Murder Goes Mumming (8 page)

“I find that impossible to believe,” Squire replied gallantly. “And you’ve been sharing an office with Val’s friend Roy?”

“Heavens, no. Roy has an office all to himself. I’m only in the typing pool.”

“But didn’t I hear you say you did his letters?”

“I used to sometimes. Not lately.”

“Why not?”

“Because Miss Stewart hasn’t assigned me to him, I suppose. Miss Stewart’s our department head. She parcels out the work to whichever of us happens to be free, and we just do what she tells us to.”

Miss Stewart was as aware as everybody else around the office of the way Roy had chased Janet, then dumped her when she came down with acute appendicitis and spoiled his birthday party. She was much too kind a woman to put Janet in the awkward position of having any further dealings with him. Even though it didn’t matter any longer, Janet was not about to explain that to Squire.

“He’s a good-looking chap.” Was Squire baiting her, by any chance?

“Most of the girls seem to think so.” She took her place beside Madoc and picked up her fork. “Roy’s well-liked around the office, I should say.”

“But you yourself have been too preoccupied to notice, eh? Tell an inquisitive old man how you happened to meet Madoc.”

“I tracked her down,” Rhys answered for her. “I’d heard about Janet from a mutual acquaintance,” Fred Olson, the Pitcherville town marshal, to be specific, “and simply presented myself at her door with my suitcase in my hand. At her brother’s door, I should say. I passed myself off as a long-lost relative. Did I not, Cousin Janet?”

“That’s exactly what he did, Squire. We spent our first evening together looking at the family album. After that we—well, we got along rather well together and one thing led to another and here we are.”

To a Condrycke, that of course was a marvelous joke. “There’s one for the books! But you’re not really cousins?”

“There is a very distant connection somewhere or other,” Madoc replied.

That was undoubtedly true. He’d read somewhere recently that if you could trace anybody’s family tree in its entirety back six generations, you’d find that everybody in the world was connected to everybody else now living by the simple laws of mathematical progression. He and Squire might well be related, too, but he didn’t think he’d go into that. It wasn’t going to hurt Janet’s position at Graylings to have it thought she also was related in some degree to Sir Emlyn and Sir Caradoc. She soon would be, in any event.

“Well, look who’s here!”

May blew into the room like a gust off the bay. “Everybody getting enough to eat?”

She checked the dishes on the sideboard with a great rattling of lids. “Lawrence can’t be down yet. There still appears to be plenty left. Janet, have you tried the finnan haddie? We finnan a great haddie around here. Don’t we, Squire?”

“Everything is delicious,” Janet assured her. “After that fantastic dinner last night I thought I’d never be hungry again, but I am.”

May gave another stir to the smoked fish in its rich cream sauce. “I suppose you’ve heard about Granny,” she said abruptly.

“Yes, and we’re terribly sorry. We were just saying so to your father.”

“And I told them we’re going to carry on as Granny would have wanted us to,” said Squire. “Right, my dear?”

“I should hope so.”

May did not look to be bowed down by weight of woe. She was wearing a green and yellow striped jersey this morning with, most unfortunately, bright orange stretchknit trousers. As she was still bending over the sideboard, her husband came in.

“Good God, May, you look like the moon coming over the mountain in that getup,” was his fond greeting. “I thought the mumming wasn’t till tonight.”

He gave her a presumably affectionate skite on the Mount of the Moon and began shoveling eggs and bacon on his plate. “Michel been out to the barn yet?”

“Ages ago. Do you realize what time it is?”

“No, and don’t tell me. If this were Vancouver it wouldn’t even be sunup yet. Speaking of which, has anybody heard a weather report?”

Rhys had, of course, but he wasn’t about to say so.

“Fifine’s got that transistor radio blaring in the kitchen as usual,” said May. “Or you could ask Aunt Addie. She always knows.”

“She was incredible about that fire ship last night,” said Janet, “and she told me a couple of other things that,” she blushed charmingly, “I would hope might be true.”

“You can bank on Aunt Addie,” Herbert replied with his mouth full. “Never been wrong yet. Has she, Squire? Oh, Babs. Join the party. We were just discussing Aunt Addie’s batting average, as they say down in the States. Ever known her to be wrong about one of her presentiments?”

“Hi, Babs,” said May. “Did you find the trimmings?”

