Murder by magic: twenty tales of crime and the supernatural

by edited by Rosemary Edghill

  Another slap. The window was creeping open, seemingly by itself. A sliver of light shone between the sash and the sill. Another slap and the window stood open an inch.

  “George, if you were to open the side jambs, I believe you would find that the sash weights are a fraction too heavy. An earthquake trem-blor too light to be felt would still be enough to open the window.”

  “You mean there isn’t a ghost?” Mary asked.

  “The chill you felt last night, the candle that blew out—the opening window created a draft,” Orville said. “A day or two longer should finish my researchers, and I will be able to tell you whether a ghost is here or not.”

  “But you just said there wasn’t one,” Roger said. “Listen, Nesbit, I’ll double your fee if you just take the next train out. I’m tired of your rigmarole.”

  “I was hired by Mrs. Collins,” Orville said mildly.

  “I’m still curious,” Mary said. “Please, Roger, for me.”

  “You’ll be sorry,” Mr. Collins said, and turned on his heel.

  Journal of Orville Nesbit—

  My researches today were fruitless, or perhaps not, if a negative answer can be considered to rule out possibilities. No murders, no suicides, no stillbirths in the house. The police blotter is clean, save only the accident in which Mrs. Collins was injured, and one other thing. No suspicion of foul play revolved around the accident. The question of the servants may be simply answered— a police report and an insurance claim dating from the following week, for a missing-presumed-stolen emerald and gold choker necklace. Perhaps during the time Mr. Collins kept vigil by his wife’s side one of the servants took the opportunity to indulge in larceny, and, unable to determine which one, Mr. Collins dismissed them all. They are scattered now, though it seems they were all given excellent references.

  The only one of the servants whom Orville had not yet interviewed was Helen, the cleaning woman. He found her in the pantry, capped and aproned, feather duster in hand.

  He began his interview by asking how long she had been in the Collinses’ employ, although he already knew the answer. With notebook at the ready he asked about the house, about feelings she may have had, about anything odd she might have noticed. He walked with her as she made her rounds. She talked, he listened.

  Helen was a dull woman, perfectly suited to drudgery. She did not guard her tongue. She had been the first of the new servants to be hired, and she had known the last ones. She wasn’t worried about her job. She had never seen anything odd in the house, but “that window, I never touched it, sir, not like Mr. Collins said.”

  Orville’s pen scarcely touched his notebook.

  “Does the name Ned mean anything to you?”

  “No.”

  “Which room was it where Mrs. Collins had her fright?” he asked.

  “The tea room,” she said. “That’s where she screamed.”

  “No, before that,” Orville said. “Where she saw the ghost.”

  “She never did any such thing,” Helen said. “I’d have heard.”

  Of that Orville had no doubt. Servants hear everything. No man is a hero to his valet. He had been hoping that the person who cleaned a room would have something to say about that room. A thorough cleaning differs very little from a thorough search.

  “Ah,” Orville said, “Thank you,” and left her straightening the antimacassars in the drawing room.

  Mrs. Collins herself was in the piano room. He had avoided questioning her about the apparition. Mr. Collins had been right about her delicacy, that was certain, nor had Orville any reason to upset her with questions that could lead to questioning her veracity.

  “Excuse me, Mary,” Orville began without preamble. “There exist two more questions which I need to research. Your answers will help my efforts to give you a report by this time tomorrow.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I would appreciate it if you could show me the room where you saw the ghost.”

  “Upstairs, the guest bedroom,” she said.

  “Show me.”

  “I’d prefer not to,” Mary replied. “I haven’t been back in that room since that night.”

  “Night?”

  “Afternoon.”

  “Where were you standing?”

  “In the hall—what difference does it make?”

  “I would appreciate knowing. My research…”

  “I don’t—very well.” With that Mary walked silently past Orville, up the stairs, and to the door, the first one to the left of the window that George had now repaired. The smell of fresh paint where he had touched up the stops perfumed the air.

  “Was this always the guest bedroom?” Orville asked. An attached bathroom shone with mirrors and polished tile. He could see through its door from the hall. “It seems larger than your room.”

