The Spring Cleaning Murders (31 page)

“Found what?” This was the big moment. The question that had haunted me and the members of the C.F.C.W.A. was about to be answered, and I didn’t feel anything at all.

“A pair of fur gloves.”

I undoubtedly looked as blank as I felt.

“They’re in the top drawer of my dressing table.”

“Maureen, I don’t understand.”

“Remember,” she said, “a couple of years back when Mrs. Barrow got on one of her bandwagons and persuaded—you could say pressured—people to pack up their furs and send them off to an animal rights’ organization where they would be put on a bonfire?” I nodded and she continued: “The post-office section of my shop was jammed for days with women coming in to post their parcels and tell me how good they felt about doing the right thing. And one day on her way home from work Gertrude Large brought in a package that Mrs. Barrow herself had asked her to send off. Gertrude was cleaning for her at the time, and being a good friend of mine, she told me what was inside.”

“The fur gloves.”

“Rabbit ones that had belonged to Mrs. Barrow’s mother. And something came over me after Gertrude left the shop. It was a cold winter, one of the worst in years, and it seemed to me such a wicked waste to send those gloves off to be burned when there I was without a decent pair to my name. All the crying in the world wouldn’t bring that rabbit back from the dead. That’s what I told myself. Of course it’s no excuse. And I couldn’t enjoy the gloves because I was too afraid someone would see me wearing them. So after a couple of times I put them away and more or less forgot about them. You see, Ellie, I started seeing Robert at about that time and everything else went by the board.”

“Until Mrs. Large found the gloves.”

“She recognized them and confronted me. It was awful.” Maureen again reached for the hanky. “She was so terribly disappointed in me. And what I hadn’t known was that when Mrs. Barrow didn’t receive a letter of acknowledgment for the gloves from the fur-fighting organization, she accused Gertrude of keeping them for herself, instead of sending them off.”

“Did Mrs. Large threaten to tell Mrs. Barrow what you had done?”

“Gertrude was too good a friend for that, Ellie. She urged me to confess. I refused, saying that I couldn’t risk the scandal, because of what it would do to Robert. I was a postal employee and stealing from the mail is a government offense. I could have gone to prison.”

“Oh, surely not!” I said. “Not for a pair of gloves.”

“You know Mrs. Barrow, for all her talk about living in peace with all God’s creatures, she would have had me hung, drawn, and quartered, and done a dance in the middle of Market Street to celebrate.” Maureen twisted the handkerchief into a ball. “I thought about sending the gloves back to Mrs. Barrow anonymously. But the woman would have set up a full-scale enquiry and I’d have found myself having to own up to prevent someone else—most probably Gertrude—getting the blame.”

“What was the result of your conversation with Mrs. Large?” My uneasiness was back full force.

“She felt a loyalty to Mrs. Barrow—that’s how she was with all the people she worked for. She talked about a code of conduct set out in the Magna Char ...”

“I know about that.” I gripped the sides of my chair.

“And Gertrude felt that if I wouldn’t say anything, she might be morally obliged to do so, but at the same time she hated to hurt me. She said she would talk to Mrs. Malloy, who had a kind heart as well as a sound head, and see if she thought the matter should be put before the C.F.C.W.A.”

“And?”

“She died—Gertrude, who was my best friend. And I’ll always believe I killed her”—Maureen turned her face away—”because she would never have taken that fall if she hadn’t got into such a state about what I had done. She told me she wasn’t sleeping and couldn’t eat. And if I can’t forgive myself, how can I ever hope that Robert will?”

“You’re going to tell him.”

“I have to. I can’t live like this anymore.”

“What can I do?”

“Tell all this to Mrs. Malloy.” Maureen was now looking me squarely in the eye. “I owe it to Gertrude’s memory to set the record straight amongst her fellow workers that her loyalty to the C.F.C.W.A. never faltered. And that I’m more sorry than I can ever say.”

“I will.” I got to my feet. “And I hope that in time, Maureen, you will be able to remember all the good times shared with your friend Gertrude.”

“Even if she had lived, things would never have been the same between us. There’s a saying: Broken friendship is like broken china, you can put it together again, but it will always show the crack.”

