“Even if they aren’t remarkably scarce at Mucklesfeld, he wouldn’t make it that easy.”
“And to be fair to him, Ellie,” Judy’s voice came from close beside me, “it’s not to be expected that he would make things easier. A shame I’m not one wearing my hiking jacket; there’s a penlight in one of the pockets.”
A general murmur of resigned disappointment.
Molly spoke up. “I don’t know anything about secret passages and that sort of thing, but it doesn’t seem likely we’d find an opening on the window wall.”
“I don’t know all that much either,” I said in the direction of her voice. “Despite Mrs. Malloy is praise, I’m not an expert on houses the age of Mucklesfeld.” Answering snort. “Most of what I’ve gleaned-rightly or wrongly-comes from reading books of the sort written by Doris McCrackle. And in those fictional accounts the hidden opening is often found, after a great deal of tapping of the wainscoting, on one side or other of the fireplace.”
“There’s a lot of paneling,” said Molly, “but I didn’t notice a fireplace.”
“Well, I don’t suppose you would have done,” came Mrs. Malloy’s determinedly mellow rejoinder, “but it’s there on the back wall at the top of the table, closed off with a piece of metal sheeting.” Something I, the authority, hadn’t noticed.
Although not good in the dark (Ben might disagree), I managed to fumble my way without excessive bumping into furniture-hard-edged-or the other women-softer-edged-to the wall in question. A sharp yelp preceded Molly’s warning to be cautious of the metal fireplace covering. With considerable overlapping of hands, we proceeded to frisk the wainscoting. To be frank, I wasn’t entirely convinced we would locate a means of escape from the dining room other than the ones bolted against us. But just when I was thinking that past inhabitants of Mucklesfeld must have been a very dull, unimaginative lot, who hadn’t deserved the treat of being scared out of their wits by being forced to hide from the Roundheads or harbor a popish priest, someone bumped into me, causing my knee to jerk forward.
“Is whoever that was all right?” inquired Judy from somewhere to my right.
“Blissful,” I said, staring into an opening the size of a cupboard door, which though shadowy revealed the start of a passageway, suggesting that somewhere ahead was a window or even an exit. “Don’t anyone trample on me as we escape Georges’s clutches!”
Exuberant exclamations, cheers, and laughter exploded as I stepped forward. There was, however, nothing of a stampede in the surge behind me. The light neither brightened nor waned as we made our crocodile march down the narrow, timbered face fifteen or so feet before finding ourselves at the top of a stone stairway.
It was Judy who noticed the candlestick and box of matches. “A clue that we’re meant to go down,” she said, and to my relief Mrs. Malloy did not inform her that this was too obvious to bother mentioning.
“Oh, I do love clues,” said Molly from my immediate rear. “I’m actually enjoying this adventure.”
Judy lit the candle, put the matches in a hip pocket, and we began the downward procession.
“It is rather fun, isn’t it?” I could hear the smile in Livonia’s voice as we continued down, girded on both sides by walls that looked as though they had been around before Hadrian got busy doing his showing off. “Or maybe it’s just the relief of being out of the dining room, which I didn’t much like even before we got locked in.”
“New curtains could make a difference in there and everywhere else.” Alice also sounded chipper.
I thought of Witch Haven’s restful charm that could withstand Celia Belfrey’s personality. Cross as I might be with Mrs. Malloy, I couldn’t bear the thought of her living out her days at Mucklesfeld. Whatever was needed to restore both the structure and the spirit of the house could not be provided by even the most happily married couple, let alone two people brought together out of practicality or ambition. What the place needed was to be crammed as full of life as the hall and drawing room were currently full of furniture.
Having reached the bottom, we found ourselves in an empty cellar small enough to show itself reasonably clearly in the candlelight. No wine racks, filled or empty, no sprouting sacks of potatoes. The only thing to say for it was that it appeared dry-no lichen or mold on the walls. Indeed, the air smelled reasonably fresh. The faces of the other women seemed more clearly defined, more fleshed out than they had done in the dining room before the lights went out. I put that down to a reaction from the plunge into darkness, but then I felt the energy flowing from each of the contestants, with the exception of Mrs. Malloy, who suddenly looked all her sixty-some years.
