by Tedd Hawks
“I see.” Pimento politely bowed. “I can surmise you won’t be able give the clearest perspective on our handsome, young assistant to the solicitor.”
Brontë bit her tongue. She was moments from letting something slip, much more cutting than the “silly” her mother reprimanded her for earlier.
It was May who interjected, putting a stop to the vitriol waiting to pour from her niece.
“I would not say handsome, unless you’re attracted to equine features,” she said sniffing. “And, yes, he is benign. Although of a poorer caste with disgusting manners, he could hardly have reason to harm anyone in this house. He also lacks the knowledge to execute many of the grislier crimes enacted this week.”
Brontë remained silent, grateful her aunt had stopped her from speaking, but holding a new, burgeoning rage directed at the older woman.
Detective Pimento, Brontë, and May remained silent, an oppressive quiet hanging between them when August approached.
“I suppose we’re all ready for supper, yes?’ He looked around at those gathered and cleared his throat. As his gaze drifted from Pimento’s scornful glance to Brontë and May’s darkened visages, he clicked his tongue nervously. “I see I’ve walked into a charged conversation.”
Detective Pimento’s mouth twitched. “We were just discussing young Crockett.”
“Ah! As indigent as he is, not a bad fellow. He has no sense of humor, but you know that’s getting harder and harder to find with this younger generation. He just rushed off after begging me for the vault key. He was in an awful hurry about it.”
Pimento threw a knowing glance at Brontë. “How interesting. He seems oddly enticed to the place with so many family heirlooms.”
“Why don’t you come out with your accusations, Detective?” Brontë’s eyes flashed. “I think it’s quite obvious you have an idea that Crockett, a stranger, new to this house, unrelated to the family, is somehow fatally wound into this tragedy unfolding around us.”
“You err only when you say ‘unrelated.’ It seems he’s found very close connection with you, Miss Winterbourne.”
August’s mustache jumped. “Now, now, my good fellow, I will not have you making incriminating statements about my daughter.”
“I’m just stating observations, points of interest.” The detective was enjoying himself, his eyes sparkling.
The vein on August’s neck bulged. “This is most definitely not a matter to be taken lightly, sir! If you ask me, you’re lucky I haven’t laid my good wingtips on your buttocks in the general direction of the front door.”
June and Corinthiana, hearing the raised voices, rushed into the room. Kordelia, who had been present for the entire discussion, lifted herself higher on the couch to get a better look at the feud.
“You’re getting awfully heated over a few throwaway remarks, dear boy,” Pimento said. “A detective must look at every possible outcome.”
“Well,” August growled, “when your outcomes are coming out without coming of evidence, you can count me out!”
The gathered party took a moment to parse the meaning of August’s statement. Robert Edward entered the room during this scene of confusion, his cape billowing behind him.
“Vat is going on?” he asked. “Augüst, I can hear you from ze dining room.”
“We were just politely discussing the facts of the case,” Pimento said calmly. “And I can say that after much deliberation and many interviews, I have a very good idea of who is to blame.”
A collective gasp came from the family. Pimento took a moment to admire his effect on the crowd.
“There were several interesting theories put before me. May,” he motioned toward the woman in black, “suggested Robert Edward, of all people. Her evidence based solely on xenophobia, if I may take a reductive view…”
“Well, most of us do fear xylophones,” Kordelia said from the couch. “They can be as terrifying as out-of-tune harpsichords if you play the wrong scales.”
Pimento sniffed slightly but ignored the young girl’s assertion. “Brontë,” he continued quickly taking a step behind the youngest Winterbourne daughter, “suggested that it was her own father.”
Brontë blushed.
August’s face grew red; he started to scream. “I told you! These ungrateful daughters make you want to BRAIN them after they BETRAY you!”
Pimento’s face expressed annoyance. He shushed August and continued speaking, “But to me the most interesting of all the theories, the most fantastic and magical, was from our dear Crockett. He wanted to drive my attention, not just away from the present, to a far and uncertain past, but to a different continent. His theory,” Pimento again smiled to himself, relishing his moment, “was that the murderer was none other than the estranged—”
It was at that moment that a vehement pounding came from the main hall. All gathered, even Pimento, let out an exasperated breath of air, Corinthiana a staccato “Awrk.”
