by T. H. Hunter
Williams swore and spat into the grass as I spoke Mr. Brown’s name.
“She always told me not to take it personally,” he said as his mouth twisted into a sardonic smile. “And I told her that she shouldn’t put up with him anymore. Didn’t deserve her as his daughter, he didn’t. A bad man, rotten to the core.”
“What makes you say that?” asked Val.
“You’ve got eyes, haven’t you?” he said rudely. “Terrorised the entire hotel staff, he did. For years on end. None of them kept the job for long except for Mrs. Haughton. Scared to death of him they were, and rightly so.”
“He threatened the staff?” I said.
“He threatened everyone who had the misfortune of being in the same room with him for too long,” he said, making a large sweeping motion with his right hand. “His own daughter, too. Took her ages to stand up to him. Tried it on me, too, but I wouldn’t take any of his nonsense. I do my job good and proper, and he knows it.”
“Do you know if someone might have wanted to harm Anita Brown?” I asked.
He looked at me for a while, his face unreadable.
“You don’t think it was an accident, then?” he said blankly.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But if it wasn’t, I think we’d better find out quickly who did it, otherwise we all might be in danger.”
“Aye,” he said, his face sagging. “Anita never hurt a living soul. She was a good woman and treated the world well. There’s no reason anyone would do such a thing to her.”
“Her father thinks it was murder,” I said. “He said as much when the body was discovered. Accused us all, in fact.”
“Aye,” Williams said again. “That sounds like him, alright. He would jump to that conclusion, being an ex-con himself.”
“Mr. Brown is an ex-convict?” I asked in astonishment.
Val and I exchanged a meaningful look.
“Do you know what he did?” asked Val. “To be put in jail, I mean.”
Williams shook his head sadly.
“Don’t think I didn’t try to find out. I would have loved to have something on that… on him. Anita knew, of course. But however often I asked her, she wouldn’t tell me.”
He leaned forward, lowering his voice conspiratorially.
“The only thing I do know is that he was banged up for a long time. Anita grew up with her mother mostly, you see. So it must have been something very serious. There are a lot of rumours floating around, though I wouldn’t believe half of them. But the fact is that when he got out, she told me, the only thing he would ever talk about was how to get hold of this island. Obsessed, he was. Took him years of shady dealings to get the money – as well as convincing your committee president, that doctor fellow, at the time. And when he did get here eventually, he locked himself up for days in the lighthouse. Screamed and raged in the night. Scared off all the guests. Not that he cared, of course.”
“Do you know what he was doing in there?” I asked.
“I don’t. Though sometimes it sounded as if he was building or repairing some sort of machine. You’d hear the clunking ‘til deep into the night. He never lets anyone in there. Not in the basement, at least. Whatever he’s hiding in there, he’s desperate to keep it a secret.”
Chapter 7
Williams stared at us for a moment. His look was hard, beyond grief. I could tell that he blamed Mr. Brown for the death, though he had no way of connecting it at present. I felt sorry for him, though I cannot deny that there was a glint of something a lot more sinister in his eye. It was at that moment that I wondered if Williams wasn’t capable of murder himself. If Mr. Brown was involved somehow, I was certain that Williams would stop at nothing to avenge his lover.
“Miss Sheridan?” came a faint voice from behind us.
We turned around. It was Jane McQuinn. She quickly stepped towards us, making sure not to lose her footing in the rather uneven grass. She paused briefly to regain her breath.
“Sorry to bother you,” she said, politely inclining her head towards Williams and Val, “but I’ve been sent out to look for you. Mrs. Highgarden has finally managed to convince most of the members to continue with our meetings.”
“Oh, of course,” I said. “Thank you for telling me, Jane. I’ll come back with you.”
“I’d better get on with my work anyway,” Williams said, turning around.
Val gave me the briefest of nods, indicating that she’d keep poking around. It was our only course of action left. As Val and Barry walked off into the other direction, Jane and I made our way back to the hotel.
“Have you made up with your sister?” I asked Jane.
“Oh, well,” she said, “I don’t think we’ve ever done that. Not really, anyway.”
“A cease-fire, then?” I said.
“Yes, Miss Sheridan,” she said, laughing softly in her peculiarly introvert manner. “Yes, that’s more it, really. It’s the most we can hope for at the best of times, I’m afraid. It’s been worse before.”
“Well,” I said. “Standing up for yourself takes courage.”
“I suppose so,” she said. “Especially here on the island. I haven’t been living so close to my twin sister like this for ages. It’s more difficult than I had imagined.”
She threw me a quizzical look from beneath her curtain of hair.
“Do you think we’ll get off the island anytime soon?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said as we entered the hotel through the main entrance. “We’ll hopefully find out later in the day. When the police let us know whether foul play was involved or not.”
We moved along the corridor to the dining area. Mrs. Highgarden, sitting at the head of the table, was looking rather pleased with herself. Dr. Linton, however, was standing at the window with his arms crossed. He did not look pleased at all.
“Oh, there you are, Miss Sheridan,” Mrs. Highgarden said enthusiastically. “We were just about to start. Thank you, Jane. Please be seated.”
