Lady Marmalade Cozy Murder Mysteries: Box Set (Books 1 - 3)

by Jason Blacker

  In the one corner sat a life sized statue of a meditating Shiva with four arms. Next to him was Vishnu, standing with a coy smile and four arms holding different items. One of his hands had broken off it seemed. Opposite them was a statue of a meditating, smiling, Buddha with his fat belly. He was half the size of the other two. There were also two tall gold ashtrays on either side of Lady Marmalade’s couch that stood at least waist high and were, therefore, unusable to those seated.

  A short woman, around Lady Marmalade’s height, but almost as wide as she was tall, shuffled into the living room making great use of a cane in her left hand. Her face was sallow and in her right hand she held a cigarette in a long slender opera length cigarette holder made of ivory and inlaid with small jewels.

  She was wearing an off white dressing gown over a similarly colored night dress. On her feet she wore gray slippers and her ankles were swollen and almost blue in color. She walked over to a Queen Anne chair and sat herself down slowly, as if she might sit on a pin cushion. Next to her was an ashtray at the height of the armrests.

  Her hair was a bird’s nest mess of brown that needed recoloring. A couple of inches of gray roots showed throughout as if her hair was wire that had just been stripped of its colored coating. He face was deeply wrinkled and loose with jowls and fat.

  Alfred sat back down as she did, having stood up when she came into the room. The woman took a moment to catch her breath, all the while Lady Marmalade watched with a detached smile on her face. The smell of tobacco nauseated her and it was all that much stronger now.

  “I’m Madge Hollingsberry,” said the woman. “Thank you for coming, Lady Marmalade.”

  “Not at all,” said Frances, “this is my butler, Alfred, and please, call me Frances.”

  A short round woman carrying a silver tea tray came into the living room as if she were being pulled along by it. She might have been Jeremiah’s sister. Her face just as ruddy and cherubic, her hair just as black but pulled up into a bun behind her head and covered in netting. She wore a black housekeeper’s uniform with a white apron in front and she wore black sensible shoes.

  As she laid the tray down on a coffee table almost too small for the job, she kept glancing up at Frances and smiling broadly, as if Lady Marmalade might have a big dollop of marmalade on her nose.

  “That’ll be all,” said Madge.

  Jeremiah had walked back into the living room and stood himself in the far corner, looking like a statue as he stood next to a Mongolian warrior, which, thankfully as far as Lady Marmalade was concerned, was not real. His menacing grimace still quite frightening.

  “Thank you, Jeremiah, if you’ll give us a minute.”

  Jeremiah bowed at the back of Madge’s head and walked out the living room. Madge took a long time sucking on her cigarette. Lady Marmalade thought she might finish it off in one puff. Alfred was the model of composure as he sat there next to her, his eyes fixed on their host.

  Madge took the cigarette holder out of her mouth and held it in her right hand, the elbow resting on the armchair. She blew a long stream of smoke up towards the ceiling and it settled like a heavy cloud above them. Threatening rain, even if it wasn’t real.

  “How may I help you, Madge?” asked Frances.

  Madge opened her mouth and you heard her wheezing breath.

  “Someone’s out to kill me, Frances, and I’d like you to stop them.”

  Her voice was coarse and grated on the ears, but it was more pleasant than the shriek Frances had heard coming from upstairs earlier.

  “Who do you think is trying to kill you?”

  “I don’t know, that’s why I’ve asked you to help.”

  “Don’t you think this is a job better suited for the police if you think the threats are real?”

  “Not at all, the police won’t believe me and they’re incompetent, in any event.”

  “Lula said you had some letters you’ve received that are quite threatening. May I see them?”

  Madge nodded her head and then yelled “Lula!” It was the same screech they had heard earlier. It was a terrible sound, an unnatural sound and not a sound that should come from a human.

  “She’s a little simple and dim witted that one, takes after her mother. But I promised to take care of her and that’s what I’m doing. God knows what’ll happen to her when I’m dead.”

  Footsteps could be heard thumping down the hallway and a moment later Lula appeared in the living room. She walked up to her grandmother and stood by her side. Her head was bowed down and her hands clasped in front of her.

  “Go get me my letters, and be quick about it.”

  Madge hooked her cane over the armrest of her chair and with her left hand she pulled off a gold chain that was around her neck and which held a brass key. She handed it to Lula but didn’t release it right away.

  “No snooping, missy, or you’ll get it.”

  “Yes, mum.”

  Lula marched off looking quite petrified.

  “She’s always been a nosy one, that one,” said Madge. “Got that from her mother, too. It’ll be the end of her. Curiosity killed the cat I told her, and it’ll be the end of her, too.”

  “You’ve raised her since she was a young girl, I understand,” said Frances.

  Madge nodded while inhaling smoke from her cigarette holder.

  “Since she was four. Her mother was a frail thing, just like Lula. Died from the flu. Lula’s been with me ever since.”

  “What happened to her father?” asked Frances.

  “Don’t know. Though likely he was some rake of sorts. Never met the man. Heard his name was Errol Crowley. A cad if there ever was one. I suppose that’s my fault somewhat, sparing the rod and spoiling the child. She was very spoilt, you know.”

