Dorothy Cannell - She Shoots to Conquer

“Corpses,” Alice corrected naughtily.

Mrs. Malloy waved a dismissive hand. “Semolina briefly suspected the dean’s butler, but he had led a blameless life, unless you’d call giving innocent young girls tours of the Deanery pantries, with particular emphasis on the bottled fruit, wicked.”

“Oh, I do love Deaneries,” exclaimed Livonia. “They’re so Trollope!”

“Splendid author,” said Judy, “although perhaps rather too focused on the indoors. A little more about herbaceous borders and potting soil would…”

“Interestingly,” Mrs. Malloy placed unnecessary emphasis on the word, “all the deceased women had spoken fluent Flemish. As did Semolina’s mother that was Belgian before the consumption took her.”

“I never have time to read anything but shelving manuals,” Molly said from the edge of her seat.

Mrs. Malloy rewarded her with a magnanimous nod. “ ’Course The villain didn’t always stick to the same weapon. Variety gave him his thrill, the nasty bugger! He’d been bullied as a boy, you see, by being called a stick-in-the-mud. But he did like bows and arrows best.”

“Surely not the rector!” Alice gamely took part. “His own sister added to the laundry list!”

“That’s what we was supposed to suspect, either him or Sir Lucimus Landcroft as had dared to love Semolina despite his twitchy left eye and nasty allergy to red vegetables. It was his new undergardener as had the bad speech impediment-only that turned out to be put on because he was really Inspector Smith from Scotland Yard as solved the crime. There’d been a second attack on Semolina, you see, and the inspector explained, without a hint of a stammer, that even an experienced archer can miss if he tenses up and releases the arrow too soon.”

Mrs. Malloy drew up straighter, expanding her majestic bosom. Only the orb and scepter were lacking. “It is the memory of Inspector Smith’s detailed explanation-at least eight pages, of what an archer should and shouldn’t do-as makes me confident that, all modesty aside, I won’t show meself up in tomorrow’s competition.”

Modesty was several miles down the road.

“But must it be won? Why can’t we all go out and enjoy ourselves?” Judy looked down the table.

“Because, like it or not,” retorted a tight-mouthed Mrs. Malloy, “everyone for themselves is the nature of a competition!”

And I had thought for a brief, flickering glimmer that she was coming back into her own! Full of herself, long-winded, but able to capture the interest of most of her listeners. Now, as sure as she had a hundred pairs of shoes, she was going to blow any gained goodwill. Then again-hope reared its foolish head-maybe not.

“It was a lovely story.” Molly’s look of beholding some distant vision suggested she might have missed Mrs. Malloy’s biting comment. “I can picture it made into a breathtaking ballet; the murder parts set to Beethoven’s Fifth, and the scenes at the Deanery to Handel, with interspersions of Wagner, Chopin, and Liszt.”

“Not Wagner, if you don’t mind my saying so, Molly,” demurred Livonia with utmost seriousness. “Not because of his music, but I don’t think he was a very nice man. I picture him as much more like Harold than Tommy… Rowley, for… just one vague example.”

“I don’t like the bally, in fact,” Mrs. Malloy added a self-congratulatory chuckle, “I think it’s bally awful.”

Nobody could have missed that one. Before Molly’s face had finished crumbling, and before Alice could get her mouth more than a third open, Judy said, with an obvious attempt at keeping a grip on her temper, that it was always a matter of each to his or-this case her-own opinion.

“So, what’s your idea of enjoying yourself, Miss Candidate for Sainthood?” Mrs. Malloy’s defiant attempt at a laugh came out as a snort, quite unfitting a future mistress of Mucklesfeld. “Would it be thinking you’ve already won Lord Belfrey’s heart with your looks and charm? A shame you’re not tall enough to look in a mirror once in ten years!”

The ensuing silence was the loudest I had ever heard. A pinched-faced Judy made no reply, but the gleam of tears in her eyes spoke paragraphs. No one else said peep, fearing perhaps, as I did, that to say anything would only make matters worse. If I could have produced a clap of thunder to startle Mrs. Malloy back to sense-demonstrated by a crawling, sniveling apology-I would have done so. As it was, I would have to wait until I got her alone. Or so I thought for the second and a half before a deafening crash of what sounded like vast wooden cymbals blasted us all back in our chairs, followed by an immediate plunge into darkness. A higher power at work? But just how much higher? Even in my shattered, trembling state, I couldn’t help thinking that Georges had been remarkably quiescent during this gathering. Had he just made up for such restraint with a bang?

Judy’s voice pierced the blackness. “That sounded to me like exterior shutters being clapped shut outside. There weren’t any at these windows when I was walking around that side of the house this morning, but it wouldn’t have taken any time even for one person to install them.”

“’Course not.” The meek voice sounded vaguely like Mrs. Malloy’s. Too little too late, I feared, to put her instantly back in anyone’s good books, but at least she wasn’t (as yet) ratcheting up the tension. “It could have been done right before lunch; no one was likely to go outdoors when waiting for the gong to bong, so to speak.”

“There aren’t any shutters at any of the windows.” This sounded like Livonia. “It isn’t the house for them, is it? I mean, it’s not a villa in the South of France or that type of place.”

“I’ll feel my way over to the door and try for a light switch.” That was Alice. As with Judy’s, her voice was instantly recognizable. A scraping back of chairs, followed by some blundering into one another (the dark truly was impenetrable), and then Alice again. “I’ve found it.” Minuscule pause. “Nothing! The power’s off, at least in here.”

“That Georges!” Judy sounded back to her bracing self. “No one can accuse him of not doing things in style. Have you tried the door handle?”

“Won’t turn.”

“Could I try?” Livonia offered. “One thing I got out of my relationship with Harold were a few, supposedly top secret company tricks on how to wiggle a lock. If someone would pass me a knife… Oh, thanks, whoever you are! A butter one, that’s perfect!”

Hope flamed… flickered… ebbed and died.

“Sorry. It has to be bolted on the outside. Harold didn’t have any solutions to that one.”

“Good try, Livonia,” said Judy. Echoes of agreement rose and fell.

“Well,” Mrs. Malloy said (perhaps a little less puffily than usual), “like Wisteria Whitworth exclaimed when the padded cell door closed on her…”

“Who?” several voices inquired.

“Another of Doris McCrackle’s heroines,” I supplied. “On that occasion she told herself there was no reason to panic and absolutely no use in screaming because no one would hear her. We’ll be heard, but no one will come because they’ll be under orders not to interfere. Even my husband will feel compelled to stuff his fingers in his ears. Luckily, unlike Wisteria, we aren’t dealing with reality-except in the silly sense of the word. This is a game. Another of Georges’s wacky challenges to see if the five of you can display steel under pressure. Meaning there has to be a way out of here. You just have to find it.”

“But you’ll help, won’t you, Ellie?” said Livonia steadily. “Perhaps your being here is Georges’s way of giving us a bonus card. You have a professional understanding of houses.”