“And you Lula, did you touch anything while you were in there?”
She shook her head slowly and sadly, her head bowed down her eyes flitting from Frances to her own fists that were balled up in her lap.
“I just tried to help my grandmother, that’s all. I wasn’t even aware of anything else.”
“Has anyone else entered the bathroom since Colin, Jeremiah and Lula left?”
Frances looked carefully at Matilda and Penelope.
“Good grief, no, there is just no way that I want to see a dead body. It sends shivers up my spine just thinking about it,” said Matilda.
“I agree with Matilda,” said Penelope, “I find the whole thing quite grizzly.”
Colin squeezed her shoulder in support. Frances looked over at Jeremiah and Mollie standing off to one side.
“The two of you were not with the others during Madge’s bath time, can you tell me where, exactly, you were between seven and when the sirens went off?” asked Frances.
“I had finished up dinner for the boarders, my Lady,” said Mollie, the smile still vacant from her face, “and I had tidied up the dirty dishes. Me and Jerry were having our dinner during that time.”
“For the whole hour?”
“No, my Lady, but after we had eaten, Jerry went and offered after dinner drinks and desserts to the boarders, then he came back and stayed with me in the kitchen and kept me company while I cleaned up.”
“So, at no time during that period did you go upstairs?”
“I didn’t go upstairs, my Lady. I haven’t been upstairs since before dinner when I informed Ms. Hollingsberry that dinner was ready.”
“And what time was that?”
“About six p.m.”
Mollie looked like she was in trouble, but she wasn’t, at least not at the moment.
“Can you corroborate that, Jeremiah?”
“Yes, my Lady, just as Mollie said. We had our supper and then I came out and offered port and brandy to the boarders and some Black Forest cake that Mollie had baked this afternoon. Then I went back and kept her company while she washed up. Just after the sirens started I heard Ms. Beckenswidth yelling from upstairs so I went to help and that’s when Colin came in right after me.”
Frances looked over at the boarders.
“Can any of you confirm that Jeremiah was out here serving cake and drinks as he says?”
Matilda and Penelope nodded, so did Lula.
“Yes, he was, just like he says. The cake was delicious and so was the brandy,” said Colin trying for a bit of levity.
“Why all these questions, I thought that Lula said Madge had accidentally drowned?” asked Matilda.
“Yes, it is very apparent that Madge has drowned, but she did not drown accidentally. Just as I had feared, and even with my best intentions of protecting her, Michael has managed to murder his mother.”
“Good heavens,” said Penelope. “You can’t be serious. How? Nobody’s been in the house all night just as you had asked.”
“Michael, it seems, knew Madge’s schedule quite intimately and he used that to his advantage and used Lula, unknowingly, to be the instrument of his evil plan.”
“What do you mean?” asked Lula.
“Michael, whoever he is, must have known that Madge baths every other day or so and that she likes to use ample bath oils with her bath. I believe that he poured most of the bath oils down the sink and replaced it with chloroform. Just leaving enough of the bath oils to mask the aroma.”
Lula looked up at Lady Marmalade and blinked her eyes, it looked like she might burst into tears again at any moment.
“So you’re saying that I killed her?”
“No, my dear, I’m saying that you poured the bath oils into her bath which had already been replaced with chloroform to knock her out and then cause her to drown.”
Lula started to tear up and cry.
“No, no, no... I should have known... I killed Granny,” she said.
Jeremiah left the living room and returned carrying a box of tissues which he handed to Lula.
“What an evil and cunning monster,” said Matilda. “I thought that it was all just a bit of a joke that Madge was playing on all of us.”
Frances shook her head slowly.
“I’m afraid not my dear, this has been, sadly, all too real.”
“Then who is this Michael?” asked Penelope.
“I have an idea, but I’m waiting to get confirmation from Inspector Pearce. There is no need to rush now if justice is to be served. We want to be thorough and certain.”
