Withering Heights (30 page)

“Agreed. Divorce for him isn’t an option.” Ben again got
up and paced around the furniture with his hands in his pockets, a clear sign that he was endeavoring forcibly to master his emotions.

“Val had to realize that when a wife is murdered the husband is the prime suspect, and Tom might not be keen to remarry if he was in prison. And there was the added complication of his first wife having died in an accident. This death had to appear to be Betty’s own fault, a classic case of curiosity killed the cat. I think what gave Val the idea was hearing about the lights that went on and off by themselves and the front door being found open in the morning. Faulty wiring and carelessness? Or could it be blamed on an uneasy spirit, especially given Betty’s belief that Lady Fiona had murdered her husband? You were another piece of luck, Ben. She saw your look of stunned surprise when she walked in. And right from the first, she played her scenes with you to great dramatic effect. Lady Fiona thought there was something between the two of you—and, yes, even I did for a while. And when she confessed her feelings for you to me so frankly in the garden, she raised her voice so the audience would be sure to hear.”

“Me, that was,” Mrs. Malloy explained to Ben. “The wicked vixen made sure I didn’t miss a syllable.”

“Insurance against its being said that there was something going on between her and Tom before Betty’s death. While all the time her aim was to do everything in her power to undermine the Hopkinses’ marriage. Causing Tom to realize what a mistake he had made in allowing his parents to part him from the woman he should have married in the first place.

“She already had set the action up for today,” I went on. “Who else but Val would have made that phone call canceling the caterers? Betty would look totally inadequate when Val took over the job, as she would have done had Ben not saved the day. That’s been her mode of operation ever since she arrived
at the Dower House, eroding Betty’s self-esteem, taking over the redecorating, and talking her into buying badly fitting clothes. The stunts she pulled—the dead birds, the wreath, and the deluge in the conservatory were all geared to one end. Val trusted in Betty’s need to prove herself as a detective, if not an ideal wife or stepmother, to get her into the priest hole. But she was too clever to risk handing her that egg and spoon herself.”

“So who helped out with that?”

“Very likely the one whose recorded image, as Mr. Gallagher, with the lion’s head walking stick, appeared on Betty’s bedroom wall. And whose shivery voice begged her to rescue him from the dark place. This she took to mean the grave Lady Fiona had dug for him; but, hopefully, would later connect with the priest hole.”

“Any idea who this man would be?” Ben stood by the windows, which showed a darkening sky. In contrast the color and beauty of Val’s décor struck a sickening false note.

“The one I’ve seen walking a sheepdog. Val’s brother, Simon. When I was at the Dower House with Nanny Pierce she told me he was very good looking, although it was a pity about his ears. The man who came up to Betty today had a noticeably mismatched set. One being twice the size of the other. Maybe it explains why he’s gone astray.”

“Tough!” fired back Mrs. Malloy. “There’s a woman at Bingo whose nose looks like it’s on upside down and she don’t go luring people into priest holes.”

“I think Simon was one of the reasons Nanny had to die before today,” I continued. “Left to roam around at the garden party, she’d have recognized him if she saw him close up.”

“A less drastic approach would have been to drug her into a dead sleep so she wouldn’t stir from the Dower House all afternoon,” Ben responded contemptuously.

“I suspect Val wasn’t in a mood to take any unnecessary risks at this late stage of the game. Nanny may have told her she had seen a man out walking who looked like Simon. Besides, she had that second reason for pushing Nanny under the bus. She needed to convince Betty that Lady Fiona had murdered yet again, so that no one would be surprised when she went looking for Mr. Gallagher’s remains in the priest hole and accidentally got locked inside. Poor Betty! A sad case of a woman with a maniacal obsession! Winning the lottery had affected her mind! A tragedy, but why suspect foul play? And there would be Val on the spot to sweetly comfort Tom in his hour of need. She knew his persuadable nature. He wouldn’t have had a chance against her. All that lovely money would have been hers when she led him by the nose to the altar.”

“Apart from what she’d have to share with her brother, Simon,” Mrs. Malloy pointed out.

