Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Vol. 101, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 610 & 611, March 1993

I met Sally coming out of the bathroom. She liked rising late when she could, which was useful to me as it meant I could breakfast alone. Sally was almost as sensitive on Alice’s behalf as the ancient beldame herself, and I wouldn’t have cared for her to catch me at my sleight of hand with the Times. I’d never thought of Sally as a particularly “loyal” person; in fact, as far as Leonard went, my experience had pointed quite the other way. But it turned out that she was a scion of one of those old blood-is-thicker-than-water bucolic families and after Leonard’s death she hadn’t hesitated to accept Aunt Alice’s invitation to come and stay till she “got herself sorted.” I had done all I could to help Sally bear her tragic loss and would have done a great deal more, but her sojourn at Millthwaite had somehow reawoken a whole ocean of sleeping Krakens, notably a sense of family and (worse still) a sense of propriety.

No, she hadn’t gone off me, she explained, as I tried to arrange a tryst in her bedroom on my first visit, but it wasn’t right, not here, in Aunt Alice’s house. And when I suggested what Aunt Alice might care to do, our relationship almost came to a close there and then. Left to herself, I had no doubt that in the end she would marry me. But Leonard’s death hadn’t left her to herself. It had left her to Lennie and to Alice and I wasn’t about to get my share without their express approval.

There was, besides, a more comfortably mercenary motive. Alice’s small fortune (“in the funds,” would you believe?) was going to come Lennie’s way, via his mother — but not if she rushed into a foolish second marriage. And even after three visits to Millthwaite, my suitability was still very much under scrutiny — and (though it hurt to admit it) not only by Alice!

Sally looked very fetching in her nightie and I couldn’t resist giving her a passionate embrace, which she permitted only because we could hear Alice in the hall below trying to make contact with the idiot girl who looked after the village’s tiny telephone exchange. My own recognition of the need for caution couldn’t survive such close contact with that soft flesh and I was trying to maneuver Sally back into the bathroom when Alice’s voice rose sufficiently to penetrate even the drumbeat of hot blood in my ears.

“Constable Jarvis!” she bellowed. “That’s who I want! No reply? What if I was being assaulted? — No, I’m not! I’ll try later!”

She slammed the phone down as I descended the stairs, having abruptly abandoned my assault on Sally much to her surprise and, I hope, disappointment.

“Anything wrong, Alice?” I asked casually.

She regarded me with distaste. She was a big-boned, grey-haired countrywoman in her late fifties and anger turned her face a greyish-purple and drew the sides of her mouth down till they almost touched her chin.

“You didn’t eat any of my tarts, did you?” she demanded.

No one in his right mind would have admitted it at that moment.

“No!” I said emphatically. “Are some missing?”

“Four,” she said.

Four! I’d only taken two! The monster, Lennie, must have returned and taken the others. How like his father, to add theft to blackmail!

Without compunction I suggested, “Perhaps Lennie helped himself?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “The milkman’s money’s gone from the shelf, too. He’d not do that.”

But you still asked me! I thought indignantly. What a world it was where children received more trust than their elders. Especially a child whose criminal inheritance stood out like a love-bite on a nun.

“No, I know who it’d be,” she continued grimly. My blood chilled. “I saw that tramp, the one they call Old Tommy, hanging around earlier. He kept going when he saw me, he knows there’s nothing for the likes of him at my house. He must have come back through the kitchen garden later. I’ll get Jarvis after him as soon as he bothers to answer his phone.”

So saying, she picked up the telephone once more.

I went through the kitchen, avoided the temptation of the depleted but still heavily loaded tray of tarts, and strolled out into the morning sunshine. It seemed like a good time for a walk. If I could have spotted young Lennie, I’d have invited him along, not because of his sparkling conversation but merely to have him out of the way when P.C. Jarvis arrived. But he was nowhere in sight, so I had to be content with making myself scarce.

Not that there was much to bother about. I’d seen this tramp, Old Tommy, pretty frequently on my egg-disposal expeditions along the country byways and he looked a natural suspect for all petty crime in the district. So I strolled along enjoying the warm sunshine, the lush green fields gilded with buttercups, and the warbling of innumerable birds. Even the distant pop of a shotgun as some unsentimental farmer tried to cut down on the warbling seemed to blend in with the overall rich sensuous pattern of Nature.