“The well is as you describe, although it is not located in a public place.” Lady Krumley shivered despite the fierce central heating. “It is in the garden of a cottage on the Moultty Towers property. They are kept for longtime family retainers. A Mrs. Hasty, who was the kitchen maid in Flossie’s time, lives in it. If she is deceased by the time Watkins retires he will be offered it. As I told you yesterday, it has long been viewed a duty by the Krumleys to honor the promise inscribed on the family crest.”
“I’m sorry I don’t have my notes with me,” I hedged. “What is the exact wording?’
“Serve Well Thy Servitors.” Her ladyship leaned back on her pillow, looking all at once like a woman who needed a nurse with a syringe at her side. “It dates back to the early thirteenth century when Hugh de Krumley took a blow on the head in a skirmish against King John. He wandered about the country for a year thinking he was a peasant, until rescued by his ever-faithful jester, a fellow by the name of Lumpkin who brought him back to his senses with another blow by way of a juggling skittle that went astray. Overjoyed, Hugh rewarded Lumpkin by not having his hands cut off. Upon his return to the manor, after taking a long hot bath one would hope, Hugh swore upon his sword and his father’s beard-or it may have been his mother’s (the Krumleys all tend to be hirsute)-to deal mercifully with those who served him. He also vowed that should this pledge not be kept, by himself or future generations, the house of Krumley would fall. One may assume that none failed in their duty until”-her ladyship’s dark eyes seemed to sink into her head-“I so cruelly wronged Flossie Jones.”
“Is it known how your cousin Vincent came to fall into the well?” I asked.
“He had gone out into the grounds in search of his dog, a Maltese terrier that he had brought down with him and had insisted be allowed to dine at the table. It was discovered missing from the house shortly after I left for Mucklesby. A tiresome, yapping creature. One would think no one could regret its absence. But Vincent was quite besotted. Credited it with having helped him stop drinking, by threatening to walk out if he ever touched another drop. One could never tell if Vincent was serious or joking. And I suspected upon this visit that he had grown addled in his wits.”
“Was he very elderly?” I inquired.
“In his nineties, close in age to what Sir Horace would have been.” Her ladyship lay plucking at her shawl. “So I suppose there is some excuse. He kept saying Niles’s wife looked like a go-go dancer and something about Daisy Meeks, another relation who was present on the evening of his arrival, having a twin. He’d chortle in a silly way. It was all extremely tedious. And I must say I was happy to get out of the house.”
“Family!” Mrs. Malloy sat looking soulful. “It’s never all it’s cracked up to be, is it, your ladyship ducks? Still, I’m sure you wasn’t pleased to hear he’d kicked the bucket… on the way down the well.”
“When I put down the phone after receiving the news from Niles I must have gone into shock. The realization that the deathbed curse of Flossie Jones had been again at work was too much for me. For I have no doubt that it was my breaking the family code of honor that empowered her. The doctors here suspected I had suffered another heart attack, but I knew such was not the case. I had merely fainted-something I had never done before in my life- thus precipitating the crash.”
“That’s all it was?” Mrs. M. looked seriously aggrieved. “No one had done nothing nasty to the brakes, or run you off the road.”
“I merely lost consciousness for a few moments.” Her ladyship sat back up with a surprising bounce. “I should have been allowed to go home instead of being kept imprisoned in this most uncomfortable bed and woken up in the night to be made to take a sleeping pill. And this morning they were talking about having me examined by a cardiologist to be brought down from London. So much nonsense. I detest having poor, sensitive Niles…”
“We met him,” I said, looking toward Mrs. Malloy, “just now outside in the corridor. He thought we were social workers and agreed to let us come in and see you first. He said he would go back to meet up with his wife who had parked the car. You didn’t mention yesterday, your ladyship, that they live with you at Moultty Towers.”
The black eyes darted my way. “I was distracted after being so late for my appointment, distressed over those flower pots being thrown at the car, uncertain as to the advisability of dealing with Mr. Jugg’s associates. My head was in something of a muddle.”
