This was interesting, but Ben and Poppa might come down any minute. To move things along I said, “Sid told me that he had put a personal in the paper and had received a response from someone who seemed a soulmate.”
“He most certainly did.” Hyacinth’s black eyes gleamed. “He heard from wife number one, Angelica Brady.”
“Never!” said Magdalene and I together.
“We fear so.” Primrose fussed with her curls. “Again unwittingly, Bentley sent Miss Brady some copies of The Daily Spokesman, and in one of them was Mr. Fowler’s appeal. We have spoken to her and she likened the effect upon her to being drawn by an invisible cord. However, being a woman of the world, she did exercise some caution. She insisted that they hold to a use of code names and continue addressing their correspondence to post office boxes. Fear of disillusionment kept her from setting a first meeting, but with the cookery demonstration so apropos, it was arranged that they should each come to the church hall wearing a red rose.” Primrose sank back in her chair, in breathless need of the fresh cup of tea Butler promptly handed her.
“And one or both of them told you all this as they rushed from the hall?” I didn’t mean to sound biting, but how did Sidney’s plight help Ben?
Hyacinth surveyed me. “Miss Brady put up at the Pebblewell Hotel last night and we engaged her in conversation; quite easily done-young people find it difficult to make a getaway when the elderly are persistent. And Miss Brady is a singularly sweet person. She confessed to us all about her early marriage and her acute distress upon discovering that her husband was leading not a double, but a quadruple life.”
“No way round it, this will kill Sidney’s mother.” Magdalene was looking a little more perky. “Although there’ll be those that’ll say she brought it on herself, letting him get his own tea when he was little.”
Hyacinth replaced the green book in the carpetbag. “When Miss Brady dashed out of the church hall this afternoon, she collided with us, babbling that her amour de plume was none other than her bigamist husband, Sidney. Scarcely had she fled between the gravestones when Mr. Fowler cannoned into us, babbling that he was going to grab a boat and head for France.”
“We don’t want to seem dim-witted…” Magdalene and I said as one.
Primrose gave a dimpling laugh. “My dears, Sidney disappears and Bentley disappears. Can you believe it won’t be said that they have gone off together, to the chagrin of cousin Frederick?”
The sisters stood up. “Perfect, don’t you think?” one of them said.
I could see a couple of flaws in the plan. Ben didn’t deserve this. And what if Sidney was something worse than a bigamist? But there were bound to be holes in any other ideas produced. I looked at the clock on the mantel. Ben and Poppa had been upstairs for nearly an hour. It was time to explore the dungeons.
The Tramwells and I positioned ourselves on the spot next to Rufus. Magdalene, her face pinched, was assigned to twist the bannister rung, Butler, to depress the alcove ledge and send us on our way. If either man left his bedroom while we were down below, Magdalene was to stall him.
On our marks. The floor dropped away and my insides leapt into my throat. No sound from the sisters. Had they died of fright? A shuttering sound overhead. Then nothing but sooty blackness sucking us down… and down… A light burst on, splintering the dark into hundreds of stars, and once again there was solid ground under our feet. Either by error or design, Primrose’s hand had found the light switch. Was Abigail the one who installed electricity down here? I wished someone had installed an automatic air freshener.
“That was quite delightful.” Primrose smoothed her curls and took a step toward Hyacinth, who had proceeded through a gothic arch and down some shallow steps into the main stone chamber lined with cells, the kind whence the sheriff was forever tossing Robin Hood. Each had a tiny grill in its door, enabling the prisoner to look out upon the focal point of the room-the rack. On closer inspection, this proved to be a reproduction. The walls weren’t dripping and the chill was not unbearable. But the fustiness of the place lacked only the smell of hopelessness and fear. Hyacinth had one of the cell doors open and was urging Primrose and myself to come in and enjoy a peek.
Primitive but not punitive. I saw a narrow bed covered with a grey blanket riddled with moth holes, a stick table, and chair. Ideal sleeping quarters for guests who might otherwise have outstayed their welcome. Had such been Wilfred Grantham’s thinking? We looked into several other cells. A few had the same narrow beds, others were empty, but one contained two beds pushed together. A grimy crystal vase stood on a handsome smoker’s chest… exactly what I had been wanting for the study. The cell next to it had been fitted with all the accoutrements of a late nineteenth-century bathroom, including an oak-encased water closet. Hyacinth had out the green notebook and was murmuring to herself as she scribbled. “Pillow, sheets, blankets, electric kettle, tinned foods, fizzy drink, books, gallons and gallons of water.”
“Ellie”-Primrose squeezed my shoulder-“I feel quite sanguine that Ben can be comfortable here.”
Comfortable! My professional instincts might have been the teensiest bit inflamed by the romantic possibilities of the place, but Ben’s claustrophobia would soon have him clawing the walls.
Hyacinth was looking upward. “No prison could be more secure. Not even the smallest window, only those pencil-like apertures close to the ceiling, which has to be fifteen feet up.” She grasped my elbow and propelled me to the exit. “Let us depart, confident that your dear husband has no chance of escape.”
It was going to work. A man at the complete mercy of his maniac wife.
Magdalene mashed into us as we stepped into the hall. “Someone is at the front door and I didn’t want to let whoever it is in, not with you still down there.” The floor slid into place. Butler penguined to the door and in swept Vanessa, all fox fur and gorgeous. What could be more propitious. Was fate beginning to smile?
“Ellie, darling! My, you look surprised! But when I phoned, I understood I would be welcome.” She peeled off a glove and swirled it around. “Oh, I see you have other guests, but”-she dismissed the Tramwells and Magdalene-“surely they can entertain themselves while you and I talk about Rowland.” Her eyes welled with tears, which may have been artificial but were nonetheless dazzling. “I want him, Ellie, and it is driving me insane that I can’t buy him the way I bought this coat or… the way you bought Ben. So you-my only wholesome acquaintance-are going to have to advise me how I can sluff on the sort of attributes that will make me irresistible to him.”
“You might,” I said, “start with doing me a favour, one that should cost you little and gain you a trip anywhere you wish to go and save many lives.”
“What kind of lives?”
“Male.”
“Well, in that case”-she tapped me on the cheek with her glove-“how can I refuse! Especially when it puts you right where I want you-in my debt.”
Somehow, I got through the rest of the evening. Ben and Poppa came downstairs seconds after Vanessa went out the front door. Butler made himself scarce. I discovered later he had gone to fetch the Tramwells’ overnight bags. The sisters made rustling noises to the effect that they must be leaving. But Magdalene and I urged them to stay for dinner. The more voices, the more faces, the more hers and mine could get lost in the crowd. Ben was in excellent spirits. He was convinced the Hearthside Guild would never ask him to demonstrate again. His headache was gone, his burns superficial, and his hand kept touching my thigh under the table. Does chloroform have aphrodisiac aftereffects? Between dessert and coffee he came up with an excuse to lure me into the kitchen.