by Tedd Hawks
“I’m sure I don’t know. Even if Grandfather wasn’t killed and the trick with the séance was an inappropriate joke spearheaded by Kordelia, Beatrice’s slaughter was a direct, monstrous action. It’s a peculiar horror, a dead fish, but, in our family, it represents something deeply disturbing—an evisceration of a beloved family member.”
Crockett began pacing in the room. “Could it have been intended to scare someone into…into what?”
“My guess,” Brontë said slowly, “is that someone wanted the will read with haste. Grandmother is extremely superstitious; I mean, my goodness, she wants to entomb an empty box to appease the house spirits for Grandfather. Perhaps whoever is behind this thought it would push her into moving the proceedings along more rapidly out of fear.”
“That’s a very good thought…” Crockett avoided a baseball glove on the floor. “So, someone wanted to scare your grandmother. This someone needed to know how to cleanly gut a fish, find a sword, and go into the main sitting room to kill Beatrice at night.”
Brontë rubbed her temples in contemplation. “Beatrice would never make a sound. The only threat of noise is making the beads around her cage jangle too loudly.”
“Hmmm,” Crockett shook his head. “And the evisceration took place entirely in the main hall.”
“Someone may have fish remnants on their clothing, however.”
“Indeed.” Crockett’s brow furrowed; his caterpillar eyebrows knitted together. “Perhaps I can check the laundry to see if there is anything suspicious there.” He ceased his pacing and drew closer to Brontë. “Petrarch thinks that there is also something odd about the tomb key, the fact that it’s missing. Do you think the will reading and the key are linked in some way?”
“I don’t know how they could be.” Brontë frowned. “As my grandmother said, it’s been decades since the tomb was opened. Unless, perhaps, something of value was placed in there by Baron Von Bunson.”
“Who was possibly killed by your grandfather.”
Brontë let out an exasperated breath of air. “It’s all so tangled, isn’t it? I keep thinking it’s someone in the house, but the past keeps coming back in these echoes.”
“Like that horrifying song.”
“‘The Duck Man of the Old Hat’?” Brontë laughed. “Don’t tell me that still has you scared.”
“It’s a terrifying song,” Crockett said defiantly.
“Most German rhymes are. Have you ever heard ‘My Mother Killed a Horse with a Snake Tooth’? That’s another unsettling one.”[24]
“I can’t say I have.” Crockett looked confusedly at Brontë.
“There’s actually a German word for killing a horse with a snake tooth—toterpferdeschlangenzahn—which to me seems an impractical word.”
“Indeed.” Crockett, in the ensuing silence, counted to three softly to himself before he felt he could quickly and necessarily change the direction of the conversation. He wanted to continue discussing the mystery, as it seemed their exchange was precipitating an important discovery. “So, could we conject that your grandfather’s death and the séance aside, someone killed Beatrice to precipitate the reading of the will, which may be tied to getting into the family tomb?”
“It’s not a bad idea,” Brontë said admiringly. “To be honest, the séance fits the motive as well, a play on the house’s obsession with the occult. It’s actually a marvelous idea, Mr. Cook.”
Crockett turned away. Brontë saying his name with such warmth brought an embarrassingly large smile to his lips. “So now it’s a matter of finding out who is interested in the will and the money.” As he said this, he felt a slight pang of remorse knowing that the family had nothing…It was not his place to relay this to Brontë, but the small unspoken lie caused him discomfort.
“Which could be anyone,” Brontë said defeatedly. “Everyone in the house, including me, would be interested in the money and the estate. Aunt May wouldn’t inherit too much, but she would most likely get a small sum. My father and mother would be freed of Hawsfeffer Manor and could return to Winterbourne House, which is in much better condition. I would most likely inherit something in the process. Perhaps Kordelia being the second-born granddaughter and Robert Edward are the only two I would put out of suspicion in terms of gaining something from the will reading.”
“I suppose that makes you my prime suspect.”
Brontë laughed loudly.
