The Thin Woman (23 page)

“No.” He took a long thoughtful puff on his pipe. “But I do remember overhearing a discussion once among some of the older women at the Mothers’ Union, something to the effect that Mr. Merlin Grantham’s mother had died under peculiar circumstances. Or am I being accurate? I think the statement was that no one quite knew how she had died. Not quite the same thing, is it?”

“No.” I set my cup down and reached to refill it from the pot. “And the rumours concerning Abigail would be fuelled by Merlin’s eccentric behaviour. Her former maid, an old woman called Rose, was the one who told me about the local suspicion that Abigail killed herself.”

“What do you think?”

“That she was murdered by her husband, Arthur Grantham.” There—I had said it at last; but the suspicion, voiced in the vicar’s study with its air of rumpled comfort and quiet occupation, sounded melodramatic, almost sacrilegious. What right had I to cast aspersions upon a man long dead, who had doubtless been respected in this neighbourhood and a pillar of his church? The villagers whispered about his wife—not him. How could a man who parted his hair in the middle, waxed and twirled his moustache, and probably undressed in the wardrobe, be anything worse than a ponderous bore?

Rowland proved to have one rather serious fault. He was a realist; he wanted to know on what basis I suspected Arthur. “Why do you think he killed her?”

“Because if suicide is out, what other reason would there be for people whispering about her death sixty-odd years after the event? An event which, by the way, is not recoraed in the parish register. Add to those facts another. Aunt Sybil, who visited the house regularly as a child when Abigail was alive and was present at the funeral, knows nothing other than that Abigail went very suddenly. I can’t think of anything more sudden than murder.”

“In those days there were a lot of twenty-four-hour killers, blood poisoning, bee stings, append—”

“Then why the mystery? Those aren’t social diseases to be shoved under the rug. No, believe me, the most likely explanation is that hubby did her in. Oh, I admit he appears to have been a model of respectability, but those types are often the worst. The man was an exacting prig—demanding, carping—perhaps breakfast was late two days in a row, or maybe Abigail cooked a batch of jam that didn’t jell. Who knows? Arthur’s only problem would be convincing me doctor that Mrs. Grantham had fainted dead away and never come round.”

Rowland looked interested but not convinced so I pressed on. “Okay, doubting Thomas”—a biblical reference seemed polite when talking to a clergyman—“explain this: Why is there no record of Abigail’s demise in the church register?”

Lighting his pipe, Rowland pulled thoughtfully on it for a moment. “I’m afraid that rather supports than hinders the suicide theory. From what I have heard, the vicar who held the living here at that time was from the school of fire and brimstone. If Abigail died by her own hand, he would have considered her memory one to be shunned, not recorded among the names of the righteous in the parish record.”

He almost had me there, for a minute. Then I remembered something: my first meeting with Ben and his reason
for demonstrating outside the Hallelujah Revival Chapel. The elders had refused to bury a child in consecrated ground because she had died without being christened. That quaint notion was a throw-back to the good old days when the unshriven, including suicides, had been buried outside the churchyard, in unconsecrated ground. If the old vicar had been the rigid puritan Rowland described, he would not have overlooked this blighting tradition.

Rowland perked up when I pointed out this detail. Whatever her sins, Abigail was tucked away inside the family vault. He wasn’t quite a convert yet, but he did agree to consider, theoretically, the idea of murder. “I suppose,” he said, “the doctor on the case may have suspected that all was not as it should be, but in dealing with a well-to-do family a humble GP might well have been afraid to call in the authorities and stir up a rumpus. To accuse a man of sterling reputation of contriving his wife’s death would be pretty risky—unless there was a motive. We keep coming back to that, Ellie, the motive. The petty, every-day aggravations you suggested just aren’t enough.”

Downcast but not defeated, I confessed that my villainizing of Arthur Grantham was based mainly on my growing liking for Abigail, and my distrust of any man with eyes set close together.

If he saw anything ludicrous in this reasoning, Rowland was too much of a gentleman to say so. Tamping tobacco into his pipe, he reached for a match and asked now he could be of help in unravelling the truth.

