“Alas, Miss Arkwright, until the matter of Mrs. Cavanaugh’s untimely death is cleared up, your excellent police force insists on it.” Mr. Dodgson looked at O’Ferrall, who had the grace to blush.
“You!” Captain Cavanaugh exclaimed. “You’re that professer feller what follers folks in Portsmouth!”
“I assure you—” Mr. Dodgson began.
“Where’s that sawbones, Doyle? What do you know about Jethro? And what’s become of my Emma?”
Mr. Dodgson shrank back against the sideboard as the Captain advanced upon him. “I believe I can deduce some of the events that led to her demise,” he quavered.
“Can you?” O’Ferrall scowled at him
“Oh, yes. I believe I have some notion, although there is a good deal that is still obscure. One must never make assumptions without all the facts.”
“I don’t suppose you’d care to share your notions with the rest of us?” O’Ferrall dripped sarcasm.
“This is hardly the propitious moment for such a revelation. After the funeral, after the solicitor—Mr. Simms, you said?—Mr. Simms has read the will. Then, and only then, will I be able to arrive at some conclusions.”
“And what about me?” Bedelia piped up.
Amelia glared at her sister. “You will remain here and oversee the arrangements for the collation. If Mr. Simms arrives before we get back from the churchyard, make him comfortable. And change that dress!”
Amelia stalked out of the sitting room. Captain Cavanaugh gallantly offered her his arm. So did Inspector O’Ferrall. Amelia folded her hands at her waist and passed both of them, head held high. She would walk alone, and unafraid, through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
Mr. Dilbert sheltered her under one of the black umbrellas and led her to the waiting carriage. The Seaman’s Home Band sprang into action, with a cheering rendition of the “Dead March” from Handel’s Saul. The cortege paraded down Elm Grove, shrouded in the gray mist, while Bedelia watched from the sitting room window.
Her blue eyes were hard chips of ice. She had been treated like a child again, left alone with no one but the servants. She had been slighted again. Even Jenny had been given more attention than she. It was intolerable. She would have to change that.
Meanwhile … she looked at her dress. She liked it. She would not change it, and if the dowdy ladies of Southsea disapproved, that was their lookout. Mama had run off with Papa, hadn’t she? Well, Bedelia Arkwright could be just as scandalous!
“Miss Bedelia?” That was Jenny, interrupting her daydreams. “Should I set out the good silver in the dining room?”
“Go ahead,” Bedelia said. “Don’t bother me now. I have to think!” She looked into the mirror for several minutes, then sat on the sofa for a few minutes more.
A timid cough from the direction of the sideboard made her realize that Mr. Dodgson had not gone to the funeral, but was, instead, still with her.
“I do not attend funerals of persons I have never met,” he explained. “And I was requested to amuse you. Athough”—he viewed her costume—“I see that you are somewhat older than you appear to be.”
“I was tired of being a little girl,” Bedelia said, with a shrug that exposed even more of her décolletage than before.
Mr. Dodgson sighed. “And so you decided to grow up. I see. When we first met, I would have taken you for, say, thirteen, and here you are, quite different, and not at all like your sister. Do you take after your mother?”
Bedelia shrugged. “I don’t know. I never knew her, and Papa has no pictures of her ….”
“That is very odd, considering how much he risked for her sake,” Mr. Dodgson commented.
“It was all very long ago,” Bedelia said with another toss of her head.
“So it was,” Mr. Dodgson said. He began to drift around the sitting room, looking at the watercolors on the walls. There was another awkward silence. “Your sister paints well.”
“I suppose,” Bedelia said sulkily. She was growing tired of this old man, who had apparently lost all interest in her.
“Did your papa ever speak to you about his early days in India?”
“Not at all,” Bedelia said.
“But he told you about his adventures in South America.”
“Oh. Yes, sometimes.”
“On the day he died, did he tell of his adventures?” Mr. Dodgson asked.
“What?” Bedelia was jolted out of her thoughts of glory in London Society.
“On the day your father died … last week, was it not?”
“Yes,” Bedelia said, suddenly watchful.
Mr. Dodgson turned to her. He no longer looked like a sweet old man. He reminded Bedelia of her mathematics master at school, who demanded that she learn her sums or face the consequences.
