The Woman Died Thrice

by Evelyn James

  They were all silent again for a while, then Annie piped up.

  “You won’t be able to have hold of the master key for long, maybe just for moments before a maid or someone else misses it.”

  “No, that is plain. I have to figure out a way to make a copy.”

  “I know how,” Annie said.

  The other two looked at her curiously, as if she had just revealed herself as a housebreaker.

  “I know how you make copies of keys for a perfectly ordinary reason,” Annie declared to them stoutly, offended that they thought she might have ever done anything illegal. “I once had such a situation with the old pantry key. You know that little tiny key with a ribbon on the end.”

  Tommy looked blank, having never been required to unlock the pantry, but Clara knew precisely what Annie meant.

  “The key had become rather worn and one day as I went to unlock the pantry it snapped in the lock. Fortunately I was able to use a pair of small tweezers to remove the head of the key from the lock, but now I had a broken key and no replacement…”

  “Wait a moment, you keep the pantry locked?” Tommy interrupted with a perfect look of bafflement. “Since when?”

  “Since always. In case of rats wandering in, or burglars. Burglars steal sugar just as readily as jewels you know. Not to mention Bramble,” Annie was proud of the level of protection she maintained over her kitchen and its supplies. It was like Fort Knox without the ammunition stores. “In any case, the key broke and I needed the potatoes. So I hurried into town and went to the gentleman on the corner who mends shoes and also cuts keys. I showed him the problem and he very carefully fixed the key with a little solder, but he agreed that I would need a copy because the original would ultimately break again.

  “If I left him the key he could make me a copy, but as it was quite late in the day and he already had work waiting, it would not be ready before tomorrow. I needed the key back so I could open my pantry, so that was simply impractical, but I also needed the copy as soon as possible. So we came to an arrangement. He made an impression of the key in some clay he kept for such works. He took impressions of both sides and said he would use them as moulds for the two halves of the key. It would not be a perfect copy, not as good as if he could use the original, but it would serve to make a spare I could use while he took the real key to make a true copy. And thus I was able to open the pantry once more and dinner was saved.”

  Annie sat back in her chair and folded her arms over her chest looking satisfied. Tommy glanced at Clara.

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  “I don’t have any clay,” Clara replied. “What else could I use?”

  “I do believe soft soap can be used for these purposes,” Annie informed them, proving herself a fount of knowledge on the subject. “They always use soap in the stories about escaping prisons in the magazines I read. The woman are always being kidnapped and having to find novel ways of releasing themselves.”

  “Soap,” Clara nodded. “Well at least now I have a plan. I shall slip down into the servants’ quarters tonight.”

  “Hold fire one more moment,” Tommy interjected again. “You are marvellous in many ways, old thing, but when it comes to stealthy operations you are not renowned.”

  Clara took this completely the wrong way and scowled at her brother.

  “Now, don’t take that to heart,” Tommy tried to appease her. “I have my failings too. I’m not much cut out for interviewing suspects. The last one I spoke to killed himself.”

  “I hardly think that is your fault,” Annie told him loyally.

  “That’s not the point, what I am saying is that Clara is best for interviewing people and the tricky, slightly illegal stuff, is much more suited to me. I’ll go get that key impression. I would much rather that than interview anymore poor souls who might take the huff and top themselves afterwards.”

  Clara was mollified, mostly.

  “If you are prepared to do this Tommy I won’t argue with you,” she said. “But, even if we make an impression, how will we get it made?”

  “Take it to the local key cutter,” Annie answered immediately.

  “And tell him what, precisely? He will wonder why I don’t just bring him the original,” Clara pointed out.

  Tommy had a smirk on his face as he said.

  “I rather imagine Annie will tell him her pantry key story.”

  Annie narrowed her eyes at him.

  “And what is wrong with the pantry key story? Perfectly logical, as it is,” she demanded.

  “Nothing is wrong with it!” Tommy said quickly. “It is very… distracting.”

  Annie thumped him lightly on the arm and Tommy grinned even more.

