Fire When Ready (Manor House Mystery) (12 page)

While she was trying to phrase the request in her mind,
Martin said tartly, "If this factory, or whatever it is you're talking about, burned down, then why do you need a petition to close it? It hardly seems likely that anyone would have any use for it now."

"It didn't burn all the way down, did it." Marge felt her nose beginning to drip with the cold and she sniffed hard. "They're going to rebuild it. That's what the petition's for, to stop them building it up again."

"Why on earth would they want to build a factory in Sitting Marsh in the first place?"

Marge dabbed at her nose with the back of her gloved hand. "They're making guns and bullets and stuff there, that's why. Rita says as how it's a. . . ." she struggled for the word Rita had used. Rita was always using long words that nobody understood. "Magnet!" she said triumphantly. "That's the word. It's a magnet for the Germans."

Martin's sour look of disgust was beginning to annoy her. Mostly because she couldn't find her hankie and had to use her glove to wipe her nose. Not only that, the urge to piddle was reaching desperate proportions. She pressed her knees together. "I wonder if her ladyship would mind—"

"As I've mentioned already," Martin said haughtily, "her ladyship is not at home. Even if she were, I seriously doubt that she would sign a paper allowing Germans to come to Sitting Marsh to get their guns and bullets. Good day to you."

"The guns are not for the Germans you twerp—" Seeing the door closing on her, Marge stuck out her foot in the gap. "Here, I'm not finished."

"Oh, yes you are," Martin said. Unfortunately, he'd failed to see her foot in the door, or more likely, chose not to see it. Either way, the heavy door squashed Marge's toes, which were already numb with cold. The pain was excruciating,
and her shriek was loud enough to be heard all the way down the hill to the village below.

The door swung open again and released her foot. A little too late as it turned out. The bruising pain had caused her to lose control, and, in great embarrassment, she watched the warm puddle form at her feet. It was going to be a really long, damp walk home.

The door to the bedroom opened, and Elizabeth held her breath. At the last minute she'd slithered under the bed, hoping that the tossed bedclothes would help to hide her from the visitor. One thing was obvious. McNally was no housekeeper. The dust had gathered in lumps and drifted past her nose with the draft. Any minute now she was going to let loose with a gigantic sneeze.

Lying on the hard floorboards, Elizabeth watched a pair of shoes walk across the rug in the direction of the dressing table. A woman, obviously. Probably young, judging from the thick, high sole of the platform shoes. Wearing nylons, too. The only place Elizabeth knew where one could obtain nylons was from the American base. She had to be a young woman.

Lydia Shepperton was over fifty years old and weighed at least twelve stone. Somehow Elizabeth doubted she'd be prancing around in high platform soles. She was dying to inch forward and get a look at the woman's face, but any movement was bound to give away her hiding place.

She was beginning to regret her impulsive move. It was one thing to explain what she was doing in Douglas McNally's cottage without permission. It was quite another to find a good reason why she should be lying under his bed.

The sound of scuffling and rustling told her that the
woman was sorting through the mess on the dressing table.
This must be the relative responsible for packing up McNally's things
. Though according to George, there would be three of them at least, and Elizabeth had the impression they would be older people.

While she was debating whether or not to chance a peek, something dropped to the floor with a thump. From where she lay, she could see it quite clearly. It was one of the books from the dressing table. As she watched, a hand came down to retrieve it—long, slim, and elegant.

Elizabeth shrank back as far as she could. Even so, a face dipped into view and then, just as quickly, disappeared. Luckily the visitor hadn't thought to look under the bed. It had been just a brief glimpse, but enough for Elizabeth to recognize the face.

It was Nellie Smith, the Housewives League's only unmarried member, and by the sounds of drawers being opened and closed, she was doing a thorough job of searching the bedroom.

It seemed an eternity while Elizabeth waited for the young woman to leave. Her prayers were answered when Nellie apparently deemed it unnecessary to search under the bed. Whatever it was she was looking for, she'd either found it or had given up, because she finally hurried out of the room and Elizabeth could crawl out from her self-imposed torture chamber.

