The Trouble with Harriet

by Dorothy Cannell

  Poor Mrs. M.! She wasn’t destined to receive our undivided sympathy, for the moment was shattered by a blood-curdling scream from outside the house.

  Chapter 19

  Ben drew a woman into the hall and closed the door.

  “Ellie, this is Frau Grundman, and she’s urgently in need of a glass of brandy.” He had insisted I stay inside while he went to investigate.

  “I’ll get it,” I said, and moved like a robot. “Bring her into the sitting room.”

  “Who did he say she was?” Mrs. Malloy stage-whispered in my ear.

  “I think she’s my father’s German landlady. Would you please go into the kitchen and try to prevent Aunt Lulu from burning the chicken casserole to a turn? It looks as though we could be having one more for dinner.”

  “That’s how it always is, Mrs. H. Just when things start to get interesting, I’m got out of the way like one of the kiddies.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake!” I was now at the drinks table, trying to find a glass that didn’t appear to have been drunk from and not washed up. “You can listen at the keyhole the way you always do. And take notes if you like.”

  “It’s just that I’ve got me pride, Mrs. H.!”

  “Well, chug it down with a G and T.”

  “I should be in a white pinny.” Mrs. Malloy tilted her chin and risked scraping her nose on the ceiling. “I should be weaving me way round the room with a plate of nibbles. That’s the way things is meant to be done in proper run houses when the Mr. and Mrs. is receiving guests.”

  “Well, most people’s guests don’t look as though they’ve had someone jump out of the bushes at them shouting, ‘Boo!’ ”

  “I’ll give you that,” Mrs. M. admitted, “but then again, there is that old saying about sticks and stones. Still, not everyone is as tough as you and me.” An acknowledgment that all was forgiven and we were back to being friends. “And foreigners are a funny lot. Taking offense where none’s intended. Of course, a conk on the head’s the same in any language. There’s no parlais-vousing your way around that. But she didn’t look like she was hurt, did she? On the other hand, you and I aren’t doctors, Mrs. H….”

  “No, but you’re going to be needing one in a minute.” The words slipped out before I could bite them back, and she stalked to the door just as Ben came in with our visitor. A collision was narrowly avoided, and I hurried forward to press a glass of sherry (we seemed to be out of brandy) into Daddy’s former landlady’s hand. “Please sit down,” I begged her. “My husband can tell me what happened.”

  “Frau Grundman glimpsed a man lurking in the shrubbery.” Ben helped her over to one of the sofas and shifted a table forward for her drink. “She thought he was about to jump out at her, so she screamed.”

  “As loud as my lungs could do it, to scare him away.” Frau Grundman sat nodding her head at me. “But now I think I have been making nonsense. Herr Haskell tells me you have a male cousin staying here at your house.”

  “Actually he lives in the cottage at the gates, but I can’t think of any reason for him to be crawling around the garden at this hour.” I looked from her to Ben and back again. “Unless he was trying to catch our cat, Tobias, and bring him in for the night. We don’t like him out if it looks like rain. And then, of course”—I wrinkled my brow— “my father is here.”

  “But I would have known if it was Herr Simons.” Frau Grundman lowered her head to her drink. She was very much the way I had pictured her, with blue eyes, graying hair, and a matronly figure. But she was also prettier. Her complexion was one that a girl might have envied, and when she smiled, as she did now, her face lit up like a lamp. “Your father is so big, there would be no hiding him under a bush. Such a good, dear man. It was terrible what happened to break his heart. He so much loved his Harriet Brown, who was too soon to die.”

  “I upset him tonight.” I sat down on the sofa opposite. “He went up to his room, but maybe he came down again and went outside to clear his head.”

  “Or to scare you into thinking he’d walked out.” Ben stood behind me, his fingertips kneading my shoulders. “You’re right about Morley being a decent bloke, Frau Grundman, but he does tend to be a shade theatrical.”

