The Thornthwaite Inheritance

by Gareth P. Jones

  ‘It’s Mother’s final tune.’ He hummed the strange melody. ‘I thought it was an incomplete composition but I don’t think it’s a tune at all.’ Ovid grabbed a pen from the sideboard and scribbled on the piece of paper.

  ‘What do you mean, not a tune?’

  ‘Look.’ He showed Lorelli the name of the notes he had written above the stave. ‘F, D, E, A, D,’ he read out. ‘F dead. It’s a code.’

  ‘What does F dead mean?’ asked Hazel.

  ‘Father?’ said Lorelli. ‘Father dead.’

  ‘But our mother wrote it,’ said Ovid. ‘Why would she refer to her husband as Father?’

  ‘Maybe it’s a message for us,’ said Lorelli.

  ‘There’s more,’ said Ovid. ‘A, C, B, A, D.’

  ‘A, C, B, A, D,’ repeated Lorelli.

  ‘AC bad,’ said Hazel.

  ‘AC?’ said Lorelli.

  ‘Alfred Crutcher,’ said Ovid.

  Another crack of thunder shook the building and the door to the drawing room slammed shut, making Ovid, Lorelli and Hazel jump. They looked up to see Mr Crutcher standing in front of the door holding the same rifle as before. Only now it wasn’t pointed at a bear. It was pointing at Hazel.

  .

  THE ENDGAME

  ‘Alfred, what are you doing?’’ said Lorelli.

  ‘A more pertinent question would be, Alfred, what have you done?’ said Mr Crutcher, locking the door behind his back.

  ‘Lower your weapon and explain yourself,’ said Ovid.

  ‘I am afraid I can only comply with one of your requests, young master. The weapon must remain but I will explain myself,’ said the sallow-faced servant. ‘First I would like you and your sister to sit down and continue your game of chess, please. I do feel that you are rather dragging this game out.’

  Neither twin moved.

  ‘You will notice that the gun is not pointing at you, but at young Hazel. I will have no hesitation in firing if you do not oblige me.’

  ‘This makes no sense,’ said Ovid, but seeing the barrel of the gun levelled at Hazel he sat down opposite his sister at the table.

  ‘What’s going on, Alfred?’ said Lorelli. ‘What does our mother’s message mean?’

  ‘AC bad, how ingenious.’ Mr Crutcher smiled. ‘Bad is such a tame little word for what I’ve done but I suppose she was limited to letters from A to G. Otherwise she might have chosen a more colourful description: usurper, traitor . . . killer.’

  ‘Who have you killed?’ said Lorelli.

  ‘Now, young mistress, you are familiar enough with stories in which mysteries are revealed at the end to know that we can’t go charging in at any point. There is a lot to explain before your short, unhappy lives end and I think you deserve a full and proper explanation, but I do request that you keep your hands on the chess pieces otherwise I fear Hazel will not live to hear the whole of this long and, I hope, interesting, story.’

  The twins did as he said, Ovid touching a pawn, Lorelli resting her hand on a rook. Outside, sheets of rain lashed against the window.

  ‘Greed is a terrible thing. It eats away at one’s soul,’ began Mr Crutcher. ‘That’s what happened to Adam’s mother. When she came to paint the portrait, Ruth Farthing looked at your parents and everything they had and she wanted it for herself.’

  ‘We already know that Mrs Farthing was jealous of our parents,’ said Lorelli.

  ‘But you don’t know how hard she worked to find a way of acquiring some of their wealth. When she heard that Hedley Bagshaw was looking into your family history, she hoped that she might be able to find some secret that she could use to her advantage, perhaps to blackmail your father out of some of his wealth. That’s why she went down to the printer’s that fateful night.’

  ‘The night Father Whelan said he saw our father,’ said Ovid.

  ‘Hedley was an excellent historian,’ said Mr Crutcher. ‘His research was extremely thorough. That was to be his downfall. Looking into your family he found the usual stories of villainy and betrayal that litter the Thornthwaite history, and then he uncovered a fascinating fact that was to be his undoing. He discovered that you were not, as we had all believed, the first twins born into this family. Finding your father’s birth certificate, Hedley learnt that Mycroft was also born a twin. He had a brother.’