  “Now don’t fight you two,” Clara interceded. “Do we all know what we are about? There are suspects to interview and keys to steal, we should get to it.”

  “I really hope, after all this fuss, that Mrs Hunt truly was murdered,” Annie muttered as the council of war was disbanded and they set about their tasks.

  “The more I learn, the more I am certain her death was not of her own doing,” Clara assured her.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Clara had two people to try and interview before the evening was out and one of them was Mrs Unwin. Clara only had a vague idea of the woman, having not really crossed paths with her as yet. She was in her late fifties, widowed, her children grown up and living their own lives. That was as much as Clara knew.

  She found the widow browsing through a varied selection of books on a bookcase in the hotel’s main lounge (the hotel had three, excluding the music room). She seemed to be intrigued by titles about British fauna and flora and had just selected a guide to British wildflowers to peruse when Clara came upon her. Clara stood beside her at the bookcase and pretended to be looking for some to read.

  “Dreadful events today,” she said lightly, giving the necessary ‘tut’ at the end of the statement. “I feel too shocked to sleep. I thought a little reading might help.”

  “As did I,” Mrs Unwin indicated the book in her hands. “Though, I am an avid reader most of the time.”

  “I rarely can find the time,” Clara admitted quite honestly. “But, I suppose that is what holidays are for.”

  “Indeed,” Mrs Unwin departed from the bookcase and went to a vacant armchair to sit.

  Clara hastily grabbed a book from the shelves and followed her. Once she was sat in a chair beside her, she tried to restart the conversation.

  “Did you go on the trip to Windermere? There were some beautiful flowers out along the banks,” she nodded to the book Mrs Unwin was endeavouring to read.

  “Yes,” Mrs Unwin answered, hardly looking up.

  “I wish I knew the names of all of them. I rather feel I let such pretty flowers down by not knowing what they are called. Are you much of a botanist?”

  “No,” Mrs Unwin replied, in that same monosyllabic tone. She seemed determined to avoid conversation.

  “I sat by Mrs Hunt that day, poor woman. She was good enough to tell me the names of the plants. She seemed quite knowledgeable.”

  “She was not,” Mrs Unwin had suddenly looked up from her book and there was a darkness about her features that suggested a dreadful, hidden anger.

  Clara was naturally surprised.

  “She was not?”

  “Mrs Hunt knew nothing about the flora or fauna of these fair isles, but was not against brandishing her ignorance and stoking it in others,” Mrs Unwin said crisply.

  “I’m afraid you rather take me aback,” Clara declared. “I thought Mrs Hunt a very intelligent woman.”

  “She was the sort of woman who reads, but fails to understand. Who learns one fact,” Mrs Unwin held up a single finger to emphasise her words. “and then imagines she knows all about a subject. I would not allow her to teach a dog, let alone my children. Though I am aware that many people thought her a masterful tutor in all subjects.”

  “Then you knew her?” Clara persisted, not wa
nting to stopper this very productive train of conversation. “I mean, prior to this holiday, you knew her.”

  “I have known her more years than I am comfortable to admit. Myself and Mrs Hunt are both associates of the Brighton Horticultural Society. A position I take very seriously, but one which she did not. She masked her ignorance well enough, but for the experienced hand it was plain to see.”

  The bitterness in Mrs Unwin’s tone was also very plain to see. Clara was intrigued.

  “Surely a woman’s ignorance is not enough to warrant such dislike?” she said. “You almost sound as if you hated her.”

  “Not far from the truth, indeed,” Mrs Unwin was so engaged in the conversation that she had put down her book. “Mrs Hunt charmed her way into the society, possibly through flattering certain members of the society’s board. We are an elite group of amateurs who are fascinated by plants and take our fascination very seriously. To allow such a poor excuse for a gardener into our ranks, one who could not tell her pansies from her primroses, was an affront to all we stood for!”

  Clara still felt that the utter detestation Mrs Unwin showed for Mrs Hunt had to be based on more than just the latter’s failure with plant names.

