The Importance of Being Ernestine (6 page)

“Changed your mind, have you? Can't wait to get everything her ladyship told us printed up?” Mrs. Malloy stood with arms folded as I sat back down. “If it's not too much trouble, better use some of that carbon paper stuff so's there's a copy for both of us. I'll go over mine when I get home. Should make for a nice read along with a cup of cocoa and a chip butty.”

“But I'm not typing this for us.” I began tapping away at the keys. “It's for Mr. Jugg. You can read it to him if he telephones or, if you can't get hold of him, put it away in a drawer until he gets back.”

“Did I say cocoa?” Mrs. Malloy's musing voice drifted my way, “I meant to say another stiff bourbon. That's what Milk would advise, and as you're saying, we've got to keep him in the forefront as we get going on this case. Thrust into the thick of things through no fault of our own! A pity. But there it is. No rest for the wicked as the actress said to the bishop. You go ahead and forget I'm here, Mrs. H., I'll just sit here and think about that girl Flossie and the brooch. I wonder just what sort she was really?”

“I really don't care.” I rolled paper into the typewriter. “I'm sorry she was falsely accused of theft and it was tragic her dying so young, but her date of birth and vital statistics do not interest me. All this stuff about the deathbed curse is complete rubbish. A product of Lady Krumley's guilty conscience. Aged family members die off without any unearthly interference.”

“But that old geezer going balloon riding?” Mrs. Malloy screwed up the empty packet of cigarettes and tossed it into the wastepaper basket.

“Uncle Dickie in the Channel Islands?” I found him in my notes. “It was bungee jumping.”

“Go on, correct me! The point is, Mrs. H., that's not the way most people end their days at ninety or whatever he was.”

“The upper classes pride themselves on their eccentricities. True, it would have been safer for him to howl at the moon from the top of his tree house, but to each his own.”

“And then there was the kangaroo.”

“That got cousin Clement in Australia,” I continued pounding away at the keys. “Perhaps he failed to read the notice that said, ‘Please don't feed the animals or pull their tails.' And, Mrs. Malloy don't bring up Aunt Theobalda who fell down the lift shaft. Accidents happen. As for the sister-in-law,” I typed in the name Mildred, “no one can make anything the least bit weird out of an old woman dying in her sleep.”

“In other words you don't have an ounce of sympathy for poor Lady Krumley and her wanting to find this Ernestine person to try to make things right for what was done to her dear mum.” Mrs. Malloy went to sit down on the metal chair, but her glare caused it to panic and skid into the wall. “Well, I must say I'm shocked, Mrs. H., shocked to me very core! I don't think I've felt this bad since me husband Leonard turned nasty and said I looked like I'd aged twenty years.”

“But you had,” I hit the carriage return. “He hadn't seen you in all that time, after going down to the shops to get a pound and a half of stewing steak for the meat pudding you wanted to make and forgetting to come back. You weren't all that thrilled if I remember rightly when he re-entered your life out of the blue”—I dabbed whiteout on a mis-typed word and looked up at her while waiting for it to dry—“just as Ernestine may not be especially thrilled at being hounded to ground. She's probably living a nice, fulfilled life somewhere. Possibly with children of her own. Why does she need to know that her mother died spewing vengeance on the Krumley family?”

“You forgot to ask what happened to Ernest, the dad?” asked Mrs. M. at her most uppity.

“Clearly he wasn't willing or able to take the baby, or she wouldn't have been adopted.”

“If he wasn't married to Flossie he might not have been given the chance, not back in them days. Could be he was fair broke up and would give anything to finally meet up with his daughter.”

“There is that. But it doesn't sound as though he was helping her mother out much financially, if Flossie was struggling to make ends meet in the miserable bed-sitter her ladyship described. Although, to be fair, I don't suppose under gardeners were paid more than a pittance in those days.” I sat back from the typewriter. The clatter I had been making on the keys had drowned out the patter of rain on the windows. It made for a mournful sound. I wasn't as hard-hearted as Mrs. Malloy had claimed.

