Beatrice: An Alarming Tale of British Murder and Woe

by Tedd Hawks

  His course took him toward the Tiddlymouth at the back of the house. The rush of the river calmed his nerves, helped his thoughts race less quickly and sequence more logically. As the river flowed and birds twittered, for a brief moment, the Hawsfeffer case left his focus and he reflected on the coming summer, afternoons in the park in London and long strolls along the Thames.

  These thoughts imploded when Crockett arrived at the riverbank. In his musings he forgot that the river was not a topaz, sparkling vision of arcadian splendor but a hideous brown and gray snake streaked with logs and refuse from local farms. It was doubly disappointing, as the banks of the river matched this filthy, unkempt demeanor. The waving brown and green grasses were tangled and thick. They were wild and dense enough to hide the body of a full-grown man.

  As his disappointment festered, he saw a figure in white on the bank, nearly hidden in the tall grasses. The ghostly individual stared into the distance, watching the clouds roll in from the west. The atmosphere of the day had entirely changed since he came outside. The wind began to moan, the first sign of another summer storm. The figure was a woman, her loose dress flitting about her in this rising zephyr. When she turned, he recognized the delicate, youthful countenance of Kordelia. Haphazardly, she lifted her arm and waved.

  Crockett approached her tentatively, the youngest Winterbourne daughter, the oddest of all oddities at Hawsfeffer Manor. A smile turned up the edge of his mouth as he pondered what non sequitur would fall from her lips when they were close enough to speak. He did not have to wait long. In a few long strides, he was close enough for her golden hair to catch the wind and flap into his face.

  “Hullo,” she said plainly. “How was Dexter? I saw you two speaking.”

  Crockett’s face turned red. “I think I insulted him. I insinuated he was the murderer of both your grandfather and Beatrice.”

  “It’s not a bad guess. The local constabulary’s idea of carnival folk is worse, I would say.”

  “I would agree.” Crockett tried very hard to keep his face from scrunching due to the smell of Kordelia’s halitosis. In an effort to avoid the downwind scent, he turned away and looked at the tomb in the distance. He thought back to his early morning chat with Brontë. “Do you miss him?” he asked.

  “Miss who?”

  “Your grandfather?” He placed his hands behind his back. “Your sister misses him. She told me the other morning.”

  Kordelia thought for a moment. “No,” she said finally. “Brontë was his favorite—she always had more points, as you know.” The young girl, in discussing the point system, remembered her breath and covered her mouth self-consciously. “He wasn’t very kind—Grandfather—he never liked me much after the cat was set on fire.”

  “That seems unfair.”

  “He wasn’t pleasant.” She looked toward the sky; a sigh, heavy with grief, escaped her. “You know they think he killed several people.”

  “I heard.”

  “His first wife and his uncle—they say it was all over money.”

  “Do you believe them?”

  “I tend to believe everything.”

  “Even the worst.”

  She paused and focused her full attention on Crockett. Her bright eyes twinkled. “I tend to believe the worst, then be pleasantly surprised.”

  “What do you think is the worst now?”

  “About Beatrice?”

  “Yes.” Crockett tried to keep his voice from shaking. His goosepimples returned. He felt as if he was on the edge of some great mystery, some truth, about to be unleashed from the young woman beside him.

  “I think it’s spirits,” she said softly. “Real ones—not the fake ones that burned the cat.”

  “Why do you say that? You don’t think it’s a person?”

  “It could be a person acting on a spirit's power. I’ve been looking around the house for a better solution, but nothing has presented itself.”

  “You mean…a person acting on a spirit’s power, like a possession?”

  “Maybe not the way you think, no.” She turned to the water. “The past can possess someone like a spirit, drive them to act against their natural impulses. The past doesn’t die, just like ghosts don’t. There's a phrase for it in the fortune teller’s tongue—Shubooie kurkbumzurburg.”

  “That’s…” Crockett felt unsettled, “that’s very wise.”

  “There’s a similar concept in The Viscount’s Ram. It’s discussed during the second meat pie scene in act three.”