“But the letters, what about those letters?” asked Matilda. “They don’t look like they’re written by a man, that’s partly why I thought Madge might have been responsible. Surely they’ve been written by a woman.”
“I agree that they certainly don’t look like they’ve been written by a man, and I do believe that they weren’t written by Michael.”
“Then who?”
“Time and Inspector Pearce’s graphologist will answer that question, though I suspect that the culprit is one of you three.”
“Preposterous, you have to be joking,” said Colin, gesticulating angrily.
Frances looked at him and then at Matilda until her eyes finally rested on Penelope. Penelope looked at Frances with her eyes wide and raised her eyebrows. She folded her arms under her bosom and looked down at the table.
“You have to be joking. I didn’t do it,” she said.
“We will see,” said Frances, looking over at each of them in turn. “I do believe whoever did do it, that they didn’t believe it would end as badly as this. I believe that whoever of you wrote the letters thought it was quite good fun to cause Madge some discomfort as she has caused each and everyone of you in your own way.”
“Bloody right,” said Colin, “I can’t say she didn’t deserve to be a little agitated. But none of us would have plotted to kill her, for god's sake.”
“That I do believe. Whoever is the letter writer was used as a pawn just as Lula was in fulfilling Michael’s sinister plan.”
“Look,” said Matilda, “we’re all out of a home now. Madge made it abundantly clear that if she should die, we’d all be kicked out of here. As much as we might have disliked her, none of us wanted her dead, if only for that reason.”
“I understand that,” said Frances.
“I mean, it’s very difficult right now to find a rooming house,” said Matilda.
“Isn’t that the truth,” added Colin, “I’m going to have to live in my studio until I can find a place, if I don’t get caught.”
“I think I should be all right,” said Penelope, “Mr. and Mrs. Bollingshook have wanted a live in nanny for some time. Matilda said she’d put in a good word with them as she’s leaving to head back up to Liverpool to move in with her mum and dad until Max gets back from the war. So I’m sure they’ll take me on as a fulltime nanny.”
“Is that so?” asked Frances looking at Matilda.
“Yes, I’m fed up with this war. My mum says that Liverpool doesn’t have it half as bad as London, and Penelope has been looking for different work for some time.”
“Then why did you make such a scene about how hard it is to find a rooming house?” asked Frances.
Matilda looked away and huffed.
“Because you’re insinuating that one of us wrote those letters and it wasn’t me, I wanted you to realize that.”
Frances didn’t say anything.
“You shouldn’t have said that,” said Colin to Penelope.
“What,” she said.
“Say that you have a place to move to, it makes you look all the more guilty.”
“About what?”
“Well, it makes it look like you had reason to write those letters, because Madge’s death and getting kicked out of here doesn’t affect you much at all now.”
“Really?” asked Penelope, looking at Frances. “What about Lula, Madge practically beats the stuffing out of her and she�
��ll get to stay here, so why am I the guilty one?”
“One of you is guilty,” said Frances, “and I haven’t made up my mind as to who that is yet, we’ll let the evidence decide.”
Penelope shook her head.
“Unbelievable, Matilda’s not going to be inconvenienced by this much at all, and she’s made her plans well in advance. I just learned about the full time nanny position.”
Penelope’s crossed her arms even more firmly and looked away at the far wall which was jammed with statues and paintings. Colin squeezed her shoulder.
“I’m sure you didn’t do it... Did you?”
Penelope didn’t answer him.
“I’m just teasing you.”
“This is not the time for your stupid jokes,” said Matilda, looking at him sternly.
He didn’t respond. He put his tumbler to his lips and drained the brandy. He looked longingly at the bar, but didn’t head over to it right away. Penelope picked up her port from the table and took the last sip.
“I’ve sent Alfred to call for the police. They should be here any minute and we’ll be getting to the bottom of this shortly.”
As if on cue, there was a knock at the front door. Jeremiah looked at Lady Marmalade.
