Must the Maiden Die

by Miriam Grace Monfredo

  Addie shrugged. "S'none of my business. But Mr. Erich took him to the station." Addie turned to glance out the window, saying, "He's not come back with the carriage yet."

  Glynis followed Addie's gaze, suddenly recognizing that the stable and carriage house were in full view from this kitchen window. "Addie, on the day after Mr. Brant was killed—"

  "How you know when he was killed?" Addie broke in.

  "I don't know for certain. But you didn't see him Monday morning, did you?"

  "I already told the constable ten times over I didn't!"

  "But did you see the girl, Tamar Jager, anytime that day? See her from this window?"

  Addie didn't meet her eyes, but continued to strip peas from their pods.

  "Please, you must tell me if you saw the girl," Glynis pleaded. "It's important, Addie."

  "Whose side you on now?" was her response, accompanied by a long look.

  Glynis stared back at the woman. "I'm trying to save Tamar from being charged with Roland Brant's murder."

  "Well, why didn't you say so?"

  Startled, Glynis managed to hold her tongue. She leaned forward to cross her arms on the table, and waited.

  Addie stood up with the bowl of peas and started for the stove. As she passed Glynis, she said in a voice just above a whisper, "I seen her leave on a horse."

  "When?"

  " 'Long 'bout late afternoon. Figured she was running away."

  "Running away? But Mr. Brant's body hadn't been discovered yet, had it?"

  "Nope. Anyhow, that's not why I thought she was running."

  Glynis felt anger flare as she looked straight at the woman. "You knew what was being done to that girl, didn't you? You knew!"

  "I figured."

  "And you never said a thing to anyone? You just let that poor— "

  "I told you, I need this job!" Addie snapped. "And it weren't no worse'n what happens to slave women down South."

  Glynis let out her breath in a long sigh and put her head down on her arms.

  Power. Centuries old and unchanging.

  The room was silent except for the ticking pendulum of a clock.

  At last Glynis rose from the chair. "I need to get into Tamar's room," she told Addie. "Do you know if Mrs. Brant—if both the Mrs. Brants are downstairs?"

  "Don't think so. First was the uproar when Mr. Konrad left. Didn't tell nobody ahead of time, he didn't, so there was the devil to pay. Next thing that sheriff arrives. Think those two women went upstairs and took to their beds. But they're probably arguing like they always do. Don't even know if they're going to eat dinner," Addie groused, pointing at the iron kettle that obviously held the fragrant pot roast. "Nobody tells me nothing."

  "Had Erich left with Konrad before the sheriff arrived?" Glynis asked.

  "Yep."

  Which meant Erich Brant might not yet know of the sheriff's levy, although surely he must be aware of his father's debts, Glynis thought. So that also meant the estate Erich would expect to inherit had no worth. Had he known that last Sunday? Perhaps not; or not until Derek Jager arrived. She took a quick glance out the window. Seeing no one on the drive or approaching the house, she picked up the basket and walked to the doorway. After looking into the hall to see if the way was clear, she hurried across into Tamar's room, closing the door quietly behind her.

  She went immediately to the mattress and got down on her knees beside it. While she ran her hand between it and the floor, she kept an ear cocked for the sound of approaching footsteps, and inched her way around the mattress. And found nothing. She went back around in the opposite direction. Nothing. Tamar had said she kept it hidden under the mattress. Had someone else already found it? The one thing that could all but clear Tamar completely? Glynis straightened up on her knees and glanced around the room. She was about to get to her feet when, in a last desperate effort, she thrust her hand behind the mattress. Where it met the wall, her fingers touched something cold.

  She cautiously withdrew the knife. Holding it by its bone handle, she looked closely at the long shining blade. Clean as a cat's whiskers. It could not have been Tamar's knife in Roland Brant's body. Not unless three kitchen knives were missing.

  Glynis let out the breath she'd been holding and quickly got to her feet. Placing the knife in the bottom of the basket, she collected Tamar's few items of clothing and laid them over the knife. The hairbrush and book of poetry went in last, along with the Bible. Glynis cast a final glance around and started for the door, before she realized something was missing. She searched the sparse room once again, and at last went back into the kitchen.