  “It is what gives him his charm and softens a woman’s heart to him. He is the enormous teddy bear that needs to be told he is strongest and bravest of all the other teddies. The first time he is in my house I want to put a ribbon around his neck. When we get to know each other a little more better, I tell him he would look good in the bow tie. The other kind sit too short on him. So I give him a blue-and-white bow tie that was once belonging to my husband that died long years ago. And Mr. Simons, he was very pleased!”

  “And I thought the bow ties were Harriet’s influence,” I said.

  “It was for her he want to make himself the handsome man.” Frau Grundman drank her sherry. “But I think he liked for me to give him the words of advice. It was good that we had become friends, because when the bad days come, he needs a shoulder to hold. When he leaves my house to come to England, I cannot keep the worry of him out of my head. What if this daughter he speaks about is gone from her home when he comes to the door? This is what keeps going around my thoughts, until I think, I will go after Herr Simons to make sure he is safe with his family. I have the address. It is written out in the book for guests that stays in my hall. I bring him a jar of my pickled cabbage that he likes so much. I don’t put it in my case. I carry it in the bag I use to bring home the shopping. And when I hear the noise and think I see a man in that bush, I make up my mind I will hit him with it if he comes for me.”

  “Is the bag canvas?” I asked.

  “I am sorry.” Frau Haskell looked puzzled. “I do not know the meaning.”

  “Cloth ...” I floundered for a more precise word.

  “Yes, it is.” Ben stopped massaging my shoulders. “And I know what you are getting at, Ellie. Your father had the urn wrapped in a similar bag when he arrived.”

  “And this morning, when we went to the Old Abbey.”

  “So if it was Mr. Price in the bushes and he saw Frau Grundman coming up the drive, he could have jumped to the wrong conclusion.” I twisted around to face him. “He would think she was the person who had gone off with the urn by mistake and was returning it to us. Imagine how he would have felt if he had snatched the bag and had found himself with a jar of pickled cabbage!”

  “But he hadn’t seen your father’s bag,” Ben pointed out.

  “We don’t know that,” I said. “Daddy might have taken it on the plane with him and only put it in his case when he got to Heathrow and needed to steady himself going down the escalator to the underground. In fact, I’m sure that’s what he would have done. Besides, I seem to remember saying to Mr. Price this afternoon something about hoping the urn would be returned safe and sound in its canvas bag.”

  Ben emerged from the back of the sofa with his hands in his jeans pockets. His stance when he was seriously contemplative. Frau Grundman had faded into the cushions, but I quickly brought her back into focus and apologized.

  “I’m sorry. That was very rude of us talking as if you weren’t here, but some odd things have been happening since my father arrived last night. And now there’s this scare you’ve had. Goodness only knows what would have happened if you hadn’t caught sight of the man and scared him off by screaming before he could attack you. We’ll have to phone the police. Or did you do that already, Ben?”

  “Sorry”—he grimaced— “I should have. But I was concerned with making sure Frau Grundman was all right.”

  “I am,” she said quickly, and set her glass down with deliberate care. “I am not hurt or any more worried. I think now maybe I make a mistake and that there was no man in the bushes. I am just tired from taking the trip. The police they will not think much of my story, and I will make a nuisance for nothing. It is better, Frau Haskell, not to telephone them.”

  “I don’t know.” I looked to Ben.

 
“It will be upsetting to your father.” Her color rose as she spoke. “And I did not come to make more trouble for him.”

  Was concern for Herr Simons the only reason for her reluctance? I wondered.

  “If you’d rather forget about it, Frau Grundman, we will, of course, do as you wish.” Ben was studying her closely as he spoke, and I decided to test the waters.

