A Monstrous Regiment of Women (22 page)

“I’ll take it.”

“You will? That is to say, I’m glad you like it. There are also servants’ quarters available, in the basement.”

“I’ll take them, too. You said this relative of yours can cook?”

“Oh yes, mum. Miss.”

Glutinous puds and watery vegetables. Well, no doubt I should be taking my meals in restaurants a great deal.

“Fine. I’ll sign the lease papers now, if you can find the representative, and then perhaps you’d send someone to the Vicissitude for my things.”

“Certainly.”

The servant question was settled as easily, when Freddy Bell’s second cousin and her husband turned out to be a quiet, intelligent pair whose former employer had suddenly moved out to India, where servants are cheap, if maddening. Freddy and my new butler made several trips to the Vicissitude for my newly acquired finery and knickknacks while my maid-housekeeper investigated her new quarters downstairs.

While the two men were away on a trip, I prowled my new, if temporary, home, somewhat overwhelmed at the speed that is possible with the phrase “Cost is no object.”

One of the few and, I hasten to add, completely inadvertent advantages given me by being under my aunt’s care for the past six years was that I had come out of it quite unspoilt by money. My allowances were so small as to be miserly, and my pride kept me from appealing to the executors of the estate to remedy the situation of a wealthy young woman kept in penury. Although I knew that in theory I was probably one of the wealthiest women in Sussex, in practice I accepted that I had less pocket money than the butcher’s daughter.

The only time I had escaped these fetters was the day two years earlier when, with a purse fat with notes borrowed from Holmes, I had indulged in a perfectly glorious orgy of shopping. On a much larger scale, today’s profligacy had brought the same pleasure.

My rôle in the Temple investigation would be built upon the foundation I had already laid. My stunningly generous donation to the lending-library fund, my jumble-sale clothing replaced by couture would be followed by the entrance of the heiress come fully into her inheritance. By now, Margery would have seen the notice in
The Times
of the estate settled on one Mary Russell of Sussex. She would use me as her tutor, yes, but she would also woo me.

I had been standing for some time at the sheets of glass that formed the front of the flat, looking down through the bare branches of the young plane trees at the passersby, when the taxi drew up for its final time into the illuminated patch of wet paving stones below my window. Freddy got out and bent to take up an armful of parcels, and suddenly, shockingly, for a brief instant I was back on another street two years before, looking into a horsecab at the mangled, malicously shredded remains of the clothing I had so happily bought during the day. Freddy crossed the pavement and disappeared beneath my feet. I shivered briefly at the inexplicably ominous feel of the night outside, closed the curtains, and went to let him in.

I slept that night in a costly flat, my wall cupboards bursting with ridiculously expensive clothing, my ludicrously vast bed emanating the ghostly presence of a man’s cigars and a woman’s perfume, my new walls all but bare, my bath bereft of towels or soap, my kitchen stripped to the dish-washing soap.

The entire game was marvellously entertaining.

My new servants were named Quimby. I called them Q and Mrs Q, and I have no idea how they looked upon such flighty familiarity, because I never enquired. I had asked them to be in the kitchen at nine, and they were. I plunked down in a chair at the tiny table and waved them to the other chairs. They looked at each other and went gingerly to place their backsides on the very edges of their seats.

“Very well,” I began. “No doubt you’ve already guessed that I really haven’t the foggiest what to do with you two. I’m twenty-one, I’ve just inherited a packet, and I decided to find out what might be done with it. It’s no good pretending I’m used to a formal household; I’ve never had a ladies’ maid, a chauffeur, or a butler, so I’m sure to step on your toes a dozen times a day, answering the telephone, picking up the mail, fixing myself a meal—everything I’m not s’posed to do. I’ll drive you potty. If you’re willing to put up with me, I’m willing to give it a try. What do you say?”

None of that was absolutely true, but it fit the image and laid a basis for my future behaviour, which was to do whatever I damn well pleased, and not to be ruled by my servants. They looked at each other again, then Mrs Q stood up and began to unpack the large basket she had brought with her, which I was pleased to see included coffee, and Q eased back a fraction in his chair.

“It suits us, miss.”