“In addition to his role today, Val may also have needed instructions from him on opening up the priest hole. Lady Fiona said he wouldn’t share the secret when they visited Cragstone as children. Maybe he kept it until Val promised to give him a share of the wealth when she married Tom.”

“What a pair!” Ben removed my empty brandy glass and set it down on a table. “That poor old lady.”

“Miss Pierce was lonely with Mr. Gallagher gone and she must have been glad of Val’s company at first, but she wasn’t a fool. She knew Val was up to something. She wanted to show me a photo of Simon and couldn’t find it. Any guesses on who got rid of it?” I was getting angrier the more I talked. “What a gift of fate that her ladyship met Miss Pierce for lunch on Wednesday! But even if that hadn’t happened, it’s a sure bet that Betty would have put her at the scene. Another piece of luck for Val was meeting me in the grounds and telling me that Miss Pierce had forgotten her bus pass. It was a confirmation,
should she be asked, of why she was at the bus stop when she never accompanied Miss Pierce on her weekly outings.”

“But the thing is,” Mrs. Malloy said bitterly, “convincing as all this sounds to us, we don’t have a shred of evidence to take to the police. They’d laugh us out the door.”

“You’ve made a believer of me, sweetheart”—Ben kissed my cheek—“but it looks to me as though she’ll get away with it. Any thoughts on who she got to play Madam LaGrange?”

Before I could answer, the door opened and Melody Tabby came into the room. She was every bit as frumpy as I remembered from my one time of meeting her. Her hair didn’t look as though it had been combed in a week, and she was wearing a pasty beige dress and clodhopping shoes. I saw Mrs. Malloy sneak a smug look at her own footwear, which happened to be the black pair of high-heeled sandals with the narrow crisscross straps she had worn on our visit to Mr. Scrimshank’s office.

“So you’re wearing those shoes again, Roxanne.” Melody spoke in a great rush, with some concomitant huffing and puffing. “Remind me to say something about them in a minute.” She paused for a half second to look at Ben and me. “Excuse me for barging in like this. A woman named Mavis let me into the house. She had a little boy with her who tried to put his toffee hands on me.

“Pesky kid!” Ben eyed her with enjoyment.

“Here’s the news. Ed the locksmith arrived at the office at one twenty-seven. Three minutes early. But I didn’t make an issue of it. He had black hair and eyes and a swarthy complexion. Memories of Edward Rochester came flooding back. The same Christian name—but I wasn’t going down that road again. He got into the safe”—catching Mrs. Malloy’s baleful eye—“let’s say for speed, in a twiddle or two. I got out the Gallaghers’ financial records and, like I said I would do, made copies. Seeing as Mr. Scrimshank had said he wouldn’t be back
at the office today, I took the copies home with me and started going through them page by page. It took me fifty-seven minutes and thirty-one seconds to find the relevant information. That evil man has swindled the Gallaghers out of—well, in the cause of haste I will say hundreds of thousands of pounds. I immediately phoned Police Sergeant Walters and got him on the case. He rang back to say he had spoken with some of the higher-ups at the station and would be round forthwith to collect the papers. And he was at my home in five and three-quarter minutes.”

“That was very good of him,” said Ben.

“I’d have blasted his ears off if he’d given me any flack!” Melody bristled assertively. “He’s my gentleman friend. Has been for six and three-quarter years, two weeks, and four days. The least he can do is jump to it when I toss evidence of a crime in his lap. And that leads me back to what I wanted to say about your shoes, Roxanne. I didn’t bring it up when we talked about Ed coming to open the safe because, as you know, I like to focus on one thing at a time.”

“Spit it out, Melody.”

“I was standing at the window in my office yesterday afternoon at precisely four-thirty. That’s always the time when I get up from my chair and do my stretching exercises. If you remember the window, it is fairly wide but there’s the blind cutting down the view. Meaning that when you stand in front of it you can’t see all of a person, only their shoes and part of their legs. This is what I saw. A foot shod in one of those exact shoes, Roxanne, kicked forward, and the next minute there was the horrific sound of brakes being jammed on, followed by a lot of shouting and screaming. An old lady had gone under the bus. The death of Miss Valerie Pierce has been passed off as an accident, or so it said in this morning’s newspaper, but I know that shoe kicked out on purpose, making it a case of
murder. Though what good is that when I cannot provide a description of the person standing in them? Oh, I do hope it wasn’t poor Frances Edmonds, roped in again by Mr. Scrimshank to do his evil bidding.” Looking sad, Melody allowed Ben to help her into a chair.

