I moved to the bedside, but resisted the inclination to stroke her hair back from her brow. There wouldn’t be much I could do for her if she ordered my hands to be cut off. “Was there no possibility that it was Ernest’s?”
“My husband retreated behind a wall of silence that condemned him utterly.”
“Did it cross your mind, Lady Krumley, that Flossie might have been playing both men to her own ends?”
“How could it not? But if Sir Horace doubted he was the father, why did he not say so? All I could wrench out of him was that the child must be his, and he would see it suitably provided for when the time came. It was, as even I knew, the right and honorable thing to do. But hatred had entered my soul, Mrs…”
“Haskell,” I provided, and she actually reached out and touched my hand.
“I told my husband that the girl would be dismissed for stealing and if he so much attempted get in touch with her, let alone see her, I would divorce him and take every penny of my money with me. He tried to bluster. But I knew I had won.” The hand that gripped mine tightened painfully. “Flossie was sent packing, and I became a murderess in the making. I allowed her to die in that bed-sitter by depriving her of the support to which she was entitled. Now do you understand why I am so desperate to find Ernestine? She is my husband’s daughter, and I am convinced that only by making the fullest reparation possible can I prevent Flossie’s vengeance from whittling away at every branch of the family tree.”
“And just how do you plan to put things right?” Mrs. Malloy teetered onto her high heels.
“By leaving her the bulk of my fortune.”
Which provided, I conceded silently, an interesting twist to the situation. I could tell by the glint in her eye that Mrs. Malloy was thinking the same. Or was she pondering just how much money her ladyship would be willing to pay for our services?
She named an amount and Mrs. Malloy was turning her gasp into a cough when a courtly, silver-haired gentleman stepped into the room. He wasn’t a doctor. He was introduced to us as Lady Krumley’s friend and Vicar, Mr. Featherstone. The one person, as she had told us last night, which whom she had discussed her appointment with Mr. Jugg. Mrs. Malloy looked at him with deep suspicion while he took Lady Krumley’s gnarled hands in his and stood looking down at her without speaking. Words-mere words would have been superfluous. The expression in his eyes betrayed him. Or so I would have thought. Her ladyship regarded him in the mildly affectionate manner that takes for granted the rights afforded by long acquaintance.
“Do sit down, Cyril,” she said. “These women are about to take their leave; so I depend on you to scare away any doctor with the temerity to sidle around the door. For it has been brought home to me that I am not ready to be reunited with Horace at the pearly gates. Dying at this moment would be tantamount to running away, and what ever my failings, I was never a coward.”
“My dear Maude,” replied Mr. Featherstone, “What am I going to do with you?”
Ten
“Five thousand pounds!” Mrs. Malloy folded her arms and looked up at the ceiling with a beatific smile on her face. We were seated in a café halfway between Mucklesby and Chitterton Fells. There were bottles of tomato sauce on the tables and a menu scrawled on a chalkboard behind the counter. This was definitely not the Sistene Chapel, but I could understand why she felt heaven was within our grasp.
“That’s only if we find Ernestine within the week,” I pointed out as the waitress bustled our way with plates of baked beans on toast and a pot of tea for two.
“And why shouldn’t we, if we set our minds to it? The point is, Mrs. H., that Lady Krumley wouldn’t have offered us a tenth as much if that Vincent bloke hadn’t taken a nosedive. No getting round it. His misfortune, not to sound callous, is our good luck. Her ladyship’s panicking, the poor duck. Probably thinking it won’t be any time at all before the curse gets her too. Leastway, that’s the way I see it.”
“Do you?” I bit thoughtfully into a forkful of beans.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Mrs. M. eyed me as if I were a genie who had just popped out of the bottle of tomato sauce. “That funny look on your face is what I’m talking about.”
“I was just thinking.”
“About what?” She picked up the teapot.
“Mr. Featherstone.”
“So?”
“He looked rather nice.”
“Being a vicar; that’s his job.” Mrs. Malloy dabbed irritably away at a drip of tea that had landed on the bosom of her powder pink raincoat.
“Somehow I don’t think he just came to minister.”
“Am I getting this right? You think he’s involved with the bad guys and you just walked me all light and breezy out of that there room, leaving him to strangle her sweet little old ladyship in her hospital bed? Well, I think you should be downright ashamed of yourself Mrs. H.! The least you could’ve done was hand her a bedpan so she could hit him over the head.” Clearly, Mrs. Malloy could see the five thousand pounds vanishing as we spoke.
I laid my knife and fork down on my empty plate. “What I am saying, and it is only a feeling, is that I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that Mr. Featherstone is very fond of Lady Krumley.”
“What sort of fond?”
“Come on, Mrs. Malloy! Didn’t you notice the way he looked at her when he took her hand? Didn’t that faint tremor in his voice make you think that here was a man fighting desperately to control his emotions?”
“Could be you’re right. But it’s kind of hard to grasp right off the bat, seeing that her ladyship, through no fault of her own,” she spoke piously, “isn’t what anyone could call passable, let alone a raving beauty. And then there’s her age.”
“Mr. Featherstone may be younger,” I said, “but I doubt by much. Not that it matters if he’s thirty-five to her seventy odd, if she has none but friendly feelings for him. And I didn’t see anything in her manner to suggest that her heart was throbbing a mile a minute at the sight of him. When we left she seemed to be more concerned about why her nephew Niles was taking so long to show up. Besides, Mr. Featherstone could be married, and Lady Krumley may be the sort of woman for whom there is only one man.”