“To scare us away from Moultty Towers.” Mrs. Malloy picked up her hat and set it back on her blonde hair.
“To give us something to report to Lady Krumley. To keep her shivering in her hospital bed. The original plan may have been to enact the performance when she was in this room, wakened perhaps out of a deep nighttime sleep.”
“A good way to give her another heart attack.”
“True, but adjustments have to be made. And we provide a credible pair of witnesses.”
“So how do you think they got into the room, Mrs. H.? Through the door? It could have been opened a crack…”
“Too risky.” I had been walking in circles and now turned to face her. “I’ve got another idea. It struck me that the bed is in the wrong place. And there is something else. Sir Horace’s dressing room adjoined this one, which means there has to be another door. But where is it? What if after his death Lady Krumley could not bear looking at it and had the bed moved to conceal it? Look at all those hangings, not just at the sides but along the back. It would have been the simplest thing in the world for someone to enter Sir Horace’s room with the birdcage, open the connecting door and release the birds through the folds of fabric.”
“Hold on a tick.” Mrs. Malloy’s rump became the room’s focal point as she crawled over the bed. “Let’s see if you’ve got it right.” Her head momentarily disappeared into a flurry of tapestry, before she returned whole and triumphantly to view. “Just like you said.” She bounded onto the floor, which was quite an accomplishment given the four-inch heels. “Now I suppose you’ll want to try and figure out how whoever it was trapped them dratted birds.”
“Any ideas?” I was standing at the dressing table mirror plucking black fluff and feathers out of my hair.
“Well, it seems to me, Mrs. H., the easiest way would be if they was in the house to begin with. Where would they most likely get in is the question, and seems to me it would be through some gap or missing tile in the roof. And what’s under the roof is the attic. Put some birdseed in a couple of cages, and somehow rig the door to close once a nice group of them was inside. Wouldn’t require more than time and patience. Think we ought to take a look at them attic?”
“Absolutely, Mrs. Malloy. But first I should take a look at the skirting board where Lady Krumley’s maid found the brooch. It’s why I came in here.” I was still looking in the dressing table mirror, plucking at my hair. “Did you have any luck in Vincent Krumley’s room?”
“Not really. That little dog of his-it was a Maltese terrier-was lying on the bed looking all mournful like and it made me feel a bit awkward, like I was out to rob the dead. I kept trying to explain meself and apologizing. There was a suitcase on a chair, but that didn’t offer anything up-just a pair of trousers, a couple of shirts and a cardigan. I did find his wallet in a shoe that the dog had its head on, poor mite. Didn’t snarl at me, just whimpered a bit when I reached for it. But all that was inside was a five pound note, an expired driver’s license and one of them little address cards for restaurants and the like. This one was for some place called The Waysiders. Could be a pub. Remember Vincent Krumley had a drinking problem at one time.”
“So he did.” I heard what she was saying without really listening. Upon kneeling down to check the infamous skirting board my hand had encountered something small, flat and round. And when I stood up I was holding a brooch. An emerald and diamond brooch. Had it been on the dressing table, unseen among the clutter or photographs and ornaments, to be knocked onto the floor by the swoop of birds?
At my exclamation Mrs. M. came over to take a look. And we moved together to stand directly under the ceiling light fixture, eager to more closely inspect the source of so much trouble. “It’s pretty,” I said, moving it around in my hand, “but I think that Lady Krumley was right in saying that it isn’t of great value.”
“It’d look better after a good cleaning.” Mrs. Malloy had taken the brooch from me and turned it over to inspect the back. It was engraved with initials and a date. “Look at all that dirt trapped in the setting. It’s proper caked with crud.” She held up a blackened finger. “You’d think some kiddy had taken it outside and buried it in the back garden. My cousin did that with her Mum’s engagement ring. She was playing at pirates and treasure troves, you know how they do at that age. And oh, what a spanking she got!” Her voice dwindled away to a thread, and her eyes widened under the penciled brows. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Mrs. H.?”
“That maybe Flossie Jones did steal the brooch after all?” The horror of the birds receded to a distant memory.
“And she buried it out there in the grounds, so that it wouldn’t be found if she or her room was searched.” Mrs. Malloy looked primed to jump up and down on her four-inch heels. “Then all these years later someone dug it up, either by mistake or on purpose, and set about stirring up the deathbed curse.”
“All we have to do is find out who and why.” I had just placed the brooch on the dressing table, well in the center where it couldn’t be easily knocked off, when the door opened and a dumpy woman with badly permed hair entered the room, causing Mrs. Malloy to finally jump several inches off the ground.
“You’ll be the decorators.” The woman in addition to her other dubious attributes had staring eyes and an expressionless voice. “I’m Daisy Meeks. I came over to spend the morning with Niles and Cynthia. Under the circumstances they can do with some cheering up. We heard noises from downstairs. Niles said you would be moving the furniture, seeing how it looks best. The vicar, Mr. Featherstone, was also here. He left shortly after I arrived. He’s not always as chatty as one would like, except with Maude. That’s Lady Krumley. He is very fond of her.”
“And are you fond of birds?” Mrs. Malloy asked with a slick magenta smile.
The expressionless face didn’t alter. “Oh, yes. Dear, sweet-singing things. I can’t think of anything nicer than to be surrounded by a lovely soft flutter of wings, can you?”
It was as much as I could do not to hit her. And the thought came to me that it was a great blessing that she didn’t have a twin, evil or otherwise.
Thirteen
Mrs. Malloy and I were forced to scotch our idea of immediately searching the attic after leaving Lady Krumley’s bedroom. Daisy Meeks said she was going up there to look for a black hat, which she thought she remembered having seen in a trunk, that she could wear to Vincent Krumley’s funeral.
“More likely she intends getting rid of them birdcages,” Mrs. Malloy muttered as we plodded downstairs to the hall. I longed desperately for a cup of tea and even the smallest biscuit. Immediately ahead of us, half obscured in shadow, was a baize door. I pushed it open and, closely followed by Mrs. Malloy, entered a large and surprisingly cheerful-looking kitchen-very old world in general appearance, but with an up-to-date cooker and fridge. A tabby cat dozed on a chair by the brick fireplace and standing at the scrubbed wood table in the center of the room was a comfortably built woman, swathed in a white apron. Her age could have been anywhere between thirty-five and fifty. She had a couple of chins and bundled-up hair, escaping in wisps around her red face, and she was occupied in slapping a circle of pastry into a pudding basin.
“Come on in,” she wagged an elbow in our general direction. “No need to stand there like you’re waiting to go into the confession box.”
“Thank you,” Mrs. Malloy and I responded together.
“You’ll be the decorators I take it from what Watkins was saying. And about blooming time, if you ask me, that someone was brought in to bring this place out of the dark ages. Oh, the kitchen’s not too bad. I wouldn’t have come to work here if it had been, although I did insist on the new appliances and the stainless steel sink. There’s no point in being a Muggins I always say and letting your employers treat you like dirt.”