“I don’t know.” Mrs. Nettle brightened a little. “She hasn’t been herself, Roxie hasn’t. I’ve got the feeling it started before the murders. Look how she didn’t show up for Gertrude’s funeral, after saying she’d be there.”
“That’s right.” Ben visibly relaxed and I struggled to look positive, even as my insides continued to tie themselves into knots which would never come undone.
“Did anyone think to phone her?”
“I did,” replied Freddy, “twice, while you were upstairs, coz. Both times the line was engaged.”
“Or off the hook,” I managed.
“But then I rung back,” proffered Mrs. Nettle, “and that time there was no answer.”
“So she got a late start and probably has gone straight to Tall Chimneys, assuming we’d have the sense not to wait for her.” I was breathing just a little easier as I followed Ben out to the old convertible. Freddy and Mrs. Nettle took the other car and, when we reached the gates, took off in the opposite direction,
It was a fresh, breezy morning under clear blue skies, but Tall Chimneys looked as it always did—a house stuck permanently in the winter of the soul. Its narrow-eyed windows squinted on a world they would have preferred always shrouded in dense fog and chilling rain. And those chimneys were sufficiently off-kilter to suggest they were deliberately cocked, the better to listen for the malevolent cawing of crows and the howling of wolf-like dogs.
The Millers’ Norfolk terriers were certainly woofing their heads off from the back of the house as Ben and I approached the front door. Vienna promptly admitted us with a deep-voiced greeting.
“How professional you look, and so punctual!” Understandably, she looked a little uncomfortable at the switch from meeting us as social acquaintances to our showing up as the household help.
Were rumors already flying around Chitterton Fells that Ben and I were on the brink of financial ruin? If so, it would keep suspicious minds from wondering why we had taken up this line of work. With every step I took down the hall to the kitchen I kept hoping to hear Mrs. Malloy’s chattering voice—to no avail. She had not arrived. And Vienna said she had not heard from her.
Madrid almost immediately materialized in the kitchen in a flutter of gauzy garment that sadly emphasized her middle-age spread and mocked her flowing Lady of the Lake hair. Ben and I might have been a couple of spectral figures she saw only as floating transparencies until Vienna said, in a voice that was at once firm yet cosseting, “You look chilly, dear. Why don’t you wrap this around you?” She plucked the shawl Madrid had been wearing on my last visit from the back of a chair. “You remember Ellie and her husband ...”
“Ben,” he supplied, his gallantry making him appear increasingly miscast for the role of someone who was about to don a pinny.
“So nice to meet you properly.” Vienna smiled warmly at him while not taking her eyes off her sister. “Madrid, there’s a little bit of a mystery. Mrs. Malloy was meant to have been here.”
“She won’t be coming.”
“Really, dear?”
“Clarice Whitcombe rang to say Mrs. Malone”--Madrid paused but none of us corrected her—”had tried to get in touch with us, but our line was engaged. You know I was on the phone for ages working out the final details.”
Her sister nodded and explained that they had to be in London tomorrow and the following day for a dog show.
“Clarice said Mrs. Malone had also tried to ring the Haskells but couldn’t get through to them either.”
“We were trying to call her,” I said.
Madrid was now floating about the kitchen, half draped in the shawl. “So I was to pass on the message that something has come up and she can’t be here. Does that put you in an awful bind?” Her gaze actually zeroed in first on me, then on Ben. “After all, I suppose being a proper char, she was supposed to do the work while you two showed her how to properly apply these cleaning products you’ve invented.”
“Oh, we can manage.” I hoped my voice did not sound as hollow as I felt.
“Are you sure?” Vienna was now steering her sister away from the cooker, as if afraid it might be too taxing for Madrid, were she to attempt to put on the kettle. “If you’d rather come back another day with Mrs. Malloy, that would be perfectly all right.”
“We wouldn’t think of it.” Ben began unpacking our bag of products produced in the Merlin’s Court kitchen factory. “You’ll want the house shipshape when you come back from your trip.”
