The Importance of Being Ernestine Read online

  “Laureen told me she had confessed to you and your partner about the stunt they hatched up between them. I very much regret and disapprove of Tom scaring you by showing up with that gun.”

  “We should have realized it wasn’t real.”

  “That doesn’t lessen the seriousness of his shocking behavior.”

  “There was no harm done, in fact quite the reverse. It convinced Mrs. Malloy and me that there might be something in Lady Krumley’s story that needed investigating.”

  “You’re very kind, and there is another bright side.” Mr. Featherstone’s eyes twinkled. “His performance convinced my nephew that acting wasn’t the career for him, and he has decided to go into the church. Laureen also seems to have discovered her true calling. She has found so much pleasure spending time with Mrs. Hasty and other elderly people in the village that she has decided to make working with them her chosen path.”

  “That’s wonderful!” I really meant it and could not resist asking: “Any hope of wedding bells?”

  “An engagement is imminent.”

  What a special man he was, so freely rejoicing in the romantic happiness of others when his own hopes for a life with Lady Krumley had not been realized. But surely it wasn’t too late even at this stage in their lives. Maybe, once she was able to put all this business of Flossie Jones and Ernestine behind her, she’d come to the realization that the years she had left could be filled with renewed happiness. I thought of my grandmother who had recently and blissfully married the love of her life and I made a wish for Lady Krumley and Mr. Featherstone. I completely forgot that I’d harbored suspicions of her motives for searching out Ernestine, and they didn’t reoccur when I asked Mr. Featherstone if it was possible for me to see her ladyship.

  “Or is she in bed?”

  “She wouldn’t hear of it and threatened another health episode if anyone brought pressure to bear. You’ll find her in the drawing room with Sir Alfonse. Niles and Cynthia are upstairs in their rooms, but I believe Daisy Meeks is with them. No one in the family had met her prior to a few years ago, when she came on a visit to Moultty Towers and shortly afterward bought a house in the village.” Mr. Featherstone then led me across the hall and walked with me into the drawing room. As on the previous day my appalled gaze fixed on the array of game heads on the walls. All those furry faces with their antlers and reproachful glass eyes! They reduced everything else-including the people in the room-to a backdrop for a powerfully visual appeal for animal rights. I jumped when a voice spoke from a chair near the fireplace.

  “Admiring the family portraits?” A man got to his feet. He was of a portly build and of medium height with a head of glossy black curls and a luxuriant moustache. His accent was faintly continental and his attire-a beige linen suit and a yellow and navy blue bow tie-also suggested that he wasn’t English or liked to project the image of a widely traveled man of the world. So this was Sir Alfonse Krumley, inheritor of the title, but not the heir to Moultty Towers.

  With his emergence the rest of the room sprang to life. My eyes went to Lady Krumley who beckoned me forward with an imperative hand. Seated beside her on the sofa was Daisy Meeks. Her badly permed hair gave her every right to complain to her hairdresser, but her frumpish frock suggested she had little interest in her appearance. I stood in a whirl of introductions made by her ladyship in a voice charged with vigor and found myself seated in the chair vacated by Sir Alfonse, who remained standing. Mr. Featherstone left us, saying he needed to return to the vicarage and when the door closed behind him the room sank into a silence that had a muffled sort of quality to it. A small fire burned in the very large grate and it wasn’t until a log broke apart with a sharp crack that animation returned with Lady Krumley addressing me in her deep voice, while her black eyes snapped glances at Sir Alfonse and Daisy Meeks.

  “So, Mrs. Haskell, how are you proceeding with the plans for the decorating?”

  “We’ve come up with some ideas, but this may not be the best time to talk about it with you so upset about your relative’s death.” Would this clue her in that I would return at a more convenient time?

  “Alas, poor Vincent! He came to Moultty Towers to meet his fate.” Her ladyship now looked at Sir Alfonse, who was to be congratulated on looking suavely anguished.

