"By all means," said Polly, chastened. "Do you remember how they went?"
"I have them here." Miss Chilmark opened her crocodile-skin handbag and took out two press cuttings.
"There's not much point in discussing the first one," said Jessica. "That's been solved by events. What was it… 'J.M.W.T.
…'
" 'Surrounded by security.
Victoria, you challenge me.
I shall shortly come to thee,'"
Miss Chilmark read aloud.
"It's all been explained by the police," said Jessica. "They were tipped off that someone was planning to steal a Turner from the Victoria Gallery, so they doubled the security. But it was a bluff, and the real target was the stamp. Let's look at the latest riddle. That's much more of a challenge. Have you got it there?"
Miss Chilmark obliged:
" 'Whither Victoria and with whom-
The Grand Old Queen?
Look for the lady in the locked room
At seventeen.'"
"Is it by the person who wrote the first riddle?" said Milo. "That's the first thing to ask."
"It sounds similar to me," said Shirley-Ann.
"The styles do have a certain textual affinity," Miss Chilmark said with a donnish air. "There's a touch of the archaic in the word 'thee' in the first riddle that has an echo in the 'whither' in the second."
"Oh, come on. It's only some birdbrained idea of what poetry should sound like," said Jessica. "Straight out of The Golden Treasury."
"Nevertheless," insisted Miss Chilmark.
"You're probably right," Jessica was compelled to admit.
Miss Chilmark was keen to show that she had done her homework. "And of course there are allusions to other phrases. 'The Grand Old Queen' is reminiscent of the epithet by which the Prime Minister W. E. Gladstone was known, the Grand Old Man, often abbreviated to the G.O.M." f
"Or the Grand Old Duke of York," said Polly seriously. She wasn't given to humorous remarks.
Miss Chilmark chose to ignore that. "Then 'Look for the lady' carries the idea of that card trick 'Find the Lady,' just as 'in the locked room' suggests another piece of trickery, the locked room mystery-that Milo happened to mention only last week. The undertone of hocus-pocus is inescapable."
"So what do you think it means?" asked Shirley-Ann.
If there was an answer, it wasn't communicated, because this was the moment when the door opened and the dog Marlowe padded in, headed straight for the circle of chairs, leaped onto the one beside Miss Chilmark and demonstrated affection for that horrified lady by lifting a large paw to her chest. In backing away, she tipped the chair backward. Rupert, who had come in behind his boisterous pet, was quick to react. He darted forward and caught the back of the chair before it hit the floor. An unseemly accident was averted. Nothing worse had resulted than a display of rather more of Miss Chilmark's legs than she or her companions desired. She was wearing popsocks. As if to apologize for startling her, Marlowe jumped down and licked her lily-white left knee.
This was unfortunate. The dog had been much on Miss Chilmark's mind all week, there was no doubt of that. "Get it away from me!" she cried out hysterically. "It's going to bite me."
Clearly Rupert hadn't trained Marlowe to respond to voice commands, so he grabbed him by the scruff and hauled him to the other side of the circle. Marlowe gave a growl of protest. "He's frustrated now. He was only showing you affection," Rupert told Miss Chilmark.
Jessica suddenly said, "Does anyone have a paper bag?"
"What for?" said Polly.
"She's hyperventilating."
"Oh, what next?"
Miss Chilmark was taking deep, rapid breaths and going ominously pink. Her eyes had a glazed look.
Sid reached under his chair for a plastic carrier bag. He rummaged inside and took out a brown paper bag containing something that proved to be a secondhand novel by John Dickson Carr. After removing the book he handed the empty bag to Jessica, who placed the open end over Miss Chilmark's mouth and nose.
"She'll suffocate," said Polly.
"No," said Jessica calmly. "It forces her to rebreathe her own air. It should bring the acid-alkali balance of the blood back to normal and relieve the symptoms. Take the dog out of her sight, Rupert. You know it upsets her."
The usually ungovernable Rupert responded to the unmistakable note of authority and led Marlowe to the door without a murmur on his part or a whimper on Marlowe's.
The others watched in fascination as the bag expanded and contracted against Miss Chilmark's face, making her appear uncannily like a tropical frog. After a short time the remedy produced an improvement in the breathing. Jessica spoke some calming words, mainly to reassure Miss Chilmark that the dog was no longer in the room. The bag was removed from her face. Polly offered to drive her home.
Miss Chilmark said in a small voice, "I'd like to stay if you're quite sure the dog isn't coming back. I'm not entirely clear what happened."
It was decided that Miss Chilmark would benefit from a cup of coffee, so the break was taken early.
Shirley-Ann told Jessica she was awfully clever knowing how to deal with the hyperventilation.
"Not at all. I had an aunt who was prone to it. She always had a spare paper bag with her."
"Do you think Miss Chilmark is well enough to stay?"
Jessica smiled. "She wouldn't dream of leaving. She's won her point, hasn't she? The dog has been outlawed. Now she wants to enjoy her triumph."
This interpretation struck Shirley-Ann first of all as callous, later as discerning.
Presently Rupert returned, looking forlorn. "I left Marlowe with some old chums in the Saracen's Head," he informed everyone, and added pointedly, "He'll fit in anywhere if he's allowed to."
They resumed the meeting, and when Shirley-Ann offered to speak about Stanley Ellin's short stories she was warmly received. The group were better informed about Ellin than Shirley-Ann expected. Rupert and Jessica had each read the famous and gruesome story The Specialty of the House, and Polly, never to be underestimated, said she had copies of The Eighth Circle and Stronghold on her shelves at home. Fortunately no one had read The Blessington Method.
"What is the Blessington Method?" Jessica asked.
"That's what someone in the story asks. I'd better not say."
"Is it a long story? Why don't you read it to us? There's time, I'm sure. We've often had things read out, but never a whole story."
Fortunately Shirley-Ann rather enjoyed reading aloud. At school she'd won the Miss Cranwell Prize for Bible Reading two years in a row. So the Bloodhounds learned the sinister secret of the Blessington Method as practiced by the Society for Gerontology.
"You read it beautifully, but it's not to my taste at all," said Polly when Shirley-Ann had finished. "I found it chilling."
Jessica said, "His stories are chilling. That's the whole point."
"I know, dear. I have read some of his novels. This one struck home rather more forcibly. I'm not so far from being an elderly relative myself."
"It's not only about elderly people," said Jessica. "The principle behind it could be applied to any other potential misfits- the mentally ill, the unemployed, sexual deviants, racial minorities."
Rupert fairly sizzled with approval. "Have I discovered an ally at last? You're absolutely right, of course. Crime writers have a duty to bring the complacent middle classes face to face with the festering sores in our society."
"I didn't say that."
He gave one of his gummy laughs. "I said it for you, ducky."
Jessica was incensed. She pointed a finger at him. "Ducky, I am not-you patronizing old fart. And I don't need you as a mouthpiece. I'll say what I want myself."