Primrose drew her shawl tighter. The room was growing shadowy. “Ellie, I know you have been busy with such distractions as death and illness, but have you talked with Lady Theodora about why she went into Abigail’s office and discovered Charles Delacorte that fateful night?”
“I haven’t spoken with her. I saw her as I was coming in here this evening, but she pretended not to see me and crossed the road. My knowledge of what she told the police is reported in The Daily Spokesman.”
“She said that she entered the office, mistaking it for the bathroom.” Hyacinth tapped on the green notebook with a ruminative finger. “Not quite plausible, but so often the truth is not. By the way, Ellie, did Mr. Digby ever collect his pin-striped suit?”
“Yes, the morning after the death. You think his haste unseemly under the circumstances, that he was desperate to recover that photograph?” What was wrong with me? I wanted Abigail’s name cleared at all costs, didn’t I? And surely someone would take Mother in if Mr. Digby were sent to prison.
Primrose’s blue eyes met mine. She exchanged looks with Hyacinth and said, “Butler must begin a full-scale investigation of Mr. Digby, tomorrow at the latest.”
“Agreed.” Hyacinth lifted the teapot and poured a trickle into each of our cups. “He will also check out Lady Theodora; likewise Lionel Wiseman who, so says his wife, is especially sympathetic to his female clients! And Bunty Wiseman-married (although gossip says otherwise) to a man old enough to be her father. Is the attraction love, money, or something more Freudian? And I mustn’t have Butler forget Mr. Sidney Fowler, whose father deserted him as a boy, had a reputation as a Casanova in his youth, and-”
“-And may have locked Bentley in the potato bin during a childhood game of hide-and-seek,” Primrose contributed.
Hyacinth moved our cups toward us. “I will conclude this summation, thank you, Prim. Roxie Malloy’s references must be rechecked. The Founder is a person with both ears to the ground and the opportunities inherent in Roxie’s work are boundless.” Hyacinth stopped and looked toward the door. “Am I hearing things or was that the doorbell?”
Standing, I pressed my hands on the table. The cups and saucers did a slow slide. “Isn’t it a strange coincidence that all of these suspects are known to me?” I took a steadying breath and the crockery came to a standstill. “We cannot assume simply because these people have cropped up during the course of this evening’s conversation that one of them is The Founder. He/she and I may never have crossed paths, let alone spoken to each other!”
Hyacinth’s black eyes burned into me. “My dear Ellie, I don’t assume. I know.”
The orange lips smiled complacently. “Did you receive a bouquet of roses the morning after Charles Delacorte’s death?”
“Yes.”
“Enclosed with them was a card, am I right? Inscribed with the words, I am sorry. There was no-”
“-signature.” That moment seeped back.
… I am standing in the hall at Merlin’s Court, the yellow roses in my hands… I feel such elation at the belief that Ben has sent them… then I see his stony face when I come running into the bedroom with them. “The gallant Rowland strikes again,” he said…
I sat down.
Primrose touched my hand. “My dear Ellie, Charles Delacorte had to die that evening at Abigail’s. The occasion was too ideal to be missed. But, small consolation that it is, someone regretted the necessity of involving you. Someone who knows you, likes you, and quite possibly admires you.”
“The signature could have easily been omitted by mistake,” I protested. “But how did you know about the roses?”
“Our discovery of the flowers sent to you was fortuitous.” Primrose stretched the edges of her shawl over her arms. “We thought it might be of interest to know who sent wreaths to the funeral, so we instructed Butler to check the florist’s order book, which he did last midnight-” Primrose coughed behind her hand-“not wishing to intrude upon working hours.”
“Most considerate.” Belatedly, I picked up my scattered possessions off the floor and replaced them in my bag. Would that I could collect my scattered thoughts that easily. The analysis of the suspects, my supposed connection with The Founder, was leading straight as a homing pigeon to the moment when the Tramwells would reveal what they wanted from me. Part of me determined that whatever it was, the answer was NO! Another part kept stuttering, but think-this may be your one chance to put things right for Ben and Abigail’s, to say nothing of saving the lives of countless erring, unsuspecting husbands. What was a little danger, a little terror, in so good a cause? If only I were the stuff of which heroines are made.
“If there is a Founder,” I said, “I’ll put my money on Dr. Simon Bordeaux. He must know what is behind all those nervous breakdowns at the Peerless. He cannot be totally evil because he is taking care of Jenny Spender and her mother, but he is creepy.”
Hyacinth squared her shoulders. “Ellie, the most vital thing we have learned concerning The Founder is that he or she is diabolically clever. Dr. Bordeaux may be diabolical, but clever-no. Otherwise he could have managed to bump off a few helpless old women without causing a ruckus.”
“He was never brought to trial on any charges,” I reminded her.
“He may not have been guilty of anything. Those women who remembered him in their wills may have done so by desire. To earn an undeservedly sinister reputation doesn’t smack much of cleverness, does it?” Hyacinth closed the green book and laid it on the table.
My heart thudded. My hands felt as though they were smeared with cold cream. The sisters were bracing themselves to appeal to my nobility of character. They were going to ask me to risk everything that mattered most to me. Grabbing at the first thought that came into my head, I said, “What about Miss Gladys Thorn? Isn’t she as suspect as any?”
The parlour door opened and closed; I heard Butler’s tentative cough, but kept talking. “The Maiden Voyage, a book on the subject of repressed feminine sexuality, strongly suggests-”
Primrose smiled gently. “Dear Ellie, why not talk to Miss Thorn herself?”
I could not move my eyes, let alone anything else. Butler was walking Miss Thorn across the room. Now he drew out a chair for her. She twitched a smile at me and I strove to indent my face in response.
“Tea, madam?” Butler spoke through his nose.
“Oh, that would be nice, thank you so terribly much.”
As the door closed behind him, Miss Thorn straightened her glasses, fumbled with the tablecloth, then locked her bony hands together. “Mrs. Haskell, you now know all. I do beseech you-if you feel some particle of charity in your heart-not to tell the dear vicar. He would be so grieved.”
“I imagine he would be aghast,” I said hoarsely. “To know that men of his parish are being murdered in record numbers-”
Primrose coolly interrupted me. “Quite, my dear Ellie. Mr. Foxworth might feel that his sermons weren’t getting through.” She patted the church organist’s hand. “Do you recall, Ellie, our telling you that Flowers Detection was brought into this investigation through the efforts of someone personally affected by the number of men in this locality meeting untimely deaths?”
I responded a little impatiently. “Absolutely. You described her as the Other Woman in so many ill-fated affairs that she had contacted an insurance company-” My eyes met Miss Thorn’s. She was blushing.
“I fear, Mrs. Haskell, you are looking at her.” Her mushroom eyes swam behind the glasses. “How can I hope to make you, an ordinary woman of pure impulse, understand the curse of one born with an animal magnetism, a musk, if you will, which draws men willy-nilly? My reason for not marrying-although I have had more proposals than I can count-is that I know”-she touched her forehead, now glistening with perspiration-“that it is physically impossible for me to confine myself to the passions of one man. Those others out there wouldn’t let me. And does not the dear vicar so often say we must use our unique gifts for the enrichment of others?”