Her shoulder ached from the pressure of the floorboards and she'd snagged her stocking on a broken spring, causing an ugly ladder to run up the length of her leg. Stretching her stiff limbs to restore the circulation, she reminded herself that now that Earl was back, perhaps she could once more enjoy the luxury of nylon stockings. Once a woman had worn the smooth, filmy garments, it was very
difficult to feel elegant in the itchy lisle ones she was used to wearing.

A quick glance at the dressing table told her nothing about what might be missing. She would have given a great deal to know why Nellie was sorting through McNally's belongings. Could it be that Nellie was looking for the same thing she herself had come there to find?

Elizabeth brushed herself down and headed for the door. She found it very difficult to believe that the bright, vivacious young woman could turn out to be a cold-blooded killer. Then again, war did strange things to people. It turned young men into ruthless killers. Why not women, too?

The thought sickened her, and she hurried to the front door. She was about to open it when she realized she had no way of locking it behind her. She would have to go out the way she came in. Just to be sure, she tested it. It was securely locked. Apparently Nellie had entered the house the same awkward way she had.

Sighing heavily, Elizabeth returned to the lavatory. The window was now closed and she leaned forward to open it. The sink prevented her from seeing if the window box was still there. She would have to wait until she was on the window sill.

That was a little more trouble than she'd anticipated and she was feeling decidedly peevish by the time she'd scrambled through the gap in the window. The window box was there, but still lying on its side. Either Nellie hadn't needed to use it, or it had fallen again.

The drop to the uneven ground twisted Elizabeth's ankle, and she limped back to her motorcycle, wondering why on earth she took it upon herself to attempt such formidable tasks instead of allowing the constables to do their job.

The answer, she ruefully reminded herself, was that
George and Sid were either uninterested or unable to conduct a successful police investigation. If there was a murderer in the village, she had to do something about it. Perhaps if she showed the letters to George, it would be enough to goad him into investigating.

Since she had to pass the Tudor Arms on the way home, and since it was shortly before opening time at the pub, she decided to call on Alfie. The congenial barman was always gracious and accommodating, and could usually be relied upon to offer her a glass of her favorite cream sherry.

She found him behind the long, pitted counter as usual, priming the pumps for the evening rush of customers. He looked up to the sound of the tinkling bell as she entered, and nodded a greeting.

The odor of beer and stale cigarette smoke largely masked the musty smell of the ancient establishment. Having been built a few centuries ago, the thick oak beams stretching across the ceiling allowed scant headroom for anyone approaching six feet in height. Elizabeth smiled, remembering Earl's instinctive habit of ducking his head whenever he entered the pub through the low doorway.

She propped herself up on a bar stool and greeted the barman. "Good evening, Alfie. It's quite chilly out there tonight."

"Well, your ladyship, I reckon you need a drop of the old firewater then." He reached under the counter and came up holding a bottle of French cognac. "Only keep this for me special customers, I do."

Elizabeth's eyes widened. "Wherever did you manage to find that? I haven't seen cognac since the rationing started."

Alfie winked. "Ah, that'd be telling now, wouldn't it. Care for a drop?"

"Oh, I shouldn't really." Elizabeth wavered. "Well, perhaps a little spot of it. Thank you, Alfie."

"My pleasure, m'm. A little drop of what you fancy does you good, you know."

"I suppose so." Elizabeth took a cautious sip of the bronze liquid and choked as it seared her throat. "My goodness, this is potent," she said, when she could speak.

Alfie grinned happily at her. "Ah, that it is. Good stuff, that is."

"It is indeed." Elizabeth put the glass down. "Alfie, I was talking to George about that dreadful fire at the munitions factory."

Alfie's grin vanished. "Nasty business that were. Two people dead. Could have been a lot more if it had been in the daytime."

"Yes, I imagine you're right. I understand Fred Shepperton came down here to raise the alarm."

"That's right, m'm. Woke me up, he did, banging on the front door. Said he'd heard the explosion and came right down here on his bicycle."

"What time was that?"