  ‘We have an uncle?’ said Ovid.

  ‘Lord Silas, your grandfather, was a cruel man and your grandmother, Agnes, knew he was expecting one child, in keeping with tradition, so when she gave birth to twins, she panicked and, in that moment, gave the second child to the midwife, who took him away and raised him as her own.’

  ‘And you knew this?’ said Ovid.

  ‘No one knew. Not me, not your father, not your grandfather. Agnes took the secret to the grave with her. It wasn’t until Hedley uncovered it that anyone knew of his existence.’

  ‘Where was he living?’ asked Lorelli.

  ‘Not far, as I understand it. Still in Hexford, in a town twenty miles away, I believe. When Hedley tracked him down using the midwife’s name, he knew at once he had found the right person. He was, it turns out, an identical twin. He looked exactly like your father, except for one thing.’

  ‘The scar,’ said Ovid.

  ‘Precisely. A prominent scar on the bridge of his nose, from when he fell off his bike as a child,’ said Mr Crutcher. ‘It was noticeable up close, but not from the distance that Father Whelan saw your uncle leave the printer’s that night.’

  ‘So it wasn’t our father he saw,’ said Lorelli, glancing at Hazel, who was standing motionless, staring fearfully at the barrel of the gun.

  ‘Hedley had brought your father’s long-lost brother to the village to take his photo. He went down to the printer’s to halt the print run so that he could reveal his existence in an article in the next edition of the newspaper.’

  ‘What about Adam’s mum?’ said Lorelli. ‘She was there too.’

  ‘Ruth Farthing arrived to speak to Hedley, in the hope that he would have some useful information. She got more than she bargained for when she saw your uncle. She instantly saw the potential for much more than a newspaper story. She tried to persuade Hedley to use this man in order to get her hands on some of the wealth she so desperately desired, but Hedley Bagshaw was an honest man. They fought, Hedley slipped. I wasn’t there myself but I believed Ruth when she said that she never meant for him to fall into the printing press and die, but fall and die he did.’

  ‘Mrs Farthing killed Hedley Bagshaw,’ said Lorelli.

  ‘This was the first act of murder in our story, albeit an accidental one,’ replied Mr Crutcher, glancing outside to where a strong wind was shaking the trees. It whistled down the chimney and rattled the door. Lightning flashed and Mr Crutcher counted out loud.

  ‘One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.’

  Thunder rumbled in the distance.

  ‘The storm is nine miles south but the wind blows north,’ he said.

  ‘What did Mrs Farthing do with our uncle?’ asked Ovid.

  ‘When Mrs Bagshaw moved to the manor shortly after her husband’s death, Ruth Farthing hid your uncle in Bagshaw’s End. She convinced him that he had been tricked out of his birthright by his greedy brother. She told him that the only way to get even was to trick himself back into it. She told him she could help him. Frederick had grown up poor and bitter, so Ruth’s poisonous words worked like black magic on him.’

  ‘Frederick?’ said Lorelli.

  ‘That was his name: Frederick Thornthwaite. Over the following months, Ruth Farthing taught him how to act, speak, even walk and eat like your father in preparation to take his place.’

  ‘Take his place?’ said Ovid.

  ‘On the night after your birth your father went to dinner with his
old friend, Doctor Scragg. That’s when they did it. Your father visited the toilet, unaware of what was awaiting him. Ruth knocked him out and Frederick took his place. I drove Mycroft to the meal that night. I drove Frederick back.’

  ‘Did you know what they had done?’ asked Lorelli.

  Mr Crutcher smiled. ‘You’ve exposed an omission in my story, young mistress. How careless of me. I missed out the part where I went to Bagshaw’s End to pick up some of Mrs Bagshaw’s pots and pans. It’s the part where I stumbled upon Frederick and Ruth and decided to join them in their scheme.’

  ‘You betrayed our father?’ Ovid gripped the chess piece in his palm.

  Outside, the lightning flashed.

  ‘One, two, three, four, five, six,’ counted Mr Crutcher.

  Thunder rumbled.

  ‘It’s getting nearer,’ he said.

  ‘You betrayed our father,’ said Lorelli.

