The World's Finest Mystery...

by Ed Gorman

  "Well, I wouldn't go that far." A lace curtain at the bay window parted an inch and a blurred face peered out at them. "All I'm hoping, darling, is that reliving the memories of the week you spent here will help you to open up to me. Darling, I'm your husband. We've been married six whole months and you've never given me more than the bare bones of the story. Stuff I could have read about in the papers."

  "I know, I know." Eileen stumbled on the last step and caught hold of his arm. "You've been so wonderful, Andrew; most men would have run a mile before hooking up with a girl with my history. I can't blame your parents for being scared stiff and threatening to ship you off to India. After all, who's to say that one day I might not go completely off my rocker and…" Before she could finish the door opened and they were ushered into a small vestibule with a mosaic tile floor and an aspidistra standing guard in the corner.

  "Come on in," a friendly voice welcomed them. "I'm Vera Gardener and I was watching for you. Didn't want you standing out in the wet a moment longer than necessary. A nasty night if ever there was one, but like as not it'll be sunshine tomorrow. We get some lovely days even this late in September." Talking away, Mrs. Gardener, who had run the Sea View for the past couple of years, led them into a narrow hall with a mustard and red carpet runner that accentuated rather than relieved the gloom of brown varnish. But fortunately Mrs. Gardner did much to offset the impression that any of the other guesthouses on Neptune's Walk might have been preferable to this one. She was a soft-spoken grey-haired body who was seldom out of sorts and always greeted arrivals with a warm smile, but as she urged this young couple to hang their damp coats on the hall tree on the staircase wall, she felt just the least bit unsettled. For a moment she couldn't think why. And then it came to her. The girl's face was vaguely, disturbingly familiar. A photo in one of the newspapers— not recently, more like years ago. Those haunted eyes. Mrs. Gardener remembered thinking she'd never forget the look of them, and in a child's face too, poor Godforsaken little mite! Even so, it took another few seconds for the whole thing to fit into place. Such a horrible tragedy! But here she was, back at the scene of the crime, so speak.

  "Mr. and Mrs. Shelby. I've got that right, have I?" she said, hoping her voice wouldn't let on that her thoughts were all of a whirl. "If you'd like to sign the guest book, I'll take you up to your room. Unless, that is, you'd like a nice cup of tea first?"

  "No." Eileen picked up the pencil from the hall table and fiddled with it before handing it to Andrew. "We'd rather get settled in right away. It is the room directly at the top of the stairs, isn't it? I particularly asked for it when I telephoned. The person I spoke to said it still had the wallpaper with the red roses on it. I—" again she looked at Andrew, "my husband and I— we were quite definite about wanting that one."

  "Oh, absolutely," he agreed quickly. "The person who suggested we stay here made a point of saying we should ask for that room. Wonderful view of the sea and all that."

  "Well, I must say it is a nice comfortable room. One of the nicest we've got," Mrs. Gardener responded a little too brightly. "A lot of people ask for it specially." This wasn't strictly true. In fact, she'd had guests who made a point of asking not to be put in that room because of its particular associations. To hide her confusion she bent to pick up the suitcase that the young gentleman had put down on signing the guest book, and upon his insisting that he carry it himself, she led the way up the stairs to cross a narrow landing and opened the door directly opposite.

  "Well, here we are!" Switching on the light. "Plenty of red roses on the wallpaper." She was not usually a woman to flutter, but after needlessly twitching the rose sateen eiderdown into shape she adjusted a toiletry dish on the dressing table. Meanwhile, the young lady stood two feet away from her like an additional bedpost, so that when she spoke it seemed natural that she should do so in a small wooden voice.

  "Our friends, the people who suggested we come to the Sea View, said the place was run by a Mr. and Mrs. Rossiter. But of course it was years ago that they stayed here. At least ten, isn't that what they said, Andrew?" Without giving him a chance to answer, Eileen hurried on. "So would you have been here at that time?"

