The Spring Cleaning Murders (15 page)

I took the hint. “How about a cup of tea?”

“Don’t mind if I do, but just this once.” She stood
watching me as I filled the kettle, noting, I’m sure, that I dribbled water from sink to cooker. “After today I’ll want to get straight to work. I believe in giving my money’s worth. I start punctual, but I also leave on the dot. Especially of a Monday, because it’s my afternoon with Joe. By the way, we still have to discuss money.” She proceeded to quote me an hourly rate that was a little higher than Mrs. Malloy and Mrs. Large had charged. It was still reasonable, but I couldn’t help wondering if Trina was in violation of the wage code agreed upon by the C.F.C.W.A. and duly recorded in the Magna Char.

“That’s fine.” I handed Trina her cup of tea. “Please be sure and let me know what I can do to make things go smoothly.”

“Don’t worry, Ellie, you’ll always know where you stand with me.” Blithely spoken. With a practiced gesture, she set the cup down, removed the saucer, and turned it over to inspect the maker’s name. “Just as I thought. Very nice.”

“A wedding present.” It was silly to feel so defensive, but Trina McKinnley was quickly getting under my skin. “This is rather a big house,” I said, wondering if Mrs. Large had reported to her colleagues that Merlin’s Court was in an awful state when she came.

“Depends what you’re used to.” Trina opened the hall door and stood, hands on hips, doing a tour with her eyes. “I don’t think it’s as big as it looks from the outside. Roxie Malloy was always going on about Merlin’s Court. But I’m not easily wowed.”

Before I could reply, Jonas, still unshaven, came down the stairs, wearing his deplorable dressing gown. Trina’s eyes took in every missing button as he scuffed towards us on his slippered feet.

“And who’s this?” she asked.

“I’m her son.” Jonas jerked a thumb in my direction. “Who else would I be? The other two kiddies are at school, but I got to stay home so I could play with my trains.” He shuffled off towards the kitchen.

“Senile?”

“Oh, no!” I fought down annoyance. “Jonas has every one of his marbles. He just isn’t much of a one for new faces. So you might want to give him a wide berth and not bother doing his bedroom.”

“You’ll have to show me where it is,” she replied, reasonably enough. So we began our tour of the house. She asked a few sensible questions, but it was clear she was just doing so to let me know she was the consummate professional. After showing her where to find buckets, cloths, and other cleaning supplies, I warned her that the Hoover occasionally made threatening noises, but not to panic, because it didn’t mean them.

“I’m not the panicky sort, Ellie.” She flashed me one of those looks that somehow managed to vacuum the confidence out of me. I headed for the kitchen.

“I don’t like that woman,” Jonas spoke without turning around from the cooker, where he was heating up some porridge.

“You don’t have to,” I replied, bundling him over to a chair and tucking a serviette into the neck of his dressing gown. “She isn’t a mail-order bride I found for you. Trina McKinnley is here so that I will have more time for you and Ben and the twins. So don’t let me hear any more grumbling.”

“You’re a good girl.” He reached for my hand and I sat with him at the table, neither of us speaking, just relishing the peace of being together until the porridge began making burping sounds, kindly letting me know it was about to boil over.

I had just placed a steaming bowl in front of Jonas and advised him to let it cool a little when Trina McKinnley’s voice floated down the hall, and I went scurrying in response.

“Ellie?” She was standing in front of the trestle table, drawing a finger along the top. “What furniture polish have you been using?”

“One of the lemon-scented ones.”

"
The spray kind?”

“Yes, isn’t that all right?”

“I suppose, if you don’t mind a waxy buildup.” Trina gave one of her shrugs. “Though I’m surprised at Roxie Malloy not sticking to the rules of the Magna Char about using good old elbow grease. Didn’t Gertrude Large say anything?”

I experienced a belated wave of fondness for Mrs. L. “No, but it so happens I have been thinking about making my own furniture polish, from an old family formula.” I escaped to the kitchen again, leaving Trina looking unimpressed.

“Problems?” Jonas roused himself from a doze that had him half out of his chair.

“Not really.” Resettling him, I sat with him while he sipped at his porridge. I was trying to convince myself it was putting a little color into his sunken cheeks when another summons brought me leaping up from my chair. This time Trina was standing in the drawing room, tapping her toes.

“Ellie?”

