Mum's the Word

by Dorothy Cannell

  She who hesitates … Ernestine was babbling an excuse in which PMS figured strongly.

  “Is she talking about post mortem shock?” Pepys quavered.

  Silence stretched to breaking point. Then Jeffries let rip a scream, almost taking the ceiling off, and the door flung open wide. Sheriff Tom Dougherty filled the entrance, gun at the ready, eyes smoking. “Heavens to Betsy, what’s going on here?”

  I really must get busy with my postcards and send one off to Dorcas and Jonas saying, Having a wonderful time. Wish you were here.

  Amazing how a police inquiry can bring people together! Even Pepys and Jeffries managed to look as though they had been serving our little clan for years, and loving every minute of it. Sheriff Tom asked all the anticipated questions—names, addresses, whereabouts at the time of the explosion. I expected him to probe into my encounter with Theola Faith. I wanted to know if he had spoken with her and if so how she was, but he doubled back to the Mangé Society.

  “A secret cooking society!” Patting his broad tum, he smiled guilelessly. “Now that sounds mighty interesting.”

  “We think so,” Valicia X responded curtly. She had not taken kindly to his insistence on having her last name, or the way his pouchy cheeks had filled with a smile when she handed it over on a folded piece of paper.

  Jeffries, throwing servility to the winds, perched on the sofa arm. “For your info, we’re an ancient and venerable institution. And woe to those who meddle with us. Last year we wrote a very strong letter to Gluttonfest Magazine denouncing their continued use of the glacé cherry.”

  Bingo sat Buddha-style on the heartrug. His derisive smirk didn’t reach his eyes.

  Pepys pulled out his pocket watch, shook it, held it to his ear and cackled, “Time for my break.” Hobbling to the window bay he laid himself out, hands folded on his chest. His bald head shone like an Edam cheese; from where I sat I could see his lids cracked open to yellow slits.

  Ah, timing! He was about to be upstaged. The air was rent with the rush of wings and a pigeon slam-dunked atop the urn on the mantelpiece, the one positioned under the portrait of the Cat Cadaver. Head cocked, beady eye intent, the bird urged the sheriff to proceed.

  “Howdy doodee, big fella! Now haven’t I always said Mendenhall’s a charmer! Can’t say as how I blame Miss Mary Faith for staking her claim.” Brushing against a whatnot table Sheriff Tom caught it before it went over. “Imagine you were happy as catfish on Christmas Day when she offered this place for your meeting?”

  “We were pleased.” Valicia X resettled in her chair and crossed her golden legs.

  “Sure couldn’t find many a place more isolated.”

  “You’re darn tootin’.” Jeffries winked.

  Sheriff Tom moved up closer to her. “You think Mary Faith was showing appreciation to you and Mr. Pepys for your years of faithful service to her ma?”

  Jeffries’ jeer sent the pigeon sailing up in the air to land on a crimson lampshade. “You put that thought right back in your pocket, mister. Ms. Mary never did nothing to suit no one but herself. She met one of our members at some cocktail party and jumped three foot in the air at the chance of filling the house with people. Wanted to look like she had friends.”

  I couldn’t look at her. I couldn’t look at Ben. I was afraid I might start crying. Poor Mary! What misfortunes having a bad mother had brought her!

  The sheriff’s eyes roved the room. “Word around town was as how there were more of you.”

  “Six of our number have departed,” supplied Marjorie Rumpson.

  “Not including Mary Faith.” That was Bingo.

  “Sheriff Dougherty,” Ernestine said, clutching her beads, “I ask your kind permission to remove my boy. You see how pale he looks!”

  Valicia X rose from her chair. Face flushed a dusky rose, hair frothing about her shoulders, she stood with arms folded, fingers tapping. “Bingo Hoffman—like the rest of us—is hungry. Sheriff, you do understand the explosion occurred just as we were about to dine?”

  A heavy sigh. “This is a small town, ma’am. We do our thinking slow, but we get there.”

  No one took the Mangé boss lady down a peg in the presence of Bentley T. Haskell. His black brows became one long slash mark; however, he did remain sufficiently in command of himself to press my shoulder. “Sir, surely the person to be put under the microscope is the victim’s mother.”