“I don’t know that you can,” I said. “But you are my best hope. The vicarage is even older than our house, and our closest neighbour. Is it possible that some of the records kept by previous vicars are still here somewhere? If so, I wonder if you would be willing to see if you can find anything that would provide some insight into Abigail’s life with Arthur? This may sound far-fetched, but I have a feeling that if we discover how Abigail died, we may also find the treasure.”

Rowland assured me that he would be more than pleased to assist in the investigation, though he was, unfortunately, leaving
the next day on a three-week visit to Israel. Immediately upon his return, he promised to search the filing system.

More boxes to be unearthed from cellars and attics! Such seemed to be the story of my life. The delay was disappointing, but I wished Rowland an enjoyable trip with good grace, and told him that I would invite him for dinner upon his return. He was, I thought as I walked home in a mood of sudden depression, likely to be our first and last guest at Merlin’s Court.

The way things looked, all too soon we would be packing our bags and saying our goodbyes. Back to the old humdrum existence. I wondered how I would face life in another drab two-room flat with Tobias my only roommate, while Ben returned to the waiting arms of his long-suffering fiancée. When first mentioned, I had not seriously believed in the existence of this paragon. I had considered her a childish invention, produced on the spur of the moment by Ben to keep me from harbouring false hopes in his direction. Now I was not so sure. He had spoken of her rather often recently. Susan (or was it Sally) was an athletic marvel who could even balance her cheque book.

“She’ll have to learn to juggle with it, too, if she has to support both of you,” I told him on one embittered occasion, following a three-day attack of writer’s block which he had blamed on my singing as I went about the house. Admittedly I have an atrocious voice but he need not have compared it to whooping cough set loosely to music.

“Susan, unlike you, considers me perfect,” Ben informed me coldly, before turning on his heel and stalking off. I really didn’t think he had caught my parting thrust of “That’s because she hasn’t lived with you.”

As he reached the door he turned. “Oh no?” He smiled, quirked an irritating eyebrow, and was gone.

Dorcas’s spade was leaning abandoned against the herb garden wall. I found her in the washhouse, scouring dried
earth from her hands and humming with raucous disregard for tune, worse even than mine, “Onward Christian Soldiers.”

I tossed her a towel. “You sound happy.”

“Whamo! Glad to see you back.” Dorcas swung round and grabbed hold of my arm with a soapy hand. “Something rather stupendous has happened. Had a marvellous time working in the garden. Heat a bit grim, enough to blister a camel’s hump, kept up the pace by singing, nothing like a good rousing hymn for …”

“You’ve found the treasure,” I said, scarcely able to breathe.

“Sorry, can’t win the prize for that one, but …” She unclasped the hand she wasn’t using to hold on to me and in her palm lay a small oval-shaped locket on a slender gold chain, still encrusted with mud, although from its soapy condition, she had been cleaning it up.

“Pretty,” I said without too much enthusiasm as my vision of a wooden chest spilling over with jewels worth a king’s ransom faded. This was a cheap tinny piece, something I might have owned myself, or Aunt Sybil … no, she wore brooches the size of doorknobs. I looked up at Dorcas, my heart suddenly leaping about in my chest like someone doing the highland fling.

She read my eyes. “You’ve got it”—she nodded—“on the nose. Abigail’s—see!” Inserting a grimy fingernail into the side of the locket she pried it open like a shell hiding a tiny sea animal. I expected to see a miniature photograph tucked into one side or a clipping of auburn hair, but the locket was empty. I didn’t want to appear negative but …

“Look!” Pointing with her finger she snowed me the finely traced engraving:
To Abigail From M
.

A present from Merlin to his mother? That seemed a pretty safe assumption but all other theories and conjectures led into a maze. Had Abigail deliberately buried the locket in the herb garden, and if so why? Or had she lost it while working there? I preferred not to think this might be another clue. Because if they were now being buried what hope did we have of actually tripping over the treasure? But for Dorcas, the
herb garden would never have been touched. I had my hands full with the house, and I doubted if Ben knew a petunia from a dandelion.

Speaking of the blighted author, he came searching for us to announce that luncheon was being served al fresco under the large beech tree in the garden. He took a quick dekko at the locket, screwed up his eyes, and said that having worked in his Uncle Abe’s pawn shop as a teenager he knew something about jewellery. This little number while not exactly the kind of thing to be given away with three bars of soap, was worth all of two quid. I half expected him to say take it or leave it, but he returned the locket to my hand with “Don’t turn your nose up. That should make a nice little souvenir of your extended holiday at the seaside, if the family is prepared to sell.”

