“And a snuffbox.” Ben smiled. “Children love small containers. The poor little chap, he was bored out of his mind most of the time. But it wasn’t Eddie who let the bathroom basin overflow. He and Mavis had left the house by that time.” He shifted sideways, as I put my feet to the floor.
“Ariel told me Nanny Pierce thought Tom and Betty had a wild lifestyle because she’d seen car lights going down the drive in the middle of the night. Would that have been Mavis?”
“Mrs. Cake got her to fess up. Seems she had a set-to with her husband, Ed, one night.” Mrs. Malloy displayed the air of importance that comes from being in the know. “They’ve been going through a difficult patch, what with him starting up his own business from home and not being quite as cooperative with Eddie as Mavis thinks he could be. One night, she told him she was walking out and taking the boy with her. Having said it, she had to follow through, and Cragstone was the only place she could think to come. Between us, I’d be surprised if it was just the one time. So easy to get in, with that door always unlocked.”
“I suppose everything would have gone off without a hitch if Mrs. Cake hadn’t heard them moving about on the night of her accident.”
“It was one of Mr. Gallagher’s old toys left on the stairs that caused her to fall when she come down to make her and Mavis a cup of tea. Put Mrs. Cake in a difficult position.” Here Mrs. Malloy resorted to royal magnanimity. “She’s fond of Mavis and didn’t think Betty was treating her fair, not letting her bring Eddie to work when it was a case of needs must. So the next morning, when she was thinking clearer, she said she’d only imagined hearing someone. It was Betty’s thinking it might have been Mr. Gallagher’s ghost roaming about that made her press for details.”
Ben put an arm around me, and I stood up to find the floor satisfactorily solid under my feet. “I expect Betty thinks it was her ladyship who crept after us into the house and closed the priest-hole door. It
“Then she’s barking up the wrong tree.” Mrs. Malloy made a noble attempt at not preening. “Milk Jugg phoned while you was out of it, Mrs. H, to report he’d found evidence that her ladyship was married before she became Mrs. Gallagher, but there was an annulment. As for Mr. G not knowing about it at the time and only finding out right before he disappeared, that’s a wash, seeing as the groom’s cousin was one of the witnesses that signed the registry at the first wedding. So there goes Betty’s theory that Lady Fiona murdered her husband because he found out she was a bigamist and then killed Mr. Tribble and Pierce because they might have exposed her secret.”
“Something came to me before I passed out,” I said.
“What was that?” Ben still had his arm around me.
“I think I know what’s really been going on here. We have several villains and overlapping crimes. First up is Mr. Scrimshank who embezzled the Gallagher’s money. Mr. Gallagher finally realized what was going on. We know from Melody and Mrs. Cake that on the day before his disappearance he repeatedly tried to reach Mr. Scrimshank on the phone.”
“That’s right,” said Mrs. Malloy. “It’s as clear as glass Mr. Scrimshank turned up at Cragstone that evening, after her ladyship had gone to bed. Probably the miserable bugger hoped to bluff his way out of the situation, but Mr. Gallagher didn’t buy it. An argument followed and Mr. Scrimshank attacked him.”
“Good so far.” Ben handed me a glass of brandy.
“There’s a quibble.” I took a reviving sip. “A Mrs. Johnson saw a man race out of this house. Let us assume that man was Mr. Scrimshank. If so, where was Mr. Gallagher when the police arrived? Which they did fairly speedily, according to Mrs. Cake. No sign of him dying or dead on the floor, with a bloody blunt instrument lying beside him. But if he did recover sufficiently to get out of the house and try to reach help, why hasn’t he been heard of since? He wouldn’t have left Lady Fiona to Mr. Scrimshank’s mercy.”
“He may have crawled into a ditch and died.” Ben gave Mrs. Malloy a glass of brandy.
“Go on! Keep talking this through, Mrs. H,” she prodded. She’d had her moment of glory and was prepared to let me try for mine.
“This is the overlapping part. Someone unconnected with Mr. Gallagher’s disappearance decided to use Betty’s belief that he had been murdered to facilitate her death.”
