and went back into the kitchen, leaving me with the lowering feeling that we were about to prey upon a lonely old lady well into her second childhood. I said as much to Mrs. Malloy as we walked down a shallow flight of stone steps into the extensive garden, where statues of nymphs shivered in lifeless flowerbeds under the bare branches of the trees. Her response was to tell me that I would never harden myself to the life of a private investigator if I didn’t stop thinking soppy. I apologized meekly, and we trudged on along meandering paths, among gently undulating lawns that would have made for a fairly decent golf course.
My mind shifted to Ernest the under gardener, who had been thought to be the father of Flossie’s baby girl, without bringing him into focus. He remained a shadowy figure on his haunches plucking up weeds with his back to us, and it suddenly seemed vital to the investigation that he be fleshed out. We had reached the copse, dark and somewhat ominous looking under the overcast sky. Through the shift and shadow of its branches could be glimpsed the cottage, and I wondered if Mrs. Malloy feared as I did that we were Hansel and Gretel about to knock on a door that would open onto unforeseen dangers, where evil hid under chintz covers and sugar-coated words would send us skipping away down one wrong path after another until the truth was hopelessly trodden underfoot like breadcrumbs tossed by an unseen hand.
Fourteen
Seeing the wishing well in the cottage garden heightened the feeling that Mrs. Malloy and I were trapped in a fairy tale with all its attendant horrors. My mind squeezed shut when it veered toward the horrific moment when Vincent Krumley met his end. But Mrs. Malloy was not so squeamish.
She stood, shaking her head vigorously. With the wind picking up it would not have surprised me had her hat started to spin around to the accompaniment of merry-go-round music. “The only way as I can see for him to have fallen in by accident is if he’d been kneeling on that wooden ledge peering way over to see if the dog was down there. And he couldn’t’ve been pushed because then he’d have gone sprawling over the top. It’s quite a big well, but we’re not talking the size of a swimming pool. Meaning Mrs. H., that if it was murder someone had to wrestle with the poor old blighter and shove him in headfirst.”
“Or,” I said, turning away to face the cottage, “someone pretending to help him look for the dog encouraged Vincent Krumley to kneel down and peer into the well and then toppled him in.”
“There you go, taking the words out of me mouth!”
“And did the dog get outdoors by accident, or was he removed as a key part of the plan?”
“As if I wasn’t just about to say that!”
“Did the murderer tie him up somewhere, where he could be heard frantically barking but not be easily found? Somewhere close to here so that Mr. Krumley could be maneuvered this way.”
“Again what I was thinking!” Mrs. M., still sounding peevish, followed me up the short path with its little lawn on either side to the cottage door. It was a charming place, with cobbled stone walls and tiny latticed windows overhung by a thatched roof. But Mrs. Malloy could be counted on to keep the Grim Reaper scything away in the shadows. “Led like a lamb to the slaughter, was Vincent Krumley. Poor old gent!”
She might have gone on at length if the door hadn’t opened before I could lift the doorknocker, and we found ourselves confronted by a tall slim woman with thick coppery hair plaited around her head. She was in her mid to late thirties, I decided, and unlikely to be Mrs. Hasty unless she had participated in a test study of rejuvenating tablets. It was apparent from her expression that she took us for a couple of Jehovah’s Witnesses or door-to-door salespeople. Her expression remained doubtful, as I explained why we wished to see Mrs. Hasty. But after a prolonged stare, she edged back into the narrow hall and instructed us to come in.
“When was it you last spoke with Lady Krumley?” She still struck me as liable to take an umbrella from the brass stand by the staircase and dish out a series of pokes if either Mrs. Malloy or I so much as looked as though we might make a false move.
“Yesterday, at the hospital during a consultation about the redecorating.”
“How did she seem to you?” The woman’s hazel eyes probed my face.
“Not too bad,” I replied cautiously, “and insistent on keeping her appointment with us.”
