As instructed, Mr. Wiseman and Miss Thorn sat, champagne glasses in hand, on the white sofa with the huge throw pillows, while Bunty held the floor. Lifting a lily-white hand, she trilled sweetly, “The scrapbooks of all our lives are filled with the memories of cherished events, special to us as individuals, and so, Gladys Thorn, on this auspicious occasion when you announce your engagement to my husband and to the world … I bring you a voice from your past because Miss Thorn: This Is Your Life!”
“Oooohhhh!” The gasp rippled round the room, while the lady of moment covered her gaping mouth with a hand on which sparkled the most enormous diamond I had ever seen. The flash made me feel quite giddy, and all at once I was overcome by an overpowering sense of doom. I wanted to shout at Bunty to stop this madness before it was too late. I wanted to dash from that room with all its false brightness and go burrowing home to Ben and the twins. But I couldn’t move a muscle, for I was hemmed in by Moll Bludgett, Jacqueline Diamond, the Spikes, and my stupid sense of decorum. Then between one breath and the next it was too late.
A sepulchral voice was emoting from the mirrored screen. “Hugs and kisses, dear Miss Thorn. Remember me, my sugar cube?”
“I don’t think I recognize …”
“Surely, O sweet delight, you recall how you danced naked in the wooded night, my nymph … omaniac.” Death-rattle laughter. “Or do I ask too much, considering I am but one of a hundred husbands you have lured into your sticky web, thou Spider Woman.”
Not a chair creaked, not an eyelash quivered, until the spell was broken by Lionel Wiseman rising to his feet in a rush that transformed him into an avenger twice his size. Thank God he was going to put a stop to this obscenity. Miss Thorn might not be a lady in the strictest sense of the word, but no one deserved to be subjected to such fiendish cruelty … except perhaps the woman who might make off with Bentley T. Haskell.
But before Lionel Wiseman could find his voice, I received the shock of the evening, if not a lifetime. The mirrored screen swayed, then steadied itself. And out stepped my cousin Freddy.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Wiseman, but I can’t go through with this! When you spoke with me this morning on the telephone, I told myself that an actor must take the parts that come his way, but I find I cannot use people’s lives as stepping stones on the path to stardom.”
“A little late to turn high-minded!” Heading over to him, I would have hurled champagne in his face, but for the fact my glass was empty.
“No talent scouts here, by any chance?” My cousin produced a grin that did nothing to calm me down. The room was in an uproar, or rather Bunty was making enough noise for the whole room. She had gone completely to pieces, pounding her fists against her husband’s chest, then clawing them free of his grasp to tear at his hair, while off to their side stood Miss Thorn, her eyes mushrooming behind her spectacles.
“How can you leave me for that knock-kneed trollop?” Bunty screeched. “I tried to be everything you wanted. I blistered my lips reciting How Now Brown Cow so I could talk proper. Everywhere I turned, the world was telling me that to be a fulfilled woman I had to be a working woman. You told me, Li, you wanted me to be a contributing member of society, and look where all this got me. I taught other women how to hold on to their husbands, making life tough for the likes of Gladys Thorn.” Sobbing, Bunty staggered backwards. “Did I put the wind up you, Gladys, old girl? Did I make you see you might be better off with a husband of your own than continuing to borrow them like books from the library?”
Miss Thorn didn’t answer. She just stood there clutching her abdomen, and the next moment the question of response was moot. Bunty whirled about and made a beeline for the hall. Seconds later the front door opened and slammed shut behind her. Talk about ending a party with a bang. With hardly a word being spoken, the women began gathering up their handbags and the men, including Freddy, headed off to collect coats. As for Lionel Wiseman and his fiancée, my last glimpse was them standing by the coffee table lost in each other’s arms.
“How are you feeling, my dove?”
“Not too bad.” She crushed his hand to her lips. “Of course this sort of upset is disastrous for my digestive system, but the path to true love is paved with milk of magnesia.”
“My own brave darling!”
“Tomorrow is another day, and with Bunty gone we can think about redecorating this room.” The mushroom eyes strayed around the white-on-white perfection. “What do you think of the boudoir look, lots of black satin and chartreuse lace?”
