Funerals are heaps more fun than weddings. My mother told me so when I was a little girl. More flowers, wittier conversation, superior food, and invariably better liquid refreshment.
Her words were, “Ellie darling, any household bubbly is adequate for toasting health and happiness, but the drowning of sorrows demands the best dry gin.”
My mother, who met with a fatal accident in a railway station when I was seventeen, would have been delighted to know her funeral was the bash of the season among her intimate circle. I failed to enjoy myself, but everyone else, including my father who adored her, was still swigging back the neat gin and doing “Knees Up, Mother Brown” at 3:00 A.M. on the morning after, despite complaints from the neighbours.
More than ten years later, as I stood in the windswept churchyard of St. Anselm’s on that chill afternoon of the 8th May, my mother’s edict was a gramophone needle grinding circles inside my head. Funerals and weddings… funerals and weddings.
Only a few months ago, Ben and I had been married in this small Norman church. And now I stood under the elms, abject with misery, waiting for the Reverend Rowland Foxworth to begin the burial service.
I was living a nightmare. Once I had been Miss Ellie Simons, resigned (if not content) with my lot as an overage, overweight virgin. Tipping the scales at thirteen stone wasn’t so bad. I had my work as an interior designer, my cat Tobias, and my motley kith and kin had reduced social contact to the annual Christmas card. Then, fate had struck in the form of an invitation to a family reunion at the home of Uncle Merlin, an ancient eccentric, who had spent the last half century walled up in his castle on the cliffs above the village of Chitterton Fells. To go or not to go? Was it worthier in the mind to spend two days being the butt of familial fat jokes or to send a gracious decline, knowing full well that Aunt Astrid and her flawless daughter Vanessa would be snickering up their mink cuffs at my refusal to show my face and attendant chins? Impetuously, I telephoned Eligibility Escorts, and before I could rethink my pride and principles, its proprietress, Mrs. Swabucher, had rented me Bentley T. Haskell, darkly handsome, one-time chef, now aspiring writer of porno prose, to accompany me for the fateful weekend.
And what a weekend! Uncle Merlin was a toothless personage in a Wee Willie Winkie nightcap; the other relations were at each others’ throats from sunrise to sunset. As for Bentley T. Haskell, I swiftly came to feel I had grossly overpaid for his escorting services. The man was snotty, defensive, irreligious. He immediately turned his lascivious eyes on cousin Vanessa and had the effrontery to turn nasty, when, under the extreme provocation of mounting tension, I made a little slip and hinted-okay, announced-that he and I were engaged to be married. Naturally, I had every intention of doing the decent thing and setting him free. A few weeks later, however, events took a tortuous turn. Word came that Uncle Merlin had died. Haskell graciously returned with me to Chitterton Fells for the funeral, and at the reading of the will we were stunned to discover that my capricious great-uncle had left the entire estate to us, jointly, upon the fulfillment of certain conditions. One was that I lose approximately one third of my weight, and another that Ben write a book containing not one naughty word, and… oh yes, we had to reside together in that derelict house for a period of six consecutive months. After judiciously weighing the pros and cons, we leaped at the golden ring. I thrilled to the challenge of tearing down cobwebs, sweeping out half a century of dirt, seeing Merlin’s Court live again, as it had in his mother Abigail’s day! We hired a housekeeper, Miss Dorcas Critchley, who became my dearest (female) friend in the world. Jonas the curmudgeonly gardener metamorphosed into Jonas the Faithful Unto Death. And Ben came to write the most scintillating cookery book ever to set sail through the post in hopes of landing a publisher. Of course, I never dared hope that he and I would experience a fairy-tale love story utterly in keeping with our turreted, moat-endowed residence; but we did. And, at age twenty-eight, I was reborn. I shed four and a half stone. The hair, the eyes, ears, nose were the same, but I got a new body.
Oh, God, why did you dangle happiness in my face only to snatch it away?
Ben had helped me end my tragic love affair with eating. Ironic, considering his profession. Because of him, I stopped feeding myself like a refrigerator, lost the stipulated poundage, learned to like myself a bit better, and at long last had the sweet knowledge that a real live man loved me. We were going to live happily ever after.
The one thing I overlooked was that I was the sort of woman who bred disaster the way hamsters breed hamsters.
A seagull uttered a plaintive cry as it skimmed aloft, over the crooked tombstones; the vicar opened his book; the buzz of voices dwindled.
The air was permeated with the mildewed sweetness of the wreaths. A tear slid down my face. Here was a funeral with even more to offer than usual. Here was the grand finale to Sudden Death, Police Inquiries, Headlines in the Newspapers, and, best of all, the Questionable Involvement of a Wealthy Young Woman.
Me.
How unfair, how wrong, that I, more than the man lying at final rest, should be the focus of the crowd’s interest. I was certain I was being watched.
“Really, Ellie!” I could almost hear Mother’s voice. “What can you expect? You are the star turn in a drama where the only price of admission is a wreath. You alone can provide the updated, unexpurgated details of the Event.”
I am not a killer. Didn’t the coroner’s report clear me of all blame? No matter what people may think or say, I was only guilty of trying too hard to be the perfect wife. Biting my lip, I looked out furtively from under the brim of my black hat. Was it surprising I had gone a little mad after all the anguish of this past week? If only Ben’s father had come with me, I might have done better. But he didn’t believe in funerals.
I trembled and clutched the icy foot of the marble angel I was hiding behind as two elderly ladies clad in rusty black crunched by. Late arrivals. One brushed my arm and, apologising in a quivery voice, moved hastily past. I got a whiff of a sweet, primrose scent. Did she wish to be near the front in order to get a better view? Or did she shrink from the idea of being close to me?