“Depressing places, hospitals. Worst sort of place to be when you’re feeling poorly.” Mrs. Malloy got in before I could hog more of the conversation. “We saw Lady Krumley’s nephew, Mr. Edmonds, there. His wife was parking the car, so we didn’t have the thrill of meeting her until today. And her ladyship’s vicar-he showed up to see her too. So you mustn’t go thinking,” she added comfortingly, “her ladyship was left sitting on her bedpan all day with no one to talk to.” Feeling perhaps that she had dropped a clanger, Mrs. Malloy flexed her butterfly lips and said, “And very dignified I’m sure she would look, even under them circumstances. Good posture. It’s drummed into the aristocracy, and very handy when it counts.”
The woman’s face assumed an expressionless mask. “The vicar has the highest regard for Lady Krumley. I’m sure she found his visit comforting. Did she tell you about what happened the night before last right outside this door?”
Mrs. Malloy and I, in talking over each other, managed to get the point across that we had heard about the tragic death. “Some relation on her husband’s side of the family. Just arrived on a visit, wasn’t it?”
“A cousin. Mr. Vincent Krumley.”
“And you’ll be another member of the family?” Mrs. Malloy was eyeing a narrow table set against the staircase wall as if it and its vase of chrysanthemums might be persuaded to provide some useful titbit of information.
“I’m Laureen Phillips, her ladyship’s maid,” she said, still un-smiling and with her arms folded across the gray blouse and cardigan that topped her charcoal skirt, an outfit that could have been a uniform or her personal choice of daily wear. “New to the job, but not the village. I’ve lived here most of my life.”
“So you’re the one that found the missing brooch!” Mrs. Malloy wouldn’t have looked quite so thrilled if I’d managed to tread on her foot in time, and I did my best to retrieve the situation.
“Lady Krumley was inclined to ramble during the hour or so we spent with her… The shock of the accident I imagine… and the medication she was given. Probably we were talking about redecorating her bedroom at the time. It was there, wasn’t it, that the brooch turned up? Much of the time her ladyship was completely coherent. Such as when she asked us to talk with Mrs. Hasty about certain pieces of furniture she would like put back into use.”
“Then it’s not for me to say you can’t, but I do hope you won’t go pestering her to the point where she gets upset.” Laureen’s handsome features softened. “She’s a dear old soul. Worked hard all her life and been like an auntie to me, which means a lot seeing that I was moved from pillar to post as a child. Come on, I’ll take you in to her.” Opening the door to our right, she ushered us into a room with windows at both ends and a fire burning in the small grate under a mantelpiece lined end to end with cheerfully inexpensive figurines. It was altogether a pleasant little space-overfurnished but comfortable as a cat’s basket. There was indeed a cat, a large tabby that was possibly a relative of the one we had seen in the kitchen of Moultty Towers. It was curled up on the crocheted blanket covering the knees of the elderly woman seated on the old-fashioned settee. It was a scene of picture- perfect contentment. No one could have looked less like the witch in “Hansel and Gretel” than the snowy-haired little personage with the child-like sparkle to her bright blue eyes.
“Well now, Laureen,” her voice trilled with excitement, “who’s this you’ve brought to see me? A pair of reporters come to ask me about finding the body? And me with my hair not properly combed. But I don’t suppose they’ll be taking pictures,” she added wistfully.
“Nothing like that, Mrs. Hasty.” The younger woman walked over and adjusted the crocheted blanket. “These ladies are decorators Lady Krumley has hired to do up the main house. And they’re wanting to ask you some questions about pieces of furniture you may remember having been there years ago. Her ladyship has a fancy to put some of them back into use if they’re still on the premises. Although it does seem to me”-the hazel eyes now struck me as both reflective and shrewd-“the simplest thing would be to take a look at what’s up there in the attics.”
“Sometimes asking a few questions of the right person helps speed up the process.” If my response sounded a bit lame to my ears it did not appear to strike Mrs. Hasty as such. Her face creased into a beaming smile, and she said that if this wasn’t a day brightener she didn’t know what was. At her age it was nice to have a chance to chat about the old days.
“Now what did you ladies say your names was?”
Mrs. Malloy and I duly introduced ourselves and upon her urging sat down in easy chairs across from her. Still
