I was halfway down the stairs when the phone rang. I picked it up to hear Kathleen Ambleforth’s voice on the other end.
“Ellie, cousin Alice has come through.”
“Splendid!” It took me a moment to realize whom she was talking about.
“Remember, she made out the lists of where the donations were sent?”
“Yes.” If Aunt Lulu hadn’t been missing and people getting killed at Moultty Towers I would have erupted into a song and dance number.
“Do you have a piece of paper handy?”
“And a pen.” I picked it up.
“Then here’s the name of the organization and the telephone number. Are you writing it down? Am I going too fast?”
“I’ve got it.” To reassure her I repeated the information back. It was all just letters and numbers to me. My mind was in a whirl. But I did remember to thank Kathleen profusely before putting down the phone and slipping the piece of paper into my skirt pocket. I would telephone first thing in the morning. Ben came out of the study as I crossed the hall. I was so tempted to tell him, but then I risked disappointing him if something went wrong. Better to wait and surprise him.
“What are you thinking about?” He drew me into his arms and kissed me in full view of the twin suits of armor. It was a wonderful kiss, both tender and passionate, and when I opened my eyes and looked into his I saw the promise of even better things to come. It was going to be one of those times for my sea green nightgown with its lovely foaming of lace, and that bottle of wickedly expensive perfume that was hidden away in the box where I kept the first letter he had ever written me, the first rose, the first wrapper from the first bar of chocolate…
“I’m thinking about what you’re thinking about.” I rested my cheek against his neck. “But Freddy’s here.”
“He went back to the cottage.”
“Was he still feeling down?”
“He didn’t look very chipper.”
I sighed. “Poor, dear Freddy. But this does give me a chance to talk to you about what Mrs. Malloy and I have been up to.” I drew him into the drawing room, switched on the lights and settled beside him on one of the matching ivory brocade sofas.
“You sound as though you don’t expect me to approve.” He cupped my face in his hands and kissed me, gently this time.
“That’s because I don’t fully approve myself, but somehow we got caught up in it.” I could hear myself stammering. “It began the night of our quarrel, and I couldn’t seem to find my way to talk to you about it.” I floundered on, aware that it all sounded highly colored and more than a little preposterous. He stopped me now and then to ask a question, but his black eyebrows did not descend over his nose as they were wont to do when he was outraged. Neither did he blanch nor catch me in a vicelike hold, saying he would never let me out of his sight again for fear that the dark forces of evil that had descended upon Moultty Towers would claim me for their next victim. Indeed, I thought there were a few times when he was stoically restraining a laugh.
“So what do you think?” I asked at last.
“That it sounds as though you and Mrs. Malloy are having the time of your lives.”
“There’s no need to pat my head like I’m a child of six.” I inched away from him and sat hugging a cushion.
“I’m not doing anything of the sort.” A mendacious statement if ever there was one. “Why shouldn’t you enjoy yourselves? You’re attempting to provide ease of mind to a troubled old woman and from the sound of it you’ll probably succeed. You’ll tell her how to get in touch with Ernestine and leave it up to the two of them to sort out their past history.”
“But what about the murder?”
“What murder?”
“Ben, haven’t you been listening? Vincent Krumley. Remember him?”
“Sweetheart.” His lips were twitching. “You said yourself that the man was ninety-years-old. I don’t expect to be too steady on my feet at that age. You don’t believe those other relatives of Lady What’s-Her-Name were all deliberately done away with, do you?”
“No, but they may have put ideas into someone’s head.”
“And you don’t believe in deathbed curses?”
“Possibly not. But what about all those other things I told you about?”
“Such as?”
“Why did Constable Thatcher’s son Ronald throw those flower pots at Lady Krumley’s car? And why is he now having nightmares that seem connected with Vincent Krumley’s death? I get the feeling that could provide a vital piece of the puzzle. And at the back of everything-first and last-there’s the emerald brooch.”
“You’re taking a lot of what that woman, the lady’s maid Laureen, had to say for granted.”
“Why would she lie?”
“To cause trouble. To make herself feel important. All sorts of reasons. Or she could merely have been mistaken about when the brooch was there and when it wasn’t. Ellie,” he removed the cushion from my clutches and tossed it onto a chair, “do your good deed. Find Ernestine. Hope that Lady Krumley wills her an enormous fortune, so she never has to work another day in her life. And then leave the inhabitants of Moultty Towers to fend for themselves.”
“So you’re not the least bit worried that I’m walking into danger?” I sounded like Abbey at her poutiest.
“You are at this moment in very great danger”-Ben lowered his face to mine, his blue green eyes taking on unfathomable depths as he drew me close-“of being kissed back to your senses.”
“Then you don’t think it bothersome that Mrs. Malloy and I overheard Cynthia Edmonds demanding blackmail money from someone?”
“You could have misheard. The door was closed. Or such may be her usual method of getting extra cash out of her husband, threatening to tell Auntie that he hasn’t been a good boy.” Ben sat back with pained resignation. “Possibly this time he had done something really naughty, like buying himself a new train set.”
“We can’t assume it was Niles Edmonds in there with her. When Mrs. Malloy and I went up to the attics he was in the drawing room with the newly arrived Sir Alfonse Krumley. It could have been anyone in that bedroom with Cynthia. Including,” I grabbed another cushion, “Daisy Meeks?”
“Who’s she?”
“The woman who came into the room after the bird incident. Some sort of cousin.”
“You think she was checking to see how badly you had been scared?”
“She seemed a dim bulb, but that could be an act.”
“Shall we make her the prime suspect?”
I caught Ben’s laughing gaze and tossed the cushion at him. Why couldn’t he take me seriously? Wasn’t it clear that Vincent Krumley had been murdered because he somehow posed a danger to the plot afoot, just as Cynthia Edmonds knew something best kept under wraps… unless she had taken precautions to protect herself? But what was at the back of it all? Revenge? Hate? Love? Greed? All classic motives and surely-I sat up straighter on the sofa-all applicable in this case. Revenge and hatred born of the injustices done to Flossie Jones… A mother’s love denied, and greed for what might be deemed one’s rightful inheritance as the unacknowledged daughter of Sir Horace Krumley? Who else but Ernestine herself? Not some shadowy figure, but a woman who had made herself a diabolical presence in the ancestral home. Someone I had already met… talked with… thought not only harmless but also rather nice?
The doorbell interrupted my racing thoughts. By the time I had pried myself off the sofa, Ben had gone to answer it. I heard the murmur of a woman’s voice. Mrs. Malloy, I wondered, come post haste with some vital piece of new information? Wrong. It was Freddy’s mother, Aunt Lulu, who proceeded Ben into the room. My enormous relief at seeing her was mitigated by her woebegone face and unsteady gait, the more pitiful because she usually resembled a grown-up Shirley Temple, all dimples and curls.
“Hello, Ellie,” she mustered the weakest of smiles, as I settled her into the nearest chair. “I’ve run away from that awful place.”
“What place, Aunt Lulu?” I asked, as Ben pressed a glass of brandy into her trembling hand.
“One of those rehabilitation ones. I went in voluntarily. I thought it might make for a bit of a change.” She
