A pplying lipstick to quivering lips is beyond my limited makeup capabilities. After staring bleakly in the spotted mirror above the bathroom basin, I tossed aside the tube and dragged myself downstairs. I was sure I could put matters right with Ben, given ten minutes alone with him-not possible when he was in the final rush of preparing lunch, but hopefully very soon thereafter? The tense scene with him and Lord Belfrey had lowered my spirits, so that my banked-down missing of the children bubbled to the surface. It was not only their dear faces that I saw through a mist of tears… but Thumper’s also. And while I was sure that Tam, Abbey, and Rose were happy in the care of Gran and Grumpy, I had doubts that Thumper had been joyfully reunited with the Dawkinses. Rushing to open the dining-room door, I had trouble sticking a smile on my face. And really, why bother, when I would instantly have to switch to scowling at Georges?
There he was in his wheelchair, but so screened by crew and equipment that my glare was swallowed up in the tension that fogged the air. Lord Belfrey was seated at the head of the rectangular table with Mrs. Malloy to his immediate right, while Molly Duggan occupied the privileged position to the left. Alice Jones sat next to Mrs. Malloy. Livonia Mayberry had the chair next to Molly. Judy Nunn was at the foot of the table. What was to be made of that distinction?
His lordship rose to his feet at my arrival. This courtesy was accompanied by a general turning of heads and some scattered smiles, including a crack in Mrs. Malloy’s cement face. Impossible to believe Ben had not provided a superb meal, but she had the look of a woman whose insides had turned to stone, requiring serious drilling if ever to be put right. A growl from Georges might or might not have been a greeting. When it came to the crew, I was patently of no more interest than a crack in the timbered ceiling.
I had not previously been inside the dining room, and though like the library not excessively burdened with furniture, it had all the hallmarks of Mucklesfeld gloom. The dark oak paneling would not appear to have been polished in a hundred years. Curtain-sized cobwebs were the only window treatments for two narrow panels of grimy glass. The sideboard was hideously carved with mythical creatures that looked ready to come to life with a vengeance at the sound of a dropped fork. The massive rusty iron light fixture above the table-unlit, as were the several lamps scattered around the room-might have seen former service when the need arose to string up a clumsy footman. As for the dark oil paintings dotting the walls, even the most menacing family portraits, instilling the urge to put oneself up for immediate adoption, would have been preferable to those gory battle scenes and lamentable shipwrecks.
His lordship stepped aside to offer me his chair, then addressed a few gracefully kind words to the contestants and myself and left the room. Georges barked something, the crew murmured back. Only Alice Jones roused herself from staring at the frayed tablecloth to flick a glance their way. Feeling very much the intruder in the wake of such lackluster greetings, I consoled myself that I no longer felt blinded by the camera lights. Either I was adapting to their glare or had permanently lost the ability to blink. I waited for Mrs. Malloy to voice her delight that I had spared time from my unoccupied day to join them. Oh, how I relished the memory of her barbed affection before her foolish urge to marry into the nobility had put a dent the size of the Grand Canyon in our relationship. As the silence mounted, I yearned to whisk off on a magic carpet to the United States or any other outback of civilization that had never cottoned on to the notion of titles. What had I walked in on this time?
Mrs. Malloy failing to take pity on one less fortunate, I was grateful when Livonia suddenly and sweetly came to life. “Look,” she said, in her gentle voice, “it’s a strain for everyone trying to make the best possible impression on Lord Belfrey.” I doubted she included herself in this statement, but there was no doubting her sincerity. “Lunch has been so lovely-the food, I mean.” She smiled at me. “Why don’t we all make an effort to relax with each other and enjoy the pudding when it comes? Doesn’t that sound a good idea?”
“I always say sweet,” countered Mrs. Malloy, who did nothing of the sort. In any other company she would have been holding forth that a jam roly-poly was a pud, as was anyone of them fancy meringue things Mr. H was so fond of making. And don’t let the Queen herself say different.
“Really?” Molly, looking neither a swan nor a cobweb fairy but ordinary to the point of frumpishness, sounded uncertain yet eager to open herself to a different view of the world. “I always think of a toffee when someone mentions sweets. I’ve always loved toffees, but I can’t eat them now I wear dentures. Mummy will continue to say false teeth, which sounds so much worse. More… more dribbly, if you get what I mean.”