Crockett was lost in a blossoming affection as he watched her. Everything about the moment was as beautiful as a painting—her crinkled eyes, the paleness of her skin highlighted by the blush of red from laughter, the way her delicate hand flew to her mouth in an act of light embarrassment. This morning she had also chosen to wear trousers. They gave a faint outline to her thin hips and small waist.
Brontë looked up and caught Crockett’s admiring gaze. Her face immediately turned crimson and both, again, fell into a pregnant silence.
Not wanting to live in an uncomfortable tension, Crockett spoke quickly to alter the mood, “You had mentioned you think it could be someone outside the house, a different presence than those gathered here.”
Brontë shook her head. “I’m not sure. But I do know my family, and I don’t think that any of them are capable of this. Robert Edward has a secure alibi—he is the only one I cannot vouch for. I was trying to think of someone else that could have been interested, but it could just be fanciful ideas. I may be as batty as the local constabulary investigating circus folk.”
Crockett smiled; he did his best to avoid Brontë’s gaze so as not to cause another tense moment. To avert this, he threw his glance across the room.
The sun had come out and bright rays shone through the small window high above them—one spark of light fell over a pile of objects, a bright silver sword glinting in the glow. The color in the young solicitor’s face faded.
“Crockett,” Brontë said quickly, “are you all right?”
But Crockett was already running across the room. The sword was in a pile of other weapons—pieces of antiquity, discarded for years in the far corner of this family vault.[25] Tentatively, he picked up one of the blades and examined it. It was as he thought. He had seen the shape, the handle, the taper of the blade before.
“What is it?” Brontë caught up to him and whispered quietly in his ear.
Crockett turned slowly; his face darkened. “Brontë, I think I know where the weapon came from that killed Beatrice.”
Brontë’s expression suddenly went from shock to deep thoughtfulness. She stepped away from Crockett and walked distractedly in a small circle.
“Someone took the weapon from down here,” she said quietly.
“But, once again, anyone could have come down to grab it.” Crockett clenched his fists in frustration.
“No,” Brontë said picking up her walking pace. “Not everyone has access to this room. There is a key—I had to retrieve it from Father so that we could enter this morning.”
Crockett started. “Is it usually locked?”
“Yes,” she said. “My grandmother gave the key to my father yesterday. I don’t know if you recall. She said she needed something from down here.”
“So, we need to talk to your father…”
“I need to,” Brontë said, ceasing her pacing. “He trusts me, but I don’t think he’d speak freely if you were there. He won't mention anything unless I can bait him into incriminating himself.”
Crockett’s face dropped. “You don’t think it was your father, do you?”
Brontë looked at Crockett with determination. “I told you, Crockett,” she said swiftly, “it could be anyone.”
Chapter 12: A Prime Suspect
Crockett’s mind overflowed with conflicting theories about the previous night, the séance, and the death of Beatrice as he returned to the folly wing.
The success of Brontë and his plan relied heavily on her father divulging what had happened to the key the previous night. If he was in fact guilty, that would be info
rmation that could bring things to a climax. But would Brontë be safe? He’d already taken Beatrice’s life; what if it escalated further? Especially with his uncontrollable anger? And was the motive that he wanted the family fortune, which didn’t exist?
Thoughts clouded his attention so deeply that he didn’t notice Kordelia in the hall until he had stepped on her dainty foot. The girl squealed.
“My goodness, your head is a foot bath,” she said fighting tears.
“I’m sorry?”
“It’s an old Swiss saying—it loses its effectiveness translated to English, I suppose.”
Crockett looked at her quizzically. “Do you….ever attempt to make a conversation that others can follow?”
“Perhaps I am leading correctly, and it is their obligation to follow better,” Kordelia said. Upset about her foot, she turned and began walking away.
As her footsteps trailed away, Crockett recognized the opportunity the encounter gave him to gain more information. He spun quickly and called after the youngest Winterbourne. “What were you doing in this wing?”
“Looking!” This was all she said before coming to the end of the long hall and disappearing from view.
There was only a moment of isolation in the dark hallway before Petrarch peeped his head out of his room and beckoned for Crockett to join him.
