Kate Kingsbury - An Unmentional Murder

“You’re not really going after this crackpot, are you?” Polly demanded. Sprawled on Sadie’s bed, she watched the housemaid draw her light brown hair into a clump on each side of her head and fasten them with rubber bands. The result always reminded Polly of rabbit ears, but she kept that to herself. Sadie appeared to be thick-skinned, but Polly never knew if she was covering up what she really felt inside.

Sadie had been bombed out of her house during an air raid in London, but despite Polly’s encouragement, she never wanted to talk about it. Instead she’d make a funny remark, as if the whole thing were a joke. Polly knew it wasn’t, of course. She guessed it was just Sadie’s way of coping with what must have been a terrible experience. Which made her wonder what else Sadie kept inside her.

“If we don’t find him, no one else will bother,” Sadie declared, giving one of the bunches of hair a flick with her fingers. She turned back from the mirror to join Polly on the bed. “You really don’t think those nitwits down at the police station will find him, do you? They couldn’t find a raisin in a currant bun.”

Polly felt a quiver of fear. “So what are you going to do?”

Sadie grinned. “Not me. Us. You and me. We’re going to find out who’s stealing ladies’ drawers from the washing lines. If we don’t, we’ll never be able to hang our washing out again until he’s caught. Not that we’ve got much underwear left to hang out, anyway.”

The fear turned to dread. “How the blazes are we supposed to do that?”

Sadie pulled her feet up onto the bed and hugged her knees. “I got it all worked out. Your mum sleeps all morning, right?”

“Right. She works until five in the morning then comes home and sleeps until the afternoon.”

“Well, the knickers disappear off the line in the mornings. So what we do, we hang out a bunch of them at your house, then keep watch to see if someone steals them.”

Polly stared at her. “I haven’t got a bunch of them. Most of them went off the line.”

“Blast.” Sadie frowned. “Well, the only thing to do is collect as many pairs as we can from the manor.”

“Violet won’t let us do that. She already said we weren’t to go after the thief.”

Sadie dropped her chin to her knees. “Then we’ll just have to steal them from other people’s lines.”

Polly squealed in horror. “We can’t do that. They’ll put us in prison.”

“We’ll give them all back later.” Sadie lifted her head, her eyes gleaming with excitement. “After all, if the thief gets them first, they wouldn’t get them back. We’d be doing everyone a favor. And if we take all the knickers off the lines and put them on yours, then the thief will have to steal them from your line and we’ll catch him in the act.” She patted her own shoulder. “Brilliant, Sadie. Bloody brilliant.”

“Violet doesn’t like us saying that word,” Polly murmured.

“Piss on Violet.” Having thoroughly shocked Polly, she laughed. “Come on, Pol, don’t you want to see this bugger put in a loony bin where he belongs?”

“I s’pose so.” She really didn’t want anything to do with him, but she couldn’t tell Sadie that. Sadie was so daring and Polly dearly wanted to be like her, even if it did get them in trouble sometimes. “Maybe if we ask people they’ll give us their knickers to put on the line,” she suggested hopefully.

“Nah.” Sadie’s bunches of hair bounced as she shook her head. “They’d be too embarrassed. We’ll just have to borrow them and give them back later. They can’t call it stealing then. Besides, once we catch the real thief, everyone will be so grateful they’ll forgive us anything.”

Though she was still nervous about the whole thing, Polly nodded her head. “All right, then. Let’s do it.” After all, she told herself, she couldn’t afford to lose any more underwear. “What will we do if we see him? What if he’s big and strong?” Remembering the terrible news about the rag and bone man, she added fearfully, “What if he has a gun and shoots us?”

Sadie clicked her tongue. “Silly, we won’t try to grab him or anything. We’ll follow him and see where he goes and then we’ll tell George where he is.”

“Oh.” That helped her feel a little better. “All right, then. When?”

“Tomorrow. That’s when you’ll be collecting the rents, right?”

Polly nodded.

“All right, then. Lady Elizabeth will think you’re in the village collecting rents, and Violet never bothers about where I am in the mornings so long as everything’s kept clean, so no one will miss us. We’ll go down first thing on our bicycles, get as many pairs of drawers as we can find, and bring them back to your house and hang them on the line. Then we’ll wait.”

It sounded so simple, Polly assured herself. What could possibly go wrong with that?

That afternoon Elizabeth decided to pay Iris Morgan another visit. The roses were in full bloom, and she cut an armful to take with her. After laying them carefully in the sidecar, she soared off into the wind, and arrived a few minutes later at the rag and bone man’s house.

Iris took a long time to answer her knock on the front door. So long, in fact, that had it not been for the shrieks Elizabeth could hear coming from behind the house, she would have thought no one was home.

Iris’s expression was not at all welcoming, and Elizabeth offered her the bouquet of roses, hoping their heavenly fragrance would soften the other woman’s hard features.

Iris thanked her politely, but seemed not at all inclined to invite her visitor inside. Instead, she stood stolidly in the doorway, with an air of someone waiting to be rid of a nuisance.

Determined to accomplish her mission, Elizabeth summoned a bright smile. “May I come inside for a moment?” she murmured, stepping purposefully toward the door. “There’s something I’d like to discuss with you.”

The woman’s face changed abruptly, and Elizabeth was disturbed by the fear in her eyes. “It’s not about the kiddies, is it?” she asked sharply. “You’ve not come to take them away?”

“Of course not!” Dismayed at causing the woman anxiety, Elizabeth hurried to reassure her. “I simply wanted to talk to you about your late husband.”

Just then a clatter of footsteps warned Elizabeth that someone else was coming up the pathway behind her, apparently in a great hurry. Turning to confront the new-comer, she saw a young boy, wearing frayed trousers and a faded shirt. He stopped short at the sight of her, his gaze shifting to the woman behind her.

“This is my son,” Iris said quietly. To the boy she added, “Come and pay your respects to Lady Elizabeth, Tommy.”

Elizabeth smiled at the boy, who answered her with a sullen look and mumbled something she couldn’t catch.

“Sorry, your ladyship,” Iris said quickly. “He’s upset about his father.”

Tommy started to turn away and she added, “Where are you going? I need you to look after your sister. She’s out there in the back garden by herself.”

The boy hesitated, then shrugged and started down the path that led around the house. He had to pass quite close to Elizabeth, and she felt a pang of dismay when she saw dark purple bruises along his jaw. She waited until he was out of earshot before saying to Iris, “Those bruises look quite painful.”

Iris met her gaze for a minute or so before answering. “Always fighting, he is. Got in a scrap with his mates this morning.”

Elizabeth watched the boy disappear. “I wonder what makes children feel they have to settle things with their fists.”

Iris looked uncomfortable. “Boys will be boys, I suppose.” She opened the door a little wider. “You’d better come inside, your ladyship. I have soup on the stove, and I don’t want it boiling over.”