The Importance of Being Ernestine Read online

  “So what do you think, Mrs. H.?” She twirled about on her four-inch heels.

  I was thinking that I couldn’t say what I was thinking. Mrs. Malloy was a robustly built woman, and I suspected that she had to be wearing an iron ribbed corset under that skirt.

  “Very nice,” I managed.

  “That don’t sound overly enthusiastic.” Planting her hands on her hips, she jutted out her imposing bosom. “But all’s forgiven. I could tell you wasn’t yourself when I phoned. For a moment I didn’t think it was you speaking.”

  “Who else would it have been?” I responded bleakly.

  “A burglar come to pinch all the silver. Would have been doing me a favor seeing as how I hate polishing the stuff.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Mrs. Malloy! You’ve hardly been at Merlin’s Court to polish anything since you started working here in the evenings. And I really can’t see what there is here,” I said, surveying the small room, “to keep you so busy.”

  “Trying to better meself, that’s what I’m doing!” She parked herself in the desk chair, reached into a drawer for a battered packet of Lucky Strikes and lit up with a flourish. I was never more appalled. Mrs. M. was partial to a glass of gin, but I had never known her to smoke. “For your information, Mrs. H.,” she continued with a determined look on her face, “I’m hoping that if I make meself a presence around here, Mr. Jugg will appoint me his Girl Friday. I’ve been teaching meself to type. Up to four words a minute, I am.”

  “Congratulations.” I wandered over to the filing cabinets and back.

  “You’re put out, and I don’t wonder!” She blew a couple of smoke rings. “I’ve been your right hand and no mistake. But much as I’ve enjoyed slaving away for you these past years, there hasn’t been much in the way of mental stimulation, if you get my meaning. Which isn’t to say,” she stubbed out the cigarette in the hideous ashtray and adopted a more conciliatory tone, “that I’m handing in me notice. Once I get the hang of things around here, I’m sure I’ll be able to fit you back in of a now and then.”

  “That’s awfully kind.” Not having been offered a chair, I stood unbuttoning and rebuttoning my raincoat.

  “You could try and sound like you’re broken hearted not to have me at your beck and call.”

  “One has to accept what life dishes out.”

  “I must say you don’t sound at all yourself.” Mrs. Malloy’s voice shifted from peevishness to professionalism. “And you look something awful.”

  “Naturally,” I snapped. “Your directions weren’t first-rate, and I nearly drowned finding this place.” To impress the point I lifted my hair, which had come undone from its chignon, out from under my raincoat collar and wrung it out briskly.

  She waved a dismissive hand. “That’s all by the by. Your nose is red, your eyes is puffy, which means you’ve been crying. Also you’ve got one black shoe on and one brown. Clearly the situation is desperate.”

  “Please,” I spluttered, “do stop talking as though you’re already Mr. Jugg’s Girl Friday.”

  My former ally furrowed her brow, closed her eyes, then snapped them open. “Speaking strictly professionally, the problem has to be Mr. H.! Gone and upset you, has he?”

  “As a matter of fact…” I swallowed a sob along with a mouthful of secondhand smoke.

  “Got himself a dolly on the side, I suppose.” Mrs. Malloy oozed sympathy. “Well, I can’t say as I’m surprised. Husbands are men when all’s said and done. And yours is a good-looking bloke with that dark hair and those be-damned-to-you blue eyes.”

  “They’re more green than blue.” I sank down on the chair across from the desk. A feeling of lassitude enveloped me. Within seconds I would be hopelessly trapped in the persona of distraught client.

  “Want to have him and the nasty little home-wrecker put under surveillance?” She reached for a lethally sharpened pencil. “That sort of thing is a big part of our business here at Jugg’s Detective Agency. That and missing persons.”

  “There is no other woman,” I said, endeavoring to square my shoulders. “Ben and I have had a minor tiff, that’s all. I’m sure he didn’t mean to be beastly and horribly ungrateful. And I don’t doubt that by the time our golden wedding anniversary rolls around we will both have completely forgotten about it.”

  Mrs. Malloy’s eyes narrowed. “Ticked off was he, that you went behind his back and did over his study?”