“Yes, no problem. They were all stacked just where we left them last year. I’ve left them stacked at the foot of the attic stairs. You know this stupid arm of mine when it comes to carrying things. Maybe Franny and Winny can bring them down. Hello, Janet, Madoc. I think I’ll have another cup of coffee and perhaps just a bite of that finnan haddie if you promise not to tell Donald I sneaked a second breakfast. It’s freezing in that attic.”

Babs fixed herself a plate and sat down next to Squire. “Getting back to your question, Herbert, I can’t say that I ever have known Aunt Addie to miss the mark. You’re around her a lot more than I am, of course, so I shouldn’t presume to contradict you in any case.”

“Tell that to Her Highness, will you? See, May, Babs appreciates me even if you don’t.”

“I want to hear more about your aunt,” Janet insisted. “Can she do it all the time, or just now and then?”

“That depends,” said Herbert. “The weather’s her big thing. She feels that in her bones, she says. Remarkably sensitive bones Auntie has. Sometimes she’ll tell you right to the minute, almost, when a storm’s coming and when it’s going to stop. But if she doesn’t get a feel for it, she won’t predict. The fire ship she hears, though don’t ask me how. Of course the ship doesn’t come along very often, so you couldn’t count that as one of her major effects, but it’s a whizzer when she brings it off. Weren’t you scared stiff last night, Janet?”

“No, why should I have been?” Janet spread the last bit of her marmalade thriftily on her last corner of toast. Trust Janet to make things come out right.

“I was thrilled to pieces, naturally, because I’d never seen a fire ship and always wanted to. The ship was an eerie thing to watch, but I didn’t think it was going to sail in through the window and get me or anything. My sister-in-law’s mother came from Restigouche County and she said the Phantom Ship usually meant a storm coming. I knew we were in for one anyway because I could smell snow in the air last night when we got out of the helicopter. So I just thought that was why it showed up.”

For some reason, all the Condryckes present thought that was a scream. “What have we got here?” cried Herbert. “A second Aunt Addie?”

Janet shrugged. “What’s so remarkable about being able to smell snow in the air? I thought everybody could.”

“All right, then, tell us when it’s going to stop. Within the hour, mind you.”

“Four o’clock. But I’m not saying morning or afternoon, or which day.” Janet laid down her napkin. “I’ll be glad to carry down some of those Christmas trimmings if you’ll tell me where to find them, Babs. Squire said I might help to decorate the tree.”

“Janet, how sweet of you. Just let me finish this coffee and I’ll show you. This house is a jigsaw puzzle to find your way around in.”

“It’s fascinating. Do you ever give guided tours?”

“You’ll get one tonight. We go trooping all through the place scaring the bogles away. That reminds me, we must see about costumes for you two. There’s sure to be something in the attic.”

“Why don’t we tie a couple of eggbeaters to their legs and let them go as a twin-screw motor?” Herbert suggested suggestively. “Any more tea in the pot, May?”

“Give me some while you’re slopping the hogs,” said Cyril, joining the breakfast party without ceremony. “Where’s Don? Off plotting the murder of the reigning heir, namely me? One step nearer the throne, eh, Squire?”

“Here, have a kidney to stop your mouth.”

May slammed a plate down in front of her brother without, for once, trying to make a joke about it. “Donald’s helping Baptiste set up the Christmas tree in the Great Hall.”

“Energetic of him.” Cyril eyed the kidney and took a piece of toast instead. “I hope they get it straight for once.”

“How would you know? You’re half cockeyed already.”

“That’s a base canard, which is French for a low duck, in case you’re not bilingual, Madoc.”

“Thank you. I get most of my language training trying to read the libretti when my mother drags me to hear Dafydd sing.”

In point of fact, Rhys was fluent in both city and country French as well as Welsh, Cree, Aleut, and a few more languages, including the officialese in which he was expected to write his reports. However, he preferred to be taken for a nitwit and often was. He’d remarked to Janet last night that the Condryckes must think she was marrying him for his connections, and she’d replied, “Of course I am. Just make sure you stay connected. I like you with all your parts on.” An ideal attitude for a policeman’s wife. He pushed back his chair and stood up.

“
Avanti,
then, as we say at La Scala. Are there a great many trimmings?”

“Tons. We always have an enormous tree.”

Babs put down her empty cup and rose to lead the way. “Anyone who wants to lend a hand is cordially invited. Don’t all leap at once.”

“Damn the fear of it.”