“Will you allow me to answer, my Lady?”
“Of course.”
EIGHTEEN
Chapter 18
INSPECTOR Pearce entered the living room twirling his very well manicured moustache. He was followed by two constables. They looked like twins, if not in looks then in stature. Large, burly men whom you might expect to be lumberjacks rather than Bobbies. They were clean shaven and wore their Custodian helmets smartly on their heads. They each walked off to a side of the room and stood ‘at ease’ with their legs apart and their hands behind their backs.
Last in was Alfred, who didn’t look particularly flustered. The Hollingsberry’s grandfather clock chimed once for half past nine. Nobody stood up to greet the inspector. In fact, the temperature of the room got decidedly chilly.
“Evening. I am Inspector Pearce of Scotland Yard,” he said looking around the room and making eye contact with everyone. “If you’ll all please wait here, I’ll have Lady Marmalade show me to the bathroom.”
He looked over at Frances and smiled at her, offering his hand, which she took and shook as she got up.
“Nice to see you again, though we ought to stop meeting under these circumstances.”
He gave her a sly grin and she smiled back.
“It’s always a pleasure to see you, Devlin. Please follow me, the bathroom is upstairs.”
Inspector Pearce followed Frances out the living room and as he did so he nodded at his constables. They were not to let anyone out of the room. They made their way up the landing and down the hall, taking the last right before Madge’s room into the bathroom. Frances entered first and stood quietly in the middle of the bathroom as Pearce came up beside her and stood next to her. He looked around.
“No signs of violence,” he said.
“No, not at all, Devlin,” she answered.
Inspector Pearce looked over at Frances and smiled at her. She looked up at him.
“Are you going to make this harder for me or will you just tell me what happened. I know you’ve already been in here.”
Frances smiled.
“You know me too well,” she said. “I’ll tell you what I think happened and then you can make your own judgment.”
“I haven’t known you to get it wrong yet.”
“Well, don’t jinx me, there is a first time for everything.”
Frances turned around and pointed at the door.
“Lula draws Madge’s bath every other day or so. Last time she had her bath was on the evening of the 8th of June, a Monday. This evening she drew her grandmother’s bath just as she usually does and she adds half a bottle of bath oils.”
“That’s rich.”
“Yes, I agree, but apparently Madge believes that’s what she needs to keep her skin smooth and supple. In any event, Lula draws the bath and then helps Madge into it. She leaves and closes the door behind her. From what I’ve been able to ascertain, nobody else came up here until the sirens started. Then Lula came up to find her grandmother to help her downstairs into the shelter.”
Pearce nodded as he looked around the bathroom, noticing the crumpled dressing gown on the floor by the bathtub.
“And she came in here and found her drowned, just like she is now?”
“Yes,” said Frances, “though she first checked her grandmother’s room, but not finding her there she came back to the bathroom and knocked before entering. She came in and tried to revive her grandmother.”
“How so?”
“She tried as best as she could to yank her out of the water as much as she could. But she’s a small fragile thing, Lula. I would surmise that Madge was already long dead by this point. Lula yelled for help and both the butler Jeremiah and Colin came upstairs and into the bathroom. Colin took charge, checked for her breathing and determined that Madge was dead. He told me that he had to practically drag Lula down into the shelter.”
“I see, so the woman has been stewing in this bath since around eight?”
“No, quite a bit before then. She took her bath at shortly after seven Lula said.”
“Right, sorry. I meant she had been left in here since Lula found her when the sirens went off.”
Frances nodded.
“It looks to me like a simple drowning. Perhaps she knocked her head or had a mild heart attack and drowned.”
“That’s what Lula thought at first too. It does look clean and convenient doesn’t it. And if we hadn’t received those letters from Madge I might agree. But we have, and on a side note I have the sixth letter that Madge received this afternoon to give you.”
“Did it suggest something like this?”