Ben had spent the morning experimenting with the new Aga in the finally completed kitchen and had prepared a delicious repast of lobster stewed in wine, chilled to icy perfection and dressed in homemade mayonnaise, laced with capers. There were only three of us. Jonas refused to join us, informing Ben that he considered eating outdoors heathen folly. We spread a cloth on the lawn under the dappled shade of the beech tree.

“Must congratulate you, Ben,” Dorcas said as Ben lifted spinach salad onto my plate, “absolutely lip-smacking, these little brown rolls—super! Forgive me, I must indulge once more.”

Ben passed her the plate. Flattery did things for him; he looked more cheerful than I had seen him in days. With a touch of nonchalance he volunteered the information that a spoonful of treacle added to the yeast base was the secret for his rolls. “And I do think,” he added, “that this rather understated salad with its lemon and sweet vermouth dressing is the perfect foil for the lobster—subtle but not insipid.”

“Come off it!” I lay back against the warm grass and let the sun soak deep into my bones. “The only people who talk like that are those creeps who have just started making their own wine in the cellar.” Lifting my glass of cider I intoned deeply while looking down the bridge of my nose. “Robust
without being coarse, fragrant but not floral. Sensitive but not lacking in spirit …”

“Okay, I get the picture.” Ben gave a rather unwilling grin and lay back on the grass; resting his head on his hands, he squinted into the sun. “I admit I can become rather fanatical on the subject of cookery.” He turned his head and looked in my direction. “Rather like you and your Abigail craze.”

“Before you make any more cracks on that subject,” I replied thoughtfully, “aren’t you somewhat hooked on the lady yourself? Isn’t this lobster one of Abigail’s recipes?”

Ben used the type of word to which Uncle Merlin had objected, rolled over, and apologized to Dorcas.

“Don’t worry about me, heard far worse in the school lavatories.” Dorcas tucked Tobias, who was eying the lobster greedily, firmly under one arm and buttered another roll. “Pity, recipes like this are not published any more, plenty of home-grown veg fresh from the garden, herbs to season, nothing out of a tin or from a packet. Bound to be more time-consuming but marvellous dividends! Loads more nutrition and flavour.”

Ben sat up slowly. The sun filtering through the leaves gave him a greenish mottled appearance, and in the bright light his eyes looked dazed. For some reason I thought of Lazarus rising from the dead. “The Edwardian Lady’s Cookery Book,” he muttered. Repeating the phrase sotto voce several times, he leapt suddenly to his feet, oversetting the lobster dish and causing Tobias to strike out at Dorcas with unsheathed claws and hurl himself across the lawn, his tail blown out like a dandelion clock. Ben ignored the scratch marks on Dorcas’s arm and Tobias’s frenzied retreat; eyes closed, hands pressed to his temples, he was a man awaiting another revelation from above. Apparently he got it. Launching into his own version of an Indian war dance he shouted out, “To hell with Sister Marie Grace!” and before we could ask what in heaven he was going on about, he vanished into the house.

“I say.” Dorcas looked at me. “Was I responsible in some way for that display of exuberance? Hope I didn’t say anything to unbalance the dear chap!”

“Quite the opposite; if I’m not mistaken what you have done is given Ben a new lease on life. The novel is dead. Our literary genius is about to write a cookery book, and why not? Uncle Merlin’s will did not specify that the work had to be fiction. I wonder Ben never thought of utilizing his own field of expertise before.”

I was proved right. When Dorcas and I carried the dishes back into the house we heard the sound of beautiful music, not the mechanical stammering of recent days, but the rapid clatter of the typewriter keys. The race was on.

Now he was once more a man with a mission, I hoped Ben would take a good long look at me and realize there was a new trim-line dish on the world menu—me. But he continued to treat me with marked coolness. He did tell me, when I hovered admiringly over his typewriter one day, that he was inserting anecdotes between the recipes and had written to a friend in London asking him to produce some pencil sketches in keeping with the era. But in the main his attitude was very strongly one of “don’t bug me.”