Let people talk. Perhaps I did not deserve any friends. All that week I had refused to see anyone except Ann Delacorte. I had been unable to say no when she pressed me to visit her at the flat above her antique shop, so she could comfort me. Comfort! Nothing could comfort me!
There was a serenity to Ann that had drawn me from the first. But glimpsing her now, I thought her heavy black veil overly dramatic. Ann had an enthusiasm for the fashions of the forties, but was she basking in the poignant figure she presented as she clutched the arm of Lionel Wiseman, our solicitor? Lionel plucked a handkerchief from his breast pocket and pressed it into her hand. Death makes hypocrites of us all.
The day was the kind that has had all the color washed out of it. The grass between the headstones was sparse and coarse; the naked branches of the clustered elms were inked against a cobwebby sky. The wind carried a fine misting rain, and from far below (St. Anselm’s was also known as The Church on the Cliff) came the seething whisper of the sea.
“I am the Resurrection and the Life…”
Dear Rowland. Ben had always been rather jealous of this good-looking clergyman with his public school background and quiet charm. My fault again. A year ago, despairing of Ben ever falling in love with me, I had encouraged him to think that Rowland harbored a restrained but abiding passion for me.
“Ashes to ashes…”
The brass plate on the coffin flashed in the watery sunlight. A bluster of wind shook the trees and carried a woman’s voice straight to me.
“Wish vicar would get his bustle moving! I wouldn’t have missed this one for nothing, but I’ll have to stop coming regular if I’m like to miss the five o’clock bus. People keep saying it was the chicken that did for him but I says the mushrooms. Usually is the mushrooms, in’t it?”
A muffled voice answered. “Papers said natural causes; but we all know what a softy Dr. Melrose is. Couldn’t bear thinking of her in the dock, that’s my bet. Not bad looking, is she? And a decent figure. Hard to believe she was fat as butter when she first come here.”
“Dust to dust…”
He was inside that coffin. Dead by my hand. Dead of eating food I had prepared. Adequate to the grandeur of the occasion. The gala opening of Abigail’s, Ben’s restaurant. For months he and I had dreamed of the great day, but when it arrived, fate intruded, and I became chef for a day.
“And to dust thou shalt return…”
My mouth was filled with dust and ashes. If only I had some chocolate, preferably Swiss, loaded with almonds. Oh, how despicable I was.
Reverend Rowland Foxworth closed his book. Wind ruffled the hem of his cassock and he stood motionless in the increasing mist while two men in black coats stepped forward and lowered the coffin down into the grave. My throat closed. People were bending, picking up moist handfuls of earth and letting them fall with sickening thuds onto the gleaming coffin lid. Ann Delacorte was looking over at me. And she wasn’t the only one. The crowd was spreading out. As soon as Rowland indicated the obsequies were officially concluded, I would be mobbed.
Sorry, but I couldn’t give them that pleasure. Slipping the strap of my bag onto my shoulder, head bent, I hurried past the two elderly ladies who had arrived late. They were standing beside Gladys Thorn, the immensely tall, immensely thin organist of St. Anselm’s. And I kept going-past drunkenly postured tombstones and unmarked grassy mounds, almost running as I reached the lich-gate.
It would take me less than ten minutes to walk along the Cliff Road to the sanctuary of Merlin’s Court, away from these prying eyes. I would cross the moat bridge. I would open the heavily studded front door and enter the immense hall with the two shining suits of armor standing on each side of the trestle table against the staircase wall. My eyes would look toward those stairs, and I would fight for the courage to take that sweeping curve up to the master bedroom.
No, no! I could not do it. Not yet. I stood motionless. To my left, the battlements of Merlin’s Court rose as if painted in watercolors on grey parchment. Below, the sea crashed.
“Contemplating nature, Mrs. Haskell? Or suicide?” The voice crept eerily through the mist. Seconds later, the stoop-shouldered figure of Mr. Edwin Digby materialized. Mother waddled alongside. Mr. Digby lived in The Aviary, a Victorian house situated a quarter of a mile beyond Merlin’s Court. He was a man in his sixties, a man of mystery in the literal sense, being a famed writer of suspense novels. Mother, plucking at his coat, was a matronly goose with feathers of Persil whiteness.
“Please assure me that you are all right, Mrs. Haskell, and not seriously deliberating a leap into infinity. Alas, that ending has been wantonly worked to death by myself and others.”
I tore my eyes from the yawning drop at my feet. “Don’t let me detain you, Mr. Digby. I’m fine, really.”
“Word reached me that there is to be no funeral feast. Doubtless such an assemblage would be too reminiscent of the fatal evening.” He frowned down at Mother. “I regret, Mrs. Haskell, I was unable to attend the service. However, I am not sorry to have met you. Poisons being in my blood, professionally speaking, I was intrigued by your husband having been struck down at so inopportune a moment. Which is not to say I don’t feel for you, Mrs. Haskell. Good afternoon!” Upon which, he and Mother waddled into the mist.
I started walking. I needed to go where I might sit quietly and sort through the debris of my life. But before I had taken a dozen steps, a bus came lumbering around the curve and drew up a few yards beyond the churchyard gates. A dozen giggling teenagers, some in school uniforms, some in ankle-length coats, with electrified purple hair, emerged. Of course-the youth group met in the church hall on Friday afternoons.
