Here Lies Gloria Mundy

‘Karen laughed when I did it.’

‘No, I didn’t,’ said Karen. ‘I wouldn’t have thought of laughing. I detest hearty humour. It was Mrs Coberley who laughed.’

‘People laugh from shock mostly,’ said McMaster. ‘Isn’t that so?’

Before anybody could answer, the doorbell pealed and pealed.

‘That’s witchcraft, too,’ said Aunt Eglantine. ‘They always do that when they want to annoy people.’

A maidservant, her cap askew and her shoes soaking wet, announced the return of Kay and Roland. They had decided to take to the byroads, had come to a watersplash which the rain had swollen into a torrent and got their car waterlogged in mid-stream. To complete the disaster, the wind had flung a big branch at them and it had smashed the windscreen.

‘We had to abandon the car and get to a garage,’ said Roland. ‘They won’t touch the job until the water ebbs away, so we hired from them and they brought us back. We’re soaking.’

As this hardly needed saying, Celia sent them off to get a hot bath and she and Anthony lent them clothes, as all their luggage had been left in the boot of their car.

‘I’m very grateful for your offer of a bed for the night,’ said McMaster, when the two drowned rats had gone upstairs, ‘but I think I ought to be off as soon as the storm gives over.’

‘Oh, why?’ asked Celia.

‘Because you’ve offered me Miss Shortwood’s room, and now she’ll be needing it herself.’

‘That’s all right. Kay could have shared with Karen just for one night, but Dame Beatrice has gone, so her room is available. Do stay. But, anyway, it would have been quite easy.’

Kay came downstairs again before Roland reappeared. Over tea, at which the Coberleys were not present as they had been called back to the school before the storm broke, she asked casually, ‘I thought, didn’t I, that Miss Mundy had left? Didn’t she go after the soup incident at lunch? She said she was going, I thought.’

‘Oh, she did go,’ said Celia, without glancing at Aunt Eglantine, who was wiping buttery fingers down the front of a black velvet gown. ‘Yes, she went off in a white-hot rage and I didn’t suggest she should stay.’

‘Witches are gate-crashers,’ said Aunt Eglantine. ‘Nobody wants them. They just invite themselves.’

‘What do you mean about Gloria?’ said Anthony to Kay. ‘Of course she went, and no wonder.’

‘Then I think you may take it that she has come back,’ said Roland, who had just entered the room. ‘Tea? Oh, I say, jolly good!’ He seated himself. ‘She’s in the old house. We saw her at the window.’

‘But she couldn’t get in. Coberley has the only key,’ said Anthony.

‘Witches can get in anywhere,’ said Aunt Eglantine.

‘Well, she can’t sleep there. There is no bed and no heating,’ said Celia. ‘As soon as the rain eases off, somebody had better go and bring her back here. I shall have to find somewhere to bed her down, that’s all.’

‘No. I shall take her to a hotel,’ said Anthony. ‘She is not going to make a nuisance of herself here.’

‘You’ll do nothing of the sort,’ said McMaster. ‘Kate will expect me. I am very grateful, as I said, for your offer of a bed for tonight but, as the weather already seems to be easing off, there is no reason why you should put me up. I’ll be the one to go.’

‘To make room for Gloria? Perish the thought!’ said Anthony.

‘No, really, you mustn’t go,’ said Celia. ‘Anthony can telephone the hotel and a taxi can take the wretched woman there. They know us. We often go there on Saturday evenings to dine and dance. They will take her in and Anthony can settle the bill later. It’s worth it to make sure that she doesn’t come back here. You ring up your wife and tell her you’re staying, and then after dinner we’ll all settle down and have a cosy time. I’m sure you three old college friends will like to get together and talk over old times in Anthony’s den, and I expect the rest of us can amuse ourselves without you. The rain may ease off, but there is bound to be flooding. We don’t want you bogged down like Roland and Kay.’

‘They should have stuck to the main roads, of course,’ said William Underedge.

‘Thanks for the hindsight,’ said Roland Thornbury angrily.

‘Now, now!’ said Karen. ‘Boys must not be boys in mixed company.’ The maid came in to clear away the tea things, and the various parties dispersed to their rooms except for Anthony and Celia. As I, the last to leave, was passing through the doorway into the hall, I heard him say, ‘The storm has upset people. Well, I had better see about Gloria, I suppose.’

‘I’m sure Roland and Kay are mistaken,’ I said, turning round. ‘Coberley let me into the old house this morning. She couldn’t possibly have got in without the key.’

‘Then I had better ring up the school and find out whether Coberley lent it to her,’ said Anthony. ‘It was not right of him if he did. The house is not yet his property.’

‘Do you mind that he took me in there this morning?’