The Widow's Club (47 page)

The sisters stood up. “Perfect, don’t you think?” one of them said.

I could see a couple of flaws in the plan. Ben didn’t
deserve this. And what if Sidney was something worse than a bigamist? But there were bound to be holes in any other ideas produced. I looked at the clock on the mantel. Ben and Poppa had been upstairs for nearly an hour. It was time to explore the dungeons.

The Tramwells and I positioned ourselves on the spot next to Rufus. Magdalene, her face pinched, was assigned to twist the bannister rung, Butler, to depress the alcove ledge and send us on our way. If either man left his bedroom while we were down below, Magdalene was to stall him.

On our marks. The floor dropped away and my insides leapt into my throat. No sound from the sisters. Had they died of fright? A shuttering sound overhead. Then nothing but sooty blackness sucking us down … and down.… A light burst on, splintering the dark into hundreds of stars, and once again there was solid ground under our feet. Either by error or design, Primrose’s hand had found the light switch. Was Abigail the one who installed electricity down here? I wished someone had installed an automatic air freshener.

“That was quite delightful.” Primrose smoothed her curls and took a step toward Hyacinth, who had proceeded through a gothic arch and down some shallow steps into the main stone chamber lined with cells, the kind whence the sheriff was forever tossing Robin Hood. Each had a tiny grill in its door, enabling the prisoner to look out upon the focal point of the room—the rack. On closer inspection, this proved to be a reproduction. The walls weren’t dripping and the chill was not unbearable. But the fustiness of the place lacked only the smell of hopelessness and fear. Hyacinth had one of the cell doors open and was urging Primrose and myself to come in and enjoy a peek.

Primitive but not punitive. I saw a narrow bed covered with a grey blanket riddled with moth holes, a stick table, and chair. Ideal sleeping quarters for guests who might otherwise have outstayed their welcome. Had such been Wilfred Grantham’s thinking? We looked into several other cells. A few had the same narrow beds, others were empty, but one contained two beds pushed together. A grimy crystal vase stood on a handsome smoker’s chest … exactly what I had been wanting for the study. The cell next to it had been fitted with all the accoutrements of a late nineteenth-century
bathroom, including an oak-encased water closet. Hyacinth had out the green notebook and was murmuring to herself as she scribbled. “Pillow, sheets, blankets, electric kettle, tinned foods, fizzy drink, books, gallons and gallons of water.”

“Ellie”—Primrose squeezed my shoulder—“I feel quite sanguine that Ben can be comfortable here.”

Comfortable! My professional instincts might have been the teensiest bit inflamed by the romantic possibilities of the place, but Ben’s claustrophobia would soon have him clawing the walls.

Hyacinth was looking upward. “No prison could be more secure. Not even the smallest window, only those pencil-like apertures close to the ceiling, which has to be fifteen feet up.” She grasped my elbow and propelled me to the exit. “Let us depart, confident that your dear husband has no chance of escape.”

It was going to work. A man at the complete mercy of his maniac wife.

Magdalene mashed into us as we stepped into the hall. “Someone is at the front door and I didn’t want to let whoever it is in, not with you still down there.” The floor slid into place. Butler penguined to the door and in swept Vanessa, all fox fur and gorgeous. What could be more propitious. Was fate beginning to smile?

“Ellie, darling! My, you look surprised! But when I phoned, I understood I would be welcome.” She peeled off a glove and swirled it around. “Oh, I see you have other guests, but”—she dismissed the Tramwells and Magdalene—“surely they can entertain themselves while you and I talk about Rowland.” Her eyes welled with tears, which may have been artificial but were nonetheless dazzling. “I want him, Ellie, and it is driving me insane that I can’t buy him the way I bought this coat or … the way you bought Ben. So you—my only wholesome acquaintance—are going to have to advise me how I can sluff on the sort of attributes that will make me irresistible to him.”

“You might,” I said, “start with doing me a favour, one that should cost you little and gain you a trip anywhere you wish to go and save many lives.”

“What kind of lives?”

“Male.”

“Well, in that case”—she tapped me on the cheek with her glove—“
how
can I refuse! Especially when it puts you right where I want you—in my debt.”