Flossie's was a sad story, and it could be that Lady Krumley's hope of finding the daughter would turn up some silver linings. She hadn't said how she planned to make reparation, but Ernestine might welcome a bank draft, along with a heartfelt apology. But there was no urgency to the matter. Mr. Jugg would return from his holiday and take care of the matter with the proficiency provided by training and experience. As an interior designer I could perhaps be of some help to Lady Krumley. Getting rid of the gargoyles in the Great Hall and repapering the dungeons in a nice bright plaid might do much to lift her spirits. But a detective I wasn't. I said as much to Mrs. Malloy and spent the next five minutes listening to her rant on about the number of bodies that would pile up while I sat twiddling my thumbs.

“And it's not like you've got any jobs lined up right now,” she pointed out ruthlessly.

“True,” I paperclipped my typed notes together, “but I do have to take care of the children, in addition to doing all my own housework now that you're spending so much time here. Although I do have to wonder why,” I recapped the bottle of whiteout, “if you're really so keen on developing the necessary secretarial skills to become Mr. Jugg's Girl Friday you left me to do the clerical work this evening along with posing as his partner.”

Mrs. Malloy heaved a sigh that shot out her bosom six inches. “I don't like to push meself forward. Let someone else steal the limelight, that's always been my way. Besides it wasn't like I was just sitting around looking like something Cary Grant would have died to hold in his arms for just one minute. I was taking it all in. Every single word as was said.”

“I'm sure her ladyship would have thought the whole setup very odd if she hadn't been so intent on convincing us that dark forces were at work beyond the great divide. She failed with me, but don't let that stop you from being a true believer.”

“What I believe is we ought to get busy finding Ernestine before Lady Krumley gives herself a ruddy nervous breakdown,” retorted Mrs. Malloy at her most virtuous. “It's our Christian duty, besides being a chance for me to get a leg up in me new career. And I'll tell you another thing, Mrs. H., if I did know how to get hold of Milk, I'm not so sure I'd do it. He's entitled to some time off, holed up with his booze and his memories of the woman he had to send up the river. Wouldn't it be something if he was to come back all bleary eyed and unshaven— my dream man come true—and I was able to put the spark back in him, just by saying, ‘No need to upset you hangover about the Krumley case. It's all sorted out. A treat.' ?”

I was silent. There is no reasoning with an infatuated sixty-year-old.

“Well, I never thought you'd let me down, Mrs. H.” She brushed away an imaginary tear from her false eyelashes. “Not for all your funny little ways, I didn't. But if it means going it alone so be it! Tomorrow I'll head out for Moultty Towers on the bus. Going by car would have been more convenient, but it's not like I don't know where Biddlington-By-Water is. A proper dead-in-a-live-hole if ever there was one. Went there a few years back, I did, to play bingo at the Old Age Pensioners' Hall. Wasn't anyone in the room with their own teeth and most of them too deaf to hear the caller. Talk about a wasted evening. I remember this one geezer in particular that kept saying gambling was sin and he shouldn't be there and that if his wife, or it could have been his daughter, knew of it it'd break her heart. Never happy unless they're miserable some people, but that's neither here nor there to you, is it Mrs. H.?”

“What exactly do you hope to accomplish by going to Moultty Towers other than another chat with her ladyship?” I was putting on my coat and Mrs. Malloy proceeded to button hers.

“Talk to people, if there's any still around, that knew Flossie Jones. Like the kitchen maid. Could be someone will remember something being said . . . about her family, for instance . . . that will help me get started.”

It wasn't a bad idea and for a weak moment I was tempted to go with her. Tracking down names and addresses, following up the most tenuous of leads would surely be preferable to facing up to Kathleen Ambleforth's voluble disappointment when I asked for the return of the vanload of items from Ben's study. Also, and far worse, was the possibility that Ben would remain angry with me. I had never seen him as he had been tonight, so cold and tight-lipped. His bouts of irritation with me tended to be vehement, with him stomping around, clutching his head and shouting an occasional lion's roar, a brief upset that rustled the curtains and shifted a couple of pictures out of alignment before he threw up his hands and suggested a cup of tea. This was different, and I both longed to be home and dreaded Ben's response when I came through the door.