“That’s true.” Vienna sounded relieved, even as the awkwardness in treating us as employees as well as social acquaintances again became visible. “I’m always so busy with the dogs, and Madrid isn’t sufficiently fit for housework, so that things have really got behind here. Dust everywhere you look. When Trina—such a terrible tragedy—returned from her holiday and took over again from poor Mrs. Large, she wasn’t able to give us as much time as before. Just half a day a week, because she took on her friend’s clients. Trina said she felt she owed it to her, and of course Madrid and I had to respect that. A very decent young woman in her own way.”
“Absolutely,” I agreed.
“Ellie and I will do everything we can to pick up the slack.” Ben managed to sound enthusiastic without overdoing it.
So, saying she knew we must want to get started, Vienna conducted us on a quick tour of the house with Madrid alternately trailing behind or disappearing in the middle of a sentence. It seemed hours, although it was probably only ten minutes, before Ben and I found ourselves alone. It had been a relief to hear that Vienna would be occupied most of the morning grooming the dogs. And Madrid had announced that after breakfast she was going out for a long walk, something she did most days because she had always felt at one with the outdoors.
“It certainly doesn’t sound as though they suspect us of being here to snoop.” Ben smiled encouragingly at me as he surveyed the sitting room, where we were watched only by the portrait of Jessica above the fireplace.
“There’s no reason for the sisters to think we’re up to something if their consciences are clear,” I whispered.
“A dog with a ring painted on its paw.” His eyes were riveted.
“It’s a ruby, her birthstone.”
“Wacky, but then there’s something creepy about the entire house.” Ben pulled a face and opened a bottle of furniture polish.
“It feels worse today.” I shifted up close to him. “But maybe that’s because I’m so on edge about Mrs. Malloy. I’d feel better if one of us had talked to her.”
It was difficult to get my mind back on track and my body into action, but somehow I managed to put myself on automatic. In the next hour, while Ben briskly polished, wiped, and Hoovered, I poked through desk and dresser drawers, searched cupboard and wardrobe shelves, growing increasingly convinced that we were knocking ourselves out for nothing. I was wishing I could go home and sit quietly, trying to figure out where Mrs. Malloy could be, when in a tabletop box on Vienna’s bedside table I found a small stack of love letters. They were dated twenty years earlier. Written by a man who claimed to love her deeply, even as he grew increasingly impatient because she wouldn’t leave her sister—until the time was right. Obviously that time had never come. It sounded like a Victorian sort of love affair and I replaced the letters feeling impatient with all three people concerned. But there was no hint of anything sinister.
Ten minutes later I found a letter in a bureau in Madrid’s room. It was dated a couple of years back— from a woman who was a member of a recovery group for people who had faced the loss of a beloved pet. I felt a faint stirring of sympathy for Madrid. Was it her fault that she didn’t have the emotional strength to overcome what for her might have seemed equivalent to losing a child? It was still hard for me to identify with her, much as I doted on Tobias, but the fact that I was not proud of prying into other people’s lives made me a little less judgmental.
One o’clock arrived and somehow Ben had managed to make the house look as t
hough we had both been working. Vienna was warm in her praise and thanks. She paid us without looking too embarrassed, and my husband and I left Tall Chimneys without seeing Madrid again.
“That got us nowhere,” was Ben’s response as we drove the short distance to Crabapple Tree Cottage. From the sound of it, he, too, was losing his enthusiasm.
“There wasn’t time for a thorough search.” I leaned back in my seat, feeling spent. “But I’m not sure it will help however many times we go back. I’m beginning to think we’ve been barking up a tree where no cat is holed up.”
I was to feel even more guilty when Clarice Whitcombe greeted us enthusiastically upon our arrival at Crabapple Tree Cottage. The furniture she had brought from her old home still looked too big for the place, but there were signs that she was settling in: a vase of daffodils on the hall table, fresh curtains at the windows, and a collection of comfortingly old teddy bears grouped on top of the kitchen cupboards. The grand piano still dwarfed the small sitting room, but it looked as though it had been recently polished.
Clarice did not display any of the embarrassment Vienna had shown. She offered Ben and me lunch, which we refused in accordance with the rules of the Magna Char—fibbing by saying we had already eaten. And afterwards, while Ben remained in the kitchen, she accompanied me into the sitting room, where I tried to look highly motivated.
