The Widow's Club Read Online Free PDF Page A

them did.”
    Hyacinth compressed her lips. “Let us not digress. The scheme has worked splendidly, so far, because the perpetrators are those people one meets everywhere. One doesn’t see the woods for the trees or the members for the club. Men especially would not sense anything amiss. The male sex never has appreciated the marvelous contribution made by female organisations providing volunteer service. The masculine mentality perceives them as social playgrounds whence the little woman can amuse herself after the housework is done, his mother visited, and the dog walked. Tragic, but perhaps it is as well that the victims do not sense their peril.”
    I stopped playing with my tea cake. “What of female friends and acquaintances of the widows? Wouldn’t they ask questions, express interest in the club’s activities?”
    “Widows, I fear, tend to be the forgotten species and not nearly as amusing as spinsters.” Primrose straightened out one of the pink bows on her hair. “People are relieved when they don’t want to keep coming to dinner. I imagine that acquaintances of our widows merely think how nice that Maude or Cynthia keeps so busy—whist, Tuesday afternoons; committee work, Thursday evenings; out selling homemade fudge for charity on weekends.”
    “Mrs. Haskell”—Hyacinth drew her chair closer, setting the earrings off again—“please understand we are nothere to cast stones. The Widows Club does raise a sizeable amount annually for charity. But can good works mitigate the fact that its primary function is deadly?”
    I shivered, mainly because I was becoming interested in this nonsense. “What about conscience—don’t any of these women break down after the deed is done? Killing a husband is—is unnatural!” A bitter pang swamped me as I recalled the first time I had felt the urge to murder my brand-new husband.
    Primrose sighed. “Murder is always nasty. But unnatural? I am not so sure. Murdering one’s child or parents, that indeed flouts nature. Disposing of a husband?” She shook her silver head. “My dear, you will point out that neither Hyacinth nor I have ever married, but I can readily conceive that even the most devoted wife might be faced with the temptation to lay out her spouse rather than his clean underwear.”
    “Quite so, Primrose! However, we are not put on this earth to give way to temptation.” Hyacinth lifted her painted black eyebrows at me. “Mrs. Haskell, you inquired whether, despite everything the support group can do, any of the widows falter under the burden of remorse. We have spoken to such a woman. Since our arrival in the area, Butler has held several positions other than the post he occupies here. He has been a barrow boy, a telephonist, a dustman. While engaged as a window cleaner, he made contact with a Mrs. X, a patient at The Peerless Nursing Home. Unfortunately the interview was hampered by its taking place in a broom cupboard, added to which Mrs. X was only partially coherent as a result of the medication she had been administered during her sojourn there. But we did make some gains. Mrs. X claims to be one of several women presently occupying the third floor, all being treated for the same problem—loose lips.”
    “The Peerless is run by Dr. Simon Bordeaux.” Mine was a statement, not a question. I had reasons for not wanting the doctor to be a villain, but I had seen that nursing home, locked in the center of a dense wood. My heart went out to Mrs. X, whatever her sins. I grew calm, numbed by the draft from the window and the conviction that the Tramwells were not senile. Eccentric without doubt, but eccentricity was in my blood.
    “Yes, my dear,” said Miss Primrose Tramwell, “weknow the doctor—by reputation. We have ardently endeavoured not to prejudge him, but at our ages Hyacinth and I cannot take lightly the notion that the good doctor may have curtailed the lives of elderly females for pecuniary gain. And, it must be said, it is