“Go on!” scoffed Mrs. M. “She’d have to be a fool if you’re talking about that hubby of hers. She as good as said he married her for her money and then off he goes and gets another woman pregnant right under her nose. Think on the humiliation! That Mrs. Snow, the sneaky housekeeper, rubbing salt in the wound for all she was worth. And all them other tongues clacking. If I’d been that Sir Horace I’d have run for me bloody life.”
“And Lady Krumley could be a woman who knows how to hold onto a grudge.” I poured myself another cup of tea and looked longingly at the toasted teacake being handed to a woman at a nearby table.
“Out with it, Mrs. H., what is it you’ve got ticking away inside that clock of yours?”
“I’m just trying to look at the situation from another point of view.”
“Meaning?”
“That maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to take Lady Krumley at her word when she talks about wanting to locate Ernestine to make up for the wrongs done to her. What if there’s another reason? A darker one, born of old hate and a desire to protect the interests of someone near and dear to her?” The waitress passed by, and I ordered a toasted teacake.
“Spell it out, Mrs. H., before me nerves give out.”
“What if her ladyship has twisted the facts to suit her story? What if Sir Horace had plenty of money in his own right? What if he left a will bequeathing his estate upon his wife’s death-and in the event of there being no other living relations-to his out-of-wedlock daughter Ernestine?”
“What, including the house?”
“It may be entailed, just as her ladyship said, to that other nephew, Alfonse Krumley. And no great loss. A house of the size I imagine it to be must be enormously costly to maintain and horribly inconvenient to live in. Niles, with his asthma, might be a lot more comfortable living in a modern flat without big overstuffed sofas and voluminous curtains harboring a century’s worth of dust. Besides, if my idea is correct, it won’t matter that Alfonse is to inherit Moultty Towers, because he will shortly go the way of Vincent Krumley-the victim of another unfortunate accident.”
“Arranged by Lady Krumley is what you’re saying?” My toasted teacake arrived on the table, and Mrs. Malloy reached for the plate. “Just like she had all them others-like the old geezer in Australia that got mauled by a kangaroo and the woman that fell down a lift-bumped off.”
“I’m not accusing her ladyship of mass murder,” I responded coldly to Mrs. Malloy’s snicker. “What I am suggesting is that when she learned of those deaths, most of them the result of freak accidents that no one questioned because the victims were all old and possibly not in full possession of their faculties, it may have got her thinking.”
“Takes some thinking about.” Mrs. Malloy polished off the teacake.
“Just being a dear old auntie getting rid of the remaining family members so that Niles, whom she described as the closest thing to a son, could inherit a fortune.”
“But how many would she have to do in? That’s the question, Mrs. H. We’re talking about an old woman that you’d expect to be parked in the rocking chair most of the day. Murdering people’s got to take up a lot of time and energy, which would make for skipped meals. Maybe we should check with her doctor to see if she’s recently been in asking for a prescription for iron and vitamin pills.”
“Perhaps only Alfonse and possibly that woman Lady Krumley mentioned-Daisy something-now stand between Niles and what she considers his rightful inheritance. Apart from Ernestine that is.”
“Oh, good! Because I wouldn’t want to think of her overdoing things!” Mrs. Malloy sat back in her chair replete with baked beans, teacake and the wink received from a man on his way out of the café. “I suppose what you’re telling me is she dropped Vincent down that well before leaving for Mucklesby and she’s only pretending to be poorly enough to be in hospital. There wasn’t no car crash. No one threw no flower pots at her and all that business about Flossie Jones and the deathbed curse was just a load of malarkey? So who was it what sent the man with the gun to scare us off the case?”
“Or into taking it.”
Mrs. M. gave one of her most condescending smirks. “The way I sees it, sitting this side of the table, is that if her ladyship is up to no bloody good, wanting to find Ernestine to make sure she’s got rid of permanent, there’d be no need for all that stuff about deathbed curses and such. Now I’m a believer in such things, but I’m not fool enough to think most people, including yourself feels the same. So why make it up? Wouldn’t it have done better for her to keep things simple-tell us what happened between Sir Horace and Flossie Jones and how she kept him from helping the girl out?”
“You’re right,” I admitted.
“You don’t have to sound so snippy.”
“Why not? You just ate my teacake.”
“Oh, go on! Have the crumbs.” Mrs. Malloy pushed the plate my way and eyed me kindly. “There’s no need to sit there feeling silly. What you’ve got to realize is you’re a newcomer to this business. I’ve a whole three weeks experience on you working for Milk. And let me say this, I’ve nothing against the upper classes so long as they knows their place and keeps to it, but I can’t fault you for being cautious where her ladyship is concerned. It wouldn’t be right for us to go looking for Ernestine if we thought we was handing her over to be murdered. I’m sure there’s a rule somewhere in the private detective’s code book about that sort of thing. Now how do you suggest we set about this job?” It was clear she was asking mainly to help give my morale a lift, and I almost forgave her for eating the teacake.
“We’d better start by going to Moultty Towers to see what we can sniff out. We might even find someone that was there at the same time as Flossie Jones who might give us a tip as to who handled Ernestine’s adoption.”
“Just what I was going to suggest meself. Like that woman as lives in the cottage by the well. Give me a minute, her name’s coming to me… Mrs. Hurry.”
“Hasty.”
“Right. But will she or anyone else be falling over their selves to talk to a pair of private detectives? Even them as have nothing to hide, Mrs. H., could shut up tight as the shops on early closing day the minute we open our mouths.”
“Also, Lady Krumley will undoubtedly wish us to be as discreet as possible, which means we need to go in undercover.”
“Now you’re talking.” Mrs. Malloy positively beamed at me. “Who should we pretend to be? How about electrical inspectors? I rather fancy meself in a pair of overalls with a cap on me head.”
“I thought, and it’s only a suggestion, that the simplest thing would be to say we were interior designers, hired by her ladyship to redecorate Moultty Towers.”
Mrs. M. stopped looking thrilled. “That’s all well and good, seeing as how that’s your line of work. A nice chance for you to show off. And boost your ego back up after that upset with Mr. H. over his study. But what am I supposed to do while you’re preening about? Stand around holding the tape measure?”
“We’ll be the firm of Malloy and Haskell. You’ll be the expert in wall and window treatments.”
“Treatments?”
“That’s one of the buzzwords in the business. You’ll also need to talk a lot about maintaining the integrity of the structure.”
“You did say Malloy and Haskell?”
“You think it might sound better the other way round?”
Mrs. Malloy picked up the bill the waitress had deposited on the table and made a pretense of opening her handbag. “Look, I’m not daft. I can tell when you’re trying to butter me up. My question is what if someone got suspicious and went and looked us up in the telephone directory, or checked with some independent business group?”