  “Is it what you think, though? It’s someone from the past?”

  Kordelia transformed. She was suddenly not the impish character he had been with for several days, but a real girl, tired, drained by unhappiness. “I think Grandfather was a bad man. I think he killed them both, Lucinda and our great-uncle. I think this follows. Death makes way for death.” Her golden hair blew wildly in a gust of wind. She hesitated. “Can I tell you something?”

  “Of course.” Crockett gently stepped forward.

  But it was at that moment that a shot rang out behind them. A squawk and a thud broke the moment of intimacy between them. They heard August cheer, followed by his heavy footsteps coming over the hill.

  The safety of the moment was gone.

  Kordelia quickly moved away from Crockett. She looked at him and

  smiled sheepishly. “It’s not over,” she said softly, then turned and ran along the riverbank.

  August was soon beside him. He clicked his teeth.

  “What did she say, my boy? Anything in the way of clearing up the Beatrice mess? You know she killed a cat once, burned it up in a moment of rapturous excitement.”

  Crockett shook his head. “She didn’t say much. She’s very cryptic, your daughter.”

  “I’d say it’s a reaction to the Swiss rösti—it makes the head a little,” he shook his hand by the side of his head and laughed. “We think a few more weeks in the country will get her right as rain.”

  A bird flew high above them. August snorted and thrust his gun up to look through the sight. A blast rang out around them.

  August roared with laughter again and started singing merrily as the bird fell from the sky. He interrupted his song when he turned to Crockett, his mustache erect with joy.

  “It’s funny how people can get caught up when a pet dies but love sport like this. Perspective, I suppose.”

  He trod off toward the river.

  Left alone, Crockett looked to the water. It was high up the bank, moving quickly. If Bixby had fallen into its rushing current, it would be difficult to escape, especially if there was some trouble with his heart.

  A bright spot of sun rippled on the surface of the brown water, making him think of Kordelia’s words about the past.

  In that moment, Crockett had no confirmation whether August was a murderer, but he recognized that something in the man was indeed monstrous; he needed to be carefully watched.

  Chapter 14: May’s Secret

  Kordelia’s gloomy outlook appeared to materialize and shroud the Hawsfeffer Estate in mist. Clouds kept rolling in from the west, the wind rising, a soft, intermittent drizzle falling over the countryside. It was a welcome reprieve from the intense heat of the afternoon.

  Everyone was in higher spirits when Crockett went back into the house. He greeted those gathered in the sitting room, then went to his room to further contemplate the day and meditate on the afternoon’s insights from Kordelia.

  In her eyes (and the eyes of many), Bixby Hawsfeffer was a monster. August’s role in his disappearance, even if it was cold-blooded murder against his father-in-law, could, in a sense, be justified. Even the death of poor Beatrice, when compared to the atrocities of the patriarch, seemed a parlor game.

  But the truth—no matter how much it looked like August was behind the madness—was elusive until he could get Brontë to confirm her father had done it all. Part of him couldn’t help but wonder if there was something more—logic led him to August, but his instinct led him to an
entirely different conclusion. Despite trying to resist it, the puzzle box in his mind still shifted toward a solution, creating thousands of possibilities, the most ludicrous of them plausible when he was alone in the large house, the only sound the soft rush of wind through the cracks in the windows. Brontë’s theory that there was some other mysterious person from outside the house assisting with the chaos stoked the fires of his imagination. He was rent in two, wanting to believe the logical but obsessed and inspired by the possibility of a grandiose plot of transgenerational murder.

  After washing his face and putting on his last fresh shirt, Crockett knocked on Petrarch’s door to seek counsel. The old man was sitting on his bed in his undershirt and trousers smoking a pipe.

  “Your thinking pipe, Petrarch! This must be serious.”

  “It is, my dear boy! It is! The key—its revelation must be planned precisely. I’m hoping to get a response that we can use to propel our inquiries further.”

  As Petrarch puffed away, Crockett drifted to the wardrobe in the room and examined himself in the looking glass. He looked pale and wan. In that dim light, he could be mistaken for a ghost.