“What's that?” Mrs. Malloy's voice bounced me back to the moment at hand.

“I didn't say anything.”

“I know that! I'm not deaf!” It did not bode well that the second person in one evening to feel I had betrayed them was not ready to forgive and forget at a moment's notice. “I thought I heard something.” She stood pulling on her gloves. “A creaking sound.”

“I heard one earlier,” I said. “Old buildings tend to make their own funny little noises. Or it could be a stray cat that's found it's way in from the alleyway. There was one hanging about when I came in.” The words were no sooner out of my mouth than I heard the indisputable sound of a footstep.

“Cat! Me Aunt Fanny!” Mrs. M. gave the leopard toque, that matched her fur coat, a twitch. “There's someone out there. But there's no need to get your knickers in a twist. It'll be Lady Krumley come back to tell us something she forgot. Or Milk,” she said, her voice trembling with emotion, “stumbling up the stairs to die at his desk with a cigarette between his lips and his very own bottle of booze in his hand after being shot in the back by some thug he was onto . . .”

She didn't get to paint a vivid word picture of her selflessly nursing Mr. Jugg back to health and vigor. The office door that neither of us had thought to lock after her ladyship's departure was thrust open and a man stood in the opening. He wore a raincoat and hat as befitted the weather and a pair of sunglasses that didn't. He also happened to be holding a gun, which he waved around in what seemed to me a random fashion while twitching on his feet like someone with a bad case of chilblains.

“Well, I must say! The least you could do was knock!” Mrs. Malloy glared at him.

“Where's the boss?” he snarled.

“Left for the evening.” I glanced toward the desk hoping that some heavy object would leap off it into my hand.

“And who are you two?”

“A pair of waxwork dummies,” snipped Mrs. M.

“Try not to annoy him.” I gave her a nudge.

“That's right!” He waved the gun around some more. “I've got a real nasty temper and would as soon shoot your lights out as look at you.”

“Be our guest,” responded the comic in our midst, without so much as a quiver. “It's not like we pay the electricity bill. If you've got eyes in your head behind those stupid glasses one look around this place will show you that me and Mrs. H. . . . Hodgkins here are giving it to you straight. Mr. Jugg's not hiding under the desk or in the washbasin. He's off on his holidays. Can't say where he's gone or when he'll be back.”

“Don't you neither of you move while I check out the joint.” The man sidled toward the door leading to the loo and after a look inside opened the one to the broom cupboard. He was in his mid to late thirties. The brim of his hat was tipped down over his nose, and his shoulders hunched. A memory, a vague sense of familiarity, prodded at my mind. Was that why I wasn't trembling with terror. Because he made me think of a bad actor in an even worse movie. Or had I seen him somewhere, quite recently? This evening? I had the answer before he was fully facing us once more.

“You're the man in the café. You were sitting at a table by the window reading, or pretending to read a newspaper.”

“So what if I was?”

“Just being chatty, that's always her way.” Mrs. Malloy draped a comradely arm around my shoulder.

“You shut your gob, tiger lady, or I'll have you stuffed and hung on a wall.” He had stopped twitching his feet and held the gun steady. “Now you two dames hear me good and clear. You're to get hold of your boss on the double and give him a message from me. He's to tell old Lady Crumb Cake she needs to stop making up stories or someone will see she's locked up in the loony bin and stays there. If he don't he'll be just one other P. I. that doesn't show up for business as usual.”

“Could you give us your business card?” I was able to be flippant because I was sure now he wasn't going to kill us, unless we were stupid enough to follow him down the stairs and try to get the license plate number if he made off in a car. Although surely any self-respecting thug would know enough to melt into the shadows before hopping aboard public transportation or slipping into a waiting vehicle. I continued to muse along these lines when the door closed behind him and for several moments after his footsteps faded into silence. Of course I knew what Mrs. Malloy was about to say before she opened her mouth.