How to Murder Your Mother-In-Law

by Dorothy Cannell

  “I could wait for you both,” I offered.

  “Yes, but if the three of us went down without Frizzy, we might create the wrong impression about her. We don’t want that, do we?” Eudora was almost back to her brisk self. “And if we wait to talk things over with her, we will waste precious time. We’ve already had one near-miss and a fatality in a very short space of time.”

  “We need to warn Frizzy,” I said, “that Tricks could be in danger. She must confiscate her mother-in-law’s bottle of health tonic immediately.”

  “I’ll phone Frizzy as soon as I get home,” Eudora promised me as she headed out into the hall. “You just worry about getting down to the police station,” She and Pamela were on their way out the front door, when the younger woman tugged on my sleeve.

  “One thing I don’t have to worry about anymore is our blackmailer,” Pamela said cheerfully. “I know it’s beastly of me to be happy about anything right now, but it’s wonderful to be free of that leech and to know that there is nothing to stop me …” The rest of what she was saying got blown away by the wind as she hurried after Eudora down the front steps of the house. Closing the door on their retreating backs, I experienced a fleeting moment of happiness for Pamela. She was right. Now there was nothing to stop her from telling Sir Robert that she had cheated, by submitting one of her aunt Gertrude’s pies, in the marriage bake-off. Her father-in-law wouldn’t care two hoots.

  I was leaning against the front door, thinking that there was something … or someone … that I had failed to mention to my fellow investigators, something that might well have a bearing on the infamy at hand, when who should come out of the kitchen but Mum and Freddy.

  “There you are, Ellie!” Magdalene’s eyes were positively twinkling. “I made your cousin lunch and we’ve been having such a nice chat. He wants me to teach him how to crochet.”

  “But first I’m going to take her out for an afternoon spin, isn’t that right, Auntie Mags?” Freddie gave the top of her head, which came somewhere above his waist, a fond pat.

  “I’ve never been on a motorcycle in my life.” Mum made this startling revelation in a voice that marvelled at so many, many golden moments lost.

  “Are you sure this is wise?” I asked them both. “What if it starts to rain?”

  “Life is a chancy business, Ellie,” she said with a serene smile that did more for her than any amount of eye shadow, “and as I was explaining to Frederick, who is so understanding, a ride in the open air is just what I need to blow away the cobwebs in my head.”

  “Well, I do hope that if she gets blown off the bike in her entirety,” I told Freddy severely, “you will at least stop to pick her up and dust her off.”

  “It’s not like me to think of myself,” Mum reminded me, “and if you think I’m being selfish, by all means say so. The last thing I want is to cause trouble between the two of us when we seem to be getting along better than I ever dared hope.”

  “Off you go and have a good time!” I cried. After all, any danger that awaited her on the open road was minimal compared to what might be lurking in the house in the guise of a wardrobe primed and ready to fall and crush her to death under its massive weight. “I may have to go out myself for a bit, but Jonas is here to look after the twins.”

  “If you’re sure …” Mum hesitated as duty dictated.

  “Ellie wants us to be happy, isn’t that right, coz?” Freddy gave me a scratchy kiss on the cheek that made me wish he would either shave off his stubbly beard or let it grow back to full bloom. But in the main I felt very pleased with him as he marshalled Mum out the front door, leaving me with nothing to do but get ready for the trip to the police station.

  Well, maybe a bite to eat before setting out. It has been my experience that courage does not sit well on an empty stomach, so I hustled into the kitchen, where I found a plate of ham sandwiches covered with a dishtowel on the working surface, courtesy of Mum. There was no denying that our relationship had improved to the point where I would miss her when she returned to Tottenham—hopefully with Dad—but she had to go and that very evening, at the latest, if I were to ensure her safety.

  I sat in the kitchen longer than I intended, letting my mind drift until it was suddenly roped in like a barge. It wasn’t the distant bong of the grandfather clock that made me jump from my chair, but a far more ominous sound. Someone—a grown-up someone, from the heaviness of the footsteps—was walking around in the nursery. We had our Child Watch intercom to alert us when the twins woke up of a morning, or in the afternoon from their naps. And the intercom was letting me know now, in no uncertain terms, that I had an intruder.

