“Dictating machines.”
“Meaning your shorthand’s as good as code, if it should fall into the wrong hands. Not that you won’t be careful, Mrs. H., seeing that this is your big chance to prove yourself with Jugg’s Detective Agency.”
“I don’t intend to prove anything,” I stared her down, “other than that I can type as well as take shorthand. But not tonight. If it’s all the same with you, I’ll take these notes home with me and use Ben’s typewriter in the morning.” I was crossing to the coatrack to retrieve my raincoat when I was brought up short by a realization. Ben no longer had a typewriter. He was now the owner of a word processor, a piece of wizardry I wasn’t sure how to turn on, let alone operate. Bother! There was no help for it. I would have to sit back down at the desk and set my fingers drumming on Milk Jugg’s old manual, which looked to be in far worse shape than the one I had donated to the charity of Kathleen Ambleforth’s choice. The thought of telephoning her the next day and explaining that I needed not only the typewriter but all the other items from Ben’s study back caused me to feel quite glad to be stuck in the present moment.
“Changed your mind, have you? Can’t wait to get everything her ladyship told us printed up?” Mrs. Malloy stood with arms folded as I sat back down. “If it’s not too much trouble, better use some of that carbon paper stuff so’s there’s a copy for both of us. I’ll go over mine when I get home. Should make for a nice read along with a cup of cocoa and a chip butty.”
“But I’m not typing this for us.” I began tapping away at the keys. “It’s for Mr. Jugg. You can read it to him if he telephones or, if you can’t get hold of him, put it away in a drawer until he gets back.”
“Did I say cocoa?” Mrs. Malloy’s musing voice drifted my way, “I meant to say another stiff bourbon. That’s what Milk would advise, and as you’re saying, we’ve got to keep him in the forefront as we get going on this case. Thrust into the thick of things through no fault of our own! A pity. But there it is. No rest for the wicked as the actress said to the bishop. You go ahead and forget I’m here, Mrs. H., I’ll just sit here and think about that girl Flossie and the brooch. I wonder just what sort she was really?”
“I really don’t care.” I rolled paper into the typewriter. “I’m sorry she was falsely accused of theft and it was tragic her dying so young, but her date of birth and vital statistics do not interest me. All this stuff about the deathbed curse is complete rubbish. A product of Lady Krumley’s guilty conscience. Aged family members die off without any unearthly interference.”
“But that old geezer going balloon riding?” Mrs. Malloy screwed up the empty packet of cigarettes and tossed it into the wastepaper basket.
“Uncle Dickie in the Channel Islands?” I found him in my notes. “It was bungee jumping.”
“Go on, correct me! The point is, Mrs. H., that’s not the way most people end their days at ninety or whatever he was.”
“The upper classes pride themselves on their eccentricities. True, it would have been safer for him to howl at the moon from the top of his tree house, but to each his own.”
“And then there was the kangaroo.”
“That got cousin Clement in Australia,” I continued pounding away at the keys. “Perhaps he failed to read the notice that said, ‘Please don’t feed the animals or pull their tails.’ And, Mrs. Malloy don’t bring up Aunt Theobalda who fell down the lift shaft. Accidents happen. As for the sister-in-law,” I typed in the name Mildred, “no one can make anything the least bit weird out of an old woman dying in her sleep.”
“In other words you don’t have an ounce of sympathy for poor Lady Krumley and her wanting to find this Ernestine person to try to make things right for what was done to her dear mum.” Mrs. Malloy went to sit down on the metal chair, but her glare caused it to panic and skid into the wall. “Well, I must say I’m shocked, Mrs. H., shocked to me very core! I don’t think I’ve felt this bad since me husband Leonard turned nasty and said I looked like I’d aged twenty years.”
“But you had,” I hit the carriage return. “He hadn’t seen you in all that time, after going down to the shops to get a pound and a half of stewing steak for the meat pudding you wanted to make and forgetting to come back. You weren’t all that thrilled if I remember rightly when he re-entered your life out of the blue”-I dabbed whiteout on a mis-typed word and looked up at her while waiting for it to dry-“just as Ernestine may not be especially thrilled at being hounded to ground. She’s probably living a nice, fulfilled life somewhere. Possibly with children of her own. Why does she need to know that her mother died spewing vengeance on the Krumley family?”
“You forgot to ask what happened to Ernest, the dad?” asked Mrs. M. at her most uppity.
“Clearly he wasn’t willing or able to take the baby, or she wouldn’t have been adopted.”
“If he wasn’t married to Flossie he might not have been given the chance, not back in them days. Could be he was fair broke up and would give anything to finally meet up with his daughter.”
“There is that. But it doesn’t sound as though he was helping her mother out much financially, if Flossie was struggling to make ends meet in the miserable bed-sitter her ladyship described. Although, to be fair, I don’t suppose under gardeners were paid more than a pittance in those days.” I sat back from the typewriter. The clatter I had been making on the keys had drowned out the patter of rain on the windows. It made for a mournful sound. I wasn’t as hard-hearted as Mrs. Malloy had claimed.
Flossie’s was a sad story, and it could be that Lady Krumley’s hope of finding the daughter would turn up some silver linings. She hadn’t said how she planned to make reparation, but Ernestine might welcome a bank draft, along with a heartfelt apology. But there was no urgency to the matter. Mr. Jugg would return from his holiday and take care of the matter with the proficiency provided by training and experience. As an interior designer I could perhaps be of some help to Lady Krumley. Getting rid of the gargoyles in the Great Hall and repapering the dungeons in a nice bright plaid might do much to lift her spirits. But a detective I wasn’t. I said as much to Mrs. Malloy and spent the next five minutes listening to her rant on about the number of bodies that would pile up while I sat twiddling my thumbs.
“And it’s not like you’ve got any jobs lined up right now,” she pointed out ruthlessly.
“True,” I paperclipped my typed notes together, “but I do have to take care of the children, in addition to doing all my own housework now that you’re spending so much time here. Although I do have to wonder why,” I recapped the bottle of whiteout, “if you’re really so keen on developing the necessary secretarial skills to become Mr. Jugg’s Girl Friday you left me to do the clerical work this evening along with posing as his partner.”
Mrs. Malloy heaved a sigh that shot out her bosom six inches. “I don’t like to push meself forward. Let someone else steal the limelight, that’s always been my way. Besides it wasn’t like I was just sitting around looking like something Cary Grant would have died to hold in his arms for just one minute. I was taking it all in. Every single word as was said.”
“I’m sure her ladyship would have thought the whole setup very odd if she hadn’t been so intent on convincing us that dark forces were at work beyond the great divide. She failed with me, but don’t let that stop you from being a true believer.”
“What I believe is we ought to get busy finding Ernestine before Lady Krumley gives herself a ruddy nervous breakdown,” retorted Mrs. Malloy at her most virtuous. “It’s our Christian duty, besides being a chance for me to get a leg up in me new career. And I’ll tell you another thing, Mrs. H., if I did know how to get hold of Milk, I’m not so sure I’d do it. He’s entitled to some time off, holed up with his booze and his memories of the woman he had to send up the river. Wouldn’t it be something if he was to come back all bleary eyed and unshaven- my dream man come true-and I was able to put the spark back in him, just by saying, ‘No need to upset you hangover about the Krumley case. It’s all sorted out. A treat.’?”