The Spring Cleaning Murders (32 page)

“Mrs. Large broke something connected with Jessica that day, didn’t she?” I took a deep breath and resisted clutching at the hall tree as Vienna’s eyes narrowed. “My guess is a plaster or marble bust. Madrid told me that the man who painted Jessica’s mainly did sculptures.”

“Plaster.” Vienna bent and picked up the silk scarf from the floor. “It was my sister’s most treasured possession, even more important to her than the portrait, because she said it captured Jessica’s soul. And when that oaf of a woman broke it, all she could say was that she was glad it wasn’t valuable—couldn’t be because the artist was still alive.”

“Mrs. Large said something similar when she broke a mirror at my house,” I said. “But even Jonas, to whom it belonged, wouldn’t have pushed her off a ladder. He might have been tempted, but he would have restrained himself.”

“Don’t criticize my sister!” Vienna yanked the scarf tight between powerful hands. “You can’t understand her. No one ever could but me. I didn’t even contemplate the thought of letting her confess what she had done. She couldn’t have dealt with the aftermath and I wasn’t about to let her pay the price.” Vienna took a couple of steps towards me. “It happened minutes—seconds—before the Hearthside Guild meeting was due to begin. Someone rang the bell as Madrid was explaining to me what had happened. I picked up the larger pieces of the bust and told Madrid to put them in the dustbin. I scattered the smaller pieces with fireplace ash and left the dustpan alongside, to look as though it had been disturbed in the fall. Then I answered the door.”

“Unflappable you! I should have realized at once that Mrs. Large would not leave a full dustpan on the floor before starting to dust the bookshelves. I’m sure the rules of the C.F.C.W.A. instruct that one job must always be completed before starting another. But I suppose you couldn’t risk going back into the study after people arrived in case someone saw you.”

“That wasn’t it!” Vienna studied me with mounting contempt. “I didn’t have a moment to spare. Every minute was taken up trying to calm Madrid down so she didn’t give the game away. My poor darling.”

“I think she did remarkably well.” I was trying not to look at the hall tree, because I was counting on giving it a shove when—if—I could catch Vienna off guard. “She had her wits sufficiently about her to tell me she was upset because it was the day Jessica had died. And being the fool you take me for”—attempting a smile—”I didn’t realize her story couldn’t have been true when you told me on my subsequent visit that Jessica had died on her third birthday. And the ruby she is wearing on her paw is the December birthstone.”

“A little too late to think yourself clever, isn’t it, Ellie?” Vienna’s smile was much better than mine.

“Speak for yourself!” I placed my hand--unobtrusively, I hoped—on the hall tree. “Oh, I’ll admit that you played your part very well, taking me into the study to make sure Mrs. Large’s body was found while the Hearthside Guild members were still in the house. Luckily for you and your sister, every one of the members except me had left the sitting room at one time or another for various reasons. Although I’m not so sure it really mattered. The police had no reason to think Mrs. Large was murdered.” I had forgotten I was still holding the black bow. The small token of mourning had become part of my hand.

“I tore that bow out of Trina’s hair when we were struggling and must have picked it up along with my scarf, which had slid off.” Vienna spoke in a conversational voice. “I didn’t do a perfect job. Just the best I knew how to save my sister. When Trina came in to clean after the funeral—her first time back since her holiday—she noticed that the bust was gone from the bookshelf in the study. Nothing got past Trina McKinnley. So I told her I had put it away because I was beginning to think that looking at it was not helping Madrid’s despondency. Unfortunately she realized I was lying when she found a piece of a paw that must have slid under the bookcase.”

I  stood looking at Vienna,  suddenly wondering if things might have worked out differently if Mrs. Nettle had been paying attention when Trina phoned her and had asked what Trina meant in saying, “It never rains but it pours pennies from heaven.” But there was no bringing Trina or her two C.F.C.W.A. colleagues back. I had to save myself, something I might not have needed to do if Freddy had followed instructions and come looking for me as we’d agreed. He was as feckless as he’d ever been. I was just working myself into a froth when Vienna caught me off guard by flinging the silk scarf over my head and, capitalizing on my few seconds of blindness, slammed me into the staircase wall.

