The Thin Woman (30 page)

“Have you quite finished?” I fumed.

“All taken care of.” The dimwit seemed to think I was talking about his cookery book. Reaching for his tweed jacket, which he had thrown over a chair, he said, “I’ve telephoned Mr. Bragg’s office and he is going to meet me there, look over the manuscript and then go with me to the post office to witness its launching. Let’s hope it doesn’t sink to the bottom of some slush pile never to be seen again.”

I smiled evilly. “I wouldn’t worry about its acceptance—it’s a shoo-in, but don’t you think you have been a smudge too efficient?”

“How?”

“Shouldn’t you have waited to wrap the book until after Mr. Bragg had seen it?”

His angry roar was music to my ears. Ducking hastily to the door, I left him yanking viciously at the knotted string, cursing that his scissors had disappeared. Very quietly I dropped them on the trestle table in the hall and beat a quick retreat. As I crossed the dripping garden, the ground sucked noisily at my feet but the wet didn’t bother me. If I could drive Ben to mad irritation, perhaps he did have some feeling for me. Hope springs eternal in the foolish female breast. Heavy-footed but suddenly light of heart, I plodded on down the driveway, skirted the virginal cement pile near Aunt Sybil’s, now covered in a rubber tarp, and on to the coast road. Here the gale picked up force, lifting me along like an empty paper bag.

I found Jonas at work in the small coppice a couple of hundred yards from the gates, heaping debris on an already towering mound of battered boxes, broken chairs, tattered bedspreads, and soggy mattresses. He was poking at a scrap of pink and yellow, which looked like the corner of a plastic tablecloth, edging out from the middle of the pile.

He was a pretty spry old geezer for a man over seventy—hardly the ailing creature Aunt Sybil had described to me last winter. Dorcas was right, he had changed during the last months. Perhaps having young people in the house had mellowed him; either that or he thrived on suspense.

Jonas’s lumpy old trilby was seized by a sudden gust, bounced beyond his grasp, and skimmed like a gull over the cliff edge, out to sea.

“And that could be you, miss, if you walk too close to the edge,” said he dryly.

I did watch my step as I ploughed on towards the vicarage and went through the lych-gate into the churchyard, my mind travelling over the list of suspects.

The newer tombstones were glossy white marble. Sharply lettered in black, they rose staunch and upright from the ground while their older brethren slumped at uneasy angles, ready to keel over at any moment. Through the drenched and trembling foliage of the trees I could see the dark and squat enclosure that was the Grantham family vault.

The uneasy revulsion that had touched me when I entered the building for Uncle Merlin’s funeral returned now, but like the child who feels the urge to stick his finger through the lion’s cage, I felt compelled to return, even as I told myself to trot as fast as I could to the rectory. Perhaps Uncle Merlin and his father deserved to lie here, but not Abigail, not the young woman who had raced across the lawn following the flight of a red-and-yellow kite, with a small boy clinging to her skirts. Her name was tersely inscribed on the brass plate affixed to her tomb, no verse, no record of her age or date of death and not one word of bereavement or affection. She lav in her raised stone enclosure, flanked by those of her husband, who had despised her, and the son who had apparently loved her as a boy. She would lie in the dark for eternity.

Such gloomy thoughts were making me jittery. Was that a footstep outside the door? A mausoleum has never been first on my list of favourite places in which to be attacked. Uneasily I stared out into the churchyard. A short way off a twig snapped—a breaking drumstick in the hands of giggling children. Here even the thought of laughter was sinister, amused, furtive, with nothing childlike or jolly about it, like the voice on the telephone. Just as eerie was my conjuring of Uncle Merlin’s ghost, he who had proved himself the master of the last laugh. My fevered imagination got a good shot of him. Peering out at me from a fiery inferno, his death mask face leered. “A rare fool you’ve made of yourself, Ellie girl. Haven’t found the treasure, can’t get your man, and now you’ve the whole pack out after you, nipping at your heels. Don’t you hear them baying off among the trees? After her, doggies!”

Blinking rapidly to banish the nightmare ghoul and hugging the door for moral support, I took a deep breath. Unfortunately, before I could swallow, another thought clobbered me between the eyes. Ghosts weren’t fun people to have around, but they did have a reputation for being vapourish and frail, without the muscle necessary to do bodily harm, The enemy, as of last night, had been very much alive. Was he or she out
in the graveyard now, slinking low between the tombstones, panting for fresh blood—animal, vegetable, or human?