  “I’ve been doing some sleuthing, Petrarch,” he said examining his nose, which looked paler than either his forehead or chin. “This afternoon I was inspired to seek evidence and facts.”

  “And what did you find?”

  “That I’m a terrible detective.” Crockett’s ears turned red. “I did have an interesting discussion with Kordelia.”

  “Did she tell you some nonsensical aphorism? Perhaps she saw a bear having tea party.”

  “She was actually very serious.”

  A plume of gray smoke swirled around Petrarch. “I don’t quite know what to make of her. She seems overtaken by idiocy but, also, at times, as if she’s the only one here who is intelligible.”

  “I would agree with that assessment. She said she thinks her grandfather was a killer.”

  “A lot of people do. We talked about that on the way here. He very well could be, which makes the case of finding who would want to kill him even more difficult.”

  “I think, Petrarch,” Crockett said with a sigh, “that there was no murder…of a person…in this case. I think there have been a lot in this house, in general.”

  “If there are any more dead singing ghosts along the river, they’ll need a warship to carry them all.”

  Crockett smiled. “Augoust—”

  “Augüst."

  “Well, he interrupted my conversation with Kordelia, and I think, perhaps, it’s as simple as Bixby Hawsfeffer having a heart attack in his boat and Augüst trying to expedite the will reading.”

  “So, you think he’s behind the séance and the Beatrice incident? Lucinda’s note and key are simply a tangent that made us worry unnecessarily?”

  “I do.” Crockett said resolutely. “I always jump to conclusions, get carried away, but this time, I think we have enough to believe that it’s a simple solution. I had other theories…” Crockett, embarrassed, turned away from the looking glass and toward his master. “Augüst has motive and he had the means to do it all.”

  Petrarch took a long puff from his pipe. “I find it hard to believe Mr. Winterbourne has the brains for anything so complicated. His mustache knows more than he does.”

  Crockett was taken so off guard by the joke that he choked on his laughter. “You know,” he gasped, “I think the most plausible murderer is his mustache.”

  “It’s always who you least expect!”

  The two, together, broke into a fit of uncontrolled giggles, each unable to stop as the other erupted into new fits of laughter. By the end of it, they were both on the bed, reclined backwards, Petrarch’s pipe lying between them.

  Crockett, finally gaining composure, said, “Augüst is the most logical explanation, but part of me still wants it to be something more…If you’ll pardon a young man’s musings, there is just too much absurdity in this house for the nefarious presence to be the obnoxious, loudmouthed son-in-law. I spoke with Dexter as well, and he was a staunch pragmatist—very interesting in light of his wardrobe choices. I know the gravitational pull of logic is toward a simple solution, but I feel there’s something more to it all.”

  “So, who would you want to blame? If we’re going to totally disregard the obvious guilt of the mustache.”

  Crockett, stifling a chortle, hesitated. His ludicrous theory rested on the edge of his tongue—he felt more confident in the relaxed, jocund atmosphere stating it than he had previously, but something held him back. He still wanted Petrarch to be proud of him, and he didn’t want the old man to think he was batty. Just that morning, his master expressed his approval—Crockett didn’t want to spoil it.

  It was better to stay silent.

  “All right, Crockett? You’ve grown quiet.” Petrarch sat up. “Do you think Beatrice was involved? She faked her own death?”

  Crockett didn’t have time to respond as, at that moment, Brontë appeared in the doorway. Her brown hair hung loosely around her shoulders. She wore an actual dress, muslin with flower embroidered along the hem. Lace, like sea foam, splashed around her collar. Her face was flushed, the radiant bud of youth in full bloom on her white cheeks. A light emitted from her eyes which focused intensely on Crockett.

  Petrarch turned idly to see what Crockett was looking on. When he realized the cause of his apprentice’s excitement, he sighed. He had tried to warn the young man of the impossibility of the match, of the impropriety of amorous affection for one’s clients, but they were young, and infatuation had run away with them both. He did foster some sympathy—he remembered when he fell in love with his own wife all those years before…but he didn’t want Crockett’s heart broken.

