Lady Marmalade Cozy Murder Mysteries: Box Set (Books 1 - 3)

by Jason Blacker

  “Tell me,” said Frances.

  “Exodus chapter 20 verse 5 and chapter 34 verses 6 and 7.”

  “Very good. I remembered those verses too. Perhaps from all the Sunday school I took as a young girl. What do you think it might mean?”

  “Clearly, I’d say whoever wrote them has issues with their father.”

  “Similar to the problems you had with your father?” asked Frances.

  Dr. Dankworth looked at Frances sternly and furrowed his brow.

  “Hardly. I’ve come to terms with the tyrant in my life who wore a white collar. And I made a careful decision that I could either hold on to the anger or move beyond it. I’ve moved beyond it and I have chosen allopathy. The care and healing of people.”

  Dr. Dankworth had relaxed his hands and was resting them on the leather armrests.

  “What do you think it might mean?” he asked.

  “The same as you. Though who might have written these letters is the question that most troubles my mind at this present time.”

  “How many letters of this sort has she received?”

  “She has received five, though she destroyed the first two.”

  “Why?”

  “They were upsetting to her and it was only upon receiving the third that she became worried and concerned for her safety and therefore decided to keep them.”

  “Will there be others?”

  “I am expecting a sixth one on this Thursday. They have all arrived on the eleventh of the month except for the first which couldn’t as the eleventh of January was a Sunday.”

  Dr. Dankworth nodded.

  “I see. This is all quite fascinating, though I am not as concerned as you obviously seem. As I’ve already mentioned, Madge is quite the hypochondriac.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard, and not just from you.”

  “I see.”

  “One of the boarders heard you tell Madge that she was a hypochondriac.”

  “Not exactly, I told her that she was quite exaggerating her ills, and that she was in fine fettle. That was probably Matilda.”

  Frances nodded.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “She’s incredibly nosey and quite upset with Madge every since Madge kicked out her gentleman friend, Maxwell, I think his name was.”

  “Yes, I had heard about that.”

  “I don’t trust her, frankly. She seems to me to be a woman constantly scheming. Hardly ever has more than a few syllables for me each time we speak. I get the sense she’s always plotting and planning something foul.”

  “Anything you’ve seen specifically?”

  “No, but I’ve heard her and Colin whispering about putting spiders in her bed and snakes in her dressing gown. Ugly stuff. I’ve reprimanded them about it.”

  “And what did they say?”

  “That they were joking. That Madge is just terribly difficult and needs to be straightened out.”

  “Do you find her to be difficult?”

  “Matilda?”

  “No, Madge.”

  “Quite, though of course, being her physician she’s very good to me. But yet, I’ve heard the way she treats her employees and her granddaughter. Not a lot of kindness there. Though nicer than my father treated me, I’ll tell you that much.”

  “Did you know she hits Lula?”

  Dr. Dankworth looked at Frances as if they were discussing general cleanliness and hygiene. Not a shade of emotion crossed his face.

  “Not surprising, but no, I didn’t know that.”

  “Just yesterday, Lula had scabs on her fingers from Madge hitting her.”

  Dr. Dankworth clenched his teeth.

  “I see,” he said.

  “And that doesn’t bother you?”

  “I didn’t know about it until now. In any event, Lula is not my patient and she’s a grown woman. I imagine she could leave if she wanted to. But I’ll speak to Madge about it.”

  “That would be helpful, Kenyon, she’s a shy and insecure young thing.”

  “Yes, she is.”

  “How long have you been Ms. Hollingsberry’s physician?”

  “About a year, I believe.”

  “And have you treated her for any serious illnesses or diseases?”

  Dr. Dankworth smiled quickly for the second time.

  “You know I’m not comfortable sharing any information of that sort. It isn’t relevant to these threatening letters. Though I will say that she is currently in good health.”

  “I understand, but if she is getting poisoned, slowly, then that is something you’d notice and be concerned with, wouldn’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Good. I just want to be put at ease.”