  Me and my overloaded imagination! I was telling myself that the culprit had to be Jonas, and I would have his head for clumping about in a manner liable to wake both Abbey and Tam, if not the dead, when I took a look out the window and saw Jonas innocently watering one of the flower beds.

  The urgency of the situation forbade my taking a detour to the drawing room and equipping myself with the poker. I made do with the largest wooden spoon I could grab from the drawer. A carving knife would have made a lot more sense if I hadn’t been afraid of doing myself bodily harm and scarring the twins emotionally for life in the process.

  Taking the stairs ten at a time, I raced down the gallery. There I collided with Mr. Menace as he stepped out of the nursery.

  I gasped. “Dad! What are you doing here?”

  “I came over with a bunch of flowers for Magdalene!” He sensibly distanced himself from the wooden spoon.

  “And how did you get in? Down the chimney?”

  “No!” Sheepishly he looked down at his red cardigan. “I was going to knock on the door in the prescribed fashion, Ellie, but when I was coming up the drive I saw the ladder leaning up against the house, and it seemed to me”—he cleared his throat—“that if Jonas hadn’t yet fixed the window latch and I could get into her bedroom without Magdalene seeing me, I could leave the flowers and a note on her bed as a means of paving the way, before …”

  “Having to face her?” I supplied.

  “Your mother-in-law is a pretty tough customer.” He spoke with a note of pride. “I don’t doubt it will take me another forty years to soften her up.”

  “If she lives that long.” And I burst into tears.

  “If you keep this up,” Dad said in an unusually soft bellow, “we’ll have to turn the windscreen wipers on inside the car.”

  “How can I help it?” I sobbed. “Going to the police was a complete waste of time. Sergeant Briggs was either rolling his eyes or staring out the window during most of our visit. The only time he perked up was when I told him about the blackmail.”

  “You’ve me to thank for him being that way, Ellie! It was too much to hope the man would take us seriously after catching me in the altogether the other night. He’d obviously written the entire Haskell family off as a bunch of lunatics.”

  “You’ve been wonderful,” I told him, “hearing out my story without a word of condemnation for the part I played in this sorry saga.” Tears continued to puddle the lap of my frock which happened to be dry clean only.

  “Watch the road, there’s a good girl.”

  “What road? I feel like I’m driving a submarine.”

  The rain was coming down faster than the wipers could keep up with it, and the sky was black as night and so low to the ground I was afraid I would run smack-bang into it. And, talking of waters that ran deep, we were at that moment passing the Chitterton Fells Leisure Centre, with its swimming pool capable of floating the Titanic. The pool had been opened the previous year by Lady Kitty, with all due pomp and circumstance, when she cut the ribbon between the shallow and the deep end. Now she had been cut down in her prime. The reminder was enough to make me start blubbering again.

  “Ellie,” Dad said for the fifth time, “you are not to blame because someone is making a dent in the local mother-in-law population. Good grief! If we had to worry about every single conversation we
ever had among friends, we’d never know a moment’s peace.”

  “Or say an unkind word about anyone.”

  “And a fine state of affairs that would be.”

  “I’m so relieved you believe my incredible story.”

  He patted my hand. “You meet a lot of ugly customers in the greengrocery business.”

  “What are we going to do?” I wailed.

  “You’re going to drop me off at the Dark Horse, Ellie, so I can pack my bags and settle the bill. Then I’ll come over to Merlin’s Court, tuck Magdalene under my arm, and off we’ll go back to Tottenham.”

  “If she’s fit to travel after being out on the motorbike with Freddy in this weather.” I leaned forward to wipe a patch of window clear with my sleeve and saw the pub sign flapping to and fro like a hearth rug hung out on the line for a poorly timed airing. “Do you want me to wait outside for you?”

  “No, you go home.” Dad had the car door open before I had us properly parked. “After what you’ve been telling me, I don’t feel comfortable leaving Magdalene unattended one minute longer than necessary. There is a time in the life of man when he doesn’t count the cost of a taxi.”