  “Surely Mrs Hunt had to prove herself once in the society?” she hinted, hoping to elucidate the real cause for this anger. “She would have been undone at the first meeting she attended and spoke at.”

  “Not when you have friends on the committee,” Mrs Unwin scowled furiously. “It makes my blood boil to think about it. She waltzed in with little more knowledge than a toddler and paraded her ignorance unashamedly. Then the annual flower show came up and she presented this pathetic little pot of lavender, which she claimed to have grown from seed. It looked straight out of a shop to me, but she was presented with the award for best newcomer! Can you imagine. She received a whole £5 and a certificate! And all the time, I was there with my beautiful Busy Lizzies, and no one even acknowledged them! I should have won that award! It was truly unfair!”

  Clara began to understand. The dislike Mrs Unwin felt for Mrs Hunt was due to jealousy over an award and not a great deal else.

  “You must have been upset to see her on the charabanc?” Clara said.

  “Not really,” Mrs Unwin moped, her anger disintegrating into tepid misery. “She had written me a letter, suggesting the trip. She implied we could use it to build friendship, over flowers and such. I might not have accepted, except she mentioned she was unwell and might not be able to do the trip again. She wrote a lot of stuff about wanting to make amends.”

  Clara spotted a familiar trend in all this.

  “And when you got aboard the charabanc?”

  “Why! She didn’t seem to even know me!” Mrs Unwin paused, looking hurt as much as angered by the woman. “Leopards do not change their spots, I suppose.”

  Mrs Unwin suddenly looked down at the book on Clara’s lap.

  “Are you much interested in the repair and maintenance of steam engines?”

  Clara sharply looked down herself at the book she had taken off the shelf with little consideration to its title. It turned out to be a workman’s guide to steam engines, probably thirty years old or more. How it had ended up in the hotel’s library was anyone’s guess.

  “A little research,” Clara said quickly, feeling deeply embarrassed by her obvious effort to talk to Mrs Unwin. “I rather fancy it is a topic beyond me.”

  Excusing herself thus, Clara returned the book to the shelf and hastened out of the lounge, leaving Mrs Unwin to her perusal of wildflowers. The woman seemed a dead end. No one took the lengths someone had gone to to murder Mrs Hunt over a flower competition. Or, at least, so Clara hoped, else the world would be an awful lot more sinister a place to exist in.

  Clara had one last person to interview before the evening was out. Mr Hardwich, who had appeared midway down Mrs Hunt’s list, though with no greater emphasis to his name than any of the rest. Clara might almost imagine the list merely an aide de memoir, had it not been for the fact that all those upon it knew Mrs Hunt and had been mysteriously asked to join her on this holiday. What had the woman been planning?

  Clara tracked down Mr Hardwich in the music room, which also served as a smoking room when required. Someone was tapping out a half-hearted tune on the baby grand, while Mr Hardwich sat on a sofa with Mr Wignell and another man Clara did not know. They appeared engrossed in conversation and, at first, Clara had to wonder how she could infiltrate this little group without appearing too obvious. Most people were still unaware she was investigating the death of Mrs Hunt, and she preferred to keep it that way. Simply interrupting the trio’s conversation and blustering out questions would never do.

  Clara wandered to the fireplace, which was lit and roaring nicely since the Spring evenings were still quite chilly, and pretended to warm her hands to buy time to think. The room appeared to be dominated by men that evening. There was not another woman in sight. Clara felt she would have to do something decisive to break into this informal men’s club.

  She came to a decision. As unpleasant a prospect as she found it, Clara decided that the only way to slip herself obliquely into Mr Hardwich’s presence was to play on the fact that she was the only woman in the room. In short, Clara was about to go against the grain and pretend to be the flighty type of woman she had always loathed. If her plan worked, then Mr Hardwich, who was a gentleman of a certain age, sitting with other gentlemen of a certain age, would come to her aid in the moment of need she was about to have and she would be provided with the ideal opener for conversation.

  Clara spun around from the fire, a little faster than she meant to, so the movement actually caught the eye of Mr Wignell. He looked up and smiled at her most benevolently.