  “Now which one are you—the boy wonder or the one who makes love potions?” The sheriff’s smile was cozy, but he didn’t give Ben a chance to answer. “I may be a bit of a backwoodsman but, cross my heart, I know enough to talk alleged victim till we’ve finished dragging the river and come up with a body.”

  Thank God I wasn’t facing the window. Gripping the arms of my chair, I said, “Sheriff Dougherty, does Theola Faith know?”

  He cleared his throat. “Went round to her place and Laverne Gibbons came to the door—said Ms. Faith was in bed, not well. Won’t harm to wait until there is something to tell.”

  “Tell!” Ernestine grabbed Bingo’s plump hand and hauled him over to be rocked in her arms. “That monster doesn’t need to be told! For crying out loud, she knows her daughter’s dead! Mary Faith was living in terror. She said so on TV! And again to Ellie, here, and me yesterday. What more do you need—a signed confession?”

  Pepys, still lying flat out on the window seat, croaked a “Hear! Hear!”

  “How can you?” I marched over to him, strongly tempted to draw the curtains shut.

  “Ain’t easy!” Jeffries hopped up and down. “He ain’t saying Miss Theola hasn’t treated him and me decent—when she’s sober. But our first loyalty is to the Mangé Society. Or would it suit you better, Ms. Goody Gum Drops, to have our dandy sheriff here suspect one of us?”

  “Why not?” I heard someone cry, and that someone was me. “We all had opportunity, and there have been some very strange goings-on here.”

  All my gothic fantasies fulfilled. Trapped in a gloomy bedchamber, while wind and rain hurled themselves against the window panes; and the black-browed stranger hurled insults upon my head.

  “My God, Ellie!” Ben threw himself back on the bed and beat his forehead with his clenched fists. “Admit to temporary insanity, and I may be able to understand.”

  He had been this way for hours. I kept expecting him to wind down, but he was like a hurdy-gurdy going round and round—dum-de-dum-dum—so that even when he paused for breath the sound went on inside my head.

  “For the hundredth time”—I rocked back and forth in a chair that wasn’t a rocker—“I was in full possession of my faculties when I pointed out to the sheriff that he might not be looking at an open-and-shut case.”

  “I’m not surprised to see you left the meal Jeffries brought up untouched,” he said nastily.

  My hand went to my throat. “You think the ragout may have been poisoned?”

  “Good grief, no! I’m talking about guilt, Ellie.”

  “Thank you. I was beginning to lose the thread of this conversation. At the risk of one of us repeating ourselves, I will state, for the record, I am not sorry for suggesting that anyone of the Mangé contingent could have blown up the boat. The sheriff isn’t a fool! And the only person I pointed the finger at directly was myself. Remember! I stressed that I had been behaving strangely! Rowing over to Mud Creek! Having my hair done in a wild new style! Did I not own up to the grotesque cravings which led me to gate crash the bowling banquet?”

  Ben rammed a pillow between him and the headboard. “I suppose I should be grateful, Ellie!”

  “Think nothing of it. Lucky you’re not handy. How could I convince anyone that you’d blow up a boat, when I know you need an electrician to replace light bulbs?”

  “All your charming forthrightness accomplished was to force everyone else to come out with some reason why they too might be guilty. Rather than look like a member of the Theola Faith lynching party.”

  I stopped rocking and ground my chair round to fa
ce him. Tears stung my eyes. “Ben, I was proud of Miss Rumpson when she volunteered the information that she had always lived by water and knows boats. Such a love! She certainly went beyond the call of duty in reminding me that she had mentioned her conviction that putting a person to sleep can be a noble and loving act.”

  “The sheriff must have thought us all a bunch of loonies. Especially when Bingo suggested, straight-faced, that Mary may have discovered that he is really a short man of forty-five. Providing a motive for him or his mother. And then we had Valicia X hinting that she, Pepys and Jeffries, might—singly or together—have done away with Mary Faith because she knew about the medicine cabinet mirror and could have used it to spy on the Mangé Meetings.”

  He had forgotten I was pregnant. He had forgotten I was his wife, his friend. I started to stand but thought better of the idea, “I know you feel I shouldn’t have mentioned the missing knives, because that led to Ernestine mentioning that the comte used minor explosions as part of his act, which led to the sheriff asking if we thought any of the departed candidates might have blown up the boat as an act of vengeance against the Mangés. But Ben, that’s what we are looking for—a motive that has nothing to do with Theola.”

