But they had found nothing special so far. Walls seemed solid, cupboards held no secret doors, chimneys were empty but for an occasional bird’s nest if the room wasn’t used regularly and the animals had been able to get in and settle at leisure.
Now Raven stood dusting off his clothes and looking thoroughly chagrined that his brilliant idea had proved fruitless.
And with that, the chance to clear Oaks was gone.
Merula said softly, “Perhaps the value of the house is not in the house itself but in something inside it. Something Oaks brought with him from abroad.”
Raven stared at her. Then he clapped his hands together. “Yes, of course. You’re so right. Why didn’t I think of this myself? If Oaks had left to recuperate abroad when Bixby first suggested it, he wouldn’t have taken all of his belongings. Bixby could have gone through them at his convenience and remove things he wanted. That must be it. Up, up into the attic!”
He raced ahead of her, unlocked a door at the far end of the corridor, and went up creaking steps. They were so steep that Merula had to cling to anything she found for a hold to dare to go up.
It was dim there, light coming only through a few small windows in the roof. She had to keep her head down so as not to knock it on the rafters. “Why would it have to be up here? Oaks has countless travel souvenirs hanging on the walls. When Bixby visited him, Oaks might have taken him to the library, in which case Bixby would have walked right past them. The weapons, the hand-drawn maps, and the skulls. He might have recognized a valuable object among them.”
Ignoring her suggestion, Raven began to look through boxes and open up suitcases, raising clouds of dust in the process.
Merula covered her nose and still had to sneeze constantly. She blinked as her eyes became irritated as well.
“We should have asked Oaks.” Her voice had assumed a nasal tone, as if she had a terrible cold. “He knows what rooms Bixby has been in. What he might have seen or heard about. Oaks could have bragged about something he acquired on his travels. It could be anything. How will you even recognize it when you find it? It could be papers, a statue, a vase holding something. It could be as small as a precious coin or stamp. I heard that some stamps are so rare they bring in a fortune when sold at auction.”
Raven didn’t reply. He was fully focused on tearing the lid off a crate.
Reluctantly deciding she also had to make an effort, Merula pulled at a crate in the corner. “This is marked Canada, so it must be from the travels in which he found the kraken. Do you know if he caught it himself?”
“Oh, no, he bought it from someone there.”
“Perhaps he bought other things from the same person. Shall I see if anything worthwhile is inside?”
As Raven hmmed, all caught up in other boxes, Merula lifted the loose lid. It felt awkward going through someone else’s things. Aunt Emma had taught her that it was improper even to entertain the wish to see what another kept, let alone pry among it.
Reluctantly, she pulled out some woolen clothes, a book about botany, a small framed painting of a seaside. Stacks of letters lay to the side, and a brass candelabra was half wrapped up in old rags.
Raven got up and grunted. Careful not to hit his head, he stretched and rolled his shoulders. “You’re right.” It sounded begrudging. “We have no idea what we’re looking for. It could be anything. Bixby could be related to Oaks and think that if he dies, he will inherit everything. Or they could be old rivals. Or Oaks bought something Bixby also wanted, at an auction for instance, or via a mutual acquaintance, and it’s somewhere in this house. It could be a valuable book, for all we know. The library is full of them.”
“But if Bixby took the Tasmanian devil,” Merula argued, “he had access to the house somehow. Why not look for what he wanted at that time and take it? Oaks never missed the Tasmanian devil. He might not have missed the other thing either.”
“Unless that thing was in an inaccessible place.” Raven pointed a finger at her. “That’s it! It must be in Oaks’s safe. Valuable papers, gems, perhaps. Or letters seeing to some matter. Oaks might know a secret about Bixby which Bixby is determined to keep hidden.”
“Blackmail? Wouldn’t Oaks have told us?”
“Oaks might not even realize what he knows or how hurtful it might be to Bixby. Bixby could be acting for another. Remember the men at Bixby’s party saying Bixby should have taken care of it by now?”
Merula nodded, her heartbeat speeding up again as she recalled the uncomfortable moments she had spent half hidden behind the mounted bear, fearing discovery and humiliation. “Do you know how to open the safe?”
“No.” Raven sighed, his shoulders slumping in dejection. “I thought we would come here and hit on something right away. A secret passageway leading to some underground hiding place of contraband. Smuggling, like Lamb suggested. This house the ideal hideout for the wreckmaster and his men.”
“The wreckmaster? But what would Bixby have to do with them? Bixby tried to get Oaks away from here, not the wreckmaster. They can’t all be tied up in some giant conspiracy.”
“No, I suppose not.” Raven lowered himself to perch on a crate. “I guess I have no idea what we are after, really.”
He studied his hands and picked some dirt from between his fingers. “It could even be in the collection.”
“The collection?” Merula repeated, not understanding.
“Yes. Oaks might own something valuable without knowing it. Or someone might have hidden something in a mounted animal or among the specimens in alcohol.”
“That would mean we have to check them all.” Merula recoiled in horror at the memory of the Tasmanian devil in the well. In the flickering torchlight, it had looked menacing, ready to jump at her and eat her alive.