“Oh, I do,” exclaimed Livonia. “Can’t mothers be awful? Not Dr. Rowley’s, I don’t mean her,” delightful blush, “she sounds as though she was absolutely lovely. Perhaps the reason he hasn’t married is that he hasn’t found a woman to equal her. Of course, anyone the least bit nice would never try to compete with her late mother-in-law.”
“I’m not the least competitive,” Alice Jones of the abundant hair and home-woven clothes broke in. “That’s why I find the situation we are all in-other, that is, than Mrs. Haskell-so stressful. I know I should have anticipated being uncomfortable, but thinking about something isn’t the same as being thrust in at the deep end.”
“No, it isn’t,” agreed Livonia, “and I think your teeth are absolutely lovely.”
“Mine?” Alice looked delighted.
“Oh, yes, but I meant… also meant Molly’s.”
I heard myself say that everyone present had lovely teeth. How stupid could I sound? A diversion would have been welcome. Alas, the huge and rusty light fixture, so reminiscent of a medieval torture apparatus, did not begin swaying ominously overhead. Nor did the cutlery choose to leap out of a sideboard drawer and go skimming like unguided missiles through the air, as had reportedly happened at yesterday’s lunch. It seemed that, like Homer, Georges sometimes nodded.
“I know I haven’t been very chatty,” Judy spoke from the foot of the table, “but I’ve been thinking about the grounds.”
Mrs. Malloy folded her arms purposefully under her bosom and curled a damson lip. “You would be!” Honestly! Georges (I couldn’t bring myself to look his way) had to be lapping this up like double cream. The woman needed to be shoved under the table and her hand trodden on if she attempted to crawl out.
“How can you not be thrilled, Judy, by the repairs you’ve already made to the broken wall?” I rushed to say. “I understand you all got together this morning to plan what each of you will do to improve Mucklesfeld while you are here.”
“We did.” Alice Jones fingered the frayed edge of the tablecloth. “I said I would go through the linen cupboards. Plunket,” like a true mistress of Mucklesfeld Manor she forewent the Mr., “tells me there are ten of them, although Mrs. Foot said there were not more than seven.”
Mrs. Malloy stared at nothing, unless hopefully into her conscience. Livonia looked at her hands, but whether because she wasn’t deeply engaged by improvements at Mucklesfeld or was thinking of Tommy Rowley could only be a mind reader’s guess.
Alice tucked up a bundle of hair that had escaped from a large tortoiseshell comb. “However many cupboards there may really be, I hope to locate a sewing machine and repair as much of the linen as I can. It doesn’t match up to Judy and the wall, I know.” There was none of Mrs. Malloy’s rancor in her voice and Judy responded appreciatively.
“Kind of you to say, but we all do what we can. I can’t sew a stitch.”
“Same here,” said Molly. “Working in a supermarket isn’t my life’s dream,” no faltering or conscious look here, “but like I said this morning, I started out stocking shelves.” That must have thrilled Mother Knox. “Boring, unless you learn to take pride, and it taught me a thing about being quick to get organized. So I think I can help organize the furniture, at least to make better paths through it.”
“I could help you with that,” I offered, realizing with surprise that for several minutes now I had been unaware of Georges, crew, and moon-sized stare of the camera.
Livonia turned to me. “Oh, Ellie, you are kind. I said if it would help I’d make up inventories of what’s in each room. Being a bank teller isn’t the most exciting job in the world either, but you have to be quick and make sure you’re correct to the penny. The only difference is I’ll be adding up tables and chairs.” She beamed at me. “Could you also give us some ideas of what is and what isn’t valuable so I can make note of that, too?”
“I’ll tell you what I think.”
“That is nice.” Molly looked directly at me for the first time. There was nothing in her gaze beyond gratitude, nothing to suggest that she connected me in any way with the library.
“This is all well and good,” proclaimed Mrs. Malloy with a toss of her black head with its two inches of white roots and a heightening of rouge, “but what the place needs more than anything is a start on a good clean. From the looks of it, that’ll be left to Muggins here.”