  “You should not worry yourself, Frances, as Madge’s physician, my primary and only responsibility is to her health and to do no harm as my oath clearly states.”

  Frances smiled.

  “I’m much relieved. But I’ve heard that you have prescribed sugar pills for her.”

  Dr. Dankworth nodded his head.

  “Why is that?”

  “Because there is nothing wrong with her.”

  “Then why prescribed anything at all?”

  “Frances, I don’t like the tone of your questioning. Would you rather I give her real pills for things that do not bother her?”

  “I’m sorry, Kenyon, I don’t mean to be impertinent, I’m just trying to understand.”

  He looked at Lady Marmalade sternly.

  “I give her sugar pills because she’s adamant that there’s something wrong with her. One week it’s stomach ulcers, the next she’s having trouble breathing, another time it’s her heart. Just today it was her circulation. What she really needs to do is walk more, but she won’t hear of it, and I get tired of fighting with her so I’ve given her sugar pills for what she thinks ails her. That’s better than harming her with real medicine that she doesn’t need.”

  “I understand, Kenyon, thank you for you honesty.”

  “If I might take up just a little bit more of your time and ask about your opinions on the boarders who live with her, I’ll be out of your hair right after.”

  “Very well.”

  “But first, if I might ask a quick question about your visit with her today. How was it?”

  “It was fine.”

  Dr. Dankworth’s face had taken a turn for the worse. His mask of ambivalence was turning into the soured look of frustration.

  “Can you share any details about it that might be helpful?”

  “She spoke of you, of course, and how much better it made her feel, knowing that someone with your reputation was taking this seriously. I thought she inferring that I hadn’t taken it seriously. Which was true.”

  “So you did know who I was?”

  Dr. Dankworth smiled.

  “Yes, but I prefer to hear things first hand. As I’ve said, Madge is prone to great leaps of logic and conspiracies.”

  “Who else was home today?”

  “Can’t say really. I only saw Madge, Jeremiah who let me in and Matilda who always seems to be hanging around her bedroom whenever I’m upstairs visiting Madge. She’s incredibly snoopy.”

  “How is Madge doing, health wise?”

  “As I’ve said, her health is good. She suffers no obvious ailments though she is on hypertension medication if you must know, in addition to her sugar pills.”

  Frances could tell that she was using up Dr. Dankworth’s good will, but she wasn’t quite finished with him, yet.

  “If I might, Kenyon, why do you continue to see her as your patient if she’s prone to hypochondria and continued to be an all round unpleasant woman to be around?”

  “The one area where she isn’t stingy is with her physician. She pays me very handsomely for my troubles and if not me, there’ll be someone else. And quite frankly, Frances, she’s one of the easiest patients I’ve had.”

  Dankworth opened up a drawer on the right side of his desk and pulled out another glass ashtray. H
e took another cigarette out of his tin and lit it. He half heartedly offered the tin to Frances and Alfred and they turned it down for the second time. He blew smoke rings to the ceiling, like empty thought bubbles. Perhaps praying that, from his lips to God’s ears, Frances would hurry up and finish. He was clearly bored by this point.

  “What about the boarders?” asked Frances. “Have you had much contact with them?”

  “No, not much. Though of the three, Penelope seems like the most reasonable, but it’s hard to tell, she’s fairly quiet. Though I have the distinct impression that she’s quite fond of Colin, the painter. Why, I have no idea.”

  “You don’t care for him?”

  “No, I don’t. Not him or Matilda. Matilda is too meddling and always seems to be up to no good. Colin, it appears, is happy to egg her on and he has his own sense of the macabre. I imagined you’ve been introduced to his Murdered Madonna, which he takes great delight in showing to others and watching them become squeamish.”

  “Yes, we have seen it. But you must admit that he is an exceptional talent.”