It became expedient to step out of the way. Three boys (one with a gold stud through his nose) took flying leaps off the bus. Then they plunged in among the others, who had formed a dancing figure of eight, and screeching out some current hit song, rocketed past me. None but the girl at the end looked at me. A small girl with sandy-colored plaits flying away from her shoulders and eyes too big for her face, a face too old for a girl of thirteen or fourteen. Eyes that didn’t smile. But her mouth did, in a curve of shy, almost secret, recognition. I forced myself to smile back. She was Jenny Spender. A girl who knew a lot about the unfairness of life. Whenever I thought about my wedding day, I thought of Jenny.
They were gone. Their voices thinned to a wordless howl. I brushed away a dead leaf that blew against my cheek and went on. Every time I came to a dip in the road a swath of mist would engulf me and I hugged close to the right. Rocks and briar scratched my legs, but it would have been fatally easy to stray too far across the road, as a Mr. Woolpack, a local locksmith, had regrettably done the previous year. Chitterton Fells had been stunned by the tragedy. I remember showing the headlines to Ben…
A car motor shattered my reveries. Turning, I peered back up the hill. Out of the mist, a long dark car was nosing around the bend. Only it wasn’t a car in the usual sense of household vehicle. It was a hearse.
Odd! Shouldn’t it have left the cemetery much earlier? It stopped about twenty yards from me. Backing even farther onto the verge, I flagged the driver on. But the hearse stood motionless. I wished I had not read that book about the car with a mind of its own.
The mist had thickened and a pulse began to beat in my head. If the hearse would not get going, I would. There could be no question of its driver being inextricably lost because the road led directly down into the village, and its motor was running at an even purr so the hearse wasn’t stalled. Ignobly, I turned. One foot in front of the other. The road twisted. The hedgerow ended and a cobbled wall began. Once or twice I was tempted to look back over my shoulder, but I experienced a growing certainty that if I did, the hearse would be stopped and sitting, looking at me.
My pace quickened. I craved the comfort of a cup of tea. Lights. At last. Street lamps gleamed palely ahead, like illuminated dandelion puffs. I could discern the crumbling Roman archway which divided Plum Pretty Lane and The Square. I pelted toward it.
A youth on a bicycle slammed to a halt smack in front of me, face livid in the glare from his lamp. Flipping an obscene gesture under my nose, he sucked in a fetid breath.
“Lady, you shouldn’t be let out without a bloody seeing-eye dog!”
“I’m sorry.”
“Bleeding right you are. When did Her Majesty give you the flaming right of way, Miss?”
“Mrs.,” I said automatically. “Mrs. Bentley T. Haskell.” The hearse was pulling to the curb in front of Pullets Jewelers, where six months ago Ben had bought my engagement ring.
Kicking down on a pedal, the youth let out a low whistle. “What! The woman with the recipes men die for! Reckon I should count meself lucky to have crossed your path and lived!”
He was still yelling after me as I entered The Square. “How rude! Know what, lady? Why don’t you drop a line to Felicity Friend. You know, the woman what writes that sob page in The Daily Spokesman. Ask Dear Flis how to entertain the bloody town without blokes dropping dead and putting everyone off their grub!”
The fat Ellie could not have run from the kitchen sink to the refrigerator without getting winded, but now, pursued by his insults, I sprinted the length of Market Street without catching my breath.
In daylight, Chitterton Fells abounds with the cobblestone charm of a Victorian card. Now, in the dusky twilight, each facade looked secret, a little sly. All the shops were closed. Lights gleamed through grilled windows. Silence hung thicker than the mist. Reaching The Dark Horse pub, I cut a curve around Mother, feathers glistening like soap flakes, now waddling patiently up and down outside the saloon bar.
At last! There it was-Abigail’s-the gabled Tudor building with Georgian bow windows on the ground floor. At one of those windows, a curtain twitched. Otherwise, the place was depressingly lifeless. A sudden bang made me jerk around.
But the person closing the door of Bragg, Wiseman & Smith, Solicitors, was no ghostly apparition. It was a solidly built, middle-aged woman. Lady Theodora Peerless, Mr. Wiseman’s private secretary. As she drew near, I called out a greeting. She made no response and my silly, expectant smile slid off my face. Bracing myself, I called again, but her footsteps were already swallowed by the mist. She must not have heard me. Teddy Peerless liked me, or rather, hadn’t shown unmistakable signs of loathing. But that was before… She was the one who found the body. I shoved the thought away.
Slowly I went up the red brick steps and under the dark green awning lettered Abigail’s in gold. Suddenly, I had no idea why I had come here.
Portraits of famous chefs hung on the wainscotted walls of the octagonal foyer. How sad to remember the day I purchased them and the night-watchmen lanterns, now electrically wired and mounted, and the gleaming library table that was to do duty as a reception desk. Despite its unpleasant, sad associations, Abigail’s was sanctuary, a place where even phantom hearses could not get me.
A waiter trod softly across the parquet floor, his lips hooked into a smile, hands fluttering in a display of welcome. I could not recall meeting him before, but Ben had proved a hard taskmaster during the probationary period, and staff had come in one door and out the other.
“Out jogging, Mrs. Haskell? I perceived you from the window in the Bluebell Room while smoothing out a wrinkle in the curtains.”
I undid another button of my coat, unable to speak. My eyes turned toward the Bluebell Room. I considered its remodeling and furnishing one of the finer moments of my career as an interior designer. Moss green carpet, walnut-panelled walls. The fabric that covered the chairs and couches grouped around the fireplace repeated the bluebell pattern of the curtains and valances. My favorite touch was the portraits of children rambling through local woods in springtime. Ben had been delighted with the results. Now the room was flawed in a way I could never put to rights. At six o’clock on a Friday evening it should have been crowded with sherry-sippers and cigar-puffers waiting to be summoned to one of the dining rooms. Guests should be anticipating such delights as Ben’s inimitable fricassee of pheasant (to be featured in a full-colour photo on page 239 of the cookery book). Instead, it stood empty.
