The Widows Club

by Dorothy Cannell

  Didn’t go too badly? I sank low on the seat. Please don’t let Ben amble this way and see me! There was no reason for him to walk in this direction on leaving Abigail’s, and if he had any dinner customers, he was probably still at the restaurant. But the last hour and a half seemed to lead inexorably to the moment when I must break it to my husband that I had spent the evening with a dead body and the police. And he must be warned to brace himself for the newspapers’ gleeful rehashing of Charles Delacorte’s death.

  The inspector had suggested that one of his men get in touch with my husband-“You’ve had some nasty experiences recently, haven’t you, Mrs. Haskell?”-but I had declined. I preferred to tell him myself, at home. A constable had been stationed outside the shop to disperse the crowd which had gathered with the arrival of the police and the ambulance. He was told to give out the information that Mrs. Delacorte was dead and that the till appeared to have been raided. Better that, the inspector had intimated, than a panic spread that a maniac killer was on the loose in Chitterton Fells.

  “Ellie, I don’t feel that this murder can fully account for the distress and agitation I sense in you.” Primrose handed me another peppermint. “Tell us, my dear, what else happened today?”

  “I went to The Peerless Nursing Home.”

  When I finished my account of that little visit, Primrose ecstatically pressed her hands to my face. “So brave, so ingenious! And I do feel you should put aside your little fears about the nurse going to Dr. Bordeaux and confessing her stupidity at leaving you unchaperoned. Even were she so lacking in self-preservation, you don’t look like a Mrs. Heinz.”

  “But if she gave an accurate description of my car…”

  “How could she?” Hyacinth flexed her pencil. “Isn’t its right side an Austin, the left a Rover, the right door a Vauxhall? Let us proceed. You say Jenny Spender seemed to be remonstrating with Dr. Bordeaux as you passed the window?”

  “Yes.” I pressed my hands against the back of my neck and rubbed my feet together to stop a creeping pins and needles sensation. “I have to go home.”

  “We can all do with an early night, Ellie.” Hyacinth’s voice was reproving. “We have arduous days ahead. It is surely folly to think that the police won’t wish to interrogate us further.” She made another notation in the green book.

  Primrose fussed with a button at her throat. “I do believe we have so far been a credit to ourselves. Was I not splendidly tiresome in explaining how we had missed an appointment with Ellie, raced in pursuit of her-without speeding, of course-and entered Delacorte’s just in time to see her collide with the corpus delecti?” Her eyes sparkled, then sobered. “Ellie, you seem so constrained. Is it possible you felt obliged to tell the inspector certain small untruths and now feel guilty? For instance, when he asked whether you had noticed anyone in the vicinity of Delacorte’s as you were about to enter-”

  “I didn’t see anyone; I saw a goose-Mother Goose. She was only a few yards from Delacorte’s. Mr. Digby must have been in The Dark Horse, and I wondered if she had seen anyone she knew to make her cross The Square like that.”

  “You handled the entire situation commendably,” approved Hyacinth, her earrings swivelling.

  “Given my growing reputation,” I said, “the inspector was pleasant. And now”-I opened my bag and took out the car keys-“before I leave, I do have something I must tell you. I can’t help you anymore. I’m a coward, not a heroine. Seeing Mrs. Woolpack changed things. She made it all real, and I’m afraid that if I go on attempting to infiltrate The Widows Club, something may go wrong. Something could happen to Ben, such as his name ending up in the wrong file.”

  “Oh, what a dreadful thought!” Primrose reached into her handbag. “Do have a sip of brandy.”

  For the briefest moment I was distracted by the enchanting little flask with the minute silver cup chained to the stopper.

  “I do urge you to reconsider,” said Hyacinth. “Thanks to Mrs. Delacorte’s death, we would seem to be on the verge of a breakthrough.”

  “One would like to think that the woman is at peace, but I rather fear”-Primrose lowered her eyes-“that where she has gone, her troubles are just beginning. However, we at Flowers Detection must always feel gratitude toward her because, in dying, Mrs. Delacorte showed us how to entrap The Founder.” Her silvery curls shone in the electric light. “Is it too much to ask, dear Ellie, that you display that nobility of character which we know you to possess and act as the scapegoat?”

