Free The Mystery of a Butcher's Shop by Gladys Mitchell

might have been ninety, clad in a blue and sulphur jumper like the plumage of a macaw, came forward with that air of easy condescension which is usually achieved by royalty only, and fixed the vicar with an eagle eye.
    â€˜Am I addressing the spiritual adviser of this parish?’ she enquired.
    Her voice was startling in that it belied her whole appearance. Here was no bird-like twitter nor harsh parrot cry, but a mellifluous utterance, rich and full, and curiously, definitely, superlatively attractive.
    The Reverend Stephen Broome blushed nervously, and ran a bony finger round the inside of his clerical collar.
    â€˜Er – I suppose so. That is – yes,’ he replied.
    â€˜Then I am compelled to state that in my opinion the west door is a disgrace,’ said Mrs Bradley firmly.
    â€˜We were just talking about it when you knocked,’ said Felicity, quick to defend her father. ‘But the Restoration Fund, all told, only amounts to twenty-nine shillings and sevenpence, and what’s the use of that, I should like to know? It’s all very well for people to complain –’
    Mrs Bradley looked at her for the first time. Felicity felt herself blushing beneath the long, cool, slightly ironic gaze.
    â€˜A lovely child,’ said Mrs Bradley at last. ‘And so angry with me.’
    She turned again to the vicar.
    â€˜Have it repaired,’ she said. ‘Send me the estimates. I will pay the bill.’
    â€˜Oh, but I’m going to see the bishop about it this very afternoon,’ said the Reverend Stephen helplessly. ‘I mean, it is tremendously kind of you, but –’
    â€˜Oh, I’m solvent,’ said Mrs Bradley, with a hideous cackle. ‘As for going to see Reginald Crowdesley, you might as well save your time, young man. Look here, suppose I give you a cheque for the Restoration Fund, and then you can muddle along in your own way with it. I suppose he is a muddler?’ she added, turning to Felicity again. ‘He looks like one.’
    The vicar chuckled appreciatively at this palpable home truth, but Felicity was too angry to reply. She was more angry still when the vicar invited Mrs Bradley to the tennis party on the following afternoon.
    â€˜Then that will make the twelve people you wanted, dear,’ he announced to Felicity in tones of such decided self-congratulation at having solved one of the domestic problems at last that she could do no less than smile and second the invitation.
    â€˜Although how I did it,’ she confided to A Å« brey Harringay next day, ‘I don’t know. She’s a most infuriating woman!’
    â€˜Yes. The mater loathes her too,’ said Aubrey, grinning. ‘She’s a psycho-analyst.’
    â€˜A what?’
    â€˜Psycho-analyst. I don’t know what they do, quite. I believe it’s something mad but brainy. The thing was all the rage two or three years ago, and the mater was potty to be in the thick of it, as usual. She collects these new movements. Well, she tried to collect Mrs Bradley, who appears to be rather a brass hat at the business, but the old dame wasn’t having any. Said that what the mater required was not a psycho-analyst but a copper-plated tummy, because all her moods and tempers were simply due to indigestion and not to all these repressions and complexes at all. Of course, the mater was rather fed, and tried to get old Blessington – that’s our solicitor – to start an action for slander or something. But old Blessington only told her not to be an ass, but to think herself lucky she’d had such good advice absolutely free of charge, and advised her to follow it up. So the mater tried the diet stunt, as recommended by Mrs Bradley, and has positively never looked back. Oh, and by the way! Rather a confounded nuisance! I ought to have told you yesterday, but we all went out in the car, and, anyway, I couldn’t see that there was anything to be done.