Murder Most Convenient: A Mrs. Xavier Stayton Mystery by Robert Colton Page B

hushed the large home. Standing at the mantel, I looked upon my photographs of Xavier and no longer felt alone.
       “He was such a handsome young man.” Joan’s hard-edged voice was unexpected. She had slipped in through the partially open doorway.
      Startled, I turned to see her gliding toward me. Taking a deep breath, my heart rate slowed, and I replied, “Yes.”
      Joan stepped beside me; she was turned out in riding gear and smelled of the outdoors. The woman picked up a photograph of my husband in his golf attire. “He cut a dashing figure, didn’t he?”
      I repeated my simple answer, “Yes.”
       She placed the photograph back among the rest and said, “He was quite the sportsman.”
       This was a misconception. Xavier was very handsome, and his physique spoke of his attempts at all manner of sport, thus his photographs when in the costume of athletics were very impressive. The truth was different. He injured himself and others more often than he succeeded at the point of the competition. He could scarcely walk straight down a sidewalk, let alone hit a small white ball onto a green, or keep his tennis racket from becoming entangled in the net.
       I said something agreeable to Joan. She looked me over and asked, “You survived the vicar’s wife?”
       “She was easy enough; her cooking seemed the more obvious hazard.” This was mean-spirited of me, but I thought Joan might become more agreeable with me if I spoke in her vernacular.
       Joan barked her ugly laugh. She leaned into me, twisted her head over her shoulder to glance at the door, and then said, slyly, “You managed well enough with Phyllis, I see.”
       “Oh, yes.”
      “Don’t trust her. She’s a snake in the grass. I’d keep your door locked too. Several years ago, I found her sneaking about our room. My perfume was always missing, and my lipstick was mashed about the tube. She acts disinterested, cool as a cucumber, but she’s rather meddlesome.”
       I just nodded, unsure what to say.
       “I hear your mouse of a friend ran off on you. Fancy a trip to the pub? Get a chance to see some of the locals waste their Tuesday afternoon?”
      I didn’t really want to go off on an expedition with Joan; I doubted that I had the calluses to survive her. “That does sound rather a fun thing, but the car went off to pick up Ruth and Lucy.”  
      “No matter, we have more cars!” she said sarcastically.
     
       Slipping through the French doors of the library, Joan led me to the little car park beside a long carriage house. A dark red automobile glistened in the late afternoon sunshine.
      “It’s a two-seater,” I remarked, concerned.
      “It’s an Amilcar, French, quite fast,” she told me as she ran a gloved finger on the radiator cap that was fashioned to look like Pegasus.
      Small, with a spare tire mounted to the front of the body just between the drive and the front tire, the thing looked rather dangerous.
      “Get in,” Joan ordered me.
       “You drive?” I asked, as I followed her command.
      “Of course! You don’t?” she said, very pleased with herself.
      “No, we’ve always relied on the driver.” I tried to picture my father making his way to the hospital operating his own dark blue Packard. Father was always preoccupied, with what I never knew.
      Joan scoffed and said, “I don’t see Viviane being the motoring sort, but you should take it up; it’s a ripping good time!” and with that said, she gave the gear shift a jerk and pushed the gas pedal to the floor.
      Joan drove like a madwoman. I had to pull my hat tight to my head or it would have whipped out of the topless flash of red metal screeching over the ribbon of black road.
       She pointed at the gas pedal, the clutch, and the gear shifter, and kept repeating, “It’s all really easy,” after explaining how each item functioned.
       Approaching town, we passed Ruth and Lucy coming from the opposite