The Last Resort

by Yvonne Morrin

  #

  Lisa and Craig sat together in a far corner of the dining hall discussing what they had heard. Lisa described the whole scene, expecting her brother to be incredulous, but he seemed to accept it all as gospel. When she had finished, Craig sat for a while in silence, theatrically screwing up his face, scratching his head and tapping his chin to indicate that he was thinking. “So,” he said finally, ticking points off on his fingers. “We know there’s a jar of what look like human eyeballs behind the bar. It seems that Violetta can make people forget what they’ve just seen. We know she doesn’t mind eating eyeballs - yuk! We know that Swizelsticks thinks he can make dead eyeballs come to life by magic, although only accidentally. We know Harriet knows about all of this...” He trailed off, thinking again. “Hmmm… What was Harriet saying about a sack of heads? What does that mean? Real human heads?”

  “I don’t know,” Lisa replied. “But I know who does.” She nodded at Edgar who was just being intercepted by Harriet as he crossed the dining hall. “Come on!” The siblings stood and followed Harriet and Edgar out into the hallway, just in time to hear Harriet dressing down the hunchback.

  “I trusted you to get rid of those items,” she was fuming. “I expressly told you that they mustn’t be left anywhere the guests can find them. And what do you go and do? Only leave the jar out in full sight on the bar!” The hunchback was wringing his hands and looking down at his winkle-picker shoes which he shuffled to and fro.

  Craig felt sorry for him. “It was my fault,” he said, impulsively. Harriet jumped, then looked at Craig and Lisa in alarm, assessing how much they’d heard. She was pretty sure she hadn’t actually mentioned eyeballs or heads. Craig continued. “You see, earlier today, before the party, I came into the ballroom and saw Mr. Gore standing at the bar, talking to Mr. Swizelsticks. I asked him to come with me, but he said that he had a job to do, and he couldn’t. So then I told him that it was an emergency and that he had to come, so he did. He must have left behind whatever it was he was supposed to get rid of …”

  Harriet narrowed her eyes. “And what was this emergency?”

  Craig tried to look embarrassed. “Well,” he mumbled, “actually, there wasn’t one. It was a trick. I thought it would be funny.”

  “I see,” said Harriet. “Is this true, Mr. Gore?”

  Edgar looked at his saviour in disbelief. Craig nodded his head vigorously, encouraging him. “Uh…yeth,” the hunchback confirmed.

  Harriet turned back to Craig. “And did you see what was in the jar?”

  Feigning wide-eyed innocence, Craig replied, “Oh, no Ma’am.”

  “Very well,” Harriet said. “Try to be more careful in the future, Mr. Gore, and you, young man, no more tricks. You wouldn’t want to get someone fired, would you?” Craig shook his head.

  “I’m very sorry for my brother’s actions,” Lisa added. “It won’t happen again.” Harriet nodded, then strode back into the dining hall to attend to her guests.

  Edgar motioned Craig and Lisa along the corridor and they followed him into a room. Muttering “Flip the thwitch, Edgar” under his breath, Edgar flipped an old-fashioned metal switch and all of the candles in the chandelier sprang to life. Huh, thought Lisa. They must be electric after all. Then she looked around the room and gasped. They were in a library, and three of the walls were covered in bookshelves, stretching from floor to towering ceiling and crammed with thousands of ancient leather-bound volumes. A wooden ladder on wheels allowed for searching the top shelves. This was Lisa’s idea of heaven. There were even comfortable over-stuffed leather armchairs for curling up on with a book, and a blazing fire in the hearth set into the fourth wall. Had that fire been going a moment ago? Edgar motioned to the chairs and the three of them sat.

  “Why did you lie for me?” Edgar asked Craig, his eyes wide with wonder.

  Craig shrugged. “I didn’t want you to get into trouble, I guess. It’s no biggie.”

  “No biggie?”

  “No big deal.”

  “No one’th ever thtuck up for me before,” Edgar marvelled. “Thank you!”

  “So…” said Craig, “I guess this means that we’re friends, right?”

  Edgar was astonished. “Friendth? Friendth? Oh, yeth, pleathe!” He clapped his little hands together in delight.