“Maureen, your husband loves you very much. He’ll forgive you.” I then went downstairs to tell Sir Robert his wife wanted to see him. When I asked if I might use the phone, he pointed one out to me in an alcove off the hall. As I dialed my own number and spoke to Freddy, I heard the baronet’s footsteps dwindle into a sad echo.

All I wanted at that moment was to get home, but I had explained to my cousin that I was going to make a stop first and that if I wasn’t home within half an hour to come and rescue me—words lightly spoken because I didn’t foresee any problems. I wasn’t silly enough to walk into the lion’s den when the lions were there. But it’s true I wasn’t thinking entirely clearly. A numbness had settled on me upon leaving Maureen Pomeroy’s bedroom.

As I drove up The Cliff Road, the only thing I was sure of was that she hadn’t killed Mrs. Large. I told myself that the reason for making a stop before going home was an attempt at putting the ghosts of my suspicions to rest. To face once and for all the fact that Mrs. Large’s death had been an accident. It was raining hard as I got out of the car and walked towards the house. Tall Chimneys stared back at me with dark, unseeing eyes. The Miller sisters were away at their dog show. But I did not need them to let me in. I remembered Vienna had spoken about a spare key to the back door hidden under a flowerpot.

The house closed in on me as I entered the kitchen, and it wasn’t until I blundered into the hall that I found a light switch. But even in the sudden brightness there remained something furtive about that hall and the way the stairs hugged tight against the wall. I didn’t like the way the entire house pretended to echo my footsteps so that no one would guess what it was really saying.

Although, to be fair, who could blame it? I was not much better than a burglar. As much a criminal as Maureen Pomeroy. I took off my raincoat because its cold dampness weighed me down, and hung it on the hall tree. Stepping out of my wet shoes, I jumped when a raincoat belonging to either Vienna or Madrid slid off the tree, to be followed by a felt hat.

Heart hammering, I replaced them. There was no denying that Mrs. Large made one ghost too many at Tall Chimneys. I braced myself to go into the study to relive the moment of finding her lying on the floor beside the toppled ladder, the dustpan and pile of ashes bearing silent witness to her recent activity. But I couldn’t do it. Instead I moved towards the sitting-room door, which stood open. Its furniture looked as though it would tell on me if I shifted one foot off the hall floor. So I stood in the doorway, restaging those who had gathered there for the Hearthside Guild meeting. Our hostesses, Sir Robert and Maureen Pomeroy, Brigadier Lester-Smith, Tom Tingle, and Clarice Whitcombe. All assumed their places. Their faces and forms fleshed out; their voices grew in resonance as memory came flooding back. My spine prickled and my hand felt cold and sticky.

What was this room trying to tell me? Was a phantom Mrs. Large attempting to give me a mental nudge? Or was I unnerved by the portrait of Jessica—with the lilac bows between her ears and the ruby on her paw? She looked so alive, as if she might start barking if I moved a muscle. Suddenly I was in the drawing room at Merlin’s Court, Bunty across from me sipping her sherry, and I was putting my glass on the mantelpiece, knocking over Mrs. Malloy’s china poodle. In a flash of belated illumination, I knew why I had stood with my eyes glued to the floor. Looking at those broken piece had prodded a memory. And it was that half-formed realization that had brought me back to this house. Now the other pieces of the jigsaw puzzle fitted into place. It was rather like one of those times when you’re talking and can’t find the right word and all the poking around in your mind won’t dig it up. So you tell yourself that if you leave it alone it will come to you later. And it does, popping into your head when you are thinking about something else entirely.

I leaped at the blast of noise, but it wasn’t Madrid’s beloved Norfolk terrier. It was the telephone. The shrill sound went on and on. Probably Freddy, I thought. The silly ass! There was no recovering my nerve when the phone finally stopped. Grabbing my raincoat off the hall tree and snatching up my shoes—to be put on when I got outside—I barely remembered to switch off the light before making a dive for the door.

I was still feeling sick as I backed the car into a skid and bounced out onto the lane. My shoes were on my feet, but I had tossed the raincoat on the passenger seat. Even with the windscreen wipers going full speed, I had trouble seeing through the fogged glass as I turned onto The Cliff Road. Cutting the corner too sharply, I stalled the engine, got it going again, and was breathing a little easier when the car slid into a ditch to settle with a soft bump—rather like a dog landing in its basket. Some five minutes later, having only dug myself in deeper, I faced up to walking home.

