Dorothy Cannell - The Importance of Being Ernestine

“Indeed!” I said.

“She anticipated that I would be out of the house most of the time. But I had to take early retirement from my work as an accountant.”

Mrs. Malloy made sympathetic clucking sounds while sitting as if about to lay an egg.

“I do keep my hand in managing Aunt Maude’s business affairs. Everything except the housekeeping accounts. Watkins sees to those. It gives him an outing once or twice a week to go to the bank. Did Aunt Maude say how you would be paid?” Niles flicked a glance between Mrs. Malloy and me. “How big an expenditure are we talking about? A couple of tables and chairs…” He blinked behind his glasses. “Or something more drastic? You won’t be tearing down any walls, will you?”

“Lady Krumley has given us carte blanche.” I opened my bag and produced my paint chart and fabric samples. “So we may be in and out of here for a few days before making any final decisions. Please don’t let us upset your routine. We’ll be as unobtrusive as possible and, of course, we are hoping that her ladyship will be out of hospital very soon.”

“It don’t bear thinking about that she could be laid up there for weeks being jabbed with needles, every time one of them nurses gets bored, until her poor old bum’s like a pincushion.” Mrs. M. exuded gloom. “Terrible shock it must have been her hearing about that relative of yours dying so unexpected like.”

“Vincent?” Niles wheezed out the name. “Frightful cheek is the way Cynthia viewed it. His showing up here out of the blue. I mean we hadn’t seen or heard of him in years.”

“And then to go and make free of that well, without a by-you-leave.” Mrs. Malloy adjusted her hat to a more business-like angle. “Talk about taking liberties! But mustn’t speak ill of the newly departed, must we now? From what Lady Krumley had to say, me and Mrs. H. here got the idea he could have been going a bit potty in his old age. Wasn’t there something about him saying as how he thought your wife had been a go-go dancer before you was married? And that some other relative had a twin? That was news to Lady K.”

“That would be Daisy Meeks. Lives in the village. She was here the night Vincent showed up and the following day. An annoying woman, but definitely an only child.” Niles stirred restlessly in his chair. “Drink, that was Vincent’s problem, although he made a big point of saying that he’d not touched a drop in years. Taken the cure at one of those places, where one gets to see that one’s life up till that point has been nothing but wickedness and sin. Heard him going on to Watkins about it out in the hall, causing dinner to be delayed half an hour. And if there’s one thing Aunt Maude dislikes it’s not having meals to time. It was some sort of beef stew.” He shook his head fretfully. “Mrs. Beetle, the cook, called it a ragout, but to me a stew by any other name is still the same.”

A pity he had to mention food. I had been feeling decidedly peckish for the past five minutes and had little hope of the butler materializing with a silver tray on which would repose a teapot, cups and saucers and a large plate of buttered crumpets. It couldn’t be expected with so many disruptions to the household routine.

“Very upsetting, Vincent’s death,” Niles continued.

“Let’s just be glad he didn’t linger,” said Mrs. M., who then had to go and add, “that’s if he didn’t teeter on the edge of that well, fighting to save himself while his whole life flashed before his eyes and him crying out for that little dog of his, just wanting to hold it in his arms one more time…”

“Mrs. Malloy,” I patted the paint charts and fabrics on my knee, “we’re here to do a job, not to take up Mr. Edmonds’s time with our expressions of sympathy.”

“No, no! It’s good for me to talk. If Aunt Maude were here she would insist I not bottle up my emotions. You see,” he removed his glasses and polished them against his sleeve, “I was orphaned as a child of ten and, as with Vincent, my parents died in an accident. Perhaps it may be said, as my wife often does, that I have never recovered from that experience.”

“You poor lamb.” Mrs. Malloy dabbed at her eyes, leaving mascara smudges on her cheeks. “Loved your Mum and Dad to bits, did you?”

Niles returned his glasses to his nose. “Sometimes. Mummy had been awfully cross with me that day when I brought home a note from school saying I had cheated on the spelling test and Daddy took her side that I shouldn’t be allowed any ice cream for a week. Then,” his voice dropped to a whispering wheeze, “my electric train set blew up with fatal consequences.”

“And I suppose you went to pieces.” Mrs. Malloy winced in sympathy.

“No, Mummy and Daddy did.”

“Tragic,” I said.

“But then I came to live here, which would have been perfect but for the fact that Uncle Horace never liked me. The only person who ever really did like me was Aunt Maude. And even she… just recently seems to have been focusing her attention on someone else. Someone named Ernestine.”

A silence added its somber weight to the room, but only for a moment. The door was flung open and a tall, slim woman stormed into the room. She had shoulder-length blonde hair and was dressed in black leather trousers and a cashmere sweater with a flutter of feathers around the neck.

“My wife, Cynthia,” Niles said, struggling to his feet, “back from an appointment with her hairdresser.”

“Who are these people?” His better half flung a look at Mrs. Malloy and me that should by rights have sent us flat on our backs. “Don’t tell me you’re from the undertakers? Is this the coffin brochure?” she asked, snatching the paint chart out of my hand as I stood up. “Please tell me, Niles, that you haven’t gone nuts and picked the most expensive one? Didn’t we agree to economize this month, what with the charges for stabling Charlie going up to almost double.”

“Charlie is my wife’s horse,” he explained.

“We are the interior decorators hired by Lady Krumley.” I returned Cynthia Edmonds’s scowl with a crisp smile.

“See any colors you like in them paint charts?” Mrs. Malloy chirruped.

“I certainly do!” The blue-eyed vixen shot out her arm full length while moving toward the window for a better inspection. “This one: platinum mink! It’s exactly the shade I told that wretched man I wanted my hair tinted. But what he’s given me is,” she said, flinging the chart across the room, “champagne pearl.”

“And what’s your hairdresser’s name?” Mrs. Malloy appeared to forget that we were pretending not to be private detectives. “Just for the record like.” Cynthia Edmonds was so incensed she didn’t balk at answering.

“Jorge!” She spelled it out. “And to think I’ve given that man sixteen of the best years of my life. But I’ll get even! I’ll cut my own damn hair! And you,” she said, pointing a scarlet-nailed finger at me, “can redecorate to your heart’s content. It won’t matter to me if you bury Vincent under the floorboards, because I don’t plan to be here much longer. Not if my little business venture bears fruit!”

“Well, I must say,” Mrs. Malloy confided into my ear when we were out into the hall, “you’re coming along a treat. I think Milk will be pleased when I put in my report, but don’t expect him to gush all over you, Mrs. H., because he’s not that sort of man. Keeps his emotions to himself, he does, on account of being let down hard by that blonde he had to send up the river.”

“You don’t suppose she could have been Cynthia and that some senseless clod of a prison warden set her loose on society again?” I had not taken to Mrs. Edmonds in a big way and had cut short the chitchat by telling a little white lie.