The World's Finest Mystery Part 52

Emily Mortmain had been a disagreeable woman all her life, and old age had intensified her cantankerousness. Her husband had volunteered for a suicide mission in World War II, and all his contemporaries in the RAF had said how heroic he was, since he was still young and had so much to live for. He had smiled heroically, and said nothing. Her daughter had emigrated with her family to Australia many years before, and had opined at the time that Australia's only drawback was that it was not far enough away. As Emily became increasingly unable to fend for herself, neighbors had tried to help, then fellow church members (for Emily was a "good" churchwoman), and then social workers. All attempts had ended in disaster- plates being thrown by or at her, screaming altercations at her back door, even an attempted throttling. When the local vicar lost his faith and left the church, the parish joke was that he had found himself unable to believe in a G.o.d who could create an Emily Mortmain.

The members of her family who came to see her off on the morning she left for the home were two nieces and a nephew. Their contact with her over the years had been sporadic, but had never dropped off entirely, for Emily had money, and it was known that her daughter had been ritually cursed by bell, book, and candle and cut out of the will. Who, if anyone, had been cut in was not known, but it was generally agreed that there was no charity with aims unpleasant enough for Emily to want to give it money.

There was no rivalry among the relatives. They knew no one could suck up to Emily Mortmain, because it was not in humankind to be pleasant to her for long enough to gain any favor. None of the three volunteered to drive her to the home, for each feared the inevitable bust-up in the car. They stood by the front gate waving cheerily as she was driven away in a taxi provided by the local social services. Then they gave a m.u.f.fled cheer and went away to have a drink together and swap "Aunt Em" stories.

Emily was silent on the drive to Evening Glades. One did not talk to taxi drivers. One did not tip them either. A wheelchair was waiting for her in the driveway of Evening Glades, and the resident handyman got her into it and pushed her into the foyer. She did not thank him, and merely stared stonily ahead at Miss Protheroe the manageress when she introduced herself. She maintained her silence when she was taken up in the lift and shown her room, and preserved the same arctic chill when she was wheeled down into the communal sitting room to await lunch.

Miss Protheroe (whose only fault, if she had one, was a slight tendency to talk to the residents as if they were children) made a special effort to take her round and introduce her to her "new friends" as she called them.

"Miss Willc.o.c.ks... Captain Freely... Miss Cartwright... Mr. Pottinger... Mrs. Freebody..."

But she needn't have bothered. Indeed, the introductions died away in her throat. Emily Mortmain had risen from her wheelchair with the aid of a stick, and placed herself in the nearest available armchair. She acknowledged neither the names, nor the tentative (or in some cases appalled) greetings of the other residents. When Miss Protheroe had finished she merely announced, "My room does not have a sea view."

Miss Protheroe, as was quite often necessary in her job, took a firm line.

"The rooms with a sea view are very highly prized here. Mrs. Freebody, Mrs. Johnstone, and Captain Freely have the sea views at the moment, as our residents of longest standing."

Emily Mortmain fixed each in turn with a look of malevolence that seemed designed to ensure that all three rooms shortly became available.

"And when- if- they should for any reason... become vacant," said Miss Willc.o.c.ks, greatly daring, "there is a long waiting list."

Emily Mortmain's face took on an expression of relish, as if she was spoiling for a fight which she had no doubt she would win.

"Lunch in half an hour," said Miss Protheroe brightly.

It was predictable that lunch was not to Mrs. Mortmain's liking. The gravy was too thin, the beef was overdone, and the peas were tinned. She aroused in the others a vociferous and unusual enthusiasm for thin gravy, well-done beef, and tinned peas. This cut no ice with Emily Mortmain, who had all her life adopted the position that anyone who had an opinion contrary to her own on any subject whatsover was either a fool or a degenerate. When the pudding came, a rhubarb tart, she pushed it away. "I can't abide rhubarb."

As she made her way slowly, with the aid of a stick, toward the sitting room, she shouted to Miss Protheroe, "Remember, I can't abide rhubarb!"

"Funny," said Mr. Pottinger. "I'd have thought rhubarb and Mrs. Mortmain would have suited one another."

"I do wonder whether she's going to fit in here," said Miss Willc.o.c.ks.

That was a matter on which there could be only one opinion, but it was an opinion that was bounced backwards and forwards over the rhubarb tart; it was productive of a satisfactory gloom at things not being what they used to be. This feeling was reinforced when they all trailed back to the sitting room and stood horrified in the doorway. Emily Mortmain had appropriated the armchair closest to the fire.