  He rose quickly and put himself between the two youths, the only thing he could think of to stifle the electricity passing between their shared gazes.

  “Miss Winterbourne!” he said quickly. “Delighted to see you. I’m sorry I’m not fully dressed.” Petrarch moved as if he would put on his overshirt, but then did not follow through, instead moving back in the direction of his bed.

  “That’s fine, Mr. Bluster. It’s always a pleasure to see you, regardless of your state of dress.” She dipped her neck forward in a show of politeness. Her eyes flicked between Petrarch and Crockett, unsure of which conversational course to take.

  “He knows all, Brontë,” Crockett said softly. “You can feel free to speak.”

  A flash of relief crossed Brontë’s face. She turned quickly and gently shut the door. Her skirt swished as she moved to the window, as far from prying ears as she could get.

  “I spoke with him,” she said quietly. “Father.”

  “Did he admit to having the key to the vault?” Crockett asked.

  “Not in the way you would think,” Brontë sighed. “I asked him directly about the key and the sword.”

  “What was his excuse?” Petrarch asked.

  “He laughed and talked in circles. You know Father’s…well, blusteriness and arrogance. He said he did have the key but had nothing to do with Beatrice. He again opined that a cod’s hardier constitution would have survived the attack.”

  “I think any fish would have succumbed in this particular scenario,” Crockett said flatly.

  “But then,” Brontë’s voice fell even lower, “he immediately turned my attention to everyone else—Robert Edward, Martha, Dexter, anyone who could have possibly taken part.”

  “Did he have reasons?” Petrarch puffed on his pipe.

  Crockett tried to keep his focus, but his eyes kept listlessly traveling to Brontë’s exposed collar bone.

  “Nothing concrete…Robert, of course, is generally suspicious. He came into town and things became stranger and stranger. Martha and Dexter—his basis there was no stronger than pointing to a recent mystery novel he read entitled Buttled to Death.”

  “Which was about?”

  “A butler who buttled someone to death. Hence, his predilection to bl
ame the help.”

  “How does one buttle someone to death?” Crockett momentarily awoke from his study of Brontë’s form.

  “Well, the twist was the butler took his master hostage and made him buttle till he died. You know—changing lots of sheets, serving tea incessantly, and answering doors on opposite sides of the house in quick succession. It wasn’t a very complicated plot. I preferred the author’s first novel The Murderer Is the Son.”[31]

  “The writer is not very creative, is he?”

  “No,” Brontë said, “but he does describe rhododendrons quite nicely.”

  “Sorry to interrupt,” Petrarch said politely, “but popular literature aside, did anything actually sound like important information?”

  Brontë nodded. She threw a nervous glance to the door before lowering her voice (yet again) and continuing, “The only thing that struck me as new was about,” her voice shook slightly, “Aunt May.”

  “Aunt May…”

  “Father knows what happened, you see. Why she left the convent and has been so…odd as of late.”

  “And?” Petrarch and Crockett asked together.

  Brontë shifted nervously. “I’m sorry, it’s just…It’s a tawdry story.”

  “I assumed May wasn’t what she appeared to be,” Petrarch said gruffly. “The most self-righteous are often the ones who have fallen farthest.”

  Brontë nervously rung her hands. Her gaze drifted to the corner of the room, where a remarkably large cobweb was dancing in the breeze of the drafty window. “She was in the convent,” Brontë started slowly, “but then she met someone…”

  Petrarch and Crockett leaned forward.

  “You see, the convent is out, away from the town. The grounds abut the land of a wealthy farmer in West Butterfieldshire-upon-Furburry. Often the novitiates wander the grounds on walks. It’s actually encouraged by the higher nuns—the natural setting, the quiet, drawing people into a state to better commune with God.”

  “A good walk in the country does heal the soul,” Petrarch said jovially.

  “Well,” Brontë touched her collar nervously, “it seems, she found communion, but…it was…not with anything otherworldly.”