  "No, dear." Mrs. Gardener stooped to turn on the gas fire. "When my husband died and our only son went out to Australia, wanting to make a life for himself as was only right, I fancied I'd like to move to the seaside and bought this place from the Rossiters. That was two years ago last month."

  "You must find it rather a lot at times." Andrew had wandered over to the window and now returned to stand by the bed.

  "Not too bad really. We've only got the six bedrooms. And I like to keep busy. Keeps me from growing old. Besides, I've got my niece and her husband working for me. And when the season slows down as it does around about this time of year I get to rest up a bit." Mrs. Gardener, very conscious of sounding too bright and breezy, stood with her hand on the doorknob. "Now I'd better leave you nice people to unpack, hadn't I? The bathroom's two doors down to your left. We serve dinner between seven and eight. But don't you worry. We can always heat you up something if you don't want to rush. We often do that for guests coming in late after a day's sightseeing or a hike across the downs. Like the clergyman we've got staying with us now. He always comes this same week. Every September, has done for years, long before I took over from the Rossiters. Set in his ways, I suppose, but as gentle and kind an old gentleman as you could ever wish to meet."

  "That's nice," said Eileen.

  Feeling more and more at a loss, Mrs. Gardener mentioned that the bathroom was two doors down to the left. Then she retreated downstairs to the kitchen to restore herself with a cup of tea and explain the situation to her niece, who was mashing potatoes in a big saucepan on the draining board.

  "You mean this Mrs. Shelby is the little girl— the daughter in the VanCleeve murder?" Nellie, a big, red-faced woman, wasn't often put off her stroke, but she did pause before adding a dollop of butter and a splash of milk to the potatoes. "How old would she have been at the time, Auntie Vera, do you think?"

  "From what I remember," Mrs. Gardener sat at the scrubbed wood table brooding over her cup, "about twelve or thirteen. The worst time, if there could be one, to go through something like that. You know how emotional girls can be at that age, worse than boys some of them, even in normal circumstances."

  "I suppose," said Nellie. "But what's she like now?"

  "Not bad looking, pretty you might say, in a pale, sad-eyed sort of way. But nothing like the beauty her mother was said to be."

  "That's not what I was asking." Nellie returned to mashing the potatoes. "I meant does she look loony? It would only be expected, wouldn't it? Coming from homicidal stock. And it certainly doesn't sound normal to me her wanting to spend even one night in that room. You know the Rossiters said they had people say they felt a presence up there— a darkness even when the lights were on. And we've had some of the same talk ourselves."

  "A lot of nonsense. It's not like the murder took place there," responded Mrs. Gardener practically. "But if you want to know, I have tried to figure out the mother. What was her name? Evangeline? Something fancy and sort of French sounding. No, I've got it," looking at the pots of geraniums on the window sill. "It was Genevieve. Anyway, fancy bringing the child with her when she made her get-away! Holing up here, waiting to be found out. I'd have had to phone the police."

  "Throw themselves on their mercy so to speak?" Nellie looked dubious. "I can't say I've ever gone around thinking of coppers as a bunch of bleeding hearts. But then I've not got money and a posh-sounding name."

  "I just couldn't have had it hanging over my head. But we all are made different I suppose." Mrs. Gardener got up to pour herself another cup of tea. "I couldn't have pretended to my daughter that we were off on a seaside holiday when I was looking at those cuts on my hands, remembering my husband grabbing the knife away from me before I hit him over the head with a candlestick." She shook her head. "No one's ever called me a nervous Nell
ie. But I tell you I'm worried about that girl. She looks so lost, even with that husband of hers standing beside her. What if she waits until he's asleep and turns on the gas?"

  "So we can all wake up dead." Nellie tossed a couple of sprigs of mint into a saucepan of peas. "You know Ed's opinion." Ed was her husband, who was currently in the dining room serving up a steamed fish meal to two spinsters of undetermined age but definite ideas on eating delicate fare at an early hour. "He said we should have changed those gas fires for electric ones, just for the sort of reason we're talking about."