Raven sighed. “We can’t do that. It’s not without danger, and besides, there is no time for it. I should have known better and done something else. Like send telegrams to find out more about this mysterious Dr. Twicklestone. I will go and do that right away. Galileo should also have sent some information about the drops I sent him to analyze.”
He jumped up and made his way to the steps. “You stay here. Bowsprit and Lamb should be back any moment. I can’t believe I let them keep the cart for this shopping Lamb wanted to do and hired one to get back out here in a rush. But I really believed we could find something significant. Well, I’ll return the hired cart while I go send the telegrams. Then I might walk back here. I feel like I need the exercise.”
“But it’s miles away. You might not even make it before nightfall. Remember how hostile the villagers are. What if they come after you to attack you?” Merula shivered at the idea of Raven’s injured body being left along a lonely moor road.
But Raven waved off her concern and disappeared, his careful footfalls creaking on the steep steps.
Merula stood and stared up through the narrow window at the cloud-swept skies. The search had engaged her for a while and made her believe they could find something, achieve something. But it had also exhausted her, and now she felt completely empty and aching for her bed. She wanted to fall into a deep dreamless sleep and wake up to be Merula again as she had been weeks ago.
Merula, who lived her life not knowing much about her past and fantasizing that she would one day meet her mother or her father or even both. She had imagined them somewhere, happy together, doing some grand work they had not been able to do with a baby. They had to have sacrificed her, the possibility of family life, for something great and worthy. A cause that justified it all. They would explain it to her, and then they would be together anyway. She was all grown up now; things were different.
Oh, yes, things were different indeed.
How incredibly, painfully different.
Her mother had simply not wanted her. And how had her father figured in all of it? She had no idea. She didn’t even want to know anymore. Enough was enough.
Still, her mind was already working on a way to discover who the man was who carr
ied her mother’s photograph. How to get in touch with him again. He couldn’t leave her with partial answers like this. She needed so much more.
With a sigh, she rose and went to the steps, taking her time to figure out how to descend them without falling and breaking something. At last, in the corridor where the bedrooms were, she heard Bowsprit’s voice talking to Lamb. “… to be careful.”
“And that is for me to decide.” A door banged.
Merula appeared and smiled at the valet, who seemed to be bristling as he faced her, arms up as if to pounce at someone.
“How was your time in the village?” Merula asked.
“Is his lordship out?”
“Yes, to send some telegrams. Our search was fruitless, I’m afraid. If this house has some secret, it is not willing to show it to us just yet.”
Merula walked to the library, where the scene was laid out on the table, and studied it, pacing around it slowly. She picked up a tin soldier that hadn’t been placed yet and held it up. “Dr. Twicklestone. Should I put him with Bixby? They seem to be in a league. But why? I assume it won’t do any good to go ask Bixby. If he has designs on this house, he won’t just tell us.”
“There must be deeds to this house,” Bowsprit mused. “Maps of it or old documents about it. Have you looked at those?”
“No. I have no idea where they might be.”
“Here?” Bowsprit went to the desk and sat down, rummaging through the contents of drawers. “I resent Lamb’s remark that I am in any way like Heartwell, but this situation calls for unusual measures.”
“I suppose that we can assume that with the threat of a straitjacket against him, Oaks gives us implicit permission to do anything we can to save him from it.” Merula sat down and picked up a piece of paper to write. Tillie with child. Father: stable boy? Oaks? Bixby?
She added the last name without even thinking about it.
Staring at it, it seemed to make sense. The girl had believed Oaks would be interested in her. Why would she believe that unless she had already received attention from another older, well-to-do man?
But how had a country girl met a scientific mind like Bixby? At the inn? It didn’t seem like the kind of establishment for his refined taste. Consider his house with the carefully constructed arboretum and garden, his interests in psychology and astronomy, his learned friends like the mathematician. What would he do with himself in an inn where the ale was watered down and the card games crooked?
But, on the other hand, Bixby had a strange command over the villagers, and how could he have accomplished that but by associating with them? Buying them ale, telling them stories, showing off how much a man of the world he was?
All the while turning them against Oaks to get his hands on the house and the secret it contained?
Tillie had worked at the inn serving before she had taken up her position with Oaks. It was not uncommon for men of repute to believe they could use serving girls if they wanted to. Bixby might be no different.
“When you were at the inn,” she asked Bowsprit, who was going through all the papers he had unearthed from the desk’s drawers, “did you hear anything about Bixby going there?”
“It seems he played cards there a few nights. He was good and won, emptying the pockets of the villagers.”
Having just assumed that the card games there were crooked and that the locals who played were in charge of the win/loss division, Merula was surprised at Bowsprit’s revelation. “So people owe Bixby money?”
“Yes, in particular the blacksmith. Seems he lost a hefty sum. The man who told me sounded both sorry for the chap and a bit resigned. Seems the man has been getting himself into trouble ever since his wife died.”
“Tillie’s father is in debt to Bixby?”
“Indeed.”
“So Bixby might have enticed him to testify that the hoofprints found at the river could only have been made by Oaks’s horse. In exchange for forgetting about the debts? Tillie’s father believes Oaks is guilty, so he’d be more than willing to testify, believing it might get his daughter’s murderer convicted.”