I heard my head breaking into fragments just like Jessica’s bust and Mrs. Malloy’s china poodle before darkness dropped down over me like a blanket over a birdcage. “Stupid, stupid me!” I murmured before drifting away on a vast tide of nothingness. Although perhaps there was something: a vile and suffocating smell. What was it? Deciding that it mattered took a huge effort. My head throbbed and my eyes burned and I was curled up in a cramped heap on the floor. But it wasn’t the floor in the hall. I was in the pantry at Tall Chimneys. Or was I dreaming about the time I got trapped in there? I told myself that if I blinked a few times, I would wake up fully to find myself in my own bed at Merlin’s Court with Ben hovering over me, begging me to taste a mouthful of chicken soup.

Alas for happy endings, the noxious fumes told me this was all too real. Struggling to my feet, I cupped my hands around my mouth and after trying, and failing, to open the pantry door, endeavored to take in my surroundings. I could see the marble shelf by the light filtering through the high window. But the ones stacked with tins and boxes were blurred. I was just able to make out a bucket on a shelf a good five feet above my head. It was from that bucket that the overpowering smell was coming. I knew exactly what was in that bucket. A mixture of bleach and ammonia. Abigail’s book of household hints had contained a warning about working with such a combination—especially in a closed area. The fumes were toxic. Deadly.

My mind, if not my head, cleared as if by magic. It’s amazing what self-preservation can do. I was even able to get a grip on my terror. Force myself to think. There had to be a way out. If Vienna had left the key in the lock on the other side, I might be able to nudge it out with a splinter of wood torn off one of the shelves and pull it inside on a piece of paper slid under the door. After winding the raincoat belt around my nose and mouth I knelt down and peered into the keyhole. It was empty. Vienna had outfoxed me. There had to be another way. I told myself that I had the advantage of having been locked in here before. Nothing is ever as bad the second time around.

I remembered suddenly that Vienna had said—after she had rescued me the first time—that she had been meaning to do something about the pantry door’s sticking. Might I not reasonably assume that the problem had existed before she and Madrid moved into Tall Chimneys? In which case the woman who had lived here before might have had the same problem. The Lady in Black had been eccentric, but eccentricity is not the same as stupidity. If she’d ever found herself trapped in the pantry wasn’t it likely she would have kept a spare key in here? Indeed, my grandmother had kept a spare key above every door in her house.

Hands shaking, feeling more foggy by the moment, I reached above the door. It was there! While I was giving silent thanks to the Lady in Black, my shaky hand fitted the old iron key into the keyhole. At last I heard the grate of turning metal. Would the door stick this time? I shoved with all my considerable weight against it and finally it gave way with a disheartened groan.

I sat on the kitchen floor until I could breathe again. I was about to stagger to my feet and flee through the back door when Vienna appeared, no doubt to unlock the pantry door, so that my passing could be regretfully described as another ghastly accident.

Mustering all my strength, I got to my feet. “You don’t love your sister,” I said. “You don’t know the meaning of the word. You’re one of those people who need so desperately to be needed that you suck the life out of those closest to you. Clarice Whitcombe’s parents may have been selfish, they may have used her, but at least they allowed her to develop the capacity to function in the world. And my cousin Vanessa loved her baby enough to let her go when she wasn’t sure she was cut out to be a mother. But you are a monster. I’m sure you encourage Madrid to stay trapped in her grief—it’s your hold on her.”

Vienna came at me in a rush, rage distorting her face, and as we were about to collide, I dropped down, reached out with both hands, and gave her ankle as hard a tug as I could manage. Then I heard her body slam to the floor as my eyes closed.

Any day now the wallflowers would be out. And for me the appearance of those sweet, simple flowers with their heavenly scent have always proclaimed that summer has arrived. It was a Sunday afternoon, and Ben and I had taken the children into the garden so that Abbey and Tam could romp while Rose basked in the sunshine dappling down through the branches of the old copper beech. I still worried sometimes about loving this baby too much, but more often about not loving all three children enough.

In the end, I learned that it wasn’t Freddy’s fecklessness that kept him from rescuing me on that awful day. While Abbey had been crying because I was gone and Mrs. Malloy was preoccupied looking after Rose, Tam had disappeared. He had been hiding in the herb garden, hoping to give us all a good scare that would make us realize he was every bit as important to us as baby Rose. Perhaps he was remembering how glad I had been to find him safe the day he had disappeared from Clarice Whitcombe’s house. But now he had adjusted to having Rose with us and was my proud helper.

