Murder Goes Mumming

by Alisa Craig

  Janet excused herself and did as she was bidden, much perturbed in mind. What on earth had Miss Adelaide been talking about? Was she beginning to wander a bit? Would it be a good idea to repeat that odd scrap of conversation to Babs or Squire or somebody?

  The trouble was, they were all drifting away to get dressed for the mumming and by the time she’d made up her mind she ought to, there was nobody left to tell. Even Madoc was fussing that he’d slept longer than he’d meant to and must get bathed and changed, and did Jenny think he needed a shave?

  She rubbed her cheek against his and decided he’d better because they hadn’t tried out the kissing ball yet. In spite of everything, Janet couldn’t help getting caught up in the excitement of dressing for a party. This would be something else to tell Annabelle, at any rate.

  Val hadn’t come down to tea. When Janet found her in the room they shared, she’d mellowed a fair amount, perhaps because she was having an attack of Yuletide spirit or perhaps because she needed to be zipped up the back. She’d arranged her blond hair in an updo with a topknot of pink silk roses and one long curl coming down over her right shoulder. Her costume was a court gown of pink brocade in the Watteau manner. Janet was able to tell her in all sincerity that she looked absolutely stunning.

  “Like it? I had it made. Cost a fortune, but I knew Squire would be pleased enough with it to foot the bill. Now I’m just praying...”

  A frown threatened to smudge her makeup and Val hastily smoothed out her face again. “Honestly, of all the times for Granny to die! You’d think she did it on purpose to spite us. Don’t look so shocked. You don’t know what an awful old crank she was. And now Uncle Cyril’s all stirred up. I don’t see why Squire couldn’t have told us-oh, well, you’re not interested in all this family stuff. I’d better see how Roy’s getting on. Did you know his people are in oil?”

  “Like sardines?” Janet couldn’t resist saying.

  Luckily Val was pleased enough with herself to be amused. “Pretty good. I’ll have to tell Roy. Is Dafydd coming to your wedding?”

  “I doubt it. He’s going to do Wagner in Bayreuth, whatever that involves, then I believe he flies to San Francisco. Goodness knows if he’ll ever make it back to New Brunswick.”

  “Dafydd’s not much like his brother, is he?”

  “No, I shouldn’t say Dafydd was like Madoc,” Janet replied in all sincerity. “You’d better do something about that top rose. It wobbles when you move.”

  Val concentrated again on her own toilette, then flew off to make sure Roy was resplendent enough to do her justice. Janet was free to arrange her own infinitely less ambitious effort. Without Val there to put her in the shade, she managed to convince herself she’d pass.

  Madoc thought she would. “Jenny love, how beautiful you look. Where did you get that red blouse thing?”

  “It’s the top of my thermal underwear, but for goodness’ sake don’t tell anybody.”

  She’d basted tinsel rope around the neck and sleeves and added a long-tailed sash to camouflage the fact that the top was a different shade from the skirt. The tinsel crown hadn’t worked out, so she’d swiped a spray of holly from the decorations on the zigzag staircase and wound it into a little coronet tied with red ribbon feloniously obtained from the same source.

  “I don’t quite know what I’m supposed to represent.”

  “You’re my Christmas present, love. Hark, the herald angels sing.”

  An tinny blast from an old wind-up gramophone assailed their ears. Madoc picked up the plant stick that was to serve as his baton and offered Janet his arm.

  “Shall we join the merrymakers, Lady Rhys? They’ve started the overture without the conductor. Won’t do, you know. I shall take it up with the musicians’ union.”

  Perhaps he wasn’t supposed to be enjoying himself, but the way Janet filled out that transmogrified undervest roused visions of joys to come that might have brought disapproval from a Fundamentalist minister but felt pretty darned good to Detective Inspector Rhys.

  “Oh, Madoc, wait.” Janet made a little face. “There’s something I ought to tell you. I hate to bring it up when we ought to be out there frisking, but I thought you’d better know.”

  She repeated what Aunt Addie had said at teatime. “I don’t know whether she was feeling down in the mouth about Rosa or if she’d had another present’ment, or what. It almost sounds as if she might be thinking of suicide to me.”