“Here.” Bowsprit held up a paper. “Deed of ownership of the house. Including a plan of the grounds that go with it.”
“Can those be somehow valuable? Is there a mine on them? Old graves? Remember the books about kistvaens and grave robbery Oaks had in his bedroom.”
“Yes, hmm.” Bowsprit studied the plan. “Nothing I can see at first glance, but I doubt a mine would be marked. And besides, if Oaks had something valuable here that he was aware of, he would have mentioned it to us or to the police, you’d think. It has to be something he doesn’t know about. A hidden treasure only Bixby realized was there.”
“But if Bixby knows and nobody else does, how will we ever find out about it?”
Merula threw herself back against the chair and closed her eyes. She was weary to the bone. There seemed to be too many loose ends here and no rhyme or reason to them. In the case of Lady Sophia, the murder method had baffled them for a long time, but the suspects’ motives had become clearer as they went along.
Here there were people involved in so many things—fishing, beachcombing for the cargo of wrecked ships, struggle for control of a village, people who clung to tradition and those who wanted progress. Outsiders coming to live in big houses and changing things. Planting trees and filling gardens and inviting city people to come gaze at the stars. Calling them Perseids after a hero from Greek mythology while the villagers believed them to be the tears of a revered saint.
She suddenly had a feeling someone was watching her and opened her eyes. Bowsprit had come to sit on the other side of the table. He looked her over with a frown, as if he was making up his mind about something. It was difficult to stand his probing gaze and not ask him what was wrong, but Merula didn’t want to stop him from speaking his mind.
At last he said, “You feel strongly about this man you met on the moors.”
“Not in any personal sense. He is a link to my past, my parents. He has answers I want. Need, even.”
“Are you certain about that? His lordship seems to think you should not know.”
“And how can he decide about that? Yes, he’s my friend, but he doesn’t … he can’t …” Merula looked for the right words.
“Are you resisting because he is telling you what to do?”
It was a direct and honest question, and Merula blinked a moment to find the answer deep inside her. “No. This is not about him at all.”
“But he’s worried about you.”
Merula’s throat constricted for a moment. “He shouldn’t be. I can take care of myself. I know what I am doing.”
“Do you?” Bowsprit’s eyes kept searching her expression. “After the man walked away with the ladies he was guiding, you were left crying.”
“Yes, but … what he told me is the truth. If it’s a hard truth to learn, then I must learn it nevertheless.”
“How do you know it is even the truth?”
Merula blinked. “Excuse me?”
“How do you know that what he is telling you is the truth? He could be lying about everything.”
“No. Of course not. He knew my mother. He even showed me …” Merula realized she was about to tell Bowsprit about the photograph and checked herself. She felt caught out, exposed almost, as if Bowsprit’s kind questions had lured her close to an edge she had wanted to stay far away from. “Has Raven put you up to this? Has he asked you to speak with me while he is away and get things out of me?”
Bowsprit rose to his feet. “I serve a master and I listen to him. But I don’t let myself be used to trick people.”
The anger bristling from his posture was genuine enough.
“I’m sorry,” Merula rushed to say. “Please sit down again. I’m just so very confused.”
Bowsprit seated himself again with a sigh. “I know. And that is why I wanted to ask you. Raven doesn’t know about this.”
It was the first time Merul
a had heard Bowsprit call his master by his first name. As if suddenly formalities didn’t matter and he was opening up his innermost feelings to her.
“He wouldn’t approve, either,” Bowsprit said. “But I follow my own path. I saw you with the man and I saw you crying. I don’t want you to be hurt by this man. But if you are determined to learn about your past and this man knows things, this may be the only time you’ll ever have to learn them.”
“I know. That is exactly why I’m so confused and frustrated. I want Raven to understand and …” Support me. Be there for me.
“He is afraid, and I can’t blame him. This man holds all the answers you want, or so he makes you believe. You’re not just confused, you’re desperate for what he can tell you. That is dangerous.”
“I will not agree to anything … untoward.” Merula flushed.
Bowsprit shook his head. “I’m not afraid of that. I’m afraid of what the truth will do to you. Or his version of the truth. It was a long time ago, and there will be no way of checking upon the things he might tell you. Do you really wish to know them?”
“Yes.” Merula leaned on the table. “Why are you asking me all of these questions? Why does it matter so much to you? Apart from your allegiance to Raven, of course.”
“Raven has nothing to do with this.” Bowsprit rubbed his bare arm. “Of course he’ll be mad when he finds out what I told you, but it’s my decision to make. I just want to be certain that I’m not hurting you. Raven would not forgive me if something I said hurt you, and he would be right, too. I wouldn’t forgive myself either.”
Merula blinked a moment. She wanted to know what Bowsprit could reveal to her, but she couldn’t lie to him by assuring him that what he was about to say would not hurt her. She had no idea herself.
If she said so, would he refuse to tell her?
But he had been so honest with her. She had to be honest with him.
“I can’t be sure it won’t hurt me.”
Death Comes to Dartmoor Page 17