Before offers of assistance in this nearly impossible endeavor could pour in, Mrs. Foot entered the dining room wheeling a trolley with one of Ben’s delectable chocolate orange gateaux ornamented with Chantilly cream, candied almonds, and marigold petals. Knowing it to be laced with Grand Marnier, my tongue melted at the sight. Behind her came Mr. Plunket, bearing a tarnished silver coffeepot. Creeping in last came Boris. A cheery raspberry pink short-sleeved shirt emphasized quite horribly his zombie appearance. That he carried a knife, admittedly a cake one, served to heighten the impression that he had been given his orders and would perform them in glassy-eyed fashion.
Mindful, one presumed, of the need to display aplomb worthy of the mistress of Mucklesfeld even when faced with having their throats cut, not one of the contestants squealed. Indeed, a smiling Judy complimented him on the shirt.
“Taken from a dead man.”
“Oh!” Livonia committed the solecism of turning pale.
Seizing the moment for additional points, Mrs. Malloy said in her best high falutin’ voice: “How frightfully nice of some… body,” capping off this bon mot with a posh-sounding chuckle.
Mrs. Foot placed the gateau on the very edge of the table, either unaware of the risk or daring it to attempt a flying leap so she could flatten it with a hand that outmatched it in size. “The word’s corpse.”
“So it is! So it is! Trust you, Mrs. Foot, to know the medical terminology.” Mr. Plunket chuckled appreciatively. “Comes from all her years as a ward maid,” he confided to the gathering, which at that moment decreased considerably with the clanging exit of Georges and the crew. “But to explain clearer, Boris didn’t himself take that there shirt of his off the bod… corpse. He got it from an undertaker acquaintance of ours. Amazed you’d be,” Mr. Plunket was now wending his way around the table with the coffeepot, missing more cups than he hit but not appearing to notice the sloshy saucers, “proper amazed at how many people don’t want the clothes back that their loved ones is brought in wearing. Isn’t that right, Mrs. Foot?”
“True as you, Mr. Plunket, and Boris is standing there looking so handsome. And not just clothes, neither. Tell the ladies, Boris.”
“Glass eyeballs and false teeth, too. Always got customers waiting for them has our friend.” The zombie voice would have produced a chill regardless of subject. As it was, Molly pressed a hand to her mouth. She had been correct in saying that the word dentures had a far less dribbly sound than false teeth.
“Nothing wrong with economizing is what I say.” Mrs. Foot took the knife from Boris and began hacking up the gateau, sprinkled liberally with gray hairs.
Mrs. Malloy drew on her better nature to pass Molly the first piece.
“The waste that’s going on out there in the kitchen makes my stomach turn.” The wiping of the blade on her grubby apron caused my insides to perform the same feat. “All that chocolate when a tablespoon of cocoa would have done just as well.”
What hadn’t been wasted on Mr. Plunket, I feared, was the Grand Marnier. I got a strong whiff of orange as he again paused at my side to tilt the empty coffeepot over my cup before weaving on to do the same for the others. But he managed to inform us steadily that the one exception to Mrs. Foot’s rules of economy was when it came to her tea making.
“Always a good strong cup.”
Sadly, his fondness for other beverages must have destroyed his taste buds. I exchanged glances with Mrs. Malloy and experienced a spurt of pleasure when her expression mirrored my thought. There would again be times when we thought as one.
“No one brews up better than Ma,” droned Boris.
“Now then,” Mrs. Foot stopped licking the knife blade (mercifully having finished passing round the portions) to give him and Mr. Plunket her broad, gap-toothed smile, “that’s enough about me, you two. Go to the stake for me, you would!”
“Isn’t that wonderful?” said Judy warmly.
“Oh, yes! Lovely!” Livonia laid down her dessert fork after raising it halfway to her lips.
“Nothing like true friends,” chimed in Alice.
“When they’re not being awkward.” Mrs. Malloy sailed a look over my head.
Molly ventured a closed-mouth smile.