  "I wonder," Mrs. Gardener stirred a second teaspoon of sugar into her tea, "if the murder would have been splashed all over the papers if Genevieve VanCleeve hadn't been debutante of the year, always being photographed in The Tattler and those other high-society magazines. And the husband…"

  "Gerald, wasn't it?" Nellie took a peek at the Lancashire hotpot in the oven, eyeing with undiminished satisfaction the rich gravy bubbling up through the thinly sliced crust of golden brown potatoes.

  "Yes, well, what I was saying," her aunt sat back down at the table, "is that it was bound to make it all the more of a story with him being a highly decorated officer in the war. A real hero from the accounts of it. Badly wounded— losing the sight in one eye and afterwards always being in a lot of pain from other injuries. It's a terrible thing when a man does his duty to his country and ends up the way he did."

  "What did the Rossiters think of them?" Nellie closed the oven door and concentrated on the peas. "The mother and daughter, I mean."

  "They said they would never have guessed a thing was wrong from how Mrs. VanCleeve behaved the week she was here. The only thing that could have tipped them off something was fishy was that she was a cut above the sort that usually comes. More the type you'd expect to take her holidays on the French Riviera. Nothing flashy about her, just skirts and jumpers, but that look about her that comes from having gone to the very best schools and mixing with the upper crust. They said she was soft-spoken and always very appreciative, told them how much she enjoyed the meals, that sort of thing. The Rossiters weren't much taken with the girl. Said she was a right little madam, but she didn't look like one this evening." Mrs. Gardener closed her eyes and tried to picture what was happening in the bedroom with the red roses on the wallpaper. She hoped that young man with the kind face had his arms around his wife and was telling her that they should take their suitcase and leave. But she had the sinking feeling that the evening was not going to turn out that simply.

  Eileen was, in fact, standing in the same spot where Mrs. Gardener had left her. She took off her hat almost in slow motion and let it drop to the floor. She had silky nutmeg brown hair, cut in a bob— not because it was fashionable, but because she never had to do anything to it. Any more than she thought about clothes in general, or in particular the grey wool frock she had put on that morning. She never wore makeup. Not even lipstick. It wasn't indifference. She had made a conscious decision that the world— and that included Andrew— could take her as she was. Someone no one would ever call beautiful, perhaps adding, "Well, you only have to remember her mother and where her looks got her. What girl in her right mind would want to follow in those footsteps?"

  Andrew sat on the bed watching her, loving her so dearly, and feeling as he so often did, unable to reach any part of her. It was a mistake, he decided, to have pushed her into coming here. She wasn't going to open up to him. More likely she would shut down even more completely. He was sure that she wasn't even aware that he was in the room. And he was right. Eileen didn't see him. She could hear her own childish voice denouncing the Sea View guesthouse as the horridest place in the world. She saw her mother bending over a suitcase on the bed, lifting out a teddy bear with an arm and a leg missing and propping him against the pillows.

  "I don't know why you brought that old thing," she petulantly replied. "I don't sleep with him anymore."

  "But I thought you might like to, because of being in a strange place." Her mother's voice came back to her on a breath of salt wind. The window wasn't open now, but it had been on that day long ago. "And I don't want to sleep in the same bed with you, Mummy."

  "Eileen, they didn't have a room with two single beds. We'll have to make do. It's something everyone has to do from time to time."

  "The wallpaper's horrible. But I don't suppose you mind. You adore red roses."

  "Perhaps not this many. But it could be worse. Cousin Aggie has a bedroom with girls on swings on the wallpaper. She said it looked so lively and cheerful in the sample, but after it went up she felt dizzy every time she went into that room. Eileen, dear, I think you would really love cousin Aggie. I spent a lot of time with her on long holidays when I was growing up. And it's a pity I haven't taken you to see her, but Daddy said he would find the journey too much. She lives in Northumbria, which is a trek from London. But she has the most beautiful garden with a wonderful plum tree. And always at least three dogs and a cat. You know how you've always wanted a pet. But Aunt Mary, of course, wouldn't hear of it. And with Hawthorn Lodge being as much her house as Daddy's, her feelings have always had to be considered."

