The Spring Cleaning Murders (30 page)

“Was his name Frondcragg?”

“How did you know?”

“I’ll tell you later,” I said, not wanting to clutter up the conversation explaining about the letter Freddy had found at Tom’s house. “Are you sure, Bunty, there was no doubt that the man’s death was accidental?”

“I’m afraid so.” She held out her glass for more sherry. “There was no one standing anywhere near Mr. Frondcragg when he stepped into the road. So if you’re wondering if Tom’s shout was the signal for an accomplice to give the fatal shove, you’ll have to scrap that one. But alas, poor Tom! He thought of himself as a murderer. That was his reason for getting out of London”—she paused dramatically—”so I was told.”

“No wonder he seemed so sad.” I handed back her glass. “Anything on the Miller sisters?”

“There was some awful tragedy about a child dying. A little girl named Jessica.”

“She was a dog.”

Bunty’s blue eyes widened in shock. “Ellie, that’s not kind!”

“Jessica was a Norfolk terrier.”

“Are you sure?”

“There’s a portrait of her in the sitting room at Tall Chimneys.”

“It’s still very sad.”

“But hardly sinister.” I finished my sherry, “Unless...”

“What?”

“Unless Madrid Miller felt a need to vent her rage at Jessica’s loss and found a convenient scapegoat in the vet, who may not have warned them sufficiently about postpartum complications. Or even more likely, she may have got even with the owner of Baron Von Woofer.”

“Who?” Bunty’s blue eyes widened.

“The dog who got Jessica pregnant and failed to pine away after her death. And to be fair, Bunty, we can’t leave Vienna off the suspect list. After all, she could have acted out of rage at seeing her sister turned into a walking memorial to a Norfolk terrier.” I was talking mainly to myself and not paying sufficient attention, so when I put my sherry glass on the mantelpiece I knocked over Fifi, the china poodle given to me by Mrs. Malloy when she went to live with George and Vanessa. I tried to catch it, but it hit the brass fender, shattering to bits.

“Was it priceless?” Bunty scooted out of her chair.

“Only of sentimental value.”

“What’s that, Mrs. H.?” The drawing door pounced open and in came Mrs. Malloy, looking as though she would have heard the crash had she still been living in London. “Only sentimental value, my foot, I paid all of two quid for that piece of bone china.” She looked from me to Bunty and back again. Something in my face must have told her I had other things on my mind. “Well, I guess it’s not the end of the world,” she conceded. “After you sweep up the pieces we’ll put them in a box and bury them in the back garden. The children—except for Rose, who’s a bit young—might like to come to the funeral and we could ask the vicar to say a few words.”

Mrs. Malloy vanished back into the hall, leaving Bunty to ask the obvious question.

“Who’s Rose?”

“What did our Bunty have to say?” Freddy collared me as I closed the door behind her, but before I could answer him the telephone rang. It was Sir Robert Pomeroy asking if I would be so kind as to pay his wife a visit at the earliest opportunity, for she was anxious to talk to me. No mention of her cold.

“That’s odd,” I said upon hanging up. “Lady Pomeroy wants to see me.”

“Like me to come with you?” Freddy offered.

I stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek through the scraggly beard. “Thanks, but he’d hardly invite me to his house if he didn’t plan to let me leave. Besides, we haven’t found out a thing about either of the Pomeroys’ making me a threat to be removed.”

“When do you plan to go?” Freddy looked at the grandfather clock. It was eleven.

“As soon as I’ve got lunch for the twins and spent some time with Rose.”

“Why not scoot off now?” he suggested. “I can see you’re all on edge—hardly surprising after the last few days—and I can help Mrs. Malloy take care of things while you’re gone.”

“Perhaps I should,” I said. “That way I’ll be back when Ben gets home and it won’t seem as if we’re on different shifts. Make sure the twins take their naps even if they put up a fuss.” I had already started up the stairs. “Tell them they need to set an example for Rose, who’s having to get used to our ways.”

“Aye, aye, captain!”

Hurrying up the remaining stairs, I concentrated on not thinking about anything except whether I had hung my sage-green cardigan in the wardrobe or put it in a drawer. There were so many pieces of all shapes and sizes rattling around my head. I needed to sit quietly in order to arrange them in a pattern that would make the picture on the jigsaw-puzzle box emerge. I put on a beige-and-cream dress, found the cardigan, shoved my feet into a pair of shoes suitable for a visit to Pomeroy Hall, grabbed up my handbag, and sped back down to the hall.

