money, or something more Freudian? And I mustn’t have Butler forget Mr. Sidney Fowler, whose father deserted him as a boy, had a reputation as a Casanova in his youth, and-”
“-And may have locked Bentley in the potato bin during a childhood game of hide-and-seek,” Primrose contributed.
Hyacinth moved our cups toward us. “I will conclude this summation, thank you, Prim. Roxie Malloy’s references must be rechecked. The Founder is a person with both ears to the ground and the opportunities inherent in Roxie’s work are boundless.” Hyacinth stopped and looked toward the door. “Am I hearing things or was that the doorbell?”
Standing, I pressed my hands on the table. The cups and saucers did a slow slide. “Isn’t it a strange coincidence that all of these suspects are known to me?” I took a steadying breath and the crockery came to a standstill. “We cannot assume simply because these people have cropped up during the course of this evening’s conversation that one of them is The Founder. He/she and I may never have crossed paths, let alone spoken to each other!”
Hyacinth’s black eyes burned into me. “My dear Ellie, I don’t assume. I
The orange lips smiled complacently. “Did you receive a bouquet of roses the morning after Charles Delacorte’s death?”
“Yes.”
“Enclosed with them was a card, am I right? Inscribed with the words,
“-signature.” That moment seeped back.
… I am standing in the hall at Merlin’s Court, the yellow roses in my hands… I feel such elation at the belief that Ben has sent them… then I see his stony face when I come running into the bedroom with them. “The gallant Rowland strikes again,” he said…
I sat down.
Primrose touched my hand. “My dear Ellie, Charles Delacorte
“The signature could have easily been omitted by mistake,” I protested. “But how did you know about the roses?”
“Our discovery of the flowers sent to you was fortuitous.” Primrose stretched the edges of her shawl over her arms. “We thought it might be of interest to know who sent wreaths to the funeral, so we instructed Butler to check the florist’s order book, which he did last midnight-” Primrose coughed behind her hand-“not wishing to intrude upon working hours.”
“Most considerate.” Belatedly, I picked up my scattered possessions off the floor and replaced them in my bag. Would that I could collect my scattered thoughts that easily. The analysis of the suspects, my supposed connection with The Founder, was leading straight as a homing pigeon to the moment when the Tramwells would reveal what they wanted from me. Part of me determined that whatever it was, the answer was NO! Another part kept stuttering, but think-this may be your one chance to put things right for Ben and Abigail’s, to say nothing of saving the lives of countless erring, unsuspecting husbands. What was a little danger, a little terror, in so good a cause? If only I were the stuff of which heroines are made.
“If there is a Founder,” I said, “I’ll put my money on Dr. Simon Bordeaux. He must know what is behind all those nervous breakdowns at the Peerless. He cannot be totally evil because he is taking care of Jenny Spender and her mother, but he is creepy.”
Hyacinth squared her shoulders. “Ellie, the most vital thing we have learned concerning The Founder is that he or she is diabolically clever. Dr. Bordeaux may be diabolical, but clever-no. Otherwise he could have managed to bump off a few helpless old women without causing a ruckus.”
“He was never brought to trial on any charges,” I reminded her.
“He may not have been guilty of anything. Those women who remembered him in their wills may have done so by desire. To earn an undeservedly sinister reputation doesn’t smack much of cleverness, does it?” Hyacinth closed the green book and laid it on the table.
My heart thudded. My hands felt as though they were smeared with cold cream. The sisters were bracing themselves to appeal to my nobility of character. They were going to ask me to risk everything that mattered most to me. Grabbing at the first thought that came into my head, I said, “What about Miss Gladys Thorn? Isn’t she as suspect as any?”
The parlour door opened and closed; I heard Butler’s tentative cough, but kept talking. “
Primrose smiled gently. “Dear Ellie, why not talk to Miss Thorn herself?”
I could not move my eyes, let alone anything else. Butler was walking Miss Thorn across the room. Now he drew out a chair for her. She twitched a smile at me and I strove to indent my face in response.
“Tea, madam?” Butler spoke through his nose.
“Oh, that would be nice, thank you so terribly much.”
As the door closed behind him, Miss Thorn straightened her glasses, fumbled with the tablecloth, then locked her bony hands together. “Mrs. Haskell, you now know all. I do beseech you-if you feel some particle of charity in your heart-not to tell the dear vicar. He would be so grieved.”
“I imagine he would be aghast,” I said hoarsely. “To know that men of his parish are being murdered in record numbers-”
Primrose coolly interrupted me. “Quite, my dear Ellie. Mr. Foxworth might feel that his sermons weren’t getting through.” She patted the church organist’s hand. “Do you recall, Ellie, our telling you that Flowers Detection was brought into this investigation through the efforts of someone personally affected by the number of men in this locality meeting untimely deaths?”
I responded a little impatiently. “Absolutely. You described her as the Other Woman in so many ill-fated affairs that she had contacted an insurance company-” My eyes met Miss Thorn’s. She was blushing.
“I fear, Mrs. Haskell, you are looking at her.” Her mushroom eyes swam behind the glasses. “How can I hope to make you, an ordinary woman of pure impulse, understand the curse of one born with an animal magnetism, a musk, if you will, which draws men willy-nilly? My reason for not marrying-although I have had more proposals than I can count-is that I know”-she touched her forehead, now glistening with perspiration-“that it is physically impossible for me to confine myself to the passions of one man. Those others out there wouldn’t let me. And does not the dear vicar so often say we must use our unique gifts for the enrichment of others?”
She was wringing her hands so tightly I thought they would start dripping. The nerve of her. Speaking about marriage that way as though it, and people like me who settle for it, were incurably dull. And yet… hadn’t Ben awakened on our wedding night shouting out Miss Thorn’s name? I had thought he was having a nightmare.
“Can it be true, Mrs. Haskell, that you never suspected?” Miss Thorn’s eyes shuddered away from mine. “Vernon Daffy, may he rest in peace, refused to leave me alone. At your wedding reception he followed me upstairs, and after we had… delighted in each other, he begged me to play the piano for him, and I was so transported that I didn’t notice that his wig had come off until the cat started playing with it. The next moment you entered, and Vernon hid under the bedclothes.”
Hyacinth thumbed through the green book. “Mr. Vernon Daffy made the fatal mistake of asking his wife for a divorce, so he could marry another woman.”
“My men, God bless them,”-Miss Thorn closed her eyes-“have always respected me too much to reveal my name, but some suspicions must have been aroused because-” She stopped, digging her fingers into the edge of the table. “I heard rumours, shocking, unfounded rumours, that I was having an affair with a gentleman whom-although I never disliked him as much as many people did-I was never once tempted to visualise… naked.”
Primrose closed her eyes.
“Ellie,” said Hyacinth. “Miss Thorn is speaking of Charles Delacorte. Granted, he may have been having an affair with some unknown woman and used Miss Thorn as a scapegoat. But, what if he were guiltless of all wrongdoing, other than being an extremely unpleasant human being?” She paused for emphasis. “Something tells me we may have encountered a motive for murder different from the norm here. In other words, Mrs. Delacorte’s reason for
