The Spring Cleaning Murders (7 page)

The Millers didn’t live bang next door to Merlin’s Court, but it wasn’t far to their house, only a couple of turnings past Hawthorne Lane, where Clarice Whitcombe lived. I could easily have walked had not Jonas been with me. We took the old convertible, which for once behaved itself and got us to Tall Chimneys without dragging its wheels.

I had visited the house only once before, when an elderly eccentric known as the Lady in Black had been in residence. At that time the garden had been unkempt and a tangle of creeper had overhung the door, from which most of the varnish was gone. Now the bushes were clipped, the lawn was mowed, and tulips and daffodils added a splash of color to the flower beds. But as I lifted the heavy iron knocker, I shifted closer to Jonas. It was silly, but Tall Chimneys somehow reminded me of someone newly turned out in smart new clothes and flashing a freshly painted smile while still the same creepy person underneath.

When the knocker landed with more of a thud than I had intended, what sounded like a hundred and one dogs started barking. The Miller sisters had built kennels at the back of the house, where there was at least an acre of lawn and woodland. Those kennels had, according to Mrs. Malloy, cost the earth.

“What sort of dogs?” Jonas did not sound enthusiastic.

“Norfolk terriers,” I reminded him. He had refused to come out and meet Madrid Miller on her Sunday-afternoon visit; otherwise he would have known pretty much all there was to know about the breed. Over several cups of tea Madrid had taken Freddy and me step-by-step through the physical and personality traits that made for a good Norfolk. Interspersed with this scintillating lecture were anecdotes about the late much-lamented Jessica, who liked to wear pink bows on her hair during the week and lilac ones on Sundays and had a passion for liver a la something or other, which she insisted on having spoon-fed to her sitting up at the table wearing an embroidered bib.

“I never did take to doggy women,” sniped Jonas, his head sunk into the neck of his coat.

“That’s because you’re a cat man.” It was taking someone an awfully long time to answer the door, despite that thunderous knock. “I’m sure the Millers are very nice women,” I said firmly. “And I doubt they lured you over here under the pretext of having you look at that tree in the hopes that you’d marry one of them.”

“Don’t be so sure.” Jonas perked up a little. “I be a prime catch at my age, with one foot in the grave and my life savings tucked under the mattress.”

“You don’t have anything under the mattress except those schoolboy whodunits you’re afraid someone will catch you reading.” I smiled at him and he gave one of his rusty chuckles before sobering.

“Aye and that’s where I should’ve put that mirror afore Mrs. Large went plowing through my room in her seven-league boots.”

“I’ll get it fixed for you,” I promised. “Now, Jonas,” I began, “all you’re to do is look at the tree and advise them on what needs doing. Leave the pruning to someone else. I’m sure the sisters can afford to hire a man to do it.”

“You’d best knock again, Ellie girl,” he offered. “I don’t suppose God himself could hear n’owt first time around over the racket those dogs was making.”

I had my hand on knocker when the door was opened by Vienna Miller. Apologizing in a deep voice for keeping us waiting, she ushered us inside. There was nothing of the middle-aged nymph about this woman. Short and heavyset, with closely cropped hair and rather nice hazel eyes, she was completely different from her sister. No trace of the Bohemian in her dress, either. Slacks and a jumper, both of which were faded and fuzzy in places. Definitely a doggy sort of woman, I thought, trying not to look at Jonas.

“Ellie Haskell and Mr. Phipps! How good of you to come!” She bore us a little way down the narrow hall to a hat rack and clothes tree. “If you like to hang up your things, I’ll take you into the sitting room. I expect you’d like a cup of tea and biscuit, Mr. Phipps, before going outside to look at the apple tree?”

“Thank ye kindly, missus.” Jonas scuffed at his moustache with a finger, hiding part of his glower. “But I don’t take no pleasure out of sitting along a bunch of church people, all blithering about what hymns to sing of a Sunday. I’d sooner be outside talking stuff as makes sense with old Mother Nature. When I’m done looking at the tree, I’ll take a sit in your kitchen until Mrs. Haskell here is ready to go.”

“I prefer kitchens to sitting rooms myself,” Vienna Miller told him. She struck me, as she had on the few previous times I’d met her, as a pleasant, straightforward sort of person, but one who wouldn’t stand for much nonsense. The sort there would be no getting two biscuits out of if she had decided it would be one per cup of tea.

