Dorothy Cannell - The Importance of Being Ernestine

“Lady Krumley met with me and my partner here on the day Mr. Vincent Krumley kicked the bucket.” Mrs. Malloy stood tapping her fingers on a folded arm. “She wanted to hire us to find Ernestine, as Flossie Jones’s baby was called before it was given up for adoption. What had brought her to this decision was all the deaths there had recently been in the family. They was all elderly, but it’s got to be said some of them did pop off in odd sort of ways-getting mauled by kangaroos, dying in bungee jumping accidents and the like. Not the sorts of ways you’d expect from folk tottering around on sticks and putting their dentures in to soak at night. That’s what got her ladyship to thinking about how Flossie Jones had put a deathbed curse on the family.”

“And you are so stupid as to believe in such things?” Cynthia Edmonds uncoiled like a snake in her chair.

“What we believed,” I said before Mrs. Malloy could open her mouth, “was that someone had taken pains to frighten her ladyship into suspending disbelief by making sure that the brooch that Flossie had been accused of stealing would be found after nearly forty years. Lady Krumley assumed, as was intended, that it had been there all the time behind the skirting board in her bedroom. Her reaction could not have been better. She was consumed with remorse, convinced that she had leaped at the opportunity to believe Flossie guilty because of her relationship with Sir Horace, a relationship that her ladyship sorrowfully accepted had resulted in the birth of Ernestine, a child soon bereft of a mother and denied the financial and emotional support of its father.”

“It is true.” Lady Krumley sipped at her glass of water as though it was poisoned. “I forbade my husband to see Flossie or the child, threatening to divorce him and take my money with me if there was any contact, leaving him without the means to keep Moultty Towers going.”

Her Ladyship bleakly surveyed the assembled group. Sir Alfonse continued to exude his man-of-the-world appeal. Niles Edmonds fidgeted in his chair. His wife, Cynthia, leaned back against the spreading waves of her blonde hair. Mr. Featherstone appeared deep in thought. The staff-Watkins, Laureen and Mrs. Beetle-shifted into a cluster. The animal heads on the wall monitored every stir of motion. And Daisy Meeks observed that it was a green Tupperware bowl, but she believed the missing lid had been clear.

“A nasty business for all concerned”-I prevented Mrs. M. from again edging in front of me-“one made all the worse by the venomous housekeeper Mrs. Snow. Before she got her tongue lashed around the situation it was thought Ernest the under gardener was the one that got Flossie pregnant. And we do have to ask ourselves why she named the little girl for him?”

“To tick off Horace for not coming through for her.” Cynthia shot me a look that let me know just how dim a bulb she thought me. “It’s what I would have done.”

“I’m sure you would, ducky,” said Mrs. Malloy in quite a nice voice. “But there could be another explanation, couldn’t there now? Like this Ernest really being the Dad, and Flossie wanting to let him know it after her play for Sir Horace and a life on easy street didn’t pan out. A tricky piece that girl, if you asks me. To my way of thinking she’ll have had her reasons, none of them good, for trying to patch things up with Ernest.” Mrs. Malloy now swiveled on her high heels toward Mr. Featherstone. “Spit it out, ducks!”

“What?”

“Got something on your mind, haven’t you vicar?”

“I do indeed.” He clasped his hands and flexed his shoulders as if seeking to ease a burden. “One dislikes to betray a confidence, especially one made by a now-deceased man to his cleric, but I believe I must under the circumstances speak out, as I urged Horace to do on the advent of his marriage to you, my dear Maude.” His voice betrayed his consternation as he looked down at her ladyship.

“What is it?” She sat ramrod straight as she returned his gaze.

“Horace told me he was unable to father children, the cause being a severe case of the mumps when he was a boy. I believed I had persuaded him of his obligation to tell you so before the wedding, but it appears he did not do so.”

“Never a word.” Lady Krumley’s eyes shone blacker and glassier than those stuck in the furry faces on the wall. “I imagine he was afraid I would decide against marrying him, and there would go my fortune. I always thought our failure to have children was due to my age being against me. We talked about it, and he allowed me to think… and not even to relieve my suspicions regarding little Ernestine was he prepared to tell me truth. One must assume he knew me well enough to believe that whilst I might forgive his infidelity I would never be able to get past such a monumental deceit.”

A hush fell heavily upon the room. We might have been participating in two minutes of silence in response to some national tragedy. Mr. Featherstone looked distraught, Cynthia bored, Sir Alfonse suavely pained and the rest, especially the staff with Watkins at the forefront, intensely uncomfortable.

“I’m very fond of that Tupperware bowl.” Daisy Meeks’s flat voice brought the room back to life. “I’ve used it for making salad for sixteen years.”

“A family heirloom, I’m sure.” Mrs. Malloy essayed deep sentimentality. “You’ll likely want to leave it to someone near and dear, even though the lid’s missing. Wills are highly interesting in our line of work, isn’t that so, Mrs. H.?” She responded to my nod with a bright magenta smile. “So it got our attention in a big way when her ladyship here told us as how she wanted to leave the bulk of her fortune to Ernestine. That being the case it wouldn’t have been surprising if some interested party had sought Ernestine out for the purpose of making sure she was put out of the picture. But that didn’t explain Mr. Vincent Krumley, did it now? So me and Mrs. H. looked at things from the other way round.”

“Meaning?” Niles croaked out the question.

“That a certain person,” I responded, “was determined to make sure that no one, including Mr. Krumley, would put a spanner in the works of Ernestine receiving what was due her, in the light of past wrongs.”

“Such as?” Cynthia elevated a perfectly arched eyebrow. “Considering she wasn’t Sir Horace’s child.”

“If I may be pardoned for speaking out.” Watkins cleared his throat in a deferential manner. “There is still the matter of the brooch, isn’t there?”

“And a terrible thing that was.” Mrs. Beetle had clearly decided there was no point in her continuing to just stand there like a lamp. “I don’t know that I’d ever get over it if I was falsely accused of stealing from my employers. The very idea of me working for such people,” she said, fixing a stare at Lady Krumley, “would send my husband up the wall. “

Laureen remained silent, every glossy chestnut hair in place.

“Let’s assume Flossie wasn’t falsely accused,” I said. “That she did steal the brooch, but didn’t take it with her when she was ordered off the premises, had no chance to retrieve it from where she had hidden it and knew that both her person and her possessions would be searched. Then comes the question, who would she ask to bring it to her?” I took my time looking from one face to the next. “Not Sir Horace. And not her friend Mrs. Hasty, who seems a decent and honest woman.”

“No one’s saying otherwise,” said Mrs. Beetle, “but what I’d like to know is why she hasn’t been dragged in here along with the rest of us.”

“She’s old as well as being the one to suffer the shock of finding Mr. Vincent Krumley’s body,” retorted Laureen. “What you didn’t give Mrs. Haskell time to explain is why it’s clear Mrs. Hasty didn’t help Flossie out by getting the brooch to her. Had she done so the girl wouldn’t have been living in a bed-sitter without a bean to her name. She would have sold the brooch and been living off the proceeds.”