“But that’s wonderful,” I enthused. Or was it? “You sound a little worried, Brigadier.” Did the police suspect him of doing in Miss Bunch for the sake of what sounded like a tidy inheritance?
“There is one small problem …”
“Yes.” I hoped he was not about to say anything that could possibly be construed as incriminating.
“Miss Bunch also bequeathed me her dog.”
“Oh, help!” I fixed my eyes on the statue of St. Francis of Assisi that occupied the niche above my head and implored this protector of four-legged creatures to bear in mind that I had acted in what I believed to be Heathcliff’s best interest. “You have discovered the dog is missing and are absolutely heartbroken, Brigadier.”
“Missing?” The voice on the other end of the phone brightened up considerably. “Are you sure? I’ve been wondering what to do with the animal, because I’ve never been one for pets—all that dog hair over my trousers, and I was wondering if you might like to have him—for the kiddies.”
“That’s very kind of you,” I said, “but Heathcliff is awfully big. And when he showed up here last night, like a great black thundercloud, I realized that were I to let him stay, I would have to get rid of most of the furniture and at least one of the children.”
“Turned up at your house, Mrs. Haskell?”
“Without so much as phoning first; but it’s all right, Brigadier Lester-Smith. I pried Gerta, our new au pair, out from his slathering jaws and palmed him off on Mr. Babcock, the milkman, this morning.”
“I don’t know how to thank you.” The heartfelt sigh that came through the receiver blew my hair all over my face, and I sensed that had the brigadier not been a bachelor of the old school, he would have expressed a desire to kiss me. “Would Mr. Babcock be the gentleman who married Sylvia from the Library League a week or so ago?”
“That’s him. And we had better keep our fingers crossed that he can love-talk his bride into keeping the woof-woof. I have to take them their wedding present, and when I do I’ll report back to you on how things are going.”
“That is most kind of you, Mrs. Haskell, so kind that I hesitate to ask another favour of you.” Brigadier Lester-Smith paused to gather up his courage. “I had a look over Miss Bunch’s house this morning and I did not feel that I could live in harmony with her choice of furnishing. Not that I imply any criticism, you understand that, Mrs. Haskell.”
“We all have our own taste.”
“Exactly!” He latched onto my statement as if I had said something intensely profound. “Being a man, I like simplicity and function. Furniture that makes sense. But at the same time I do realize that certain touches, not what you would call frilly, are needed to turn a house into a home. And I was wondering if you, Mrs. Haskell, would be willing to take a look at the house and provide me with some professional advice.”
My first client! If I had not been a respectably married woman I might have expressed a desire to kiss the brigadier the next time I was alone with him in the library reading room. “I will be delighted to help you in any way I can,” I said as my mind filled with visions of a navy-blue sofa piped in a rich burgundy—which colour might be repeated in the leather chairs and perhaps the wallpaper border.…
“This is good of you, Mrs. Haskell! You must be sure and charge me your usual fee.”
“Minus a friendly discount!”
“How very kind! Would tomorrow be too soon for you to take a look at the house? I need also to mention, Mrs. Haskell, that I talked to Sir Robert Pomeroy when I met him at the barber’s this morning, and we decided we should get all the members together for a special meeting of the Library League tomorrow afternoon at one o’clock. There is nothing in the bylaws to prohibit our assembling at a time other than our regularly scheduled meeting date, and Sir Robert and I thought the Library League should get started immediately on planning a memorial to Miss Bunch.”
“What a lovely idea.”
“Sir Robert came up with the suggestion of commissioning a bronze statue of our dear departed librarian to be placed at the front entrance.”
“You don’t think that a simple brass plaque might do nicely?” I asked. But not surprisingly, Brigadier Lester-Smith, having come into her money, was not prepared to screw the lady to the wall and be done with it.
“I imagine there’ll have to be some sort of fund-raiser,” he said. “We’ll talk about all that at the meeting tomorrow. And afterwards, perhaps you could take a look at the house on Mackerel Lane.”
It wasn’t until I had hung up the phone that I wondered if Miss Bunch had made the brigadier her heir because he always returned his library books on time.