“There was something I was meant to tell you ladies.” Mr. Plunket stood scratching at his face, when he didn’t miss it by a yard. “Now, what was it, Mrs. Foot? Do you remember, Boris? Never mind,” lowering a wobbly hand,” I’ve got it. His nibs asked me to tell you his cousin Miss Celia Belfrey will append… attend the archery contest. She sent word round just a few mim… minutes ago by Charlie Forester, who said he’ll be haffy… happy to…”
“Provide instruction? How very kind of him!” Poor Mr. Plunket, I had to rescue him before he stumbled over his tongue and fell flat on the floor. Presumably the same thought caused Mrs. Foot to grasp him by the elbow and airlift him out of the dining room with Boris lurching behind.
“He’s been at the booze!” Alice said, on the possibility, I supposed, that no one else had noticed.
“Ben will have done his best to keep it away from him.” I hoped I didn’t sound defensive. “But he’d have to turn his back sometimes. He may not have seen Mr. Plunket come into the kitchen…”
“No one could blame your husband.” Livonia’s blue eyes brimmed with sympathy. Was she swept up in a new understanding of the burning need to protect one’s beloved against even a hint of unjust criticism?
“Never knows who’s there or who isn’t, does Mr. H, when he’s in cookery heaven.” Mrs. Malloy sounded so much like her old self that I found myself relaxing on her account as well as Ben’s.
“Mr. Plunket seemed all right when he first came in,” said Molly, seemingly restored after the false teeth business.
“I don’t know a lot about drink, but Harold told me-he was always telling me things-that alcohol takes effect less slowly in people with severe post nasal drip. But,” she added cheerfully, “I’m beginning to think he wasn’t nearly as clever as he thought, except when it came to door and window handles, which was his job.”
Nobody asked who Harold was or the nature of his career in handles, either because Livonia had already explained him to the other contestants or because he sounded such a dreadful bore. Judy demonstrated a knack of knowing when to change the subject by bringing up the archery contest.
“I’d forgotten it’s set for tomorrow. I do hope Lord Belfrey is pleased his cousin seems willing to bury the hatchet at least for an afternoon. I don’t like to think we’ve put him in a difficult position.”
“If anyone’s up a tree, it’s me.” Alice speared a piece of gateau but didn’t attempt a bite. “I’ve never held a bow, let alone shot an arrow in my life. I know what will happen. My hair will fall down all over my face,” a poke at the recalcitrant tresses, “and I’ll shoot myself in the foot, or worse yet someone else in the eye.”
“Remember,” pointed out Judy, “this nice-sounding man Charlie Forester will be there to show those of us new to the sport what to do.”
“That’s right.” Molly, who had been looking twitchy, smoothed out.
“And Tommy… Dr. Rowley is coming,” said Livonia to her coffee cup.
“With an ambulance?” Alice, whom I was beginning to like, slumped theatrically back in her chair.
“Naturally some of you will be glad of the lessons.” Mrs. Malloy smoothed a hand down her majestic bosom and assumed a look of unconvincing modesty. “As for meself, I don’t claim to be an expert in the sport, but I do believe I’ve acquired sufficient knowledge to do Mrs. H, here, proud.”
I yearned to wipe the smug look off her face; instead, I forced myself to sound admiring. “How exactly have you come by this knowledge of archery?”
“And you asking me that, Mrs. H! As if you didn’t read that book by Doris McCrackle same as I did.”
“Perdition Hall?”
“’Course not! The Landcroft Legacy is what I’m talking about. Remember how when Semolina Gibbons was coming back across the moor-after visiting old Mrs. Weathervane, who wouldn’t tell what she knew about the body in the bog on account of her varicose veins putting her in a mood-someone shot an arrow at her…”
“Who?” Livonia was so intent, her elbow went into her cup.
“Unfortunately,” Mrs. Malloy was brought to the brink of a smile by the recollection, “Semolina couldn’t see who had tried to kill her, because of the mist that she didn’t want to admit to herself was really a fog, seeing as she’d promised the rector who had taken her into his household when he came upon her as a waif selling matches one dark and dismal night in a mean little street…”
“Oh, I love match girls!” Livonia’s eyes remained riveted on Mrs. Malloy’s face, even as she wiped off her elbow with her table napkin.
“So do I!” Molly was looking equally entranced.
“Certainly enterprising,” said Judy, after absently (it must be assumed) swallowing a forkful of gateau.
