“You was looking very peaky this afternoon when you went home,” Mrs. M. told me, “so after I sat for a bit and had a cup of tea, I said to George as how I would put on
me hat and coat and pop up to Merlin’s Court to see how you was doing. And a good thing I saw Mrs. Dovedale at the bus stop, or I’d have wasted a fare.”
“That’s very kind of you, Mrs. Malloy,” I said as we entered the room to find Sir Robert Pomeroy in conversation with Bunty Wiseman, deciding whether or not it would be appropriate to serve ginger biscuits on this occasion. Mrs. Dovedale accepted their congratulations on the nice job she had done of cleaning up after the ill-fated benefit. And I took the opportunity to tell Mrs. Malloy that I didn’t think she was looking particularly perky herself.
“Must be me new rouge,” she said. “I should have stuck to me usual Coral Reef instead of trying the one Vanessa recommended, not that I’m trying to suggest she was attempting to make me look old enough to be George’s mother. The girl’s been nice to me after her fashion, Mrs. H., and I do believe as how she loves my boy. So I’d just as soon you didn’t say a word to her about what’s been worrying me silly.”
“I knew there was something wrong!”
“I’m sure I’m working myself up over nothing.” Mrs. Malloy gave me a look that dared me to say otherwise. “It’s just that I can’t stop wondering if that fall Karisma took into the moat didn’t put him in a weakened state, so to speak. Meaning, Mrs. H., that he already had a crack in his noggin when that statue fell on him. You know what I’m getting at: My George could end up taking the blame, and visiting a son in prison has never been my idea of a good time.”
“You’re looking for trouble,” I told her even though I was thinking that she might be on to something. And, I’m ashamed to say, I latched on to the possibility with a feeling of relief. Dreadful as was the thought that Karisma had died as a result of suffering one blow to the head too many that day, it was preferable in my mind to the possibility that he was a victim of Hector Rigglesworth’s ghostly machinations. Or, even worse, had been murdered by someone I knew.
“Karisma fell into the moat because he misjudged his step,” I told Mrs. Malloy firmly. “No one could blame George for what happened.”
“Don’t you believe it, ducky!” She dabbed at her eyes with a hankie. “There’s millions of women out there who’ll be looking for a scapegoat when they hear about the death of their idol. And word will spread like measles that my boy was jealous of him because of Vanessa.” Mrs. Malloy drew a shaky breath. “There’s only one thing for it, we’ll have to plant the blame fair and square on someone else.”
I didn’t relish the way she was looking at me but, before anything else could be said, Eudora and Gladstone came into the room with Sylvia Babcock at their heels. No sign yet of Brigadier Lester-Smith, and I was wondering if he feared Mrs. Swabucher might be joining us, when Mr. Poucher appeared on the scene, wearing a black armband in deference, one would assume, to his mother’s passing.
“Just the man I want to see, what! what!” Sir Robert’s moustache bristled with authority as he strode forward with a hand extended. “If you’d be so good, my man, I and our fellow members of the Library League would appreciate the return of the coffeepot cord.”
“Here—take the dratted thing.” Mr. Poucher produced it from his raincoat pocket and stood with a scowl deepening the habitual gloom of his face. “I know what the pack of you are thinking. I’m not so daft I didn’t realize right off the bat as all that rubbish about an exorcism was just a way to get me here so I’d break down and confess. But it wasn’t me put that red mark on the dead man’s throat. I can swear on my mother’s grave”—a sour smile twisted his lips—“that I didn’t use this here cord to choke the life out of Karisma.”
“Of course you didn’t, dear.” Mrs. Dovedale spoke in her gentle voice. “I noticed that mark when he got here, same as you all did.”
Mrs. Malloy and I exchanged looks, but it was Eudora who staunchly proclaimed that there was absolutely no connection between the mark on Karisma’s throat and his death. Gladstone added kindly that he harboured no suspicions of Mr. Poucher. And Bunty piped in with the information that she had been too busy looking at other parts of Karisma’s anatomy to focus on his neck.
“Well, then”—Sir Robert assumed a more jocular expression—“I say we plug in the coffeepot and all have a
cup before we get going with the exorcism, what! what!” This suggestion met with mixed degrees of enthusiasm. Eudora smiled wanly at me as I took the bottle of holy water from my bag and handed it to her. Mrs. Malloy did brighten up when Sylvia Babcock sidled towards her and started up a conversation. But Bunty was not her usual sunshine self when she headed over to me.
“This is a rum go, Ellie.”
“I don’t know what to expect of an exorcism,” I agreed.