  Lisa looked at Craig with suspicion, wondering where this was heading, but Craig merely pressed on. “Good,” he said. “You, me and Lisa, we’re all friends now.”

  Edgar nodded eagerly.

  “And, you know, Edgar, friends don’t have secrets from each other.”

  Edgar looked uncertainly at the teenager.

  “For example,” Craig went on, “My sister Lisa here isn’t really a blonde. She dyes her hair!”

  Edgar giggled with glee at this snippet of gossip, while Lisa, a natural strawberry blonde, glared at Craig.

  Then she realised what he was doing. She thought for a moment. “I know a secret too. Craig wet the bed until he was ten years old.” Craig opened his mouth to protest, but then remembered their mission, and turned expectantly to Edgar. “Ahem… any secrets, Edgar?” Lisa asked.

  The little man looked to each side, and leaned forward conspiratorially. Lisa and Craig leaned forward too. “Thometimeth,” Edgar said, “I don’t brush my teeth before I go to bed at night!”

  “Oh,” said Lisa, flopping back in her seat.

  Craig let out a little howl. “No,” he said. “That’s not the secret we meant! We wanted to hear about the eyeballs and the heads!”

  At this Lisa poked him sharply in the ribs.

  Edgar, still excited by the concept of friendship, didn’t notice. “Oh, them!” he said. “I did forget the jar of eyeballth, but I put the headth in the pantry in the kitchen. The public can’t go into the kitchen, you know,” and then he whispered, “that’th where Thkully hangth out, and we can’t let anyone thee him!”

  “Thkully?” Lisa asked, but Edgar was still speaking.

  “And then there are the armth, but we can’t get them out from behind the showerth until after everyone hath gone back home.”

  “There are arms behind the shower?” Craig asked him. “Human arms? Like, dead body parts?”

  “Oh, yeth,” Edgar agreed. “I dug them all up mythelf.”

  “Oh,” Craig said. “And are there any more dead body parts around the castle?”

  Edgar shook his head. “No. Well, apart from the partth making up Norm. The Profethor thinkth making him was a mithtake.”

  “Norm,” Lisa repeated. That odd-looking oversized physical fitness guy. She exchanged a perplexed glance with her brother. What did “making him” mean?

  Edgar suddenly frowned, realising that he might have said too much. “I’d better be getting back before Mith Fullmoon mitheth me,” he said, scooting down from his seat. As he reached the door, he turned back to the pair. “Were they good thecretth?”

  Lisa and Craig followed behind. “Yes,” Lisa answered him. “Those were very good secrets.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Viktor’s moustache twitched as he suppressed his annoyance. Harriet was obviously very concerned, and it wouldn’t be appropriate to compound her worries by expressing his own anger. The situation with the arms and eyeballs and heads as she had outlined it was unfortunate – and it had been avoidable. Because of Swizelsticks, the Professor and Edgar, there were two gentlemen now under Violetta’s thrall. It was a shame she had been obliged to mesmerise them, but Viktor supposed it wasn’t the end of the world. After all, he had needed to employ the same technique this afternoon to calm down the hysterical Beryl after her incident in the shower.

  “Very well managed,” Viktor said, when Harriet finished her story. He pushed his plate to one side and patted his moustache with a napkin as if he had actually been eating and not just pushing his dessert around his plate, pretending.

  Harriet was about to respond, but felt three ghostly taps on her shoulder, the prearranged signal that one of the sist
ers wanted to talk to her. “I’m going to meet with the maids in the kitchen,” she said aloud to Viktor, both to excuse herself from the table and to let Boo, Sue or Lou know she had got the message. Viktor nodded.

  #

  Once Harriet had left, Viktor leaned back to survey the party. Three centuries ago, this same dining hall, at that time the grand ballroom, had played host to many parties. There was the winter ball held each year by Viktor and Sebastian’s parents, the party to which his cousin Violetta had first invited her new friend, Rose. Later, there was Sebastian and Rose’s betrothal party – a night of laughter and music and merriment – and then of course, their wedding. How full of high spirits they had all been, Viktor, Sebastian, Violetta and Rose. How carefree!

