Murder at Mullings--A 1930s country house murder mystery Read Online Free Page A

can’t ever play games or even read to me very long without getting tired. I know she can’t help it, but anyway … I wish a blackbird would come down and peck off Nanny’s nose for saying it’s all put on.’
    Florence answered carefully. ‘People can be mistaken in their views at times, as is the case with Nanny about this. Lady Stodmarsh most certainly does not wish to be ill.’
    â€˜I know.’ He patted her hand, becoming the soother. ‘Nanny tells fibs. Big ones. The vicar could put her in hell for it.’
    â€˜Try not to think about her right now.’ Hopefully the woman had made it down to the kitchen and had not yet returned to her bedroom, which had access to the night nursery through the communicating door. But Florence had heard no sound from behind it.
    â€˜I hate Nanny! I know we’re not right to hate anyone, but I do her! She told me I’ve a bad streak in me that I got from my mother … that she was wilful, too, and that she and Daddy probably had a row in the car that night that made the accident happen, and most likely it wasn’t the other driver’s fault at all.’
    Florence, the even-tempered, was seized by an almost overpowering urge to haul Nanny out of the house by her hair. Mrs Longbrow had described Jane Tressler during her engagement to Lionel Stodmarsh as a spirited girl but sweet-natured with it. ‘No doubt sparks will fly between them, and so much the better for both!’ Nothing Florence had heard afterwards suggested the couple were not ideally suited.
    â€˜Ned, have you told your grandparents about this?’
    â€˜No.’ He stirred nervously within the circle of her arm. ‘She said if I told she’d say I was lying or imagining it – which would be worse, because …’ his voice cracked and his small hand tightened on hers, ‘… because mad people make up things and we all know what happens to them. They get locked away.’
    A physical pain stabbed through Florence’s outrage. ‘You’re a perfectly normal, healthy little boy. No one, especially Lord and Lady Stodmarsh, could think there’s anything wrong with your mind.’
    â€˜But they might start to wonder, not wanting to, but unable to help it because of my other grandmother. She had to be sent away for a while after Mummy was born because she started thinking all her teeth were rotting and about to fall out. And that her dog, a nice old spaniel that she loved, had got possessed by a devil and was going to tear her to pieces.’
    â€˜Oh, Ned! The poor lady!’
    â€˜She got better and came home.’
    â€˜It happens to women sometimes after childbirth.’
    â€˜Does it? Then maybe I needn’t worry, because men don’t have babies.’ Ned shifted closer. ‘That’s a good thing … although it seems unfair that it’s always left to the mother and isn’t turn and turn about with the father.’
    â€˜There’s something to that,’ agreed Florence gravely, ‘but I think a lot of women like being the ones to have babies.’
    â€˜Perhaps.’ Ned stiffened. ‘But after the accident it happened again, and that time Grandmother Tressler was away longer. At a place called Meadow Vale.’
    â€˜Again, Nanny could be mistaken.’ Or might there be truth to this particular revelation? Ned hadn’t accused Nanny of lying about this – and would the woman have bothered inventing the name of the facility?
    Ned shook his head. ‘I overheard Uncle William and Aunt Gertrude talking about it before Grandma Tressler came to stay here for a fortnight last year. Uncle William got very loud. “For God’s sake, old girl, don’t go upsetting the woman and send her off the deep end again!”’ The mimicry of the man’s deep voice by a child was uncanny. ‘“We’ve never in the history of Mullings had to lock up a mad