EQMM, November 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "Hello! I'm Veronica! And you must be Gretel!” She was tall and slender, with a mane of flowing black hair.

  Ives had opened the back door and started out of the car, but she quickly froze in position and told the woman, “That's Gretel Domonick. I'm Juliet Ives."

  Gretel emerged and accepted a polite hug from the young woman. “Mr. Stanton and Miss Ives are couriers. They'll be taking the Handel material back to the States for me."

  "So glad to have you all! Come, you must meet my mother."

  We followed her into the entrance hall with its grand staircase leading to the second floor. I wouldn't have been surprised to see a suit of armor standing guard, but the decor was surprisingly modern. Perhaps it was Veronica's touch that had livened things up. “You'll love Mother when you meet her,” she assured us. “Julia is the most fearless woman I've ever met—rock climbing, scuba diving, even bungee jumping!"

  "Really?” Ives asked.

  Veronica nodded, full of enthusiasm. “She went to New Zealand where the fad began. It was viewed as a test of courage down there and of course my mother had to prove herself. I guess I take after her in a way. After my divorce I was at loose ends and she urged me to develop this idea of a daily cooking show. I never would have done it without her support."

  Mrs. Oldfield was awaiting us in the sitting room off the entrance hall. It was elaborately furnished like the rest of the house, with armchairs and a sofa grouped around a fireplace. An ornate desk could be seen through a second door that led to a little windowless office space. She was a small, gracious woman, with an almost queenly posture, who seemed younger than her sixty-odd years, dressed in corduroy trousers and a dark turtleneck sweater that no doubt helped hide an aging neck. “It's a pleasure to meet you at last, Gretel,” she purred. “You've come a long way for the Handel material."

  "It's well worth the journey,” Gretel insisted, then introduced Ives and me. “Can you fill us in on some of the background?"

  "If you can wait a bit, I'd like my solicitor to be present, just to be certain we cover all the details in our contract. He should arrive shortly."

  I could see that Gretel wasn't too pleased with this latest delay. Lawyers have a way of complicating things. But about ten minutes later he arrived, out of breath as if he'd run from his car. “Sorry to be delayed,” he told Mrs. Oldfield, ignoring the rest of us until we'd been formally introduced. He was a stocky man with a balding head and a bushy moustache perhaps meant to compensate for the scarcity of hair on top.

  "This is Dennis Coxe,” she told us. “He's handled my affairs for a number of years.” She introduced us, coupling Ives and me with Gretel Domonick without really explaining our presence. “I was hoping my daughter Veronica could sit in too, but her cooking show goes on at eleven and she's busy with that."

  "I saw The Gingerbread House sign over your door,” I told her.

  She smiled. “Veronica has her own studio here. She does her cooking show five mornings a week. I'm very proud of her. The show opens each morning with a shot of that sign."

  The solicitor cleared his throat. “My time is limited, Mrs. Oldfield. Could we get on with this?"

  "Certainly.” She settled down to tell her story. As she spoke I had the impression she'd told it many times before, embellishing it as she went along. “Well, you all know George Frideric Handel, one of our greatest classical composers and a master of the Baroque era in music. He was born in Germany in 1685. By the age of seventeen he was a cathedral organist, and later played the violin and harpsichord at the Hamburg opera house. He composed operas and other dramatic works in various Italian cities, but by 1711 he'd made his first journey to England. His operas were performed here and soon he'd entered the service of a British earl. By 1727 he'd composed four anthems for George II's coronation and became a British citizen. The remainder of his life needn't concern us. It was in 1717, on an early trip here, that he composed the Water Music to serenade George I at a river party on the Thames. This house was built in 1708, and I believe Handel stayed here on that visit. The house passed down to me through several generations. A few years back, while searching in the attic, I discovered a trunk filled with old papers. Among them was an early version of Handel's Water Music and other compositions by him."

  "That's pretty much what you already told me,” Gretel said. “Now I'm here to buy them and take them back to America with me, but I need a bit more background, something to tie Handel more firmly to this house."