  “Hard to say, love. When a person gets to be her age, whether or not to keep on living is mostly a matter of choice. It wouldn’t be a bad idea for us to keep an eye on the old lady without being too conspicuous about it.”

  “Madoc, there is something going on, isn’t there? Was Mrs. Condrycke murdered?”

  He put his arms around her and laid his cheek against hers, prickly holly tickling his ear. “I’m inclined to think so, Jenny.”

  “And you haven’t said so for fear of spoiling my fun. Madoc, you’re not going to spend the rest of your life protecting the little woman?”

  Somebody thumped on the door. “Come on, you two! Out of the hay and into the fray.”

  “Per order of May,” added a voice that had to be Herbert’s.

  “We’re ready. Sir Emlyn just had to find his baton.” Madoc opened the door. “Now, ladies and shentlemen, if I am to contact thiss choruss, I must remind you that it iss not enough to follow me. The itea iss to keep up with me, look you.”

  “We’re two jumps ahead of you already.”

  Herbert and May were both dressed as lobsters, and acting as if they were already boiled. Their two sons were behind them, also wearing what Janet recognized with good reason as red thermal underwear. All four had huge red cardboard claws and feelers waving over their heads, and an assortment of extra legs and tails depending from their torsos.

  “We’re doing the Lobster Quadrille,” shouted May. “Forward...crawl!”

  The two boys were still giggling and acting silly. Their eyes were by now as red as their tails, Rhys noted. They must be new to marijuana, otherwise they’d be smart enough to have a bottle of patent eyewash on hand to take the redness out. Or else they were too stoned to give a hoot.

  It was unlikely anyone but himself would notice. The oil lamps that Graylings depended on mostly for light didn’t make much impression on these vast rooms. They were the perfect illumination for a masquerade, though. Costumes that might have looked tacky in daylight now took on an air of glamor and fantasy.

  Val in her pink brocade and Roy in a white satin coat and knee breeches he’d no doubt rented from some theatrical costurner did make a striking couple. Donald was wearing knee breeches and cutaway coat like Roy’s, though in a deep green well suited to his years and dignity. Babs had on a dress cut much like her daughter’s, in emerald green with rose-colored ribbons. They made a most effective tableau grouped with their daughter and her escort.

  Janet, who was aware of such things, couldn’t help wondering if the parents had staged the whole scene for Roy’s benefit. Maybe his people really were in oil, or maybe Babs and Donald found Val too much to handle and were hoping to see her safely tied down to a rising young junior executive who seemed only too willing to embrace the Condrycke lifestyle. There was no denying a white wig with a black ribbon at the back did something for a man. Even May was giving Roy what might be described as an interested eye, and Val had quite forgotten to look petulant.

  Clara was a flapper, complete with cloche hat and rolled stockings with Christmas seals stuck on her knees. Lawrence had blossomed forth in a raccoon coat, a porkpie hat, and a fake red poinsettia as a boutonniere.

  Aunt Addie looked vaguely Elizabethan in a black velvet gown with so much fullness in the skirt it must date from the age of hoops and petticoats. She had real lace over her hair and shoulders, and a parure of jet and garnet brooches, bracelets, finger rings, earrings, an ornate necklace, and an involved arrangement of chains and pendants that Rhys thought he’d heard referred to as a lavaliere. If
the old lady was indeed contemplating her own departure from the scene, she clearly intended to go out in style.

  Miss Adelaide was on the arm of Squire Condrycke, and a magnificent sight was he. His costume must be one he wore every year, for surely nobody would go to that much trouble and expense for a one-time performance. The only word for it was regal. He looked like Henry the Eighth on his way to marry some wife or other-probably Anne of Cleves, considering the family penchant for big blonds. Over a doublet and hose of richest purple velvet slashed with red satin he wore a long crimson velvet cape edged in what looked like ermine, though it was more likely white rabbit. A floppy cap of the same crimson velvet edged with the same white fur needed only a circlet of gold to turn it into a crown.

  Janet won favor by dropping him a low curtsy. Then she heard a shout from down the hall.

  “Don’t I get one, too?”