The waiter, whose name (according to the discreet name tag on the lapel of his jacket) was William, took my coat and folded it over his arm.
“Permit me to offer my sympathy, Mrs. Haskell. This is an ’orrible,” he cleared his throat, “horrible time for you. But mustn’t despair of business picking up.” Removing a piece of lint off my coat, William rolled it between his fingers. I fought an insane desire to yelp.
He quelled it by adding soberly, “Death does seem to have reached epidemic proportions of late in Chitterton Fells. Especially among the gentlemen. We have the late manager of the Odeon, gone missing, then found in the deep freeze with the ice lollies. And only this afternoon two police constables stopped in for coffee (most gratifying) and mentioned the discovery of a male cadaver down a disused well in Chitterton Woods.”
Those pictures in the Bluebell Room! One of them had shown children throwing pennies down that well. A dish of chocolates sat on the rent table, and I had to squeeze my hands behind my back to stop them from lunging.
“Did the policemen say if the man was Mr. Vernon Daffy, the estate agent?”
“They did.” Butler’s face assumed an expression of gravity. “But I should not be keeping you, Mrs. Haskell. Would you be here to see Mr. Flatts? He is presently engaged in practicing gravies, but I know he will be delighted to see you.”
“No, please! Don’t even mention I am here. I would like a pot of tea, after which I will ring for a taxi to take me home.” Poor Shirley Daffy, she had been so wonderfully brave when Vernon disappeared last week. And now he’d been found down a well!
“As you wish, madam.” William’s tone was reproving.
No matter. I absolutely would not see Ben’s assistant, even though he was my cousin Freddy. After all, he had failed me in the Cooking Crisis that awful day…
William ushered me into a small room. The words Coffee Parlour were engraved on the brass doorplate, but the room was designed for afternoon tea as well as morning coffee. It was softly lit by brass wall lamps shaded in pink silk. Warm and rosy shadows played upon the stuccoed walls between the age-blackened beams. I wished I could get warm.
“Some hot buttered toast with your tea, Mrs. Haskell?”
“Thank you, but I’m not hungry.”
I had grown adept at lies of this sort. Besides, I had been afraid to eat ever since it happened, in case I couldn’t stop. Ben had never fully understood my feeling that my new, svelte body was only on loan and that at any minute I might have to give it back. He had accused me of resenting the fact that people had stopped oohing and aahing over the change in me. He had… but so many things had not helped our relationship and then, of course, there had been the Terrible Row.
When William left, I parted the curtains and rubbed at a spot on the pane. Parked across the street was the hearse. My heart thumped. Dropping the curtain, I sank back into my chair. I must try to get a decent night’s sleep. If I didn’t, my nerves would go from bad to worse; I would end up in The Peerless Nursing Home, run by the notorious Dr. Simon Bordeaux.
William must have left the door ajar because I had not heard it open. I could feel, rather than hear, his footsteps. Ben always said the best waiters moved like burglars. I stifled a yawn. Perhaps I would sleep tonight. I couldn’t even summon the energy to turn my head. A scent of rain-drenched wreaths-flowering and over-sweet-filled the air. The tea would help revitalize me. A hand crashed down on my shoulder, and my scream filled up all of Abigail’s empty rooms.
“My dear, I am so sorry I startled you,” said a feathery female voice.
“Really, Primrose,” came a crisp admonishment. “How often have I warned you against popping up like that on people? You might have given the girl a heart attack. And we are in the business of saving lives, remember!”
Clutching the tablecloth, I looked upon two elderly ladies. One had dyed black hair swept into a cone on top of her head. Earrings shaped like miniature daggers sliced back and forth against her neck. Her velvet bolero and taffeta skirt were straight from a thrift shop. Her companion was more conventionally dressed in a tweed suit and violet jumper, but small pink bows ornamented her silvery curls and she sported an enormous Mickey Mouse watch. Her eyes were limpid blue in a crumpled face. She was the one drenched in toilet water. As I stared, the black-haired one delved into a carpetbag strikingly decorated with beaded peacocks.
“Here, Primrose.” She held out a dark purple vial. “What a blessing I remembered to bring your smelling salts.”
“How very dear, Hyacinth. But I do not believe I feel the need-”
“Not you, dear. Poor Mrs… Haskell.”
The bottle lay in my palm.
“Do you ladies own and operate a hearse?”
“We do.” They spoke in unison. “May we”-they laid their coats on a serving trolley and gestured toward my table-“may we join you?”
I turned the smelling salt bottle over. It was at least fifty years old and rather pretty with that lattice cutwork. I remembered having seen an identical one in Delacorte’s Antiques a month ago.
“Yes, do sit down. I’m interested in why you tailed me down Cliff Road and…” William entered with the teapot, three porcelain cups and saucers on a tray.
The black-haired woman crooked a finger at him. “Most welcome, Butler. Put the china down in front of me, please. Poor Mrs. Haskell is a little unsteady. I think it best that I pour.”
What an officious woman! I didn’t mind her taking the head of the table, but I did mind her addressing Ben’s waiter like a second footman in the baronial hall. Unruffled, he smoothed back the curtain I had moved.
“The toasted tea cakes are delayed, madams.” He inclined his head. “A minor combustion occurred in the kitchen.”