“Yes?” I was beginning to dislike my name.

“You’ve got an awful lot of ornaments.”

“Don’t most people?”

“Not like this.” She swept out an arm that seemed to grow in breadth of sweep. “You’ve got them everywhere, haven’t you? Not just on the tables, but down close to the floor and up near the ceiling.”

“I like to vary the focus.”

“And I’m sure it’s all lovely. You’ve got some nice things, Ellie. Wouldn’t mind buying some of them off you. But I’ve got a rule, you see. No more than three ornaments to a single surface. Any more and there’s an extra charge.”

“Is that in the Magna Char?” I couldn’t help asking.

“Can’t say it is.” Her black eyes sparked. “Doesn’t do to be a total conformist, does it?”

“I suppose not.” After agreeing to cough up a couple more pounds I headed back to the kitchen. Somehow I felt sure Trina had made up her little rule on the spur of the moment. The question was, Why? Little did I know I was shortly to be provided with a clue.

Jonas had just gone upstairs, having voiced the intention of getting dressed. I was congratulating myself on having chivied him into finishing most of his porridge when someone tapped on the garden door.

Bunty Wiseman could have auditioned for the role of gorgeous dumb blonde any day of the week. She had eyes so blue they should have been the result of tinted contact lenses, but weren’t. She had a figure to cry for, great legs, and what Freddy described as the lushest lips going. The only thing missing was the dumb part. Bunty hadn’t been lucky in love: her marriage to Chitterton Fells’s urbane, silver-haired solicitor Lionel Wiseman had folded. As had her several business ventures—due to what might be called acts of God. But these misfortunes weren’t due to any lack of brains. And she took her lumps with a perky perseverance that left me both baffled and awed.

Bunty never stood on ceremony. Had I not been home she would probably have made herself lunch and then proceeded to scour the place from sink to ceiling. Instead she twirled around for me to admire her black mini-dress. Told me she had made it at sewing classes and demanded to know what I had been doing with myself these last weeks, because she hadn’t seen me—not even the tip of my head in church.

“When were you in church?” I asked.

“Last Sunday. Or maybe I only dreamed it.” Bunty perched on a corner of the table, swinging her legs like a child. “I was getting married to Lionel again and the place was packed—standing room only. I remember being very hurt, Ellie, that you didn’t show up.”

“I must not have received my invitation.” I was about to put on the kettle, but looking at the clock saw the morning was getting on, and suggested sherry instead. “Cheers!” I said, handing Bunty her glass. “And is there really cause for celebration? Are you and Lionel a couple again?”

“Not really,” she sighed, looking no less cheerful. “I’ve been letting him take me out to dinner. A girl has to eat, and you know how stingy he was with the divorce settlement. Not that I really blame him for that.” She wrinkled her pretty nose as she sipped her sherry. “He knew he’d made an idiot of himself over that ghastly woman he thought he was in love with. Poor old Lionel! He hoped that if he cut me off with a shilling, I’d have to come crawling back to him. And he can hardly stand it that I’ve managed to stay afloat. Just as I’m about to find myself out of a job for one reason or another, something else always turns up. Did I tell you, Ellie, that I’m working for Ward and Gantry, the estate agents on Seascape Road?”

“I haven’t seen you in ages.” I returned from the pantry with a box of crackers and set these out on a plate with some cheese. “But it was nice of you to come by and tell me.”

“Oh, that’s not why I’m here.” Bunty slid off the table without spilling a drop of sherry and shushed Tobias cat off the chair where he had just settled so she could take his seat. “I came racing over on my lunch hour because I have some gossip for you. I shouldn’t be telling you, because of course Lionel shouldn’t have told me . . .” She paused to eye the plate of cheese and crackers and asked if I had some Branston pickle.

“What shouldn’t Lionel have told you?” I unscrewed the jar for her and even dabbed a spoonful of pickle onto her plate so she could keep all her energy for blabbing.

“About the will.” Bunty began to eat with relish.

“What will?”

She reached for another piece of cheese. “The one he’s been handling for the late Mrs. Large. Oh, I knew you’d be interested, Ellie! It’s written all over your face. You’re dying to know the scoop, but perhaps”—attempting to look soulful—”it would be wrong of me to repeat what Lionel told me in the strictest of confidence.”

“Care to drown your conscience in another sherry?” I inquired.