“Not directly, but it certainly made it clear that something awful would happen to her. I have it in my handbag downstairs, I’ll give it to you when we get down. It said, ‘you have not repented. The time is nigh. You will die.’”
“I see,” said Pearce, nodding his head. “She certainly wasn’t drowned forcibly, otherwise you’d expect a lot of water all over the floor.”
“Exactly. This might have been the perfect murder if it weren’t for all these letters. She’s an older woman, not in the best of health, it could easily have been ruled a natural death.”
“Except that the murderer wanted vengeance and part of that was causing her fear before hand.”
“Right.”
“And you think that this murderer is Michael?”
Frances nodded.
“Any word about that yet?”
“I’m afraid not, but they’ve promised me they’ll have the records delivered first thing in the morning and I’ll be meeting with my graphologist first thing in the morning too.”
“Good.”
“All right, then. So Madge was drowned, I think it’s fair to say that was the cause of death. But if this was murder, how was she drowned so easily?”
“The key is that bottle of bath oils I mentioned.”
Frances walked up to the cabinet under the sink and opened it up. She pulled out the bottle of bath oils and gave it to Pearce. He looked at it and then looked at her.
“My wife likes the same bath oils. This is hardly intriguing.”
“Take the cap off and have the slightest whiff, and I mean the slightest, Devlin.”
Pearce looked at her and unscrewed the cap off the bottle and took a faint whiff of the aroma from the contents. He quickly held it away from his nose and screwed the cap back on.
“You trying to put me under?” he asked.
Frances smiled.
“Chloroform with just the barest hint of lavender.”
Frances nodded.
“Exactly. I asked Lula if she felt a bit light headed after she had helped her grandmother into the bath and she admitted to feeling that way, but she said sh
e often feels a bit woozy after helping her grandmother into her bath as she’s a big woman. But as you smelled it, there is very little of the lavender left in it. I think at least half of this bottle was pure chloroform.”
“You could knock out an elephant with that much,” said Pearce.
“I imagine so. I think our murderer didn’t want to take any chances.”
“Do you have any idea who you think it might be?”
“Michael, of course,” said Lady Marmalade grinning.
“Yes, but who is Michael?”
“I’m teasing with you, Devlin,” said Frances. “But to answer your question, yes I do believe I have an idea about who Michael might be.”
“And are you going to share that with me?”
“Not yet, I’d rather get confirmation from you when you have it.”
“Very well,” said Pearce who had taken to twirling his moustache again. “What about the letter writer?”
“You know, that is something that I’m not sure about. Looking at those samples that I gave you, I thought that Matilda’s matched the closest, but I just don’t know why she would do that. And then I noticed Colin’s signature on his painting in the living room. The A and Bs of his last name are loopy and round like some parts of the handwriting in the letters, but his sample was not like that at all.”
“Could be he masked his own handwriting.”
“Or, he created a stylized hand for the letters. He is after all an artist.”
“But why do it?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Devlin, I think any of the three boarders downstairs might have done it just for a silly joke, not realizing the severity of the outcome. None of them really like her and I can understand why. It might have been something as simple as spite.”
“Let’s see what the graphologist has to say. But one question I do have, is what makes you think it is someone in the home who wrote these letters?”
“That’s elementary, my dear Pearce,” said Lady Marmalade, smiling at him, “or perhaps it isn’t. The way I look at it is this: Michael somehow is aware of Madge’s day-to-day routines, otherwise how would he know when to switch out the bath oils or have someone switch them out for him? As such, I think he’d want to use someone from the inside to write the letters so that everything is more easily contained. The outcome is more assured and he can keep an eye on everything from a distance. Additionally, he likely knows how difficult a woman this Madge is, and so those living under her roof are more likely to hold ill will towards her than some stranger who might be more easily put off from writing the letters by the content of them.”
Lady Marmalade Cozy Murder Mysteries: Box Set (Books 1 - 3) Page 43