when not moving an inch.
Despite quaking on the inside, I answered boldly: “He knows that, but he’s pining. And I don’t want him miserable. The study is both his personal space and his workplace. I’m not sure he will be able to get anything done the way things are. He particularly hates the computer. The point, as I should have realized, is that stuff isn’t just… stuff. That old typewriter was his friend… his partner… his…” I floundered to a halt.
“I suppose I do understand,” Kathleen responded with a little more warmth in her voice. “How could I not, being married to Dudley with his obsession with St. Ethelwort. I’ll do what I can, Ellie, but I didn’t handle all the incoming and outgoing of the donations. That’s why cousin Alice was here, to help me with a job that became too much for one person. There are so many organizations in need. Some old, many of them fairly new. I couldn’t begin to list them off the top of my head. I’ll have to check through my records and Alice’s. She’s a most efficient woman.”
“That’s good.”
“Perhaps not given your situation. She may well have sent your stuff on its way without wasting time having it first unloaded here. We get very specific requests for items, and if yours fit the bill, well… you do see what I’m getting at, Ellie?”
“Could you let me know something, fairly soon?” I got dolefully to my feet. “If I had an address I could perhaps track the things down and offer to buy them back.”
“Let’s hope for the best.” Kathleen ushered me into the hall and hurried me into my raincoat. “They could well be in the church hall. We only have the overflow in the house. Now off you go,” she said, handing me my umbrella, “and try not to worry. Say a little prayer. But not to St. Ethelwort; from what I’ve read of his journals the man was frightfully long-winded, and might keep you talking all day.”
With this small sally she closed the vicarage door. Glad to see the back of me and be off to her appointment. Who could blame the poor overworked woman? I walked back along the Cliff Road heedless of the rain to enter the hall at Merlin’s Court, where Freddy appeared like a wraith at my elbow to announce that Mrs. Malloy was on the phone, sounding as though someone had just died.
Eight
“What’s wrong?” I held the receiver with one hand while struggling to get out of my raincoat with the other. I was chilled to the bone, but there was no one to notice except the twin suits of armor and neither one of them looked ready to clank across the Turkish rug with offers of a cup of tea. Freddy had disappeared into the kitchen. Seasoned eavesdropper that he was he didn’t have to be standing next to me to get the gist of my conversation with Mrs. Malloy. Whistling kettles and doors left open the merest wedge would be no deterrents if he chose to snoop. But it could be that he wasn’t in the mood to involve himself with my trials and tribulations, given his worries about his Mum.
“Never mind me.” Mrs. Malloy’s voice blasted in my ear. “What’s wrong with you? Don’t tell me that gunman found out where you live and is there this minute, threatening to shoot your head full of enough holes to turn it into a colander, if you don’t keep your trap shut? It’s alright,” she said, misinterpreting my silence, “I understand you can’t talk. Give one scream for ‘yes’ and two for ‘no’.”
“Please!” I finally managed. “Let’s not go taking last night too seriously. After talking to Freddy I’m convinced our visitor played us for a couple of idiots.”
“So that wasn’t a gun he shoved under our noses?” She laughed sarcastically. “What was it then, Mrs. H., a banana?”
“A toy one.”
“A toy banana?”
“No!” I tossed my raincoat on the floor and barely restrained myself from kicking it the length of the hall. “A toy gun.”
“Well, that makes a lot of sense, that does! But if Mr. Freddy Flatts says that’s the way things was who’m I to argue? Course, it could be said I was there and he weren’t, and it would be nice to think that you and me stood together as a team, especially now that things have taken such a nasty turn. But why should anyone consider my feelings? I’m just the woman that’s worked her fingers to the bone for you all these years, scrubbing and polishing on me poor worn-out knees.”
I didn’t remind her that she had always strictly adhered to the Chitterton Fells Charwomen’s charter (commonly referred to as the Magna-Char), which prohibited its members from performing any tasks above or below eye level. This was no time for petty bickering. “What sort of nasty turn?”
“Well, it’s like this,” she said, dropping her snotty tone, “I came down here to the office to water the plants and practice up on me typing and I wasn’t through the door when the phone rang. I picked it up all of a tremble, thinking it would be Milk ringing up to say he’d been stabbed coming out a bar.”
“And his wallet pinched by a one-legged jogger?”
“I’ll let that pass, Mrs. H., seeing it’s clear you’re having a bad day. Not made up with the hubby from the sound of it. But you’re about to feel downright ashamed of yourself.”
“I am?”
“That phone call was from the old Cottage Hospital in Mucklesby. Seems,” Mrs. M. continued with relish, “Lady Krumley was brought in last night after a car accident. I couldn’t get the gist of how bad she was because the woman phoning, some nurse I suppose, had one of those posh voices like someone talking Shakespeare.”
“What sort of an accident?” I asked stupidly.
“I just told you.”
“I mean did her ladyship collide with another vehicle or did she crash into a lamppost after being forced off the road? What I’m getting at is… was it really an accident or attempted murder?”
“So now you’re admitting it wasn’t all fun and games with that bloke last night? Change with the wind you do, Mrs. H., but I can’t stand here fussing with you all day. We’ve got to get down to that hospital. Don’t want the old girl sinking into a coma before we arrive, now do we?”
“She wants to see us?” I was struggling back into my raincoat.
“No, that nurse phoned for the weather report.” Mrs. Malloy’s sarcasm dripped through the receiver. “Her ladyship had told her to phone Jugg’s Detective Agency and keep ringing until someone answered. Poor soul! Sounds as though she’d worked herself up into a terrible state. Don’t suppose she’s meant to have visitors except for the immediate family.”
“Who might not be such a good idea under the circumstances.”
“Well, I must say it’s about time you came round to my way of thinking, Mrs. H., ’cos my name’s not Roxie Malloy if there isn’t a nasty nephew or sneaky sister-in-law at the bottom of this.” The woman could be unbearably smug, but I reminded myself that one had to keep Lady Krumley front and center.
“I’m merely keeping an open mind. No more, no less. You can fill me in on any other information you’ve acquired when I pick you up.” I not only had my raincoat back on but also was wearing Tobias around my neck as a scarf. That cat was worse than the children for demanding attention the minute I got on the phone. He would drop off a wardrobe onto my head or, as on this occasion, leap from the table onto my arm and shin the rest of the way with a steel-clawed determination worthy of an assault of the Alps. By the time I had disentangled him, Freddy had stuck his head around the kitchen door to say that he had a lovely pot of tea ready. And if I was in the mood to turn a loaf of bread into a plateful of sandwiches we could have an early lunch. I hated to see the light go out in his eyes. It’s a tough business being a housewife pretending to be a P.I. I told him, while draining half a cup of tea, that there was sliced ham, lettuce and tomatoes in the fridge, but he would have to assemble them on a plate without any help from me because I had to meet up with Mrs. Malloy.
“Ah!” He stroked his beard, eyes gleaming. “So the Krumley case thickens.”
“Freddy,” I rammed a rain hat on my head, “do not be melodramatic.”
“What? Me? Make mountains out of molehills?” He staggered backward until he rammed up against the sink. “Her ladyship has merely been in a near fatal car accident that may or may not be the result of foul play. She’s lying in The Cottage Hospital at Mucklesby, clutching her oxygen mask, clawing at all the tubes while waiting for you and Mrs. Malloy to arrive so she can impart some vital piece of the puzzle before she gasps her last.”