“Is anyone expecting company?” June asked nervously.
Her question was met by no responses, only more vehement pounding from the front door. Time stopped for the confused crowd; everyone took turns looking to others for an explanation of the evening visitor. Something in Pimento’s speech caused all of them to look at the darkest, worst-case scenario. In those moments, the possibility that it was simply the doctor checking on Petrarch eluded them. They were all sure it could only be some avenging angel. Had the door been thrown open and the devil himself been present on the doorstep, the clan would not have been fully surprised. In those frozen seconds, any possibility was probable.
The door thundered again, this time interrupted by Martha, who greeted their visitor. Everyone in the sitting room, Pimento included, listened to every voice, footstep, and creak of the front door with trepidation.
“Hello,” they heard the old maid say tersely. “I’ll announce you.”
The old woman and her roving eye appeared in the door of the main sitting room. She licked her lips, and, with no surprise in her gravelly voice, spoke.
“Bixby Hawsfeffer, Jr.—Mr. Pip—is here from France, I suppose.”
She shuffled off and, in her place, Bixby “Pip” Hawsfeffer, Jr. entered the main sitting room.
Had a flamingo wearing Britain’s crown jewels entered the room, it would have been no more opulent and ostentatious than Pip himself. The middle-aged gentleman was dressed in a suit of bright pink, a powdered wig set on his head. A dusting of white makeup covered his face, while his lips shone a startling red in the light of the lamps. His clothes had been dampened by the rain, but this seemed not to bother him in the least.
“Bonjour,” he said grandiosely. “Je suis the son of Bixby Hawsfeffer, returned from his time abroad, called forth…” He paused here for no particular reason that anyone could assess. Corinthiana was about to speak, when he loudly continued, “Called forth at the hand of his stepmother, Mrs. Corinthiana Hawsfeffer, via an epistle, to pay tribute to my fallen father, despite a loathing in his life of my personal, homme-centric, choices.”
Unsure whether he was finished, the rest of the crowd mumbled an uneven number of Hello, Pleasure, and How do you do’s.
Martha returned to the sitting room with a cup of tea and shoved it into the visitor’s hands. No one else knew what to do.
“Oui,” he responded to no question in particular, “it is painful for me to return to this house, knowing that I am estranged, la éloignée, and under the realization that I shall never make amends or say words of warmth to my father, but I have chosen to come on my own free will to pay my respects to him, braving the sodomy laws of fair Britannia. Even if we did not agree in life, in death,” here he paused again for dramatic effect, “in death we perhaps shall be reunioned under the love of grace and forgiveness.”
“I—” Corinthiana started to speak, but Pip dramatically threw up his index finger to silence his stepmother; for the first time in her long life, the Hawsfeffer matriarch was being out-drama'd. The rest of the Wint
erbournes and Hawsfeffers waited with breathless anticipation, expecting more of the explanation for their estranged half-sibling/half-uncle’s appearance at this hour.
Pip relished the attention. Although his nose was raised skyward, he looked down intermittently to make sure he had everyone’s attention. “My fondest memories,” he started again, lowering his voice to add emphasis, “are, of course, of my mother singing to me as I fell asleep. Every night she would sing the old song of ‘Duck Man of the Old Hat.’ As she warbled of the figure’s torture and kidnapping propensities, I would smile, and my mother would ask me to search under her own hat for notes of love and affirmation. It was this, of course, that led my father to burn her hats after I had left for France, consumed with the idea that hats, specifically notes in hats, were the root cause of mon homosexualité.”
Robert Edward, who had been wearing a top hat, felt it self-consciously.
Pip cleared his throat in a loud, grandiose manner. His eyes, previously directed skyward out of pomposity, drifted downward. As he took in the gathered party, his blue eyes flitted between faces without much interest. “Memories,” he continued, his eyes on May, “of course, the best of times, seeping through my mind’s eye like a warm soup served in the Champs-Élysées. It was this balm that drew me here. I was shocked to receive such a letter, le silence from my home resounding over the past decades. But as I opened the note and thought about my mother, this house, my father, I knew I must come home, if only to lay to rest the pain and loathing I have had for it over the decades. The rancor has grown out of a salted earth, with it the roses of my mother’s love, twined in brambles of my father’s judgments, rippled through with wildflowers that represent friendships, also birds are on the tree, which have symbols I have yet to give them.”