“Brought under control, I trust?” warbled the silver-haired lady. “This has already been a most difficult day.” Fishing a lace-edged handkerchief out of her bag, she dabbed at her blue eyes. “Not that the funeral wasn’t wonderful. Exactly what one would wish for oneself, don’t you agree, Hyacinth? Superbly mournful hymns and so very handsome a clergyman. A bachelor, I heard.” She lowered the hanky a half inch. “Butler, would it be possible to provide some brandy for the tea?” She turned to address me. “My sister and I find neat tea rather acid-forming.”
“How very-”
“At once, Miss Primrose.” He picked up their coats and folded them over his arm. “The house offers an unassuming but spirited cognac that I believe your late father would not have been h’ashamed-ashamed-to serve.”
My jaw dropped a notch.
The black-haired lady reached out to pat my hand, still clenched around the smelling salt bottle. I flinched.
“You surmise correctly, Mrs. Haskell. William Butler is in our employ.”
The carpetbag was rummaged through again. “Mrs. Haskell, our professional card.”
It lay in my hand, heavy and sharp-edged.
Flowers Detection.
Specializing in crimes with a difference.
Miss Hyacinth Tramwell, President;
Miss Primrose Tramwell, Chairperson.
No Divorce
“You’re private detectives?”
“You didn’t guess? Splendid.” The silver-haired lady caught the smelling salt bottle neatly as it toppled. “As for Butler-when Hyacinth and I are in residence at Cloisters, Flaxby Meade, he performs those services suited to his name. In our professional engagements, he assists us in ways even better suited to his talents.”
Butler made me a deferential bow. “I am an ex-burglar. Madam. And so I have an understanding of the criminal mind.”
These people were strange, genteelly so, but I definitely did not wish to partake of tea cakes with them. Dragging my bag across the table, I overset the salt and pepper shakers.
“My dear, do not hurry away.” The black-haired one set the little pots to rights. “I am Miss Hyacinth Tramwell, and I speak for Primrose in saying we sincerely regret frightening you this afternoon. Do believe me that until we motored into the village and saw you in speech with the cyclist, we were unaware that it was you, Mrs. Bentley Haskell, walking ahead of us down Cliff Road. It was in hopes of making your acquaintance that we attended the funeral. We were exceedingly disappointed when you left precipitously.”
I gripped the table edge. “Why didn’t you pass me on the road?”
Primrose Tramwell lowered her silvery head. The pink bows quivered. Her cheeks matched them in hue. “This is exceedingly embarrassing, Mrs. Haskell. I have only recently begun to drive and am still learning by my mistakes-only a couple of walls and an old gardening shed, you understand-but now before I take the wheel Hyacinth gives me a refresher course on which pedal is which and what all the little knobs are for.” She fiddled with a button on her cuffs. “As for passing, I have every expectation of advancing to that stage soon.”
“The important thing, Prim, is that we have now met Mrs. Haskell.” Hyacinth spoke bracingly.
A respectful cough from Butler. “Miss Hyacinth, would you wish something more substantial than the tea cakes?”
“Not at the moment, thank you.”
As Butler bowed himself out, she plucked at a jangly gold bracelet with a blood-red fingernail, her shoe-button eyes on me.
“We can talk quite freely in front of Butler, but alas, when he remains unoccupied too long, he gets itchy fingers. I’m sure you meant no harm, Mrs. Haskell, but leaving your bag in full view was tantamount to twirling a mouse in a cat’s face.”
“I’m sorry.” Chastened, I tucked the bag under the table.
“Mrs. Haskell”-Hyacinth Tramwell’s earring knifed back and forth-“you have been brought to our attention as the victim in a most deadly affair.”
“Victim?”
“Along with the deceased; may the Lord have mercy upon his soul.”
Propping my elbows on the table, I measured out my words. “You know about my recent… tragedy. What else do you know about me?”
In response, Hyacinth delved into her carpetbag and fetched forth a green clothbound book, the housekeeping journal sort. She stabbed it open with a red fingernail.
“Your father-Bosworth Hastings Simons-attended the Richmont Choir School and Cambridge, where he read Art History. Currently he is self-employed as a rainmaker on the outskirts of the Sahara.”
I bridled at her intonation. “Needless to say, I would prefer him to be a belly dancer, but I realised long ago we cannot choose our parents’ lives for them.”
“How true!” sighed Primrose. “Our own dear father was, at times, a bitter disappointment.”
Hyacinth trounced over her. “Your maiden name was Giselle Simons. Sixteen months ago you met your husband, Bentley Thomas Haskell, through an organization named Eligibility Escorts, owned and run by a Mrs. Swabucher. Under the provisions of your Uncle Merlin Grantham’s rather colorful will, you and Bentley inherited the property known as Merlin’s Court. This restaurant is named for Merlin’s mother, Abigail.” The red nails flicked to another page. “You also inherited an elderly gardener by name of Jonas Phipps, and shortly after your arrival at Merlin’s Court, you employed a Miss Dorcas Critchley as housekeeper. She is a games mistress by profession and a woman of independent means. She and Mr. Phipps are presently on excursion in America. You have a cousin Frederick-”
“Our dear sister Violet resides in America,” interposed Primrose. “At a place named Detroit. Regrettably we have never been to visit, but it sounds enchanting. Perhaps one day under propitious circumstances…”
A withering glance from her sister’s hooded black eyes quelled her. “My dear Primrose, we are telling Mrs. Haskell her life history, not ours.”
I took in Primrose’s crumpled face and Hyacinth’s sallow one. “Why did you speak just now of my being a victim?”