  ‘I have always loved expensive things,’ Mr Crutcher continued. ‘When I took this job I thought that working at this magnificent manor was enough but I discovered that it wasn’t. Not nearly enough. Ruth’s scheme was the opportunity to finally get my hands on some of your family’s wealth and I seized the chance. Once Frederick was in place he would distribute the wealth between the three of us.’

  ‘That’s terrible,’ said Lorelli.

  ‘Is it?’ said Mr Crutcher, showing a flash of anger in his eyes. ‘You think you deserve these riches by virtue of your surname? You think your ancestors became this rich by playing fair? Did my history lessons teach you nothing? The Thornthwaites have acquired and retained their money through thievery, exploitation and deception. Our plan was no different.’

  ‘Surely our mother noticed that it wasn’t her husband who returned from the restaurant?’ said Lorelli.

  ‘Yes, she certainly noticed that your father had changed that night but she would never have expected that he was a different person altogether. She was preoccupied with her two new babies. At that point everything should have been simple. Ruth was supposed to kill your father. It was the perfect crime, killing a man who the world believed was alive and well. But as you know, from personal experience, murder isn’t always so easy. Ruth Farthing was weaker than she knew. She became racked with guilt, about what she had done to your mother, to you and, of course, to Hedley Bagshaw. It was at this point that she told your mother the truth.’

  ‘She told our mother?’ sad Lorelli.

  ‘Yes, but your mother made the mistake of confronting Frederick, admitting that she knew who he was. Frederick threatened to harm her darling children if she went to the police. Your mother was intelligent enough to keep quiet about Mycroft being alive. At the time, you see, Frederick and I believed that Ruth had kept her promise and killed your father. So unbeknown to us, Ruth began to take messages between the two of them.’

  ‘The music,’ said Ovid.

  ‘The music was a coded message written by your mother for your father, delivered by Ruth Farthing. She used library books to avoid getting discovered by Frederick or myself.’

  ‘So why didn’t Mrs Farthing release our father and go to the police?’ said Lorelli.

  ‘Because Ruth had a family too. Her husband knew nothing of his wife’s devilry. She didn’t want to drag them into the terrible mess she had created. She was getting increasingly upset by the thought of what she had done; plagued by nightmares, haunted by the memory of Hedley’s screams. Not everyone is suited to murder.’

  ‘F dead,’ said Ovid. ‘F stands for Frederick.’

  ‘Yes, your mother’s final message. What a shame Ruth took her own life before she could deliver it.’

  ‘So Mrs Bagshaw killed our uncle, not our father,’ said Lorelli.

  Mr Crutcher smiled. ‘Frederick was failing to make good on his promises. He was enjoying his new life and becoming reluctant to share his wealth. That’s when I decided to kill him.’

  Hazel, who had stood so long unspeaking, said, ‘But Mrs Bagshaw confessed to it.’

  Mr Crutcher’s smile grew into a wicked grin. ‘When I overheard Nurse Griddle telling Mrs Bagshaw what she had seen that night at the printer’s, I knew I could turn the information to my advantage. I knew that with a few carefully placed words and some rather conveniently positioned poison I could manipulate a situation in which Mrs Bagshaw would take advantage and do my killing for me. Why else do you think the poison was under her nose at precisely the right moment?’

  ‘You made her do it,’ said Hazel.

  ‘No, I merely gave her the opportunity. Manipulation is a subtle art . . . a word here, an action there, but make no mistake, Mrs Bagshaw murdered the man of her own free will.’

  ‘So why didn’t the police find out it was her?’ asked Lorelli.

  ‘I had no interest in sending Mrs Bagshaw to prison, but I was looking for a way to get rid of Lady Thornthwaite. I convinced Mrs Bagshaw to keep quiet while I led Skinner to the conclusion I wanted, that your mother was guilty of killing your father.’

  ‘But Mother knew about you,’ said Ovid.

  ‘Yes, she did learn of my involvement. Perhaps Ruth told her that too,’ said Mr Crutcher. ‘If Ruth did, then it was her that sealed your mother’s fate. I couldn’t risk her telling Skinner. My only option was to terminate her life too.’

  The storm raged outside. A bolt of lightning tore through the night sky.