Madrid appeared suddenly in the hall. I didn’t see which door she’d come out of, but she looked harried. Her granny glasses were askew and her mouth was turned down, somehow emphasizing the jowls that didn’t go with the flowing brown hair.

“Vienna, there’s a problem.” Madrid paid no attention to Jonas or me. “You have to come at once.”

“Of course, dear, no need to panic. You know there’s nothing we can’t fix between us.” Vienna’s face softened and she spoke as one might to a child. “I’ll just show Mrs. Haskell into the sitting room and be right with you.” She opened a door, and taking my cue, I stepped inside. Clearly the scones were burning in the oven or possibly one of the Norfolk terrier bitches was in the process of giving birth. Watching Jonas stump down the hall after the sisters, I wondered if something about this house set the stage for melodrama.

The sitting room looked different from when the Lady in Black had lived at Tall Chimneys. The once-dark walls were now painted an off-white. The dingy net curtains were gone from the windows, letting in a view of the front garden. There was new furniture: a red carpet and a comfortable-looking sofa and chairs; a secretary desk and several sets of nesting tables. But what really caught my eye was the life-size portrait in an ornate gilt frame above the mantelpiece. It was of a Norfolk terrier with lilac bows in her hair and a shilling-sized red stone flashing on her left paw. Jessica, I presumed.

I was so busy looking at it that for a few seconds I rudely ignored the fact that several members of the Hearthside Guild were grouped in front of the fireplace like a bunch of candlesticks. Sir Robert Pomeroy, who was inclined to hold forth if given half a chance, was talking about the flower fund and how, if he were not very much mistaken, there had been a misappropriation of money. His wife—the former Maureen Dovedale being a new bride—was naturally paying close attention to his every syllable. Brigadier Lester-Smith appeared to be studying the design on the hearth rug. The fourth member of the group was Tom Tingle, who had moved to the village a couple of months previously. He was a gnome-like man with a large forehead accentuated by a receding hairline. He looked crabby. But being stuck with a name that made one sound like a storybook character who was three inches tall and lived among the hollyhocks could not be easy.

Finally Sir Robert drew breath and looked my way. He was a man well into his fifties, red-faced and bulldoggish in his country tweeds with a mustard-and-maroon cravat tucked into the neck of his shirt. “Come along, Ellie.” He waved a pudgy paw in my direction. “Doesn’t do to stand around like a lamppost, you know! We need your opinion on what should be done about the church secretary’s behavior.”

“But Miss Hardaway is in charge of the flower fund.” I looked from one face to another. “Isn’t she
supposed
to send a plant or a bunch of daffs when someone is ill?”

“Only when that someone is a faithful St. Anselm’s parishioner.” Sir Robert wagged a remonstrating finger. “She sent flowers to her cousin. A Mrs. Rogers who only comes to services at Christmas and Easter.”

“But, dear, the poor woman almost bled to death after a hysterectomy.” It was the baronet’s wife speaking. I had always liked her. A pleasant-looking woman with softly waving grey hair, blue eyes, and a strawberries-and-cream complexion, she looked as comfortable in her elegant lady-of-the-manor outfit as she had done standing behind the counter of her grocery shop on Market Street.

Brigadier Lester-Smith turned pink all the way to his forehead. His crinkly hair, perhaps because of the bright sunlight breaking through the windows, already looked redder than usual. Clearly he was afraid her ladyship might elaborate on Mrs. Rogers’s gynecological problems. There had always been something sweetly innocent about the man, making me wonder if even at age sixty he understood exactly where babies came from. He was now staring down at his shoes. Both were polished to their usual mirror gloss, but I was stunned to see that they weren’t a matched pair.

“The point is”—Sir Robert’s face puffed out like a blowfish—”Miss Hardaway had no business dipping into the flower fund to send that plant. You may all”—his eyes swept the group—”think me harsh, but I have
never
been able to abide anything that is sneaky, underhanded, or devious!” His voice was lost in a harsh buzzing sound coming from outside the house, commingled with a frenzied barking. After a minute or two the dogs quietened down, but the other noise continued.

“Are the Millers drilling for oil in their back garden?”

Tom Tingle cocked a gnome’s ear.

“It’s like having all my teeth drilled at once.” Lady Pomeroy attempted a smile.

“Someone’s using a chain saw,” supplied the brigadier.