Terrified that Miss Thorn would catch sight of me and ask me to assist in the renovations, I scuttled out into the hall. There I caught sight of Mrs. Malloy peering around the corner of the kitchen.
“What’s all the argy-bargy?” She went back to stirring a glass of what I gathered, from the container standing on the counter, was Fully Female Formula.
“Bunty walked out.”
“What? Abandoned ship?” The expression was made for the galley-style kitchen, which like the rest of the house was white as a seaman’s uniform. Indeed, it was so compact that when Mrs. Malloy set down her glass and stood with her hands on her hips, her elbows touched the walls on either side.
“She has me worried,” I confessed.
“Bloody hell! You think she might do herself in?”
“That or something equally disastrous.”
“There’s a tide in the life of man”—Mrs. Malloy wiped her hands on her cranberry apron—“that’s naught but fuss and foam.”
“Probably,” I said. “But I think I’ll drive around and look for Bunty.”
“You do that,” she said as she set a couple of wineglasses to bob in the sink, “and after you don’t find her, perhaps you would be kind enough to come back and give me a lift home. You know me, Mrs. H, I’m not one to ask for favours, but one of these days you’ll treasure our moments together.”
Touched to the core, I went to give her a hug, but the moment was not propitious. Mrs. Malloy discovered that her Fully Female Formula had set solid.
“Now look what you’ve made me do!”
“I’ll mix you another.”
“Don’t put yourself out, Mrs. H.” With a long-suffering sigh, she plopped the glass in the sink. “Don’t ask me why, but I’m right off the stuff.”
My good intentions met with dismal failure. After driving around in circles for who knows how long, I nipped into the Dark Horse and checked out both the saloon and the public bar, but saw no sign of Bunty drowning her sorrows with a lager and lime. Why, oh, why had I even thought about drowning? I could comb miles of beach without finding a pathetic pile of clothes or spying something that might be a buoy—or a body—bobbing upon the horizon. In the end, I drove up Cliff Road to the place where Dr. Melrose had planned to unburden himself of poor Flo. But there was no sign of Bunty’s car. Swamped by a feeling of hopelessness, I turned tail lights about and drove back to the Wiseman house. Were its days as the headquarters of Fully Female over?
Walking up the marble steps to the front door, I prayed Bunty was home safe and sound. Before I could ring the bell, Mrs. Malloy, buttoned up in her fur coat, a feather hat perched on her head, opened up for me.
“No luck?” She pulled on her gloves.
I shook my head.
“Well, you did what you could. And just after you left, Mr. Wiseman went out looking for her.”
“What about Miss Thorn?”
“Taken over as Lady of the Manor from the looks of things.” Mrs. Malloy sniffed. “Went poking into the kitchen and then disappeared down the hall. What do you think, Mrs. H? Should I go up and tell her I’m leaving?”
“Well …”
“There is the little matter of payment.”
“In that case …” I stepped over the threshold and the next thing I knew I was following Mrs. Malloy down the corridor to the master bedroom, where earlier I had left my coat.
“Miss Thorn?” Mrs. Malloy beat a tattoo on the door.
No answer.
“Probably asleep,” I offered. I was all for making a quick exit, but my companion had other ideas.
“If it’s all the same with you, Mrs. H, I’d like to find her so I can get my money.” So saying she opened up the door … and promptly fell back into my arms.
Miss Thorn was lying on the bed, wrapped in a transparent plastic wrap toga, with a cherry in her navel. Even more shocking than her night attire was the fact that she wasn’t wearing her specs, giving her an obscenely naked, glassy-eyed stare that looked right through me to the doorway … of eternity.
“She’s dead!” Choking on tears and eau de toilette, I stumbled away from the bed, with its cupids and tulle canopy.
“And whose bloody fault is that?” Mrs. Malloy flashed back.
“No one’s, I hope.”
“Let anyone point the finger at me—”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” I pushed her down onto the bedside chair and wished I could strap her in the way I did the babies. How could she rant on in this silly way when we had no reason, other than Bunty’s threats, to suspect that Miss Thorn was the victim of foul play? That the deceased had been in fine fettle merely an hour ago meant nothing. Neither was her mode of undress evidence one way or the other. Any of us can have a heart attack any time, especially when we are subjected to the stress of too many men wanting first dibs on our bodies.