The old man was in the midst of calisthenics, his protruding belly circled with a large sweat mark. He was breathing heavily, wiping his forehead with one of the many gloves Kordelia had left around the house.
“Did you find the key?” Petrarch asked between breaths.
“No.” Crockett crossed the room and sat on the bed. He had so many things to tell the old man but no idea where to begin.
“I didn’t think you would.” Petrarch ceased his exercises and looked out the windows clouded with dirt. “That key is…well, there’s more to it, my boy.”
“More to it?” Crockett kept his gaze locked on Petrarch. “What are you talking about, Petrarch?”
Petrarch turned. “Well, I didn’t think you’d find it, you see, because…I have it.”
For one, infinitesimal moment, Crockett’s heart stopped. An obscuring, otherworldly cloud filled the room. Reflected on its pale face he saw a second, phantom Petrarch appearing in intermittent flashes like lightning. In the first flash, the secretive old man was in the foyer, blade in hand, carving the poor corpse of Beatrice. In another, he witnessed Petrarch upstairs at the time of the séance; guided by an oral map of the house from Bixby Hawsfeffer, he found the closet, the phonograph, and set the prank of the old German rhyme into motion.
“You…?” Crockett said softly.
Petrarch shook his head. “I did hope that it would have a dramatic effect, but,” he smiled wryly, “I assumed you’d give me the benefit of an explanation.”
Crockett could only look at the old man pensively. In all their years together, this had been the only moment when he had felt a tremor in the trust that existed between them. “You couldn’t have…”
“To make things more transparent,” Petrarch interrupted him sharply, “I should say I have ‘a’ key.”
“‘A’ key?”
“Passed on to me many years ago.”
“When?”
Petrarch exhaled. “Lucinda gave it to me at the same time she gave me the note.”
Crockett’s face turned red. “Why didn’t you say this when you mentioned the note?”
“A hunch,” Petrarch sighed. “Crockett, I was going to tell you after we met with Corinthiana, but you gave such a quick, logical explanation about the tomb key being missing that I forgot about it.”
“So, you didn’t mention it to Corinthiana because…”
“It’s one of the few things I remember about Lucinda’s visit,” Petrarch said. “That is to say, I didn’t remember until all of this came up again when Bixby died. She gave me the note; she was very distracted. But then,” the old man’s eyes clouded, as if he was peering into the distant past, “she said, ‘Petrarch, protect this. Don’t give it to anyone until he’s dead.’”
There was a tense silence. Crockett stroked his chin. “So, she wanted it protected from Bixby Hawsfeffer? But why?”
“I don’t know.” Petrarch shook his head. The old man looked tired. It was a rare occurrence for him to look his full seventy-five years.
“How very odd…” Crockett rose from the bed and paced the room. “But how could the key and her note be related? The note is…it seems to be a trite wish from a mother to son.”
“Do you think it means something else?” Petrarch looked up hopefully.
“Let’s look at it again,” Crockett said excitedly.
Petrarch ran to his briefcase. Again, he had to dump the contents before he could find the crumpled bit of parchment. The two men placed in on the bed and read through it several times. Neither could find any secret purpose to it. Lucinda’s words simply asked her son, Pip, to visit her resting place when he returned to the family home.[26]
When they finished rereading, both sat in silence. A heaviness descended on the discussion, a dark cloud of mystery. Had the death of Beatrice and the disappearance of Bixby Hawsfeffer begun all those years before? But then, what did the note mean?
Petrarch spoke first. “Let's take a step back from the current events. It may behoove us to examine the note and key at a distance.”
Crockett nodded. He paced the room as Petrarch spoke.
“Before her death, Lucinda came to my office with a note for her estranged son along with the key to the family tomb.” Petrarch’s speech was slow, methodical. “The note is for her son, should his father die, and she was very adamant that it not be given to anyone until the father’s death.”
Crockett’s frenetic pacing slowed. He took a deep breath; simply hearing Petrarch’s calming voice and the facts of the case helped pin down his wild imagination.
“We know,” Crockett said, “that Lucinda disappeared under mysterious circumstances.”