Somehow, I got through the rest of the evening. Ben and Poppa came downstairs seconds after Vanessa went out the front door. Butler made himself scarce. I discovered later he had gone to fetch the Tramwells’ overnight bags. The sisters made rustling noises to the effect that they must be leaving. But Magdalene and I urged them to stay for dinner. The more voices, the more faces, the more hers and mine could get lost in the crowd. Ben was in excellent spirits. He was convinced the Hearthside Guild would never ask him to demonstrate again. His headache was gone, his burns superficial, and his hand kept touching my thigh under the table. Does chloroform have aphrodisiac aftereffects? Between dessert and coffee he came up with an excuse to lure me into the kitchen.

“Your friends are charmingly odd”—he drew me into his arms—“but let’s not encourage them to stay late. I’d like an early night. And perhaps we can take a bottle of champagne up with us to celebrate being alive.”

I dreaded going to bed. How could I lie beside him, knowing that in the morning I would send him hurtling into darkness? How long would it take him in his panic to find the light switch? What if his hair turned white within hours?

“I … I don’t know about the champagne, Ben. I think I am catching your headache.”

“You poor darling. You had a rotten scare this afternoon, didn’t you? And Mum seems a bit off, too. She’s back to hardly talking to Poppa.”

When we returned to the table, Primrose brought out her ornamental brandy flask and demurely asked the gentlemen if they would take a drop in their coffee. They accepted, and while I was wondering why the ladies were excluded, both men flopped forward, their noses landing in their cups.

“Just a very mild sleeping agent, made entirely from the gifts of Mother Nature,” Primrose assured us.

“I think you have overstepped yourself this time.” I glared at her over the top of Ben’s head as I struggled to hoist him up.

“It does look that way, doesn’t it, my dear, but how could we get the dungeons all nice and cosy for Bentley, if he or his father are liable to descend the stairs at any minute?”

“Miss Primrose Tramwell is absolutely right, Giselle,” said Magdalene as Butler appeared and lifted up Eli like a rug.

“Which bedroom, Madam?”

Magdalene said she would show him; they were gone no more than five minutes, then it was Ben’s turn.

“Giselle,” came Magdalene’s voice; I couldn’t see her because my eyes were a bit messed up. “Giselle, I have prayed and reached a decision; Eli must go into the dungeon with Ben.”

“Oh, yes!” I turned and hugged her so tightly I almost toppled us. “What a brilliant idea!”

We were all soon engaged in a flurry of activity. Ann had been murdered with such alacrity that we hoped I would not be kept waiting above a couple of days, but we wanted to be sure we provided enough provisions for Ben and Eli’s imprisonment. While Butler was making one of his bucket-of-water trips, I unearthed an electric frying pan. Ben had to be able to cook.

“And what of razors and soap?” whispered Primrose. “I always think bearded gentlemen rather winsome, but I believe their morale remains higher if they can shave. And”—she dropped her voice—“don’t forget fresh unmentionables.”

I selected several books which I thought Ben had not read, including the Edwin Digby novels that I had not returned to Roxie. I was about to make a descent with them when I noticed Hyacinth’s green notebook lying on the table. An idea broke into my mind, and I found her in the kitchen.

“Hyacinth, this journal provides a detail-by-detail account of your investigation, isn’t that so?”

“Correct; it is a useful tool and one which I hope may one day become part of Primrose’s and my memoirs.”

“Let me leave it in the dungeon for Ben to read. I am going to write him a letter, but—”

Hyacinth put down the biscuit tin she had been holding and pressed her hands over mine. “Absolutely! Flowers
Detection cannot properly thank you for what you are doing, but anything we can do to make things easier is done.”

At last everything was in readiness. Two of the beds had been stripped and made sleepworthy with fluffy rose blankets and fat pillows. Now it was a matter of waiting for morning. Butler at dawn did offer to carry the drugged men downstairs and put them in the dungeons, but I wasn’t utterly hardened; I couldn’t have those sleepyheads wake to find themselves imprisoned. I’m a hands-on type. As my mother used to say, if a dirty deed’s worth doing, do it well. Magdalene and I left the Tramwells and Butler in the drawing room to go upstairs.

“Ben, wake up! I have something you must see! A big surprise!” I had no trouble gibbering. I did have some trouble getting him to dress before coming downstairs.

“Why can’t I wear my dressing gown?” His hair was rumpled, his face flushed like a sleepy child’s. I wound my arms around him, clinging long enough to almost lose my nerve.

“All will be explained later.”