Jonas had joined us for a while, to potter among his beloved flower beds, but when the sun became too strong for his bald head he went inside to fetch his hat, which might be on a hook in the kitchen alcove, but was just as likely to be somewhere in his bedroom.

Mrs. Malloy had returned to her house in Herring Street, after staying at Merlin’s Court for a week to help get Rose settled in. But we didn’t get many opportunities to miss her, because she had decided I needed her at least three mornings a week. On the days when she didn’t come she would telephone at least twice to discuss ideas she had for more of Abigail’s Housecleaning Products.

Tom Tingle came quite often to garden with Jonas and Ben. Clarice Whitcombe and Brigadier Lester-Smith were now pursuing an open courtship. Sir Robert and Maureen Pomeroy had invited us over for tea one afternoon. They appeared to have rekindled their happiness, so I assumed he had forgiven her one lapse of honesty. No one talked much about the upcoming trials of the Miller sisters. But a large number of people in the village—including Clarice and Tom—now owned Norfolk terriers.

“Tam, get out of that tree before you fall,” I shouted up at my son just as Abbey came skipping up to me with a tiny toad cupped in her hands.

“Mummy, can he be my pet?”

“Darling, he wouldn’t like it indoors.” I still had one eye on Tam and another on Rose, who was stretching, stirring as if about to wake up.

“But Daddy said ...”

“That it was up to your mother.” Ben cupped his hand over his eyes to keep the sun out and smiled at me. “Remember, Abbey, I said Mummy would be the one who’d be landed with taking the animal to the vet, buying him a lead, and making sure there was always food in his bowl.”

“And I expect you also told her that if she kissed that toad it would turn into a prince.”

“Of course he didn’t.” Freddy came ambling across the grass to add his sixpenny-worth. “My friend here”— draping an arm around Ben’s shoulders—”wouldn’t want his pretty little daughter getting warts on her lips as well as her hands.”

“Yuck!” Abbey dropped the toad without a downward glance, and it had the sense to hop away when Tam jumped out of the tree without regard for the lives or limbs of anyone in his path.

“Tell them.” My son gave his sister a poke. “Tell Mummy and Daddy that you want a dog named Prince, not the stupid kind in fairy stories.”

“Oh, please! Please!” Abbey clasped her hands and lifted beseeching eyes heavenward, like a holy child experiencing a vision.

“We are not getting a dog.” Ben went on to ruin this authoritative statement by adding, “At least not today. I’ve got something even more fun in mind. Why don’t we get the kite off the shelf in the old stables and see how high we can fly it?”

This suggestion was enthusiastically received, as much by Freddy as by the children, and soon they were all industriously trying to unravel the string of the kite and entreating Daddy to please not take all day. Not wanting Jonas to miss the festivities, I checked on Rose, who was again sleeping comfortably, and smoothed a hand over her downy head before going back inside. I had picked up the repaired mirror the previous afternoon and had been hoping for the opportunity to slip into Jonas’s bedroom and hang it up. When I didn’t find him in the kitchen I knew that he must be upstairs, and I decided to take it up to him now. This way I would get to see his immediate reaction on having his mother’s long-ago present restored to him, I decided as I tucked it under my arm and tapped on his door. He didn’t answer my knock. I softly called his name.

“Jonas?”

No answer. Should I take the mirror back to the study? Or hang it, as originally planned? I hadn’t made up my mind when I went into the room. But the faded rectangle of rose-patterned wallpaper where the mirror previously hung had a particularly forlorn look today. So I crossed the floor, feeling as I always did that I was embarking on an obstacle course.

The mirror looked happy to be back where it belonged. Could it be that there was something magical about it, as Jonas had believed when he was a young boy? Certainly, I thought stepping back from it, the glass did seem to reflect sunlight in a special way. When I stood a little to the side with my eyes half closed, it showed the room bathed in a golden glow, and I could imagine that I was looking at a painting by one of the Dutch masters gifted in depicting homely scenes in such a way that an old man sleeping in a chair by the window acquired a dignity often denied lords and ladies.