  Dankworth puffed on his cigarette, blew the smoke at the tip and watched it glow angrily. He had bladed himself sideways to Frances and Alfred, so the smoke he was inhaling was trailing far off the right side of Lady Marmalade.

  “Yes, a good talent. But a raw and undisciplined talent and those are the ones that I should watch if I was you.”

  “Do you think he has nefarious intent?”

  “I do.”

  “But he’d be mad to do anything right under our noses and in the very same house as Madge.”

  “Exactly, I wonder if he doesn’t have a sort of madness. Look at the Dutch chap, Vincent Van Gogh, cut off his ear and sent it to his lover. Then when she spurned him, he shot himself in the stomach. He could as easily have shot her.”

  “Van Gogh never showed a propensity towards violence against others. No doubt he was a tortured soul, but I don’t understand how he is relevant to Colin. Colin seems in no way tortured, and if anything, he appears to delight, as you say, in drama and making others uncomfortable.”

  “Exactly. I fear he is much more dangerous than someone like Van Gogh. And the two of them, Matilda and Colin have both plotted against Madge.”

  “Yes, but that was a mean and unkind prank. It wasn’t plotting her murder.”

  Dankworth inhaled on his cigarette, tapped ash into the ashtray, and steadied his gaze on Frances for a moment.

  “I get the impression you hold back a lot. You’re either unaware, or perhaps not willing to admit that you know that Colin and Matilda had been overheard thinking of murdering her.”

  He watched Frances’ reaction. She smiled simply.

  “Yes, Lula mentioned she had overheard the two of them. And as you became aware, why didn’t you contact the police.”

  “Because they denied it when I asked. And I wasn’t about to trouble the police with something that couldn’t be verified. Why haven’t you done anything about it?”

  Dankworth blew smoke rings at Frances that didn’t make it across the table, but he looked at her through them as though he were sighting along a barrel.

  “I’ve spoken with them and I’ve mentioned it to the police. They denied it being a serious threat, just a way of letting off steam.”

  “And you believed them?”

  “I am not convinced either way.”

  “And yet here you are, speaking with me, when they might, right now, be plotting to kill her or committing the very same act.”

  Frances shook her head slowly.

  “No, I do not believe that for a moment.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I believe that whoever is planning on harming Madge, and if they are sincere in their commitment to the act, they will wait until after the sixth letter has been delivered. Nothing will happen before Thursday. Of that I am sure.”

  “Very well, it is on your hands then.”

  “No, I don’t think so Dr. Dankworth. It is on the hands of the one who seeks to harm her.”

  Dankworth smoked his cigarette and crossed his left leg over his right and blew the smoke towards the far wall. Neither of them speaking with the other for some time.

  “Do you know if Madge has a will? Has she spoken to you about that?”

  Dankworth nodded his head and tapped more ash into the ashtray, swiveling around to face Frances.

  “I witnessed her most recent will. At least the most recent that I am aware of. That was back at the beginning of the year.”

  “Who are the beneficiaries?”

  “There is only one. St. Bartholomew’s Hospital.”

  “Barts? Any idea why?”

  Dankworth shook his head.

  “No idea. I’ve never admitted her there and as far as I know, she’s never been treated there.”

  “How much is she leaving?”

  “Well, the home of course, that must be worth three hundred thousand pounds, conservatively. And then there are her investments which totaled about three hundred and fifty thousand pounds if I recall.”

  “So she’ll leave nothing to her granddaughter Lula?”

  “No.”

  Frances glanced down and looked at the Ronson lighter on the table. She wondered if Lula knew that. Poor thing.

  “And I suppose the boarders will be allowed to remain while the estate is cleared?”

  “No,” said Dankworth, “they’ll be evicted right away upon Madge’s death. The will is clear on that.”

  “Then what is their incentive to harm her?”

  Frances was asking the question mostly to herself.

  “I have sometimes found that incentive is a mercurial quality when it comes to emotions and violence.”

  Frances nodded, not looking at Dankworth.