  “I was fond of the old roue.” The foreign accent deepened, the moustache quivered and the rather protuberant dark eyes moistened to a shining gloss. “Many’s the night we sat in a Parisian nightclub, discoursing on the most eclectic of subjects-Russian art, the advent of Esperanto, the proper making of porridge. A man of many parts was Vincent. Do we remember him as a drunkard, a gambler or do we recall only what was in him sublime? His devotion to that little dog?”

  As if summoned to contribute to this eulogy, Pipsie, if I remembered the name rightly, appeared out of nowhere to leap at a linen trouser leg and begin devouring what I guessed, from the forthcoming reaction, to be a cherished cuff. Far from smiling fondly down at Vincent Krumley’s dog, Sir Alfonse attempted to shake it off with a vengeance, and I thought I caught words, “revolting animal.” Meanwhile Daisy Meeks had entered the conversation in a small flat voice that strained the ears of her listeners.

  “What’s comforting is that we were all together when Vincent passed away.”

  “We weren’t all with him,” Lady Krumley contradicted. “And he didn’t pass away. He went down a well.”

  “What I meant to say,” Daisy continued, shuffling her feet away from Pipsie who was trying to burrow under the sofa, “is we were all with him the night before he left this earth.”

  “He hasn’t left it.” Lady Krumley was growing more provoked, which explained perhaps why she hadn’t thought to ask me to return at a more convenient time or suggested that the other two leave us to talk. “He’s still on a slab in the morgue. That’s what we’ve been sitting here talking about: how to get him buried.”

  “Before he get’s too well settled in and refuses to move.” This quip from Sir Alfonse was in line with his initial remark to me about the family portraits. Clearly the man prized his sense of humor as much as his trousers. I was sure that there were women somewhere who would appreciate his well-practiced charm.

  “We must decide on the hymns for the funeral,” barked Lady Krumley.

  “It’s some consolation to remember how much he enjoyed the stew Mrs. Beetle made for dinner that night.” Daisy turned to me. “Do you make stew?”

  “Yes.”

  “The coffin must be selected,” her ladyship addressed Sir Alfonse.

  “May I lift that burden from you, Aunt Maude? I believe I know just what Vincent would like.”

  “That’s all very well but I don’t think we can put him in a brandy cask.” Lady Krumley’s hooded eyelids were beginning to droop.

  “I always put turnips in my stew.”

  “If you would also be so good, Alfonse, as to arrange for the flowers.”

  “And a couple of bay leaves.”

  “The service is set for noon, followed by internment in the family plot.” Her ladyship’s voice had grown gravelly with fatigue.

  “We must make it an occasion. It’s what Vincent would have wanted.” Sir Alfonse turned away to hide his emotion.

  “And a little garlic powder.”

  Not having known Vincent Krumley I didn’t have a clue what he would have wanted for his funeral, but I was beginning to wonder if he really had been the doddering old duffer her ladyship had described to Mrs. Malloy and me at the hospital. She had talked about his being muddled in his perceptions. But had he been wrong about Cynthia having been a go-go dancer? And had he said Daisy Meeks had a twin as reported by her ladyship, or that he hoped she didn’t have a twin? Words get altered in the recounting. Or elaborated upon.

  At the moment when I realized Lady Krumley was soundly asleep Watkins entered the room to inform me that Mrs. Malloy was waiting for me in the hall. After making my farewells to Sir Alfonse and Daisy Meeks, I joined her and made all
speed out to the car.

  “Well,” I asked as we drove off down the drive, “did you talk to Ronald Thatcher?”

  “Didn’t I say I would?” She was looking unbearably smug.

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “Were you able to get anything useful out of him?”

  “Enough to make we wonder if we haven’t found our murderer. But I wouldn’t want to start discussing it today, Mrs. H., if you’re not in the mood.” She proceeded to make a production out of going into her bag and taking out a lemon drop. Of course I was consumed with curiosity, but when she added insult to injury I responded in my own mean-spirited way.

  “I don’t suppose Ronald gave you Ernestine’s address?” I deserved to be punished for that, but God is remarkably forgiving. When I got home Ben came out of the study to provide me with a vital piece of information that he’d found on the internet while playing, as he cheerfully told me, on his wonderful new computer.