The comforts of Evening Glades were distributed with a rough-and-ready attempt at democracy. The possessors of the rooms with a sea view did not have the chair closest to the fire, and the person with the first rights to the Daily Mail in the mornings was someone else again. The armchair by the fire was Miss Willc.o.c.ks's by right.

"Tell her!" Miss Willc.o.c.ks urged Captain Freely, poking him quite painfully in the ribs.

Captain Freely was only just an officer and not quite a gentleman, but he could be quite splendidly officerly and gentlemanly if the occasion called for it. He advanced with the solemnity of Black Rod on a state occasion.

"Mrs.... er... Mortmain, I'm afraid you don't yet know our little ways here... our customs and conventions... The armchair you are sitting in is- hmm- reserved for the use of Miss Willc.o.c.ks here."

The evil black eyes looked at him, then moved toward Miss Willc.o.c.ks, then back to Captain Freely.

"Switch on the television, will you?" she said. "It's time for Jacaranda Avenue."

There was an immediate twitter of protest.

"We don't watch Jacaranda Avenue at Evening Glades," said Captain Freely. Then, aware that they had let themselves be sidetracked, he went on, quite severely, "I don't think you quite understood what I just said about-"

"Oh, I understood. Switch on the television."

The other residents stood round aghast. It was at this point that Captain Freely's military training told. Emily Mortmain had taken hold of her stick, and clearly intended to use it to press the appropriate b.u.t.ton on the television set. Captain Freely, with great presence of mind, wheeled the set a further two feet away.

"Here at Evening Glades," he said sententiously, "we watch Coronation Street and EastEnders. We think that that is enough soap opera without adding an Australian one."

"Northern filth and c.o.c.kney filth," sniffed Emily Mortmain. "At least the Australian program is clean."

But Captain Freely, with the nodded support of the other residents, had turned on a wildlife program. Emily Mortmain felt at an unusual moral disadvantage from the fact that she had preferred a soap to this.

"Such a graceful bird," said Mrs. Johnstone, as they watched a flying condor. "One can almost imagine angels' wings."

Such a rubbing in of superior taste drove Emily Mortmain to a suppressed frenzy. Her instinct- for she had all the childishness of the very old- was to get up and change the channel. On the other hand she knew that one of the others- in whom childishness was certainly not absent- would nip over and take her chair. Indeed, Captain Freely had remained standing while all the rest had sunk into chairs, and he hovered near her, no doubt meditating a chivalrous dash to rescue the chair on behalf of Miss Willc.o.c.ks should the opportunity arise. Emily Mortmain fumed, but sat on.

At 2:30 precisely Emily Mortmain took up her stick and pressed the bell for Carter, the man of all work.

"Take me to my room," she ordered, hobbling towards her wheelchair. "It's my time for a lie-down. Remember that. Half past two is always my time to lie down."

The other residents watched her go in dignified silence, and no one scuttled over to take her chair. Only when the lift had gone up did Miss Willc.o.c.ks walk over to her rightful place with great, if wounded, presence. She sat down to a little burst of applause, and Captain Freely summed up the general feeling when he said, "We shall have to fight back."

It was generally agreed that, though they would be scrupulously polite to the new resident, it was no use at all relying on good manners or conventional decencies. If the chair by the fire was to be kept for Miss Willc.o.c.ks, this would have to be done by stratagem. After various possibilities were considered, Captain Freely dragged down from the bookshelves more than a dozen bound copies of Punch, dating from the 1920s. He placed them near the chair and declared that at meal times, or when Miss Willc.o.c.ks took her const.i.tutional, he himself would place these on the chair, which Mrs. Mortmain, with her limited ability to move, would find exceedingly difficult to remove. "I haven't lost all my strength yet, thank the Lord," he declared. It was agreed that for the moment the television would remain at some distance from all the chairs, however inconvenient this was for those with poor eyesight. It was also agreed that the morning paper would be kept for Mrs. Freebody in the office until she called for it after breakfast. Thus was the strategy conceived, and the mere discussion of the measures gave the old people an agreeable sense of having taken part in a council of war.

"Just like the Home Guard," said Mr. Summerson, the oldest inhabitant, "planning what to do when Jerry landed."

But of course Jerry had not landed, and it was typical of Mrs. Mortmain that by the next day she had decided to fight on a completely different front. What had most rankled about the skirmishes of her first day had been (not that she admitted it in these terms to herself) that she had allowed herself to be put at a moral disadvantage. Her insistence on the Australian soap when the others (apparently, and so they said) preferred to watch a wildlife program was, in retrospect, unwise. It was imperative to regain the moral initiative.

