The Dr Benjamin Bones Omnibus

by Emma Jameson

  Piled on the vanity was a collection of items that must have been stolen, either from Lady Maggart or the maids. Cinema magazines, tubes of lipstick, pots of rouge. It seemed that while Mrs. Grundy liked to shame girls like Betsy or terrorize Lady Maggart in the middle of the night, she kept a stash of her own feminine treasures, hidden where no one could mock her for using them.

  “… don’t need to explain yourself, I swear it,” a woman said, her voice echoing slightly.

  The sound drew Ben’s gaze to the mouth of the second passage, which looked far newer and had been properly finished. Its floor was lino; its walls were white—or would have been, if not for two giant brown-red stains that marred the paint and been allowed to dry.

  “Oh, but I want you to understand,” Mrs. Grundy replied. “I want him to understand. I could have ended his life a thousand times over the years. But it’s his lot to waste away in agony and yours to be shut in down here.”

  “No, no, you have it wrong,” Lady Maggart said. She spoke in the overly-bright voice of one who believed her next few sentences would determine if she lived or died. “Bobby was nothing to me. A bit of misappropriated furniture doesn’t trouble me at all. Of course you feel owed. I could arrange an annuity. You could retire to—oh!”

  Lady Maggart, dressed in the same confectionary peach wrap and fur-trimmed slippers Ben remembered from their bedroom encounter, quailed as she saw the blood stains. Her knees buckled.

  She would have fallen, if not for Mrs. Grundy just behind her. Seizing Lady Maggart by her well-coiffed blonde hair, the housekeeper hauled her upright with the strength of one who’d worked long and hard her entire life.

  “Yes, that’s Bobby’s. I mopped the floor but couldn’t bring myself to scrub the walls. Feel that?” she asked. Her captive squealed as if poked in the ribs. “That’s the blade I used to do it.”

  “Help,” Lady Maggart wailed. Mouth twisted and eyes darting, she spied Ben and shrieked, “Help me! Help me!”

  “Doctor.” Mrs. Grundy released her grip on the baroness, who collapsed to the floor in heap. “Don’t tell me you broke down that door.”

  Cautiously, Ben took a step closer, studying the gaudy weapon in her hand. The Baroque cane’s concealing handle was off, revealing a long, serrated knife. Its bottom half, decorated with scrolls and flourishes and tiny jewels, looked like the one he’d glimpsed in Lady Maggart’s bedroom.

  “So that’s the swordstick?”

  “Yes. I’d heard you were a detective,” Mrs. Grundy said scornfully. “I hoped if I gave you a nudge, you’d conclude that one killed Bobby.” She pointed at Lady Maggart, who sat sobbing. “So I put the swordstick in an umbrella stand, and the stand just inside her master bedroom. I presumed a detective would recognize the absurdity of umbrellas in such a place. That he’d notice a jewel-encrusted antique, remove its top, and see the murder weapon inside. I even left Bobby’s blood on the blade.” She pointed it at Ben. “I should have known you were too thick for anything but a signed confession.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Ben didn’t care, but he had to say something, anything, to give him time to think. If he rushed at her, weaponless, she might stab him before he wrestled the swordstick away. Or she might turn and finish off Lady Maggart, whom she clearly hated.

  “Why? Because they deserve it. You all deserve it,” Mrs. Grundy growled, and launched herself at him.

  The collision sent Ben staggering back onto the bed. The small of his back connected with a brass bed knob, knocking the wind out of him. His diaphragm spasmed. He would have doubled over in pain, but Mrs. Grundy thrust the knife at his eyes and instinct took over. Arm shooting up reflexively, he used his cane to knock the swordstick away.

  It flew through the air, clattering to the floor not far away. He hoped she’d dive for it. Instead, she jerked the cane out of his grip and cracked him over the head so hard, he saw stars.

  Something thumped hard against the floorboards. It was his knees. But this time he felt no pain, only unreality. The Cavalier Room tilted on an invisible axis.

  Concussion? he thought, aware that something far more important was happening but unsure what he ought to do about it. Should I test myself for signs of concussion?

  A scream pierced his confusion. The swordstick. She’s got her hands on it, Ben decided.