  “Me?” I had guessed this might be coming. “I am the girl who is frightened of food, remember! Besides, my life is full enough as it is with inquests and funerals and the imminent possibility of being arrested.”

  Primrose dabbed a lace hanky to her eyes. “We do have our way to make in the detective world, you know. And the lives of countless husbands are in your hands.”

  Those words buzzed in my ears like a bluebottle the next few days when I wasn’t giving way to more dismal thoughts.

  On the night of Ann’s murder, Ben and I arrived home within minutes of each other. He was aghast when I broke the news to him. I was aghast by the sincerity of my lies.

  “My poor darling.” He cradled me in his arms. We were in the hall, still in our coats. “You go to visit a friend to see how she is surviving the death of her husband and find her dead. It’s unspeakable. Those two old ladies who came in the shop immediately after you-were they shoppers?”

  I wanted to tell him everything. I wanted us to have been married for fifty years so nothing I might do could shock him. But I was afraid that the truth, the whole truth, spilling from my lips would send him thumbing through the telephone directory for the name of a solicitor specialising in divorce. Ben didn’t know the Tramwells. He couldn’t be expected to view them as anything but oddities. Dangerous oddities with whom I had been in communion for some time, without mentioning it. He would begin watching me over the rim of the morning newspaper, wondering how it was that he hadn’t recognised sooner my strong resemblance to my wacky relations. The lights glinted on Rufus’s visored face; memory came of him in Aunt Astrid’s arms, her hand on his metal thigh. And then there was Aunt Lulu pocketing ashtrays, and Uncle Maurice panting after the woman in paisley, and Freddy-the sanest of the lot-threatening to sue Sid Fowler. My fingers dug into Ben’s shoulders. I couldn’t risk giving him anything but an expurgated version of this evening’s events. My faith must be in the police; they would do a little digging and come up with a lot of skeletons. The Widows Club would come to light eventually, without my holding the torch. If the Tramwells were determined to proceed with the case, then so be it. I couldn’t put a host of anonymous, adulterous males ahead of my husband, my marriage. A good wife gets her priorities straight.

  “Darling, this is bound to be rough on you.” Ben smoothed my hair. “But this time I will be with you. If the police need to speak to you again at the inquest, I’ll be there all the way.”

  He was making this so hard for me.

  “So, the motive was burglary, and Ann walked in on it.” Ben helped me off with my coat. “I wonder if the murderer had ever used a crossbow before. That sounds like good marksmanship to me, getting her through the heart and pinning her to the wall so she’d stay propped behind that curtain. Quite the theatrical touch.”

  I pressed my fingers to my eyes, only sharpening the gruesome image, but I did feel heartened in one respect. If Ben was questioning the use of weapon, so would those trained in detection.

  “I’ll get you a cup of tea.” Ben drew me toward the kitchen, where we found Magdalene and Poppa. The whole story to be gone through again! And I knew exactly what my mother-in-law would think: All the girls my son could have picked, and he marries one whose life path is strewn with bodies!

  That week moved forward, as excruciatingly slow as babies in a crawling race. The Daily Spokesman headlined first the announcement of, then updates on Ann’s murder. According to the reports, the police were pursuing several leads. The good news
for me was that the medical examiner decreed death had occurred during that time when I was within full view of eyewitnesses. But I still thought the Tramwells’ alibi might be iffy.

  On Thursday morning Ben and I went down to the police station and I read over my typed statement and signed it. No one gave me any funny looks. Afterward I insisted that Ben return to Abigail’s. As I walked into the house I was trying to cheer myself up with the thought that I was down to two unwelcome engagements. Ann’s funeral was set for Monday at 4:00 P.M., and the inquest would be as soon as the coroner’s court convened. After that, my calendar was a social vacuum.

  I was passing through the hall on my way upstairs to put away my coat, wondering where Magdalene and Poppa were, when I saw Magdalene by the trestle table. Her hand was on the telephone receiver; her eyes reminded me of Ann’s-unblinking, fixed.

  “What is it?” I rushed to her.

  “Nothing!” She covered the receiver with both hands as though trying to hide it.

