“There’s more.” Melody’s voice dropped lower and she spoke faster. “It has to do with the woman who came in to clean at night, after the office was closed.”
“What about her?” Mrs. Malloy and I asked as one.
“Mr. Scrimshank sacked her. He said she had been stealing. Small things: paperweights off his desk, a little box for holding paper clips. I’m sure she did it, because my coffee cup went missing, and of course I hadn’t moved it. Like everything else on my desk it had its precise spot, never a half inch to the right or left. Even so, I felt sorry for her.” Melody paused to glance again at the door. “She seemed a pleasant enough woman. Of course, I didn’t approve of the way she bleached her hair. Mother would have described her as blowzy. Her name’s Frances Edmonds and-”
“We’ve met her and the husband. Just as we was leaving to come here.” Mrs. Malloy turned to me. “Who’d have thought! Betty Hopkins with her nose for crime is all pally and free as a breeze with a kleptomaniac.”
“Ariel told me Frances stole things,” I said, “but it seemed best to take some of what she says with a grain of salt.”
Melody, her fingers scratching at the typewriter keys, continued hastily. “I came into work one Friday, which I don’t do as a rule because the office is closed. Naturally, I have a record of the time and date, but… anyway, there was some filing I wanted to get done. What surprised me was seeing Mr. Scrimshank’s hat and coat on the hall tree in the alcove by the side entrance. So I went down the hall to his office to let him know I was there. The door was open and I could hear his voice. Frances Edmonds was with him. Mr. Scrimshank wasn’t shouting or going off the deep end. He was speaking in a low calm voice, but I could hear every word. She was crying buckets and begging him not to turn her over to the authorities. I froze where I was, afraid to move because… well, whatever she’d done, I didn’t want her to know that I’d heard.”
“You always were a softie, Mel.” Mrs. Malloy sniffed audibly. “It’s the reason people like meself got to walk all over you when we was younger.”
“He said the alternative to criminal proceedings was for her to write a signed confession that he’d keep in his safe. She said she would, crying even harder, thanking him over and over… groveling. That was when I got myself together and crept back down the hall. I didn’t stay to do the filing. There’d been something about the way he’d looked at her, like he knew he’d got her in his pocket. I tried to forget about it, but of course you know that’s an impossibility for me, Roxanne.”
“It’s the way you was made. I can see now, as it was wrong of me to find it irritating. ‘Course there was that time you had to go and remind me in front of Mother that I’d broken her George VI coronation mug, but never mind that.”
“There’s more, isn’t there?” I said.
Melody nodded. “I came here another time when Mr. Scrimshank wasn’t expecting me. Again some filing I wanted to get a head start on. That was the evening after Mr. Gallagher disappeared. And”-she paused-“it was like turning on the television and seeing the exact same program you’ve already watched. As before, Mr. Scrimshank’s door was open, not all the way but enough for me to see that he was again with Frances Edmonds. He was saying that he wanted her to phone him from a public box.”
“And?” I asked.
“That was all I heard. I was quicker off my feet that time and didn’t stay to do the filing. But I didn’t dwell on it, not until it came out in the newspaper that Mr. Scrimshank had received a phone call from Mr. Gallagher. Then it crept into my mind that Frances Edmonds’s signed confession had put her under his thumb. The police might check where the call had come from. He couldn’t risk them simply taking his word that he’d heard from Mr. Gallagher.”
“It wouldn’t matter what Frances said when she rang.” I looked at both sisters. “She could have recited a poem or read him her shopping list. The important thing was to establish that Mr. Gallagher was alive and well.”
“Instead of dead and buried on account of finding out Mr. Scrimshank had been embezzling Lady Fiona’s money.” Mrs. Malloy sucked in an outraged breath. “Blooming hypocrite! Scaring that poor Frances into thinking she could be going to prison for life if she didn’t knuckle under and do as he said. It looks as how Betty Hopkins is right about there having been a murder, only she had it that the wife did it. But then, to be fair, she doesn’t have the experience in solving murders as do me and you, Mrs. H!”