  He tried to regain his footing and couldn’t. The room stopped turning, but his body was still muddled. It seemed to be receiving his brain’s instructions via carrier pigeon instead of spinal nerves.

  “Stay still, lad,” a man said. It was the baron, still in his striped pajamas and a single carpet slipper. “The vile wench rang your bell. Give yourself a moment. Odette, for the love of God. If you’re not hurt, stop that noise.”

  Lady Maggart, who’d been sobbing loudly, quieted a bit.

  “Lord Maggart?” Ben shook himself. His head responded with a thud, and his stomach lurched, but he steeled himself and the nausea passed. “I thought….”

  “I’d wait by the painting for Nan or one of her minions to recapture me? Hah! I still know the corridor. Only stubbed my toe twice.”

  Blinking, Ben managed to focus on the swordstick in the baron’s hand. The serrated knife points were still bloody, but now the stains weren’t brown. They were red and dripping.

  “Funny thing.” Lord Maggart stared at the blade. “I always thought if I brought myself to wield one of these, I’d feel brave. Like a man. But I feel just the same. Useless.”

  “Useless?” Ben tried to chuckle, but it made his head hurt. “Not quite the word I’d choose. Did you get to the swordstick first?”

  “No, she did. But I took it away from her. Tried plunging it into her heart. Got her thigh instead.” He shrugged. “Slightly important artery in the thigh, isn’t there?”

  “Slightly,” Ben agreed. Sitting up, he saw that Mrs. Grundy had fallen nearby. She lay sprawled on her back, dazed but conscious, fresh blood spreading rapidly across her skirt.

  “Help me with her,” he commanded Lord Maggart. “I need a look at that wound.”

  When Ben bared her legs, Mrs. Grundy moaned and batted at him, but Lord Maggart caught her hands and held them tight. A quick assessment revealed that the femoral artery probably wasn’t nicked. Still, the wound was quite deep. Without a tourniquet, Mrs. Grundy would bleed out long before she could be arrested.

  “Didn’t I tell you to stop that infernal racket?” Lord Maggart asked his wife, who continued to sob steadily, like a little girl on a crying jag. “You haven’t a scratch. It’s over. Go and ring for help. Birdswing, Barking, I don’t give a fig. Dress yourself and wait by the door for rescuers to turn up.”

  “Before you go,” Ben said. “Your dressing gown. May I have the sash?”

  “What?” Lady Maggart wiped her eyes and stared at Ben.

  “The sash, woman. Give it over,” Lord Maggart snapped.

  Seeming grateful for clear direction, she handed the sash to Ben. “Very well. But that horrible creature. She attacked me. Threatened me. I daren’t go away and ring anyone, Dudley. I’m frightened. Petrified.”

  “Poppycock. Do you want it to be daybreak before she’s arrested?” Lord Maggart asked. “Go on. Be frightened later. The fear will keep, I promise.”

  After she’d gone, he watched Ben apply the tourniquet. When he’d finished, and took Mrs. Grundy’s wrist to check her pulse, Lord Maggart said, “You are a bloody white coat, aren’t you?”

  Ben glanced up. He was glad not to find a swordstick poised to jab him. He was still too muzzy to defend himself. “I’m afraid so.”

  “More fool me, thinking I’d found an ally. Now I know you’re not to be trusted.”

  “On the contrary,” Ben said, releasing Mrs. Grundy’s wrist. Her heartbeat was reasonably strong, but the wound was serious, and shock was setting in. “You should trust me to the exclusion of everyone else.”

  Lord Maggart frowned. “Why?”

  “Because you just saved my life. It’s a deb
t I can never repay, unless I save yours. What do you have to lose by letting me try?”

  Behind the Mask

  Because the Cow Hole’s cell lacked the usual barred door, Special Constable Gaston had insisted Mrs. Grundy lie in bed, one wrist handcuffed to its iron frame, until Plymouth CID collected her the next day. Ben didn’t think she was capable of walking, much less attacking anyone, but Gaston’s refusal to underestimate the woman was probably wise. Sweet old Mrs. Richwine, overwhelmed by the list of the charges against Mrs. Grundy, had gone home in tears. That clearly suited Gaston. He took over guard duty, armed with a long gun borrowed from Lord Maggart.