Chapter
5
“A bronze statue of Miss Bunch!” The string mop in Mrs. Malloy’s hand did double duty as an exclamation point as she held it above her bucket in the kitchen. “What bright spark came up with that idea? Don’t tell me, Mrs. H.: It had to be a man! Common decency tells you it isn’t right to make a public spectacle of what was, as far as we know, a respectable woman. It’s a crying shame, that’s what it is—setting her up to be pooped on by birds and leered at by every passing Tom, Dick, and Harry.”
It was my feeling that Mrs. Malloy was jealous of any woman but herself being put on a pedestal, but all I said was, “She’ll be fully clothed, right down to her brogue or, rather, her bronze shoes. The Library League would never vote for a nude. We’re a very conservative group. I don’t think there’s one amongst us that reads poetry that doesn’t rhyme.”
“I wouldn’t call Bunty Wiseman straight-laced.” Mrs. Malloy planted her mop in the sink as if it were a tree with a lot of stringy roots, to be watered when she emptied the bucket. “You may have blocked it all out, Mrs. H., but I for one haven’t forgotten how Ms. Miniskirt brought Chitterton Fells to its knees when she was running Fully Female.”
Clearing away the remains of the three course lunch Gerta had fed the twins before taking them upstairs for their naps, I shuddered at Mrs. Malloy’s reminder of our enrollment in the health club from hell. Far from discovering my full physical and emotional potential as a sensual woman, I had felt lucky to get out alive. But Bunty had paid the highest price. By the time Fully Female’s doors closed, she had lost her husband, Lionel Wiseman (Miss Bunch’s solicitor), to a woman who got her exercise climbing into bed with other women’s husbands. The Hollywood-style Wiseman home was sold for a hotel. And Bunty was left with little but the leotard on her back. During the past year, she had gamely worked at a series of part-time jobs, but, as she pointed out, people weren’t queuing up to hire an ex-chorus girl turned failed businesswoman.
“Go on, Mrs. H., stick up for Bunty Wiseman.”
“She is a friend of mine.” I put the Beatrix Potter crockery in the sink as Mrs. Malloy stowed the bucket and mop in the broom cupboard. “And she’s been a great new recruit for the Library League; in fact, I am hoping she will take over as secretary when my term is up.”
“Proper back-breaking work.”
“I’ll have you know that last month I sent out at least two get well cards to former league members, as well as purchasing and gift-wrapping Sylvia Babcock’s wedding present, which I shall personally deliver.”
“And now I suppose you’ll be on the phone day and night, begging people to pitch in by crocheting doilies and what have you for this fund-raiser for Miss Bunch’s memorial.” Mrs. Malloy helped herself to some of the stew Gerta had left on the cooker and teetered on her six-inch heels over to the table. There she further vented her feelings with the pepper pot before picking up her knife and fork.
“I don’t think we’ll have another bring-and-buy sale,” I conceded. “The last one the Library League put on was not a roaring success. If I remember rightly, we raised only five pounds.”
“And the only reason there was that much”—Mrs. M. polished off her plate with a piece of bread to save on the washing up—“was that you went crackers and bought that pair of tin swords and the tw
o whacking big sieves with the leather handles.”
“They were fencing guards, but you’re right, they did resemble the medieval equivalent of a colander. Ben was quite chuffed until he realized his mistake. But I certainly don’t think I overpaid. The foils and the guards came from Pomeroy Manor and no doubt figured in some very romantic swashbuckling.”
While putting away the children’s dishes, I pictured one of Sir Robert’s ancestors—a handsome wastrel in form-fitting breeches and gleaming Hessian boots—tossing a foil to a muslin-clad miss with golden ringlets, and exclaiming, “En garde, my dear Arabella, time for a little foreplay!”
Trust Mrs. Malloy to break the mood. Getting to her feet, she said, “If you ask me, Mrs. H., you’ll save yourself and the rest of the Library League a lot of bloomin’ aggravation if you pick up one of those life-size inflatable dolls from a dirty-joke shop. I’m sure as how Bunty Wiseman can tell you where to go. Then you spray the dolly Lolita with bronze paint, and Bob’s your uncle, you’ve got your statue of Miss Bunch.”