  ‘One, two, three, four,’ counted Mr Crutcher. Thunder cracked loudly.

  ‘But our mother’s death was an accident,’ said Lorelli.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Mr Crutcher. ‘For I assume you mean that as a compliment.’

  ‘You can’t predict when lightning is going to strike,’ said Ovid.

  ‘True, but you can put the highest lightning conductor in an area where a storm is predicted. The flagpole on the central spire of Thornthwaite Manor was connected directly to the telephone and I always remember your mother saying she could never bear to leave a ringing phone unanswered,’ said Mr Crutcher. ‘I arranged for someone to call at the appropriate time but, of course, even with my weather predicting skills lightning is unpredictable. Had it failed to work I had a back-up plan. Happily the police never had cause to check the poisoned sherry, but rest assured if they had, the evidence would have led to Mrs Bagshaw.’

  ‘You murdered our mother,’ said Ovid.

  ‘So why didn’t you just kill us too? We were only defenceless babies,’ said Lorelli.

  ‘Believe me, I did consider it, but I couldn’t afford to draw suspicion with any more deaths straight away. I decided to leave it a few years before finding fitting ways for you to die. But as you grew older I came up with another plan. You’ve gathered by now I prefer to get others to do my dirty work. I decided to try a social experiment. I created a suitably sombre environment for you to grow up in, one with no outside influences, one where you were taught to mistrust each other from the moment you could speak. Then, with a couple of near misses I planted the seeds of murder in your fertile infant minds. You have never been able to remember who committed the first act of attempted murder because it was me. The working guillotine, the exploding lollipop, they were all I had to do to set you off on your destructive paths. Then I could sit back and watch as the two of you tried to rid the world of each other.’

  ‘But we’ve stopped now,’ said Ovid.

  ‘Exactly. You stopped trying to kill each other, so I had to start again. The attack with the bees was supposed for Lorelli. How was I to know you would let Adam ride your horse? That and the booby-trapped tree were designed to make you think your brother was back to his usual tricks.’

  ‘And the bear?’ asked Ovid.

  ‘Lorelli had the application form to buy the bear from the closing down zoo but it was I who filled it out and sent it off.’

  ‘It was all you,’ said Lorel
li.

  ‘Indeed. It was all so you would end your truce and get you back to work, trying to kill each other.’

  ‘But you were in favour of changing the will,’ said Lorelli.

  ‘Of course, that way only one of you would have to die for me to get the inheritance. Then, I would call the police and have the remaining twin imprisoned for murder.’

  ‘They were all your designs I saw at Bagshaw’s End,’ said Lorelli.

  Mr Crutcher nodded. ‘And if you had looked more carefully you would have seen one involving a metallic chessboard and a lightning conductor. What a strange fate it will be when both Thornthwaite twins go the same way as their mother. What irony. The lightning is almost above us now and when it strikes it will shoot through the house, through this endless chess game and fry the two of you. Then finally the Thornthwaite inheritance will be mine. Checkmate, young master and mistress, checkmate.’

  .

  THE FINAL MOVES

  As the twins gripped their chess pieces they were in no doubt that if they were to move away from the chessboard Mr Crutcher would pull the trigger and kill Hazel.

  ‘You haven’t said what happened to our father,’ pointed out Lorelli.

  ‘Ah yes, Lord Mycroft Thornthwaite,’ said Mr Crutcher. ‘When Ruth told me, she hadn’t killed him I ordered her to finish the job. I told her to keep it simple, to take him from Bagshaw’s End where he was held captive, up Devil’s Leap and push him off, otherwise everything we had done would be for nothing. She tied him up and blindfolded him then drove him up to Devil’s Leap, but in truth I don’t believe she ever intended on going through with it. She had already decided to take her own life.’

  ‘So our father survived?’ said Ovid.

  ‘Please don’t expect this story to be one with a happy ending, young master,’ said Mr Crutcher. ‘I knew I couldn’t trust Ruth. I followed her up to Devil’s Leap. When I saw her jump, I revealed myself. Your father was understandably pleased to see his loyal servant. He had been through a terrible ordeal.’

  ‘You are evil,’ said Lorelli.