Oh, the folly of marrying a man of above-average intelligence!
“Sorry, Ben, but there goes the doorbell. I have to go.”
“Let Poppa or-”
Pretending not to hear, I hung up. Chalk up another lie; I hadn’t even asked Ben if the luncheoners at Abigail’s had included any patrons other than himself and the staff. I whispered into the empty hall. “All for your own good, my darling. You will thank me for my strong-mindedness when single-handedly (give or take Flowers Detection) I unmask The Founder and restore your professional reputation.”
The phone rang again as I was prying my hand off the receiver. Don’t let it be Ben. I might lose all control and beg him to abscond with me to a desert island.
“Ellie, such a thrill finding you at home.” Vanessa’s voice breezed into my ear. “I’m at the London flat, but I plan to come down to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang next Saturday and wonder if you and I could get together for a cousinly chat?”
I didn’t like this. Was she out of work and forced to pawn one of her furs? With so many illusions already stripped away-Ann, Miss Thorn; and big questions raised about Teddy and… Bunty-I wasn’t ready for anything that would put a crimp in a lifetime of loathing Vanessa.
“Is something wrong?”
“What a foolish question. Life for me began to fall apart when you got married and I realised that none of the important things-looks, charm, style-counted for anything.”
“Does Rowland fit into this?”
She smirked audibly, said, “See you Saturday evening,” and hung up.
I almost wished the phone would ring again. The prospect of nothing to do stared me in the face. My thoughts weren’t good company. Had I read too much into my conversation with Ann? She had admitted she hadn’t loved Charles and that she wanted him dead. We had discussed a book by a local author and played a silly charade of writing to an advice columnist. I had felt concern for Bunty as the wife-in-the-way; but as it seemed highly unlikely that a wife-murdering organisation had set itself up in competition with The Widows Club, Ann would surely be content with trying to break up the Wisemans’ marriage. An anonymous letter here, a venomous word there… I paced the flagstones in the hall.
Desperation, it was once said by my mother, makes geniuses of us all. Inspiration struck as I foresaw an afternoon-alone-of listening to the clock tick.
The Peerless Nursing Home. Confirmation or negation could be found there. So, alas, could Dr. Bordeaux. Grabbing the telephone before I could lose my nerve, I dialed directory enquiries, got the number, and stuffed a finger, which felt big and boneless as a sausage, into the dial hole. In that moment I empathised deeply with obscene callers everywhere.
“The Peerless Nursing Home.”
“Gggg.” In deepening my voice it went so low I lost it. Start again. “Good afternoon, this is Nurse Jones”-oh, come on!-“from the Cottage Hospital. Our Dr. Brown… ing is having some problems with a patient in Psychiatric-a woman with sixty-one different personalities, a record, Dr. Browning believes, and he wonders if Dr. Simon Bordeaux would be free to come over immediately and offer some helpful hints? The case promises to be written up in all major medical journals.”
“I’m sure Doctor would have been only too pleased, Nurse Jones. But this is Doctor’s afternoon off. He has already left the premises. If another time would suit Dr. Browning?”
“I don’t think so; the patient isn’t expected to live more than half an hour. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so to speak.”
His day off! What luck! My breath exploded in a whoosh of relief as the receiver hit the cradle. What did I have to lose on entering The Peerless and making contact with one or more of its patients? Other than my life, that is. And if I played my part well, the part of a would-be patient checking out the nursing home to see if it offered the right… no, the wrong facilities, I should not only be safe, but informed. I smiled up at Abigail’s portrait. She appeared to wink, but it may have been a shadow hitting the portrait from the window.