  “That’s nice, dear.” I did my wifely best to sound excited.

  “I looked to see if the Waysiders had a Web page or whatever it’s called, Ellie. And low and behold I came upon the name Ernestine Merryweather. She runs the place. She’s the woman who may have frightened Aunt Lulu into going straight rather than be returned to reform school. Of course,” he put his arm around me, “She may not be your Ernestine.”

  “She’d jolly well better be,” I said, “or I’ll set Pipsie the Maltese terrier on her. That little dog is itching to make someone pay for Vincent Krumley’s death. And I would just as soon it wasn’t me or Mrs. Malloy.”

  Twenty-one

  It was the following evening and Mrs. Malloy and I were having a last cup of tea before what we hoped would be the final scene in the melodrama being enacted at Moultty Towers. We were in her tiny kitchen, with its bead curtain screening the washing machine from view. The dangling fringe on the tablecloth and the red shaded lamp always reminded me of a fortuneteller’s parlor. Usually I didn’t mind the absence of a crystal ball, but at this moment it would have been helpful. We had spent the day getting everything set up and had been fortunate in the cooperation we had received from those we had assigned as stage managers. Mrs. Malloy and I had divided up the workload and were fairly well satisfied that we had everything covered. All-important had been Lady Krumley’s eventual willingness to accept our hypothesis, for that’s all it was up to this point. The information given to Mrs. Malloy by young Ronald Thatcher had convinced us as to the who, and last night had been spent putting together all those bits and pieces that seemed to provide us with the why. This was still a far cry from hard evidence, leaving us dependent on squeezing out a confession. That’s where the difficulty had been with her ladyship. It had been necessary to convince her that the dark forces she had talked about so often were clothed in human flesh. Not being confident that Mrs. Malloy or I would be able to bring her over to this way of thinking, I had telephoned Mr. Featherstone and enlisted his help. He promised, with his old world courtesy, to do his best. Within two hours he rang back to say that Lady Krumley had responded to the effect that there was no point in hiring a pair of private detectives and barking oneself. He wasn’t certain that she had given up on Flossie’s deathbed curse, but we had her agreement to stage our scene in the drawing room at Moultty Towers at 8:00 that evening.

  “Very kind of the reverend to pitch in.” Mrs. Malloy stirred her tea. She looked very much the fortuneteller in her black taffeta dress with the jet beading. The silk turban perched on her blonde curls heightened the impression. “But then he, being a man in love, was ready and eager to help. It was different with Constable Thatcher. I had to exercise all the force of me personality to bring him into line. But after I mentioned what a shame it would be if Lady Krumley pressed charges against his Ronald and the other boy for throwing them flower pots, he came round very nicely. Course, Mrs. H., I’m not saying I had him a hundred percent convinced his son had spotted a murderer laying the groundwork, so to speak. But my guess is there’s now this question mark in his mind. Would be nice if it’d light up and flash and go Bing! Bing! every so often, but medical science hasn’t progressed that far. They’re too busy cloning sheep and other such silliness.”

  “You gave Constable Thatcher his instructions?”

  “Told him and then wrote them down, so’s there’ll be no mistakes. He’s to position himself outside the drawing room after everyone troops in. And right before we gets started the vicar will sidle over to the door and open it a crack, like to see if there’s anyone outside, and then not close it properly, so Constable Thatcher can hear what’s going on and write things down in his little book if he fancies. Men!” She smiled indulgently. “They do like to make themselves feel important. Well, if it keeps them happy, why not? There was you all stirred up thinking Mr. H. would leave you after your redecorating and updating. Now he’s like a kiddie with a new toy. Can’t tear himself away from his computer now.”

  I was rubbing at a drop of tea that had landed on my sage green sweater. “I know, we were completely at cross purposes. I thought he was still angry with me for getting rid of his old typewriter. Instead he was feeling guilty about having made such a fuss because within minutes of turning on the computer he was hooked and feeling even guiltier about all the time he was spending on it. He told me he loves the study the way it’s redecorated; it gives him more room, and more storage. It’s as though he finally has his very own space instead of being shut up in the cupboard under the stairs.”