“But we know who it was, don’t we, Mrs. H? We talked about Val’s having a pair exactly like these.” Mrs. Malloy looked solemnly down at her feet. “Thank you, Mel, for giving us what it takes to battle on for justice.” She was giving her sister a hug when Tom came in.

“How’s Betty?” Ben asked him.

“Much better. In fact, she’s gone for a drive with Val.”

“
What?
”

“Val stopped by to see if she could borrow a cup of sugar, and when she found out about Betty and the others”—Tom glanced at Mrs. Malloy and me—“she suggested they both get away for an hour. It seemed a good idea, considering the two of them have been through a good deal in the past twenty-four hours.”

“Unfortunately,” I said, as gently as possible, “Val may be about to murder your wife.”

“Good God!” Did some deep, unprobed awareness convince him? Tom would have swayed and fallen if Melody had not jumped up. Catching him under the arms, she continued to hold him up.

“The question is, where will they have gone?” Ben pounded a fist into his hand.

“To Lady Fiona’s hotel,” I said. “Val wouldn’t act this quickly unless she thought she could turn Betty’s escape from the priest hole to good account. Tom, do you or Betty own a gun?”

“Yes, I thought it might help her feel safer. It’s in my bedside table drawer.”

“Not anymore.” I looked at him sadly, thinking how much more sensible it would have been to replace the missing outdoor key.

“It was Val who suggested . . .”

“Her story will be that Betty asked to be driven to the hotel so she could confront Lady Fiona. That she was beside herself with rage and distress and on arrival pulled the gun to force a confession. A scuffle followed in which her ladyship and Betty were both shot. A revised ending but not bad. Poor Betty! Already unbalanced and cracking completely after her horrible experience in the priest hole.” I drew a ragged breath.

“How long ago did Val and Betty drive away?”

“I waved them off right before coming in here.” Tom struggled free of Melody’s sustaining hands.

“I’ve got to get to that hotel.”

“You don’t need to,” said Melody, with a glow that made her look positively ravishing. “That’s what my policeman gentleman is good for. It’ll be Police Sergeant Walters to the rescue. He’s at the jewelry shop around the corner from the Bronte Hotel, picking out my engagement ring.”

O
n the Saturday morning two days later, Ben, Mrs. Malloy, and I made ready for our departure from Cragstone House. All was well. Betty’s rescue had been accomplished before she and Val stepped into the hotel lift. Simon Pierce, in being questioned by the police, handed Val over on a silver plate in return for the deal he was offered. Val had attempted to put the blame on him but gave in when he started to talk. His wife had played the part of Madam LaGrange. She was the woman with orange hair I had seen outside Mrs. Johnson’s bed and breakfast. When Mrs. Malloy finally got hold of the real Madam LaGrange, we learned she had been met on arriving at the train station by a man of Simon’s description who said the Hopkinses’ séance was called off. As he handed her twice what Ariel had promised, she was more than happy to take off for a few days’ holiday.

Tom had barely let Betty out of his sight after her rescue. She was recovering rapidly from the shock of discovering she had been an intended murder victim. No more playing detective, she had vowed to me. From this point on, she would be entirely happy as a wife and mother. She even admitted to looking forward to the pleasure and responsibilities of great wealth. And she and Tom were making plans for what they would do for their friends the Edmondses.

Frances had been concerned that when Mr. Scrimshank was arrested she would be called in for interrogation by the police regarding the phone call she had made to him, which he said came from Mr. Gallagher. She had gone in voluntarily to talk to Sergeant Walters, with the result that she might be required to testify should Mr. Scrimshank plead not guilty to the criminal charges filed against him.