How to Murder the Man of Your Dreams by Dorothy Cannell

Karisma to the dark recesses of my mind. “Is there something you need me to do in the way of Library League business?”
    “It’s about Miss Bunch.”
    I guessed immediately what he was going to say. The police hadn’t been taken in by all the medical mumbo-jumbo of death from natural causes. They were convinced she had met her end by foul means and an order to exhume the body would shortly be forthcoming.
    “It all came as quite a shock.” Brigadier Lester-Smith sounded suitably glum.
    “Of course.”
    “It’s going to mean quite an upheaval.”
    “Before the earth has even settled over her grave,” I agreed.
    “You could have knocked me down without the aid of a shovel, Mrs. Haskell, when her solicitor, Mr. Lionel Wiseman, rang me up yesterday after I got back from the funeral and broke the news that Miss Bunch had left mewhat modest amount of money she possessed, along with her little house on Mackerel Lane.”
    “But that’s wonderful,” I enthused. Or was it? “You sound a little worried, Brigadier.” Did the police suspect him of doing in Miss Bunch for the sake of what sounded like a tidy inheritance?
    “There is one small problem …”
    “Yes.” I hoped he was not about to say anything that could possibly be construed as incriminating.
    “Miss Bunch also bequeathed me her dog.”
    “Oh, help!” I fixed my eyes on the statue of St. Francis of Assisi that occupied the niche above my head and implored this protector of four-legged creatures to bear in mind that I had acted in what I believed to be Heathcliff’s best interest. “You have discovered the dog is missing and are absolutely heartbroken, Brigadier.”
    “Missing?” The voice on the other end of the phone brightened up considerably. “Are you sure? I’ve been wondering what to do with the animal, because I’ve never been one for pets—all that dog hair over my trousers, and I was wondering if you might like to have him—for the kiddies.”
    “That’s very kind of you,” I said, “but Heathcliff is awfully big. And when he showed up here last night, like a great black thundercloud, I realized that were I to let him stay, I would have to get rid of most of the furniture and at least one of the children.”
    “Turned up at your house, Mrs. Haskell?”
    “Without so much as phoning first; but it’s all right, Brigadier Lester-Smith. I pried Gerta, our new au pair, out from his slathering jaws and palmed him off on Mr. Babcock, the milkman, this morning.”
    “I don’t know how to thank you.” The heartfelt sigh that came through the receiver blew my hair all over my face, and I sensed that had the brigadier not been a bachelor of the old school, he would have expressed a desire to kiss me. “Would Mr. Babcock be the gentleman who married Sylvia from the Library League a week or so ago?”
    “That’s him. And we had better keep our fingers crossed that he can love-talk his bride into keeping the woof-woof. I have to take them their wedding present, and when I do I’ll report back to you on how things are going.”
    “That is most kind of you, Mrs. Haskell, so kind that I hesitate to ask another favour of you.” Brigadier Lester-Smith paused to gather up his courage. “I had a look over Miss Bunch’s house this morning and I did not feel that I could live in harmony with her choice of furnishing. Not that I imply any criticism, you understand that, Mrs. Haskell.”
    “We all have our own taste.”
    “Exactly!” He latched onto my statement as if I had said something intensely profound. “Being a man, I like simplicity and function. Furniture that makes sense. But at the same time I do realize that certain touches, not what you would call frilly, are needed to turn a house into a home. And I was wondering if you, Mrs. Haskell, would be willing to take a look at the house and provide me with some professional advice.”
    My first client! If I had not been a respectably married woman I might have expressed a desire