  “Since my accident,” Mary said, her hand rising to touch the side of her head and smooth back her hair, “Roger and I have had separate bedrooms. This used to be the master bedroom.”

  “For the first five years you lived her.”

  “Yes.”

  Journal of Orville Nesbit—

  Helen tells me that the maid she replaced was young, much younger than any of the current staff.

  Mary is strangely reluctant to help me now, and I plan to leave tomorrow, regardless of the state of my researches. I have come to suspect that there was no haunting here; merely an overly loose window and the imaginations of an ill woman. Perhaps her husband has prevailed upon her.

  Still, from the description of the movements of the apparition in her initial letter, I have reconstructed its motion.

  And from its motion, I know that the furniture could not now be where it stands.

  The account is false. The account is true. I need to study this. I am still concerned about themissing element of water.

  The Ouija board concerns me as well. I dislike conundrums.

  Orville Nesbit packed his bags in the guesthouse. Mary Collins had dreamed the ghost. A lifelike dream, remembered as real upon awakening. Such things were not unknown.

  “Logical entities should not be unnecessarily multiplied,” Orville said, fixing the last strap on his largest case.

  The accident had happened at 3:55p.m. The angle of the sun, then, would have been much as it would be at three o’clock today. Orville stood on the porch of the guesthouse and watched as Mrs. Baxter arrived. He hurried across to intercept her before she could raise the knocker on the front door.

  “Excuse me, Shirley,” he said. “You can help me, I think.”

  “What is it, Mr. Nesbit?”

  “The spirit that Mary saw. I would like you to re-create its motion. Could you do that?”

  “I don’t know…”

  “Come inside.”

  He opened the door and motioned her in. Together they mounted the stairway and walked to the guest bedroom.

  “Here,” he said. “Starting in the bathroom, walk across the room, to this spot.” He pointed.

  “Do I walk around the bed?”

  “Yes.”

  He watched from the door as she moved. His pocket watch said 2:50.

  “Excellent,” he said. “Now, please, humor me. Would you put this on?” He held up one of the long black dresses and white aprons that the maid Helen wore about her duties. He had borrowed it from the wardrobe in the basement.

  “Whatever for?”

  “You’re far too brightly dressed to be a ghost,” he said. “You can put it on over your clothing.”

  “If you insist.” Shirley wore a puzzled frown.

  “Humor me. This could be important,” he said. “It will help Mary.” Knowing that he lied as he spoke.

  She vanished into the bathroom; cloth rustled. She emerged black and white. “I feel like a fool.”

  “Now,” Orville said, “walk across the room.”

  She did so, smiling nervously. “Is this necessary?”

  “I believe so.”

  She did as he sai
d.

  “Now, I assure you that I am completely serious when I ask you to lie on the bed and remain there.”

  He walked down the stairs, into the tea room, and out the French doors. A garden hose lay coiled to his right, attached to a spigot in the brick foundation. He turned it on, extending the hose into the flower bed, and let it flow. The water stained his linen trousers. Then he walked back into the house.

  He found Mrs. Collins in the parlor, sitting in a chair reading a book. Three o’clock by his pocket watch.

  “Mrs. Collins, if you would indulge me one last time,” he said. “I’m about to go to the station. There is one matter which still puzzles me, and I hope that you can find it in your heart to ease my mind in this tiny detail.”

  “Of course, Orville,” Mary said.

  “The upstairs hall. If you could merely walk the length of it?” He looked at his watch again. “I would like to time you.” he smiled. “It’s a small detail.”

  “Oh, if it helps,” she said, rising from her seat. “Since you’re about to leave.”

  “Just that one thing.”

  She walked up the stairs. He followed. At the end of the corridor that ran toward the window he stopped, letting her continue.

  She started down the hall. At the door to the guest room she stopped as if frozen. She spun toward the door, her face twisting into rage.

  “You bitch!” she screamed. “You bastard! How could you? In my own bed!”

  Mary dashed into the room where Shirley was trying to rise. In an instant Mary was on her, pummeling her with her fists. Orville was close behind.

  “Mary!” he shouted. “Mary, stop it!”