“Grand. I’m sure we’ll muddle along somehow. Now, first things first. Mrs Q, we need food. Fortnum and Mason knows me; just tell them I’m here instead of Sussex. Q, do you know a decent wine and spirits merchant?”

“Indeed, miss.”

“Lay in whatever people like. Mixings for cocktails. You mix cocktails?”

“I do, miss.”

“Yes, I know, it’s a disgusting habit, but what can we do— people like them. And Q, if you’d rather wear a lounge suit, I don’t mind.”

For the first time, he looked disturbed, looked, indeed, as if I’d asked him to serve in a bathing costume.

“That will not be necessary, miss.”

“You see?” I said, and saw in his eyes that he knew instantly what I was referring to. Perhaps this was going to work, after all. “I have a hundred things to do today. I won’t take breakfast, but some of that coffee would be superb. I like it strong, by the way, with milk first thing in the morning but otherwise black. No sugar.”

“I’ll bring it in to you, miss,” said Mrs Q. “Shall I draw your bath first and help you dress?”

“I think I can just manage that today, thanks, and I’m sure you must have better things to do. Sometimes, though—do you do hair?”

“I started as a ladies’ maid, miss, before I married. I don’t know as how I’d be much of an expert with the short hair so many wear these days, but yours I can do, however you like.”

“A woman of many talents. And Mr Bell said you cook?”

“Not what you’d call haute cuisine, miss, but I’ve produced the occasional formal meal in my day. In fact, the Vicerene of India asked for a recipe.”

“Did she now? That’s very good to know. I shan’t be giving any formal meals for a while, though, so perhaps today you’d take care of getting the place running. Towels and things?” I spent a few more minutes explaining my preference in colours, my dislike of floral scents, and my convoluted dietary restrictions (I do not eat pork, if given the choice, nor shellfish, nor cream sauces on meat, nor half a dozen other things). We decided also that I was more apt to be out for meals than in, and if she had on hand the makings for omelettes and the like, I should be satisfied. I then sent Q out to hire whatever car he thought appropriate (which responsibility made him glow with a quiet ecstasy) and Mrs Q to buy the mountains of paraphernalia necessary for the establishment, then, managing manfully to dress myself, I shook myself free of domestic entanglements and took a taxi across the river to Guys Hospital. From there, I would go to New Scotland Yard.

FOURTEEN

Saturday, 15 January

A woman’s guess is much more accurate than a man’s certainty.

—Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

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Miles was with her, the two of them nearly concealed behind the heaps of flowers, fruit baskets, cards, books, and magazines. Neither of them recognised me. He rose warily, but politely; she looked up politely, and then her face beneath its bruises and bandages changed.

“Mary? Good heavens, it’s you, Mary! You look marvellous!”

“The astonishment in your voice is so flattering, Ronnie. Oh don’t be silly, I know I usually look like a dog’s dinner, but if I don’t spend some of this money, the revenue people will eat it all. Good afternoon, Lieutenant Fitzwarren. Sit down—I’m not staying.” Of course he did not. “Ronnie, tell me what happened.”

“I don’t know, Mary, truly I don’t. All I can remember is, it was such a crush—there’d been something on the line and the trains hadn’t been coming in, something like that. And then it was cleared and I remember feeling the air moving down the tunnel, and then people started to push forward, and that’s all, and I’m very glad I can’t remember the rest of it.”

“You didn’t see anyone you know?”

“If my own mother had been there, I shouldn’t have seen her, unless she had been immediately in front of me. Why do you ask?”

I studied her carefully and decided her colour wasn’t too bad.

“Because there’s a possibility you were pushed, Ronnie.”

“But of course I was pushed, I told you—now wait a moment, do you mean… ? You mean deliberately pushed, don’t you? What a mind you have, Mary. Why on earth would anyone want to do that? It was an accident.”

“Has it not occurred to you that there have been rather a lot of fatal accidents around the Temple recently?” I asked her gently.

“No, Mary! Don’t be absurd. That’s… No.”

“Why do you think we haven’t let you be here alone? First Holmes, then either Dr Watson or Lieutenant Fitzwarren.”