  "Where are the knives kept, Addie?"

  The woman gave her a startled look, but walked to a cupboard and opened the door, then pulled out a deep drawer. Glynis went to stand beside her and peered into it. There were six slots and four bone-handled knives.

  "Where are the two knives that belong in those?" Glynis said, testing Addie by pointing to the empty slots.

  "Well," Addie said, her face again without expression, "I s'pect one of them went into Mr. Brant. And since you just come out of that room, you probably know better'n me where the other one is."

  Satisfied, Glynis said, "So you don't think Tamar killed Roland Brant?"

  "No. Never did. But before you ask more of your questions, I don't know who did kill him!"

  Glynis believed that was probably true. She pointed again to the drawer. "Is that the only place where knives are kept?"

  "Nope, there's small paring knives, but I thought those'd be the ones you'd want to know about."

  Glynis nodded and pulled one of the knives from its slot. She looked at the keen blade, as she had the one in Tamar's room, and again found the mark of its maker. The same mark that was on the ones given to Emma as a wedding present by Helga Brant.

  "These knives look fairly new," Glynis said to Addie. "Do you know where they came from?"

  "From Mr. Brant himself—"

  "Roland Brant?" Glynis broke in.

  Addie nodded. "Said he brought them back from a business trip."

  "A trip to the Syracuse area?"

  Addie looked at Glynis as if she had just pulled a rabbit from a hat. "That's so," she answered slowly, continuing to eye Glynis with suspicion. "He said those knives were made by...can't bring it to mind now, but the name sounded like one of them Indian tribes."

  "Yes," Glynis said, "the Oneidas."

  "Those're the ones."

  Glynis stood there, thinking, and then realized that Addie was still staring at her. "Where are Clements and Phoebe?" she asked.

  "It's Clements's day off, so I s'pect he's gone to town."

  "Did he go before or after the sheriff arrived?"

  "Before."

  So there was another member of the Brant household who did not yet know of the disastrous turn of events. "And where's Phoebe?"

  Addie frowned as she said, "That one! Touched in the head. She's supposed to be in the dining room cleaning the silver."

  The silver that was about to be seized for Roland Brant's debts, Glynis brooded as her thoughts now scurried down previously dim or unseen paths.

  "Thank you, Addie," she said. When she left the kitchen, the woman had not replied.

  Glynis went up the hallway toward the front of the house and looked into the dining room. Once she'd confirmed that Phoebe was indeed there—although the silver lay unpolished while she likely daydreamed of warlocks—Glynis went across the hall and was about to step into the parlor when her name was called from the top of the stairs. She looked up to see Tirzah Brant on the landing. The light coming from the stained glass window behind her made it impossible to see her expression, but Glynis guessed it wasn't a pleasant one.

  "So, Miss Tryon, come to witness the end of an era?

  When Glynis said nothing, Tirzah gestured to her. "Come up here, Miss Tryon, if you would."

  Glynis, still gripping the handle of the basket, wondered how unstable Tirzah was at this moment—her hopes sure
ly dashed by the property seizure—and she regretted not having told Zeph where she would be. But Tirzah clearly wanted something, and Glynis couldn't gamble on it being a mere whim. She climbed the stairs warily.

  "I've been expecting the constable," Tirzah said. Glynis saw puffy, red-rimmed eyes which had once beguiled, and nervously twitching hands which had played the harpsichord with such precision.

  "Why did you expect Constable Stuart?" Glynis asked her, moving well away from the top of the staircase.

  "I thought he might have the courtesy to tell us the kitchen maid confessed to murdering my husband's father."

  "But you already know that," Glynis said, stating the obvious. "As it is, I don't believe that confession, and I doubt you do, either."

  "Why shouldn't I believe it?" Tirzah demanded, then turned from Glynis and for a brief time stood staring up at the stained glass window. The pearl-white lilies had acquired a funereal cast Glynis had not perceived earlier.

  "I believe my mother-in-law would like to see you, Miss Tryon." Tirzah's voice now held a commanding edge.