There are advantages to having seen fatter days. I did not have to search far in my wardrobe to find a garment with stretch appeal. The dress which I held against me and surveyed in the mirror had huge white spots on a red background. Not ideal. With my coat gaping open, it would be possible to see me coming or going for miles around. But I decided I liked the dropped elastic waist more than I disliked the spots. Now-a major decision. Should I use a pillow? No, too big. A chair cushion worked but didn’t provide the look I wanted. I wished to appear so imminently pregnant that no starch-crackling nurse would dare raise her voice above a whisper to me. I wandered about the bedroom, practising maternity posture. What would make the ideal baby? Oh, for Dorcas! She would have come up with a bright idea. Bright, that was it! I sped along to my friend’s old room, sniffed the air nostalgically for a whiff of Athletic Woman’s Talc, and found the bag of balloons, the remains of those she had strung up for the engagement party. Dear Dorcas, everything in its place and a place for everything. I could almost hear her voice: “Frightfully spiffing of you to attempt this, old girl.” Mmmmm. She might not think it so spiffing if she came home from the States to find me not in my place.
The balloon looked great, but being light, it tended to shift. A problem easily solved by filling it with water. I decided against wearing it while driving the car. Into a carrier it went. On with my camel coat, over the shoulder with my bag, and down to tell Magdalene and Poppa that I had some shopping to do.
“Nice to have so much free time on your hands, Giselle.” Sunshine sparks flew off Magdalene’s knitting needles; the jacket she was making for Sweetie grew even as I watched.
It seemed a safe kindness to ask her to join me. Since the fateful evening at Abigail’s, Magdalene had stayed close to home, although she was no longer fanatical about locking windows and doors.
Poppa looked up from his cake carving and smoothed his bald spot. “Go, Maggie, why don’t you?” His voice sounded… creaky. And why wouldn’t it? He spoke to her so rarely.
The needles slowed.
“On second thought,” I said, feeling as if I had offered a sweet to a child and snatched it back, “it is still unseasonably chilly.”
“Wouldn’t do, then. Maggie’s always had a chesty chest.” Poppa cleared his throat and got back to carving.
As I crossed the courtyard to the car, I heard a creak behind me and felt a presence, but I didn’t slow my pace. I wasn’t going to give Tobias the pleasure of thinking he could scare me out of my wits, not that easily. And I wasn’t much concerned about the Raincoat Man. The average person only has the capacity to be petrified of one thing at a time. Besides, I had strong suspicions that the Raincoat Man was Butler, out on surveillance, even though he had responded to the suggestion with-“Me, madam? But I h’understood you to say the fellow had ’orrible teeth.” My one concern was that the balloon might burst before I got to The Peerless. Nose pressed to the steering wheel, I bounced down Cliff Road.
As I rounded the first bend, I spied Mr. Edwin Digby and Mother coming toward me. Her feathers had an icy gloss to them, and she was poking him along with her beak. Dropping down so that my knees grazed the car floor I concentrated on neither seeing nor hearing when Mr. Digby’s voice was blown in my face by the wind.
“Incomparable weather for a stiff neck, Mrs. Haskell.”
Ditto a stiff drink at The Dark Horse. I wished I didn’t have this sneaking liking for Mr. Digby. I wished I didn’t suspect him of being the evil force behind a murder network. I wished… that life wasn’t littered with foolish wishes.
The Heinz showed its true colours as I exited the village. Its whine turned fretful, eerily echoing the wind. A couple of times I swear it tried to go backward. But the secret was never to let it get the upper hand. I had just given the gear knob a vicious twist when I beheld the long, high wall of the nursing home. A yellow van inched around me, then a dark green car slashed past. The steering wheel vibrated in my hands, but my eyes were on the stone eagles atop the pillars. I passed through the entrance and down the avenue until-there loomed the mammoth stone house. At that point, I fervently wished the avenue could have gone on to John O’Groats.
I stopped, positioned the balloon, then drove forward a few more yards to park in the middle of the gravel semicircle. Sneakiness oft draws attention to itself, and if matters went awry, I needed to be able to leap from the top of that flight of steps into the Heinz. Telling myself that all the signs were favourable (the bloodhounds Sin and Virtue weren’t out and about today), I gathered my courage in my clammy paws, got my legs going, and lifted the