Hyacinth snapped her book shut.
“Hereabouts, Mrs. Haskell, as I am sure you are woefully aware, you are being dubbed the Demon of Death. Flowers Detection, however, is convinced you have been preyed upon by a murderous organisation. It wickedly decreed that a man should die, and you became the scapegoat.”
“That’s nonsense. I-”
William materialized. We sat mute while he set down fluted plates, filled with butter-dripping tea cakes. He tilted back the bottle he had been carrying under his arm so Primrose could survey the label.
“The cognac for your tea, madam.” At her nod of approval, he set it with a flourish on the table.
“Butler, are we alone on the premises?” queried Hyacinth.
“Mrs. Haskell’s cousin left a few moments ago, madam.”
“Good! Please close the door behind you and keep watch in the hall.”
Hyacinth tapped me lightly on the wrist with her fork as Butler exited. “It is imperative we not be overheard. The members of this organisation wear the perfect disguise: nice, kind, ordinary faces.” A covert glance at the window. She lowered her voice. “It is in an attempt to eliminate this organisation that we are here.”
Were these women escapees from a place like The Peerless Nursing Home?
Hyacinth was cutting her tea cake into geometric shapes, and Primrose was placidly sousing her tea with cognac. Hyacinth reached for the bottle and angled it over her cup. “Will you indulge, Mrs. Haskell?”
I did feel a need.
“We arrived in Chitterton Fells some weeks ago,” she continued placidly, “at the behest of an insurance company, whose name we are not at liberty to divulge. We can tell you that their computers had been bleeping out distress signals. You know the insurance company mentality, Mrs. Haskell-they want people to worry about dying but never actually do it. Thus, you can appreciate our client’s chagrin on discovering that during the last few years its balance forward had been affected by a marginal, but suggestive, upswing in the number of untimely deaths among married men residing along this part of the coast. Most distressing.”
“Particularly,” Primrose interjected, “for the innocent people whose premiums will soar.”
My heart thumped.
Hyacinth took a bite of tea cake and a sip of tea. “Not in one case was murder cited as the cause of death. Postmortems, when performed, invariably brought conclusions of misadventure, suicide, or natural cause. Suspicions of one kind or another may have been raised, but as in the case involving yourself-”
Enraged, I came up out of my chair. “How dare you accuse me of involvement with a murderous gang-”
“Shush, shush, my dear.” Primrose eased me back down. “We know your participation to be entirely involuntary and unknowing.”
“Let it also be said”-Hyacinth realigned my teaspoon on my saucer-“that this is no gun-hefting mob in cheap leather jackets. This deadly organisation is a women’s club, highly selective, with a charter, a president, and duly elected officers. Anyone desiring admittance must be sponsored by a current member and have her application reviewed by the board. The club’s function is to aid women who choose widowhood over divorce-specifically in cases where the husband has flouted the Sixth Commandment.”
Primrose poured more tea. “So much more comfortable to become a grieving widow than a divorcée with a reduced standard of living. Especially when one considers that these would-be widows are spared all unpleasant details of”-she flinched-“termination. We are rather sketchy on details, but we do know that after the applicant is sponsored, she answers a telephone questionnaire, pays her initiation fee, and is encouraged to make the husband’s last days on earth a pleasure to remember. No nagging. The television tuned to his favourite channel. All his favourite meals served. Allowed to stay out as long as he wants with the other woman. It being, after all, only a matter of time until he falls off a cliff or drops down a well.”
Ashes to ashes. I should go home.
“After which”-Primrose removed a crumb from the front of her jumper-“the new widow receives tremendous emotional support from the group. She is kept far too busy working on items for the bazaar or growing herbs in little pots to give way to guilt.”
“Who does the murdering?” My tea was a little weak. I added more brandy.
“As Primrose said, we are missing a lot of puzzle pieces,” responded Hyacinth, encouraged by my curiosity. “We believe the method of each murder is planned and on occasion implemented by the club’s founder. Board members are encouraged to do volunteer work in connection with the deaths.”
“Excuse me, but this is laughable.” To prove my point, I gave a hollow chuckle. “Other than its fiendish purpose, you might be describing a group like the Chitterton Fells Historical Association.”
Primrose Tramwell looked vastly pleased with me. “On the surface, much the same style of organisation. Indeed, it would seem that numerous members of The Widows Club are also active members of the group you mention. One pictures them swelling the ranks of the Women’s Institute, various old girls associations, and such circles as those that worship self-fulfillment, Chinese cooking classes, keep-fit, yoga, and so forth. Flowers Detection is convinced that infiltration of other organisations is a requirement of The Widows Club charter.”
“A necessary means of sniffing out fresh blood-women who are unhappy in their marriages.” Hyacinth laid her knife and fork on her empty plate. “Absolutely delicious. The tea cakes, I mean.”
I had been picking raisins out of my tea cake with a fork and now with a surge of defiance ate one. “I’m not in love with The Historical Association. They recently toured my house at an extremely inconvenient time.” I paused, remembering. “Even so, I can’t picture one of those women writing out a check for her husband’s murder or inquiring if she could put it on her Barclay Card.”
“Do you perchance recall,” queried Primrose avidly, “any of those ladies wearing a bar-shaped brooch, rather pretty, with a row of enamelled blackbirds?”
Her pansy blue eyes held me. “Many of them did.”