  She threw him off her back where he was trying to stop her flailing arms with a bear hug. Then she turned and dashed for the door.

  Orville landed on his back where she had thrown him.

  Her feet pounded down the stairs. The front door slammed.

  From outside, male voices shouted, “Mary, what in the name of heaven!” and “Mrs. Collins, no!”

  By the time Orville—accompanied by Shirley Baxter—had limped down the stairs, George and Roger were pulling Mary out of the drivers seat of the automobile in which they had just arrived. George had her in a full nelson, still saying, “Ma’am, ma’am, don’t.”

  “You,” Roger said, turning and pointing at Orville. “This is your fault. I warned you. I’ll sue you. I’ll ruin you. You fraud. You quack.”

  “Perhaps,” Orville said, going past him and around the corner of the house. He went back to the garden shed and found a shovel. Then he walked, still limping, to the spot where the water from the hose had run to its lowest level and was soaking into the ground of the garden, amid the red and yellow flowers.

  He pushed the blade into the soft mud and pulled up the sodden earth. It made a plopping sound. Again he shoved the blade into the hole, pushing it deeper with his foot. All at once a foul smell burst from the earth. He retched. As the other members of the household arrived—Helen, Dolores, Roger, Shirley—Orville held his breath, bent, and shoved his hand into the muddy water.

  He reached deep—feeling for something in the muck—and pulled.

  His hand came up with a bone, long and white, and still hung about with scraps of rotting flesh.

  “I think I’ve found your ghost,” he said.

  Roger stepped back, his hand darting into his pocket and pulling out a small chrome-plated pistol. “All of you, stand over by that man,” he said. “Don’t try anything; I have a round for each of you.”

  The little group did as they were told.

  “Now I’ll make ghosts of the lot of you,” Roger said, raising the weapon.

  He never fired. Instead, a sharp metal point appeared through the front of his shirt, a red stain surrounding it. Roger fell, the pistol tumbling from his limp fingers. And there was George standing behind him, edging shears in hand.

  “You killed her,” he said to the fallen man. “You son of a bitch, you killed her and buried her in my garden.”

  Orville shook his head. “Not exactly. But it will do.”

  Journal of Orville Nesbit—

  The apparition and the first message that the Ouija board gave have perfectly rational explanations. They were the subconscious memories of a woman who had arrived home unexpectedly to find her husband in the arms of another woman. She snapped, she attacked, and she unintentionally killed her rival. The girl fell, perhaps striking he head. No one who is alive remembers. The police found bloodstains in the backing of the carpet.

  Mary ran from the room, perhaps not fully comprehending what she had done. She may have intended to kill herself when she hit the gate, or perhaps not. I do not know and she cannot tell, because the concussion and the coma stole her memory of that day.

  Roger dismissed the servants. He couldn’t have hidden a bloody carpet and a grave in the flower bed with observers present. The missing necklace was a ruse; it was in the shallow grave with the girl. A convenient, believable excuse. He waited anxiously by Mary’s bedside, to make sure she wouldn’t accuse him when she awoke. Perhaps he would have strangled herhadshe remembered. He won’t tell us now, not without the aid of the Ouija board — which I am not inclined to try.

  ButMary’s subconscious could not forget. The memory returned as a lucid dream of seeing the girl in her bedroom, and the subconscious recollection drove the movement of the planchette to spell out “MURDER.”

  As to what force caused the Ouija board to begin to spell “GARDEN” (backwards, I admit) information neither Mary nor her friend had or couldpossibly have learned — that I am not prepared to say.

  Murder Entailed

  Susan Krinard

  Trained as an artist with a B.F.A. in illustration, Susan Krinard became a writer when a friend read a short story she’d written and suggested she try writing a romance novel. Prince of Wolves was the result. Within a year Susan had sold the manuscript to Bantam as part of a three-book contract.

  Susan now makes her home in the Land of Enchantment, New Mexico, with her husband, Serge, her dogs Brownie, Freya, and Nahla, and cats Murphy and Jefferson. In addition to writing, Susan’s interests include classical and New Age music, old movies, nature, animals, baking, and collecting jewelry and clothing with leaf and wolf designs. Her recent novella “Kinsman” was the winner of the SF Romance Sapphire Award. She is currently working on her first fantasy novel.