Alfie gazed at the ceiling and stroked his chin. "Let's see. Must have been a little after midnight. I hadn't been in bed that long. I let Fred in and he used the telephone to ring the fire brigade, then went straight back to the factory to wait for them. Of course, we didn't know right then that there were two people inside."

"That must have come as a nasty shock to him."

"I reckon it did at that. Then again, what was McNally doing there at that time of night, that's what I want to know. I know Jessie's usually there until about one o'clock in the morning doing her cleaning, but why McNally was there that late's a mystery to me."

"You know, Alfie, you're the first person to mention that." Elizabeth picked up her glass. "That's something I'm curious about, too."

"Seems a bit late to be working. But then again, who knows. It just seems strange, don't it." Alfie started lining up the glass tankards on the counter.

"A lot of things seem strange." Elizabeth hesitated, then decided to keep to herself for the present the matter of the locked office door. "Violet was telling me that Jack Mitchum wasn't very happy about his wife working there."

"That's putting it mildly. They had a right barney about it down here. Jack and McNally that is. Millie wasn't here, or she'd have had her say as well."

Elizabeth sipped her brandy, relieved that it didn't burn the way her first sip had done. "I do hope it didn't come to blows."

"Well," Alfie looked around as if afraid to be overheard, even though no one else was in the pub. "Jack'd had a few pints of wallop by then, and sometimes he gets a little bombastic, if you know what I mean."

Elizabeth nodded. She knew exactly what he meant. She'd witnessed Jack Mitchum's temper more than once.

"Anyway, Jack said he didn't like Millie working at the factory. He said her place was in the butcher's shop with him. McNally said he reckoned Millie was old enough to make her own decisions and that she could earn good money working in the factory."

"And Jack took offense to that?"

"You bet he did. He accused McNally of having his eye on Millie. You know how Millie is. She likes a laugh with the blokes, all right. Well, McNally got upset about that and shouted right back at Jack. Said it wasn't his fault if Millie was tired of working for a selfish bully."

"Oh, dear."

"Well, then Jack said as how McNally was trying to destroy the village and should go back to Scotland where he belonged and take his factory with him." Alfie grinned sheepishly. "To be honest, he used some bad words in there, but I left them out so as not to shock you, m'm."

"I appreciate that, Alfie." Elizabeth took another delicate sip of the brandy. The drink was actually feeling quite pleasant now, sliding down and warming her stomach. "So what happened then?"

Alfie shrugged. "Nothing much. McNally muttered something and took his beer over to his table. Jack stayed right here at the counter for a while, then went off to play darts. I don't think they spoke to each other after that."

Elizabeth drained her glass. "Well, thank you, Alfie. I suppose I'd better be getting along. I'd rather not be here when your customers start arriving."

"I understand, m'm. Though people don't seem to take much notice anymore if ladies come into the pub. As long as it's the lounge bar, of course, and not the public bar."

Elizabeth shuddered. "I can assure you, I would not be caught dead in the public bar. As for being here in the lounge bar, I still feel uncomfortable coming in here unescorted."

Alfie reached up to the rack of glass tankards above his head and took two of them down. "Times are changing, your ladyship. Already some of our local girls are taking on the blokes at the dartboard. Your Sadie, for instance. Getting to be quite a dead-eye Dick, she is."

"Yes, well, Sadie is from the East End. They tend to be a lot more permissive in that part of London. What's left of it, that is, after the Blitz practically flattened it."

Alfie nodded, his face serious. "She were lucky to come
out of that alive. Killed no end of people, them Nazis. They should all be burned alive, that's what I say."

That was a little too much of a reminder of what had happened to poor Douglas McNally. In her haste to get off the stool, Elizabeth lost her footing and landed on her sore ankle, which immediately buckled under her. She managed to grab the counter and regain her balance, only to find Alfie gazing at her in concern.

"Are you all right, your ladyship? Not getting tipsy, are we?"

Embarrassed, Elizabeth wound her scarf around her head and, with as much dignity as she could muster, murmured, "Emphatically not. I twisted my ankle earlier today, that's all."

"Are you going to be all right to ride that motorcycle home?" Alfie glanced at the clock. "I have the beer lorry outside. I could run you up the hill if you like."