  “I do understand what you mean.” I smiled at her. “I often wonder if I’m allowing my imagination to get the better of me. Even now I’m asking myself if I haven’t fabricated the idea that there’s something fishy about Harriet asking my father to bring her ashes home if she died, then driving her car into the river a short time later. Perhaps I’m making too much out of the fact that two men tried to snatch his case at the airport? And then, lo and behold, one of them shows up here this afternoon with a gun. Well, not actually in his possession,” I amended. “My aunt took it without his knowledge when he was giving her a lift in his car.” I waited expectantly for Frau Grundman to look at me as though I were mad and start easing off the sofa, but she stayed put and appeared more interested than alarmed.

  “Why did this aunt take the gun?”

  “She’s a kleptomaniac,” Ben informed her.

  “That is sad. One lady who comes often to my guest house has the same problem. It is no big trouble to me. I hide the silver saltcellars, that is all. But her family has tried everything to make the cure—from the psychiatrists to water therapy. These are not well people, but in the case of your aunt, it was useful what she did getting the gun from this Herr ... ?”

  “He said his name was Price.”

  “Why do you think he comes this afternoon to your house?”

  “We can only guess,” I said, “but we think he may be connected to a rival gang that wants what’s in that urn instead of Harriet’s ashes.”

  “Ah, so that is what fits together inside your heads.” Frau Grundman looked intrigued. I also sensed that she was relieved. Could it be that she had come here prepared to risk sounding like a lunatic or, even more embarrassingly, like a jealous shrew by voicing her own suspicions that Harriet had not been, pure and simply, a woman in love?

  “Maybe we should ring the police.” Ben was pacing the carpet as if intent on wearing it threadbare. I understood his feelings completely. I would have given anything to have been sitting on a kindly detective inspector’s knee, explaining to him that while we didn’t have any evidence to back up all the suspicions, my husband and I wanted to cooperate.

  “You know they wouldn’t buy a word of this,” I heard myself say. “I’m just relieved that Frau Grundman doesn’t seem to think we are totally out of our minds. Or are you just being kind?” I looked anxiously into her pleasantly open face.

  “I have been worried also.” Her blue gaze was unusually comforting. “But, like you, I did not know if I was making a molehill out of the mountain. I must tell you that when first I met Harriet Brown, I did not like her. I said so to my sister Hilde, who is housekeeper to Father Bergdorff at the Christ Kirche in Loetzinn. But then I ask myself if it was that I did not like that Herr Simons was in love with her. I am old enough to look into my own heart. When I saw what was there, I told myself: Ursel, you meet a man who makes you smile like you haven’t done since your Heiko died, but Herr Simons does not look at you. He wants this other woman. So do you make hurt for yourself by thinking the unkind thoughts about her, or do you look to see what makes him love her?”

  “Was she beautiful?” I asked.

  “I think not so much.” Frau Grundman thought for a moment. “It was the silver-blond hair and the makeup that would make you think she was. That, and she had the excellent figure. She is my dress size, but so different; hers is a very womanly shape. It is no wonder she bewitches Herr Simons. It is the physical attraction, I want to believe. When he knows her better, he will see she is not so special. So I insist to myself, but what happens is that I begin to like her. She is nice to me. Always the warm greeting when she comes with him to the guest house. Always the smiling thank you for anything I do for her. I no longer think she has the hard face. Perhaps I am looking at her with different eyes. Or it could be that love brought out the person she had put into hiding. Of this I am sure: She did love your father, Frau Haskell.”

  “Please call me Ellie.” I didn’t have any other answer.

  “It is a good name.” She gave me the sort of smile that found its way to my face when I wanted to boost the children’s spirits. “And you must please call me Ursel.”

  “And I’m Ben.” I could tell that he liked her. “You were saying that you also have been worried that there was something wrong with the situation.”