“That’s not what I meant.” She ran an agitated hand through her blond curls. “I heard what Mrs. Swabucher said about Karisma being murdered and I’ve got this awful feeling that my ex might have done it.”
“Lionel? But he’s a respected solicitor.”
“What difference does that make?” Bunty choked back a sob. “He’s still in love with me, don’t tell me he isn’t, because I know him like the back of my hand, and if he were here, I’d slap him silly for scaring me this way. He’s been nosing around ever since the divorce to see if I was knocking around with anyone else and, like a bloody fool, I had to go and tell him this afternoon when he showed up here that Karisma had fallen for me on sight like a ton of bricks.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Bunty,” I exclaimed, “you’re working yourself into a froth over nothing. Lionel isn’t a fool. He’d have known you were making that up.”
“Thanks a lot, chum.”
Trust Mrs. Malloy to come clattering on her high heels into our conversation. In a stage whisper that would have carried to the back row of a theatre she announced she knew how and why Karisma had croaked. Regrettably, before she could satisfy our avid curiosity, Sir Robert clanged on the coffeepot with a spoon and suggested that we all help ourselves to a spot of brew and, if the idea did not offend, make free of the ginger biscuits before taking our places around the table. “Or is an old duffer like me confusing an exorcism with a séance?”
Mrs. Dovedale, with a tender look, attempted to clarify matters for him by explaining that as she understood it, the point of an exorcism was to tell evil spirits to scram, whereas a séance invited them to pop in for a visit.
Gladstone had been seated at the table, knitting placidly. Now he said mildly, “Well, all I can hope is that should Hector Rigglesworth get the signals confused and show himself, he will at least exercise the good manners not to help himself to a couple of ginger biscuits. There are barely enough to go round as it is. I did mention to Eudora”—Gladstone smiled fondly at his wife—“that I was uncertain about the protocol of bringing a sponge cake to an exorcism, and she agreed with me that it would not do to make a social event out of the evening. Which is not to imply, Sir Robert”—needles still clicking along—“any criticism of your ginger biscuits.”
“They are not his biscuits.” Mrs. Dovedale’s face flushed becomingly as she spoke up on behalf of the man by her side. “The brigadier brought them a couple of meetings ago, and very nice of him too.”
“By the way,” I asked, “are we going to wait for him to arrive before we get started at casting Hector Rigglesworth into someplace beyond reach of library fines?”
“Honestly, I don’t think Brigadier Lester-Smith will be coming.” Bunty handed me a cup of coffee. “I think he’d feel funny about leaving Mrs. Swabucher.”
“You mean she’s staying with him?”
“That’s what I understood.” Bunty looked at Mrs. Dovedale, who nodded agreement.
“I thought she was staying at the Hollywood Hotel.” I was having a little trouble grasping this turn of events. “Mrs. Swabucher must have changed her mind after I spoke to her. But why on earth would she choose to go to Brigadier Lester-Smith’s lodgings?”
“I heard them talking,” Sylvia Babcock said from a corner of the room, where she had been standing as if oblivious to what was going on around her. “He was quite persistent in his invitation. It looked to me as if he wore the woman down in the end, and she was in a bad way to begin with, wasn’t she?”
“Wouldn’t it be lovely”—Mrs. Dovedale smiled up at Sir Robert—“if something good came out of this terrible business and two people ended up finding happiness in each other’s arms?” It wasn’t clear to me whom she was talking about, but being of a romantically susceptible nature, I found myself hoping that Mrs. Swabucher and the
brigadier might find the way, if not back to the golden days of their courtship, to somewhere equally heartwarming and magical. Surely, I thought, looking over at Gladstone in his grey cardigan, if this man could exist as Zinnia Parrish, author of the world’s steamiest romances, nothing was beyond the realm of possibility.
By the time I had gathered my wits about me, Sir Robert was closing the curtains, on the advice of Mrs. Dovedale, who said that as she remembered it from watching a program on the telly, the exorcist had to enter the world of darkness to wage war with the evil one on its own turf. As the room descended into dense shadow, everyone scrambled for a seat at the table and I was made aware that my companion to the right was Eudora only when her voice practically jumped into my right ear.
“My dear friends, in your names and my own I offer a prayer to our Heavenly Father that He look with favour upon all His servants and through the gift of His abiding love bring peace to the soul of Hector Rigglesworth.”
“That’s not going to scare off the bugger,” Mrs. Malloy muttered into my left ear. And the screech that came from the far end of the table did not emanate from Hector Rigglesworth, unless he had developed a feminine voice from living with all those daughters. My money was on Sylvia Babcock.