“Oh, all right. But if this isn’t something ultra special, you won’t be my favourite wife anymore.” He shook his head. “Must have been out of it last night. Don’t remember getting into bed.”

Magdalene also had some problems with Poppa, this being the first time she had entered his bedroom at Merlin’s Court; but the four of us arrived in the hall on the heels of each other.

“Very good, now you two stand over there,” I ordered. “That’s right, next to Rufus. Close your eyes, close your mouths, and don’t move.”

“What is this? You have some hidden cameras?” Poppa straightened his bald spot. Ben shrugged, then grinned and spread his hands. Magdalene twisted the bannister rung, I depressed the alcove ledge … and the earth swallowed them up. Cries of horror included.

“Now, my dears, I know this is extremely hard on both of you”—Primrose pried my hands away from my ears—“so, Ellie, the sooner you telephone Mrs. Bottomly and get the chess pieces set up, enabling The Founder to make a move to murder you, the better.”

Hyacinth frowned at her, then said brightly to me: “Have no fear that we will let anything of a final nature happen to you, my dear. We will remain in the house with you day and night, always at the ready.”

Primrose settled Magdalene in a chair. “Rest assured, the presence of two seemingly”—a smile—“frail old ladies won’t do anything to scare off a determined assailant. Also, we are not big eaters and do all our own hand laundry.”

“And I shall h’endeavour to be of assistance in every way possible, madam.” Butler picked up the handkerchief that had fluttered from my mother-in-law’s hands.

I would need friends during this waiting period and later—when I was alone in the world. Staring at the phone on the trestle table, I thought, damn it, I am being selfish. Every minute wasted is a minute longer that Ben and Poppa are trapped in that hole. As my hand reached for the receiver, the phone rang. It was Bunty asking how Ben was faring after the accident.

“Fine.”

“What did the police have to say for themselves? Cripes, Ellie, wasn’t that detective a slug!”

“What?… Oh, yes.” Amazing to think that the Raincoat Man had become an appendix. “Bunty, I’m sorry but I’m a bit short on time.” The sisters were signalling frantically to me.

“Hold your horses,” sang Bunty. “Just wanted to let you know there’s a Follies rehearsal on Monday morning at eleven o’clock. You must be there because we will concentrate on your cake scene. Ellie, you’re breathing awfully funny. Is something wrong?”

I finally read the sisters’ mouths. “I’m feeling … I don’t know what I’m feeling.” A sob filled my voice. “Ben has … left. It may only be … temporary, but I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Marvellous!” Hyacinth enthused as I hung up. “No better way to fan gossip than to refuse to discuss something.” She then dialed Mrs. Bottomly’s number when my fingers refused to do the job, and wrapped my fingers around the phone.

“Amelia?” My voice sounded diabolically casual. “This is Ellie Haskell.”

“Oh, what a pleasure!” I heard an edge of uncertainty in her voice.

“Don’t worry,” I soothed. “I’m not ringing to complain about yesterday, but wasn’t it infuriating—that detective barging in just as things were looking so serendipitous?”

Her gust of relief almost blew me over. “What a splendidly understanding girl you are. Tell me, what can I do for you?”

“You can cross Ben off your list of husbands-in-waiting, I’m afraid. He’s spoiled everything by leaving me, never to return, so his note says. He’s asked me to send his clothes to Alaska.”

“Good gracious, how frustrating!” A tremendous vibration as Mrs. Bottomly plonked herself in a chair. “And to think we had it all set to have him go out with a bang!”

“Yes, but I have learned a lot from this miserable misalliance.” I paused to get my breathing under control. “What I should have done was to marry Rowland Foxworth.”

“Indeed you should, my dear!” Vast, sentimental sigh.

“And I still can, can’t I?” My voice slid into a blend of petulance and hope. “The only problem is my cousin Vanessa. She seems to have got darling Rowland infatuated, but if she were out of the way permanently, as in—”

“Mrs. Haskell, I cannot listen to such nonsense!” The receiver vibrated in my hand. “You can’t realise what you are saying!”

“Certainly I do. I want Vanessa done in. What’s the big deal? I’ve paid my dues, and I don’t want a refund; all I want is my money’s worth. If I don’t get it, I may say some things to the police that—” But the line was dead. Mrs. Bottomly had hung up.

Now the hardcore waiting began. We all avoided the hall because of the sounds we imagined below. A bitter pill to swallow was when Freddy pushed open the garden door as if nothing had changed.