Murder Goes Mumming (2 page)

She was joking, of course, but Mr. Condrycke seemed to think she wasn’t. “That’s terrible! Can’t be allowed. Excuse me one moment, I’m going to get my wife.”

“Who’s this Mr. Condrycke?” Madoc asked as the man left the table.

“He’s a patron of the arts,” Lady Rhys replied rather grandly. “One meets them at benefits and receptions. I believe Dafydd took the daughter out once or twice when he came here to sing in a Community Concert.”

“That is quite possible,” said Rhys. “There are not many families whose daughters Dafydd has not taken out. Or in, as the case may be.”

“Really, Madoc! What will Jenny think?”

“I hope she’ll think she was lucky to meet me instead of Dafydd, though that is a great deal to hope. Jenny love, what do you know about Mr. Condrycke?”

“He’s the one member of the board everybody seems to like, is all I can tell you. His first name is Donald, not that I’ve ever got to use it, needless to say. He’s not around the offices much, and I’ve never had any personal contact with him except that one time with the tea. We’ve been shorthanded these past few days. You know how people tend to come down with mysterious ailments around the holidays. Anyway, Mr. Condrycke speaks to people in elevators and that sort of thing, and always looks good-natured, which makes him conspicuous among the top brass.”

“Has he been with the company long?”

“Forever, I believe, though I haven’t been there long enough myself to say for sure. It’s my impression the Condryckes were among the founding fathers.”

“I shouldn’t be surprised,” said Lady Rhys. “He looks like old money.”

“Mother, what a snob you are,” cried Madoc.

“No, dear, just aware of who’s good for a decent-sized donation and who isn’t. Music is so often a grace and favor sort of business, you know. Do stop detecting and try to act like a gentleman for once. Ask that waiter to bring us another chair for Mrs. Condrycke, and another bottle of bubbly.”

“I shall need a decent-sized donation to pay for this meal if you insist on turning it into a formal reception.”

“Nonsense, Madoc. You know Aunt Oldrys Rhys-Brown left you pots of money.”

“Not pots, Mother.”

“Well, a good deal more than she left the rest of us. Aunt Oldrys always hated music. I strongly suggest you two find yourselves a decent house straightaway instead of going into lodgings. Jenny will be leading much the same sort of life I’ve had to, I expect, either trailing around after you to heaven knows where or else at home with the babies wondering whether your plane’s crashed or your lead soprano’s having a temperament. Though with you I expect it will be bullets and burglars. In any event, she must have a place of her own. There’s always so much bother about a house that it keeps one’s mind off what one’s husband may have got himself into when one’s not around to look after him. Mrs. Condrycke, how very nice to see you again. Are we taking you away from a party?”

“Yes, but it’s a company affair and quite frankly I’m delighted at the excuse to slip away. You see, Miss Wadman, I’m throwing myself on your mercy not to repeat that. Donald tells me you’re a member of the firm, too. Though soon to become an ex-member?”

Mrs. Condrycke’s manner was just gracious enough, her smile just the right degree arch as she glanced with proper respect at the fine heirloom diamond gracing Janet’s left hand.

“I hardly qualify as a member of the firm,” Janet replied with, Madoc was amused to note, the perfect mixture of modesty and amusement. “And I expect I shall be leaving before I’ve managed to scrabble my way out of the stenographic pool.”

“Shall you miss it, do you think?”

“With all respect to the firm, not a bit. I like keeping house, and I think office work is a bore.”

“Then you must have a heart-to-heart chat with my daughter Val. Which brings us, as that other bore who’s making the speech back there is probably saying about now, to the true object of our meeting. My husband and I are hoping we can persuade you and Madoc to come up to Graylings with us.”

“Graylings is up on the Bay Chaleur, not too far from Dalhousie,” Mr. Condrycke explained. “My father and some other members of our family live there year round. We’re a bit feudal in our ways, and we tend to go all out for Christmas. Yule logs and wassail bowls and silly jokes, you know. It’s totally informal and great fun. At least we think so. Don’t we, Babs?”

His wife nodded. “The Condryckes are the jolliest crowd imaginable and the house is a gem. Enormous and about a hundred years behind the times, but quite comfortable, really. Squire—that’s our pet name for my father-in-law—even has an old retainer who brings one morning tea in the real old English tradition. It’s like taking a step backward in time. Huge open fires and, thank goodness, a hot-air furnace of sorts and some airtight stoves to put back the heat the fires suck up the chimneys. And tons of lovely food. I always have to put Donald on a diet after we’ve been to Graylings.”