  If anyone in Albion was likely to be murdered, it was surely not Lord Roderick Featherstonehaugh.

  Everyone loved Fen, as his intimates called him. Women adored him. His peers fought for the privilege of inviting him to their country house shooting parties to bag the best grouse and pheasant. Even servants, from grooms to housekeepers, hastened to do his bidding with uncharacteristic alacrity.

  And yet here he lies,Lady Olivia Dowling thought, gazing down at the body sprawled on the Axminster carpet in the guest chamber of Waveney Hall. Fen was still quite imposing in death, though his expression of terror somewhat mitigated the impact of his girth. Why is it that I cannot feel the proper grief? And how can I solve this terrible mystery before the constable must be summoned?

  For it would not do to involve the authorities, not until she wasquite certain that none of her guests were guilty of the crime—or that one of them definitely was.

  What made the situation even more vexing was the fact that no one was quite sure what family Talent Fen had inherited from his father, the former Viscount Featherstonehaugh. Society had long made a game of guessing its nature, but Fen had never told.

  A windblown splatter of rain struck the window. Olivia pushed a loose tendril of hair out of her face and wrinkled her nose at the unmistakable smell of wet canine.

  Lightning flashed, the window sprang open, and Kit Meredith climbed in. Though the guest rooms were in the east wing on the first floor of the mansion, scaling the brick walls of the Hall was no problem for Kit. His black hair was plastered to his face, though his black wool suit was conven
iently unaffected by the miserable day outside. How fortunate that he did not need to leave his clothes behind when he called upon his wild magic. A naked man appearing in her home at any time of day was most inconvenient. Almost as inconvenient as a murder.

  Kit slipped on his smoke-lensed spectacles and straightened to his full, lanky height. “Well?” he began. “What is—?”

  His gaze followed hers to the body. He gave a startled woof and sank down in the nearest chair.

  “Featherstonehaugh,” he said. “Dead. By magic.”

  “Ah, Kit,” she said fondly. “You always come just when I need you most—even if you prefer that no one knows how you come. I am very much afraid that you and I have a murder to investigate.”

  Kit could be every bit as practical as she. He wasted no time with questions, but dropped into a crouch beside the body and sniffed up and down its length. Olivia had long since ceased to be amused at his antics. One did not laugh at Old Shuck, even if one was the Black Dog’s closest friend.

  “As pitiful as my Residual gift may be,” she commented, “I can See that he was strangled.”

  “Strangled?”

  Sir Kenneth Ingleby stepped into the room, his face drained of color. “Fen! Is he dead?”

  Olivia hastened to close the door behind him. “I fear so, Sir Kenneth. Is the news already abroad?” She sighed. “I did ask Amis to be discreet—”

  “Your butler didn’t speak of it,” Sir Kenneth said with a grim twist to his mouth. “My room is just across the hall, and I heard voices.” He stared at the body. “Good riddance.”

  “You do not seem very surprised, Ingleby,” Kit remarked.

  Sir Kenneth gave him a frosty stare. “I am not. No man deserved it more.”

  “Kenneth!” Olivia said. “How can you—?”

  “I believe I know,” Kit said. “Livvy you must have heard the tragic story of young Mr. B., who took his own life a few months ago.” He glanced with sympathy at Sir Kenneth. “I am sorry to be blunt, but the rumors said that the young man had so-called unnatural proclivities, and—”

  “And he was my lover,” Sir Kenneth finished. “You are surprisingly well informed, Meredith, given your distaste for London society.” He looked at Olivia. “Bertram was my lover, but he was expected to wed a young heiress who would save his family fortune, so we agreed to end it. Unfortunately, Featherstonehaugh discovered our liaison and threatened to tell Bertie’s family if he did not pay a considerable sum. Bertie knew he could not see his family ruined. He chose the honorable way out.” Sir Kenneth smiled bitterly. “He did not come to me, damn him. But now Fen has been paid in full.”