“The rector, as was named Reverend Goodhope-you’ll remember that, Mrs. H-couldn’t bring himself to buy any of Semolina’s matches because he disapproved of their use for lighting up pipes and cigars… cigarettes too, although I don’t remember him mentioning them. It’s a very politically correct book. All Doris McCrackle’s books are politically correct.”
“How did he light his fires?” Alice asked reasonably enough.
“With a flint box,” Mrs. Malloy said. “He was a very flinty gentleman, but kind in his way to Semolina. The reason he had made her promise never to go out in a fog was that his sister had left the house in a temper-no custard with the jam sponge was the trouble, I think-got caught in a pea souper, and never returned. Although,” Mrs. Malloy’s voice took on a sepulchral overtone, “her ghost was said be glimpsed in the avenue between the rectory and Landcroft Lodge. And there had been a number of other deaths before her; Doris McCrackle can’t never be accused of being stingy when it comes to the number of bodies.”
“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.”
“If anyone can find a secret exit, it’ll be Mrs. H here.” Even though my anger at Mrs. Malloy for bringing that gleam of tears into Judy’s eyes did not evaporate, I couldn’t help being touched by the pride in her voice. “Couldn’t put in a book all she knows about old places. Wouldn’t brag about it herself, she wouldn’t-modest to a fault, always was and always will be.”
This was laying it on too thick. Aware that attempting to sound self-deprecating would come off as self-satisfied, I kept silent.
“Glad for the silver lining,” said Alice. “Of course it’s too much to hope that Georges has supplied us with a torch.”
“Even if they aren’t remarkably scarce at Mucklesfeld, he wouldn’t make it that easy.”
“And to be fair to him, Ellie,” Judy’s voice came from close beside me, “it’s not to be expected that he would make things easier. A shame I’m not one wearing my hiking jacket; there’s a penlight in one of the pockets.”
A general murmur of resigned disappointment.
Molly spoke up. “I don’t know anything about secret passages and that sort of thing, but it doesn’t seem likely we’d find an opening on the window wall.”
“I don’t know all that much either,” I said in the direction of her voice. “Despite Mrs. Malloy is praise, I’m not an expert on houses the age of Mucklesfeld.” Answering snort. “Most of what I’ve gleaned-rightly or wrongly-comes from reading books of the sort written by Doris McCrackle. And in those fictional accounts the hidden opening is often found, after a great deal of tapping of the wainscoting, on one side or other of the fireplace.”
“There’s a lot of paneling,” said Molly, “but I didn’t notice a fireplace.”
“Well, I don’t suppose you would have done,” came Mrs. Malloy’s determinedly mellow rejoinder, “but it’s there on the back wall at the top of the table, closed off with a piece of metal sheeting.” Something I, the authority, hadn’t noticed.
Although not good in the dark (Ben might disagree), I managed to fumble my way without excessive bumping into furniture-hard-edged-or the other women-softer-edged-to the wall in question. A sharp yelp preceded Molly’s warning to be cautious of the metal fireplace covering. With considerable overlapping of hands, we proceeded to frisk the wainscoting. To be frank, I wasn’t entirely convinced we would locate a means of escape from the dining room other than the ones bolted against us. But just when I was thinking that past inhabitants of Mucklesfeld must have been a very dull, unimaginative lot, who hadn’t deserved the treat of being scared out of their wits by being forced to hide from the Roundheads or harbor a popish priest, someone bumped into me, causing my knee to jerk forward.
“Is whoever that was all right?” inquired Judy from somewhere to my right.
“Blissful,” I said, staring into an opening the size of a cupboard door, which though shadowy revealed the start of a passageway, suggesting that somewhere ahead was a window or even an exit. “Don’t anyone trample on me as we escape Georges’s clutches!”
Exuberant exclamations, cheers, and laughter exploded as I stepped forward. There was, however, nothing of a stampede in the surge behind me. The light neither brightened nor waned as we made our crocodile march down the narrow, timbered face fifteen or so feet before finding ourselves at the top of a stone stairway.
It was Judy who noticed the candlestick and box of matches. “A clue that we’re meant to go down,” she said, and to my relief Mrs. Malloy did not inform her that this was too obvious to bother mentioning.
“Oh, I do love clues,” said Molly from my immediate rear. “I’m actually enjoying this adventure.”