The following day was warmish, and Mrs. Mortmain affected not to have seen the piled copies of Punch on the chair by the fire. She took an armchair over by the bookcase, the farthest from the television, and she turned it away from the despised screen. She fortunately found among the stock of books a volume of sermons which had been the comfort of a previous resident, now gathered to the bosom of the Lord. This she opened and ploughed doggedly through, whatever program was on the television. She was not spoken to by any of the residents, but if addressed by Miss Protheroe or Carter she would read aloud the pa.s.sage she was at, ostensibly to mark her place.

"Would you prefer carrots or greens with your meat loaf, Mrs. Mortmain?"

" '...the unG.o.dly shall perish in a sea of tormenting fire.' What precisely do you mean by 'greens'?"

This ploy was gratifying to her sense of superiority, if in the long run monotonous. For the rest, too, it was a respite, and they found that life at the Glades could go on pretty much as normal, almost as if Mrs. Mortmain had not been there. This, though, was not Emily's intention in the long term. Having regained the moral heights, she was impelled once more to a.s.sert her presence.

Sunday provided many opportunities. Breakfast was no sooner over than Emily Mortmain demanded to know when the transport would be leaving for church.

"I'm afraid there is no transport for church," said Miss Protheroe, with a tired- almost desperate- kind of brightness. "Those who can get to church, and want to go, of course... go. The rest of us make do with the television service. And of course, the vicar comes and gives us our own special little service once a month."

"Incredible! Quite incredible!" Emily Mortmain surveyed the other residents, who were deep in the People, the News of the World, and the Sunday Telegraph. "It's news to me that the Lord intended his day to be consecrated to the reading of newspapers!"

"It's news to me he ever said anything on the subject of the News of the World," said Captain Freely cheekily. But he felt on dubious moral ground. It was difficult to imagine a G.o.d who would approve of the News of the World.

Mrs. Mortmain had a taxi summoned, and was driven in solitary state to and from the nearest Anglican church. If any of the other residents had attended the service they might have noticed that she ignored on principle all the changes that had occurred in the Church of England forms of worship over the past two decades or so. Change was, to Emily Mortmain, synonymous with degeneracy. When the vicar shook her hand at the church door, she informed him that next time he came to Evening Glades, she wished to see him. "Alone," she intoned. "In private."

The vicar didn't see how he could refuse. Though thinking it over afterwards he didn't see why he should have accepted either. But Emily caught him on the hop, and he said that since she was a new resident at Evening Glades, and a new parishioner, he would come along especially to see her later in the week. Emily nodded to him curtly, and let the taxi driver wheel her away.

Mrs. Mortmain made a great thing of this approaching interview with the vicar. She said nothing about it directly to the other residents, but she communicated quite effectually through Miss Protheroe.

"The vicar will be calling to see me on Thursday," she announced on Monday at lunchtime. "Make sure that he is brought straight to my room."

And again on Thursday at breakfast time.

"When the vicar calls we must be absolutely private."

The rest of the residents, as they were meant to, wondered.

"She has the sort of obsession about secrecy that afflicts some prime ministers," said Captain Freely acutely.

The vicar, when he came, found the whole interview profoundly depressing. He was a well-meaning man, verging on the ineffectual. His depression took the form of wondering why so many deplorable people were attracted by the Christian religion. He listened to her demands that he insist on the banning of television on Sundays at Evening Glades, that the home should cease subscribing to any Sunday newspapers, that regular churchgoing by the able-bodied be a condition of acceptance, and so on and so on, and his heart sank.

Yes, he was on the governing board, he said, but no, he didn't have that sort of power. And in fact he had no wish to start dictating to a group of old people how they should spend their spare time. Did we really want the Christian religion to seem so negative and coercive? he wondered aloud.

All this was not unexpected to Emily Mortmain. She knew that Church of England vicars these days lacked fire in their bellies, had no relish for a fight. To her, religion was essentially belligerent: a fight against moral laxity, atheism, other sects, and anyone who happened to disagree with her on any matter whatsoever. Emily Mortmain would have fitted in perfectly in Northern Ireland.

But Emily was not in the least disappointed in the vicar's response, for she had not hoped for anything better. The whole business merely provided her with the opportunity for one more skirmish on this particular front, before she switched tack and tried out something completely new. It was a casus belli, and when it fizzled out she would find another, equally good. Certainly she had no intention of telling the truth about the interview.

At lunch the next day, when everyone was discussing the previous evening's episode of EastEnders and the amorous activities of Dirty Den the publican, Mrs. Mortmain announced, "At least we shall soon have an end to Sunday television. That's an abomination that will be swept away."