  “Is telling lies a mortal or a venial sin?” I plonked her down on a chair. Poor little wispy person. “You’ve had a crank phone call. No point in denying it, I know the look. I had a similar experience once.”

  She stared up at me with unseeing eyes. “I was just offering it all up for the souls in Purgatory.”

  “What did this person say to you? Something vicious about the murder? About me?”

  “The… the word murder was used.”

  “Where’s Poppa?”

  “He took your cake over to the church hall in the wheelbarrow. I couldn’t go with him, not without a special dispensation, because of it being that sort of place. I’m from the old school, before Vatican Two.” Her voice faded.

  I had to snap her out of this. I suggested we do a little weeding in the herb garden. Reluctantly, she agreed. But I continued to worry about her; she wasn’t her usual prickly self. That evening, when I mentioned the phone occurrence to Poppa and Ben, she refused to talk about it, and when Freddy climbed through the drawing room window at a little after nine, she came out of her chair as if hooked to a spring.

  “It’s only me, Maggie dear, not the Chitterton Fells murderer.” Freddy eyed the tea tray. “What, no cake! This may cease to be my favourite eating place.” He threw himself prone on the sofa. “And what’s up with you, Ellie? Been finding the last day or two deadly dull?”

  “Freddy, put the gag back in your mouth.” Ben emphasized his displeasure by snatching away the dish of chocolates before my cousin got his fingers in it.

  Poppa said, “You look exhausted, Mr. Flatts. Must be the short hours you young people work.”

  Magdalene was silent. I said I would fetch Freddy some Madeira cake. I wasn’t being nice. I was grabbing at an excuse to get back to the kitchen and have another search for my engagement ring. Before going out to weed I had stood right by the sink and was certain (twenty percent so) that I had put it in a flowerpot saucer on the window sill. Could Tobias have gotten his paws on it and knocked it flying? I crawled around the floor. No luck. Had this happened at any other time, I would have gone to bed on a stretcher. The memory of Ben placing that ring on my finger was particularly sacred because I couldn’t remember his doing the same thing with my wedding ring. I had developed an arthritic-looking hump to that finger and had worked at becoming left-handed so as to flash that diamond shine.

  But murder alters people. I was distressed, but not distraught. The ring was bound to turn up. I returned to the drawing room with the Madeira cake. Magdalene and Poppa had gone to bed. Ben and Freddy were discussing the cookery demonstration Ben was giving to the Hearthside Guild between noon and 3 P.M. on Saturday, the 16th May. Why… that was this Saturday! I had forgotten all about it, but I imagine the fortnight I had recently undergone would have put most people off schedule. Thank God, Ben had remembered.

  “Really, mate, I don’t know why you are lowering yourself.” Freddy rolled over on the sofa and hung face down over the edge. “I can’t credit the gross insensitivity of those women, asking you to create a stew á la difference in a pressure cooker! Where’s the magic? Where’s the mystique? Aren’t those the things where you just bung everything in and cover your ears?”

  Ben scowled. “Will you lay off? The spokeswoman for the group didn’t ask me what I wanted to do, and I didn’t want to be temperamental. I thought myself lucky not having been struck off the list of coming events.” He halted. “Ellie, I didn’t mean-”

  “Yes, you did,” I said, “and it’s all right.”

  A smile crept into his eyes, then vanished. “I would have liked to have done something more challenging, especially as”-his voice picked up speed-“Angelica Brady, the editor from Brambleweed Press, indicated she might come down for the demonstration. She thinks the book’s appeal may be enhanced if the jacket contains a spiel about the charming little doings of charming little Chitterton Fells. She had me send her some copies of The Daily Spokesman and claimed to be enchanted by our rusticity.” Ben looked down at his plate of cake, then came and sat on the arm of my chair. “Ellie, is something wrong?”

  I thrust the thought of my engagement ring out of my head. “No. I’ll enjoy meeting Miss Brady.” I picked crumbs off his plate, then put them back. “I was just wondering about Abigail’s.”

  Freddy sat up, blew on his fingernails, and rubbed them against the lapel of his suit jacket. As usual, he wasn’t wearing a shirt. “Yours truly will manage alone and undaunted, even if we are mobbed by more than six customers.” He shook back his hair. “Business, Ellie, has been picking up by leaps and bounds this week. We had four people today, if you count Mrs. Bottomly as two.”