  She nodded. “The day after Herr Simons came back with the dreadful news that Harriet had been killed, I find a gold-and-sapphire earring she had dropped on my stairs. I know it is hers because she was upset about losing it. And I think I will not say anything to the dear, heartbroken man about it. Why make more hurt for him? He will look at it and cry. The next time I go to see Hilde, I will take the earring to Harriet’s friends the Voelkels on Glatzerstrasse. They will put it with the other one, and someone will get to inherit a pretty keepsake. But when I go to the house and ring the bell, there is no answer, and as I am going away, a woman walking with her little girl speaks to me. She asks who I am wanting, and when I tell her, she says I must have the wrong address. That house has been empty for over a year.”

  “Could you have had the wrong number?” Ben did some more prowling around the carpet.

  “No, that is not, I think, possible.” Frau Grundman shook her head. “It is the same I write down and give to Herr Simons the day Herr Voelkel telephones to tell him to go to Glatzerstrasse. Also I forget to tell you that on my way to the door I look through a window into the room where there is a picture of a very long, very stiff cat hanging over the mantelpiece. The woman with the little girl who speaks to me tells me that a taxidermist lived in that house until he died at a hundred and one. No one will buy it because they think it gives the creeps and is haunted by the ghosts of many very angry animals.”

  I was glad that Tobias wasn’t around to hear this and get any ideas about how to handle eternity when his time came. Otherwise I couldn’t find anything to cheer about. Harriet and Herr Voelkel had not been foolish enough to leave a forwarding address. He had used the house for his interview with Daddy and had possibly never been in the place before or since. Again I wondered about the housekeeper, the old woman in black who had answered the door. What was her role? How important was she to the scheme? Herr Voelkel probably got the key from the estate agent, all very simple and seemingly aboveboard.

  “If there was a plot,” Ben said, “Harriet has to be alive. At least that’s the conclusion Ellie and I have reached. What do you think, Ursel?”

  “I think she’d like to see Daddy,” I told him.

  “But he has gone to bed.” Ursel got to her feet. “I will come back, if I may, in the morning. I am booked in at a guest house near the train station. Very nice and clean, I understand. So if you will let me telephone for a taxi, I think that will do better than the bus, which I find out does not run so often at night.”

  I looked at Ben, and he did the honors. “You’re more than welcome to stay here. We’ve got plenty of room. I’ll be happy to go and collect your suitcase.”

  “It’s in your garden. I dropped it alongside the drive when I screamed. But are you sure you will not mind having me?” Pleasure and doubt were written all over Ursel’s face. “I do not return to Germany for three days. It will be too much for you. You have your young children. Your father tells me about them. Sometimes he gets their ages mixed up. That sort of thing, the way even the best men do. But then, when I tease him, he fetches one of your letters, Ellie, and reads to me about them. The baby and the twins. Hilde and I are twins, so you will understand why I talk of her so often. Every week I go to visit her at the Christ Kirche parsonage.”

  I was wondering why I
had the feeling that there was something I needed to remember when the door opened and Freddy came bursting into the room with his ponytail askew and his beard looking as though tufts of it were missing. Taking no note of Ursel, he fixed his anguished eyes on me alone.

  “Ellie, your father’s gone.”

  “What do you mean, he’s gone?”

  “I went with him up to his room, just like I promised, and I tried to talk him into a better frame of mind. But of course he could tell I agreed with you about Harriet. I’m not much good at faking the funk. He told me to buzz off.”

  “Get on with it,” Ben urged.

  “I went down to the kitchen and got bogged down trying to explain to Mumsie that you cook dinner; you don’t incinerate it. And while we were going at it, I thought I heard a car start up, but I didn’t think anything about it.”

  I remembered thinking I heard the same thing when the grandfather clock was striking seven. “Freddy!” I pleaded.

  “After a while, I went back upstairs to reassure myself that Uncle Morley was all right. But he wasn’t in his room. And I got this sinking feeling. So I hopped it out to the garage, and that Rent-A-Wreck car of his was gone.”

  In a distant sort of way I was aware that Ursel was fast absorbing my cousin’s fear. Without putting rhyme or reason to it, she knew she was about to hear something dreadful.