Hyacinth compressed her lips. “Let us not digress. The scheme has worked splendidly, so far, because the perpetrators are those people one meets everywhere. One doesn’t see the woods for the trees or the members for the club. Men especially would not sense anything amiss. The male sex never has appreciated the marvelous contribution made by female organisations providing volunteer service. The masculine mentality perceives them as social playgrounds whence the little woman can amuse herself after the housework is done, his mother visited, and the dog walked. Tragic, but perhaps it is as well that the victims do not sense their peril.”
I stopped playing with my tea cake. “What of female friends and acquaintances of the widows? Wouldn’t they ask questions, express interest in the club’s activities?”
“Widows, I fear, tend to be the forgotten species and not nearly as amusing as spinsters.” Primrose straightened out one of the pink bows on her hair. “People are relieved when they don’t want to keep coming to dinner. I imagine that acquaintances of our widows merely think how nice that Maude or Cynthia keeps so busy-whist, Tuesday afternoons; committee work, Thursday evenings; out selling homemade fudge for charity on weekends.”
“Mrs. Haskell”-Hyacinth drew her chair closer, setting the earrings off again-“please understand we are not here to cast stones. The Widows Club does raise a sizeable amount annually for charity. But can good works mitigate the fact that its primary function is deadly?”
I shivered, mainly because I was becoming interested in this nonsense. “What about conscience-don’t any of these women break down after the deed is done? Killing a husband is-is unnatural!” A bitter pang swamped me as I recalled the first time I had felt the urge to murder my brand-new husband.
Primrose sighed. “Murder is always nasty. But unnatural? I am not so sure. Murdering one’s child or parents, that indeed flouts nature. Disposing of a husband?” She shook her silver head. “My dear, you will point out that neither Hyacinth nor I have ever married, but I can readily conceive that even the most devoted wife might be faced with the temptation to lay out her spouse rather than his clean underwear.”
“Quite so, Primrose! However, we are not put on this earth to give way to temptation.” Hyacinth lifted her painted black eyebrows at me. “Mrs. Haskell, you inquired whether, despite everything the support group can do, any of the widows falter under the burden of remorse. We have spoken to such a woman. Since our arrival in the area, Butler has held several positions other than the post he occupies here. He has been a barrow boy, a telephonist, a dustman. While engaged as a window cleaner, he made contact with a Mrs. X, a patient at The Peerless Nursing Home. Unfortunately the interview was hampered by its taking place in a broom cupboard, added to which Mrs. X was only partially coherent as a result of the medication she had been administered during her sojourn there. But we did make some gains. Mrs. X claims to be one of several women presently occupying the third floor, all being treated for the same problem-loose lips.”
“The Peerless is run by Dr. Simon Bordeaux.” Mine was a statement, not a question. I had reasons for not wanting the doctor to be a villain, but I had seen that nursing home, locked in the center of a dense wood. My heart went out to Mrs. X, whatever her sins. I grew calm, numbed by the draft from the window and the conviction that the Tramwells were not senile. Eccentric without doubt, but eccentricity was in my blood.
“Yes, my dear,” said Miss Primrose Tramwell, “we know the doctor-by reputation. We have ardently endeavoured not to prejudge him, but at our ages Hyacinth and I cannot take lightly the notion that the good doctor may have curtailed the lives of elderly females for pecuniary gain. And, it must be said, it is repellent to us that he purchased a proud ancestral home (the Peerless family is almost as old as ours) and turned it into an antiseptic facility and at such cost to that hapless Lady”-she reached for her sister’s green notebook-“ah, yes, Lady Theodora Peerless. A fellow woman, cast out upon the world, if not as a governess, as a typist-which is rather worse, one fears.”
“Mrs. Haskell, how well are you acquainted with Dr. Bordeaux?” asked Primrose.
“We’ve met a couple of times. He attended the… our fatal affair.”
Primrose looked down at her lap and Hyacinth avoided my eyes. “We had certainly planned to gate-crash the event but were forced to return to Cloisters that day. Our dog Minerva was indisposed.”
My hair had loosened at the back of my neck. I pinned it back up to hide the trembling of my fingers and ate another small raisin. Dr. Bordeaux’s pale, aesthetic face wove itself out of the shadows in the room. I was remembering things, incidents, conversations with people, especially Ann Delacorte. The clock in the hall struck six times. I retrieved a hairpin that had slipped under my collar.
“What information do you have about this Widows Club?”
Hyacinth picked up the green notebook. “Current membership comprises approximately thirty-five women, including eight board members and the current president. Each member is obligated to remain active for one year following initiation. Board members must retire after a one-year term of office. This, as Primrose and I understand the matter, is because these are the women who actively participate in the murders. Too much-buttering of the stairs-could take its toll. Or become addictive. Presumably The Founder would not wish any one person gaining an ascendancy.”
“And you suspect that Dr. Bordeaux is The Founder?”
“My dear, we certainly do not discount him because he is a man.” Primrose fussed with her silvery curls. “But, we are well nigh convinced he is merely an accomplice, not the brains.”
I finally asked the obvious. “Why did this insurance company call you in, rather than going directly to the police?”
Hyacinth used her finger as a bookmark. “Not one ounce of real evidence to drop in the lap of Scotland Yard. One of the difficulties we have encountered is that the charter members, who must surely know The Founder’s identity, have long since dispersed, gone on to new-and one can only trust-single lives.”
“How long has the club been in operation?”
“As near as we can gauge, five years.”
“Think me a flea-brain,” I said, “but if you are sure of Dr. Bordeaux’s involvement and Mrs. X is only one of several widows he is treating for acute attacks of remorse, what is the difficulty in substantiating your claims?”