  “He wasn’t pleased.”

  “Well, I did try to warn you he wouldn’t be thrilled.” She tossed me a gun that had been on the desk next to the ashtray. For a blurred moment I thought she was offering me a way out of my misery. But when she handed me a cigarette I realized that what I had taken for a dainty pistol was in fact one of those gimmicky lighters. Without pausing to think, I lit up and at once felt vaguely cheered. Surely if one’s own husband treated one like a fiend out of hell there wasn’t much reason not to behave like one. To further substantiate the point I accepted the tumbler of bourbon Mrs. Malloy handed me.

  “Won’t Mr. Jugg mind?”

  “Keeps it for clients. Never drinks on the job, he doesn’t.” She spoke apologetically, as if hoping this wouldn’t make me think less of him.

  “Down the hatch.” I tossed off a gulp and felt my insides turn to molten ore.

  “Course he’ll probably make up for holding himself in check, now he’s gone off on his holidays.” Mrs. M. perched on the edge of the desk, her black miniskirt hitching up several more inches. When she crossed her legs I noticed between puffs of my cigarette that her stockings had seams down the back. Her face assumed a dreamy expression. “I expect Mr. Jugg will rent himself a room in some real dive and lay around half the day and most of the night on a bare mattress, when he isn’t sitting on a barstool, thinking tortured thoughts of the blonde in the black Chanel suit that shot his partner, then wound herself around his heart, hoping he’d not realize she’d been working for the gang that stole the Green-Eyed God of Cat-Man-Chew. But being the clever dick he is, he saw through her. And had to send her up the river.”

  I couldn’t imagine where Mr. Jugg would readily find a dive compared to this one in which to hole up. Accepting a second cigarette, I said that at least he consoled himself by smoking on the job. Mrs. Malloy’s response was an apologetic shake of the head. I looked with alarm at the pile of butts in the ashtray. “Surely they’re not all yours?”

  “That was Mr. Jugg’s 2:30 client. Smoked his head off, he did. Suspected his wife of carrying on with his sister-in-law’s cousin’s uncle. I’d come in to practice me typing, like I told you I’ve been doing. The poor man was here for a couple of hours. Well, a complicated story like that takes time to tell, but I could see Mr. Jugg looking at his watch because he had a 6:00 coming in. And if that got off to a late start he’d likely miss his train. But as it happened the second client didn’t show. And Mr. Jugg was away on time.”

  “I should get back home.” I felt like a juggler with my cigarette in one hand and glass of bourbon in the other.

  “Not coming out to have a drink with me?”

  “I’m having one,” I pointed out.

  “So you are, Mrs. H.” She topped up my glass. “But that’s not the same as going down to the pub and having a knees-up with the locals.”

  “I’d just as soon avoid that.” I reached for another cigarette. “I don’t feel up to facing the madding crowd right now; now don’t go looking put out. I’ll loll around in my damp raincoat a bit longer and soak up this foray into wickedness.”

  “I hate it when you go talking posh.” Mrs. Malloy’s voice was somewhat slurred, and she was tilting sideways on the desk. “You did remember to bring my lipstick, didn’t you?”

  “It’s the reason I came. You made it clear you couldn’t live without it-which I don’t quite understand.”

  “Well, it’s not just the lipstick, although it is the perfect color with me delicate complexion. Neither nor is it the lovely black and gold case. Sentimental value. Fi
nding it down the back of the couch in me living room was what got me convinced me third husband-or it could have been the fourth-had been carrying on with me neighbor Ethel while I was out Wednesday nights at Bingo. If it hadn’t been for that lipstick I’d probably still be married to the man. Gullible as all get-out I was in me forties.”

  “Well, here it is.” I stuck a hand in my raincoat pocket.

  “What a relief.” She tapped her replenished glass against mine.

  “Un… for… tunate… ly,” I had never realized before what a long word it was, “Rose found it first and wrote all over the walls with it. I thought I’d have to repaper, but sitting here thinking about it, I think those purple squiffles… squiggles may grow on me. She didn’t use it all.” I spoke into the mounting silence, “There’s a nub left, but I’ll buy you an… other one.”