“I’m so impressed,” she said, taking the easy chair across from me in front of the diminutive fireplace.
“Why’s that?” I spread the duster over my knees and straightened its corners, my mind on Mrs. Malloy.
“I’ve always been awed by people who take life by the horns, Ellie, because I’m not that sort of person. I just let the years roll over me. The neighbors where I used to live thought I was a saint, staying on to look after my parents, but the reality was I was born spineless. While you and your husband”—her face, as pleasantly old-fashioned as her skirt and blouse, lit up like a child’s—“you are both so brave! Him giving up a successful business and joining you in this wonderful new venture. Not caring what other people think. Just living your own lives. I really don’t know whether to clap or to cry.”
It was my turn to feel embarrassed.
“I only hope you’ll still be able to spare the time to help me redecorate,” Clarice went on.
“Absolutely. The hope is that we will be able to incorporate the production of Abigail’s Homemade Cleaning Products into my interior design activities. Perhaps even open a little shop, with space for Ben to serve morning coffee and lunches.” All true, but—because I had come to spy on her, I was convinced I sounded the world’s most inept liar.
“It all strikes me as wonderful.” Clarice fidgeted with her hands. “Since coming here, Ellie, I have tried to break out of the old mold, become a shade more adventurous. I even went over to Walter’s ... I mean Brigadier Lester-Smith’s house the other evening . . . after going to see the doctor about my wrist.” Now clasping it with her free hand. “It seemed to me that in this day and age a woman should be able to make a friendly overture without being considered brazen. But after taking a couple of steps to his front door, I panicked and scampered away like a naughty little girl. Then I lay awake half the night wondering if he had seen me—or if one of the neighbors would say something and he would have to write me off as loony.”
“We women do agonize about that sort of thing,” I agreed. But had Clarice told me about that visit, not because she lacked real friends to confide in, but because she wanted to establish that her being in Herring Street had nothing to do with Trina McKinnley’s death? Her account tallied with Marilyn Tollings. But a sneaky suspicion arose in my mind. What if Clarice had gone up the brigadier’s drive by mistake? After realizing she was at the wrong house, had she scuttled off to her meeting with Trina, next door but one?
With a glance at the mantel clock, I suggested as nonchalantly as I could that I really did need to be getting to work, especially as Ben and I were lacking Mrs. Malloy.
“You did get the message from her that I passed on to Madrid Miller?” Clarice stood up, looking sorry that our chat was winding down.
“That there had been some emergency.” I nodded. “Did Mrs. Malloy sound particularly agitated?”
“I thought so, but you can’t really go by that, Ellie, because I don’t know her, remember.” Clarice’s gaze wasn’t on me as she spoke. It was fixed on a small bowl that I hadn’t previously noticed on the carpet to the side of the door. Set down next to it was a box of starch, and without having time to analyze why, my heart started to thump.
“I forgot to take that away,” she said.
“What’s in the bowl?” My legs walked me over to it and I stared down at the milky liquid it contained.
“Just starch and water. My mother used to have me mix it into a thin paste for getting out...”
“Bloodstains?” I murmured too quickly—because now I wouldn’t get to know if that was what Clarice had intended to say.
“Of course you would know about that old-fashioned remedy for one of life’s little problems.” She sounded genuinely admiring. “My mother was a fount of such information, even though I never knew her to do housework. We always had help until I took over. What happened here”—pointing at the carpet where the bowl and box of starch sat—”is that Mrs. Grey, the little cat from down the road, paid me a visit this morning. And it was only after she got into this room and I saw the streaks of blood on the floor that I realized she had cut one of her paws.”
The telephone rang at that propitious moment and Clarice went off to answer it, leaving me feeling weak at the knees. Suddenly I saw it all. Mrs. Malloy had arrived at Crabapple Tree Cottage that morning, having got the schedule mixed up. Shortly thereafter, Clarice had let slip that she had murdered Gertrude Large, Trina McKinnley, and Winifred Smalley. Naturally Mrs. Malloy had taken umbrage, and not being a woman to mince words, had spoken her mind in no uncertain terms. Whereupon Clarice had added another woman to her list of victims. And, tut-tutting at the inconvenience of it all, had phoned Tall Chimneys to deliver a fake message from my beloved Mrs. M. I buried my face in the duster. It was too cruel! She had been restored to me only to be shoved headlong into eternity.