Judy lit the candle, put the matches in a hip pocket, and we began the downward procession.
“It is rather fun, isn’t it?” I could hear the smile in Livonia’s voice as we continued down, girded on both sides by walls that looked as though they had been around before Hadrian got busy doing his showing off. “Or maybe it’s just the relief of being out of the dining room, which I didn’t much like even before we got locked in.”
“New curtains could make a difference in there and everywhere else.” Alice also sounded chipper.
I thought of Witch Haven’s restful charm that could withstand Celia Belfrey’s personality. Cross as I might be with Mrs. Malloy, I couldn’t bear the thought of her living out her days at Mucklesfeld. Whatever was needed to restore both the structure and the spirit of the house could not be provided by even the most happily married couple, let alone two people brought together out of practicality or ambition. What the place needed was to be crammed as full of life as the hall and drawing room were currently full of furniture.
Having reached the bottom, we found ourselves in an empty cellar small enough to show itself reasonably clearly in the candlelight. No wine racks, filled or empty, no sprouting sacks of potatoes. The only thing to say for it was that it appeared dry-no lichen or mold on the walls. Indeed, the air smelled reasonably fresh. The faces of the other women seemed more clearly defined, more fleshed out than they had done in the dining room before the lights went out. I put that down to a reaction from the plunge into darkness, but then I felt the energy flowing from each of the contestants, with the exception of Mrs. Malloy, who suddenly looked all her sixty-some years.
Alice stood bundling her hair back up. “Georges and his crew have to be filming us through spy holes, otherwise where would be the fun for the viewing audience? May we all agree we’re showing the jokester that any one of us could deal with a crisis as Lady Belfrey?”
“Ellie found the way out of the dining room and she isn’t in the running,” Livonia reminded her.
Take that, Georges! You and your twisted hope of an uncontrollable passion arising between Lord Belfrey and a wedded woman!
“It’s not a bad cellar as such places go, but I’d love to get back out into the gardens.” Judy smiled ruefully. “Should we start prying apart the walls and floor?”
“Please don’t anyone think I’m pushing myself forward,” said Livonia at her most tentative, “but it seems to me that even without the candle we wouldn’t be in pitch dark, so there has to be a faint amount of light creeping in somehow, doesn’t there?”
“What if,” suggested Molly, who looked and sounded breezily confident, “those spy holes Alice mentioned are cracks between the stones in the wall? The ventilation they provide could explain why the cellar is dry.” Taking the candle from Judy, she paced left, then right-eyes shifting from walls to ceiling. “Maybe the cracks-even the widest of them-aren’t easy to see because they’re filmed over with cobwebs of the same gray as the stone. Except, of course, for the one being used to spy on us; that would likely be high up, even in the ceiling.”
“Knowing Georges, he would prefer looking down on us,” I said. “Also, he won’t want to be caught on the spot when we do manage to break out of here.”
“Okay, but even if there are cracks big enough to get our fingers into,” Mrs. Malloy stood a shade wobbly on her high heels and looking as though she’d have dearly liked to sit down and melt into the flagged floor, “how do they help us? Even if we could get a grip, stone’s not what you could call lightweight.” She and I share a gift for pointing out the obvious. “Unless,” she reenergized sufficiently to purse her lips and raise a black painted-on eyebrow, “a section of wall has been replaced with something made up to look just like the rest. You know, Mrs. H, one of them faux finishes you’re always going on about, now everyone’s wanting the insides of their semidetached to look like a Tuscan villa these days.”
“Work done in this case courtesy of Georges’s minions.” I nodded. “That secret panel in the dining room must have been mentioned to Georges as one of Mucklesfeld’s manifold charms, and he went from there. I remember now his mentioning to me, in his usual conceited way, earlier in the week, before the crew came on board, he ordered some stage work done.”
“What’s the betting we’re closing in on what he was boasting about?” Alice gave a comradely hug to Judy, who said that if she were Georges she would have camouflaged the removable section of wall with a thicker layer of cobwebs.
