How to Murder the Man of Your Dreams by Dorothy Cannell Page A

to kiss the brigadier the next time I was alone with him in the library reading room. “I will be delighted to help you in any way I can,” I said as my mind filled with visions of a navy-blue sofa piped in a rich burgundy—which colour might be repeated in the leather chairs and perhaps the wallpaper border.…
    “This is good of you, Mrs. Haskell! You must be sure and charge me your usual fee.”
    “Minus a friendly discount!”
    “How very kind! Would tomorrow be too soon for you to take a look at the house? I need also to mention, Mrs. Haskell, that I talked to Sir Robert Pomeroy when I met him at the barber’s this morning, and we decided we should get all the members together for a special meeting of the Library League tomorrow afternoon at one o’clock. There is nothing in the bylaws to prohibit our assembling at a time other than our regularly scheduled meeting date, and Sir Robert and I thought the Library League should get started immediately on planning a memorial to Miss Bunch.”
    “What a lovely idea.”
    “Sir Robert came up with the suggestion of commissioning a bronze statue of our dear departed librarian to be placed at the front entrance.”
    “You don’t think that a simple brass plaque might do nicely?” I asked. But not surprisingly, Brigadier Lester-Smith, having come into her money, was not prepared to screw the lady to the wall and be done with it.
    “I imagine there’ll have to be some sort of fund-raiser,” he said. “We’ll talk about all that at the meeting tomorrow. And afterwards, perhaps you could take a look at the house on Mackerel Lane.”
    It wasn’t until I had hung up the phone that I wondered if Miss Bunch had made the brigadier her heir because he always returned his library books on time.

Chapter

5

    “A bronze statue of Miss Bunch!” The string mop in Mrs. Malloy’s hand did double duty as an exclamation point as she held it above her bucket in the kitchen. “What bright spark came up with that idea? Don’t tell me, Mrs. H.: It had to be a man! Common decency tells you it isn’t right to make a public spectacle of what was, as far as we know, a respectable woman. It’s a crying shame, that’s what it is—setting her up to be pooped on by birds and leered at by every passing Tom, Dick, and Harry.”
    It was my feeling that Mrs. Malloy was jealous of any woman but herself being put on a pedestal, but all I said was, “She’ll be fully clothed, right down to her brogue or, rather, her bronze shoes. The Library League would never vote for a nude. We’re a very conservative group. I don’t think there’s one amongst us that reads poetry that doesn’t rhyme.”
    “I wouldn’t call Bunty Wiseman straight-laced.” Mrs. Malloy planted her mop in the sink as if it were a tree with a lot of stringy roots, to be watered when she emptied the bucket. “You may have blocked it all out, Mrs. H., but I for one haven’t forgotten how Ms. Miniskirt brought Chitterton Fells to its knees when she was running Fully Female.”
    Clearing away the remains of the three course lunchGerta had fed the twins before taking them upstairs for their naps, I shuddered at Mrs. Malloy’s reminder of our enrollment in the health club from hell. Far from discovering my full physical and emotional potential as a sensual woman, I had felt lucky to get out alive. But Bunty had paid the highest price. By the time Fully Female’s doors closed, she had lost her husband, Lionel Wiseman (Miss Bunch’s solicitor), to a woman who got her exercise climbing into bed with other women’s husbands. The Hollywood-style Wiseman home was sold for a hotel. And Bunty was left with little but the leotard on her back. During the past year, she had gamely worked at a series of part-time jobs, but, as she pointed out, people weren’t queuing up to hire an ex-chorus girl turned failed businesswoman.
    “Go on, Mrs. H., stick up for Bunty Wiseman.”
    “She is a friend of mine.” I put the Beatrix