“Oh, all right.” Bunty held out her glass. “It’s not likely the bus driver will drop dead at the wheel and I’ll be forced to take over. Although it does happen, doesn’t it? Mrs. Large being the classic example—here yesterday, gone today. And you were there when she had the accident, weren’t you, Ellie? That must have been awful.” She shuddered, but her eyes looked anxious. “I’m being insensitive, aren’t I? Did you know the woman?”

“She took over for Mrs. Malloy, but she only came once.” I managed to sound brisk. “And I can talk about her quite comfortably, so there’s no reason for you to hold back, unless you really think it might be better not to tell me about her will.”

“Fiddlesticks!” Bunty sat up straight in her chair and attempted without marked success to assume a righteous expression. “You’ve an absolute right to know, considering all you went through. Practically stumbling over the body. Clarice Whitcombe came into Ward and Gantry—she had some questions about the purchase of her house—and she told me about being at Tall Chimneys the day Mrs. Large died. She said she felt so sorry for you and Vienna Miller being the ones.”

“It was nasty,” I agreed. “Now about that will?”

“Knowing Lionel,” Bunty mused, “he told me because he thought it would soften me up. I’m sure he’d like us to get married again. And you can bet he knows I’ve been seeing Joe.”

I let the name blow over my head, so eager was I for Bunty to spill the beans. Luckily she glanced up at the clock, saw that she was running out of lunch hour, and told me what Lionel Wiseman had told her. Mrs. Large had left her two daughters a hundred pounds each. The rest of her estate, a considerable one for a woman in her position, had been left to Trina McKinnley. By way of a trust to be administered by Winifred Smalley.

“Lionel said the daughters were livid.” Bunty munched contentedly on a mouthful of cheese while giving the clock another glance. “Oh, to hell with it,” she said. “I’ll just be late back to work. And if old Mr. Ward says anything, I’ll mention how he’s always looking at my chest. Poor old thing, he can’t help it, being so bent over he couldn’t look up to save his life. He’s also practically blind. But it’s so easy to induce male guilt in these days of sexual harassment.” She fluttered her eyelashes.

“I’m sure you’re right.” I was uneasily aware that at any moment there could be another snippy summons from Trina McKinnley. Although to be fair, I thought charitably, one couldn’t blame her for being uppity. Becoming an heiress might make one somewhat disenchanted with cleaning other people’s houses. Obviously it occurred to me to tell Bunty that Trina was in the house. But, given the fact that my friend shouldn’t have been repeating a word of what Lionel shouldn’t have told her, I didn’t want to risk the possibility that she might clam up. Vulgar curiosity had me by the throat.

“Did Mrs. Large leave a lot?” I fetched more cheese and began opening another packet of crackers.

“Depends on the point of view, Ellie darling. You and Ben don’t exactly live from one bite to the next.” Bunty chose Stilton this time instead of cheddar and slathered it with Branston pickle. “Whereas in my straitened circumstances a hundred quid wouldn’t go amiss. ‘Take what you can get’ has always struck me as a pretty good motto. But apparently Mrs. Large’s daughters don’t share that view. Those ungrateful women told Lionel where he could stuff what they got from Mummy! Poor Lionel! From the sound of it, he was scared silly that one or both of those very large women would punch the daylights out of him.”

“You already told me Mrs. Large only left her daughters a hundred pounds apiece,” I said as patiently as I could, “and I do appreciate your trying to build up the moment by prolonging my curiosity. But before I hit you over the head with the kettle, you’d better tell me what Mrs. Large left Trina McKinnley.”

Bunty mumbled that it was rude to talk with one’s mouth full, but swallowed hastily when I reached for the kettle.

“Lionel said about fifty thousand pounds.”

“What?”

“And that’s before her house is sold.”

“My goodness!” I had to sit down.

“The house isn’t much from the sound of it, but every little bit helps.” Bunty looked well pleased with the success of her revelations. “Ellie, you should see your face. It is a shocker, isn’t it? There’s Mrs. Large trudging out to do the rough five days a week for the so-called well-to-do, and all the time she’s got this nice little nest egg.”

“How?”

“An insurance settlement. Apparently her late hubby was injured in an accident at work. Lost the use of his legs or something.” Bunty became a little vague. “Anyway, he was permanently disabled. A nurse had to come in every day for several years until he finally croaked.”