“What occurred on the day before your father died?” he demanded.
“Nothing out of the ordinary,” Bedelia retorted. “Papa had one of his tempers, that’s all.”
“Tempers!” Jenny had brought in the tea-urn that had played so large a part in the festivities the day before. “I never heard such language! If my mum knew what he said, she’d have me out of this house like a shot!”
“Mr. Dodgson doesn’t listen to servants’ gossip,” Bedelia snapped out. “Get back to the kitchen.”
“Not just yet, Jenny. That is your name, is it not?”
“Yes, sir.” Jenny bobbed a curtsey.
“Do you recall the subject of this, er, temper tantrum?” Mr. Dodgson asked gently.
Jenny frowned. “I was in the kitchen, sir. I don’t listen at doors.” She shot a glance at Bedelia.
“But you obviously heard something, or you would never have remarked on it.”
“I couldn’t say what they were shouting about, sir, but he called her such names! Begging your pardon, sir, but ‘interfering bitch’ were the least of it.” Jenny reddened at the repetition of such a horrendous phrase.
Bedelia shrugged. “I suppose he found out that Emma and Amelia had written to Uncle Moncrieffe,” she said. “I don’t see why he had to be so contrary about our going to London.”
“Your father opposed this plan?”
Bedelia stared out the window at the drizzle. “He said I was too young. He said he’d never let me go. He said he didn’t raise two women for someone else’s pleasure—” She bit off the rest of the sentence and shut her mouth, as if she realized she had said too much.
Mr. Dodgson had gone on to another subject. “And what did Mrs. Cavanaugh do after this, er, tiff?”
“She went to Portsmouth,” Jenny said. “I saw her leave, with her little basket over her arm, in a tearing hurry to catch the horsecar. And when she come back, she give the Captain such a look over dinner!” She turned to Mr. Dodgson. “Should I have said something to the police? Or the crowner?”
“Do you infer that this quarrel might have led to the heart attack that killed him?” Mr. Dodgson considered the matter. “You were not asked to give evidence, were you?”
“No one said nothing,” Jenny answered.
“Then it was not your place to offer information,” Mr. Dodgson assured her. “Captain Arkwright’s death was inevitable, given his state of health.”
“I suppose so,” Jenny said with a sigh. “He was that large that he couldn’t even climb up the stairs, and he had me make up the daybed in the study. He couldn’t hardly breathe, poor soul. He were rough in his tongue, but he give me a shilling now and again, to fetch a bottle from the local down the alley.”
“Jenny! You know what Dr. Doyle said—”
“But it was the Captain asked,” Jenny retorted.
Mr. Dodgson digested what he had learned. Then he said, “Miss Bedelia, would you show me into Captain Arkwright’s study once more? There is something I must see.”
“It’s not locked,” Bedelia said with a wave of her hand. “Jenny will let you in.”
“Are you going to change your dress, Miss Bedelia?” Jenny asked.
Bedelia
shook her head. “No, I am not. I do not like being told what to do. Papa is dead, and Emma is dead, and I will not have Amelia telling me how to go on in Society. She knows nothing about it. She has only lived here in Southsea, and Papa wouldn’t let anyone come calling anyway. I shall go to London, and no one will ever tell me what to do again!”
She swept out of the room, her bustle wagging behind her. Mr. Dodgson nodded to himself. “She is all grown up,” he said aloud, sadly.
“And a handful she’ll be to whoever gets her,” Jenny commented as she let the scholar back into the study. Here, also, the debris had been cleared, but there were still indications of the previous day’s destruction. The drawers had been fitted back into the elaborately carved desk, and some of the papers had been swept into a tidy pile, but there were shards of pottery on the carpet where some brutal foot had trampled them in.
Mr. Dodgson stooped to examine the fireplace. The coals of the Captain’s last fire had been cleared away, but a few small indications of that fire still remained. Mr. Dodgson unhooked the poker from its place in the brass vase and stirred the ashes. A sliver of charred wood fell from the grate onto the ashes.
Mr. Dodgson looked about him and found a sheet of paper left on the smaller of the two desks. Very carefully, he slid it under the sliver, folded the trophy into it, and slid the packet into his pocket.