  The ballroom had also been the setting for more sombre ceremonies, Viktor knew, although he had not been permitted to attend his father’s funeral. He shook his head slightly to prevent himself heading into a dark spiral of morose memories. It was best to concentrate on the present, rather than dwell in the past, and the present was this party. He should probably check that everything was going smoothly, and the easiest way to so this was to use his acute hearing to eavesdrop on conversations.

  Over at the bar, the two biddies were boring the ears off of Swizelsticks. “Such a shame that Mr. Lagoon wasn’t able to attend the party. I do hope he’s feeling quite well. We have plans for him, don’t we, Hortense?”

  “Oh yes,” she giggled. “Only, I doubt he’s unwell, Emily, as he has such a wonderful physique. I expect he’s fighting fit.”

  “Mr. Lagoon is preparing for tomorrow, I believe,” Swizelsticks told them. Well, that was almost true. He was out in the lake, practising swimming in a wetsuit. He had begged off coming to the party, claiming that these overzealous fans would no doubt expose him for what he was if they got too close. Viktor wasn’t so sure – both of them looked as blind as bats to him. He moved on.

  That horrible Fisher man and his equally odious son had cornered Sir Osis. The headless horseman, or rather re-headed horseman, kept looking furtively around the pair towards the bar, and licking his lips, eager for a drink. The Fishers didn’t notice his discomfort, or if they did, they didn’t care. Encouraged by his dad, the boy recounted his horse riding expertise to an increasingly anxious Sir Osis as the riding instructor began to sink lower and lower into the floor. Viktor frowned. Soon the Fishers would notice the ghost’s decreasing height. Should he interfere?

  “Are you even listening?” Albert Fisher said suddenly, leaning forward to poke Sir Osis. Viktor held his breath, half expecting the man’s chubby finger to go right through the ghost, but Sir Osis dodged backwards, avoiding the finger, and resuming his correct position with respect to the floor.

  “Um, yes, I think so. Your boy says he is an excellent rider, and he doesn’t want a pony and he needs a bit of a challenge. Yes, that’s fine. We should be able to sort something out. I might put him on Dragonslayer…”

  The boy smiled. “Wicked!”

  Then the dad said, “Good man, put her there,” and reached out his hand for Sir Osis to shake. Viktor held his breath again, but Sir Osis had the situation under control. He started to stick out his hand then stopped, pretended to sneeze into it, then apologised and shrugged. Albert hastily withdrew his hand, and Viktor smiled. Sir Osis seemed to be doing just fine.

  The three travel agents had been dancing for much of the evening, along with the two golf-nuts and the travel-writer, but now that the band was on a break two of them had sought out Callie, and were discussing possible beauty treatments with her. They oo-ed and ah-ed over coconut milk spas, honey body scrubs, and olive oil hair therapy. To Viktor, it sounded more like a cooking lesson that a beauty regime. “How do you get your skin so creamy?” Della asked Callie. Callie shook off the question, changing the subject. Viktor knew the answer – she used poisonous white lead on her face, which was fine for gorgons, but had been responsible for the slow, agonising deaths of many ordinary women in ancient Greece. Beryl looked up and caught his eye at that moment, blushing and waggling her fingers in a little wave. Viktor looked quickly away, pretending he hadn’t seen. That was always the problem putting someone in thrall. They often became fascinated by you.

  One of the golf-nuts, Dan, was similarly watching Violetta as she circulated, checking on proceedings. He was chief publishing director of a popular European in-flight magazine, Viktor recalled, and he was married, but his wife hadn’t been able to attend. Dan was also in Violetta’s thrall, unfortunately, due to the eyeball-in-the-drink incident. Viktor hoped Violetta wouldn’t take advantage of the situation. She had never taken to sheep’s blood, and Viktor knew she craved the real thing. Maybe it had been wrong to bring her back to the castle, but so much time had passed, Viktor rationalised, and it was time to let the past go. The castle was Violetta’s home after all. Plus, the two cousins were both coping with the same affliction. All perfectly sound reasons for reconciliation, but perhaps the greatest reason was that Viktor and his cousin had been friends once, and he missed her.

  There he was again, thinking gloomy thoughts. He turned back to Dan, (still making puppy-dog eyes at Violetta), and his buddy Mike, the other golf-nut, who was publishing manager of a luxury travel magazine. An article in either man’s publication would be good for business. They were sitting with Norm. Viktor listened in to see if Norm was making an acceptable impression on them. It seemed Mike was telling Norm some sort of golfing story while Norm simply stared at him blankly.