“She does, indeed,” laughed Donald Condrycke. “Valerie’s bringing her current young man and my nephews will be home from boarding school; so you kids can enjoy watching us oldsters make fools of ourselves. Please say you’ll come.”

It was hard to picture the Condryckes making fools of themselves, but quite possible to believe Graylings would be an agreeable place to spend the holiday. Janet, who’d never been much of anywhere, was trying to look poised and gracious, and in fact giving a pretty good imitation of Cinderella being presented with a brand-new pumpkin. Lady Rhys was clearly pleased with herself, her handpicked daughter-in-law and even, as a startling change from custom, with her son. Having chosen such a different path from the rest of his family, Madoc hadn’t thought about what Janet might encounter when she was with her future in-laws. Perhaps he ought to let her have this taste of what being a Rhys could mean.

“Thank you,” he replied. “If you’re quite sure you want us, Janet and I will be delighted to come up for a day or two. Won’t we Jenny?”

“It’s kind of you to ask us,” Janet said in the sweet, low voice that was going to delight Sir Emlyn when he got to hear it. “What shall we bring?”

*
A Pint of Murder.

T
HE CONDRYCKES OFFERED A
ride up to Graylings in their car, but Madoc was loath to give up a day alone with his Jenny. “Just tell us where it is and we’ll find the place.”

“It’s a long drive,” Babs Condrycke replied doubtfully, “and we’d hate you to miss dinner. Isn’t it tomorrow night we do the Yule log, Donald?”

“Half past six on the dot. Then the wassail and the roast goose. I hope you eat goose, Miss Wadman.”

“I generally eat what’s put in front of me,” she replied in the prim Pitcherville way Madoc found so adorable. “We’ll be there on time if Madoc says we can. Now shouldn’t we be thinking about getting Lady Rhys to the airport?”

They said their farewells to their prospective host and hostess, and set about getting Madoc’s mother out of her diamonds and into her traveling costume. While she was changing, Janet and Madoc telephoned up to Pitcherville. Annabelle was smug when Janet said she’d been wearing the beaver cape when Madoc put the ring on her finger and flabbergasted when she learned what sort of family Janet would be marrying into. Bert got on the phone amid great babble from the background and hoped his sister wouldn’t be too high and mighty to speak to her poor relations. Madoc said she damn well wouldn’t and Bert had better get set to catch him when he fainted at the wedding, and here was Mother to say hello.

Thereupon, Lady Rhys said hello and a great deal more about how delighted she was that Madoc had found such a wonderful girl and what a credit Janet was to her upbringing, which of course was a most delicate compliment to Bert and Annabelle, who’d raised his younger sister since she’d been orphaned while still at school. At last they hung up in an atmosphere of long-distance bonhomie and went to the airport. The long taxi ride back was the best part of all.

The next morning Janet was up betimes and, while she waited for Madoc to take her to breakfast, regaled her awestruck landlady with an account of how Lady Rhys had sung for the Queen Mum.

They spent a long time over the meal, trying to have a serious discussion about the things they ought to be seriously considering and having to break off to say the things they really wanted to say. After that, Madoc took Janet to Birks.

“I meant for us to pick out the ring today,” he explained. “Do you really like that one Mother gave us, or would you rather have something different? You’ll be wearing it for the rest of your life, you know.”

“I know.”

Janet gave him such a misty-eyed smile he was forced to kiss her right there on the sidewalk, to the delight of many Christmas shoppers and the Salvation Army lassie who was collecting donations on the corner.

“I adore the ring, darling, and I wouldn’t dream of hurting your mother’s feelings by choosing another in its place. Why don’t you just buy me a nice, plain one to go with it?”

So they picked out a wedding ring for Janet but not for Madoc because wedding rings were noticeable and in his line of work it was often better not to be. Then Madoc wanted to buy Janet some diamond earrings to go with her engagement ring, but she talked him into a string of pearls that would be modest enough for Pitcherville but elegant enough to wear before royalty should she ever have occasion, as it now seemed entirely possible she might.

