Venom House
Page 23
“As you have told others, so then did you decide you would exact your own justice in your own time. Janet suspected you knew it was she who had tried to kill you, for she did not know Morris was able to climb down from his window, and thus must have thought him in bed.
“Her only real chance to beat you, Miss Answerth, was before you were well again. When she took your matches you suspected she would hide all the matches in the house, and you decided she would make the attempt again last night. You turned down your lamp to pretend it needed oil, in order to leave your room in the dark and go hunting for Janet in the dark. You caught Janet in the kitchen, and you snapped her neck like a carrot.”
“You don’t say?” sneered Mary. “I’ve heard that expression before ... from Morris ... about snapping necks like carrots. If I’d got me two hands on Janet last night, I would have given her plenty to keep her in hospital for six months. I say I didn’t break her neck like a carrot.”
“And we say that you did. Would you like to know how we know that you killed your sister?”
“Not particularly,” replied Mary, closing her eyes as though overwhelmed by weariness. “I’ll tell you something for a change. For years I’ve been fed to the back teeth by the lunatics surrounding me ... a mealy-mouthed lisping slut and a strong man who couldn’t grow up. You mentioned good works. All she wanted was to be Lady Bountiful. Why, every time I went to Edison, people laughed at me behind me back. And me the only sane member of the lot of us Answerths, me who’s worked like a slave saving this place from ruination, holding on to what great-grandfather thieved off the blacks and grandfather built up in his day.
“Yes, I know, Inspector. I know all of it. And when these lunatics started to murder each other, I said to meself, Mary, that’s the way it’s going to go. I never killed Janet, and you can’t ever prove I did. With her out of the way, I’ll make Venom House so’s it stands for a thousand years. Now you can all get out and leave me in peace.”
“Regretfully, Miss Answerth, we cannot leave you in peace,” Bony said. “Having been charged with the murder of your sister, you will be conveyed to the lock-up at Edison as soon as Dr Lofty gives permission. You will be away from Venom House for perhaps a long time, and meanwhile please think of Morris. I suggest that Mrs Leeper could become his guardian now, and that Blaze could be promoted to manage the entire property.”
Mary opened her eyes. She looked steadily at Bony.
“Tell me how you come to think I killed Janet,” she said.
“You left your brand on her body, Miss Answerth.”
“Left me brand on the little bitch. I wish I had.”
“When you killed her, Miss Answerth, the odour of the salve applied to your neck and back was on your hands. The odour of oil of wintergreen is quite unmistakable. After Mrs Leeper left you last night, she washed her hands in the kitchen. I heard her. About the shoulders and the head of your sister’s body is the odour of wintergreen.”
The tension waned. Mary said:
“That’s a good idea about Morris being looked after by Mrs Leeper, and the place being managed by Blaze.”
It could be then that she understood the mind of this man who had proffered the “good idea” and, understanding, was able to thrust aside the life-long aggressiveness to reveal the woman she might have been had not the aborigines pointed the bone at her forebears, cursing them and their children’s children, slamming shut all avenues of escape for any Answerth down to the fourth generation.
She nodded as though agreeing with what she saw in Bony’s mind, recognizing and accepting the inevitable. It could have been to all those long-dead aborigines, as well as to Bony, that she admitted:
“You win.”
“But without pleasure, Miss Answerth,” Bony said. “I have won so often that I am not gratified by what has become a habit.”