Finally, others noticed it was raining.
Betty yanked at Tom’s arm. “Ariel must have left the water running after washing her hair. Run and turn it off! Ben, will you go with him and help mop up?”
“Of course.”
“And I’ll go and look for Ariel, if you like,” said Mrs. Malloy.
Out the three of them went, and Val, whose hair of course was curling even more beautifully in the damp, adjusted her great-aunt’s cardigan and put an arm around her shoulders.
“Dear me,” said Mr. Tribble, as more drops landed on his head, “I’m afraid we came without our umbrellas, Jim.”
“Oh, I expect it’s only a summer shower,” Mr. Hardcastle reassured him gamely. “No need for us to race for cover, Mrs. Hopkins. I’m sure it will pass over very quickly.”
“We could go into the drawing room.” Betty stood, twisting her hands.
“Not on my account, dear lady.” Mr. Tribble made the understandable mistake of looking up at the ceiling. Instantly, it became apparent that whatever else might be failing, his eyesight was not. If ever a man goggled, he did. “Oh, my!” His voice creaked. “Whatever next!”
The answer was a significant piece of cloud landing in his teacup. Betty hurriedly produced a new one for him and then looked distractedly around for the milk jug and teapot.
“I wonder if he might prefer a glass of brandy.” Lady Fiona lifted a decanter from a table.
“Indeed, that would be welcome!” Mr. Tribble held out his cup. “Just pour it in here, no need to trouble yourself fetching a glass. Yes, right to the middle.” Her ladyship had wafted to his side. “That will do very nicely. Thank you.”
“My dear Simeon,” Mr. Hardcastle protested. “I think that may be too much.”
“No, no. I would say the amount is exactly right. Or maybe”-peeking up at Lady Fiona-“you would kindly pour in just an inch or two more… Perfect, thank you.” He smiled up at her. “May I say you have changed remarkably little over the years. It is now coming back to me. It wasn’t a big wedding, just the two of you… and both so young. Ah, well! Time marches on! Is anyone else going to indulge?”
“Perhaps a very small cup,” said Mrs. Malloy, who had returned to the room with Ariel. Whatever the resulting problems, the girl had finally washed her hair.
“I didn’t even go into that bathroom,” she muttered to Betty. “I used the kitchen sink. Whoever left the water running, it wasn’t me. Maybe it was the spirit who visited last night.”
“Yes!” Betty’s face glowed. “The poor dar-man has such limited means of letting me know he’s counting on me to act when the moment is right.”
Ariel sat down beside me. “Maybe,” she whispered, “Nanny Pierce went upstairs to fill the bath for her precious Nigel and then forgot about it. Or acted out of clear-headed malice.”
Had the old lady left the conservatory? I didn’t remember. I’d been preoccupied. Could Ariel be lying through her teeth about not having caused the deluge?
Mr. Tribble raised his cup. “To everyone’s good health, mine included.”
Lady Fiona came up to me after returning the decanter to the table. “I do hope he’s not the sort to drink and drive.”
“I’m sure it will be Mr. Hardcastle behind the wheel,” I said.
“That does relieve my mind, Mrs. Honeywood… Elsie. Neither Nigel nor I ever learned to drive. Nanny would have worried too much in his case. She was ill for a week when he got his first tricycle.”
And how old would he have been at that time, fifty? I was looking at Betty, thinking how pretty she was with that dreamy smile on her face. What would she think of the living Nigel Gallagher, were he to show up? I retained some hope that he would do so.
“In the end his tricycle had to be given away to a needy child. But he did enjoy operating the vacuum cleaner; he loved the sound of the motor and pressing the pedal to make it stop. I imagine it was one of those man things.” Her ladyship paused to stare across the room. “Oh, dear, Mr. Tribble has dropped his teacup and is falling off his chair.”
Mr. Hardcastle bent over the crumpled figure. The rest of us, apart from Mr. Scrimshank, who remained rooted near his fern, went over to help. It was Mrs. Malloy who got there first. “He hasn’t just fallen off his chair!” Her eyes met mine. “He’s dropped off the twig!”
10
Dreadful as it sounds, Mr. Tribble’s shocking demise had the advantage of taking my mind off Val’s blatant attempts at resurrecting a relationship with Ben and his failure to give her the cold shoulder. I’d like to say it was the reminder that there are real sorrows in this world on a daily basis that brought me up short. Mr. Hardcastle had seemed very fond of the old gentleman and there would doubtless be others to miss him, but I didn’t think about that at the time. It was more a matter of the practicalities taking over.
Betty made the necessary phone calls. Mr. Scrimshank offered to drive Lady Fiona back to her hotel, a good move on his part or the undertaker might have mistaken him for the corpse. Miss Pierce, after tut-tutting about the evils of brandy served in a teacup, something Mr. Nigel’s parents would never have countenanced, appeared energized by the excitement. It took some persuasion on Val’s part to get her to return to the Dower House. She was talking volubly as they left and I would have liked to hear what she was saying, but while Tom and Ben sat with Mr. Hardcastle, I helped Mrs. Malloy to clear away the tea things. Ariel trailed after us into the kitchen, and a moment later Betty hurried in, all agog.
“Didn’t I tell you that woman’s a killer?”
“What woman?” Ariel peeked up from the chair where she now sat hunched. If ever a child looked as though she needed a cat on her lap, she was it. And no wonder! She might talk glibly about death, but having been in the room with it was something else. I placed a hand on her shoulder, but she shook it off.
“Oh, don’t be dense!” Betty did not bother to look at her. “Lady Fiona! Who else would I mean? She’s struck again!”
Mrs. Malloy handed Ariel a cucumber sandwich. “Get that down you. Having something inside will help settle your nerves. Works wonders every time.”
“Surely, Betty,” I said, “you don’t think her ladyship killed Mr. Tribble?”
“Certainly I do. She must have slipped something, a tablet or a little packet of powder, into his teacup when she poured him the brandy.”
“How did she do it without anyone’s noticing?” Ariel bit into the sandwich as if it also might be poisoned.
“Sleight of hand. Those fluttering gauzy sleeves of hers. She could have had whatever it was in her skirt pocket.”
“She just happened to have the stuff on her, like it was a lipstick?” Mrs. Malloy elbowed me aside to get to the sink and deposit more plates.
“It could have been some medication she keeps with her at all times.” Betty poked at her red hair as she scanned the room in search of believers. “Or something she brought along for the specific purpose of killing him.”
“Why?” Ariel demanded.
“She must have recognized his name when I mentioned he would be one of the guests. Her need to shut him up has to connect in some way to her motive for murdering dear… her husband. Remember how Mr. Tribble kept going on about being sure he’d performed her wedding ceremony?”
“Do we look gormless?” Mrs. M might have her hands in the sink, but she remained quite clear about her true position in this household. “Of course we remember, and I’m sure the same thought occurred to Mrs. H as did to me: that her ladyship was married to someone else before she tied the knot with Mr. Gallagher, and he found out about it, right before he disappeared.”