  “Who was?”

  “My daughter, Celia, Celia Hollingsberry. I was too good to her, it seems.”

  “Lula’s surname is Beckenswidth, though.”

  “Yes, that’s right. She took my husband’s name as we all did, until that scoundrel left me for the secretary. Good riddance I say, now. So I took back my maiden name.”

  “I see, and your daughter, Celia, she decided to take on your maiden name too?”

  “Good heaven’s no. Celia was born before I met Harold Beckenswidth, we never had children together.”

  “Do you mind telling who Celia’s father is then?”

  “He was Rolie Vilvalayn another ne’er-do-well. Knocked me up and then left me after a few years when he found someone else. I changed Celia’s name back to Hollingsberry shortly thereafter.”

  The pitter patter of feet came rushing down the hall and in came Lula. She handed the letters to Madge with her hand outstretched, they were still in the envelopes. Frances noticed that there were cuts on the knuckles that had just recently started to scab. Frances hadn’t noticed them the previous night when Lula had come calling.

  Madge took the letters and fanned them in front of Lula. This was her cue to leave and she did. Madge handed the three letters over to Frances. Alfred had to lean far over to reach them from Madge’s fat, sausage like fingers. He gave them to Frances.

  Frances took a moment to look at them. She turned them over and studied the front carefully, then she looked at the back of them. Nothing was written on the back. The front was in a deep indigo ink and the handwriting was large and curly and quite beautiful with big loops. At first glance Frances thought it might be the handwriting of a woman, someone with careful penmanship that was obviously a point of pride.

  The stamp was brand new and painstakingly placed so that each side was flush with the corner of the envelope. All three of the envelopes were done in the same painstaking manner. Frances looked a little more closely at the writing and faint lines could be seen that might have been ruled in pencil under each line of the address. They had been erased but not quite fully, only the slightest telltale sign of these ruled lines remained.

  Even from the faintness of them, Lady Marmalade could see that t
hey were carefully measured to be the same width apart as each other. Frances looked up at Madge who was smoking her cigarette and watching her intently. The ash was a long drooping nose at the end of her cigarette.

  “You’ve only received three of these?”

  Madge shook her head.

  “No, I’ve received five, though the first two I burnt. I couldn’t believe the impertinence and the hatred in them. But when the third one arrived about three months ago, I thought I’d best keep them, as I began to fear for my life.”

  Madge started coughing and it soon turned into a spasm. The ash fell onto her lap which she carelessly brushed off.

  “Jeremiah!” she screeched in between her coughing fit.

  Jeremiah came running into the living room carrying a glass of water.

  “Here you go, mum,” he said.

  Madge took a sip and that helped to bring her coughing under control. She wheezed and breathed heavily for a bit.

  “I should get you back upstairs, mum,” said Jeremiah.

  She waved him off with her cigarette holder and he went and stood in the corner of the room.

  “May I pour us some tea?” asked Frances, putting the letters in her lap.

  Madge nodded and Frances poured tea for each of them. She added cream and sugar as per Madge’s request and did the same for herself. Alfred took a cup, just black.

  A tall, lanky young man entered the living room. He was perhaps just a little older than Lula with greasy brown hair and dry skin. He had bulging eyes pushed onto his face and a small nose set between them. His mouth was thin and above his top lip he wore a feathery moustache. He would have looked better without the moustache. His brown suit was too small and his pants barely made it to his ankles. He wore large brown shoes which looked like they hadn’t seen a polish since the start of the war.

  He came in carrying a book in one hand and chewing the fingernails of his left hand. He took a seat in the chaise lounge that was pushed up against the wall. He used the wall to support his back and tossed his right gangly leg over the left as if his joints were only attached by thin string.

  FOUR

  Chapter 4

  MADGE looked at him with transparent annoyance on her face.

  “Colin,” she said, “I’m having a private conversation, if you please.”

  He glanced up at her and smiled wickedly before opening his book back up and looking inside.

  “Don’t let me interrupt you.”

  Madge stared at him with daggers for a long while but then gave up and took a puff on her cigarette which was all but finished.

  “That’s Colin Abbermann, one of my boarders,” said Madge, unhappily.

  “I see, and how many do you have?”

  “Three of them. It helps to pay the bills, you know. A place like this is not cheap.”

  Lady Marmalade smiled and nodded and looked over at Colin. He was doing a good job of pretending to read his book, but she had the distinct impression that he was really much more interested in their conversation.

  “You were saying you had received five of these letters. How often do they come?”

  Madge put out her cigarette in the ashtray and left the cigarette holder leaning into it. She reached in and took her tea from the table and placed it in her lap, held with her right hand.

  “They’ve come almost like clock work on the eleventh of the month. Except for the first one, that arrived January the 10th, a Saturday.”

  “I’m impressed you remember that.”

  “Well, it was quite shocking at the time to receive a letter like I did. It made its impression upon me. The eleventh was also the anniversary of my parent’s passing, eleven years before.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, how did your parents pass?”

  “They were killed. Unfortunately their murderers were never found.”