“I’m sorry…” Kordelia rose from the couch and approached her uncle. “That line seems very familiar, ‘…seeping through my mind’s eye like a warm soup…’ Uncle, have you read Mère, Bélier, Mort, Chapeau?”
As she drew closer to Pip, the elder gentleman’s nostrils flared. “My dear…Is that your breath?”
Kordelia nodded. “Halitosis—it loses me quite a few points.”
Pip nodded, feigning understanding. With renewed vigor, he resumed speaking, taking a step back and raising his arms theatrically. This caused him, inadvertently, to throw the teacup Martha had given him, against the wall. “It’s out then, strange fille éthérée avec mauvaise haleine!” he exclaimed. He moved his hand to his forehead for additional dramatic effect. “Yes, I am the famous author who penned that work under my French nom de plume, Jacques Eiffel-Montmartre. It was I who insisted on four crepe scenes instead of three. Let this be a lesson to all who are told that you have too many crepe scenes—there are never too many! I do hope you read the original and not the German-language version, which has the ridiculously adapted ending with the Mob. Anyway, you must always believe in your crepe scenes and not mobs. Believe in your dreams. You must strive like the falcon over the winds of the Irish coast and believe. Believe in yourself as if you are the only one who can say what you indeed speak that which you mean.”
This phrasing caused confusion (for everyone but August, who appeared to appreciate Pip’s tendency to string together nonsensical chains of words); however, Pip did not notice the questioning looks of his audience as he drove to the conclusion of his speech.
“We are family here. I have come hundreds of miles to say au revoir, and so, I hope that you too, can also, herewith, meet me where I stand as the man who is who he was. Let us forget our past and meet on a common ground, littered with the rhododendrons of our own forgivenesses.”
He stopped and bowed slightly. For a moment there was only a confused silence, disrupted by Kordelia, who began clapping enthusiastically. The hall rang with the sound of her applause and little else, until after a full minute, she became self-conscious and stopped. Corinthiana shuffled forward in her usual, slow dramatic gait, looking back uncertainly at the rest of the family. She had hoped someone else would offer an olive branch, but the sheer number of themes in Pip’s arrival speech rendered most of the party dumbfounded. Since she had written the letter that invited the sodomite, she took the responsibility and offered a greeting.
“Well,” she said slowly, “it is very nice yooou were aaable tooo come. In truuuth, I waaas reticent tooo beeegin theee funeraaary events without yooou.” The old woman stiffly reached out and patted Pip’s shoulder. “Maaarthaaa, caaan yooou taaake his coat, pleeease?”
Martha stomped back into the room and took his bright pink coat. Pip, once rid of his garish outerwear, adjusted his wig and assessed the room once again with a mixture of disdain and indifference.
Thunder rattled the windows, punctuating the emergence of Crockett, who had been hiding in the shadows. He marched into the room, his arms full. In one hand he held a rapier from the basement; in the other arm, he carried what appeared to be a pile of old clothes. Confidently, he threw the objects down as he took his place in the center of the room.
The appearance of the young man caused a ripple of anxiety, mostly due to his feral demeanor. His eyes were wild, his breath coming in quick, manic spurts. Everyone in the room felt ill at ease, including Brontë, who wanted to approach her dear friend but was also uncomfortable due to his rabid state.
“I know…” he panted. “I know who it is! In Pip’s speech...It’s the clue about Lucinda’s note. Her…”
“Pip.” Detective Pimento interrupted him loudly. He marched authoritatively into the center of the gathered party, taking his place next to Crockett. His eyes twinkled, almost as manically as the young man’s. “We know, Crockett. You think that somehow the man who came thousands of miles and only just arrived is responsible for a string of mayhem and death that spans back weeks—a poor theory.”