They then returned to get Madoc’s luggage and check him out of the hotel, retrieve his car from the garage, and swing around to collect Janet’s suitcase from her now totally overwhelmed landlady. At that point Janet gave Madoc the russet wool sweater she’d spent all fall knitting him because she couldn’t stand to wait till Christmas Day and he might as well have it to wear up at the Condryckes’ because goodness knew what the weather would be like up there. She herself wasn’t banking any too heavily on that old hot-air furnace and had packed her thermal underwear just in case.

Then Madoc had to try on the sweater, which fitted him perfectly and made him look far handsomer than the pictures Lady Rhys had shown Janet of his famous brother Dafydd. What with one thing and another, they were impossibly late starting what would have been roughly a three-hundred-mile drive, so they drove the sixty-five miles to Fredericton, dropped in at RCMP Headquarters to receive general felicitations as well as sandwiches and mugs of tea gratis from the canteen, got rid of Madoc’s car, and bummed a lift in a helicopter that happened to be headed up Dalhousie way.

The pilot knew Graylings even without Madoc’s directions. According to him, the place wasn’t all that close to Dalhousie but ’way the hell and gone out in the middle of nowhere. He was surprised Madoc and Janet had got invited. The Condryckes were a clannish lot, though he guessed they did throw the odd bash for visiting swells when the mood was upon them.

“Big place, I understand,” Madoc observed.

“Cripes, I’ll say. Looks from the air like one of those old castles or something.”

“Costs a packet to keep up, eh?”

“Oh, I doubt there’s any dearth of money in that crowd. You warm enough, Janet? There’s hot tea in the Thermos behind you, and an extra blanket if you need it.”

“Thanks. Right now I’m so excited I couldn’t tell you whether I’m cold or not. I’ve never been up in one of these things before.”

“Besides, she’s got her thermal underwear,” Madoc added, reaching from the seat behind to tuck Janet up in the blanket and get in a squeeze or two. Even in ski pants and a down jacket, Janet was an eminently huggable young woman.

They had their tea. After a while, Janet began to weary of white snow and green-black forest and the noise of rotor blades overhead. The sky grayed, then darkened. It was an ineffable relief when the pilot shouted at last, “We’re going down,” and brought his craft’s skis to rest on a vast plowed-out driveway in front of the biggest private dwelling she’d ever been this close to.

By now it was really dark, a beautiful clear night with each separate star glittering like the diamond in her new engagement ring. As she climbed stiffly out of the helicopter, Janet could feel tiny icicles forming inside her nose.

“Thank you again for the ride,” she called up to the pilot. “You come and see us as soon as we have a house.”

“Don’t forget your thermal underwear. You’ll want it up here, that’s for sure.”

He handed down the bags. Janet and Madoc walked up the steps of Graylings and thumped on the knocker.

A tall, handsome, elderly replica of Donald answered the door. This must be Squire himself. He was all affability.

“Here you are, just in time. Delighted you could come. Good God, what’s that racket? Donald, Babs, they’ve flown up in a helicopter. Come and see, quick!”

A great many large blond people crowded to the front windows to watch the flying bug take off. They all appeared to think young Rhys and his bride-to-be had done something screamingly funny by arriving in this really not so unusual way. For a country as big and as underpopulated as Canada, small aircraft were often the most practical form of transport.

Anyway, it was pleasant to find themselves getting off on the right foot among so merry a party. Mrs. Condrycke came forward to do her part as hostess. She was wearing an ankle-length skirt of handwoven wool in the Black Watch tartan and a dark green mohair pullover with a rolled neck, managing to look chic and warm at the same time. Her only ornaments, Janet was pleased to note, were her diamond rings and a nice string of pearls.

“Do call me Babs,” she urged. “The only Mrs. Condrycke around here is Granny, who hasn’t come downstairs yet. My husband is Donald, as you doubtless know. Squire is Squire and he gets livid if you call him anything else. Don’t you, Squire darling?”

“Positively foam at the mouth,” he agreed. “We must get these young adventurers into something comfortable right away. You must be half-frozen, Miss Wadman. Or may I say Janet?”

“Please say Janet.”

She couldn’t picture Squire foaming at the mouth, except perchance over a tankard of brown October ale. He looked like the embodiment of all the Squire Allworthys who’d ever galloped across a British countryside. He even had on suitably ancient plus fours and knitted wool socks in a brown and yellow argyle pattern, with a bright yellow pullover and a tweed jacket with suede leather patches at the elbows. Like the other Condryckes he was tall and burly and fair, with eyes of a clear light blue.