“Remember,” I said, “this is where Mrs. Hasty said Flossie had her bed-sitter.”
“Of course I do.” Mrs. M. had her nose pressed to the car window. “Look, there it is. That’s the house, number twenty-one. Stop! There’s a woman coming out the door.”
“And what’s she going to be able to tell us?”
“Probably not much. But it don’t hurt to ask, does it?” She was using her wheedling tone, which always reduced me to meekness. But whether or not I was destined for regret on this occasion remained to be seen.
Seventeen
“Can I help you?” The woman walked toward us as we stood hovering by her front gate like a pair of diffident souls expecting to be told by St. Peter that they had come to the wrong place and if we didn’t buzz off he would have to summon the man in charge.
“This is a long shot,” I said, smiling into the pleasant friendly face, “but we were wondering if you might happen to know who owned this property forty years ago. You see we’re trying to trace someone who lived here back then. I’m not explaining very well. It was only for a short time-a matter of months while she was a baby. Her mother was a young single girl, who died.”
“When the house was broken up into bed-sitters?”
“That’s right.” Mrs. Malloy rested her handbag atop the gate.
“And the mother’s name?”
“Flossie Jones.” I felt a little bubble of excitement rise in my throat.
“Well, Florence really,” said Mrs. Malloy. “The way we understand it she came here before she had the baby. But of course it’s a long time ago and as my colleague here was saying it’s a bit much to hope you can help us.”
“How are the two of you involved?”
“We’re private detectives. Look, hold on a tick, I’ll show you me card.” Mrs. Malloy rummaged inside her handbag. “We’d be standing here all day if we waited for Mrs. H. to find hers. That’s teamwork for you. I keep us organized, and she does most of the legwork. Me knees isn’t what they once was, you’ll be sorry to hear. But I just couldn’t abide to sit put at the office for this case, not when we’ve gone and promised a very ill old lady that we’ll find Flossie Jones’s daughter for her. You see there’s an inheritance involved. And our client won’t die easy until everything’s settled.” While rattling away Mrs. Malloy had flashed the card, which I knew from its pale lavender color to be her membership card for the Chitterton Fells Charwomen’s Association. Fortunately our new acquaintance failed to peruse the fine print. Looking duly impressed she opened the garden gate and beckoned us to come inside.
“A inheritance you say, for that little baby!”
“If we can locate her.” I felt the excitement bubble grow bigger. This woman had information. It might not be much, but anything was better than nothing. Maybe it would turn out that we hadn’t done Lady Krumley a major disservice by taking on the case. Maybe in finding Ernestine we could prevent another murder. I reminded myself that we still had a long way to go, but it was difficult not to do a jig on the path.
“We are talking about a great deal of money.” Mrs. Malloy compressed her lips as if the mentioning of it were somehow irreverent.
“How lovely! And won’t my parents be delighted!” The woman beamed over her shoulder as she led us to the house with its stained glass panels on either side of the front door and lace curtains at the windows.
“Your parents?” I was saying as we entered the hall dominated by a rather dark staircase with massive newel posts.
“They’ve lived here most of their married life-fifty-five years next month. My husband and I moved in with them when our kids were grown, and my Mum and Dad needed some extra help.”
“Could we speak with your parents?”
“Well, Mum’s not home at the moment, but perhaps you can come back again. And in a minute I’ll ask Dad to come in. I’d do it now, but he’s out in the garden practicing his golf putting. A very keen golfer is Dad. He should have gone professional; people are always telling him that. But when he left school he had his widowed mother to support so he went into selling insurance, which is always a bit up and down. When he and Mum had a family-me and two brothers-they needed a bit extra, so they turned the upstairs and even the attic into bed-sitters, dad doing most of the construction work himself. “
“Well, fancy that!” Mrs. Malloy looked up the staircase in awe. “What, including the plumbing and electrical? Marvelous! I don’t suppose your Mum has ever thought of passing him along to some other deserving woman?”
“Never in a million years,” the woman spoke with a laugh. “They got married when they were both nineteen and are still like a pair of lovebirds even in their seventies. By the way, my name’s Janet Joritz, but everyone calls me Jan. Come on into the front room, why don’t you? We can have a sit down, while you ask me what you need to know.”
“Do you remember the young woman and baby?” I asked as Mrs. Malloy and I followed her into a pleasantly cluttered room in the Victorian style, but with a large modern sofa and matching easy chairs arranged around a sensibly large coffee table. On this were scattered magazines and books and a piece of pale blue knitting that looked as though it had just been set down.
She urged us to be seated, and asked if we would like a cup of tea. When we declined, explaining that we had just had lunch, she took her own seat.
“You were asking if I remember them? The young woman and the baby?”
“And do you?” I asked. Unfortunately I had made the mistake of sitting next to Mrs. Malloy on the sofa. She accompanied a derisive chortle by an elbow in my side.
“What a question! Why, it’s obvious from looking at her that Jan here couldn’t have been more than a toddler herself at the time.”
“Why that is kind of you to say,” came the smiling response. “But I’d have been twelve or thirteen. Yes, that would be right.” Mrs. Joritiz was counting off on her fingers. “I’m fifty-two now…”
“Who would have thought it! Why you don’t look a day older than Mrs. H. here, and she claims to be in her early thirties.” Mrs. Malloy was really overdoing things. It took all my restraint as a grown-up and a phony private detective not to poke her with my elbow. Mrs. Joritz might be rather too trusting, but I sensed she was no fool. Had she not been caught up in the excitement of our visit, she would surely have found Mrs. Malloy’s flattery highly suspicious.
I breathed easier when she picked up her knitting and began clicking away, and immediately I sensed something else: Mrs. Joritz didn’t want to rush things. Here was an event to be savored and later dwelt upon and talked about at length. She wouldn’t enlarge upon the part she had played. She didn’t strike me as a self-centered woman; it would be more like re-watching a favorite television program. It wouldn’t be the beginning or ending that mattered half so much as the middle.
“I don’t think much about how I look. It’s never been all that important to me. It’s how you feel on the inside that counts, or so I tell myself, and having my granchildren helps keep me feeling young these days. This little cardigan I’m knitting is for my eldest granddaughter, Julie. She’s seven and does she ever think she’s grown up! Her mother, my daughter Susan, let her get her ears pierced. My husband didn’t think it was right, but I told him no one thinks twice about it these days, anymore than they do when someone has a baby without being married. It’s all different. And just as well if you ask me, when you think back to what girls like the one that died upstairs went through, cast off by their families and left to fend all on their own when the bloke that got them in trouble washed his hands of his responsibilities.”