***
Mrs. Highgarden’s enthusiasm soon gave way to the reality of the situation. Despite her best efforts, even she wasn’t able to put a positive twist on the numbers before us. The simple truth was that the committee was in deep financial trouble. The fact of the matter was that, without selling numerous lighthouses, the organisation would no longer be functional. You didn’t need to be a business expert or have Mr. Bolton’s ‘killer instinct’ to see that.
The meeting dragged on and on. I couldn’t remember time passing so slowly since I had been a child. As the discussion raged on into its fourth consecutive hour, my mind kept racing to the lighthouse. It was becoming something of an obsession of mine already. For the more thought I put into it, the less sense Mr. Brown’s behaviour made. If what Williams had said was true – and I saw no reason for him to invent such a bizarre story – then Mr. Brown had gone to great pains in acquiring the island, with the primary motive of having de facto control over the lighthouse. Quite clearly, the hotel was of no interest to him.
Yet all I could see was a building made of concrete set atop a rock in the middle of the sea. If he was constructing something, he could have done so pretty much anywhere that was remote and away from prying eyes. Though an island was undoubtedly private, it also possessed unique problems. Surely, anything mechanical could have been constructed anywhere else in the country without having to rely on boats and without being at the mercy of the treacherous forces of nature. A remote farmhouse in the Highlands would have done just as well – or better. So why on earth did he need to be here on the island?
At last, Mrs. Highgarden called for a recess until after dinner. No proper conclusion had been reached in regard to the committee’s future. Dr. Linton was shaking worse than ever under the mounting pressure. I could see why he had been replaced as committee president all those years ago. Mrs. Highgarden may have lacked some of his expertise, but nobody thought she was in danger of having a breakdown.
Nerves were still strained at dinner
all around. Barry and Val were nowhere to be seen. Hopefully, they had made some sort of progress in regard to the mystery of the lighthouse. Until we knew more about Anita Brown’s death, that was our one and only lead.
At the dinner table, meanwhile, I was stuck between Dr. Linton’s constant complaining about the way Mrs. Highgarden was leading the committee and Mr. Bolton’s endless tales of his business prowess.
“All simple if you know what you’re doing,” Mr. Bolton said, forking a greasy sausage and waving it in front of me. “You just need the right instincts.”
“So I have heard several times before,” Dr. Linton said. “But I have seen few real solutions from you, Mr. Bolton.”
“Nonsense,” Mr. Bolton bellowed. “All the committee has to do is…”
But before Mr. Bolton could elucidate on how exactly to save the day, the telephone – which was perched close to the kitchen entrance – rang. Normally, of course, nobody would have paid a moment’s notice to it. Yet under the present circumstances, the dining room fell silent almost instantly, with only the sounds of Mrs. Haughton doing the dishes in the next room remaining.
The phone continued to ring.
“Well, shouldn’t someone get a member of the staff?” Mr. Bolton said in a loud voice, pompously looking around the room. “There must be some measly porter boy even in a dump like this.”
Yet nobody seemed willing to find out if there was one. It was as if the members of the committee were frozen to the spot, afraid of what that call might reveal.
“Fine, fine,” Mr. Bolton said. “I’ll do it myself.”
With some difficulty, he heaved his large body from his chair and waddled over to the telephone.
“Yes? No, no, no… Bolton’s the name. I’m supposed to be a guest here…yes…that’s right… what did you say?”
Mr. Bolton listened intently for a while to what the person at the other end had to say. Then, his face flushed a peculiar colour of pink, though his voice remained steady.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
Judging from his facial expression, they were. Without another word, he hung up the phone and turned around to us. We were all holding our breath.
“Well?” demanded Mrs. Highgarden. “What is it?”
“It was the police,” Mr. Bolton said in a flat tone.
“What did they say?” asked Dr. Linton, running a trembling hand along the back of his neck.
“Spit it out, man,” said Patrick eagerly. “Was it murder or not?”
Mr. Bolton seemed to be in some sort of parallel universe in which time passed much slower. Once again, his gaze scoured the room, until he said:
“They said it was an accident. Broken neck after falling down the stairs.”
Immediately, the room was filled with sighs of relief and affirmations that this had been self-evident from the very beginning. Dr. Linton dropped his cigarette in surprise. Jane smiled, and even her sister looked relieved.
“That settles it then,” said Mrs. Highgarden, barely able to conceal her joy. “A terrible tragedy, of course, terrible. Yet life must go on, as they say. I see no reason why the committee shouldn’t continue its efforts in the usual manner.”
“For once, I agree,” said Dr. Linton. “The sooner we will be able to get off this confounded island the better. I say we do another session after dinner. Settle the matter once and for all.”
There was a hearty rumbling of agreement in the room, and soon the clinking of cutlery and the sounds of laughter and conversation returned. The only person who seemed less than convinced was Mr. Bolton, who had taken his seat again. His small eyes were focussed on his meal in front of him, though he wasn’t eating a bite of it.
“Are you alright, Mr. Bolton?” I asked.
“Alright? Yes… yes,” he said vaguely. “Lots to think about.”