  “Oh dear,” Clara declared, flopping the back of one hand against her forehead as if she was feeling rather clumsily for a temperature. “I feel rather faint.”

  She took a pace towards Mr Wignell who was sitting right next to Mr Hardwich. He stopped listening to the conversation of the other two and had all his attention on Clara.

  “Are you all right, Miss Fitzgerald?”

  “I rather think today’s events have overcome me. That, or the blancmange at dinner did not agree with me,” Clara gave a slight sway to emphasise her discomfort. “I feel quite queer.”

  Mr Wignell jumped to his feet, his gentlemanly duty more than apparent. Offering Clara a seat in an armchair right next to the sofa, he lowered her into it gently and then went to fetch her a stiff drink.

  “Do you feel unwell?” Mr Hardwich was duly distracted from his conversation with the third gentleman. Precisely as Clara had hoped.

  “A little,” Clara explained.

  Mr Hardwich was in his sixties, comfortably retired and with all the time in the world to do as he pleased. So, naturally, he was bored quite a lot of the time. He had come away on the excursion for a change of scene, and had certainly received that. He was a robust gentleman, but more muscular than fat. His slight paunch failing to accurately portray the large quantities of food he was capable of putting away. He was a kindly enough man, not one for spending a lot of time in company, but perfectly capable of presenting himself adroitly when he did so. Now he smiled lightly at Clara.

  “It has certainly been a most remarkable day,” he ventured. Then he turned to the man at his side. “Miss Fitzgerald is part of my charabanc party. As you may imagine our peaceful jaunt has turned rather dramatic.”

  The gentleman at his side nodded in understanding and then turned to Clara.

  “Stanley Jones,” he introduced himself.

  “Clara Fitzgerald,” Clara answered, just as Mr Wignell returned with her drink.

  It was a large glass of brandy and Clara took a diligent sip, trying to mask her distaste for the strong alcohol which had a rather chemical tang to it.

  “You mustn’t upset yourself over Captain Blake,” Mr Wignell told her firmly. “As tragic as it is.”

  “I have been telling M
r Jones all about it,” said Hardwich, giving Clara a fine opportunity to bring the subject around to Mrs Hunt.

  “It is just such a shock to have two suicides among one group of people,” Clara shook her head, pretending to still be in a state of anxiety over the trouble. “I really can’t comprehend it all.”

  “Mrs Hunt was surely an accident?” Hardwich commented.

  “Perhaps, but the police have made inferences,” Clara decided to push her luck. “Her health concerns have made them consider the possibility that she was depressed and might have taken the opportunity to…”

  Clara purposely tailed off and sipped her brandy. There was silence a moment and then Mr Jones spoke.

  “I don’t hold with people topping themselves. Cowardice in my book.”

  This statement flattened the conversation as soundly as if someone had called for silence in the room. Mr Wignell excused himself quite abruptly, his mind already on his daughter and her death all those years ago. He didn’t need Mr Jones’ comments. Clara felt bad that it was her attempt to start a conversation with Mr Hardwich that had sparked the statement. She didn’t like to see Mr Wignell so morose.

  “What’s up with him?” Jones muttered, watching Mr Wignell disappear.

  Clara said nothing. She had been sworn to secrecy and did not break a confidence so easily. She masked her anger at Jones well enough too. Even so, the little party had clearly broken up.

  “I suppose I ought to away to my bed,” Jones glanced at his watch. “Unlike you souls, I am here on business and must be awake in the morning.”

  He rose and departed the room. Mr Hardwich sat still, staring at the end of his cigarette and deep in his own thoughts. Clara could not miss her chance.

  “Mr Jones was rather abrupt.”

  “He was.”

  “I don’t agree with him, you know,” Clara waited until Mr Hardwich looked up at her before finishing that statement. “Suicide is not cowardice. It is the cry of a soul in deep distress.”

  “Fortunately, I have never found myself in such a position,” Hardwich replied with the slightest of smiles.