I tried to tell myself that the story about the cat could well be true, that I was allowing my imagination to overcome common sense. If Clarice had murdered Mrs. Malloy, she would surely have got rid of the bowl and the box of starch, particularly when she might guess I would know their purpose. But then again—the ugly thought would not be held at bay—she might have decided to leave that small task until she had completed the even more pressing one of disposing of the body. And that could have so distracted her that she had let a crucial piece of evidence slip her mind.
It was difficult to get back to sleuthing, since now every part of me, not just my teeth, seemed to be chattering. Ben came into the sitting room from the kitchen and I almost accused him of sneaking up on me. He realized something was up, but I muttered that I couldn’t talk about it now. And while he again took over the real work I opened drawers and dragged out the contents. Nothing of interest turned up until I raised the top of the piano stool and lifted out its contents. To say I was shocked is to put it mildly. Clarice Whitcombe was not what she claimed to be. And I was all fingers and thumbs as I replaced the evidence. Not a moment too soon! She came silently into the sitting room and knew my face had to be on fire. I stood fanning myself, hopefully looking as though I had overexerted myself polishing the furniture, until my heart stopped pounding. Did she suspect, from the way I avoided looking at the piano, that I was on to her?
I was desperate to tell Ben what I had found but I retained enough sense to wait until we were away from Crabapple Tree Cottage. But when we got into the car in the late afternoon to drive home I couldn’t bring myself to talk about it. Not until I’d had a cup of tea.
Abbey and Tam swarmed all over us when we came in the door. And we immediately had to see to getting tea for
them and Jonas, who looked remarkably fit given his day with the children. Then we had to wait for Freddy and Mrs. Nettle to show up, which they did half an hour later. They appeared to be on excellent, even chummy, terms. Jonas took the twins into the study to watch a favorite television show. And we four sleuths sat down in the kitchen to talk.
“Clarice Whitcombe has misrepresented her piano-playing skills in a big way,” I said. “I found sheet music for ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ and other beginner pieces. Along with a notebook containing instructions of the most basic kind from her piano teacher. Such as ‘Paint a dot on middle C if that is the only way you can find it.’’
Freddy irritated me by laughing. “That’s all you and Ben came up with after four hours of snooping at Crabapple Tree Cottage?” He gave Mrs. Nettle a conspiratorial wink. “So the poor dear is just a beginner instead of being able to pound out Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach without having to look at the music! Lots of people exaggerate their talents, coz!”
It was clear from Ben’s and Mrs. Nettle’s expressions that they were in agreement with Freddy.
“But given what I know of Clarice, she would die with embarrassment if she was found out. She probably got started in the pretense when Brigadier Lester-Smith saw that very grand grand piano taking up three-quarters of her sitting room and assumed she could play.” I leaned forward, elbows on the table. “She wouldn’t want to disillusion him, but then Clarice was in the soup because he wanted to hear her play. She had to come up with an excuse. Which was that she had injured her arm. Buying her time to start taking lessons and hope she would discover she had a God-given ability to make ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ sound like Mozart. I’ll bet she was off to a lesson when I met her on the afternoon of the day Trina McKinnley was killed.”
“But I don’t think these deceptions amount to a woman leading a double life.” Ben pushed a plate of biscuits my way.
“The trouble is”—my heart ached more than all the other muscles I had exercised that day because I had so wanted this love story to have a happy ending—”I can identify with Clarice’s insecurities. She could have worked herself up into an irrational state where she felt trapped, with no way out of the lie, when cornered by Mrs. Large, who had found the evidence in the piano stool. She’d picture herself branded as a liar not only to the man she loved but to the entire village. Perhaps Clarice went into the study at Tall Chimneys to beg Mrs. Large not to spill the beans. And then lost her head.”
The Spring Cleaning Murders Page 21