  "I have that,” Julia Oldfield assured her, producing a heavy folded paper that proved to be a family tree. “You can see from this that the Oldfields were landowners here since the late sixteen hundreds. Baron Oldfield built this house in 1708 and he was a personal friend of George I. The best evidence that he stayed here is a portrait of him that hangs in the outer hall. Come, Gretel, and I will show you."

  Naturally, Ives and I followed along. The portrait, showing the aging composer from the waist up in a white wig and formal jacket, his right hand resting on a walking stick, must have been painted long after his stay there at age thirty-one. But the background did show the entrance hall of the house with its grand staircase.

  "That certainly proves he was familiar with this house,” Gretel agreed. “Now we can get down to business."

  The balding solicitor spoke up then. “Exactly what terms do you propose?"

  "I thought that had all been settled,” she answered, her face starting to flush. “I am to pay Mrs. Oldfield a consignment fee of fifteen thousand pounds to be transferred to her bank account. Once the documents’ authenticity is verified by experts back in America, I will arrange for them to be auctioned to the highest bidder. All proceeds will be split evenly between us."

  Dennis Coxe had a sour look on his face. “It seems to me that my client is getting the worst of this deal. I would suggest a commission no greater than twenty percent for your services, Miss Domonick."

  "You forget that I am paying fifteen thousand pounds in advance, and I will be responsible for all publicity and expenses connected with this auction."

  The color seemed to have drained from Mrs. Oldfield's face. “I agreed to the terms, Dennis. I only wanted you here as a formality, as a witness that I am delivering the Handel documents to Gretel here."

  Ives and I were both anxious for a look at those documents, and Mrs. Oldfield was ready to oblige. She entered the little windowless office and unlocked the bottom drawer of the desk, taking out a flat portfolio such as an artist might use. Untying the ribbon that held it closed, she carefully lifted out several yellowed pages of sheet music. “Behold, Water Music and other examples of early Handel! If you wish to examine these sheets, Miss Domonick, I suggest you slip on a pair of these cotton gloves."

  To my untrained eye, the pages seemed authentic enough. “Is this his signature?” I asked, pointing to an almost unreadable scrawl of letters beneath the lines of Water Music notes.

  "That is his German signature,” Mrs. Oldfield explained. “His original name was Georg Friederich Handel. He added the final ‘e’ to his first name and shortened his middle name in the English version."

  "Do you keep them in that drawer?"

  "I have a safe in the basement,” she assured us. “I just brought them up this morning."

  Gretel donned the gloves and gently turned the sheets of music with the notes all carefully inked in. Here and there I noticed a faded spot, but for the most part Handel's early work was in remarkably good condition. Gretel peeled off the gloves and opened her purse. “I have the phone number of my New York bank. I'd better call to have your fifteen thousand pounds transferred before they close for the day."

  Dennis Coxe grunted. “Of course you won't be allowed to remove the Handel material until the wire transfer has been verified."

  "We planned to spend the night,” Gretel told him. “That's all arranged. Mrs. Oldfield will have the money by morning and we'll be on our way."

  "Of course,” Mrs. Oldfield said. “My guests might
wish to view Veronica's television show in the meantime. I believe it's about to begin."

  Ives and I exchanged glances as we followed Gretel and Veronica's mother down a hallway to the back of the house. Coxe stayed behind, apparently to contact the bank regarding our client's bank draft. I assumed we were headed for the kitchen, since The Gingerbread House was a cooking show, but we quickly passed by the working kitchen into a brightly lit area where stove and utensils were almost eclipsed by the television cameras. I could see Veronica up front by the counter, checking over her ingredients with an assistant.

  A slender man with gray sideburns and a pair of glasses hanging around his neck came forward to meet Mrs. Oldfield. “My dear Julia! We're always honored when you join us."

  She went through the introductions again and I shook hands with Roderick Fine. He was the show's producer and appeared every weekday morning at nine to prepare for the eleven o'clock telecast. “Veronica is a wizard at this sort of thing,” he confided to me. “Wait until you see her in action."