“Lord save us, she looks ’orrible!” Mrs. Malloy chomped down on a knuckle.
Uncharitable, but undeniably true. There was a snarl to Miss Thorn’s lips and a bulge to her eyes that suggested she had told the Grim Reaper what he could do to himself. To be fair, the bedroom did not set the scene for heavenly harps and celestial voices humming in the background. The white-on-white, stark modernism that pervaded the rest of the house had not set foot in here, probably because Bunty had not permitted an interior designer through the door, choosing instead to model the place on her old chorus girl dressing room. Flounces and fripperies were everywhere. But most horrible of all was the flash of mirrors parading around the walls and across the ceiling, so that everywhere I looked, the deathbed scene was blazed before my eyes like scenes from St. Anselm’s stained-glass windows. No wonder Mrs. Malloy was clutching her head and saying she didn’t feel well.
“Why don’t you go back to the living room and lie down,” I suggested.
“What, leave you here on your own, Mrs. H?”
“Oh, go on with you,” I said as I herded her out the door. “She won’t bite, will she?”
Bravely spoken, but the moment I was alone with Miss Thorn, a chill enveloped my bones like a shroud. Those teeth looked ready to chew off a couple of fingers if I moved a hand in her direction. And the bulging eyes promised another kind of vengeance; they would haunt my dreams for many nights to come.
“Look”—I sidled around the bed on my way to the telephone—“I don’t blame you for being thoroughly cheesed off, but please don’t look daggers at me.”
Amazing how the sound of my voice breathed life not only into the room, but into the body of Miss Thorn. I don’t mean she returned from the dead with the aplomb Flo Melrose had shown the previous night. But talking to her dignified her personhood.
“Excuse me.” I picked up the phone and dialled Dr. Melrose’s number. Force of habit. It never occurred to me to waste time asking the operator for the number of the Cottage Hospital’s emergency room.
“Dr. Melrose, this is Ellie Haskell.”
“Yes?” I could almost hear the alarm bells going off around his head before he converted them into a hearty laugh. “Flo’s fine, as you must have seen yourself this evening at the Wisemans’ aborted party.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” I snapped. “This isn’t about blackmail; it’s about Miss Gladys Thorn.”
“Splendid!”
“She’s dead!”
“Super!”
Words failed me. But presumably my shocked breathing brought Dr. Melrose out of his euphoria at realizing that all he was being asked to do was pay a house call. After telling him I was phoning from the Wisemans’ home, I hung up and returned to the bedside to keep the late Miss Thorn company.
“The doctor will be here in a few moments,” I soothed. Enough said; I could have busied myself praying, but typical of yours truly in times of stress, I went babbling away like a mindless brook. “Miss Thorn, I haven’t always harboured the kindest thoughts toward you, not so much because I disapproved of your amorous lifestyle, but because I viewed you as a figure of fun. And a person of my insecurities and physical shortcomings should have known better. Tell me, Miss Thorn”—I smoothed the sheet, well aware those vile cupids were smirking at me from the headboard—“did you decide to revenge yourself upon all womankind by proving that sexiness is more than skin deep?”
Voices out in the hall. A scurry of footsteps. Opening the bedroom door I fully expected to see Dr. Melrose. Instead, I found myself face to face with the missing blonde in red satin. Welcome home, madam.
“Ellie!” Bunty’s hair stood all on end as if it had been pulled through one of those bleaching caps with the tiny little holes. And her eyes were equally wild. “What’s bloomin’ going on? Has Mrs. Malloy been at the booze?”
“Not as far as I know.”
“Then why’s she talking rubbish?”
“Bunty!” I stood blocking the view to the bed, while the pillar of Fully Female sagged against the doorway as if her legs had turned to rubble. Not much doubt as to who had been at the bottle. “I know it’s an awful shock, but Gladys Thorn is dead.” I put out a hand to touch Bunty, then lowered it. As a child, I had found the pressure of anyone’s touch unbearable when I fell down and scraped my knees. And when I was in labour, even the weight of Ben’s breath on my face had been too much. Every ounce of energy had to be directed toward the pain.
