“The kettle’s already boiling,” Lucy said.
I gave her a brief account of Bill’s adventures as we made our way to the kitchen, and Lucy toasted muffins and put out pots of preserves and marmalade while the tea steeped. By the time we sat down at the table, I’d reached the point where she burst in on Bill and me.
“I shouldn’t have come in without knocking,” she acknowledged. “But I wanted so much to apologize for making a scene last night. I don’t know what came over me. I’m not usually so—”
“It’s all right, Lucy,” I said. “I know about you and Gerald.”
“Everyone says that.” Her voice held an echo of the bitterness I’d heard in London, and her lips compressed into a thin line as she lowered her gaze to the steaming cup of tea in front of her. “Can you honestly tell me that you understand what it’s like to watch someone you love slip beyond your reach?”
“Yes,” I replied, and when Lucy looked up, startled, I held her gaze. “I do understand.”
Lucy spread a spoonful of marmalade on a slice of toast and regarded me intently. “What did you do about it?”
I smiled. “I got lucky. Bill figured things out on his own—with the help of the exploding stove I told you about.” I lowered my voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “You know, Lucy, the Larches is in pretty bad shape. Maybe we could arrange a little ...” I held out my hand and waggled it. “Accident?”
Lucy shook her head ruefully. “Not with Mrs. Burweed in the kitchen.”
“In that case, we’re just going to have to do Gerald’s figuring for him.” I added sugar to my tea and took a sip. “Do you mind if I ask a few questions about him?”
“Go right ahead,” said Lucy. “I don’t mind being questioned by the Voice of Experience.”
“It’s about this woman he meets at the Flamborough,” I began. “Arthur told me about her. Have you ever actually seen her?”
“Not at close range,” Lucy said stiffly. “Why?”
I looked over her shoulder at the windows above the sink and fiddled with a triangle of toast on my plate. “I don’t know quite how to put this, but ... Your mother was telling us about Douglas last night, and the doctor he got mixed up with.”
“Sally the Slut,” Lucy said readily. “The tomato on sticks, as Mother calls her. Do you know that she once tried to blackmail Mother?”
“Yes. Anthea mentioned the compromising photographs. That’s what started me thinking.” I left off fiddling with my toast and began to toy with my teaspoon. “When Arthur told us about the woman Gerald meets at the Flamborough,” I said, “he used a very similar set of adjectives to describe her. He called her a dumpling with peg legs, a hard-eyed hag. He even said that she dyed her hair.”
Lucy slowly straightened in her chair, and her eyes took on the faraway look of intense concentration. Then her mouth fell open. “Oh my Lord,” she said, as though the light of revelation had fallen upon her. “Sally the Slut and Gerald.” She stared in blank amazement at thin air, then focused in on me. “Why?”
“Once a blackmailer, always a blackmailer.” I bent over my teacup and elaborated. “I happen to know that Gerald withdraws money from his bank account before he goes to London to meet with Sally. That’s what made me think—”
“How do you ‘happen to know’ something like that?” Lucy interrupted.
“Nell,” I said, and added, for good measure, Paul’s immortal words: “She has a way with people.”
Lucy still looked baffled, so I backtracked.
“I was worried,” I explained. “I’d heard nasty rumors about Gerald, and I thought my father-in-law was going into business with him, so I went to Haslemere to ... check Gerald out.”
“I’d have done the same thing,” said Lucy without hesitation.
“When we arrived in Haslemere,” I continued, “Nell got to talking to the porter at a local hotel whose son-in-law or nephew or second cousin twice removed is the manager at the bank where Gerald has his account, and—”
“And Nell has a way with people.” Lucy nodded. “I see what you mean.” She suddenly began to laugh, and, just as suddenly, the laughter turned into tears, the deep-breathing, word-sputtering flood of long-pent-up emotions finally released. “Ge-Gerald, you f-fool,” she stuttered, covering her face with her hands. “You d-darling, darling f-fool. Why d-didn’t you t-tell me ... ?”
“Tell you what?” I said, passing a kitchen towel to her.
Lucy used the towel to scrub her face. “That he’s being b-blackmailed, of course. That’s why he left the firm and went off to hide in H-Haslemere. I’ll lay you odds it’s something to do with Douglas. The Slut’s probably shown him those naughty photos and threatened to have them splashed across the tabloids.”