How true! We had guessed right off the bat, before setting eyes on him, that Mr. Scrimshank was the culprit. He must have been in a state when Lady Fiona sold Cragstone, if that’s where he had disposed of the body.
“My knitting friend said there could be any number of reasons Mr. Scrimshank wanted Frances Edmonds to phone him. And I should try talking to her. But I can’t risk Mr. Scrimshank’s finding out. What if she told him and he gave me the sack… or worse? I’ve never shared a bed with a man, let alone a grave with one. It doesn’t seem fair to the wife. In addition to the fact I’d prefer to stay alive.”
“I don’t like the idea of you still working here,” said Mrs. Malloy, in a scolding older-sister voice.
Melody squared her shoulders and elevated her chin. “I have no choice. Somehow, someday, I’ll succeed in getting into that safe. I have never seen Mr. Scrimshank open or close it, although I have been constantly on the alert during the last year and a half. When I think he might be going to do it, he always closes his door. On every opportunity provided by his absence, I go into his office to try out various sequences of numbers, all of which I have recorded so as not to duplicate them.”
“Melody, be careful!”
“Don’t alarm yourself, Roxanne. I take the notebook home at night. There being a finite number of mathematical possibilities, I am confident that given time I shall succeed. And once I get my hands on the Gallaghers’ financial records and make copies, I will quickly discover how Mr. Scrimshank managed to pull the wool over their eyes for as long as he did. And now if you and Mrs. Haskell will excuse me, I must type these letters. As it is”-eyeing the clock-“I shall be thirteen and a half minutes putting them on his desk.”
“I’m staying.” Mrs. Malloy addressed her bent head. “I’m going home with you when you leave. You’ll just have to cancel your friend’s coming over.”
“I suppose I could.” Melody returned to her typing. “But you’ll have to wait outside until it’s time for me to leave. It will put Mr. Scrimshank in one of his moods if he walks in and thinks you’re going to keep me from finishing on time. Oh, and Roxanne?”
“Yes, Mel?” Mrs. Malloy had joined me at the door.
“It will be good to pour my heart out. An answer to prayer. A miracle, really. I feel I can go forward now”-a hand reached for a tissue and a nose was blown-“in getting my typing back up to speed and… all the rest of it.”
I eased out into the hall on the assumption that the sisters would share an emotional embrace, even though they would be seeing each other again within the hour. There could be tearful murmurs of affection, regret voiced over the wasted years, and promises made never to be nasty to each other again. Not a moment for onlookers. I expected to stand looking at the blank walls for several minutes, thinking up schemes for unmasking Mr. Scrimshank, not only as a murderer but also as the evil prankster at Cragstone. But Mrs. Malloy followed me promptly. And before I could think further than how unlikely it was that our selected villain would look much different in prison gray than in his pin-striped suit, we were in the parking lot.
“I wanted to give Melody a hug, Mrs. H! But I knew we’d both break down, and that wasn’t worth risking. It would never do for that man to suspect her of being human, with the eyes and ears to go with it. It’s safer for the poor little cabbage”-more vigorous application of the hanky-“for him to go on seeing her as a robot incapable of absorbing information beyond what’s been programmed into her for the job. Let him keep thinking she exists for no other reason than to pound that typewriter. Remember what he said to us about his having thought she’d been manufactured? Hateful, sneering thing to say!”
“I’m glad she agreed to spend time with you this evening,” I said. “Perhaps she’ll ask you to stay the night.”
“Well, I can’t do that, can I? The Hopkinses would worry that I won’t be back to help with the tea tomorrow. And you and me has to have a confab about what Melody’s been telling us. Now off you go, Mrs. H, I’d like to be alone till she comes out. Get me thoughts in order. I’ll take a taxi back.” She patted the Land Rover’s side as if it were a horse eager for a gallop.