  “They don’t make that color no more.”

  “Oh, dear!”

  While waiting for Mrs. M. to burst into sobs, I lit another cigarette. But she rallied nobly.

  “There’s no good blaming a two-year-old child. Course I’ve always said you spoil her ’cos she’s the baby and you were so relieved when your cousin Vanessa finally signed the papers and you got to adopt her. Neither do I blame you for that matter, what with this rift between you and Mr. H. Couldn’t be expected you’d be in any state to think of other people’s hopes and dreams. I’d had this lovely fantasy, you see, of Mr. Jugg finishing with his difficult client, then laying eyes on me. I’d be emptying the ashtrays, and his eyes would be drawn like a magnet to me Purple Passion lips and it would hit him like a wallop that I was a real woman.”

  “Whereupon he’d ask you to marry him?”

  “No,” she spoke dreamily, “he’d tell me in ever such a masterful voice to sit down and take dictation.” A pause. “What could be sexier than that, Mrs. H.?”

  I didn’t answer. Suddenly I was feeling extremely peculiar. The room was spinning, and Mrs. Malloy’s face kept shrinking. Her voice seemed to come at me from the ceiling.

  “Men being what they are, I’m sure Mr. H. will get over his snit,” she was saying. “Probably what’s upsetting him more than your getting rid of his stuff without his say so is all the money you spent fixing up the study the way you wanted it… for him, of course.”

  “The money was going to come out of my own earnings from a couple of design jobs,” I explained. “But at the last moment both clients backed out. One woman decided to go on a cruise rather than redo her house, and the other took my ideas right down to one of the discount furniture places. And…” The desk was now floating across the room with Mrs. Malloy on board.

  “Mr. H. can be hot tempered. Well, you do have to allow for the literary temperament, don’t you? Him being a book writer when all is said and done. And cookery books no less. First-rate fiction most of them.”

  “What do you mean, fiction?” I put down my glass and pressed a hand to my clammy brow.

  Her voice throbbed its way inside my head. “Have you ever had a recipe turn out like them cookery books promise? They tell you the Lancashire hotpot serves eight and there’s not enough to feed you and the cat. And the cakes always as big and round as hatboxes. But more power to Mr. H., if he can earn a living making millions of women think they can get their egg whites to peak like Mount Everest.”

  “I feel awful.” I wobbled to my feet.

  “Well, now you say it, you do look a bit off. I wonder if it could be something you ate before coming here? But never mind that. Let’s get you to the loo. Mrs. Malloy was marching me forward as she spoke. “If you’re going to be sick I’d as soon it wasn’t on this floor. Here we are Mrs. H., I’m opening the door for you and switching on the light. I’ll be right outside if you should need me.”

  I would have preferred her to be in Timbuktu. There are times when one wants to be completely alone in the world. But after five minutes, having soaked my face in cold water and brushed my hair back from my forehead I felt somewhat recovered. Whatever had possessed me to smoke and drink like a sailor? Surely not the seaside ambience of Mucklesby?

  Mrs. Malloy peeked in on me. “I was thinking about milk,” she informed me as if this was of far greater importance than the state of my health.

  I stared at her.

  “Mr. Jugg. Milk is his nickname, given to him by an auntie when he was small.”

  “Really?” I trailed after her to lean against the big desk.

  “There has to be a way to make him see that he can’t do without me. I’ve got a fortnight, two whole weeks to work on becoming his Girl Friday. And,” she smiled brightly, “I’ve decided to let you help me, even though you’ve shown you can’t hold your liquor. It’ll take your mind off your troubles.”

  “Help you? How?”

  “We’ll think of something,” she said impatiently. “And it will have to be something more than doing up the place by putting a few potted plants on the windowsill.”

  She had barely finished speaking when a knock sounded at the door. Mrs. Malloy called: “Come in!” And in walked an elderly woman, regally clad in black, from her 1940s-style hat and flowing velvet cape to her buttoned boots.

  Here, belatedly, was the 6:00 client.