  Glynis glanced toward the closed door of Helga Brant's room, where a tray of uneaten food had been left on a table next to the dumbwaiter. "I can't imagine she'd want to see anyone now," she objected. "I think another time would be more appropriate."

  "Let's find out." And before Glynis could protest, Tirzah had rapped sharply on the bedroom door and, without waiting for a response, pushed it open.

  Helga Brant stood at the window. The room's flower motif resembled that of the parlor, with blossoms on every conceivable surface. Its occupant turned slowly toward the door.

  "Tirzah, I refuse to discuss this further," Helga Brant began, "and...Miss Tryon? I'm not in the mood for visitors today, so you'll have to excuse me. Tirzah, close the door as you leave."

  Helga Brant turned again to the window. Tirzah didn't comply, but stood with her eyes scanning the room.

  "Close the door, Tirzah," repeated Helga Brant.

  Her daughter-in-law began to slowly pull the door closed, but not before Glynis caught a flash of bright red on the surface of a small writing desk.

  She gave Tirzah a brief nod, and quickly went down the stairs. As she stepped out the front door, she appreciated the clean fresh air that met her.

  ***

  Neva greeted her at the refuge door with, "I assumed you'd be along soon. Tamar is very much improved. Now if she'd just stop worrying about that Gagnon man!"

  They walked together across the yard and into the shade of a spreading beech. Neva said, "After what that girl has been through, it's a marvel she trusts anyone, let alone a man."

  "I think she's learned that not all men are dangerous," Glynis answered with some confidence.

  "And just where would she have learned that?" Saving Glynis a response, Neva went on, "Isn't your family about to arrive? We do have a wedding on the docket for tomorrow, don't we?"

  "Indeed we do. And yes, I need to start behaving like a maiden aunt—however that might be. But you know why I'm here, Neva."

  "I'm afraid I don't have much to tell you. Cullen left here just a few minutes before you came, and I said the same thing to him."

  "You did perform the autopsy?" Glynis asked anxiously.

  "Yes, but there isn't much to tell. I can't say with any degree of certainty which blow killed Roland Brant."

  "You can't?"

  "Glynis, either of those injuries could have caused death. He had hemorrhaged from the blow to the temple, and the knife had been thrust directly into the heart. Directly. Since it's unlikely the blows were delivered simultaneously, about all I can say is that one must have followed soon after the other. I can speculate that the blow to the head occurred first—because of the hemorrhaging—but that's all I can do."

  "What time do you think death occurred?"

  "There I'm on firmer ground. His stomach was almost empty, so we can assume he hadn't eaten for some hours."

  "Almost empty?"

  "There was a fair amount of liquor present. Now, everyone at the Brant house says he ate supper on Sunday night. No one saw him eat breakfast, although that supposedly wasn't unusual for him, but I don't believe he was killed during the day on Monday."

  "Why not?" Glynis asked,

  "Because of the rigor. Commonly, rigor mortis sets in four to six hours after death. It lasts about twenty-four hours, and Brant was already stiff when we got there Monday night. I went to the icehouse to check Tuesday morning at seven a.m., and his body was still somewhat stiff, but the rigor was leaving. I went back at ten o'clock and at that time, even given the cooling effect of the ice, there was no rigor remaining. Are you with me?"

  "Yes," Glynis said. "He couldn't have been killed later than—"

  "Very early Monday. And before he ate breakfast or lunch. But remember, there's a considerable amount of leeway in the rigor time."

  "Let's imagine, for the sake of trying this out," Glynis proposed, "that Brant was killed, one way or another, somewhere around three a.m. Monday morning. Rigor mortis would have set in about seven to nine a.m.?"

  Neva nodded.

  "So," Glynis went on, "if we add twenty-four hours to that we can say that the rigor should have worn off by Tuesday morning."

  "All things being equal, which they never are," Neva cautioned. "But yes, ordinarily the rigor would have been gone by around nine a.m. Tuesday."