  “Ellie, you raised suspicions that are outrageous.”

  “You seemed concerned about the missing Browns and the missing knives this morning.”

  He picked up a pillow and tossed it down. “Naturally I worry about any irregularities in any situation involving you, my pregnant wife. I overreacted. But remember Henderson Brown was unhappy here. Is it so unlikely his dutiful wife would agree to go home?”

  “Without a word of good-bye?”

  “She’d be embarrassed. As for the knives, someone simply played a joke and is afraid to own up. Especially after your hatchet job.”

  The man had gone too far. I would never darken his bed again. I would never speak to him again … after I’d had my say. Crossing to the bed, I grabbed the pillow and dragged off the bedspread before backing toward the window. “Don’t come near me! You’ve made your choice! The Mangé Society comes before all else, your wife, your child—before honour itself!”

  “What!” he shouted. “You think my attitude is one of anything goes so long as I don’t blow my chances of becoming a Mangé! Well, you’re wrong!” Thump on the bedpost. “I object to my wife sticking her nose into the bloody middle of a murder investigation!”

  “You landed me full square in the middle of one! I never wanted to come to America. Remember!” I smacked into a chair and kicked it sideways. “What chance does Theola Faith have if everyone wants to add an epilogue to Monster Mommy in order that it may end with a bang? I wish I could make you understand, but how can I when possibly I wouldn’t feel this way if I weren’t carrying our child.”

  The rain had changed, grown softer … “Ellie!” His hand touched my arm, but I couldn’t see him for my tears.

  “I have to fight for her. Theola Faith may be a drunk, she may have done all sorts of monstrous things, but she didn’t do this. Last night, just before she left she said, ‘Tell me, how is Mary?’ And I heard something that sounded like love in her voice.”

  He didn’t answer because we heard a scream. And this one sounded different from Jeffries’ primal kind. At such a time, what did it matter that our marriage was breaking to bits like Mary’s boat? I spurned Ben’s suggestion that I cower in the room while he sashayed forth to investigate. The days when I thought pregnancy entitled me a nine-month free membership to a leisure club were long gone.

  We came out into the hall to see Ernestine rushing in our direction, one hand gripping the skirt of her maize-coloured jersey gown, the other clutching a long, ugly knife which looked chillingly like one of those missing from the wall downstairs.

  “Bingo, Mommy’s coming! Oh, God! You sure know how to drive a mother crazy with worry!” Her face was grey with fright. She slammed open the bathroom door, swept along by her maternal dread. Ben and I were about to follow her … when we saw Valicia X, Pepys and Jeffries crowding into one of the rooms across from the bathroom.

  It was Marjorie Rumpson’s room. Over Jeffries’ shoulder, I could see the open window, the drenched curtains blowing inward, a damp spot on the floor where the rain had driven in. Lightning cracked overhead; thunder drowned my cry of horror.

  “Marjorie!” I cried again. So great was my terror that in taking up Theola Faith’s cause I had driven this loveable woman to the edge of the window sill, that I elbowed Valicia X aside without a thought for Ben’s feelings. Perhaps Marjorie had truly believed herself suspected and was afraid of the effect of her arrest on her ancient mother? Never, I vowed, would I cause my child a moment’s unease. As I raced ahead of Ben, I could see Marjorie lying on the ground, a stray leaf blowing across her face. Would she have suffered, would there be a lot of blood? Would I ever forgive myself?

  I almost fainted when Pepys stepped aside and I saw her—ashen faced and all of a tremble in her blue-and-white striped pajamas. But alive! Valicia X, a vision in nylon and lace, and Jeffries, her head knobby with curlers, was holding onto her, as Marjorie pointed a trembling finger and croaked, “Someone’s under my bed!”