  “Good grief, that is terrible.”

  Madge looked at Frances steadily, she told it without emotion as if she was recounting a recipe.

  “It was a long time ago.”

  Frances looked back down at the envelopes in her lap. She took another sip of tea and placed her teacup on the table. She picked up the envelopes and looked at them in turn. She opened the first one which was stamped the 11th of March. She opened it up and pulled out the letter inside. It was cream colored and thick paper of very good quality.

  There was no date on the letter and it wasn’t addressed to Madge. The envelope was, but the letter itself contained no salutation. The penmanship looked identical to the hand that had addressed the envelope and though the page was unlined, the faintest signs of ruled pencil lines could be seen drawn with equal width between each line of writing.

  Like those that had been added and erased on the envelope, these lines were deliberate and careful. They had also been erased but the ghost of them remained. Frances thought how much trouble and painstaking care must have gone into each of these letters to make them just right.

  The writing in the letter, as an example, was placed deliberately and perfectly in the middle of the page. It read:

  Punish the children for the sins of the father to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.

  Vengeance is mine to be meted out. The death knell tolls. Repent.

  Three dash six.

  Frances handed the first letter to Alfred to look at. He raised his eyebrow.

  “I say. That’s Deuteronomy, if I remember carefully.”

  Frances nodded her head.

  “Chapter five, verse nine. Also found in Exodus chapter twenty, verse five, as well as Exodus chapter thirty four, verse seven.”

  Alfred looked over at Frances, grinning with an arched eyebrow. He was impressed.

  “I didn’t know you were religious,” said Madge, “I had to look that up to remember where I had seen it.”

  Frances looked up at her and smiled.

  “I’m not particularly, but we did attend service when I was a young girl as well as Sunday school. I took all of my lessons seriously.”

  Frances took the second letter out of the envelope and looked at it. It was identical in all aspects to the first one except for the second and third line:

  Vengeance is coming wrathfully. Your suffering will soon be over.

  Four dash six.

  She passed that one over to Alfred and he looked it over as Frances took a look at the third. The third letter was again identical to the first two, and like the second letter it had a different second and third sentence:

  A dish best served cold. The hour for murder almost upon us.

  Five dash six.

  Frances handed this one over to Alfred. He read it and handed all three back to Lady Marmalade. She replaced them in their envelopes and put them on the corner of the table in front of her. She picked up her tea and took a sip.

  “This is very worrying,” she said.

  Madge nodded.

  “Exactly. Someone is out to get me. You see, I knew it.”

  “What do you know?”

  “I’m not safe in my own home. Someone here is out to kill me.”

  “Who do you think it could be?” asked Frances.

  “Heavens. It could be any of them.”

  Madge looked over at Colin and he was smiling into his book. He had heard but he chose not to respond.

  “How long have your boarders been with you?”

  “Colin’s the newest,” said Madge, looking at him and not lowering her voice. “Now that I think about it, he arrived on January the first, just before the letters started.”

  Madge leaned in towards Frances and she leaned in towards her.

  “There’s something not quite right about that boy,” she said, whispering.

  “I can hear you,” he said, not looking up from his book.

  “Colin,” said Frances, looking at him. He looked up at her. “We haven’t met. I’m Lady Marmalade.”

  “I know who you are.”

  “Then you have one up on me. Who are you C
olin? Why are you living with Ms. Hollingsberry?”

  “I am a student, my Lady, at the Royal College of Art, happy to paint your portrait if you’d like, and I live with Madge, because the rent is cheap and the drama free.”

  He smirked at Frances as if this was all just entertainment for his enjoyment.

  “That’s one of his paintings over there,” said Madge, “I don’t like it, but Lula does and she was adamant that we hang it up in a place of honor.”

  “You don’t like it, mum, because you have dismal taste for the arts. I mean, just look all around this place. Full of knick knacks and assorted trinkets that show no cohesion,” said Colin.

  Frances looked at the painting. It was perhaps two feet by three feet. A dark moody painting of a female Christ-like figure hanging on a cross. She was naked and there seemed more blood than there ought to be. The skill was exceptional, but like Madge, Frances didn’t care for the subject matter. Colin’s signature was at the bottom right. Just his last name with loopy and exaggerated accents.

  “What do you call it?” asked Frances.

  “Murdered Madonna,” he said, full of pride. “But I see you don’t care for it, either.”

  He said it as if it made no difference to him, though Frances had the feeling if she’d shown actual distaste in it, he might have relished that.

  “You show remarkable skill, but you are correct, it is not to my tastes.”

  “Not many people can enjoy the naked authenticity and emotive response of the painting,” Colin sneered.

  Frances smiled at him, not allowing herself to be baited by this young man.

  “Do you sell well, Colin?” she asked, knowing full well what the response would be.

  Colin looked back down at his book and mumbled, “I don’t see how that’s any of your concern.”

  Lady Marmalade’s smile widened, she saw Alfred fighting with a small smirk of his own. Frances turned to Madge.

  “If you were to guess, who do you imagine might have it in for you?”

  Madge looked back over at Colin but his nose was deep in his book.