Alice stood bundling her hair back up. “Georges and his crew have to be filming us through spy holes, otherwise where would be the fun for the viewing audience? May we all agree we’re showing the jokester that any one of us could deal with a crisis as Lady Belfrey?”
“Ellie found the way out of the dining room and she isn’t in the running,” Livonia reminded her.
Take that, Georges! You and your twisted hope of an uncontrollable passion arising between Lord Belfrey and a wedded woman!
“It’s not a bad cellar as such places go, but I’d love to get back out into the gardens.” Judy smiled ruefully. “Should we start prying apart the walls and floor?”
“Please don’t anyone think I’m pushing myself forward,” said Livonia at her most tentative, “but it seems to me that even without the candle we wouldn’t be in pitch dark, so there has to be a faint amount of light creeping in somehow, doesn’t there?”
“What if,” suggested Molly, who looked and sounded breezily confident, “those spy holes Alice mentioned are cracks between the stones in the wall? The ventilation they provide could explain why the cellar is dry.” Taking the candle from Judy, she paced left, then right-eyes shifting from walls to ceiling. “Maybe the cracks-even the widest of them-aren’t easy to see because they’re filmed over with cobwebs of the same gray as the stone. Except, of course, for the one being used to spy on us; that would likely be high up, even in the ceiling.”
“Knowing Georges, he would prefer looking down on us,” I said. “Also, he won’t want to be caught on the spot when we do manage to break out of here.”
“Okay, but even if there are cracks big enough to get our fingers into,” Mrs. Malloy stood a shade wobbly on her high heels and looking as though she’d have dearly liked to sit down and melt into the flagged floor, “how do they help us? Even if we could get a grip, stone’s not what you could call lightweight.” She and I share a gift for pointing out the obvious. “Unless,” she reenergized sufficiently to purse her lips and raise a black painted-on eyebrow, “a section of wall has been replaced with something made up to look just like the rest. You know, Mrs. H, one of them faux finishes you’re always going on about, now everyone’s wanting the insides of their semidetached to look like a Tuscan villa these days.”
“Work done in this case courtesy of Georges’s minions.” I nodded. “That secret panel in the dining room must have been mentioned to Georges as one of Mucklesfeld’s manifold charms, and he went from there. I remember now his mentioning to me, in his usual conceited way, earlier in the week, before the crew came on board, he ordered some stage work done.”
“What’s the betting we’re closing in on what he was boasting about?” Alice gave a comradely hug to Judy, who said that if she were Georges she would have camouflaged the removable section of wall with a thicker layer of cobwebs.
“Shall we start scouting?” Livonia turned to Molly, at which point we heard the faintest sound of organ music, so thready it was almost like someone humming, which reminded me of the dean’s butler in The Landcroft Legacy. I remembered how the evilsounding tune had drifted into Semolina’s ears when she was lost in the moorland fog. The onset of music from an unseen source can be one of the scariest sounds in the world, even… I reminded myself, even when knowing, almost a hundred percent, that it was being filtered into the cellar on the
instructions of Georges, if he wasn’t rapaciously twiddling knobs himself.
We all looked at each other, before gathering closer together.
“It’s all right,” said Molly without a quaver. “All part of the fun.”
“I’m getting meself worked up to chuckle me head off!” said Mrs. Malloy.
“Perverted sense of fun,” amended Alice rather jerkily. “I’ve… never cared much for that tune. It’s so bouncily jolly… it’s creepy.”
What tune? The music swelled to fill the cellar, making it impossible for any one of us not to recognize “Here Comes the Bride.” Silly not to have instantly known from the organ. The tempo picked up to skipping speed, then slowed… deepened… scraped the bottom of a misery a dirge could not have found. I could picture it-St. Mary’s in the Dell so welcoming when I was there that morning, the veiled bride being dragged, clutching and moaning, toward the now sacrificial altar.
“I told you it’s a horrible tune.” Most of Alice’s voluminous hair had tumbled down and she made no move to pile it back up.