“I don’t think—”
“You don’t,” Pimento’s teeth bared into a grimace. “Your thoughts don’t come intelligently or clearly, I would say. Do you have something else to add to the conversation? Do you perhaps think the one responsible for the crimes is a pigeon? Maybe a fox who looked especially guilty in the garden. I hear the local constabulary is still following that lead on the squirrel with a gun. Perhaps you can join them.”
Now it was Crockett’s turn to grow fierce. “You would belittle me—”
“Belittle? I wouldn’t say it’s belittling to call someone a charlatan when they act charlatanesque.”
Pip was impressed by the usage of the word “charlatanesque” and wrote it in a notebook which had been concealed in his pocket.
Pimento turned and looked at Crockett directly. He tilted his head down so that he gazed directly at the young man over his spectacles. “I have watched you, Crockett. I pulled you close, and I let you work it out yourself. What an interesting exercise it was for me.”
Crockett’s gaze flew around the room searching for Brontë. He found her, standing uncertainly behind her father. “Brontë!” His voice softened. “Brontë, I know who it is. It’s crazy the real killer—well, it’s—”
“Crazy?” Pimento said quickly. “I should say so.”
“Don’t call me crazy!” Crockett glared at the detective. His voice took on a hard edge. Despite the severity of the situation, Brontë found Crockett’s ferocity titillating.
“You’re right,” Pimento said quietly. He turned away from Crockett and moved forward, placing his hands behind his back. “Perhaps I should call you what you are.” He looked back at Crockett, his gaze vicious. Crockett’s grimace faded as he realized the detective’s move in the elaborate game of chess. Pimento turned back toward the family, a satisfied grin on his face. With a joyful glint in his eye, he pronounced his accusation, “Murderer.”
Chapter 21: Pimento, Triumphant
Lightning ripped through the sky illuminating the room in a white glow. A gasp as loud and pronounced as had ever been heard in Hawsfeffer Manor erupted from the family. In a moment, there was a flurry of bodies, and Crocket
t found himself bound and gagged on the floor of the sitting room. Robert Edward and August took the initiative; they held the young man down as Pimento paced triumphantly about the room.
Brontë’s eyes filled with tears. She looked anxiously at Crockett, who writhed on the floor trying to loosen his bonds. He yelled loudly, but it was muted by the (rather fetid) sock of Robert Edward, which had been put in his mouth to gag him.
“Surprised, my dear?” Pimento looked into Brontë’s eyes. “You shouldn’t trust a man from the streets. The lower classes are predictably disgusting. I knew from the moment I saw him he was dubious. But it was just a matter of good detective work to earn his trust and get him to incriminate himself.” Pimento turned to Crockett and smiled malevolently. “Good boy, Crockett. You did just what we expected.”
Crockett was nearly foaming at the mouth. He convulsed and twisted to try and break free from his binds.
“But…how?” Brontë shivered. “How could he…?”
“My dear,” Pimento gently took Brontë’s hand, “he’s a con man. My theory is he has been stealing from the old solicitor for years, just awaiting the proper time to show his real teeth.”
“But what’s his motive?” May asked. Even she—who normally enjoyed a grand scene of fire-and-brimstone vengeance, especially against the poor—was flabbergasted. She flicked her eyes between family members for some aid in understanding.
“Where should I start?” Pimento approached the fireplace. Once he arrived at its marble depths, he turned dramatically. “He arrived with Petrarch and knew the whole history of the family. He’s a smart boy and recognized that, not only did the family have a plethora of characters, but the Winterbournes also had two eligible daughters.”
Crockett screamed through the gag.
“Shhh, dear boy! You’re afraid of it getting out? Well, it’s too late.” Pimento put his hands in his trouser pockets and stepped toward Crockett. He kicked the young man sharply. “Upon arriving, our young, astute observer took an assessment of the house. It can be assumed he brought with him the record of the nursery rhyme having known that it was a cause for alarm in the neighborhood and would play into the local myth that the song belonged to the ghosts of the house. He set it up, a clever manipulation of the phonograph. It was created with some string and a handmade timer which delayed the contraption from playing until midway through the séance. The idea was to trick the family and,” here Pimento looked at Brontë, “draw one of the young women into his trust.”