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

woman, and I’d just as soon not bloody well start now!”’
    â€˜I’m sorry you had to hear that.’ Florence fought down fruitless anger.
    â€˜Then Aunt Gertrude said, “No one can disagree that she’s mental, William, but I’m not sure that’s quite the same as mad.”’ Ned did almost as good a job with his aunt’s stolid voice as with his uncle’s bellicose one.
    â€˜Did you say anything to your grandparents about this?’
    â€˜Of course not.’ Ned’s chin went up. ‘That would have been dishonourable. Ungentlemanly. I shouldn’t be telling you now, but …’
    Florence reassured him, ‘It’s helping fill in the picture about Nanny.’
    â€˜You can guess what Uncle William roared back at Aunt Gertrude?’
    â€˜My mind doesn’t work as quickly as it should at night.’
    â€˜â€œBalderdash!”’
    Florence smiled, but she was remembering when she’d thought the notion of a mad woman being confined to a secret room was the height of enthralling mystery. She knew very little about Mrs Tressler, other than that her Christian name was Eugenie and that she had been widowed a year or so before her daughter and only child married Lionel Stodmarsh. And then, a few years later, she had lost that child in an accident. What woman might not have fallen apart – especially if she was at that time going through the change? There had been a woman two doors down from the house where Florence had grown up, who’d been ‘taken bad’ after childbirth and then again in middle life. On the latter occasion she had not recovered, as it would seem Mrs Tressler had done.
    â€˜It’s Uncle William that makes scenes, not Aunt Gertrude. Anyway,’ the bravado was creeping back, ‘who cares what they think?’
    Florence stroked his arm. It was not permissible for her to comment on his relations’ attitudes or behaviour, but what he said of his uncle and aunt was true. Loyalty did not prevent an inward denial of fact. William Stodmarsh was a blusterer and his wife a mild woman – outwardly, at least. Florence had wondered at times if her emotions were not as well corseted as her stout figure.
    Ned yawned and after a moment turned on his side. ‘I think I can nod off now, Florie.’
    â€˜Good.’
    â€˜Stay a little while, please.’
    In a couple of minutes he was asleep, but she waited another ten or so before getting off the bed and tapping on the communicating door. On opening it she saw, as expected from there having been no sound from that quarter, that Nanny had not returned. The bed did not look as though it had been slept in earlier. A bottle along with a glass containing an inch or two of whisky stood on a table next to an easy chair. Where was Nanny – passed out in the kitchen? Florence was halfway down the corridor when she heard heavy, laborious footsteps on the back stairs. A moment later, four persons came into view at the top – two of the maids holding Nanny up under the armpits and another propelling her from the rear. She went instantly to their assistance and with their combined efforts got Nanny into bed. The room was immediately filled with raucous snores.
    Annie Long, a timid and extremely nervous kitchen maid, liable to collapse into hysterics if she heard the word mouse, let alone saw one, now burst into tears, and Florence hurried her and the other two girls out of the room.
    â€˜It was Annie what found her lying on the kitchen floor,’ explained the sturdily built, rosy-cheeked girl who had been doing the propelling. ‘She’d gone down because she kept waking up, worrying she hadn’t put the scrubbing brush in the right bucket and there she was,’ cocking an eye to the closed door, ‘lying on the floor.’
    Annie had wiped away her tears but continued to snuffle. ‘It give me such a turn, Mrs Norris. I come over