Free The Spring Cleaning Murders by Dorothy Cannell Page A

unlikely they had quarreled. Vienna handed Madrid her cup of coffee without first serving either me or the brigadier. She even stirred in the cream and sugar and afterwards plumped up a chair cushion before Madrid sat down.
    “Comfy, dear?” Vienna asked before turning and explaining to me and Brigadier Lester-Smith that her sister had been feeling a little under the weather.
    “Oh, dear!” The brigadier sounded alarmed. “Not that I ever catch anything myself, but we can’t know who will yet turn up; members of the Hearthside Guild sometimes arrive after the refreshment stage.” He again stared, this time in mingled hope and anxiety, towards the windows. “And some people are susceptible to the least thing going around.”
    “It’s nothing physical.” Madrid shifted the curtain of hair that had fallen forward over her granny glasses. “It’s just that I am”—her voice faltered—”of a melancholy nature and ...”
    “And the scones not turning out as well as she had hoped upset her.” Vienna supplied this information along with a cup of coffee for me and another for the brigadier. I took a couple of tentative sips of the brew; it was only lukewarm and tasted as if it had been stewed for a week. Sir Robert and his wife returned, followed shortly afterwards by Tom Tingle. No sooner were they seated with cups and saucers and plates of scones on their laps when the sitting-room door inched open and Clarice Whitcombe poked an inquiring face into the room.
    Suddenly the brigadier glowed like a schoolboy as he sprang to his feet, his plate leaping off the arm of his chair. So it was Clarice he had been watching for, I thought happily.
    “The front door was ajar, so I just came in,” she apologized, stepping further into the room, her eyes riveted to the brigadier’s, the flush on her cheeks matching his as she fiddled with her cardigan buttons. She was wearing lipstick inexpertly applied in a shade that was a little too bright, and she had obviously taken great pains with her hair, although one side was curled a little more tightly than the other. “I suppose I should have knocked. But I thought”—tearing her eyes away from the brigadier and addressing Vienna—”that you might not want people setting the dogs barking. I could hear them woofing as I came up the path.”
    "I must have left the door open,” Lady Pomeroy confessed. “I stepped outside to. . .”—she was clearly racking her brains to come up with a reason—”to . . . see what changes you’d made in the garden.” She smiled at the sisters, a wasted effort where Madrid was concerned. That lady was staring fixedly at the portrait of the dog on the wall.
    “We’re glad you’re here, Miss Whitcombe.” Vienna bustled forward to shake hands. “As you can see, we’re a small group, but the welcome is large.”
    “Yes, delighted, my dear lady.” Sir Robert extended a well-bred hand to the latest arrival, and even Tom Tingle bestirred himself to do likewise.
    “It would really make me feel at home if you’d all call me Clarice.” The lady was trying extremely hard not to look at Brigadier Lester-Smith, who was rooted to the spot, incapable of speech.
    “What a pretty name,” Lady Pomeroy said. “I don’t think I’ve heard of anyone else being called that.”
    “My father’s name was Clarence and my mother was Doris, so they just put them together.”
    “‘That’s interesting,” I said. “And how did your parents come to name you Vienna and Madrid?” I asked the sisters.
    “They were very fond of both cities.” Vienna sounded slightly irritated, but that might have been because she had started to pour Clarice a cup of coffee and discovered that the coffeepot was empty. “I’ll have to go and refill it,” she began, but the brigadier rushed forward, sending a couple of occasional tables wobbling in the process and offered to do the honors.
    “I may be a bachelor,” he said, only half looking at Clarice, “but I do