  He waved me off. And I proceeded up Cliff Road with my eyes glued to the peephole that was fast fogging up again; my mind was spinning faster than the wheels of the car. If Mum was already back and had found Dad’s bouquet, she might require no persuasion from me that Merlin’s Court lacked sufficient privacy for the sort of reunion he had in mind. Determined to be optimistic, I drew up in front of the stable, wiped my eyes, turned off the ignition, and dashed across the drenched courtyard to the garden door.

  The moment my hand touched the doorknob I was assailed by a panic every bit as blinding as the rain. What good were my plans for giving Mum the boot if the killer among us had finished her off in my absence? My knees were wobbling as I entered the kitchen. Damn! I let out a gasp when the wind snatched the door out of my hand and slammed it shut behind me.

  Oh, the mercy of the mundane! Mum was seated at the table with both Sweetie and Tobias on her lap.

  “What a picture you make!” I was tempted to take a flying leap and join them.

  “A certain doggie is petrified of storms.” Her lips twisted into a smile. “Tobias has been quite a comfort to her, so much so that I’ve been thinking about getting Sweetie a kitten for her birthday.”

  “What a lovely idea.”

  “And now, Ellie, for the bad news.…”

  “What’s wrong?” I stammered.

  Her face grew grim. “It’s going to come as a shock.”

  “Tell me?”

  “Elijah has been here.” Mum spoke in the strictly neutral voice of a television commentator announcing purported sightings of the great prophet. “From the muddy footprints leading from the window to the bed, he must have come up that ladder abandoned by your window cleaner. Anyway, he left some flowers and a letter for me and … all things considered, Ellie, I have decided to go back to him.”

  “That’s wonderful!” I exclaimed.

  “I expect you think me very weak.”

  “No,” I assured her firmly, “I think you are doing the Christian thing.”

  “This has absolutely nothing to do”—Mum closed her eyes—“with sex.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Elijah has a shop to run and I will be way behind with my dusting when I get back, so if he should show up here in the next little while, I think we ought to make tracks for home tonight.”

  Things couldn’t have worked out any better, or so I thought for all of ten seconds. Mum had just put the dog and the cat on the floor and was in the act of getting to her feet, when the door opened and Jonas came stomping into the kitchen.

  “So you do be back, Ellie girl.” His shaggy brows met in a frown over his nose. “I just got off the telephone from talking to that there Beatrix Taffer’s granddaughter. Seems the old lady’s eaten or drunk som’mat that disagreed with her and she’s in a bad way.”

  “No!” I cried while Mum opened and closed her mouth without making a sound.

  “She’s been asking for Magdalene,” Jonas said.

  “Where is she? At home or at the hospital?”

  “At home as of now.”

  “Beatrix always had a dread of hospitals.” Mum was turning in ever-narrowing circles until she was in danger of colliding with herself. “I’ll have to take Sweetie with me; the poor little scrap is terrified of being abandoned during storms.”

  “Do you think that’s a good idea?” I grabbed up a raincoat from the row of pegs in the alcove by the garden door and tossed it over her shoulders.

  “Sweetie won’t be any trouble. She never barks unless spoken to.”

  Jonas followed us down the steps into the courtyard. “There’s som’mat else I need to tell you, Ellie. A policeman rung up just afore the kiddie did, and he left a message for you. Some rigmarole about him bringing a certain party down to the station for questioning.”

  Incredible! Sergeant Briggs must have taken my fears far more seriously than I realized. And to have acted so quickly! Much good it did Tricks, I thought bitterly.

  “What’s all that about the police?” Mum asked as she hurried after me through the rain to the car. “It doesn’t have anything to do with Ben, does it? He hasn’t been serving crème de menthe over the ice cream during nonlicencing hours?”

  “No, nothing like that—” I reached for the car door at the moment Mum tripped over a rock … or whatever … on the ground and narrowly saved herself from pitching forward.