“Any music can be twisted around.” Molly moved up close to her.
“Georges is a pain in the neck,” said Judy in her mild voice, “but seeing he must want us to get out of here sometime today, I wouldn’t be surprised if he gave us a hint, by having the music come in loudest near the removable stone, if there is such a piece.”
“’Course the trouble is,” I could hear the effort Mrs. Malloy made not to sound irritably contradictory, “this isn’t no great big space. So the music’s bloomin’ loud everywhere.”
At that moment the music gentled down to the point of sleepiness… or death. There followed a rush over to various walls, a pressing of ears to stone, a narrowed riveting of the eyes. Within moments, Livonia, the formerly timid and repressed, let out a whoop of joy.
“I’ve found it-the section of wall that shifts! The tune was piping directly into my ear. Oh, these cobwebs on my hands! But it doesn’t matter… the gap’s big enough for me to get a good grip. Some of you come and help me. I don’t want to be knocked backward, even if it is only Styrofoam coming down on me.”
I wasn’t among the first to rush forward. To be honest, I was glued to the floor, stunned that what had been posed as a farfetched theory appeared to be on the money. Mrs. Malloy wasn’t speedy, either. In her case the problem seemed be aching feet, although I pretended not to notice because even though she had behaved so badly to Judy at lunch, she was my pal and, as she often says, if you don’t have your pride and an egg in the fridge, what do you have?
As she and I discovered on making up the rear, the fake portion of wall came out in easily controllable portions, leaving us facing a door-sized opening, beyond which according to Alice-the first to go through-was a passageway. Ubiquitous at Mucklesfeld. This turned out to be similar in size and length to the one leading from the dining room’s secret exit, though less shadowy, due to a good-sized window above a door to our right. Of recording devices or human activity there was no sign, suggesting that immediately before the wall came down there had been rapid flight. But there was no budging the door when Judy tried the handle.
“It has to open to the outdoors,” I said, “or there would be no sense to the passage, just as there has to be a way up to our left. Did anyone notice when the music stopped? Or were we all too focused on the wall?”
With hardly another word said, we headed in hope of the staircase which, unless it had been blocked up for the pure enjoyment of doing so by Belfreys past or Georges present, had to be there. It was, and even Mrs. Malloy was renewed sufficiently that she ceased to hobble. Indeed, as we mounted the steps-wooden ones this time, which somehow seemed encouraging-her high heels tapped out a beat that I suddenly realized made an accompaniment to a renewal of organ music. That same oh so merrily macabre tune I would never again hear without thinking of death and decay, which was what we came upon as we headed around a turn of the stairs. In the corner of the dusk-filled landing, in a sitting sprawl, was a hideously grinning skeleton, gowned as for a debutante’s ball in diaphanous chiffon.
“Well,” exclaimed Mrs. Malloy over the now insanely pounding “Here Comes the Bride,” “don’t anyone tell me that isn’t Eleanor Belfrey-murdered by the husband just like I said. Wonder what closet Georges found her in?”
13
I t was the gown that chilled me to the core. Something about the cruelly draped neckline convinced me that here was the lovely ivory creation Eleanor had worn when posing for the portrait. I knew it was impossible that the hideously grinning skull and dangle of bones were her remnants, unless Nora Burton had lied to me and the physical resemblance to the vanished bride had been a lucky (for her) happenstance.
The spirit of adventure that had sustained us to this point evaporated. Not a word was spoken as we edged past the appalling object and hurried en masse up the next flight of stairs. But numbed though I was, I remembered Mrs. Spuds mentioning that Dr. Rowley’s skeleton from his student days was missing from the cupboard in his study.
Had it been nabbed or given willingly? More likely the latter. If Georges had mentioned to Tommy his need for one as part of the activities planned to help choose the right bride for Lord Belfrey, who could blame a fond cousin for stepping into the breach? The more sinister question was, who had suggested and perhaps offered up Eleanor’s gown? And why? Why take the risk of grievously wounding Lord Belfrey, knowing that he cherished her memory? Or was that exactly the point? Was someone seeking to provoke his lordship into putting a stop to the filming? If that was the hope, it would fall flat if none of the contestants babbled a description of the skeleton’s ensemble, which from the current vibes I was getting seemed likely.
