Dorothy Cannell - The Importance of Being Ernestine

“So that’s what you want from us. Exactly how much is handsome?” Mrs. Malloy teetered forward on her high heels, bourbon bottle in hand.

“That can be discussed later. It may not be a piece of cake to find a baby now approaching forty years of age.” My wording might be muddled, but I anchored my elbows on the desk and twirled my pencil with professional precision. Inevitably I was thinking of Rose and wondering how Ernestine and her adoptive parents would handle the situation, should they be located.

Her ladyship picked up the carpet bag. “I wronged the mother and now must find some way to make the necessary reparations if the surviving members of the house of Krumley are not to crumble to dust in the churchyard. It is still my opinion that Flossie Jones was not a nice girl. All the more reason,” she rose to her impressive height, “that you two women make haste to prevent her deathbed curse from being fulfilled.”

“Curses are a specialty of ours at Jugg’s Detective Agency.” Mrs. Malloy laid a comforting hand on her arm, then added, as I knew she would, “But they do cost a bit extra.”

“Well, that’s that for a night’s work.” Mrs. Malloy sagged against the office door after returning from seeing Lady Krumley down to her car. “Me feet is killing me, and I expect your fingers are worn to the bone after taking all them notes.”

“It wasn’t that bad.” I stood up and stretched. “Every time her ladyship paused to light up another cigarette, I was able to go back and squiggle in the missing bits.”

“Squiggle is right.” Mrs. Malloy now hovered admiringly over the desk. “Clever of you to put it all down in code. Made it up as you went along, did you?”

“That’s Pitman’s shorthand.” I shuffled the pages together. “While I was waiting to begin my design classes I took a course.”

“Back in the dark ages,” Mrs. M. smirked. “But that’s all to the good, isn’t it? Don’t suppose too many people use is it nowadays with them modern gadgets you talk into with the bossy-sounding name.”

“Dictating machines.”

“Meaning your shorthand’s as good as code, if it should fall into the wrong hands. Not that you won’t be careful, Mrs. H., seeing that this is your big chance to prove yourself with Jugg’s Detective Agency.”

“I don’t intend to prove anything,” I stared her down, “other than that I can type as well as take shorthand. But not tonight. If it’s all the same with you, I’ll take these notes home with me and use Ben’s typewriter in the morning.” I was crossing to the coatrack to retrieve my raincoat when I was brought up short by a realization. Ben no longer had a typewriter. He was now the owner of a word processor, a piece of wizardry I wasn’t sure how to turn on, let alone operate. Bother! There was no help for it. I would have to sit back down at the desk and set my fingers drumming on Milk Jugg’s old manual, which looked to be in far worse shape than the one I had donated to the charity of Kathleen Ambleforth’s choice. The thought of telephoning her the next day and explaining that I needed not only the typewriter but all the other items from Ben’s study back caused me to feel quite glad to be stuck in the present moment.

“Changed your mind, have you? Can’t wait to get everything her ladyship told us printed up?” Mrs. Malloy stood with arms folded as I sat back down. “If it’s not too much trouble, better use some of that carbon paper stuff so’s there’s a copy for both of us. I’ll go over mine when I get home. Should make for a nice read along with a cup of cocoa and a chip butty.”

“But I’m not typing this for us.” I began tapping away at the keys. “It’s for Mr. Jugg. You can read it to him if he telephones or, if you can’t get hold of him, put it away in a drawer until he gets back.”

“Did I say cocoa?” Mrs. Malloy’s musing voice drifted my way, “I meant to say another stiff bourbon. That’s what Milk would advise, and as you’re saying, we’ve got to keep him in the forefront as we get going on this case. Thrust into the thick of things through no fault of our own! A pity. But there it is. No rest for the wicked as the actress said to the bishop. You go ahead and forget I’m here, Mrs. H., I’ll just sit here and think about that girl Flossie and the brooch. I wonder just what sort she was really?”

“I really don’t care.” I rolled paper into the typewriter. “I’m sorry she was falsely accused of theft and it was tragic her dying so young, but her date of birth and vital statistics do not interest me. All this stuff about the deathbed curse is complete rubbish. A product of Lady Krumley’s guilty conscience. Aged family members die off without any unearthly interference.”

“But that old geezer going balloon riding?” Mrs. Malloy screwed up the empty packet of cigarettes and tossed it into the wastepaper basket.

“Uncle Dickie in the Channel Islands?” I found him in my notes. “It was bungee jumping.”

“Go on, correct me! The point is, Mrs. H., that’s not the way most people end their days at ninety or whatever he was.”

“The upper classes pride themselves on their eccentricities. True, it would have been safer for him to howl at the moon from the top of his tree house, but to each his own.”

“And then there was the kangaroo.”

“That got cousin Clement in Australia,” I continued pounding away at the keys. “Perhaps he failed to read the notice that said, ‘Please don’t feed the animals or pull their tails.’ And, Mrs. Malloy don’t bring up Aunt Theobalda who fell down the lift shaft. Accidents happen. As for the sister-in-law,” I typed in the name Mildred, “no one can make anything the least bit weird out of an old woman dying in her sleep.”

“In other words you don’t have an ounce of sympathy for poor Lady Krumley and her wanting to find this Ernestine person to try to make things right for what was done to her dear mum.” Mrs. Malloy went to sit down on the metal chair, but her glare caused it to panic and skid into the wall. “Well, I must say I’m shocked, Mrs. H., shocked to me very core! I don’t think I’ve felt this bad since me husband Leonard turned nasty and said I looked like I’d aged twenty years.”

“But you had,” I hit the carriage return. “He hadn’t seen you in all that time, after going down to the shops to get a pound and a half of stewing steak for the meat pudding you wanted to make and forgetting to come back. You weren’t all that thrilled if I remember rightly when he re-entered your life out of the blue”-I dabbed whiteout on a mis-typed word and looked up at her while waiting for it to dry-“just as Ernestine may not be especially thrilled at being hounded to ground. She’s probably living a nice, fulfilled life somewhere. Possibly with children of her own. Why does she need to know that her mother died spewing vengeance on the Krumley family?”

“You forgot to ask what happened to Ernest, the dad?” asked Mrs. M. at her most uppity.

“Clearly he wasn’t willing or able to take the baby, or she wouldn’t have been adopted.”

“If he wasn’t married to Flossie he might not have been given the chance, not back in them days. Could be he was fair broke up and would give anything to finally meet up with his daughter.”

“There is that. But it doesn’t sound as though he was helping her mother out much financially, if Flossie was struggling to make ends meet in the miserable bed-sitter her ladyship described. Although, to be fair, I don’t suppose under gardeners were paid more than a pittance in those days.” I sat back from the typewriter. The clatter I had been making on the keys had drowned out the patter of rain on the windows. It made for a mournful sound. I wasn’t as hard-hearted as Mrs. Malloy had claimed.