  The Cow Hole had a more sinister aura, now that it contained a prisoner worthy of its medieval history. Ben would have preferred to take up Lady Maggart’s invitation to stay the night at Fitchley Park, but given Gaston’s age, he felt duty-bound to offer his assistance. Besides, as galling as it was, Mrs. Grundy was his patient. He was responsible for her life until she was taken into custody, beginning the process which would almost certainly end in her death.

  “As it’s too late for me to go home, shall I help guard her?” he asked Gaston. “We could take shifts.”

  “Kind of you to offer, but no need.” Gaston looked fully energized, his eyes snapping with good humor. “See that chair? Perfect for me to doze in. Only need a few winks.” Glancing at Mrs. Grundy, motionless on the bed, he added in a louder voice, “In the Great War, I learned to sleep with a gun in my hands. And to wake up shooting.”

  Mrs. Grundy chuckled. She’d said very little since the stabbing, enduring Ben’s ministrations with gritted teeth. During her conveyance to the Cow Hole, she’d slipped in and out of consciousness, often laughing softly to herself. He wasn’t sure why. Perhaps she was reacting to blood loss and the local anesthetic he’d administered before stitching the wound. Or perhaps she’d taken a hard turn into that dark territory she’d long intended for Lord Maggart.

  “Gives me the creeps, she does,” Gaston whispered. “Is she starkers?”

  “I don’t know. Can I speak to her alone?”

  “I suppose. The old man in the next cottage but one offered me a hot cuppa,” Gaston said. “I could take him up on that. Be back in a quarter hour.”

  He exited, allowing a blast of cold air into the Cow Hole as Ben approached the bed. The roundhouse had no electricity or gaslight, only paraffin lanterns. They cast shadows that distorted her face, making her seem less than human. But that was too easy.

  Her eyes opened. “All alone, Doctor. You arranged that rather neatly. Here I am, at your mercy.”

  “Can you blame me for wanting to understand?”

  She chuckled again. “Bloody Odette said the same thing. Everyone wants to understand but only when they’ve exhausted every other option.”

  “I’ve worked out some of it on my own,” he said. “Did you enlist help to transfer Bobby from the Cavalier Room to the bedroom below stairs? Mr. Collins, perhaps, or Kitty? I suppose you could have convinced them to go along with you, if you played on their loyalty to Fitchley Park or Lord Maggart. You worked so hard to make him appear incompetent. The bit with the dead dog was a stroke of genius. You killed it yourself, didn’t you? Then made sure everyone thought he did it. After that, it was easier for them to believe he’d taken a human life.”

  Mrs. Grundy didn’t answer.

  “Were you poisoning his food? You said he deserved a slow death. To waste away.”

  Silence.

  “That black cloak you wore stank of perfume. I know you came into Lady Maggart’s room and flung her cosmetics about. Broke a bottle of Sous le Vent and never realized it. So when you used the passage wearing the mantle, I smelled French perfume. Why do you hate her?”

  Mrs. Grundy said nothing. Pulling up a chair, Ben sat beside the bed and tried to see her as a patient rather than a murderess. But it was hard to feel a connection when her actions were so appalling.

  “Lord Maggart called you ‘lemon sherbet.’ He saw you with the sweeties, didn’t he? A sack of them to turn John’s head. Steady his nerves while you taught him what to say to get Mr. Collins arrested. Poor lad. It was cruel of you, using him so.”

  “You scold me for using the boot boy,” Mrs. Grundy said, “but not for killing Bobby? For trying to kill you?”

  Ben sighed. His head still ached; he rubbed his temple beneath the goose egg she’d given him.

  “I’m a grown man. I understand that life is unfair. But John will always be a child.”

  “Do you think I don’t know that? I’ve known him since the day he was born,” she said. “Perhaps I dealt unkindly with him. But did God deal kindly with me? At least John was born defective. He didn’t start out clever, then watch helplessly as his wits faded. He’ll never realize that God chooses winners and losers. Understanding that fact is the root of all suffering.”

  Ben struggled to form an answer.

  Mrs. Grundy laughed. “How handsome you look as you think up a high-minded rebuke,” she said. “The furrow of your brow. The pout of your lips. If you’d developed Paget’s disease of the bone at seventeen, if you’d been turned from beautiful to grotesque, no doubt you’d forgive everyone who snickered or looked away.”

