Free Murder Goes Mumming by Charlotte MacLeod Page A

Squire.
    “He’s a good-looking chap.” Was Squire baiting her, by any chance?
    “Most of the girls seem to think so.” She took her place beside Madoc and picked up her fork. “Roy’s well-liked around the office, I should say.”
    “But you yourself have been too preoccupied to notice, eh? Tell an inquisitive old man how you happened to meet Madoc.”
    “I tracked her down,” Rhys answered for her. “I’d heard about Janet from a mutual acquaintance,” Fred Olson, the Pitcherville town marshal, to be specific, “and simply presented myself at her door with my suitcase in my hand. At her brother’s door, I should say. I passed myself off as a long-lost relative. Did I not, Cousin Janet?”
    “That’s exactly what he did, Squire. We spent our first evening together looking at the family album. After that we—well, we got along rather well together and one thing led to another and here we are.”
    To a Condrycke, that of course was a marvelous joke. “There’s one for the books! But you’re not really cousins?”
    “There is a very distant connection somewhere or other,” Madoc replied.
    That was undoubtedly true. He’d read somewhere recently that if you could trace anybody’s family tree in its entirety back six generations, you’d find that everybody in the world was connected to everybody else now living by the simple laws of mathematical progression. He and Squire might well be related, too, but he didn’t think he’d go into that. It wasn’t going to hurt Janet’s position at Graylings to have it thought she also was related in some degree to Sir Emlyn and Sir Caradoc. She soon would be, in any event.
    “Well, look who’s here!”
    May blew into the room like a gust off the bay. “Everybody getting enough to eat?”
    She checked the dishes on the sideboard with a great rattling of lids. “Lawrence can’t be down yet. There still appears to be plenty left. Janet, have you tried the finnan haddie? We finnan a great haddie around here. Don’t we, Squire?”
    “Everything is delicious,” Janet assured her. “After that fantastic dinner last night I thought I’d never be hungry again, but I am.”
    May gave another stir to the smoked fish in its rich cream sauce. “I suppose you’ve heard about Granny,” she said abruptly.
    “Yes, and we’re terribly sorry. We were just saying so to your father.”
    “And I told them we’re going to carry on as Granny would have wanted us to,” said Squire. “Right, my dear?”
    “I should hope so.”
    May did not look to be bowed down by weight of woe. She was wearing a green and yellow striped jersey this morning with, most unfortunately, bright orange stretchknit trousers. As she was still bending over the sideboard, her husband came in.
    “Good God, May, you look like the moon coming over the mountain in that getup,” was his fond greeting. “I thought the mumming wasn’t till tonight.”
    He gave her a presumably affectionate skite on the Mount of the Moon and began shoveling eggs and bacon on his plate. “Michel been out to the barn yet?”
    “Ages ago. Do you realize what time it is?”
    “No, and don’t tell me. If this were Vancouver it wouldn’t even be sunup yet. Speaking of which, has anybody heard a weather report?”
    Rhys had, of course, but he wasn’t about to say so.
    “Fifine’s got that transistor radio blaring in the kitchen as usual,” said May. “Or you could ask Aunt Addie. She always knows.”
    “She was incredible about that fire ship last night,” said Janet, “and she told me a couple of other things that,” she blushed charmingly, “I would hope might be true.”
    “You can bank on Aunt Addie,” Herbert replied with his mouth full. “Never been wrong yet. Has she, Squire? Oh, Babs. Join the party. We were just discussing Aunt Addie’s batting average, as they say down in the States. Ever known her to be wrong about one of her presentiments?”
    “Hi, Babs,” said May. “Did you find the