Malice in Miniature Read Online Free

could have killed the poor woman if he brought a bunch of cats into the neighborhood!”
    â€œMmm. Wanted to buy her property, enlarge his own. She wouldn’t sell. Her estate might have.”
    â€œAnd he had the energy to engage in all this plotting and scheming and—and sheer malice—in his nineties? Amazing!”
    â€œFamily’s always been long-lived. Flourish like the green bay tree.”
    â€œI can’t imagine why he thought a feud was worth it, though, at his age. Oh, well. So Mordred inherited. Ada thought he changed his name when he came into the estate, but she also thought he was a more distant relation than he was, so I suppose she’s wrong.”
    â€œNot exactly. He’d given up the name, but he had to take it back when he inherited. Been calling himself Pendragon.”
    â€œSurely not!”
    Jane nodded, jowls quivering. Jane bears a distinct resemblance, in both appearance and manner, to the late Sir Winston Churchill, or else to the bulldogs she loves—if there’s a difference. “Mordred part is real.” She made a face. “The mother had a fixation on the Arthur legend, passed it on to her son.”
    â€œWhat an inheritance! But why such a nasty sort of name? I’m not thoroughly checked out in Arthuriana, but surely Mordred was the one who betrayed Arthur and spoiled everything in Camelot, wasn’t he?”
    Jane nodded. “Apparently Mum liked the villains best. Or else didn’t like her children. There was a sister, too, named Morgana, but she died or something.”
    I shuddered at the idea of naming a daughter after a witch. “What did he get knighted for? Mordred, I mean. Ada said he was a ‘Sir.’”
    â€œDistinguished Service to the Arts,” said Jane without so much as the ghost of a smile. Deadpan is the essence of British humor; it took me several months of living in Sherebury to be sure when someone was being funny.
    â€œYes, of course, but really . . .”
    â€œHis father made a packet in buttons or crisps or something—can’t recall—and Mordred’s devoted his life to spending it on dolls’ houses. Donated so many of them to the V and A they had to do something for him.”
    â€œThe Victoria and Albert? I didn’t know they went in for that sort of thing.” When Frank was still alive we used to enjoy going to the big London museum on our visits to England, but I didn’t remember seeing any toys there.
    â€œNot the V and A proper. Museum of Childhood, run by the V and A. Toys, dolls, largest collection of dolls’ houses in the world—now.”
    â€œOh. Okay, so Mordred became Sir Mordred because he gave them a lot of stuff. He must be a collector on a really huge scale—Ada says there are hundreds of houses at the Hall.”
    â€œExaggeration. Few dozen houses, barns, whatever, I’m told. Lot of what they call room settings—boxes with a glass front, tiny furniture inside.”
    â€œAnd Brocklesby really spends all his time collecting this stuff?”
    â€œAnd looking after it, and repairing it, and making it. Good craftsman, they tell me.”
    â€œWell, I can believe what everyone says about his being odd. I can’t wait to see him in person. What’s he like?”
    Jane shrugged. “Don’t really know him. A Londoner, only lived in the Hall three or four years. Don’t care for the Hall myself. Never go out there.”
    â€œWhy not? It looked interesting in Ada’s pictures, if somewhat grotesque, architecturally speaking.”
    â€œGrotesque is the word. Just don’t like the place, is all.”
    She shut her mouth firmly, and I looked at her in astonishment. Jane, as solid and sensible a person as I know, is not given to unexplained antipathies. “Oh, come on. You can’t stop there. Is it haunted, or what?”
    She shrugged and looked embarrassed. “There’s