“How about trying the holy water, dear?” That was Gladstone speaking, and Eudora said that it was right in front of her if she could only find it.
“Ah, here it is!” Her voice sounded distinctly strained as she intoned, “Depart, Hector Rigglesworth, from this earthly domain, and leave the Chitterton Fells library to the service of its community.” This really wasn’t fair, I thought. Eudora might well find herself without a job should her bishop learn of this escapade. A splash of water landed on my cheek. Another squeal was heard from—now I was certain—Sylvia Babcock. And I gave way to a nervous start myself which was imitated by Mrs. Malloy as if we had previously choreographed the movement together.
A draft had swept in upon our backs in what I took to be a venomous rush and the darkness peeled back into
shadows that revealed pale globs of faces all staring towards the door.
“Is it him?” Mrs. Dovedale asked in a quaking voice that immediately drew the reassuring arm of Sir Robert around her shoulders.
“He’s come for
me
!” Sylvia rose up like a splash of moonlight from her chair. “He’s come to take me with him into hell because I murdered my husband for the insurance money.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, shut up, woman, do!” Mr. Poucher growled as he stumbled to his feet.
“I did it! I gave Albert saccharin tablets instead of the ones for his heart. It didn’t seem like murder what with him having one foot in the grave already. But I knew the devil was after me when he showed up disguised as that black dog. And he came back today to gloat in my face.” Sylvia was sobbing hysterically by the time Sir Robert and Mr. Poucher wrenched back the curtains so that the room lightened sufficiently to reveal a black-clad figure standing in the doorway.
“Good evening,” said Ione Tunbridge. “Forgive me for the interruption, but I did so enjoy my visit to the library and all the accompanying excitement that I decided I may have overindulged my taste for solitude. Thus I came back this evening to borrow a book and was told by that sweet little librarian that a meeting was being held in the reading room and I would certainly be welcomed with cries of delight were I to present myself in your midst.”
“A pleasure, madam.” Sir Robert strove to act the genial host.
“Now, don’t tell stories, you enchanting jackanapes!” Miss Tunbridge giggled archly and wagged a black crochet finger at him. “It is abundantly clear that I interrupted this lovely young woman’s woeful tale”—she fixed her black eyes on Sylvia, who was sobbing heartily—“before she had time to relate all the distressing details. Having committed murder myself, although only once—which I realize does not make me an expert—I do know that it is imperative to tell people what you have done. Otherwise you go through life burdened by a nasty secret.” She drifted over and placed her bony hands on either side of Sylvia’s face, effectively compressing a scream. “It doesn’t matter whether or
not you are believed, dear. The police don’t seem to have taken my story seriously. But that’s their problem, isn’t it, my sweet?”
“I told you she bumped him off!” Mrs. Malloy told me triumphantly as the babble of voices swamped the room. “Oh, I admit I thought Miss Tunbridge was telling tall tales—and I may have to rethink that one—but I was right on the button about Sylvia B. As a matter of fact, Mrs. H., that’s what I meant when I said I’d figured out how Karisma came to die. And you have to agree that it’s as plain as the nose on your face!”
“What is?”
“Come on.” Her elbow dug my ribs painfully. “Use the brains God gave you. Our Mrs. Babcock got in a right tizz thinking she’d been found out, so she bumped off Karisma to make it look like there was one of them serial killers on the loose. Are you listening to me, Mrs. H.?”
“Yes,” I said. The coldness in my voice astounded me.
“Well then, what’s to be done?”
“Someone will ring up the police.” I turned towards the door. “Sir Robert is taking charge tonight, so I think you can safely leave it up to him.”
“And where do you think you’re going?” Mrs. Malloy called after me as I hurried out into the corridor.
“To see a friend,” I called back, but she may not have heard me, because by that time I was halfway down the stairs.
It was chilly when I reached the street, and the shiver that wormed its way down my spine made me hesitate for a second or two under the lamppost. Perhaps I should have told Mrs. Malloy where I was going and that if I didn’t return within fifteen minutes, she should phone the police on my account. But if I’d done that, she would have insisted on coming with me. And I wouldn’t want that on the off chance there was any risk involved. The same was true of Ben, much as I wished I could turn and find him standing beside me. As for my ringing up the police station and spilling out my suspicions, there would have been no point in that. I knew, especially now that I played them over in my mind, that they were much too threadbare to constitute anything approaching legal evidence. But if I did
nothing, someone I knew might be in terrible danger without knowing it.