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recently departed, including Mildred.”
    â€œSo there was others!” Mrs. Malloy beamed.
    Her ladyship inclined her head. “Cousin Clement resided in Australia. He was mauled to death by a passing kangaroo in June. Uncle Dickie resided in one of the Channel Islands and met a mercifully swift end whilst celebrating his ninetieth birthday bungee jumping or whatever it is called. Aunt Theobalda was living in a loft in some newly trendy part of the East End and stepped into a lift that wasn’t there.” Her ladyship swigged down her bourbon. “All of them ancient and addled in their wits. One may not always like one’s relatives. Yet only a fiend would sit back and watch them being systematically wiped off the map. Especially when knowing where the blame lies.”
    â€œWhere is that Lady Krumley?” I inquired with what I hoped was the right amount of professional interest, although, to be honest, I couldn’t see that this was going anywhere that mattered.
    â€œWith myself. I, Mrs. Haskell, am the villain of this piece!” She rose in a swoop of black to take a brisk walk to the outer office door and back. The hat trembled to one side, but her voice when she resumed speaking was calm. “I must say I now find it a relief that I was not in time to consult with Mr. Jugg. Men are too readily inclined to dismiss a woman’s fears as hysterics. Sir Horace had a way of fidgeting with his thumbs when vexed by what he termed the excess of my imagination. No doubt he would insist that I am dramatizing the current situation.”
    â€œHusbands can be our sternest critics,” I opined sadly.
    â€œHow right you are, Mrs. Haskell.” Lady Krumley returned to her chair. “Sir Horace was twenty years older than I. But it can hardly be said that I was a giddy young girl at age thirty-five, when I came as a bride to Moultty”—she spelled out the word—“Towers.”
    â€œI thought Mr. Jugg said Mouldy.” Mrs. Malloy sounded justifiably aggrieved.
    â€œThat’s the pronunciation. Has been for centuries. Nothing to do with our occasional problems with dry rot. Sir Horace was devoted to restoring the house to the way it had been before his father allowed it to fall into disrepair. Which makes it so particularly dreadful that it was I who sullied the family crest—Serve Well Thy Servitors—when close on forty years ago I sacked Flossie Jones.”
    â€œWho?” I asked, pencil poised above a dog-eared notepad.
    â€œThe parlor maid.”
    â€œWhy did you get rid of her?”
    â€œFor stealing an emerald and diamond brooch.”
    â€œWell now, that was naughty!” Mrs. Malloy, as president of the Chitterton Fells Charwomen’s Association, had her standards.
    â€œYou believe this incident has some bearing on the recent deaths you mentioned?” My glance at the uncurtained window showed it blacked out by night as if in wartime. Just how late was it now? How long before I would see home again? A tale dating back forty years was unlikely to be told in as many seconds. Would Ben think I had run away from home to destroy other marriages by revamping whole cities of unsuspecting husbands’ studies?
    â€œIt has every bearing.” Her ladyship slapped her knee with her gloves. “I now know Flossie Jones was falsely accused and, therefore, wrongfully dismissed. One week ago Laureen Phillips, my newly hired personal maid—very diligent in her duties—found the brooch between the skirting board and the wall in my bedroom, close to the dressing table from which it must have fallen all those years ago.”
    â€œYou’re saying?” I was at a loss to do more than resharpen my pencil.
    â€œIsn’t it as clear as the nose on her ladyship’s face?” Mrs. Malloy was so excited she handed her ladyship another bourbon and sat down without bothering to pour herself one. “This Flossie woman is taking