  “It’s St. Francis!” She picked him up with the hand that wasn’t holding on to Sweetie, and held him aloft like a beacon to light our way, which given his phosphorescent nature, he did quite handily. “That he should turn up now, after being lost for days—don’t tell me it’s not a sign from above.” Mum tucked the statue into her raincoat pocket. “It must mean Beatrix is going to be all right; even you must see that, Ellie.”

  “Absolutely!”

  “You don’t think”—Mum was having trouble getting the words out—“that Beatrix did something silly—like make an attempt on her life because of all the trouble there’s been, between her and me over that swimming business and Elijah?”

  “This was not a suicide attempt.”

  Neither of us spoke again throughout the ten-minute drive that seemed more like an hour to the Taffer house. Sweetie likewise appeared lost in thought, and did not so much as blink when lifted from the car. The rain had slackened, although the sky remained so black, it was impossible to see where it ended and the roofs began, and the Taffer house was forbiddingly dark. Not a crack of light showed as we scurried down the narrow garden path to the front door. But for the sounds of life in the form of rock-and-roll music coming from inside, I would have concluded no one was home.

  “You did ring the bell?” Mum held Sweetie tightly in her arms.

  “Yes,” I said, and rang it again.

  “Whatever’s taking so long?”

  “I’ve no idea.” My voice came out in a croak. I pictured the entire Taffer family rallying round Tricks’s deathbed for one last sing-song. Moment by agonizing moment, the fear had grown inside me until it was the size and weight of a cannon ball. Realizing this was no time to “come over queer,” as Mrs. Malloy would have put it, I was forcing myself to take slow, deep breaths when—at long last—we heard footsteps approaching the door.

  Mum looked as surprised as I felt when it was opened in slow motion by Mrs. Pickle. She wore her coat and a woolly hat jammed down over her curlers.

  “Why, it’s you, Mrs. Haskell, and your mother-in-law too! Would you believe I was in the kitchen doing me last rounds, when I thought I heard the bell.” Her currant-bun face was flushed—presumably from the exertion of her walk down the hall. “But what with all that racket from young Dawn’s radio, I thought me ears must be deceiving me.” She stepped aside an inch at a time, for us to enter, then closed the door. “And you brought the
little doggie too, that’s nice, isn’t it?”

  “We came to see my friend Beatrix,” said Mum in quite a cordial voice.

  “Oh, dear! Coming all this way for nothing!”

  “You mean …?” Mum dropped poor Sweetie on the floor without a word of apology.

  “She went fifteen minutes ago,” Mrs. Pickle informed us without taking the half-smile off her bland face. “And you do have to say as what it was for the best.”

  “Do we?” I whimpered.

  “Hospital was the place for her is what the doctor said when he finally got here. He’d had a couple of other emergencies so no one’s blaming him; well, it wouldn’t be fair, would it?”

  “Is she very bad?” I asked.

  “It don’t look hopeful is what Doctor told the family.” Mrs. Pickle undid a couple of coat buttons to show we weren’t keeping her. “Mrs. Taffer—Frizzy, that is—promised to give me a ring here, seeing as how I don’t have a phone of me own, as soon as she knew something one way or the other. I only put on me coat because the house got downright nippy with the weather being so bad and all. So if you’d like to stay and wait for word, it shouldn’t be very long, and I’ll be glad of the company.” She looked down at the floor. “Then again, could be you’d rather not, after that bit of bother this morning.”

  “At a time like this, nothing matters but Beatrix’s full recovery.” Mum’s lips stiffened into a forgiving smile, for which she received a woof of approval from Sweetie, who apparently forgot doggies are meant to be seen and not heard.

  “I’ll take you into the back room.” Mrs. Pickle went flip-flapping down across the hall in the down-at-the-heel plaid slippers that didn’t do much for her coat. “It’s not so cluttered with the kiddies’ toys as is the front room.” Her words were barely audible above a renewed burst of rock-and-roll music descending upon us from one of the upstairs rooms. “They left in that much of a hurry, young Dawn didn’t bother to turn off that ruddy radio.” Mrs. Pickle shook her head as she pushed open the door to the back room. “I’ve been meaning to go and see to it like, but it’s a bit of a climb up those stairs.”