Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 151, Nos. 1 & 2. Whole Nos. 916 & 917, January/February 2018

He seemed alarmed at the suggestion. “She’s your doll. I have no right to tell you how to dispose of her. But I wish you would get rid of her. Carefully. What are you intending to do with her, Ellie? Have you thought that far?” The tension in his voice revealed what a struggle it had been to say the words.

There was an intensity to his question that I understood.

“Oh yes. I have plans. Plan A and Plan B, as I call them imaginatively. B is for Benson. The new owners. My strategy is to punish the Benson couple for what I’m sure will turn out to be a disastrous renovation of a lovely old building! A sort of preemptive retribution. I thought I’d pose the doll on a sofa in the drawing room with a china dish of violet creams to hand and take her photo. I do this all the time — bring my own stuff in. You’d be surprised how often the owner finds he or she can’t live without that pair of Norwegian clogs by the back door, the Staffordshire dog doorstop... she just has to have it! The ones that don’t strike a chord I bring to you! I bet I can sneak Rosa back into her rightful setting and she’ll be welcomed with open arms.”

“And you’d have a clear conscience about doing that? You don’t fear for poor Jasper Benson? Ellie, think about this! I know he’s not a Langridge, but he’s now master of the Langridge house — the place where Rosa might have expected one day to be mistress. And he’s a man, after all.”

“Mmm... there’s some debate about that in the shark-infested seas he swims in,” I said with what I hoped was a hint of mystery. “I’ve done my background checks... spoken with those who would know.” I liked to drop the occasional reminder of my professionalism in front of Tom. “He’s not a nice man... Supercroc... is one of the kinder names they have for him behind his back. He’s armoured and he plays dirty. Not the kind to go into a tailspin at the threat of a bygone couch-potato leaking kapok in his home. But don’t worry! I would certainly tell Eloise the whole sorry — I mean, romantic — tale first. Make everything quite clear. Though I risk being taken for a superstitious idiot!”

“I don’t like it. Sell me Plan A.”

“Ah. Yes. My preferred one. Plan A...” I breathed deeply and committed myself: “...would be to give her to you, Tom. A gift. You have first refusal. She’s yours if you want her.”

Tom buttoned up the bodice with swift fingers, took the handkerchief off the lovely face, and stared down. He was tempted, I could see he was tempted, and he’s always known I was putty in his hands. He just had to say the words and I’d hand her over.

He turned to me and said: “Take her away, Ellie. You’ll think me a weed and a credulous clown, I know, but... but... I wouldn’t feel quite safe with her around.”

A year later and here I was, with awful inevitability, approaching the shop again. The shop door opened and anxiously Tom reached out and seized my box.

“Oh no! Nightmare sight! I wasn’t expecting to see the pair of you back a year on! You never dropped a hint that it was going anything but swimmingly, Ellie. What’s gone wrong?” Tom had spent much of the past year abroad, building up his foreign ventures. Far Eastern antiques had taken off and he’d made a lot of money from his jade and porcelain collections, but I’d managed to see him several times since last Christmas; we’d made some deals, shared some drinks, shared some memorable evenings. I hadn’t mentioned Rosa.

Plan B had worked like a charm. I was so cunningly persuasive I disgusted myself. But I was at least honest and straightforward. I held nothing back. I just presented the facts in a careful order.

After Eloise had exclaimed over the new decorative element she discovered reclining on the chaise longue in her conversation room and blatantly asked me how much I wanted for her, I gave her the whole story. Silly superstition and all that, I laughed dismissively, but — no — the man-hating doll was definitely not for sale. I wasn’t insured against supernaturally triggered death events. I couldn’t possibly... She couldn’t buy her and that was that.

This was not the style of bargaining Eloise was accustomed to. She became thoughtful to the point where I was expecting her to chuck me out, but I was wrong, she was just calculating the most effective way of making me change my mind.

She seized on the one argument which could have any weight with me.

“But Ellie, she’s at home here! Don’t you see it? How many men do you say she’s killed? Five, that you know of? The minx! And most of them in this very house? What a story! My friends will just love it! And imagine how you can write this up for the county magazines! Long-lost Spirit of the House, unregarded, on her way to the bonfire... Hey! Could we push that as far as ‘funeral pyre,’ do you think?... What’s that ghastly Indian custom? Suttee! That’s it! Surely there’s a link there? Until, at the last moment, someone’s sharp eyes spot her, recognise her for what she is, and reinstate her in her rightful place.”