“Understandably you were agitated. It is why you smoked those cigarettes.” There was a hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach. I hadn’t stopped her even after she mentioned those heart attacks. And what if, despite her protests, she had suffered another? How much of the fault lay at my door? The question was enough to make me vow silently that I would take on her case, however madcap it seemed, and see it through to what I hoped would not be the bitter end. There was Ernestine to be located and perhaps a villain to unmask. I still had serious doubts of the latter’s existence. The advent of Have Gun might mean nothing. He could have been a mad prankster, out for a night’s fun at her ladyship’s expense. But how could it hurt me to spend a few days helping an ill and troubled old woman?
Lady Krumley shifted a leg, and I’m sure that only by exerting her formidable will did she restrain herself from getting out of bed and marching up and down the room. There were no tubes to restrain her, no crisply starched nurse rustling forward to instruct her to be a good girl.
“Did Niles Edmonds inherit the title?” I got up and poured her a glass of water.
“I could do with a brandy.” The black eyes flashed.
“Well, it just so happens…” Mrs. Malloy reached into her bag but susbsided on meeting my scowl. “I was only going to offer her a lemon drop,” she muttered.
“No, Niles is the son of Horace’s youngest brother. The title went to another nephew, Alfonse Krumley, whose father was next in line to my husband.” Lady Krumley straightened her leg and sipped at the glass of water. “Niles came to live at Moultty Towers when he was ten-years-old and Sir Horace and I were newly married. He has been all but a son to me.”
Mrs. Malloy and I made appropriate noises.
“His parents had died in a freak accident. Sadly, his electric train set blew up and completely gutted the nursery one night when they went in to hear him say his prayers.”
“And the poor little lamb wasn’t hurt?” Mrs. Malloy gave a knowing smirk that I itched to wipe off her face.
“He had suffered an asthma attack and gone down to the kitchen to be cosseted by the cook. Understandably, the incident affected poor Niles deeply. He was afraid to sleep alone for years after he came to Moultty Towers. Sometimes I think he married Cynthia to have someone in his bed.”
“Well, that is odd,” Mrs. Malloy said in an effort to straighten her face.
“Always so afraid of the bogeyman coming to get him.” There was a suggestive glisten of tears in Lady Krumley’s eyes. “And Cynthia, whatever else might be said against her, isn’t afraid of anything or anyone. My husband wasn’t particularly sympathetic to Niles even when it came to his asthma. Sir Horace insisted that Niles used his attacks to get me to spoil him. And it must be said that at age fifty he is still very much a small boy in long trousers. He began to wheeze yesterday when I said I was going out in the car and would not be back for several hours. I did not feel comfortable leaving him until Cynthia came in from her riding lesson, especially as Daisy Meeks who would agitate anyone, was present. A foolish, nattering woman. Another family connection of my husband, living in the village. She has the most irritating yap, like that dog of Vincent’s.
“Was it found?” I asked.
“Pipsie or Wipsie or whatever it was called? Niles didn’t say, nor did I think to ask. All that can be assumed is that Vincent must have gone looking for it in the cottage garden and got it into his panicky head that the animal had fallen in the well, and in peering down to take a look, himself fell in.”
“And who found Vincent?”
“Again Niles didn’t say.”
“And all because the dog got out,” Mrs. Malloy said. “A door left open by mistake. Easy enough done.” Mrs. Malloy didn’t fool me. She had already worked it out in her mind that the dog had been removed from the house so that Vincent would go looking for it and end up being dropped down that well.
“Lady Krumley,” I said, “matters have taken a most regrettable turn since last night. I understand your wish to bring Mrs. Malloy and myself current with the situation, but is there any other reason why you wished to see us so urgently today? Is there perhaps something you consider to be of significance that you forgot to mention? For instance,” I rattled on as she stared silently back at me, “I have been wondering if you know what became of Ernestine’s father.”
“Her father?”
“Ernest the under gardener. Was he around when she was born, or had he deserted Flossie by that time? From