  "I don't know why you had to drag me here. You didn't even let me say goodbye to Daddy."

  "Dearest, you know it's not a good idea to disturb him early in the morning." Her mother's voice was fainter now; but her own echoed shrilly, accusingly in her ears.

  "That's not the reason. Why do you always have to upset Daddy? It was about that Mr. Connors, wasn't it? He's in love with you. Don't deny it, Mummy. And you feel the same way about him. Aunt Mary said you were flirting with him when he came for lunch last Saturday."

  "Aunt Mary sometimes gets things wrong. She's not a very happy person. Mr. Connors is Daddy's friend. And he's very sad because his wife was killed in a motor accident only two months ago."

  "Leaving the two of you free to run away together."

  "Is that what Aunt Mary said?"

  "I've got ears, haven't I? I heard you and Daddy arguing. I heard him say that he wouldn't give you a divorce, not ever! And that if you thought that living with Mr. Connors would be all romance and flowers you ought to remember that the rotten cad hasn't a bean to his name."

  Suddenly there were no more voices inside Eileen's head. Andrew's concerned face swam into view. Then she saw her mother clearly. It was as if walking out of the past were no more than walking down a hallway between one room and the next. Now she was sitting on the bed peeling off her silk stockings. Now she was picking up the old teddy bear from the floor where he had been tossed and gazing at him for a long moment before putting him in a drawer. Now she was seated on the dressing table stool brushing her waist-length hair. And with every movement there were lightning red flashes of the slash marks on her hands and wrists. Outside the room she kept her sleeves well pulled down and whenever possible wore gloves. But you couldn't wear gloves when eating. And Eileen remembered the elderly man. What was his name? Something Scottish. He had been the only person in the dining room on the first morning that she and her mother went down for breakfast. Eileen remembered the smell of kippers from his table. She could see the crack in the flowered teapot sitting next to the pot of marmalade on their table. And she could see the man's thin face, silver hair, and grey cardigan. He appeared to be reading from a little black book, but Eileen had been sure that he was looking at her mother. But not in the same way that she had seen other men do. And she had been seized by the absolute certainty that he was a policeman pretending to be on holiday.

  The clock on the mantelpiece began to strike and Andrew's voice became woven into the silvery chimes, saying that it was seven o'clock and wouldn't it be a good idea if they went down for dinner.

  "Darling; you need to eat, you hardly took a bite at lunch."

  "You're right." She managed a smile for him, before she went quickly out the door and down the stairs. Away from the blood red roses on the wallpaper and the dressing table mirror in which her mother's face hovered
as if trapped in moonlight. Or had it been her own? The same hazel eyes, the same gloss of brown hair, the same fine features and pale clear skin. What made the difference between great beauty and what was merely pretty at best? It wasn't the lack of makeup or the ability to wear the right clothes in the right way. Eileen knew with a tightening of her throat that she couldn't go on telling herself that was all there was to it.

  The two spinster ladies came out of the dining room as she and Andrew reached the bottom of the stairs. They were dressed in black and looked like women who existed on a diet of boiled fish and kept a rigid time schedule.

  "Good evening," Andrew greeted them with his usual kindly courtesy, to which they responded with the most meager of nods before retreating into the sitting room across the hall. There had been a pair very much like them on that other stay at the Sea View. Eileen remembered saying unimaginatively that they looked like a couple of crows.

  "Yes, poor old things," her mother had answered with faint smile, "but perhaps they've never had the chance to do more than peck away at life. That could make anyone look sour."

  "I hate it, Mummy, when you do that," the petulant childish voice answered.

  "Do what?"