  Outside, the wind was still hamming it up, shrieking louder than a soul in torment, while the rain chattered like teeth. Inside, it was as though someone were moving a torch about, but one which shed beams of darkness rather than light. Shivering under my eiderdown, my leg touched something that felt like … a man’s leg and … strangely, my heart slowed. In that half world between waking and sleeping I knew that Mr. Nightmare, determined not to let me slip from his clutches, had come dogging after me, swirling his black cloak about him. But I knew he couldn’t stay long. Daylight would come and burn him to dust and anyway it didn’t matter. I was safe because my mother had come in. The loveliest, warmest feeling swept over me. But the next moment I was angry. Why wouldn’t she move away from the door? Why keep standing there so dark and still? Why couldn’t I see her face?

  “I do hope I’m not keeping you from something important.” My voice sounded fed up and used up and dreadfully old—at least thirty. “Be my guest, Mum! Do some leg lifts while you’re here! I don’t want you to get flabby and out of shape because of me. I love it when people say, ‘Isn’t your mother skinny? How did you get to be such a chub?’ But never mind my petty grumbles, I have to tell you about my awful dream. I was grown up and married to this horribly handsome man, the sort forever raising a dark sardonic eyebrow. We were staying with the queerest group of people at a place called Mendenhall. Then came a murder, which wasn’t nearly as much fun as it might have been because some people wanted me to mind my own business. At dead of night, there came this blood-curdling scream. Out on the landing was a woman with a knife—grabbed up for protection. So she said! We all raced into this lady’s room. She was large and shaggy. Exactly what I always wanted in a grandma. And she was absolutely terrified, because she thought there was a man under her bed; and almost as frightened that perhaps there wasn’t—after she had raised the alarm. Then, who should crawl out from under, but a fat child genius named Bongo … No, Bingo! With some gussied-up story about having gone downstairs and almost walked into—or through—a ghost whom he claimed to have seen once before. Seeing Miss Rumpson’s door open, he claimed to have dodged inside for safety. But, Mother, there was something shifty about the way he looked everyone straight in the eye. Oh, I don’t mean he was lying about seeing the ghost! The fatty was as white as … one. But he was holding something back. I don’t believe he had left his room to get a drink—any more than his mother believed Miss Rumpson had left hers to go to the bathroom. Mother!” I tried to keep the frown out of my voice, “The courtesy of a reply would be appreciated. What must I do to pique your interest? Tell me what you think of the inflatable boat being missing, that’s what I noticed—without realizing—was different about the boat house. And what of Pepys’ and Jeffries’ contradictory behaviour? I thought Pepys was starry-eyed abou
t Theola Faith and Jeffries displayed signs of a surly affection last night, but they threw her to the Sheriff …”

  She didn’t answer … because she wasn’t there. The person I had been addressing was a black silk dressing gown hanging on the door. Morning had broken into the room and driven the shadows under the wardrobe and up the chimney, where they would hide until night came again. I knew who I was and where I was and that this was the first day of the rest of my marriage!

  “Good morning, Ellie.” Ben sat up.

  “Good morning, Mr. Haskell.” If I were to be addressed as the chambermaid who had warmed the master’s bed in person, rather than with the customary hot brick, I would respond in kind.

  “Sweetheart,” he stumbled out of bed, shaking his head. “What’s that old saying—never let the sun rise on your wrath?”

  “Some such twaddle.”

  He was yanking at his pajama top, forgetting this one didn’t fasten with snaps. Buttons flew, one nearly getting me in the eye.

  “Nice try,” I said.

  “Ellie!” Thumping his bare chest. Probably expecting me to crawl the length of the bed, grab his hand and smother it with remorseful kisses. “I still believe you were wrong last night, but I am prepared to believe that you acted more out of a misguided sense of … chivalry, than …”

  “Downright viciousness?”

  “I was going to say folly.”

  “Thank you kindly.” With what pleasure I watched, as he threw back the lid of the white suitcase and began tossing through everything. Wifely intuition told me he was looking for his silver-grey shirt. But why should I tell him it was in the blue case? “Ben,” I said, “I did a lot of thinking while I was asleep, the result being I am exhausted; so with your kind permission I will stay in bed this morning.”

  Had I pushed a panic button! His eyes turned neon green and the creases in his face rivaled the ones in the shirt he was clutching. “What’s the matter?” He grabbed my hand and for a moment I thought he was going to dot it with kisses, but—curses, he was taking my pulse. “You said that wasn’t morning sickness yesterday. Is it something new? Are you in pain?”