  “I don’t think so,” Ben said. “But I don’t think I’d kill anyone, either. When did you start playing the lady in black?”

  “I don’t know. Years ago. The passages were how I kept informed. Knew the truth about what people thought of me,” Mrs. Grundy said. “One day Odette told Charlie my face would curdle milk. He said, maybe some of her cosmetics would help. They had a good laugh at that. Until that moment, I thought Charlie was my friend.

  “But they payed for that laugh, didn’t they?” she continued. “Charlie was found out and sacked, thanks to me dropping hints to Dudley. Odette cried herself to sleep every night. Then the lady in black paid her a midnight visit. Destroyed her vanity and made off with a few choice bits. I kept them in the Cavalier Room until Bobby bled on them.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t just wipe it off,” Ben said, hearing the censure in his voice despite his best efforts not to judge. “But Mr. Collins threw them into the fire along with Bobby’s clothes and the rug.”

  “Yes. Good of the pompous old arse, wasn’t it? I was in a state. That’s why I didn’t just wipe the blood off, Dr. Bones.,” Mrs. Grundy said. “I was too elated to think straight. I bundled all the incriminating bits in a rug and buried it in the garden. Not very deep, given the hard frosts, so Collins found it later. He decided to destroy it himself. I suppose he assumed Odette was guilty, and he was protecting the Park.”

  “Did you hate him and Kitty, too?” Ben asked. “Is that why you offered them up to Plymouth CID? So you could swan around a great house pretending to rule it while torturing the Maggarts?”

  She tried to sit up, but the handcuff stopped her. If it hadn’t, the deep gash in her leg would have done so. She paled as her movement jarred the wound but bit her lip rather than cry out.

  “All right. No more thrashing about. Let me have a look.” Ben lifted her skirt to check the dressing.

  “Does it give you a thrill?”

  “What? Seeing you’ve reopened it?” A fresh bloodstain marred the wrapped white gauze. Applying pressure to it, he continued, “Once I get it stopped, I’ll put on a fresh dressing. You’ll have to travel to Plymouth by ambulance. Don’t let the detectives force you to move about too much. I did my best, but you won’t be out of the woods until the wound is repaired by proper surgery.”

  “How heroic of you to save me, so the Crown may kill me in due course,” Mrs. Grundy said. Reaching up with her unfettered hand, she clasped his wrist. Startled, Ben took it for a moment of vulnerability. Then she tried to pull his hand off the wound and down to someplace else. He jerked away.

  “What are you doing?”

  “So it truly doesn’t give you a thrill. Me on my back with my skirt up,” Mrs. Grundy said bitterly. “Even though the disease hardly affec
ts me below the neck. Bobby knew that. Before this happened to my face, before he wed, he walked out with me, you know.”

  More of the pieces fell into place. “The furniture scheme came first, didn’t it?” Ben asked. “Lady Maggart arranged something with Bobby’s employer, then stepped back to let you oversee it. You and Bobby were thrown together by the scheme and started an affair. Did you expect him to divorce Helen for you?”

  “Of course. Even though it started in the gutter,” Mrs. Grundy said. “I wanted what every woman wants, and Bobby—Bobby was Bobby. I think the first time he was just having a laugh—me past forty, ugly, and a virgin. But I surprised him. Afterward, he came back once a week, and not for a laugh.”

  “But he didn’t take you seriously,” Ben said. “Not like Shelagh Trentham. He fell in love with her, so he asked Helen for a divorce. Is that why you killed him?”

  “Yes. I only wish I could have done it more than once. I dream about that rush of blood, you know. I dream about it and wake up smiling. He was so offhand as he told me. He said, ‘It’s all over, Nan, but you knew it had to end. I’m divorcing Helen and marrying the youngest Trentham girl. Hannah will open a proper pub soon. A share in it will be the making of me.’”

  The glint in her eyes was repulsive. Perhaps self-pity had driven her mad. Or the world’s assumptions had convinced her to claim the role of monster.

  A monster called Nan.

  “When you first questioned me, I was a little afraid,” she admitted. “I thought, because you were a physician, you’d see behind the mask. But you went right past me, didn’t you? You suspected Lady Maggart and Kitty. Betsy and Mrs. Tippett, too, for all I know. But not me. All you saw was the mask.”