  “Surprises me you didn’t give his head the back side of a frying pan.” Mrs. Malloy eyed the cookoo clock that wasn’t known of its truthfulness. She must have decided it was fast this time rather than slow, because she not only settled back into her chair but also poured herself another cup of tea.

  “Who could have guessed that my shipping those items off to Kathleen Ambleforth’s charity drive would have this much impact?” I had succeeded in making the tea spot worse. “But for my row with Ben I wouldn’t have turned out that night to meet you at Jugg’s.”

  “Thanks ever so!”

  “I wouldn’t have been so depressed that I smoked and got sick drinking that whisky, which was why I got talked into working with you on this case. And if I hadn’t been so desperate to get the items back I wouldn’t have pestered Kathleen for the name of the organization where they had been sent. She wouldn’t have finally told me it was The Waysiders, right before Aunt Lulu showed up with her horror stories about her stay there, making for such a coincidence that my harping on about it got the name stuck in Ben’s head. So that’s when he was next at the computer…”

  “And don’t let’s forget me finding that address card in Vincent Krumley’s wallet that lets us know he was also familiar with The Waysiders.” Mrs. Malloy yawned behind a heavily ringed hand. “So don’t go letting Mr. H. get too chuffed, or he’ll be expecting a cut of that five thousand pounds. And you know what that’ll mean. He’ll be buying himself a laptop, so he can take it to bed with him and there goes your marriage. I tell you what,” Mrs. Malloy said, adding a drop more tea to my cup, “I’ll send Mr. H. a nice thank you card, and you can do likewise for the Reverend Featherstone who’s been more than good handling things with Lady Krumley and Ernestine too. A busy day for a man of his age having to go here, there and the other. If her ladyship don’t appreciate him after this she never will. And either you can get a divorce and marry him or I’ll do it. Come to think of it that might be a little more special than a card.” Mrs. Malloy made a production of getting to her feet and again looking at the clock. “You did say you talked to Laureen?”

  “Yes, just as we discussed.”

  “Never a dull moment in this business.” Her face sobered. “It’ll be a bit of a letdown when it’s over.”

  “Let’s hope we’re around to enjoy it.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “We can’t be absolutely sure that things won’t get out of hand. Constable Thatcher
could doze off clutching the doorknob. And our murderer may not take kindly to be brought out into the open. Naturally I didn’t plant that little seed in Ben’s mind. I assured him that you and I were safe as houses.”

  “How many policemen did you tell him there was going to be on hand?”

  “A few.”

  Mrs. M. was flapping powder onto her nose with a large puff. “I’m shocked, that’s what I am! Telling lies to your very own husband.”

  “Only a white… well, maybe a gray one. For all I know Constable Thatcher could be a very large man, the size of at least three regular-sized ones.”

  “He’s nothing of the sort, he’s built just nice. Quite a pleasant jolly sort of chap for all we’ve heard of him being so strict with young Ronald. He asked me if I’d ever thought of going into the police force. There was quite a meaningful look in his eyes when he said it.”

  “He wasn’t suggesting that with you being such a whiz at solving murders you should be well up the chain of command by now?” Mrs. Malloy did not dignify this with a response. I followed her into the hall where we got into our coats, picked up our handbags and went out the door into the mildest evening we’d had in weeks.

  The drive to Biddlington-By-Water seemed shorter because it was now so familiar. We didn’t talk for several miles or rather I should say neither of us said a word out loud. I was reciting my lines for the upcoming production inside my head. And Mrs. Malloy, from the way she was moving her lips and her frequent frowns, appeared to be doing the same thing. But after a while I reverted to thinking about the problems ahead. It was all very well for Mrs. Malloy and me to be conducting dress rehearsals whenever we could spare time during the day. It was hardly surprising that each of the players did and said exactly as wished when we were playing all the parts. The reality was unlikely to go as smoothly. And in the end would it all be for naught? Mrs. Malloy’s thoughts were flowing right along with mine.