  “So,” Mike was saying, “I sliced the ball around the dogleg, and it landed on the dance floor. I was hoping it would get legs, but it stayed put just where it had dropped.”

  Norm scratched his head. Harriet had supplied him with a child’s library book on golf, full of pictures, and she had even read it to him. He thought he had a good understanding of the game, pointless as it seemed. He’d practised out on the castle’s course a couple of times. You used sticks, called clubs, although they didn’t look like clubs, and with them you hit a ball around the grass until it went into a little hole. None of what Mike was saying made any sense, but Norm felt that the man was waiting for his response, so he said, “So if it didn’t get legs, it couldn’t dance?”

  “Bingo,” Mike replied. “I wound up getting a bogey on that hole. Still, it had been a double bogey the week before.”

  “Yuk,” Norm said, wondering what mucous had to do with anything.

  “Yuk indeed,” the man replied. “Certainly messed up my scorecard.” Ah, thought Norm. That explained it. The man must have sneezed all over his scorecard and made the ink run.

  “Dan did much better than me of course. He hit a birdie on that hole.”

  Norm winced, remembering his own experience out on the castle course when some of the livestock had wandered onto the green. “Ouch,” he said. “I hope it was alright. I hit a sheep once, and it fell over.”

  Mike regarded Norm with a puzzled expression, and then burst out laughing. “Ha – very funny. Good man – need a sense of humour in golf. Anyway,” he went on, “Dan has a wicked hook,” (at this, Norm looked sideways at Dan’s hands, but they looked normal to him, so he didn’t say anything), “and when he teed off at the next hole, he drove the ball straight into the kitty litter!”

  “Oh dear,” Norm murmured, bewildered.

  “So of course he had to get out his new sand wedge,” Mike said. Mmmm, thought Norm. Sandwich… “Anyway,” the man continued, before Norm was able to ask about sandwich fillings. “What’s your handicap?”

  Norm was somewhat taken aback. “Um,” he said. “I don’t have a handicap. Harriet says I’m just slow.”

  The man nodded. “No handicap, eh? You must be good. Well, we’ll see tomorrow out on the course. What sort of hazards will we find on your links?”

  Once more, Norm felt confused. The man had changed the subject so abruptly. Links? Did he mean the chains connected to the gym equipment in the dungeon? “Um,” Norm said. “Well, some of
them are very heavy. And there’s some sharp bits, I guess.”

  “I’m hearing you, Buddy,” Mike said. Viktor smiled and turned away. Norm was doing okay for the moment.

  Edgar caught his eye next. Despite his mistake with the eyeballs, the hunchback had been doing a splendid job waiting on tables all through dinner, never getting an order wrong and not spilling a drop. Now the Fisher woman, Penny, had stopped Edgar as he passed her table, clutching his arm with long red-nailed fingers. “Isn’t it wonderful you working here?” she said to him. “Thank goodness for equal employment opportunities.”

  “Madam?” Edgar said, not sure what she was talking about.

  Penny bent right down and said slowly, as if talking to an idiot, “You’re doing very well for a little person.”

  “Oh. Yeth Mith, thank you Mith,” Edgar replied, trying to shake off her hand.

  “Oooo,” Penny squealed. “And you’ve got a speech impediment too! How marvellous!” She let go of his arm so that she could clap her hands excitedly, and he scampered off. Unfortunately for Ankh, her gaze fell on him next. “Ah, Doctor,” she said. “Just the man I wanted to see. How’s your plastic surgery healing? You know, I’ve often thought about a bit of nip and tuck myself.” Viktor winced. Although Ankh’s cover story was a lie, as far as this woman had been told, Ankh had needed surgery as the result of an unfortunate accident. She was gauche and tactless – the perfect woman, in fact, to be married to Mr. Albert Fisher.

  “Yes,” Ankh answered her, peering at the crow’s feet around her eyes, and the extra chins beginning to gather about her neck. “I can see why you might consider that.” Touché, thought Viktor, but the woman didn’t seem to notice this implied insult.