“I very much doubt that our long-suffering constabulary would put much stock in the ramblings of bereaved women suffering from their nerves.” Primrose pensively added more cognac to her tea. “And, my dear Mrs. Haskell, as we informed our insurance company employers, these unfortunate women cannot give us the one name we desperately need. They don’t know it. What happens, we ask, if The Founder slips through our net? What will be achieved even if we do put this club out of operation? Chitterton Fells will become a less eventful place to live; but The Founder may simply start a similar service organisation somewhere else.”
Hyacinth’s ebony eyes bored into mine. “Which is why we have approached you, Mrs. Haskell. We ask that you help us unmask our villain.”
“Me?”
“My dear child”-Primrose caught at me with her small fluttery hands-“recall the old saying: ‘In the midst of life there is death!’ How true… as is its reverse.”
“Why should I trust you?”
“Why shouldn’t you?” chimed the sisters.
I could think of a dozen responses to that, but I had succumbed to my tea cake and my mouth was full of flavoured rubber cement.
“We will, should you wish, introduce you to someone who can vouch for much of what we have said.” Hyacinth flicked over a page in the green book. “We mentioned, I believe, rumblings from computers owned by our employer. But we were not called in until a certain woman had presented herself at Head Office. This person claimed to have been the Other Woman in several liaisons, each of which ended in the sudden death of her lover shortly after he had requested divorce from his wife. That woman lives here in Chitterton Fells and is anxious to see justice done.”
“How convenient that all the victims were insured with the one company!” I observed, somewhat maliciously.
“That would be rather too fortuitous.” Hyacinth grimaced in amusement. “But ours is one of the largest and most nationally prominent in the business. It has a vigourous local office and has been the hardest hit. After their visit from this Other Woman, our people conferred with other companies, found further significant mortality data, and agreed to head up the investigation.”
“Oh, indeed!” I said. “Why did this Other Woman go to the insurance company rather than the police?”
“She did go to them first, after encountering what she termed the last straw.” Primrose pursed her lips and shook her head. “The man (one certainly cannot term him a gentleman) whom she had been meeting each Wednesday evening in… a Volkswagen parked in a used-car lot, failed to turn up, which was most unusual.” Primrose flushed down to her neck. “Invariably he apparently begged to be allowed to come early. This time, however, he had been permanently delayed. It seems a crane at his place of business had deposited him in some sort of metal crusher. The woman had been saddened when her other paramours kept turning into bodies, but this one being scrapped sent her in hysterics to the police station. The Inspector advised her to see her doctor”-Primrose lowered her voice-“about hormone tablets.”
My tea cake buckled when I stuck a knife in it. “Do I know this Venus?”
“According to our records, you do.” Hyacinth waved the cognac bottle over my cup.
I nodded assent. “Who could this inflamer of male desire be?”
Primrose looked smug. “I fear it would be a breach of professional confidentiality for us to reveal her name. We prefer to wait and let her speak for herself.”
I held up my hands. “That’s quite all right. If you were to divulge it now, I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on what it is you want from me.” The brandy tasted good now that it was no longer diluted by tea, but it wasn’t responsible for the small hopeful flame that lit within me. If what the Tramwells said were true, then maybe in helping them I could make some small reparation to Ben.
“Excuse me,” I said. “Before we proceed, I must make a phone call.” Going out into the foyer, I found Butler dusting the chocolates in the dish on the library table. I asked him to fetch fresh tea, and as he headed for the kitchen, I picked up the telephone and quickly dialed my own number. My father-in-law answered at the third ring. After a brief conversation, I returned to the coffee parlour and closed the door behind me.
I sat down. “Ready.”
Primrose pressed a scented handkerchief into my limp fingers. “We wish you to give us a history of the events leading up to the tragic event which occurred on these premises one week ago tonight.”
“How much do you need to know?” The steadiness of my voice startled me.
“Everything.” Hyacinth uncapped a fountain pen.
“All right,” I began. “On the day of Abigail’s premiere, I woke at a little after six o’clock feeling totally exhausted because all that night I had dreamt I was preparing food for the party. Ben, you see-”
“No, no! Mrs. Haskell. That is not what we want at all.” Hyacinth dabbed at a splutter of ink.
“Dear me, indeed not!” piped up Primrose. “We wish you to go back to the beginning. Start, if you will be so good, with the day you and Bentley came to Merlin’s Court. Your views and impressions since coming to this area are as important to us as the climax.”
“Why don’t I begin with my wedding? Ben and I hadn’t done much socialising with the locals before then; but that day the church and later the house teemed with people. I remember hearing one of the guests say that everyone was there except Chitterton Fells’s three most famous: Edwin Digby, the mystery writer; Felicity Friend, the advice columnist; and the wicked Dr. Simon Bordeaux.”
“You had sent out a great many invitations?” Hyacinth was making notes.
“None.”
The pen stopped moving.
“Ben and I had a very short engagement and wanted a quiet wedding. But, then again, we didn’t want to offend the people we didn’t invite. So we phoned the people we really wanted there and put a small squib in the Coming Events section of The Daily Spokesman. It appeared right at the bottom of the page and was headed ‘All Welcome’, giving time, date, and place. The response was horrifying. The phone buzzed day and night with acceptances to our gracious invitation.”
“I am sure it was a lovely wedding.” Primrose pulled out her handkerchief again.
I hesitated. “The day-it was the first of December last year-was marred by some unfortunate circumstances. The best man, Sidney Fowler, found weddings depressing. He had only agreed to do the honours in hopes of combatting his phobia. The weather was less than perfect and we were about to get the dreadful news about Ben’s mother…”