On reaching the final steps, we were faced with a piece of paneling, which after a limited amount of poking and pushing by Judy slid sideways to reveal the library gallery. So this was how Lady Annabel had gained admittance, shielded from blatant sight by the sudden dimming of the lights. The place above and below was unoccupied. No audience to greet the return of the wanderers, no disembodied applause, not even a door ajar to provide mirthful or sympathetic peeking. Judy said she was more than ready to go outside and continue working, while the others, including Mrs. Malloy, seemed eager to scatter without further comment. I was ready for a word with the evil mastermind. I’m sorry to say that the thought I gave to Ben was a passing one. Events had pushed from my mind his witnessing the starry-eyed moment I’d shared with his lordship. Had I remembered, it would have seemed too silly to need bringing up. And really, after all, I shouldn’t have to explain myself. If anyone was at fault, it was Ben for being irritated. As a faithful wife I didn’t deserve suspicion.
I was the last to leave the library, and beheld Georges wheeling down the hall from the direction of Lord Belfrey’s study.
“You, sir, are a fiend,” I informed him glacially.
“Spare me your compliments,” he replied with gleeful contempt. “What part of this afternoon’s festivities delighted you most, Ellie Haskell? Was it not generous of me not to leave you out of the entertainment?”
“Not if your hope was for me to faint dead away, as I did the other evening, and have to be deposited on a sofa, causing Lord Belfrey’s chivalrous heart to stir at the sight.” Or, I wondered, had someone else hoped for that outcome, not necessarily with myself but one of the other contestants? Pushing this niggling thought aside, I continued. “Understand, Monsieur LeBois, that I’m on to your idea of setting me as a cat among the pigeons, and if you keep it up, I’ll lock myself in my pokehole bedroom and not come out till it’s time to leave Mucklesfeld.”
“Speaking of holes…”
“Let’s not.”
“Then the music?”
“The only thing I’m willing to spend time talking to you about is…”
“Madame Skeleton? The pièce de résistance, would you not agree, my dear Ellie?” His eyes burned above the beaky nose, the fleshy face quivered with sly pleasure. “Was it
not sporting of Tommy Rowley to loan it to me?”
“Did he,” I asked with a sinking recollection of Livonia’s sweetly gentle face when talking about the doctor, “also give you the dress that pathetic bag of bones was wearing? And if so, did he tell you to whom it belonged?”
“Of its provenance I am ignorant,” Georges said with supreme indifference; then a dawning alertness passed over his bloodhound features, suggesting he was telling the truth. “From your manner, dear child, I now hazard the guess that the onetime wearer was Eleanor Belfrey. I was told-by whom I will not divulge, so much do I adore hoarding secrets-that its well-preserved condition was due to its having been carefully stored.”
“In a drawer or chest in Lord Giles Belfrey’s bedroom,” I said more to myself than to Georges, the one room perhaps that his daughter, Celia, had been prevented from entering, since it was locked and the key placed in his pocket on leaving. But what if-another possibility came hard on the heels of the first-Celia had taken the gown to Witch Haven, to gloat over as she did the portrait, and it was she who had given it to Georges?
“If you don’t want Lord Belfrey to tell you Here Comes the Bride is done with before it’s finished, you’d better make sure whoever provided that gown understands the necessity of keeping his or her mouth shut. The sense I get from the contestants is they’re a decent bunch, uninclined to chatter beyond themselves about such a mockery of death.” With this parting thrust, I left him to make my way up to my room, where I found Ben asleep on the bed. A few minutes later, he stirred and elbowed himself up to stare bleary-eyed at me. Bending forward, I kissed the top of his dark head.
“Hello, darling, back from prowling the rabbit warrens,” I said, plopping down at his feet. “How’s Georges been treating you?”
“Haven’t seen him. I wasn’t worried about your surviving his fun and games-you thrive on that sort of thing, although why he included you in his theatrical folly I’ve no idea-but how did the other contestants hold up?”
She Shoots to Conquer Page 27