  It was Cyril, got up in what was plainly meant to be a merciless parody of his father’s elegance. He’d put on a suit of ordinary long underwear and over it a pair of what Janet guessed had once been May’s gym bloomers. His royal cape was a blanket fastened with a big safety pin and his headgear a paper cap edged with cotton batting. Even as she made a second curtsy to keep the peace, Janet couldn’t help wondering why nobody had yet kicked him downstairs.

  The Condryckes must be a remarkably forbearing lot. They seemed, no doubt wisely, to have accepted Cyril in the role of Merry-Andrew and let him lead their dance, or whatever it was supposed to be. They were all bouncing along with a sort of skipping step that was rather fun to do. Since the ancient gramophone was so limited in its scope, Babs had ingeniously taped a number of lively jigs, carols, folk tunes, morris dances, and similar sounds of the Merrie England Squire thought he was reproducing here, and carried the little battery-operated tape recorder more or less concealed by a beribboned green satin muff to give them music along their way.

  Madoc Rhys wondered if they planned to do a Sir Roger de Coverley or anything of that sort, and meanly hoped they would because he’d learned the steps at his great-uncle’s and Roy almost certainly didn’t know them. There was something about a chap who stood six foot two in his white satin pumps with the bows on the toes that couldn’t help making a man who barely made five foot eight in his brother’s old dinner jacket feel insignificant. Still, there was the fact that Roy had wound up stuck with Val while he himself had Janet.

  Cyril was cock-a-hoop enough for an army. He leaped and cavorted, did alarming things on that treacherous staircase. At one point he performed a back somersault over the banister but managed to keep his grip on the railing and flip himself back again. Somebody must surely have been thinking, “Too bad.”

  They jigged on through the Great Hall, pausing to bow to the Christmas tree and to accept some other no doubt traditional and assuredly potent libation from Ludovic. Thus stimulated they continued their Bacchanalian dance, twisting through corridors as crazily laid out as the staircase, catching glimpses of rooms Janet yearned to have a proper look at. If this was the guided tour she’d been promised, she didn’t think much of it. Furthermore, she was beginning to feel winded.

  At least the exercise kept one warm, not to mention the additional potations along the way. There was another ritual drink with the cook, in a vast, stone-flagged kitchen where Janet would have loved to linger and admire. This was the first she and Madoc had seen of the staff. There were a couple of maids in real gray uniforms with real white aprons, and some men who must be the Sam Neddicks of the establishment.

  Squire began to deliver a kindly condescending set speech in French. Cyril wouldn’t let him go on.

  “Knock it off, Squire. They’ve heard it all before and they don’t believe it anyway,” which might have been true but could not have been ruder.

  The rest of the Condryckes tried awfully hard to pretend this was all part of the fun, but the staff, who no doubt understood English perfectly well, looked sour.

  “I shouldn’t be surprised if Cyril just won a few votes for the Quebec Libre faction,” Madoc murmured to Janet.

  He and she had dropped to the rear of the procession and weren’t making more than the odd token effort to keep up with the hopping and skipping. Cyril stayed in the lead, cutting such outrageous capers that Rhys began to wonder if he was merely drunk or something more. Eventually the procession wound its way back to the Great Hall, where Ludovic was waiting to announce dinner. Roast suckling pig tonight, Squire had said. Rhys couldn’t say he was looking forward to it.

  There was one big advantage in going to the table. Cyril seated with a full glass of wine in front of him was less obnoxious than Cyril in motion. He did clamor for Janet to sit beside him, but Rhys was having none of that.

  “Janet has a previous engagement,” he said with a gentle but meaningful smile.

  The Condryckes obliged him by the usual uproar of laughter, but Rhys could see wary looks exchanged, especially between May and Herbert. Cyril was making a real play for the lovely young stranger. He wasn’t going to get Janet, but his new-found opulence might lead him to think of buying himself a bride, and brides were apt to have babies.

  Franny or Winny, whichever was the elder, must be in line to inherit Graylings some day. Donald would get it first, of course, assuming he outlived Cyril, but Donald had only a daughter. Maybe that was why he and Babs were countenancing Val’s romance with big, blond Roy who looked as if he could beget big, blond sons in the true Condrycke tradition.

