“How did his lordship bring up the accident?”
“He waited till we got into that room we was in last night.”
“It would have the right ambience.” I leaned forward, lifted the tray, and gingerly set it on the floor as far to the left of Mrs. M’s feet as possible, although maybe a good stomp on crockery would make her feel better. “If ever a room was primed for nightmarish revelations, that one would be it. Did Lord Belfrey break the news with cameras and audio equipment present?”
“Of course not.” She bridled at the suggestion. “That would’ve been insensitive, not that I expect that would have bothered your Judy Nunn. None of the How sad! And What a terrible thing! as came out of the others’ mouths. Not so much as a shine of a tear in those little eyes of hers.”
“She doesn’t have particularly little eyes. Saucers wouldn’t suit someone that petite.”
“That’s right; take her side, Mrs. H! If it wasn’t unkind-something I leave to others,” loaded pause, “I’d say that your fall knocked all the sense out of you.” She shifted a high-heeled shoe nearer the tray, causing me to hope nastily that she would step in the prawn sandwich. Mrs. Malloy’s footwear are her life, although to be fair to her she does not have a cardboard boxed tower of them on floor-to-ceiling shelves, as Mrs. Spuds suggested was the case with Celia Belfrey.
At any other time, I would have grabbed the opportunity to fill Mrs. Malloy in on my visit to Witch Haven and describe for her not only Celia but also Nora Burton-the downtrodden paid companion straight out of a Gothic novel if ever there was one. Did she, like her fictional counterpart, harbor a thirst for revenge against an employer who never conceived that this fetcher and carrier had her own life history? I remembered the niggling feeling that something Nora had said was somehow odd. Just a tiny bit so, or it wouldn’t keep eluding me.
It had always been such fun-so productive-talking things of this nature over with Mrs. Malloy. Were those stimulating moments on the way out? I realized sharply how fond I was of her-bossy, snide ways and all. Such qualities were her buttress against the world at large and me in particular. After all, didn’t I have to be kept in my place to prevent my turning into the evil employer equal to any Celia Belfrey? The tiny bedroom, lacking all semblance of comfort without Thumper, shrank in upon itself, turning the window into a spy hole and making the sunlight look suspiciously sneaky.
“There has to be some reason, Mrs. H, for you not seeing straight. Any other time you’d be saying it’s staring us smack in the face as how last night’s car smash wasn’t no accident. That like as not what happened to Suzanne Varney was murder plain and simple.”
It was as well the loaded tray was off the bed or my convulsive start would have sent it flying. “Murder!” I exhaled the word as though I’d never heard it before. Such a thought hadn’t crossed my mind, even though I’m usually the first to suspect foul play, given (metaphorically speaking) the slightest whiff of burnt almonds.
“And who devised this murder?” I demanded of Mrs. Malloy, knowing full well what her answer would be.
“Judy Nunn; sticks out a mile. She knew Suzanne Varney…”
“So did Livonia Mayberry.” I reached down for the slopped, now stone-cold cup of tea, and took a deep swallow.
“Oh, her!” Mrs. M shrugged a taffeta shoulder. “She’s too mealy-mouthed to murder a goldfish without first sending for a priest to give it last rites. Besides, like she told you, Mayberry only entered Here Comes the Bride to stick it in her boyfriend’s ear. Judy Nunn wants to be Lord Belfrey’s choice so as to get her hands on Mucklesfeld’s gardens. A nut job for horticulture she is, and who did she see standing in the way of her dream but Suzanne Varney?”
“Amongst four other contestants.” I set the cup and saucer back on the tray. “Has she come clean with her plans for doing away with the rest of you?”
“Not need to be snarky, Mrs. H,” baleful stare. “What I’m thinking is, she knew she wouldn’t stand a chance against Suzanne Varney. Any woman as looks attractive dead-like Dr. Tommy told us she did-had to be she was a real smasher when breathing. Now, here’s how I see things going down.” Her voice became a touch more conciliatory. “Judy arranges for them to meet up somewhere close to Mucklesfeld for a bite to eat. Then, seeing as the fog was getting so bad, suggests they go the rest of the way in one car.”
“She couldn’t have counted on the fog.”
Back to the baleful stare. “Do I look stupid?”
“Never in a million years.”
“I’m not saying as she’d planned on killing Suzanne.” Still huffy. “More a case of grabbing the opportunity by the horns when it came along.”
“Okay.” I ignored the call of the prawn sandwich.
“So, there they are creeping up the drive, Suzanne at the wheel unable to see a blinking thing, and Judy says: Why don’t I get out and guide you in?”
“With or without malice aforethought?”
“Let’s just say she was thinking of her own skin, but then she sees the break in the wall…”
“With her superwoman x-ray vision?”
Mrs. Malloy again tightened her arms under her chest, forcing the blood up her neck until I feared she’d turn purple to match her lipstick. “With the torch she got out of the glove compartment, like any reasonably clever Dick would do. Must’ve been then,” her voice dropped to a low rasp, “that something wicked took hold of her, swamping every ounce of human decency drummed into her as a nipper. What was one life against the call of the Belfrey land?”
I can’t say I shuddered to the villainy of this scenario. It was the torch that struck a note… because it was repetitive: Ben not being able to find the one Georges claimed was in a desk drawer in his lordship’s study; and further back… to last evening, Plunket saying that if Boris had found a torch to take outside, things might have been different. It was probably a coincidence, but even so I felt that prickling of the skin… the chill down the spine.
“Look,” I told Mrs. Malloy, “your not taking to Judy Nunn doesn’t mean she killed anyone. And any such suggestions to Lord Belfrey, Georges LeBois, or the other women will do nothing but ruin your own chances of ending up with the bridal veil. I’m not saying you have to be Miss Congeniality, but at least try not to be the troublemaker everyone is hoping to see out on her ear.”
“Well, I suppose it was too much to hope you’d remember all the times me instincts put me on the right track when we was handling other cases together,” Mrs. Malloy addressed the ceiling. “So you go on telling yourself this is too close and personal for me to be objective. Don’t you go worrying I’ll be saying I told you so when I’m found breathing me last after being coshed on the noggin with a poker.” Black head with its two inches of white roots held high, she made for the door.
“Oh, please!” I begged-caught however foolishly in superstitious dread. “Don’t go off miffed. Stay and have half my prawn sandwich.”
“Luncheon awaits,” hand on the knob, she did not turn her head. “We’d have sat down half an hour ago if your friend Judy wasn’t still outside with Lord Belfrey filling his head with promises of velvet lawns and herbaceous borders. And now it’ll be me that’s late.” The snap of the door behind her indicated that this was entirely my fault. To blunt my chagrin, I ate my lunch without tasting it and lay back down. No chance of Ben appearing for a while at least. He must be fully occupied in the dining room or kitchen. As for Thumper, I recognized the hopeless folly of yearning for him to leap through the window. Courage! I told myself. At least I wasn’t Wisteria Whitworth dreading the arrival of the malevolent wardress mouthing the names of the patients she had smothered in their beds after they refused their morning gruel that she’d put her whole heart into the stirring. That miserable old Mr. Codger… I smiled faintly at coming up with such a redundant name. Perhaps I was drifting off to sleep.