  We settled onto a row of chairs at the rear of the makeshift studio as Roderick Fine warned us to turn off our mobile phones, then issued the final instructions for positioning the cameras and spoke to the director in the control room. They counted down the last few seconds to eleven o'clock, and the TV monitor came alive with a still photograph of the mansion's doorway and The Gingerbread House sign.

  "Good morning, ladies!” Veronica shouted enthusiastically at the camera. “It's time once more for cooking tips from The Gingerbread House!"

  Julia Oldfield was seated to my left and she whispered in my ear, “That should wake them up!"

  Veronica pattered on about healthy dining, ending with a battle cry, “Let's make cooking fun again!” She announced that today's treat would be Irish potato pudding, and produced a half-dozen large potatoes in their skins, which she'd boiled the previous day. “Next you peel them, and grate them very lightly.” She then produced six eggs which she made a brief show of juggling.

  "You'll have to excuse me,” Julia Oldfield whispered. “I should see how Dennis is getting on.” She slipped out of her seat and went back the way we'd come.

  I slid over one chair so I was next to Ives. “Learning anything?” I whispered.

  She stretched out her long legs. “No wonder she doesn't have a husband."

  "How do you know that?"

  "No wedding ring. And she mentioned her divorce from Mr. Biel."

  "Maybe she takes it off while she's preparing the food,” I suggested.

  But Ives wasn't buying it. “Remember,” she whispered, “that the gingerbread house had a witch inside."

  "Who's the witch, Mrs. Oldfield or her daughter?"

  "We'll see."

  * * * *

  Promptly at noon the cooking show ended, with Veronica toasting the audience with Champagne while inviting them to tune in tomorrow for the truth about pig's trotters.

  "Good job!” Roderick Fine told her from his desk at the side of the set. “Keep it perky like that tomorrow."

  Veronica merely sighed. “Rod, I've been doing the show for eighteen months."

  The crew was shutting down the set, covering the cameras with plastic hoods. The counter, sink, and stove would have to be cleaned spotless for the following day's show, but that was someone else's job. The producer caught up with Veronica as she headed off the set, apparently wanting to talk about the next day's show, but she said they could go over it in the morning.

  "Let's go back,” Gretel suggested, and we followed along behind her. There were loud voices as we approached the parlor, and it sounded as if Julia Oldfield and her solicitor were having a disagreement. The voices cut off quickly as Veronica opened the door. “You should keep this locked if you don't want interruptions, Mother."

  "How did the show go, dear?"

  "Same as every day. Rod Fine is really getting on my nerves."

  Mrs. Oldfield glared at Coxe. “Men. They're all alike."

  The solicitor shuffled some papers into his briefcase. “I'll see you in the morning. I trust you won't do anything foolish with the Handel material until I arrive."

  * * * *

  In the afternoon Veronica showed the three of us the estate, introducing us to the gardeners, who also looked after a pair of horses in the stable. “Mother and I like to ride,” she explained. “We go out about three times a week, after my show."

  "We're keeping you from it today,” I said.

  "No, no! Mother couldn't have gone anyway with all this business to attend to. Will you all be staying the night?” When I confirmed it, she looked at each of us and asked, “Two rooms or three?"

  "Two rooms,” Ives replied at once. “We don't often get to sleep together in a British mansion."

  "Oh, it's hardly a mansion. We have only twenty rooms and even that has us in a financial bind. We're a bit small to run tours like some larger places do, although the cooking show would be a draw. I do what I can to support us, but my income can only go so far. That's why selling the Handel papers is so important to Mother."

  "I assume you're divorced from Mr. Biel,” Gretel said, openly prying. “He doesn't help you at all?"

  She snorted. “Last I heard, he was running a car ferry across the Strait of Gibraltar. It's a wonder he doesn't ask me for money, now that my cooking show is a modest success. But come on and I'll show you the guest rooms."

  We went up that great central staircase and Ives whispered, “If you were Clark Gable you'd carry me up."

  "If I were Clark Gable you'd probably settle for right here on the carpet."