“Is anyone out there?” I croaked, which was ridiculous. I could hardly expect the truth from the enemy.

Silence answered and I didn’t believe a word of it. Time for a quick getaway. Stumbling down the steps, I ducked my head and ran. For the first time, I regretted my lost weight. A few months ago I need only have fallen on the enemy to have rendered him powerless. Perhaps if I had accepted Jill’s offer to teach me judo, I might now have saved myself. A shadow swooping towards me sent me into hysterics. Uttering a frightened squawk, wings flapping wildly, the seagull backed off, and I staggered on my way. The mist was thickening. Even in broad daylight I consider a sense of direction a skill comparable with reading Chaucer in the original. Now I was wandering in narrowing circles, bumbling into tombstones and straggling branches that scraped my face and caught at my hair. I was a prisoner held fast. Desperately I strove to unravel the knot, but the strip of hair would not tear loose. Fingers vibrating, numb with cold, I tore at the branch, trying to break it in two. Arms raised to my head, I was defenceless, completely vulnerable—when the hands came out to get me.

“I surrender.”

In the face of capture I was instantly icy calm and calculating. Let the enemy think I was willing to go peacefully.

“Ellie, is that you?” asked the voice of Rowland Foxworth.

After he freed me from the clutches of that evil tree, he explained to me that he had been returning from a call upon one of his parishioners, when he had heard a scrambling sound and followed its direction.

“How long were you ensnared?” he asked as he opened the vicarage door and waited for me to enter.

“How long is eternity?” I asked.

Rowland had a wonderfully calming effect on me. The hour I spent in his study, sipping the hot cocoa brought in by
a grudging Mrs. Wood and toasting my toes at his fireside, did much to restore my faith in mankind. And yet, when I told him about recent happenings, Rowland warned me to take no one at face value. “You are surrounded by people who six months ago were strangers to you. Jonas is as much an eccentric and hermit as his past employer, and what do you really know of this woman Dorcas?”

I laughed. “Thank you for being concerned, but surely you cannot believe that Jonas is a mass murderer who has been holed up at Merlin’s Court for the past forty years? And as for Dorcas, I would trust her with my life.”

“Ellie, let us hope that does not prove necessary. Of course you have your fiancé. By the way, how long have you known him?”

“Ages,” I said, and it certainty seemed that way.

Rowland’s expression was hard to read but he went on to tell me that he had been plodding through the Reverend Hempstead’s collection of sermons and private papers, but had found nothing about the Granthams.

“You couldn’t let me have the box of papers?” I asked.

He shook his head, explaining that the bishop had very rigid rules about church property, but as soon as he had anything to report he would be in touch.

With that I had to be content. But when I got back to Merlin’s Court I found Ben was still out, which depressed me. Even though Rowland had walked me home I had still experienced the sensation of being watched. Even Jonas’s appearance minutes later did not cheer me. He started grousing about the lack of food in sight. “Most folks my age”—he was pulling off his boots—“get Meals on Wheels.”

“Your own wheels aren’t rusted out yet. The cook’s taken the afternoon off, but cheer up. I’ll give you a crash course in how to work a tin opener. Consider it occupational therapy for a man of your declining years.”

Jonas was riled. “I’m not on me last legs and don’t plan to be yet. Miss Dorcas be the one what’s failin’—still proper poorly. I saw her a while gone when I came in for more rubbish to burn. Said she’d keep to her room this afternoon.”

I was worried about Dorcas but decided against tapping on her door to ask how she was feeling. Sleep was the best medicine, and if she had dozed off I aid not want to wake her. The house was beginning to wrap itself around me. Merlin’s Court was my friend. Even with Ben gone it would not let anything happen to me. I went upstairs, stripped off my damp clothes, and steeped in a hot scented bath for an hour, rubbed myself dry with a warm fluffy towel—the new heater in the bathroom was paradise—and felt ready to face whatever the world had in store.

