Dorothy Cannell - The Importance of Being Ernestine

Coming toward me was a woman whose face and figure were as familiar to me as my own. She had, after all, been an important part of my life since the first days of my marriage. Since our last meeting, however, her appearance had undergone a dramatic change. Where once she had worn black taffeta frocks better suited to a nightclub than turning out the guest bedroom, she now sported a miniskirt and tight angora sweater. Her hair, which had always been dyed black, was now platinum blond. Only her makeup was the same. But the familiar neon-coated eyelids, false eyelashes, brick-colored rouge and magenta lipstick did little to lessen my shock.

“So what do you think, Mrs. H.?” She twirled about on her four-inch heels.

I was thinking that I couldn’t say what I was thinking. Mrs. Malloy was a robustly built woman, and I suspected that she had to be wearing an iron ribbed corset under that skirt.

“Very nice,” I managed.

“That don’t sound overly enthusiastic.” Planting her hands on her hips, she jutted out her imposing bosom. “But all’s forgiven. I could tell you wasn’t yourself when I phoned. For a moment I didn’t think it was you speaking.”

“Who else would it have been?” I responded bleakly.

“A burglar come to pinch all the silver. Would have been doing me a favor seeing as how I hate polishing the stuff.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Mrs. Malloy! You’ve hardly been at Merlin’s Court to polish anything since you started working here in the evenings. And I really can’t see what there is here,” I said, surveying the small room, “to keep you so busy.”

“Trying to better meself, that’s what I’m doing!” She parked herself in the desk chair, reached into a drawer for a battered packet of Lucky Strikes and lit up with a flourish. I was never more appalled. Mrs. M. was partial to a glass of gin, but I had never known her to smoke. “For your information, Mrs. H.,” she continued with a determined look on her face, “I’m hoping that if I make meself a presence around here, Mr. Jugg will appoint me his Girl Friday. I’ve been teaching meself to type. Up to four words a minute, I am.”

“Congratulations.” I wandered over to the filing cabinets and back.

“You’re put out, and I don’t wonder!” She blew a couple of smoke rings. “I’ve been your right hand and no mistake. But much as I’ve enjoyed slaving away for you these past years, there hasn’t been much in the way of mental stimulation, if you get my meaning. Which isn’t to say,” she stubbed out the cigarette in the hideous ashtray and adopted a more conciliatory tone, “that I’m handing in me notice. Once I get the hang of things around here, I’m sure I’ll be able to fit you back in of a now and then.”

“That’s awfully kind.” Not having been offered a chair, I stood unbuttoning and rebuttoning my raincoat.

“You could try and sound like you’re broken hearted not to have me at your beck and call.”

“One has to accept what life dishes out.”

“I must say you don’t sound at all yourself.” Mrs. Malloy’s voice shifted from peevishness to professionalism. “And you look something awful.”

“Naturally,” I snapped. “Your directions weren’t first-rate, and I nearly drowned finding this place.” To impress the point I lifted my hair, which had come undone from its chignon, out from under my raincoat collar and wrung it out briskly.

She waved a dismissive hand. “That’s all by the by. Your nose is red, your eyes is puffy, which means you’ve been crying. Also you’ve got one black shoe on and one brown. Clearly the situation is desperate.”

“Please,” I spluttered, “do stop talking as though you’re already Mr. Jugg’s Girl Friday.”

My former ally furrowed her brow, closed her eyes, then snapped them open. “Speaking strictly professionally, the problem has to be Mr. H.! Gone and upset you, has he?”

“As a matter of fact…” I swallowed a sob along with a mouthful of secondhand smoke.

“Got himself a dolly on the side, I suppose.” Mrs. Malloy oozed sympathy. “Well, I can’t say as I’m surprised. Husbands are men when all’s said and done. And yours is a good-looking bloke with that dark hair and those be-damned-to-you blue eyes.”

“They’re more green than blue.” I sank down on the chair across from the desk. A feeling of lassitude enveloped me. Within seconds I would be hopelessly trapped in the persona of distraught client.

“Want to have him and the nasty little home-wrecker put under surveillance?” She reached for a lethally sharpened pencil. “That sort of thing is a big part of our business here at Jugg’s Detective Agency. That and missing persons.”

“There is no other woman,” I said, endeavoring to square my shoulders. “Ben and I have had a minor tiff, that’s all. I’m sure he didn’t mean to be beastly and horribly ungrateful. And I don’t doubt that by the time our golden wedding anniversary rolls around we will both have completely forgotten about it.”

Mrs. Malloy’s eyes narrowed. “Ticked off was he, that you went behind his back and did over his study?”

“He wasn’t pleased.”

“Well, I did try to warn you he wouldn’t be thrilled.” She tossed me a gun that had been on the desk next to the ashtray. For a blurred moment I thought she was offering me a way out of my misery. But when she handed me a cigarette I realized that what I had taken for a dainty pistol was in fact one of those gimmicky lighters. Without pausing to think, I lit up and at once felt vaguely cheered. Surely if one’s own husband treated one like a fiend out of hell there wasn’t much reason not to behave like one. To further substantiate the point I accepted the tumbler of bourbon Mrs. Malloy handed me.

“Won’t Mr. Jugg mind?”

“Keeps it for clients. Never drinks on the job, he doesn’t.” She spoke apologetically, as if hoping this wouldn’t make me think less of him.

“Down the hatch.” I tossed off a gulp and felt my insides turn to molten ore.

“Course he’ll probably make up for holding himself in check, now he’s gone off on his holidays.” Mrs. M. perched on the edge of the desk, her black miniskirt hitching up several more inches. When she crossed her legs I noticed between puffs of my cigarette that her stockings had seams down the back. Her face assumed a dreamy expression. “I expect Mr. Jugg will rent himself a room in some real dive and lay around half the day and most of the night on a bare mattress, when he isn’t sitting on a barstool, thinking tortured thoughts of the blonde in the black Chanel suit that shot his partner, then wound herself around his heart, hoping he’d not realize she’d been working for the gang that stole the Green-Eyed God of Cat-Man-Chew. But being the clever dick he is, he saw through her. And had to send her up the river.”

I couldn’t imagine where Mr. Jugg would readily find a dive compared to this one in which to hole up. Accepting a second cigarette, I said that at least he consoled himself by smoking on the job. Mrs. Malloy’s response was an apologetic shake of the head. I looked with alarm at the pile of butts in the ashtray. “Surely they’re not all yours?”

“That was Mr. Jugg’s 2:30 client. Smoked his head off, he did. Suspected his wife of carrying on with his sister-in-law’s cousin’s uncle. I’d come in to practice me typing, like I told you I’ve been doing. The poor man was here for a couple of hours. Well, a complicated story like that takes time to tell, but I could see Mr. Jugg looking at his watch because he had a 6:00 coming in. And if that got off to a late start he’d likely miss his train. But as it happened the second client didn’t show. And Mr. Jugg was away on time.”