He remained monosyllabic for the rest of the evening. After dinner, I hastily made my excuses and headed for the door. When I arrived, Barry and Val were pouring over a large, handwritten tome from Barry’s library. By now, I was getting used to the sight.
“You’ve missed dinner and some big news,” I said as I closed the door.
“And you’ve missed an instructive lesson in magic, Amanda. Has the committee finally decided to abolish itself yet?” said Barry, peering over his spectacles.
“Only over Mrs. Highgarden’s dead body,” I said.
“So what’s the big news?” asked Val.
“The police called,” I said. “Apparently, Anita Brown’s death was an accident. No foul play involved. At least, that’s what the police say.”
“What?” Val said, astounded.
“That’s the official verdict.”
“You know, Amy, when I heard what Williams had to say about Mr. Brown and his past… Remember that story Patrick told you – about the double murder in the lighthouse? Well, couldn’t it have been Brown?”
“I think Patrick said the murderers name was Jenkins or something like that.”
“But he could have changed his name,” said Val.
“Yes, I suppose,” I said. “I mean, I certainly wouldn’t put it past Brown. He certainly has the temper for it. But why come back to the scene of the crime?”
Barry and Val looked at each other.
“Amy,” Val began, “there’s something you ought to know.”
“Many things,” Barry said snidely.
“Oh, come off it, Barry,” I said impatiently. “What’s up? What’s going on?”
Val hesitated briefly.
“Well,” she said, “it’s got to do with that lighthouse. Remember I always had headaches when walking near it?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Chances are,” Barry said, giving Val a sideward glance, “that Valerie is not imagining things. Not more than usual, anyway.”
“Hey!” she said angrily. “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you. You can cook your own dinner next time.”
“What about the lighthouse, Barry?” I said, trying to get to the point.
He slowly took off his spectacles with both of his paws.
“I believe that there is a hexanomitron on the island,” he said.
“A what?” I asked, bewildered.
“Call it a source of magical amplification, if you will.”
“Amplification…” I murmured.
“Yes,” he said. “Psychics are particularly attuned to them, though there are other signs, too.”
Things were beginning to fall into place.
“So that’s why my magic is so powerful here,” I said excitedly. “You know, when we questioned Mrs. Haughton. It’s like every spell was…”
“…amplified,” said Val, nodding.
“It is possible,” said Barry. “Though you being a novice seemed a far more likely explanation at the time.”
“Your note of confidence is much appreciated, as usual,” I said sarcastically. “Anyway, it seems that your theory was wrong.”
“My hypothesis,” Barry began in a pedantic manner, “was strictly informed…”
“Oh, leave it, Barry,” I said, walking over to the window to look at the lighthouse from afar. “So is this hexanomitron… artificial?”
“Yes,” said Barry. “They are constructed by wand-wielders, though there are various methods of do so. Suffice it to say that they were banned by the Spellcasters’ Association long ago.”
“But who created them?” I asked.
“Warlocks and witches, trying to bolster their feeble attempts at magic, for the most part. Though in the hands of a powerful spellcaster, hexanomitrons were a potent and often deadly force. Accidents were commonplace. I remember there was a particularly interesting case in 1954 when an illegal device was found…”
“How can you be sure there’s a device like that on the island?” I asked, eager to postpone the lesson in history until later.
“I’m not,” Barry said simply. “That’s why we’re going to find out tonight. I was hesitant to use magic b
efore to break and enter – with the case being a heb case and all – though I think we’ll be able to justify it in front of the Association if there’s a hearing now. A hexanomitron is no laughing matter.”
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Val said, swinging herself up from the sofa in an elegant sweeping motion. “All I need now is some pain killers to make the headache go away once I’m there.”
Barry frowned.
“Perhaps,” he said. “It would be better if you stayed here, Valerie.”
“No way,” she protested. “I’m not going to miss the fun once it starts.”
“The device’s powers seem to have a particularly potent effect on you,” said Barry. “It would be unwise to approach it.”
“For once, I’ve got to agree with Barry,” I said, turning to Val. “There’s no telling how bad it’ll get for you, Val, once we get closer. You might collapse or lose consciousness. And if Mr. Brown is stalking around there, we don’t want to be caught off-guard.”
“But what am I to do, then?” Val asked indignantly.
I pondered the issue briefly.
“You could attend the meetings in my place,” I said.
“Oh, well that’s fantastic,” she protested. “You two go off for a thrilling adventure, and I have to listen to those lighthouse nutcases.”
“I’ve been listening to them for days now, Val,” I said hotly. “It’s time you did something for a change except for managing Barry’s Wagner playlist!”
“It was your idea to come here, Amy,” she stormed at me. “You’re the member of that silly committee, not me.”
“Fine,” I said. “Stay here, then.”
“I will,” she said stubbornly.
“Ladies,” Barry began, waving his paws around in a gesture of peace, “please…”
“Shut up, Barry,” both Val and I said at the same time.
For a moment, it was just like old times, but I was much too angry to admit it. I got my handbag, with my wand tucked in safely at the bottom, and put on my shoes. We were both breathing heavily, but nobody spoke.