  “That’s quite a substantial sum, and not to leave any to your heirs seems...”

  “Unkind?”

  Frances looked up at Dankworth.

  “Yes, I suppose. Thoughtless at the very least. I wonder how Lula will get along.”

  “She is a grown woman after all, perhaps it’ll be exactly what she needs,” said Dankworth taking the last puff on his cigarette and meticulously extinguishing it as he had done the first one.

  “Have you heard of a Hiram Gaspar?” Frances asked.

  Dankworth looked up and shook his head.

  “No, who is he?”

  “He’s a cousin of Madge’s, as I understand. Came by some time ago and demanded money from her. Money that he said was rightly his. He’s the son of Madge’s uncle.”

  Dankworth raised his eyebrow and curled his mouth downward.

  “She did mention something like that to me, but she wouldn’t go into specifics.”

  “Did you get the sense that she’d be giving him money?”

  “No, she was adamant nobody was getting her money, especially considering everything she’d been through.”

  “What did she mean by that?”

  Dankworth shrugged and pushed his ashtray to the far side of the table, towards Frances and off to her right.

  “I don’t know, but you know she inherited her wealth from her grandmother? Most of the money and the house she lives in was her grandmothers.”

  “I knew about the money.”

  “Well, if this chap, Hiram, is a cousin as you say, then perhaps he feels entitled to some of that wealth. Madge’s grandmother would have been his grandmother too, right?”

  Frances nodded.

  “Yes, that’s quite correct. But there was more to it. Hiram suggested he knew a secret of hers that he would tell everyone he knew if he didn’t get his money. She became quite upset and agitated by that.”

  Dankworth looked up at Frances, his eyes wider than they had been.

  “That’s interesting,” he said. “What was this secret?”

  “I have no idea, but I’m going to try and find out. She’s never given you any indication that she has a deep dark secret?”

  “No, but the
n she’s not a very transparent woman. What she is though, is belligerent, unpleasant and brash, to put it mildly. I’m certain that she has had an unhappy life mostly brought upon by herself, I would guess.”

  “Has she ever spoken to you about her husband or any other men in her life?”

  “No, I didn’t know she had been married.”

  “Yes, a Harry Beckenswidth which is how Lula got her surname. They never had any of their own children though. There was also a Rolie Vilvalayn with whom she had Celia.”

  “Who’s Celia?”

  “Celia was her only daughter, the mother of Lula.”

  “I see, that all sounds quite complicated. Did she have any other children?”

  Dankworth looked at Frances steadily.

  “I believe so. Lula mentioned a baby boy, Michael that she saw a picture of Madge and the baby when he was very young. But Madge won’t speak of it.”

  “I see, so we don’t know what happened to this poor chap?”

  “Not yet, though I’m hoping to find out what happened to him.”

  “This is perhaps why I don’t become too familiar with my patients. This sounds like quite a mess.”

  “Yes, it is a puzzle.”

  Dankworth sat back in his chair with a soured look on his face. He might have been trying to move himself as far away as possible from the stale tobacco smell. He put his hands on the armrests and leaned back as far as he could go.

  “Would you have any opinion on her staff?” asked Frances.

  “Not particularly. Jeremiah is the only one I’ve had a lot of contact with and he seems exceptionally nice. Too nice actually, considering how she treats him. I think there might be something else going on behind that plastic smile he wears all the time.”

  Frances nodded.

  “She pays them poorly. Now don’t misunderstand me. I’m not the most generous man about, but I pay my staff fair and current rates. Madge doesn’t, and I have no idea how she finds people who will work for half to three quarters the going rates.”

  “Yes, that is odd, and yet from what I understand Jeremiah in particular has been with her for many years.”

  “Yes, that is my understanding as well. Mollie on the other hand just seems a little daft and simple minded. I think she just doesn’t know any better. But Jeremiah, he’s the odd one. I always keep my eyes peeled when he’s around.”