It was as I reached for my raincoat that I had my worst moment. The tip of a scarf protruded from the pocket. A scarf that wasn’t mine. Meaning neither was the coat. As my loving husband had said, it was easily done. So many of them look the same. But this was not the time to regret that I hadn’t gone for flaming red or royal purple. I was already half running, half slithering back around the corner and down the lane to Tall Chimneys.

I have to admit cowardice has its charms. Reentering that house was something I would not have wished upon anyone, not even the murderer of Trina McKinnley and Winifred Smalley. I was in such a daze of fright that it didn’t strike me that the hall light was back on as I came through the kitchen. I had eyes only for that hall tree, which is why I didn’t hear Vienna Miller come down the stairs.

“Well, Ellie, this is a nice surprise.” She was standing two feet in front of me. If I still had a mouth, I couldn’t find it. All I could do was stare at her. "I had to come back for Madrid’s medicine,” she continued. “My poor sister suffers terribly from springtime allergies.”

It was only long afterwards that I was able to think of excuses that I might have made, such as I hadn’t been able to find my handbag since coming here to clean and hadn’t thought she and Madrid would mind if I came round to look for it while they were gone. Vienna might even have believed me, until in my stricken state I fiddled with the scarf dangling from my pocket, and as it slipped to the floor found myself holding something that must have been caught in its folds. A smallish black bow. And like a complete idiot I allowed realization to show in my eyes as they met hers. “What was in the dustpan, Vienna?” I heard myself saying. “Is that what Trina discovered?”

“So now you know, dear.” It was the endearment that chilled me more than anything. Never had Vienna looked more sensibly tweedy. More kindly capable. More thoroughly resourceful. “I had to get rid of that unpleasant Trina McKinnley,” she said calmly. She might have been talking about the increase in the price of coffee.

“Then it was you! Not your sister!” The bow was sticking to my hand.

“What, Madrid? She doesn’t have it in her to murder anyone.” Vienna smiled indulgently. “I’ve always had to take on the world for both of us. So when Madrid told me Trina was blackmailing her because she had knocked Mrs. Large off that ladder, it was big sister to the rescue as usual. Not that I intended to kill Trina when I went to see her in Madrid’s stead that evening. I really thought I could reason with her—get her to see that what had happened to Mrs. Large was an accident. Madrid hadn’t meant to kill her. Certainly she lost her temper and gave that stepladder a shove. It was an impulse and completely understandable under the circumstances, in the light of Mrs. Large’s gross insensitivity to Madrid’s grief and outrage. But there was no getting through to Trina. She was angry that her friend Mrs. Smalley was going to portion out her inheritance from Mrs. Large—which, when you think about it, she would not have received but for Madrid. Trina wanted money, lots of money. And of course she would have been back for more. So when she turned her back I did the only practical thing.”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

“I was waiting to make sure the coast was clear before leaving the house on Herring Street, when who should walk in but Mrs. Smalley.” Vienna’s voice became if possible even more bland. “I got her outside, and she had the sense to behave until I spotted the old convertible a couple of doors down, with the keys in the ignition.”

“It was mine.”

“I know, dear. And I’m sure you’ve learned a valuable lesson. It was as I was getting us settled in the car that Mrs. Smalley screamed.”

“So that’s why I was sure the sound came from out in the road. You were directly beneath Brigadier Lester-Smith’s bathroom.” Talking helped. It made me feel a little less powerless. “The surprising thing is that you were able to drive away from Herring Street without being spotted. It was full of people standing about when the brigadier and I got outside.”

“Several other cars were passing when I got the engine going, and I just tucked in between them.”

Rage seized me—at that wretched car. All the times it had stalled for me, but oh, no! Not for a murderess making her getaway with an elderly waif in the passenger seat.

“Don’t tell me how you killed Mrs. Smalley!” Tears stung my eyes. “I don’t need the details. Let’s get back to why Madrid pushed Mrs. Large off the stepladder.”

“You still haven’t figured that out, after all your snooping?” For the first time Vienna looked at me with dislike, and my spine stiffened. Looks couldn’t kill and there wasn’t room in the pockets of her tweed jacket for a weapon. In a hand-to-hand struggle, I would give as good as I got. There are advantages to not being a size 3.