“You’ve got a strand of hair coming down at the back.” Freddy appeared like a genie to offer this helpful observation.

“Thanks.” I didn’t mention that half his hair had come out of his ponytail, which was just as well because he had spent the intervening fifteen minutes on his hands and knees giving Tam and Abbey donkey rides, and with all his bucking and eyeore-ing, they’d naturally had to keep a very tight hold on his rein.

“I really don’t know what I’d do without you.” I stood with my hand on the front doorknob. “Explain where I’ve gone to Mrs. Malloy, and please make a special fuss over Tam, because I think he has a lot of mixed feelings about the baby, what with suddenly finding himself the only boy.”

“He did ask me if everyone would miss him if he wasn’t here, but I wouldn’t worry about that, Ellie. Tam will be Rose’s devoted slave in next to no time.”

“I hope so. He’s such a loving little boy.” I was now standing on the steps leading down from the front door. The garden was veiled in mist, but I headed for the car without going back for my raincoat. It was Freddy who fetched it and came hurrying after me as I was settling behind the wheel.

“Sometimes I think you need a mother, coz.” He reached in a hand to turn on the windscreen wipers and stood watching as I set off down the drive.

Fusspot! I thought. It wasn’t as if I were driving the old convertible. Ben had taken it and left me the vehicle with a roof and turn signals that operated. But I found myself thinking of my mother as I headed through the village and along winding hedge-lined roads to Pomeroy Hall. She had died when I was seventeen, and although I had missed her terribly, my world hadn’t fallen apart when she was gone. I always felt that said a lot about the sort of mother she had been. A little casual in her approach, often forgetting to make the beds or cook dinner when she was engrossed in a good book. By the same token she never got upset when I stripped the blankets off my bed and built a tent in the sitting room on the day she was having a party for her and my father’s odd assortment of friends. She treated me like an adult from the time I was little—or rather like her concept of one, because she never quite grew up herself. So that in our home there was always a sense of the magic that makes for breathtaking possibilities at any given moment. Not a perfect mother, perhaps, but because she loved to spread her own wings, I knew how to fly instead of plummeting like a stone when I looked one day to see the nest was gone.

I was now driving alongside the high brick wall that enclosed Pomeroy Hall. On entering its noble gates, I proceeded down the broad sweep of drive flanked by oaks and cypress and parked in front of the centuries-old facade of buff-colored brick and towering Grecian columns. Pigeons flocked the courtyard as if mistaking it for Trafalgar Square. One even escorted me up the steps.

No one answered my first ring of the bell, or the second. Just to be doing something with my hands I turned the huge iron handle and watched the door swing silently open to reveal the vast hall with its marble floor and granite fireplace straddling a corner under the hanging staircase.

“Hello?” I sounded like someone auditioning for a part in a play, hoping against hope it would be a nonspeaking one.

A door opened to my right and Sir Robert’s head poked out. He looked at me without speaking, his red face perplexed. He beckoned me to join him in an enormous room where the furniture all looked as though it belonged in a museum cordoned off by red velvet ropes. The room was extremely chilly, making me glad I was wearing my raincoat. A tiny fire burned like a faltering candle in a grate sufficient to roast a whole herd of oxen. The Pomeroy forebears in their gilded frames all looked as though they were suffering from head colds. But even they didn’t look as unhappy as Sir Robert. Tiptoeing behind me, he closed the door painstakingly. But at least he didn’t lock it and pocket the key.

“Lady Pomeroy isn’t well.” He drew a finger to his lips. “And I don’t want to wake her if she’s resting. Frightfully sorry, Ellie, if you had to let yourself in. I disconnected the doorbell. The staff are all off this afternoon, to make things quieter for my wife. You know how irritating it is when servants, even the best trained of them, bustle around at such times. They mean well, I’m not suggesting they are inconsiderate, but they will insist on getting on with their work. And the next thing you know—clang goes a silver chafing dish.”

“I’m sorry her ladyship is under the weather.” I tried to speak calmly. After all, what was so frightening about being trapped with a batty baronet in a secluded mansion from which the entire staff was conveniently absent? Doubtless he was behaving in this peculiar way because he was worried about his wife’s health. He and the former Mrs. Dovedale might even be said to be still on their honeymoon.

