Unforgettable (Gloria Cook) - By Gloria Cook Page 0,97

really needed it. ‘She should have come to us and explained how Urquart had treated her. Instead she stormed in on us when we were entertaining old Lord and Lady Mycliffe and raged about how she had told Urquart he could go to hell and that she hoped he’d dropped dead in the street. She frightened poor Lady Mycliffe and she is easily confused these days. Naturally, Perkin and I were furious with her behaviour, and after the poor old couple asked for their car to be brought round, there was the most dreadful quarrel. Things were said . . . well, as I said it’s all in the past now. Thanks for looking after her for us.’

‘I thought there must be some things Verity hadn’t told Greg and me. I overheard her on the telephone to Perkin saying how sorry she was too,’ Dorrie said in a satisfied voice. ‘Now we can all look forward to the future.’

‘I didn’t mention it before – well, it was hardly important . . .’ Camilla dipped her head and Dorrie knew a gossipy titbit was forthcoming.

‘Oh? Do go on.’

‘That Sanders woman, the fast one who lives close by here, Sawle House, I’m talking about, we passed it on the way here. I came across her three or four years ago. We were at adjoining tables at the Dorchester, taking tea. She was with a major in the Guards. Well, the friends I was with told me that she was very good about entertaining officers – the previous week she had been there with an admiral. She’s much married, you know. How does she behave here? All fur coat and no knickers, I dare say. Has she given Greg the come on? Or Jack? He’s a very attractive man.’

‘Actually, she conducts herself in an exemplary manner,’ Dorrie answered swiftly, hoping this conversation would soon end. Jack had been one of Honoria’s casual lovers. Verity knew and understood that his philandering had been his way of easing his loneliness, but it would be horribly embarrassing if they came in now from the billiards room. ‘She’s been a brick to Nanviscoe. She put up the money to start the building of the new village hall.’

‘How disappointing.’ Camilla finished her sherry and went to the piano. She loved to play and sing the big band tunes. ‘I was hoping to learn a tasty morsel to take back with me and pass on after New York. Oh well, I dare say I’ll meet her properly at the wedding. It was a shock to learn a member of her family owns Petherton. Chester something, isn’t it?’

Dorrie did not reply but piped up, ‘Do play “In The Mood”, Camilla. I so enjoy the swing music.’

Dorrie didn’t listen to Camilla’s accomplished playing. She was trying not to shiver with the shock at what seemed confirmation to her outrageous assumption after she had burnt the sepia photo Finn had showed her of Honoria and an officer called Chester. It hadn’t taken much imagination to dismiss the C in Chester and rearrange the remaining letters into Esther. Could she possibly have been right? Surely it was preposterous, laughable. Was Esther Mitchelmore, for some reason, really a man, posing as Honoria’s sister while she was in fact Honoria’s brother Chester? There was no doubt she was a strong woman. She had nursed old Sedgewick with the strength of two nurses, and only recently she had carried Finn, a strapping youth, almost single-handedly up from the cellar. She did things in a planned regimental way, naturally dealing out orders. She was very quiet about her private life. Words of Honoria’s came to Dorrie from a wartime WVS meeting: ‘But be careful, Esther, dear.’ Everyone present there, including Dorrie, had taken the words to be sarcasm as the sisters bickered, but had it been an affectionate warning of some kind, perhaps not to give herself away? No, it was too ludicrous. The very thought that Esther Mitchelmore was actually a man called Chester was farcical . . . Or was it?

If it was true there could be deeper connotations. Mary Rawling’s scrap of blackmail note had stated that Ch— was known about. Ch— must surely have been the Chester in the photo. A man living as a woman would want his secret kept at all costs. Dorrie could imagine Esther Mitchelmore being the sort of person unafraid to take a gun to a pair of cold-hearted blackmailers, but the killer had been a paid thug.