Mr. Dodgson sat in the chair behind the desk and considered the room from the point of view of its late owner. He carefully ran his hands over the desktop, then along the edge of the front panel. He examined the drawers, which had been replaced in their proper slots, pulling each one out very carefully. Suddenly he smiled in satisfaction. There was a barely heard snick! as a tiny catch gave way, and a hidden drawer slid open, to reveal a small colored painting on ivory and a packet of yellowing papers, tied in official-looking red ribbon.
Mr. Dodgson stared at the portrait for a few minutes, then carefully wrapped it in his pocket handkerchief and placed it in the breast pocket of his coat. Then he carefully opened the papers and scanned them carefully, peering at the straggling handwriting. Finally, he placed the papers in his pocket with the portrait and leaned back in the chair, still gazing at the vases.
“Poor thing,” he said aloud. “One wonders what is the right thing to do.” He stared at the two hideous brass vases, and wondered if Captain Arkwright’s spirit still lingered in Treasure House.
He was suddenly aware of another presence in the study. Miss Bedelia had entered while he was engrossed in his task. She now stood by the fireplace, her hand on the mantelpiece.
“Mr. Dodgson,” she said in a brittle, sharp voice, very different from her former girlish tone. “Have you been in contact with Papa’s spirit? Are you a medium?”
“I cannot say whether your late father’s spirit or soul, if you like, has spoken to me. I have used logic and reason to place myself in his shoes, as it were.”
Bedelia moved around the room, her hand hidden in the folds of the dress. “Have you found the treasure, then? Where is it?”
“I have found something,” Mr. Dodgson said carefully. “Whether it is a treasure depends on one’s point of view.”
By this time Bedelia was next to the desk. “You found what Papa kept hidden, didn’t you.” It was a statement, not a question.
Mr. Dodgson looked at her. Bedelia was clutching something in her fist. She edged around the heavy chair, as he rose suddenly and gripped her by the wrist, forcing her to drop the object she had been clutching so tightly.
The sound of wheels on the pavement outside the house alerted them to the arrival of the carriages.
“I believe the funeral party is returning,” Mr. Dodgson said calmly. “Your father’s will must be read before we can proceed any further.”
Bedelia said nothing. Her face contorted in an expression of frustration that passed so quickly that Mr. Dodgson could not be sure that it was ever there at all. Then she curtseyed and left Mr. Dodgson to add the piece of wood she had been holding to his collection of oddities, while she took on the duties of chatelaine and greeted the returning guests.
CHAPTER 26
The funeral party had indeed returned to Treasure House. Bedelia stood in the hall, while Amelia was escorted into the sitting room by Inspector O’Ferrall and Captain Jack Cavanaugh. The wizened little solicitor Mr. Simms and his imposing wife followed, with Dr. Doyle close behind.
The lanky figure of Mr. Monks loomed over the party like a bird of ill-omen, while Major and Mrs. Hackaby, General and Mrs. Drayson, Admiral and Mrs. Groves, and the Rajah and his imposing Vizier looked about them, as if they were not sure where to go or what to do, but could not remain in the drizzle outside with the dockside crowd, the assorted uniformed constables and Mrs. Pilkey, and the representatives of the press.
Bedelia took charge. “Jenny,” she ordered grandly, “show our guests into the dining room. We have set out a cold collation.”
Accordingly, the army, the navy, and the colonials followed Jenny down the hall to the dining room, a small and gloomy aperture between the study and the conservatory, mostly taken up by a large mahogany table and six matching chairs. Jenny had labored mightily to produce something worthy of the occasion, but her culinary talents ran more to apple pie than to funeral baked-meats, and the result was an indifferent assortment of cold ham and leftover roast beef, white bread and brown, and a platter of scones, slightly burned.
Touie and the other ladies looked this over and sighed. “Mrs. Cavanaugh would have done better,” Mrs. Drayson admitted, rejecting the scones on sight. “A dreadful woman she might have been, but she could manage a household. Whatever will poor Miss Amelia do without her?”
Jahal and Ashok Ram shuddered at the sight of both beef and ham, and followed Jenny back to the sitting room.