“It’s Jonas,” I snapped. “They’ve got him pruning that tree.” I was angry enough to have stormed from the room, demanding that the Miller sisters explain why they had put Jonas to work when all they had supposedly wanted was advice on what branches to lop off. But suddenly there was silence. The room stopped vibrating. The brigadier wondered aloud without raising his voice what could be keeping the Misses Miller from joining us.

“I expect they’re busy in the kitchen,” said Lady Pomeroy. “You know how it is when you have people in for the first time. You want everything perfect, even down to the cherries on the cakes. Why don’t I go and see if I can lend a hand?” She had always struck me as a kindhearted woman, but I now wondered if Sir Robert’s spiel had upset her. Was she grasping at the chance to get out of the room and sort out her feelings?

For several minutes after Lady Pomeroy had left the room the remaining four of us chitchatted about Hearthside Guild matters. Sir Robert, restored to amiability—perhaps because he no longer felt the need to flex his masterful-man muscles for his wife’s benefit— expressed regret at the morning’s small turnout. We usually had twice today’s number present. He voiced the hope the Millers would not feel that they had opened up their home for no good purpose. Brigadier Lester-Smith put in the odd word now and then about holding youth-club meetings on the second rather than the third Thursday of the month, but he was clearly distracted. His eyes kept straying to the windows, with their view of the front garden and the path leading out to the wooded lane. Every time the dogs barked, which they did with unpleasant regularity, he would stiffen as if being told to hold his breath for a chest X-ray, and afterwards exhale slowly. Tom Tingle also appeared on edge, but this was explained when he announced with considerable urgency that he needed to “pay a visit.” I told him that if I remembered correctly, there was a bathroom directly at the top of the stairs.

“I had two cups of coffee before leaving home”—he scowled as if this were my fault—”so if you will excuse me.” The door clicked shut behind him.

“Odd little chap.” Sir Robert caught my eye and cleared his throat. “Mean that as a compliment, of course. Understand Tingle’s retired, from the family firm. Came down here for the peace and quiet, I suppose. Funny how people think nothing ever happens to rock the boat in a place like Chitterton Fells.”

The brigadier wasn’t listening, but I knew Sir Robert had to be reliving the day, not so very long ago, when his first wife was murdered. I’d heard it suggested he’d married Maureen Dovedale on the rebound. I hoped not, because she had been in love with him for years; she deserved some happiness after struggling to make a go of things following her late husband’s death. It pleased me, therefore, when Sir Robert checked the clock on the mantelpiece and pondered aloud whether his wife had got lost looking for the kitchen.

“No sense of direction, most women!” He was back to flexing those masculine muscles. Giving his cravat a tug, he ambled over to the door. “Better go and see what’s keeping the old girl. Definitely beginning to seem peculiar, our being left kicking our heels this long. Don’t suppose the Millers are trying to put out a grease fire? Or chasing down burglars? What! What!”

Left to ourselves, the brigadier and I settled into a couple of arm chairs. I remembered I hadn’t brought his raincoat, and uncharacteristically, he said that it didn’t matter. He had also left Ben’s behind. He returned to looking out of the window, while I fixed my eyes once again on the portrait of the Norfolk terrier. The expression in the eyes was soulful, almost saintly. Had it been painted after her untimely death, if indeed this was Jessica? I was wondering how her orphan puppies had fared when the door opened and Vienna came bustling into the room wheeling a wooden trolley crammed with a coffeepot, cups and saucers, and a couple of platefuls of scones and fruitcake. Behind her came Madrid, hands clasped and wearing the otherworldly look of a nun taking her morning constitutional in the convent grounds.

She flinched when Brigadier Lester-Smith got to his feet, as if shocked to find the room occupied. Her sister apologized for the delay without offering any explanation, and I wondered if the two of them had been having words about the problem Madrid had mentioned on my arrival. It most likely had been something extremely trivial, but Vienna had lost her temper. That strong jaw and firm mouth suggested a woman who didn’t mince words. And I could readily imagine her sister getting unhinged and having to be soothed back to coherence with a thimbleful of brandy.

“What happened to the others?” Vienna demanded in her deep voice, which tended to vibrate around the edges as if run on a motor implanted in her throat. She glanced from me to the brigadier. “Hope they didn’t give up and scoot off home. I’ve made enough scones for an army and we don’t want to be left with too many, do we, Madrid? Not when we’re both trying hard to watch our diets.”