"I beg your pardon?" said Miss Willc.o.c.ks.

"And Sunday newspapers. I've spoken to the vicar, and he will be pressing the governors very hard indeed on the issue. It's high time we had a more G.o.dly atmosphere in this place. And this is only a beginning."

She ended with an expression of triumph in her voice. The table gazed at her stonily, and then returned to their meals in silence. Silence was one of their weapons these days, though it seemed unfortunately to give Emily Mortmain the impression that she had won.

Only when she went up for her afternoon lie-down at 2:30 did they break out in protest.

"Well, really! What does she think she's doing this time? A ban on Sunday television! We might be living in the Victorian age!"

"I believe that even the Queen watches television on Sundays," said Miss Willc.o.c.ks. She had in fact no information whatsoever on this point, but she was inclined to bring the Queen in to support her position, rather as Emily Mortmain brought in the Almighty.

"And a ban on Sunday newspapers!" said Mr. Pottinger. "It's only on Sundays that the papers are any good!"

"Let's be a bit calm about this," said Captain Freely. "Is she just trying to work us up?"

They thought for a moment.

"We do know most of the governing body a little," said Mrs. Johnstone. "They come here and talk to us, and they all seem quite kind. They don't appear to be religious fanatics."

"Quite," said Captain Freely.

"On the other hand," said Miss Willc.o.c.ks, "Evening Glades was founded to be run on Church of England principles."

"Contradiction in terms," said Captain Freely robustly. "No, the fact is the woman's just trying to make trouble."

"I do think it's hard," exclaimed Mrs. Johnstone. "One comes to a home like this, at the end of one's life, for peace! 'Sleep after toil, port after stormy seas,' as somebody said. Or is that death? Anyway, you know what I mean. A quiet, orderly existence, without too much responsibility, and without rows. This woman seems to thrive on rows, unpleasantness, and bad feeling. I do think it's hard! And it will go on like this as long as she's here."

"There is one advantage in being old," said Miss Willc.o.c.ks pensively, into the silence that followed.

"What's that?" asked Mr. Pottinger.

"One has very little to lose... If only one could hit on a plan..."

Emily Mortmain died in her room, some time on Sunday afternoon. After lunch she had sat with her back studiously to the television, while the rest watched a film they had all been looking forward to, which gripped their attention. At 2:30 precisely, before the film had ended, Mrs. Mortmain had rung to be taken upstairs, as was her habit. At 4:45 Miss Protheroe had taken up her tea and toast and had discovered her dead.

The doctor, from the beginning, was very unhappy indeed. Though it appeared that the body was face down into the pillow, there were clear signs, or so the doctor thought, that it had been turned over after death. Deliberate suffocation is a difficult death to prove, and he thought the best thing would be to have a word with Miss Protheroe, to discover if, for instance, there could have been an intruder.

"Quite impossible," she said. "The domestic staff were off, and the kitchen door was locked. I was working in my office off the hall, with a perfect view of the front door. No one came in or went out."

"I see." The doctor shifted from foot to foot. "I wonder what the old people were doing."

Miss Protheroe shot him a quelling look.

"I will find out, tactfully, if you really think it worthwhile. I will tell you what I learn if you would be so kind as to return tomorrow."

When he did come back she was in triumphal mood.

"It was totally satisfactory. They were all- all- watching the film until 3:15. Then four of the ladies played whist, Captain Freely and Mr. Jones played chess, and the other six played Trivial Pursuit- a new game with us, but very popular. They were all in the lounge, or in the conservatory just through the door, and they were there all the time, until some time after I discovered the body. No one left even for a moment."

The doctor began his shifting-from-foot-to-foot routine again.

"That would be most unusual, not to leave even for a few minutes. Old people's bladders-"

"No one left even for that." Miss Protheroe got quite commanding. "In any case, how long would this... what you suggest... take?"

"Quite some time," admitted the doctor. "There was comparatively little obstruction... up to ten minutes."

"You see? And how much strength would be required?"

"Oh yes, certainly it would require strength."

"You see? These are old people, doctor. Even Captain Freely, though active, is no longer strong. It's quite impossible."

The doctor's voice took on a wild note.

"Perhaps two of them," he suggested. "Or all of them in relays."

Miss Protheroe rose in wrath.

"Doctor, that is as disgraceful as it is absurd. A joke in extremely bad taste. To suggest that all of my residents, respectable old people, should gang up to kill a newcomer-"

The doctor was young, and saw he had gone too far.

"Yes, yes, of course. I was merely theorizing, getting too fantastical. Point taken, point taken."

And he signed the certificate.