That took most of the splutters out of her mouth, so that she lay there, as white as her sheets. Her hand sought Miles’s, who looked, I thought, as ill as she did.

“I’m very sorry to do this to you, Ronnie, but something is going on in the Temple, and I have to find out what it is.”

She looked at me for a long minute, her face growing ever more pinched. “Iris?” she said finally.

“She was part of it, made to look like some kind of warning from the drug world. And in October, Lilian McCarthy. And late August—”

“Delia Laird. You actually believe this.”

“I don’t know, yet. Ronnie, how much are you leaving the Temple in your will?”

“Twenty thousand. Why do you… No. Oh, no, Mary, you can’t mean it.”

“Ronnie,” I said clearly and with all the honesty I could manufacture, “I don’t think Margery is involved.”

“How could she not be, if you’re right?”

Good question.

“She could not have been personally involved with any of the deaths,” I said. “She had alibis for all three of those periods of time.”

“Someone else, then?”

“It’s possible that someone close to Margery is doing it. Even if it’s something Margery could do, I don’t see that it’s something she would do. I’m sorry, I’m not being very clear.”

“Yes, I see what you’re saying,” she said eagerly. “Even if Margery could commit… murder, she wouldn’t do it for money.”

It was not quite what I had meant, but I left it.

“Then who?” asked Miles.

“Someone, as I said, close to Margery, someone ruthless, intelligent, and who either benefits somehow from Margery’s wealth or who imagines he or she is doing Margery a service.”

“Marie,” whispered Veronica.

“Would Margery have gone to York without her?” I asked. Veronica’s face fell.

“No. Probably not.”

“I’ll find out, but I doubt she has the brains for it. Who would know about the wills… who leaves what?”

“Margery, of course. Rachel Mallory, she supervises the office staff. Come to that, anyone with access to the filing cabinets. There’s a file in there entitled ‘Wills,’ so we have a record of bequests.”

Convenient. “Is the cabinet kept locked?”

“Oh, yes. But the keys are in Susanna’s desk drawer, which isn’t locked.”

“So no more than two hundred people could have seen the file. That narrows my search down considerably: all I have to do is find someone who can read and who loves Margery. Easy enough.”

“What are you going to do, Mary?”

“Make myself indispensable around the Temple and ask many chatty questions.” And soon, I did not add, I would make suggestions that I was about to write a new will.

“Be careful, Mary.”

“Me? Good heavens, there’s no danger for me. You haven’t said anything about Holmes, though, have you? That he’s a friend of mine?”

“Not since you told me not to.”

Oh dear. “And before?”

“I don’t know. I vaguely remember saying something about the two of you, just a remark, such as ‘I had rooms in Oxford with a girl reading theology who actually knew Sherlock Holmes.’ Something like that.”

“Whom did you say it to?”

“I can’t remember, Mary, I’m terribly sorry, but there were half a dozen people, and I think I was at the Temple, but it might well have been a weekend house party.”

She was getting upset, which would do her no good.

“Don’t worry about it, Ronnie. If it comes to you, let me know, but something that vague—it’s not likely to be of any importance. What is important is getting you well and keeping you safe. I don’t think they’ll try again, but I don’t wish to lose a friend because I misjudged a madman. I’d like you to do two things for me.”

“Anything.”

“Listen to what they are before you agree,” I suggested. “First, I’d like to inform Scotland Yard. They’ll come and ask for a statement. You’ll have to tell them about the will, and when they ask if you were pushed, all you need tell them is that you can’t remember it but it might have been possible. They’ll put a guard on your door until the doctor says you may leave.”

“Is that it?”

“No. The second thing is, I want you to go away. Not for long, two or three weeks at the most, but thoroughly away. We’ll tell everyone you’re in a private clinic, recuperating. You can even go to one, if you like.”

“I can’t, Mary.”

“You must. You’re going to be out on home leave for at least three weeks, in any case. We’ll just make you a home from home. Please, Veronica, I beg you. My eyes are going to be too busy to keep one on you.”

“If I may?” Miles spoke up. “There’s a lodge I use, in Scotland. A bit on the bleak side this time of year, but there’s a large woodpile.”