  I hardly slept that night. I lay looking into darkness, afloat with wide-open eyes. I spotted those of Charles Delacorte, Vernon Daffy, Ann Delacorte, and-I had to squint to be sure-Poppa’s dark brown ones. What if some of the husbands, dead or soon to be dead, were one-time sinners like Poppa? I turned over all in one movement so as not to disturb Ben and buried my face in the pillow. Had I lowered my moral standards to the point where I was prepared to concede that in some cases the crime merited the punishment? I wanted so much to shake Ben, wake him up, tell him that I was an accessory before and after the crimes. Moonlight washed into the room, showing me his face-peaceful, unsullied. I had to get up, pace around, think. The illuminated face of the bedside clock said four-fifteen. Shifting silently off the bed, I grabbed some clothes, including a sheepskin jacket, and stole into the bathroom to dress. A brisk walk would either clear my brain or numb it.

  The night was like a jeweller’s window; the moon a silver salver displayed on black velvet studded with diamonds. Spring, it would seem, had come in on the back of a snowbird. The air was filled with innocence. I didn’t think about where I was going. I was doing battle with the demon. Me. Why is the easy way out never all it is cracked up to be? When my feet brought me to the churchyard railing, all I had settled upon was that I would talk to the Tramwells again… sometime soon. I was coming through the lich-gate when it suddenly struck me that Sweetie hadn’t set up the alarm when I left. I would have expected her to drag me back upstairs by the cuffs of my slacks and deposit me like a trophy outside Magdalene’s door.

  Speak of the dear little doggie, a yap shrilled the air and a splodge of shadow leapt at my leg. I started to shake it off, then let it hang. Coming toward me through the purple haze was either a ghost or my mother-in-law. She was wearing the damson beret that made her ears stick out and she showed neither surprise nor pleasure in seeing me. Her eyes were those of a ghost. She reached out and curled her fingers around a tombstone, but she didn’t speak. Sweetie, on the other hand, was making enough noise to disturb the dead. I moved my palm in front of Magdalene’s eyes. Could it be?

  Her voice startled me. “Giselle, I won’t think you’re interfering if you tell me I’m sleepwalking.”

  “It runs in the family.” I put my arm around her. “Let’s go home.”

  Magdalene spent most of Friday in her r
oom. When I passed her door, I heard Poppa reading to her, something about the power of faith. I couldn’t tell how far their reconciliation had come; they still spoke little in my presence. So many half-knowns. So many loopholes for fear.

  Roxie arrived Friday morning and was bringing out the all-purpose bottle from the supply bag when I noticed, snagged on her sleeve, a brooch. A blackbird brooch. To stop my hands shaking I unsnagged it. Roxie was not one whit abashed.

  “Like it, Mrs. H.?” She slopped liquid onto a rag. “Keep it.”

  Three-or was it four-husbands she had gone through?

  “No, really I couldn’t. These are crows, aren’t they?”

  “Are they?” She dusted Sweetie off a chair. “Well, suit yourself. I like a nice brooch but these are a bit on the common side, aren’t they? You see them everywhere. I picked this one up on the street.”

  A likely story. So likely it could be true. I escaped with The Daily Spokesman to the drawing room. Nothing about Ann today. My hands took me directly to the Dear Felicity column. Edwin Digby’s face loomed in my mind’s eye. Was he the evil force or the dupe of the evil force? Unwillingly, my eyes scanned the column… Dear Heartbroken, your problem will soon die a natural death. I could not breathe. It couldn’t be… but Heartbroken was the code name I had used on that damning note.

  I began to pant and then, miraculously, euphoria burst upon me. Not only had I retrieved that note, but Ann had explained to me that it represented only an application for membership. A woman wasn’t admitted to the club until after a telephone call, asking-in so many words-do you want your husband murdered? And I hadn’t received such a telephone inquiry. I would have remembered.

  Saturday. Ben’s big moment before the Hearthside Guild. The church hall was a long room with plank flooring, brick walls, a stage at the north end, and a kitchen at the south, behind whose green accordion doors Ben was now making ready. He had brought all his equipment from home except the pressure cooker. He didn’t own a pressure cooker.