“I hardly think that would be suitable,” I was saying, when the garden door opened and my husband, of all impossible people, walked into the kitchen. Ben never came home at lunchtime. But there he was, looking far too real, with his tie loosened and his suit jacket unbuttoned, to be a figment of my overwrought imagination.
“Men!” Mrs. Malloy eyed him darkly as he walked brazenly across her newly washed floor. “I could have told you, Mrs. H., you was making a horrible mistake bringing that Swiss temptress into this house. She may be old enough to be his mother, but she’s a new broom when all is said and done. The next thing we’ll know, she’ll be tying the master here to the bedpost with those braids of hers, and the two of them will be yodeling their heads off.”
“You have an incorrigibly evil mind, Mrs. Malloy.” Ben’s scowl was at odds with the smile he gave her. “You’ve never forgiven me for resisting your attempts to lure me into the pantry while my wife’s back was turned. And you’re jealous because I’ve come home in the middle of the day to spirit Ellie away in the car parked, for a fast getaway, within inches of the door. Come, my darling!” He held out his hands.
“Who, me?” I glanced wildly around the kitchen as if expecting another Ellie Haskell to step forward into the limelight, coquettishly twirling her dishcloth.
“I’m taking you out for lunch.” Ben crossed the room in two strides and, placing a husbandly arm around my shoulders, propelled me towards the garden door, which Mrs. Malloy with a poor attempt at servility was holding open.
“But I can’t—” I resisted my husband’s attempt to kidnap me by trying to duck under his elbow. “I can’t leave without saying good-bye to Abbey and Tam—”
“Oh, go on with you.” Mrs. Malloy shook her black-and-white head in disgust. “You’ll be back before they’re up from their naps. And with Mistress Gerta goo-gooing all over them, they probably wouldn’t miss you anyway.”
“She made all that stew and her feelings may be hurt if we go out for a meal …”
“And your insides may suffer if you eat what’s in that saucepan. I was hungry, so I didn’t let the taste put me off. But”—she pressed a hand to her stomach—“I’m beginning to think I made a mistake not fixing meself a sandwich. And it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if that husband of hers called the marriage quits because he couldn’t take another bout of indigestion, not because he found out he preferred men.”
“But I don’t have my handbag,” I fretted as Ben marched me down the steps into the courtyard.
“You won’t need it.”
“And I’m not wearing restaurant shoes.”
“We’re not going to Abigail’s.”
“No?” My feet had to skip in order to keep up with his as we crossed the moat bridge.
“We’re going on a picnic, Ellie; doesn’t that sound romantic?”
In theory, yes! In theory, a picnic takes place on the one perfect day of the English year. What clouds do appear in the limpid blue sky are light and airy as shuttlecocks being playfully batted about by the warm breeze, while a big orange sun beams its approval. This, however, was most definitely not that day of days. The wind that unravelled my hair and attempted to choke me with it was chilly in the extreme. And every breath I took tasted of rain. The trees had been flattened into giant badminton rackets that flung the birds into the air and sent them pinging to the end of the garden and back again. My attempt at a smile was literally whipped off my face as we stepped onto the gravel drive, where the car sat huddled in shivering discomfort. Poor thing! It was old and had for years been subject to every infirmity known to anything on four wheels.
“Your chariot awaits, my lady!” Ben opened the door with a flourish and stood with unabated enjoyment as the wind ran its fingers with wild abandon through his black hair and I slithered onto the passenger seat. “Are we having fun yet?” he inquired.
It was ridiculous to ascribe a diabolical gleam to his blue-green eyes and a sinister spring to his gait as he nipped around the car and climbed into the driver’s seat. And it was wrong of me to hope that the engine would gasp its last breath and the headlights roll back into their sockets.
“Don’t you think we should bring Abbey and Tam?” I ventured. “They’d have so much fun on a picnic.” Whilst I would have a chance of keeping warm chasing after them as they escaped from the travelling rug spread out on the damp grass.