“Who’d want to kill her?” Ben asked sharply.
“I hate to say it,” said Mrs. Malloy, “but the name that pops up in my mind is Ariel. And there was me getting so fond of her.” Ducking her black-and-white head, she searched her dress pocket for a hanky.
“It was she who arranged the seance. And Ben”-I took a deeper sip of brandy-“there is something I haven’t told you about that. The Madam LaGrange we saw was an imposter.” I explained how Mrs. Malloy had failed to recognize the woman getting into the taxi.
“Ellie, I understand why you didn’t tell me.” He stood up, took a couple of paces, and sat back down. “We were at odds with each other. But why the switch?”
“To manipulate Betty into going into that priest hole when the time came. The garden party was the perfect opportunity. People milling about in the grounds, general confusion: what were the chances of her being missed until it was too late?”
Mrs. Malloy produced the hanky again.
“Not Ariel,” I reassured her. “We’re not dealing with the Bad Seed here.”
“Tom?” Ben’s expression was grim.
“His first wife died in a car accident,” said Mrs. Malloy, “and that can’t be that hard to arrange, especially for someone as handy with tools as Tom. Ariel said he had recently been working in the west wing.”
“Not him either.” I shook my head. “None of the Hopkinses has a good way of showing it, but deep down I believe they’re fond of one another. This could be just the wake-up call Tom has needed ever since Val showed up at Cragstone House. I’m wondering if he’s had his suspicions.”
“About her really being in love with Mr. H here all the time?” Mrs. Malloy was making matters worse for her face with the hanky.
“What?” Ben was shocked into shouting out the word.
“Don’t worry, darling,” I said, “I’m not going to let her get you. My supposition is that was a smoke screen. Val, as you’re aware, turned up here shortly after the Hopkinses moved into Cragstone. She must have read about their winning the lottery in the newspapers. And whatever it took, she was going to get her hands on that lovely money. I think she was speaking the truth when she told me she wasn’t devastated when Tom broke off their engagement. She probably has a knack for mixing fact with fiction. It makes what she says sound credible, although I could kick myself now for so gullibly accepting her misty-eyed performance. Her main problem in getting her hands on Tom and the lottery winnings is that he takes his Catholicism seriously. He’d never marry her while Betty lived.”
“Agreed. Divorce for him isn’t an option.” Ben again got up and paced around the furniture with his hands in his pockets, a clear sign that he was endeavoring forcibly to master his emotions.
“Val had to realize that when a wife is murdered the husband is the prime suspect, and Tom might not be keen to remarry if he was in prison. And there was the added complication of his first wife having died in an accident. This death had to appear to be Betty’s own fault, a classic case of curiosity killed the cat. I think what gave Val the idea was hearing about the lights that went on and off by themselves and the front door being found open in the morning. Faulty wiring and carelessness? Or could it be blamed on an uneasy spirit, especially given Betty’s belief that Lady Fiona had murdered her husband? You were another piece of luck, Ben. She saw your look of stunned surprise when she walked in. And right from the first, she played her scenes with you to great dramatic effect. Lady Fiona thought there was something between the two of you-and, yes, even I did for a while. And when she confessed her feelings for you to me so frankly in the garden, she raised her voice so the audience would be sure to hear.”
“Me, that was,” Mrs. Malloy explained to Ben. “The wicked vixen made sure I didn’t miss a syllable.”
“Insurance against its being said that there was something going on between her and Tom before Betty’s death. While all the time her aim was to do everything in her power to undermine the Hopkinses’ marriage. Causing Tom to realize what a mistake he had made in allowing his parents to part him from the woman he should have married in the first place.
“She already had set the action up for today,” I went on. “Who else but Val would have made that phone call canceling the caterers? Betty would look totally inadequate when Val took over the job, as she would have done had Ben not saved the day. That’s been her mode of operation ever since she arrived at the Dower House, eroding Betty’s self-esteem, taking over the redecorating, and talking her into buying badly fitting clothes. The stunts she pulled-the dead birds, the wreath, and the deluge in the conservatory were all geared to one end. Val trusted in