“Shall we start scouting?” Livonia turned to Molly, at which point we heard the faintest sound of organ music, so thready it was almost like someone humming, which reminded me of the dean’s butler in The Landcroft Legacy. I remembered how the evilsounding tune had drifted into Semolina’s ears when she was lost in the moorland fog. The onset of music from an unseen source can be one of the scariest sounds in the world, even… I reminded myself, even when knowing, almost a hundred percent, that it was being filtered into the cellar on the instructions of Georges, if he wasn’t rapaciously twiddling knobs himself.
We all looked at each other, before gathering closer together.
“It’s all right,” said Molly without a quaver. “All part of the fun.”
“I’m getting meself worked up to chuckle me head off!” said Mrs. Malloy.
“Perverted sense of fun,” amended Alice rather jerkily. “I’ve… never cared much for that tune. It’s so bouncily jolly… it’s creepy.”
What tune? The music swelled to fill the cellar, making it impossible for any one of us not to recognize “Here Comes the Bride.” Silly not to have instantly known from the organ. The tempo picked up to skipping speed, then slowed… deepened… scraped the bottom of a misery a dirge could not have found. I could picture it-St. Mary’s in the Dell so welcoming when I was there that morning, the veiled bride being dragged, clutching and moaning, toward the now sacrificial altar.
“I told you it’s a horrible tune.” Most of Alice’s voluminous hair had tumbled down and she made no move to pile it back up.
“Any music can be twisted around.” Molly moved up close to her.
“Georges is a pain in the neck,” said Judy in her mild voice, “but seeing he must want us to get out of here sometime today, I wouldn’t be surprised if he gave us a hint, by having the music come in loudest near the removable stone, if there is such a piece.”
“’Course the trouble is,” I could hear the effort Mrs. Malloy made not to sound irritably contradictory, “this isn’t no great big space. So the music’s bloomin’ loud everywhere.”
At that moment the music gentled down to the point of sleepiness… or death. There followed a rush over to various walls, a pressing of ears to stone, a narrowed riveting of the eyes. Within moments, Livonia, the formerly timid and repressed, let out a whoop of joy.
“I’ve found it-the section of wall that shifts! The tune was piping directly into my ear. Oh, these cobwebs on my hands! But it doesn’t matter… the gap’s big enough for me to get a good grip. Some of you come and help me. I don’t want to be knocked backward, even if it is only Styrofoam coming down on me.”
I wasn’t among the first to rush forward. To be honest, I was glued to the floor, stunned that what had been posed as a farfetched theory appeared to be on the money. Mrs. Malloy wasn’t speedy, either. In her case the problem seemed be aching feet, although I pretended not to notice because even though she had behaved so badly to Judy at lunch, she was my pal and, as she often says, if you don’t have your pride and an egg in the fridge, what do you have?
As she and I discovered on making up the rear, the fake portion of wall came out in easily controllable portions, leaving us facing a door-sized opening, beyond which according to Alice-the first to go through-was a passageway. Ubiquitous at Mucklesfeld. This turned out to be similar in size and length to the one leading from the dining room’s secret exit, though less shadowy, due to a good-sized window above a door to our right. Of recording devices or human activity there was no sign, suggesting that immediately before the wall came down there had been rapid flight. But there was no budging the door when Judy tried the handle.
“It has to open to the outdoors,” I said, “or there would be no sense to the passage, just as there has to be a way up to our left. Did anyone notice when the music stopped? Or were we all too focused on the wall?”
With hardly another word said, we headed in hope of the staircase which, unless it had been blocked up for the pure enjoyment of doing so by Belfreys past or Georges present, had to be there. It was, and even Mrs. Malloy was renewed sufficiently that she ceased to hobble. Indeed, as we mounted the steps-wooden ones this time, which somehow seemed encouraging-her high heels tapped out a beat that I suddenly realized made an accompaniment to a renewal of organ music. That same oh so merrily macabre tune I would never again hear without thinking of death and decay, which was what we came upon as we headed around a turn of the stairs. In the corner of the dusk-filled landing, in a sitting sprawl, was a hideously grinning skeleton, gowned as for a debutante’s ball in diaphanous chiffon.
“Well,” exclaimed Mrs. Malloy over the now insanely pounding “Here Comes the Bride,” “don’t anyone tell me that isn’t Eleanor Belfrey-murdered by the husband just like I said. Wonder what closet Georges found her in?”