A Brush with Death: A Penny Brannigan Mystery - By Elizabeth J. Duncan Page 0,70

at the time, but they took no notice of me. Why should they? I was just a young secretary. What did I know? They were skeptical when I told them I didn’t think it was an accident. They told me it wasn’t their investigation, that they’d pass on what I told them to the police who were looking into it, but I never heard from anybody.” A cloud of profound sadness drifted across her face. “Oh! Wait! I’m wrong. I did hear from someone. I spoke to Alys’s mother. She came to the college one day asking about the paintings that Alys left behind. Millicent was in a classroom at the time—she taught lettering, by the way—and I told Mrs. Jones that Alys never painted at the school but always in her little studio on Rodney Street and that Alys was keeping her paintings well under wraps. She didn’t want anyone to see them until the big show that was coming up in the spring, I think it was. Or maybe it was late winter, I can’t remember. Her mother said that she and Alys’s father had been to the flat to clear out her things, but there were no paintings. So she thought the paintings must have been at the school. But they weren’t.”

She shrugged. “But they had to be somewhere. I think they were stolen.”

Penny nodded. “We think they were stolen, too. But I haven’t been able to find anything by Alys Jones in circulation. We know where two are in Llanelen, and there’s maybe this one at the Victoria Gallery that we saw today, so where are the rest of them?”

“We didn’t see anything in Peyton’s flat,” said Victoria.

“Oh, him. Yes, I read about his death in the newspaper,” Florence said flatly. “Can’t say I’m particularly sorry.”

“We think he was murdered,” Penny said.

“Do you really?” Florence’s eyes lit up and she leaned forward. “Now that is interesting. Why do you suppose someone would go to all that trouble after all these years?”

“After all these years?”

“Well, yes. I would have thought that if someone were going to murder him, it would have been done ages ago. Could have saved the rest of us all those years of suffering through his loathsomeness.”

Penny and Victoria had to laugh.

“You don’t like the two of them very much, do you?” Penny asked.

“No, I don’t,” Florence said, slapping her hand gently on the table. “And don’t you find that we instinctively know whether to like or dislike someone? And that our instincts are usually right?”

She nodded at both women and then looked at her watch.

“I’m sorry, girls, but I’m getting a bit tired.”

“Just one last question,” Penny said. “I think”—she glanced at Victoria, who gave an encouraging nod—“that is, we think Millicent Mayhew had something to do with the death of Alys Jones. What do you think?”

“I think what I’ve always thought,” said Florence grimly. “I think they both murdered her. I think she drove him to it.”

The three women sat in silence, surrounded by the usual restaurant din of conversation and clattering dishes. A waiter walked by balancing a large tray filled with sweets, and two women in smart dresses swished past their table on their way to powder their noses.

“You’ve been so helpful,” Penny said finally as they finished their coffee. “Here’s my contact information, and I wonder if I could have yours. We may need to speak to you again.”

Florence wrote out her information and handed Penny the slip of paper.

“Here you go,” she said. “It’s in the Waterloo area. Do you know it?”

“No, I’m afraid I don’t,” Penny said, “but I’d like to give you the money for a taxi home.”

Florence protested weakly, and then took the £20 note.

“I’ll just see myself out,” she said, “and thank you for the evening.”

Victoria and Penny followed a few minutes later and saw her hurrying down the street in the direction of the buses in Queen’s Square.

“Come on,” Victoria said. “If we hurry, we can catch the eight-twenty train. Lots to talk about on the way home. We’ll have to decide what to do next.”

“What we have to do next is go to Llandudno and meet Millicent. I hadn’t thought that they both were in on it. I thought it would be one or the other, but it makes sense.”

“Does it?”

“Yes, because that explains why she killed Peyton. Because he was the accomplice. As Florence said, ‘He was her creature.’ I think he had decided to tell what he knew, and she