  "And it was gone, when you checked at ten. Although you say there's leeway, is it reasonable to assume that he was killed a few hours after midnight Sunday? Or even at midnight—but probably not before—since he'd eaten supper, and you found no food in his stomach?"

  "Yes, it's a reasonable assumption, but I can imagine a lawyer like Merrycoyf raising doubt. Look, Glynis, I'm trying to help you narrow down the time period. I'm just not sure it would stand up in a court of law," Neva emphasized.

  "Maybe it won't have to stand up there," Glynis said quietly. "I think it's time to set a few things in motion."

  26

  I do not pretend that I have brought aerial navigation to perfection.... I have no doubt, but cherish a fervent hope, that the time is not far distant when we can travel in air without the aid of balloons for buoyant force.

  —letter from Thaddeus Sobieski Constantine Lowe, 1859

  The most remarkable thing about sitting in the sky, Bronwen decided, was the silence. Once she heard a hawk's high-pitched scream, and occasionally an upward tug made the mooring ropes of the balloon groan or the rattan basket creak, but otherwise the quiet was absolute. There was not much to make noise one thousand feet above the ground.

  The stately, fifty-foot-high Enterprise, a huge, silk, gas-filled envelope varnished with rice starch, towered above the waist-high basket in which she and Professor Lowe were riding. Bronwen was perched on a narrow bench that ran around the basket's interior, scanning with field glasses a stretch of the Oswego River. Lowe insisted she should be able to see campfire smoke twenty-five miles away. About this, she had her doubts. Campfires at the end of May were scarce.

  The balloon was anchored five miles west of the river, and ten miles downstream from the Lake Ontario port city of Oswego for which the north flowing river was named. From where Bronwen sat, she could see twenty miles of that river: north to the city and south to where the Oswego and the Oneida Rivers met. The river traffic at this time of year was negligible because farmers had not yet begun shipping crops, so the few canal and rowboats she observed rode fairly high in the water. These she ignored.

  An hour before, though, when scanning some distance to the south, she had spotted three flatboats. All three were riding low, indicating heavy freight.

  "Professor Lowe, I think I've got something," she had said, pointing to the southeast.

  Lowe had picked up his own glasses, followed her finger, and after a minute or two he nodded. "Could be. Could very well be," he'd agreed. No silk top hat or Prince Albert coat on this trip; just a long smock-like coat, high cavalry boots, and cap of
sleek black hair.

  They had both swung their glasses to the north to survey the riverbanks. "I haven't found anything unusual along them," Bronwen told him. "The farms all look pretty average and the few wharves are empty."

  "We didn't think there would be any activity until dusk," Lowe reminded her, putting down his glasses and taking a swallow of water from their canteen. "But things should liven up soon, I expect. Carry on."

  Lowe was, without doubt, one of the most even-tempered men Bronwen had ever met. Nothing much seemed to faze him, yet nothing happened that he didn't observe with keen curiosity. He also believed that if anything went wrong, he could fix it. If he ever worried, Bronwen had yet to see it. Even during the perilous drop into Seneca Falls he had remained the soul of composure.

  Following their ascent of several hours ago, Lowe had checked the mooring ropes and then spent most of his time making copious notes in his logbook, recording barometric readings, latitude and longitude, and altitude as indicated by the altimeter he had developed. Since the balloon was still anchored to the ground, Bronwen decided he must be building a case for the reconnaissance flights he was trying to persuade the War Department to approve. When she and Treasury detective Rhys Bevan had been in Cincinnati, Major General McClellan had enthusiastically backed the idea of a Balloon Corps to assess Confederate troop positions. This present assignment was more or less a practice run.

  "See anything yet?" Lowe now asked her, then hoisted his own field glasses.

  "Nothing but those three suspicious northbound boats," Bronwen said.

  She had worried that the balloon could be observed from below, but as the sun behind them grew to a bronze ball and began to roll toward the horizon, she became less concerned. She had seen the Enterprise aloft at dusk, and knew that from a distance it resembled nothing more than a small cloud. And trees would make it difficult for men on the ground to see very far. But once the balloon was freed from its mooring and moving east toward the river, it would become a much more visible target. Most of that area was farmland.