Dr. Doyle went in search of Mr. Dodgson. He found him sitting in Captain Arkwright’s chair, staring at the fireplace. “Well?” Dr. Doyle asked eagerly. “Has the spirit of the Captain spoken?”
“Quite possibly,” Mr. Dodgson said slowly. “Not, I am afraid, in the melodramatic way of the practitioners of Spiritualism, with theatrical effects, ectoplasm, or such egregious show, but in the mind.” He tapped his temple. “I applied the rules of logic. When one has eliminated that which is impossible, what remains, however improbable, must be the truth. It is then the business of the police to prove the improbable. In this case, however”—he sighed deeply—“there are certain currents in the human heart that an old bachelor like myself cannot fathom. The spirit of Captain Jethro Arkwright is a troubled one, Dr. Doyle. What I am about to reveal will not be pleasant.”
“Perhaps the Captain’s will will make things clearer,” Dr. Doyle said. “Miss Arkwright’s financial position is such that Mr. Simms has decided to read it here and now, instead of at his offices.”
“Indeed,” Mr. Dodgson remarked. “But recall, sir, the footsteps on the carpet in the hall.”
Dr. Doyle frowned. “But there were no signs of footsteps on the carpet.”
“Precisely what was so interesting,” Mr. Dodgson said, as he joined the group in the sitting room.
Mr. Simms cleared his throat. “Ahem! May I have your attention, please?”
Bedelia peeked in at the sitting room door. “Is Papa’s will going to be read?” she asked.
Mr. Simms gave her the look reserved for bumptious clerks and similar rude young persons who interrupted their elders. “It is customary for the will of the deceased to be read as soon after the funeral as possible. As many of the beneficiaries are present, and some may have to remove themselves from Portsmouth on official business shortly, I have taken the opportunity to bring the document with me.” He looked about him. “I should like to be able to sit down,” he said. “However, I understand that the Captain’s study is not available for use, and the dining room is currently being taken up by the collation. Therefore, I will proceed here.”
Admiral Groves stepped forward. “Miss Arkwright,” he pronounced
. “I must take my leave of you now. I sympathize with you on the death of your father—”
“Please, sir, you may not leave,” Mr. Simms interrupted him. “You are mentioned in Captain Arkwright’s will.”
“What?” Admiral Groves turned red with embarrassment and mortification. “That is quite impossible. I was barely on speaking terms with the man.”
“Nevertheless, you are mentioned in this document.”
Amelia sat upright in her seat of honor on the sofa. “How extraordinary. Papa never mentioned to me—”
“This Will,” Mr. Simms went on, ignoring any further interruptions, “was composed by Captain Arkwright and witnessed by my two clerks on August thirtieth of this year.”
“What!” Bedelia cried out. “A new will? Why should Papa have made out a new will?”
“Apparently, after his treatment by Dr. Doyle in August of this year, Captain Arkwright felt the need to revise certain clauses in his previous will,” Mr. Simms said, with obvious distaste at such slapdash proceedings.
All eyes turned to Dr. Doyle, who returned the look with a pugnacious thrust of his jaw. “I told him that if he did not moderate his diet, his temper, his smoking, or his alcohol intake, I could not be held responsible for the consequences,” Dr. Doyle told Miss Amelia. “After which he called me a quack and threw me out of the house.”
Mr. Simms had seated himself in the kitchen chair that had been placed next to the sofa. Now he removed a folded paper from his inner pocket and unfolded it with much ceremony. “This is the will signed by Captain Jethro Arkwright on August thirtieth of this year,” he began. “He sent for me to come here while you, Miss Arkwright, were away from the house with Mrs. Cavanaugh, since he was unable to move from the house to come to my offices.”
“And just what are the terms of this new will?” Amelia asked sharply.
Mr. Simms unfolded the document. “‘Being of sound mind—’”
“Hah!” Someone in the back of the room let out a squawk of laughter.
Mr. Simms glared at the assemblage. “I shall omit the excess verbiage and continue. ‘Being of sound mind, although my doctor has just informed me that my body is giving out on me, I hereby declare this my final will and testament, all other wills being made void.
The Problem of the Spiteful Spiritualist Page 28