“We can bring the twins another time.” Ben stared at me, dumbfounded. “Ellie, what is the matter with you? I thought you would be pleased that I abandoned work at lunchtime, one of my busiest times of the day, to spend quality time with you.”
“Oh, darling, I am pleased.” I reached over to kiss him on the cheek. “It’s just that I feel a little guilty, despite what Mrs. Malloy said, about walking out of the house when Gerta has gone to such a lot of trouble cooking that stew.”
“We can eat it for dinner.” Ben, whose preference is to serve beef in slices so rare a vet might have some hope of reviving the poor cow, did not look enthusiastic.
“Of course we can.” I squeezed his knee. “The only other thing holding me back from fully getting into the spirit of your picnic is that I do have to go along to the vicarage this afternoon to give Eudora some advice on redecorating.”
“Then I’ll drop you off there on the way back. Any other problems we haven’t discussed?” Ben started up the car without any of the doors flying off and buzzed down the drive, through the gates. Before I could finish buckling my seat belt, we were out on the Cliff Road, heading in the direction of the village. “You weren’t expecting a gentleman friend, Ellie, when I turned up to ruin everything?”
“Of course not. You are the only man in my life and always have been,” I assured him.
This was not strictly true. There had been the Marquise of Marshington, the Duke of Darrow, any number of earls and a handful of viscounts, along with all the Sir Somebodies. And I wasn’t ashamed of my past. These men had been there, in my single days, to rescue me from the lonely bed-sitter and the tin of sardines I was doomed to share with my cat Tobias. They had escorted me to Bath assemblies and masquerade balls attended by the Prince Regent and to picnics where the sun always shone and the blue of the sky was as pure as a virgin’s heart. Would it have been fair, would it have been moral to send these gallants packing when Ben appeared, somewhat belatedly, on the scene?
My husband smiled at me, apparently taking my silence as a sign that I was enjoying the view from the car window. And I tried, really I did, to appreciate the cackling of the wind as it shoved us off the narrow road and tried to send us over the cliff’s edge to somersault down onto the murderous crags below. As we turned a corner I caught a glimpse of the sea, frothing and foaming, as if smacking its lips at the prospect of devouring us, car and all, at a gulp.
We drove a couple of miles and shortly before reaching the village turned onto a winding lane that was fringed on either side by the sort of thickets that would be a highwa
yman’s dream. We were practically alongside the house before I saw it. It was a wonderfully macabre old place, with a secretive look to its long, narrow windows. And I was utterly enchanted until I noticed the multitude of chimneys and read the lettering on the ramshackle gate.
“Good heavens!” I grabbed Ben’s arm so tightly that the car swerved—clipping off a sizable chunk of the hedge which stood badly in need of such pruning. “That’s Tall Chimneys, the one-time abode of Hector Rigglesworth.”
“Who?” Ben backed the car up and proceeded on down the lane without giving me further time to gawk.
“The man who haunts the library, the ghost who, in the opinion of Brigadier Lester-Smith, frightened Miss Bunch to death.”
“I thought she died from a virus.”
“So she did, but in this case one can read between the lines of the autopsy report. A malevolent force was at work and his name was Hector Rigglesworth.” I shuddered. Ben had drawn the car to a standstill beside a stretch of grass ringed by trees and with a solitary beech tree standing patiently in the middle, like a gnarled old butler awaiting his instructions.
“Here we are, sweetheart.” Ben exited the car with lithe grace and went round to the boot to collect the picnic basket. Rejoining me as I stepped from the road onto the grass, he asked, “What do you think?”
“It’s rather …” I was going to say drafty, but as such tends to be a condition of the outdoors, I belatedly remembered to be enthusiastic. “It is rather lovely. And how odd to think that in all the time I have lived at Merlin’s Court, I have never been down this lane.”
Following Ben towards the beech tree, I glanced over my shoulder. I could see a chimney and what was probably an attic window of Hector Rigglesworth’s house. Was I imagining it, or was that a face pressed against the pane? Endeavouring to shake off the unease that gripped me, I struggled to focus on the delights of the moment.
How to Murder the Man of Your Dreams Page 7