Cyril decided he’d eat the kidney after all. Herbert went to get himself some finnan haddie. Roy appeared, trying not to look the way he no doubt felt, and Janet was glad of an excuse to leave the breakfast room.

J
ANET HAD DECIDED TO
save her white pullover for best and put on a gray-green cardigan with gray flannel pants and a red scarf for a flash of holiday cheer. It was a good thing she had. The boxes were dusty from their year in the attic and there were, as Babs had said, a great many of them.

“How on earth did you get all these things down the attic stairs by yourself?” she asked Babs. “It must have taken ages. Why didn’t you wait and let us lug them the whole way down?”

“Oh, I didn’t mind. That’s my way of working off a few calories so I can pig it later with a clear conscience. You young things don’t have to worry but, as I keep telling Val, wait till you get to be my age.”

Babs was in fact looking svelte and trim with a bright print smock over her sleek black trousers and a black pullover in the cowl-necked style she favored. It looked like real cashmere and no doubt was. Babs couldn’t be wearing mourning for Granny because one didn’t in the country. Black cashmere was simply the sort of thing she’d wear.

It was interesting to see how differently the Condryckes wore the same sorts of clothes. Clara was safely tasteful, May was flamboyant, Val a conformist in her own way though she’d have raised the roof if anybody said so. Babs was the one with a real sense of style.

She had also the instincts of a good general. Roy hadn’t dawdled over breakfast. Perhaps because he was trying to demonstrate what an up-and-coming young man he was, he bustled into the Great Hall to help with the tree. To Janet’s dismay, Babs delegated him to help carry down ornaments while Madoc, as the lightest and most agile man present, was sent up the tall wooden stepladder to hang spun-glass frivolities on the topmost branches. That left Janet and Roy to make the last trip to the foot of the attic stairs together. It worked out pretty much as Janet expected.

“Look, Janet,” Roy began as soon as they were up on the top floor out of everyone else’s earshot, “I know what you must think of me.”

“Then there’s no point in discussing it, is there?” she replied. “Can you manage that last boxful? Be careful with it. Babs says some of these ornaments are almost a hundred years old and I daresay they’re worth a young fortune.”

“Do you have to be that way?”

“I’m the way I am, Roy. Those who don’t like my manners will just have to lump ’em. You and I happen by coincidence to be guests of the Condryckes. We have a duty to be civil as long as we’re under their roof, so let’s do the best we can and leave it at that, eh?”

“But I don’t want to leave it at that,” he protested, trying to take her hand. “Janet, I made a terrible mistake about you.”

“Then don’t make another. For instance, don’t fool yourself into thinking my folks must have more money than you thought they did just because I’ve happened to get myself involved with a prominent family. I’m no better catch now than I was eight months ago. Madoc knows all about me, he’s visited my folks, he’s marrying me for the simple reason that he wants to, and don’t for one second think he’s not a better man than you are or that I haven’t brains enough to know it. I don’t have what you’re looking for, Roy, and wouldn’t give it to you if I did, so quit trying to tickle your vanity at my expense. And furthermore you’re skating on thin ice with Val Condrycke because you were dumb enough to get drunk last night, so paste that pretty smile back on your face and go flash it where it will do you some good. Now are you going to carry that last box, or shall I?”

“Oh, permit me, your ladyship.”

It wasn’t much of an effort, but maybe it made Roy feel a little better. Janet couldn’t have cared less one way or the other. She went on ahead, relieved to have got the inevitable confrontation over with and concerned only not to drop the fragile ornaments.

Catching a glimpse of Granny’s bedroom door as they twisted around a corner, she noticed somebody had affixed a black bow and a spray of artificial lilacs to it. That was an understandable way to show respect for the dead, she supposed, especially since nothing else could be done until the storm was over and the undertaker arrived. But the bow was too large, the flowers too obviously plastic, and the whole effect too much like one of Herbert’s practical jokes for her taste.

Not, Janet reminded herself, that it was any of her business. Anyway, down in the Great Hall it was easy enough to forget that overdone tribute to an old woman nobody appeared to be mourning. Madoc’s detective instinct must have alerted him to what had happened up by the attic stairs, for he cocked an eyebrow and brushed his fingertips against the inside of her wrist as she reached to hand him up a bauble in the shape of an angel flying a hot-air balloon. She smiled back and blew a kiss to the top of the ladder.