up to hearing this?”

I could only gaze at him mutely.

“Sweetheart, don’t take it too hard.” His voice had deepened to a throb. “These things happen sometimes to people who once loved each other very much, and I’m close to certain that Ralph Brown does still love his wife. It’s her need to check up on him every fifteen minutes to make sure that he hasn’t stepped outside without his coat or forgotten to eat his packed lunch that he has begun to find intolerable.”

“Ralph Brown?” If there had been a rolling pin handy, I would have clobbered the husband now gazing soulfully into my eyes. I showed my remorse by making a pot of tea and sitting down to a roast beef sandwich with plenty of horseradish. “The upstairs tenant at Abigail’s. The man in Edwardian dress with the art shop.”

“It could be that his wife has to do something to keep from being frightened to death by his pictures of nasty-looking owls. You know the old saying: never trust a bird with eyes that are too close together.”

I stood for a moment mulling things over before saying, “I hope Mr. Brown appreciates all the trouble you’ve taken on his behalf. I suppose those books I saw you hauling out of the library when I drove past this morning were for him.”

“No, Ellie, they were for me.”

There was nothing in this reply to unsettle me. And I would have asked Ben why he had that guilty look on his face if Freddy hadn’t chosen that moment to walk into the kitchen with the children in tow.