“In the river.”
“So,” Crockett came to a halt. He fixed his gaze on Petrarch. “Perhaps she knew her time was coming to an end. She wanted to give her son a last message and protect it before her husband…made her disappear.”
“Oh,” a great, grief-filled sigh escaped Petrarch. “That is tragic. Could my friend, Bixby Hawsfeffer, truly have been that villainous?”
Crockett turned his attention to the large windows. Outside, the emerald lawn sprawled out of his line of vision. His mind clicked and turned, words forming into vague ideas, like a puzzle box being manipulated to find a solution. There was some fleeting idea in his head that couldn’t quite be held long enough to examine.
“Petrarch,” he said softly, “this exercise was very beneficial. I think we should take a more formalized approach to all of this, not just Lucinda’s note. Let’s review what we do know, because Brontë and I have discovered things this morning which also appear to be very important.”
“My word!” Petrarch proudly smiled. Between Crockett’s faint-free behavior, and his calm, logical manner in dealing with Lucinda’s note, he felt his young apprentice was growing up from moment to moment.
The grief about Bixby faded quickly. He shot up into the air with a gleeful shout. “Well, my boy, let us proceed logically. I’ll do jumping jacks and you state the facts!” Petrarch hopped in the air, his heavy arms flapping up and down.
Crockett steepled his fingers; he spoke authoritatively. “We know that Bixby Hawsfeffer died one week ago in the river. He drowned, despite being in good health and a decent swimmer. Brontë mentioned there were gunshots in the afternoon, but there was never any correlation between them and the death of her father.”
“August shoots several times a day. A gunshot is not something importantly noted in this house.” Petrarch was already so out of breath from the effort of the jumping jacks that the words came out between gasps.
“Two weeks before his death, Bixby came to you with the wi
ll. But it wasn’t the real will, the truth; it was a softened version that didn’t come to the full admission that everything he had was gone.”
“Huuffffff,” Petrarch groaned.
“Upon going home, he made a second document which revealed the truth but,” Crockett suddenly grew excited, “he wanted you here!”
Petrarch gave up his exercises and sat on the bed. He smiled broadly and attempted to speak, but nothing came out. He was panting heavily; the effort of sitting erect was burdensome.
“What this means, Petrarch, my dear friend, is that you are vital to…whatever it is that’s going on.”
“Water...?” Petrarch mouthed.
“You think water is the key? The river? The drowning?”
“Drink,” Petrarch groaned, making a grotesque face.
“Poison!” Crockett started. “Bixby was poisoned…It fits in some ways. It would explain how he wasn’t able to swim to safety.”
“Me!”
“Yes! Petrarch, I know. It’s vital that you are here but why? Is it Lucinda’s note? Or is it the key? Why would the key be so important, though? We went through that already…”
“Get. Me. Water.” Petrarch flopped back on the bed, with a final great exhalation. Crockett jumped to attention and fled from the room. He had a glass of water by his own bedside. Once procured, he returned to Petrarch’s collapsed form and forced him to take a sip.
It took time for the old man to regain his bearings. After a deal of huffing, puffing, and wheezing, he was able again to sit upright and focus on the conversation at hand.
“Sorry, my dear boy. I get a little too overenergized during exercises every now and again. Jumping jacks used to be my specialty, but now…” Petrarch raised his arm and shook the loose skin on its underside. “You wouldn’t believe I was the same man from all those years ago.”
Crockett nodded, the pieces of the puzzle box in his head sliding into new patterns. There was a hypothesis forming in his mind, a whisper of an idea. This meeting with Petrarch, his conversation with Brontë, the sword, the paintings in the basement, the wildness of the idea of poison, all came together to form a bizarre, nebulous solution. The idea was perhaps plausible…but not worth discussion, not at this stage. If it weren’t true, he’d look as if he were completely daft, creating theories from the ether. He had no desire to look like a lunatic in the eyes of either Petrarch or Brontë, his master and the woman he’d developed a warm affection for over the course of the past several days, especially since Brontë already knew he was rather skittish.