  Three

  “Has to be her, don’t it?” Mrs. Malloy stage whispered in my ear, while the woman in black took stock of the room. “Wouldn’t be some gypsy come selling clothes peg; not at this hour, it wouldn’t. Name’s Lady Krumley. Got aristocracy written all over her long-nosed puss. But don’t you go bobbing no curtsies, trying to get in thick, Mrs. H. We’ve no time for none of that. You and me, we’ve got to come up with a way to handle this here situation.”

  I wasn’t at all sure I liked the sound of this. My insides still felt a bit unsure of themselves, and my head began revolving on its own axis several feet above my shoulders. Fortunately her ladyship did not appear to notice anything amiss. At her age-well into her seventies-she could be blessedly hard of hearing and worn out by her journey.

  She might have been in the throes of hypnosis as she lowered herself onto a chair, rested her carpet-style handbag on her knees and drew the black velvet cape across the buttoned-up bosom of her decidedly dated frock. Were the odd clothes a misguided attempt at disguise, I wondered? I could almost see the thought drift off into the still lingering haze of tobacco smoke. Holding onto the edge of Milk Jugg’s desk, I wavered a glance at Mrs. Malloy that I hoped would make it clear that Lady Krumley’s arrival was none of my concern.

  My place was at home with the husband who might at this moment be planning to divorce me if I did not restore his study to what he considered its old world charm. The fact that I couldn’t at that moment quite remember what he looked like did not stop me from deciding to telephone Kathleen Ambleforth, the vicar’s wife, to ask her to return the items that she had assured me, with such grateful enthusiasm, would do very nicely for St. Anselm’s annual charity drive. Kathleen I could picture all too well. She has a grimly controlled temper behind her brisk smile. Taking a firmer grip of the desk, it seemed to me the better part of cowardice to focus on returning Lady Krumley’s blank stare.

  She was, to put it as kindly as possible, a horse-faced woman beset with an oversized Roman nose, a sloping chin and hooded eyes, so dark as to be almost black. But perhaps when my head cleared she would improve. At the moment her hair was undoubtedly her best feature. It was was thick and coarse and either from art or nature mahogany in color, with only a touch of gray at the temples. She wore it wound in a thick coil topped by the 1940s-style hat.

  Undoubtedly, Kathleen Ambleforth would have coveted that hat for the charity drive. I focused on it in an attempt to stop the walls revolving and prayed that Mrs. Malloy would do nothing to distract me. No use hoping for miracles. She wasn’t about to fade gracefully into the woodwork. Not while wearing the pink angora sweater that looked as though it had been stolen from Marilyn Monroe, or the miniskirt that might once have been one leg of a pair of boy’s shorts. The wretch
ed woman was all bounce and enthusiasm as she informed her ladyship that it didn’t matter a whit that it was now 9:00 and Mr. Jugg had left for the day.

  “Better late than never,” she batted her false eyelashes. At least you’re here on your own two feet. Not in a bag with your arms being used for straps.”

  “Most kind!” came the quavering reply.

  “And don’t you go worrying your old head that there’s only me and Mrs. Haskell to help sort out the problem that’s got you into a state of fear and trembling, Lady Krumley.” The obnoxiously bracing voice floated somewhere to my left.

  “Mrs. Who?” Her ladyship opened her hooded lids a crack and surveyed me down the full length of that unfortunate nose. Her expression could have devoured at least three scullery maids, but her tone was bemused. She was coming back to life, slowly if surely.

  “Haskell,” chirped Mrs. Malloy, before I could get my lips unstuck.

  “And she is?” The look directed my way registered the suspicion that I was tragically mute.

  “Another of me lovely employers.” A technically accurate but completely misleading reply delivered by Mrs. Malloy.

  Lady Krumley straightened in her chair, her eyes suddenly snapping with inquiry. “This person,” waving a gloved hand that missed me by inches, “is Mr. Jugg’s business partner? But I had understood from the worthy source who suggested I seek assistance here that Mr. Jugg was a sole practitioner in the private detective business.”

  “Mrs. Haskell hasn’t been on the scene long.” Mrs. Malloy stood to my right on her high heels looking the picture of truth and rectitude. This was the moment for me to take a stand. Instead, as the floor began to tilt like the Titanic, I was forced to sit down and press a hand to my mouth.