Dressed in a pair of blue jeans (a concession to the fact that I now had a waist) and a plaid shirt, I straightened and dusted my bedroom, wiped down the bath, and polished the already sparkling taps. The master bedroom was still waiting for its new curtains and bedspread, but was otherwise in spotless order. Dorcas and Ben always did their own rooms. Now what? I had been meaning to measure the dumb-waiter and look it over to see if a solid floor could be put in to convert it into a linen cupboard.

I went along the landing, opened the door to the dumbwaiter and reached for the light cord. Somehow it had become looped high on the rope pulley and even stretching my arm to the limit I was unable to reach it. I considered fetching a chair, but vanity stopped me and literally proved my downfall. I was sure the wooden platform with its heavy slats would support skinny me. Stepping confidently aboard I held onto the hand rope with one hand and reached for the light cord with the other. An ominous creaking filtered into my ears. Too late I tried to back off; the platform plummetted wildly to one side, spinning me dizzily off balance. With feet fighting empty air, I clutched desperately for a stronger hold on the rope. I was going down.

“I don’t think she’s dead,” remarked an encouraging voice.

“Then she’s giving a damn good impersonation.” That was Ben, and I was amazed at how furious he sounded.

The pantry. The thought was hazy—a puff of smoke—
I had to catch hold of it by its wispy little tail before it got away. No wonder Ben, poor Ben, was angry with me. I’d crash-landed in the pantry. It was the landing station for Dumb-Waiter Number 9. Clumsy, clumsy, missed the runway and bounced off the creamed salmon mousse. Poor Ben! But he wasn’t angry with me. Cupping my poor broken head, which had severed from my body in mid-flight, in his exquisitely tender hands, he pressed his lips down on mine. Slowly, deliciously, my body reunited. Arms, legs, feet, hands all floated back together, and—huge relief—everything was working. I could feel every inch: the tingle that started at my toes crept upwards in a searing wave. For an eternity I lay there savouring, relishing the knowledge that I was alive and Ben was kissing me. After a while though it did seem only fair to set the poor man’s mind at ease by telling him that this dazzling performance did not have to be our swan song.

“Hallo,” I said, prying open my eyes. My lids were fractured, but otherwise I was in great shape.

“Will you shut up,” ordered Ben. “This mouth-to-mouth resuscitation requires perfect timing.”

Dr. Melrose was duly summoned and after much poking and prodding announced that no bones were broken, and I could consider myself a very lucky young lady. A mild concussion appeared to be the sum total of my injuries, for which he prescribed a sedative and bed rest for the next three or four days. “And in future, Miss Simons,” he admonished as he put on his hat and picked up his little black bag, “stay away from circus tricks—unless of course you wish to hobble through life as the Hunchback of Notre Dame.”

Solemnly I promised to be a model of discretion in future. But as I said to Dorcas when she brought me a tray of soup later that afternoon, from now on neither Ben nor I could move a muscle without danger of the whole world caving in upon us. All that morning I had sensed a presence behind me, and had kept turning to look over my shoulder, but I had not thought to look immediately ahead when I opened up the dumb-waiter. Someone had tampered with the rope, Dorcas confirmed. Jonas and Ben checked after
the doctor left and found a clean cut across half the width, then a jagged tear where the rest had wrenched free. I told them how it had been looped up high so I would have to reach for it.

I lay in bed the rest of that day and the next, my bruised and aching head propped up by a heap of pillows. Ben came in to see me several times, once to bring me a postcard from Aunt Sybil, postmarked from a resort thirty miles away, but with no mention of the aborted luncheon. It seems we had been duped, decoyed, and made to look like fools; but we weren’t dead yet. Both nights I had one of those half-waking dreams that are difficult to distinguish from reality. I felt Ben lean over me, brush my hair back with his long cool fingers, and press his lips lovingly and gently against the side of my mouth. On the second occasion I started up in dazed pleasure to see my bedroom door softly close and heard footsteps disappearing stealthily down the hall. Dorcas must have come in to check on me; I slipped back into sleep.

Tobias was my constant companion. He snuggled warmly across my middle—fellow victim of the assassin’s machinations. Someone was desperate enough to dispose of at least one of the inhabitants of Merlin’s Court permanently if they would not leave voluntarily. If either Ben or I took up residence in the family vault before the completion of the six months, the estate would revert to the family, excluding Aunt Sybil, on a technicality.