“I don’t believe you!”
Before I could say “Look for yourself,” poor Bunty did just that. She staggered and would have collapsed facedown on the corpse if I had not corralled her under the armpits.
“Bloomin’ heck, Ellie! They’ll say I murdered her.”
“Nonsense.” I bundled her down on the same chair upon which I had positioned Mrs. Malloy earlier. “She died of natural causes.”
“Are you a bigger sap than you look, or what?” Her shriek sent me hurtling halfway across the room. “Natural causes are never this convenient. I threatened to kill her and she’s dead. Does that sound like a heart attack to you?”
“Life is known for its coincidences,” I babbled.
“Oh, talk sense!”
“Bunty, you have to get a hold of yourself. Dr. Melrose is on his way.” Tiptoeing up to her, I smoothed down the haywire blonde hair, and after a few moments her breathing evened out.
“Where’s Li?” she said meekly.
“Mrs. Malloy said he went looking for you.”
“Hell’s bells, Ellie!” Tears rained down from the heavenly blue of her eyes. “Li will hate me for this. He’ll never believe I didn’t murder her. But you believe me …” She grabbed hold of my hand, crushing my fingers. “You think me innocent, don’t you, sugar?”
“Yes, Bunty.” The words were propelled by compassion not conviction, but the moment they were out there in the open I knew I meant them. Murder had been committed, that I didn’t doubt, but the culprit wasn’t the wronged wife. Bunty was the hands-on type. I could picture her in a white-hot rage pushing Miss Thorn down a flight of stairs or cracking her over the head with a bronze candlestick, but I couldn’t imagine her slipping a deadly compound into the woman’s champagne glass. And if we were indeed looking for a poisoner—which seemed a possibility considering the absence of a bullet hole in the middle of the deceased’s sallow forehead or a dagger protruding from her sunken chest—did I have to look any further than last night? If a human agent were responsible for Tobias’s near-death experience, wasn’t that person the most likely murderer of Gladys Thorn?
Shivering, Bunty stood up. “By golly,
I’m cold, so imagine how she must be feeling!”
We were both staring at the bed when the door opened and in walked Dr. Melrose, little black bag in hand and a furrow to his brow. He waved us out of the way, setting the tone for the brisk examination of the corpse delectable that followed. Not a word was said about her plastic wrap or the cherry in her navel.
Bunty was the one who spouted off on that subject. “Bloomin’ cheek really! She stole the idea for that getup from my manual to use on my husband.… But what the hell, so long as they were happy in each other’s arms, I had no complaints. I’m in the business of spreading love, not hogging it for myself.”
Dr. Melrose eyed her with dislike verging on hatred. If he could slip the noose around her neck and yank it tight, I had no doubt he would do so with alacrity. To have the head of Fully Female at his mercy must be sweet revenge indeed for all he had suffered as a result of his wife’s passionate quest for sexual awareness.
“Have you phoned the police?”
“Not yet,” Bunty and I stammered in unison.
“Then I will do so!” Laying Miss Thorn’s hand down on the bedspread, Dr. Melrose stood up. Was he smiling? Or was it the light from the overhead bulb flickering over his face that created the illusion of a puckish lift to the narrow lips? He was heading for the telephone when Bunty dodged around him, picked it up, and held it behind her back.
“Wait!” She stood there like a child at bay, her face framed by tufts of angelic blonde hair. “Why all this fuss about one middle-aged woman who dies in her sleep? Why can’t you just write out the death certificate and—”
“Mrs. Wiseman!” Dr. Melrose clicked his black bag shut and came at her, holding out his hand. “Please hand over that phone,” he said sternly. “You are obstructing me in the fulfillment of my Hippocratic duty.”
“She’s upset!” I bleated.
“Understandably so.”
“Then you do think—”
“My suspicions, Mrs. Haskell, must await the results of the autopsy.” Plain speaking from a plain man. It was unjust of me to think of Dr. Melrose as the enemy. He had always treated me well and was now doing his job as queen and country would have him do it.
Femmes Fatal Page 21
