Mrs. Donald Condrycke would get her lawyer, of course, because she was quite right about the honor of Graylings, and Lawrence would have briefed the top man in any case. She might even get a jury to swallow her story. The policewoman had allowed her prisoner to change into traveling clothes. Babs looked so elegant in her mink coat and hat that Rhys thought it entirely possible she could breeze through to an acquittal on sheer force of personality. A few years from now she might be entertaining dinner parties with an amusing account of her ridiculous misunderstanding with the RCMP. Then again she mightn’t.
Madoc and his Jenny had at last managed to escape from Fredericton headquarters, all notes typed up, all depositions filed, all evidence tagged, all jokes about matrimony from envious colleagues patiently borne. They’d retrieved his unglamorous car from the parking lot where he’d left it when they’d set off on that fateful ride in the helicopter, put in the battery his kind fellow officers had been keeping warm for him back at the shop, and got started easily enough.
As he turned out of the lot, Janet remarked, “Well, Val wanted to be on television.”
Madoc nodded. “I expect Miss Val will get her innings on the news tonight, but let’s forget her and the whole blasted business for the moment. Jenny, I’m scared to ask this, but I have to. Now that you’ve found out what sort of thing you’d be getting yourself in for, do you still want to marry me?”
To his astonishment, Janet burst out laughing. “Want to? Madoc, you darling idiot, there’s no way I could get out of it. Can’t you imagine the talk there’ll be in Pitcherville tonight? They all know I’ve been at Graylings with you. The party line will be blazing hot five seconds after the news comes on. I only wish we could manage the wedding right this instant, while I may just possibly still have a few shreds of reputation left.”
“Let’s see. We might have ourselves dropped by parachute to a ship in midocean and get the captain to oblige. That does seem a bit complicated. Besides, I’d hate to have you too seasick to say I do. You do, Jenny darling, don’t you? I mean, Pitcherville notwithstanding?”
Janet managed with no trouble at all to convince him that she really, truly, honest-to-goodness did. Madoc then had the bright idea of hunting up the police chaplain with results eminently satisfactory to himself, Janet, the chaplain who was flattered to be asked, and the chaplain’s wife who thought they made a lovely couple and wouldn’t they stay for Christmas high tea?
They said thanks but they wouldn’t. By then both were half-starved and wholly exhausted, but what they needed more than food or rest was a chance to be alone together. Madoc’s drab little bachelor apartment didn’t promise anything more than a packet of tea, a few stale buns, and a lumpy single bed; but it was a place to go, so they went.
“I’d carry you over the threshold, Jenny love, but I’ll have to park the suitcases first.”
“Never mind me. After what you’ve been through, you’ll do well to carry yourself.”
“Oh, I’m not all that worn out.”
Madoc made rather a business of helping Janet out of her jacket. She was warm, she was sweet, she was his. She was still wearing her thermal underwear. After a long, long, time he said huskily, “Jenny, what do you want to do now?”
Janet’s own voice was none too firm, but she had her answer ready.
“Darling, remember last night when we got dressed up for the mumming? I said I didn’t know what I was supposed to represent, and you said I was your Christmas present?”
He kissed the tip of her nose, his dark eyes now far from wistful. “Yes love, I remember. And so?”
“Well, my goodness,” she whispered. “It’s Christmas, isn’t it? Aren’t you going to unwrap your present?”
Acknowledgements
The author is indebted to Stuart Trueman for information about the Phantom Ship of Bay Chaleur, to Chief M. T. Quigley of the Dalhousie Police Department for his kind assistance, and to A. Martin Winchester for his helpful comments.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1981 by Alisa Craig
cover design by Mauricio Diaz
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Murder Goes Mumming Page 18