  Clara’s nonpresent son must be older than May’s boys but even he, being far away and not interested enough to come home for the holidays, would be a far better bet as heir than a woman who’d want to move in and take over Graylings without regard for the family. And Donald would surely be an obliging heir apparent.

  Rhys thought he had Donald tabbed by now. He was indeed the sort who’d smile at the kid who ran the elevator. He’d be pleasant to everybody, because being pleasant was probably what Donald was best at. No doubt he held his position on the company board because the Condryckes were major stockholders and Donald was not a man to ask awkward questions or cast a dissenting vote at the wrong time.

  Janet said she hadn’t seen him around the office much, probably because he was seldom there. He must serve on other boards where a distinguished name and an agreeable manner would be welcomed and his own company’s prestige thereby enhanced. He’d appear in the right places, make the witty little speeches bright young men like Roy wrote for him, and do a pretty good public relations job, all in all.

  If Babs enjoyed the social whirl, as she gave every appearance of doing, she and Donald must lead an agreeable life together. They must value Graylings as a place to invite important people who’d like a weekend of hunting or fishing or boating or sitting at the bridge table with Ludovic bringing them drinks and Squire being gallant. Inviting amusing people like younger sons of famous conductors would add to the Graylings charisma. Rhys wondered at how many houseparties his and Jenny’s names would get dropped during the next six months.

  May and Clara, as well as Squire who clearly loved to shine, must depend on Donald and Babs to supply them with diverting company. There appeared to be so much warmth among the Condryckes and their spouses that guests would be charmed, as a rule. Last night, one would have thought Cyril was as well disposed as the rest of them; but that couldn’t be so or the man wouldn’t be doing all this spiteful crowing now regardless of what he’d got inside him.

  Perhaps if one probed deeper, the other relationships weren’t any too harmonious, either. Those practical jokes they were so fond of springing on each other didn’t arise from the same kind of mutual respect and affection that existed at the Wadmans’. He couldn’t see Bert dropping a plastic lizard down Janet’s or Annabelle’s back, though he could easily see Bert getting crowned with a frying pan if he tried. Yet either of them would give Bert her last pint of blood if he really needed it.

  Aunt Addie must have decided Rosa could spare her. She’d stayed on t
o dinner and didn’t seem to be suffering any lack of appetite. It was hard to believe a woman who could eat that much roast pork at night was in immediate danger of shuffling off her mortal coil, unless perhaps from acute indigestion. Rhys made a mental note never to have roast suckling pig served at his own festive board.

  His Jenny was of the same mind. Having grown up on a farm, she knew animals were raised to be eaten and she wasn’t squeamish as a rule, but she did murmur to Madoc, “I can’t help feeling sorry for the poor little thing,” and left most of her helping for Ludovic to take away.

  May noticed. “Don’t you like it, Janet?” she bellowed in a hurt tone.

  “It’s just that I made such a pig of myself at tea I feel guilty eating one of my own kind,” she replied.

  That got a great laugh. The Condryckes were really straining for mirth tonight. Squire was less chatty than usual, no doubt because Cyril was picking up everything he said and either contradicting or mocking him in a way that penetrated even the scarlet carapaces of May and Herbert. He was eating next to nothing but drinking everything within his reach; even water, although that was most likely by accident.

  As on the previous evening, there was too much food and the meal lasted far too long. Dessert was mince pie, which both Madoc and Janet liked but could by then have done without. After that came a complicated savory made with little grilled fishes out of the bay. Fifine caught them in summertime on her hours off and salted them down in crocks for the winter, according to Clara. Janet, used to finishing her meal with the sweet and another cup of tea in the comfortable farm fashion, thought it sounded like a lot of bother for little result. She hoped Madoc wouldn’t expect his wife to fuss with this kind of culinary frippery.

  May suggested coffee in the library again, but Cyril turned cantankerous. He was really drunk by now, but unfortunately not quite drunk enough. That nap after lunch and the wild careering through the house must have perked him up. He wanted coffee in the Great Hall with the Yule log blazing and everybody singing “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” in the jolly old Merrie English tradition.