  Gretel's room was quaint and flowery, right at the top of the stairs. Ours was the next one down the hall, a bit more modern, with a fireplace that probably tied in with the one in the downstairs sitting room. “I'm trying to convince my mother to perk up these bedrooms a bit,” Veronica told us. “Gretel's room is next on my list."

  "I'm sure she can survive one night in it,” I assured her.

  "We'll be serving tea downstairs at four,” she told us. “Dinner isn't until eight."

  "Will we have the privilege of a Veronica Biel dinner?” Ives asked.

  "Only Maggie the cook,” she answered with a smile. “Doing that show wears me out. Sometimes on Sunday I cook for Mother, but that's all."

  The four o'clock tea proved to be formal but enjoyable, with Ives choosing Earl Grey while Gretel went with a green tea. Mrs. Oldfield also chose Earl Grey. “It has a nice flavor to it,” she explained. “They add a bit of oil from orange rinds to give it taste."

  Veronica had joined us too, but her producer and Julia's solicitor had departed, so I was the only male at the tea party. Veronica did the pouring, from a flowery pot that must have been an heirloom. “It's a treat having a real Gretel at The Gingerbread House,” she said.

  Gretel, who'd obviously researched the subject, enlightened us. “You know in the original fairy tale the house was just plain."

  "Gingerbread has a nice ring to it,” Julia Oldfield insisted. “Bread alone could mean too many other things—even money."

  "Well,” Veronica observed, “this has certainly become a house of bread since you found the Handel compositions."

  "Not yet, it hasn't. Not until Gretel can auction them off and get some real money for us."

  Dinner was served by Maggie, a plump older woman who'd once been the pastry chef at a fashionable London hotel. Now her arthritis had made walking difficult and Veronica helped with the serving. The main course was roast duckling and I had to admit it was delicious. I could see that Ives was savoring it too. The conversation drifted onto Veronica's cooking show and she entertained us with stories of her greatest hits and near misses.

  "I have to get my sleep,” Julia Oldfield announced at ten o'clock. “You youngsters can stay up if you want.” But by ten-thirty we'd all drifted upstairs to our bedrooms.

  I'd just drifted off after some fun on the unfamiliar mattress when Ives woke me with a sudden poke. “Stanton, what w
as that?"

  "I was asleep. What did it sound like?"

  "A woman's scream from downstairs, right below us."

  I remembered the fireplace. “That would be Mrs. Oldfield's sitting room. We'd better check."

  The upper hallway was empty and apparently no one else had heard it. “What time is it?” I asked, hurrying down the stairs.

  "Just before one."

  I tried the doorknob of the sitting room but it was locked. There was moaning from inside, and I could hear Mrs. Oldfield's voice calling weakly for help. “Please, I'm bleeding—"

  "Stand back,” I cautioned Ives. “I'll try to break it open."

  I threw my shoulder against it once, but it wasn't as easy as in the movies. I had to try three times before the lock began to splinter. Then, with a bit of help from Ives, it gave way and we were in the room. Julia Oldfield lay in a widening pool of blood near the little office. She'd been stabbed in the back.

  * * * *

  I remember shouting to Ives to call the ambulance, then I ran to Julia's side to examine the damage. The weapon, an army bayonet, protruded from the center of her back. She must have tried unsuccessfully to remove it, causing bleeding from the enlarged wound. “Who did this?” I asked.

  "Window,” she managed to gasp, lifting a trembling hand toward one of the two windows on the north side of the room. But even this act was too much for her. She fell forward and the life seemed to drain from her as I watched.

  "She's dead, Stanton,” Ives announced with the certainty of a skilled physician, and I knew she was right.

  After that, all was chaos. Gretel had been awakened by the noise of the breaking door and came downstairs moments later. Then Veronica appeared as the ambulance pulled up to the house. Even the cook Maggie was aroused from her slumber. I caught Veronica at the door to the sitting room and held her back from the sight of her mother's body. “Your mother has been killed,” I warned her. “You don't want to see her now."