“Ah, poor Maureen! Not at all well!” Sir Robert’s cheeks billowed out over his shirt collar before deflating in a sigh. “And usually the most robust of women. I’m in a quandary, Ellie, about what to do for her. She’s shut herself away, refusing to eat or drink, and I can’t get more than two words out of her.”

“Oh, dear!”

“A mystery! What! What!” Sir Robert lowered himself onto one of the museum chairs, looking totally bewildered. “Never known the old girl like this. Always such a cracking good sport. Full of spunk. Never laughed so much in m’life as I did on our honeymoon. We made the hotel suite shake every night.”

“You said her ladyship wanted to see me.” My mind was now such a jumble of nerves and curiosity I could move only one thought ahead at a time.

“Did I?”

“On the phone.”

“That’s right! Knew you had to be here for some reason. I’ll take you up to m’wife.” Sir Robert heaved himself up and led the way back out into the hall, where he paused to make sure he hadn’t lost me, before proceeding up the stairs like a man headed for the guillotine. Tapping on a door, he announced: “Maureen, my love, my own! Ellie Haskell is here as you requested. I’ll be downstairs should you need me.” He ducked away, looking more like an underservant than the master of Pomeroy Hall. I entered Lady Pomeroy’s bedroom wondering what role I was about to play.

It was a room fit for a Tudor queen. Dark with red plush, its walls were hung with tapestries glorifying the medieval hunt and pictures of dogs with dead birds in their mouths. The only light came from the bedside lamp and a chink in the curtains. I felt like a visitor to the Tower of London when it housed royalty for extended holidays before they had their heads cut off.

“Ellie,” said a voice from the bed beneath the canopy embroidered with the Pomeroy crest. And I tiptoed forward to look down at her ladyship, who in that pale, shifting light looked ghastly enough to have been lying in state. “It was so nice of you to come at a moment’s notice.” She struggled to sit up. “Please pull up a chair and”—reaching out a hand—”I’ll turn up the light so we can see each other better.”

It wasn’t better. The added illumination just increased the feeling that I was looking at a stranger. She had always been such a cheerful woman in her days behind the grocery counter, and a pretty one, too. Now her smile was stretched tight as a rubber band about to snap, the rosy freshness was gone from her cheeks, and even her eyes had lost much of their color. So this was the secret Mrs. Large had uncovered, I thought—heart pumping like a washing machine until I could hear the blood slosh in my ears. Sir Robert had been slowly but surely poisoning his wife. He was tired of her already, he didn’t like the way she ran the household, he had been appalled to discover she was opposed to foxhunting. Whatever the reason, he was a black-hearted villain who deserved to be sent to the Tower. I was wondering if I would have to get her ladyship out of the house by way of the bedroom window when she squeezed my hand.

“Ellie, you have to help me.”

“Of course, Lady Pomeroy.”

“Oh, please don’t call me that.” Her smile seem to rip into her face. “I’m still Maureen to you. We’ve got to know each other well over the years, haven’t we? I always felt we could talk, and over the last few days I’ve realized I had to tell someone.”

“About Sir Robert?”

“He’s so good.”

“Yes.” Well, that was some relief!

“That’s why he could never, not in a million years, understand how I—the woman he loves with all his dear, loyal heart—could have done something so criminal.” Maureen reached under the pillow. I couldn’t budge from my chair. Numb with shock, I waited for her to produce a gun and confess to murder before shooting me between the eyes. After fumbling for what seemed like an eternity, she pulled out a handkerchief and blew her nose.

“Why don’t you tell me about it?” I said, going limp.

“Do you remember, Ellie, how Robert talked at the Hearthside Guild meeting about how much he detested dishonesty?”

“Yes, it had something to do with flowers being sent on behalf of the Hearthside Guild to someone who wasn’t a St. Anselm’s parishioner.”

“And do you remember how embarrassed I got?”

Maureen tucked the handkerchief back under the pillow and placed her trembling hands on the sheet as I shook my head. “Well, maybe it didn’t show, but I can tell you, I felt awful, because just a week or so before, my past had gone and caught up with me. And almost the worst part is I’d forgotten about what I’d done until . . .”—her voice broke—until that day when Gertrude was here cleaning and found them.”