Up from the Grave

by Marilyn Leach

  Loren and Lillie joined Berdie and Hugh in the quick walk to Wilkie Gordon’s cottage.

  When they neared the terraced home, Berdie saw Albert Goodnight on the pavement. In uniform. He was entertaining Milton Butz with tales of his exploits and capture in the recent case.

  “Hello Albert,” Loren called to the constable.

  “Afternoon all.”

  “Constable,” Hugh addressed, “are you joining us inside?”

  “In due time.”

  “He’ll put me off my food,” Berdie whispered to her husband.

  “Berdie.” Hugh scolded in a quiet manner.

  Milton ran ahead to open the door and escorted Berdie, Hugh, Loren, and Lillie inside to the sitting room.

  Wilkie Gordon, Jeff Lawler, and Edsel Butz stood from the chairs where they were seated, a simple courtesy for female guests entering a room.

  “Welcome,” Wilkie greeted. Baby Dotty Butz cooed in his arms.

  “Hello,” Jeffry Lawler lifted a glass in Berdie’s direction.

  “The reverend’s come and all,” Edsel Butz trumpeted towards the kitchen door.

  “We’re delighted to be here.” Hugh offered a gracious grin.

  “Please, sit down,” Berdie consented.

  “Milty,” Edsel directed, “take Mrs. Elliott’s meat pie to the kitchen. And, Lucy love, please move.”

  While Milton took the pie, well made-up teenager, Lucy, blinked her heavily mascaraed lashes and continued her conversation on a mobile, an iPod ear bud firmly entrenched in the other orifice. How she heard anything Berdie couldn’t reckon. But the teen removed herself from the sofa to the bottom step of the stairway where Martha Butz sat reading a book.

  “Thank you,” Berdie offered, but it was barely heard over Lucy and Martha’s discussion about who was taking too much room on the stairwell and who ought to move or stay.

  “Ivy’s in the kitchen preparing the meal,” Wilkie offered as Berdie and Hugh sat on the emptied spot.

  “And Cherry’s stuck in as well,” Jeff amended.

  Loren and Lillie seated themselves on two small dining chairs pulled near the sofa.

  “Family life,” Lillie commented quietly to Loren who smiled.

  Four-year-old Duncan sat on the floor, a large basket of colorful eggs and Easter sweeties beside him. With sticky cream all about his mouth, and presumably his hands, Fritz licked the child’s fingers rapidly and made him giggle.

  Lila Butz, in a pink dress, looked a bit of an Easter egg as she entered the sitting room from the kitchen, Milton behind her. She held a tray of glasses filled with fizzy water.

  “Mum says to quiet down, Dad,” she said softly to Edsel. She mutely distributed the liquid refreshment all round. “Mum and Cherry will be right in.”

  The words no sooner left her mouth than the two jovial women burst through the door.

  “Happy Easter, all.” Ivy’s rotund figure was alive with goodwill, dressed in green polka dots. “Lamb’s in the oven. Who’s the hungry one then?”

  The room erupted with responses from all quarters, and Berdie noticed Hugh’s eyes became especially bright.

  Ivy seated herself in a dining chair while Cherry rested on the arm of Jeff’s armchair. He sweetly put his hand on the knee of his petite wife.

  When it quieted, Milton Butz, seated near Duncan on the floor, raised the question everyone was hoping to have answered at today’s gathering.

  “So, Mrs. Elliott, how did you sort everything, the spider, the bones, and all?”

  “I want to know how you figured out who that little boy was.” Martha came to attention and put her book down.

  “Yeah, and all from bones.” Milton glowed.

  “That’s really Doctor Meredith’s expertise.” Berdie glanced at Loren.

  “I don’t want to bore everyone with endless dull details.” Loren tipped his head. “And, really, we want to hear about Mrs. Elliott’s exploits.”

  “Well,” Berdie began, “the information that Dr. Meredith uncovered was invaluable, the lodged shard of glass was absolutely key. Very rare glass, and to be found in a collection at the Preswood home, was too much of a coincidence.”

  “But that didn’t implicate the Preswoods,” Lila reasoned.

  “No, you’re right, Lila, but it was a shadow over the entire household. Bampkingswith Hall became a suspected ‘where’ in the child’s death.”

  “Do you know how he died?” Cherry asked.

  “The how.” Berdie took a deep breath. “I had bits and pieces, but it was my conversation with Mrs. Santolio that was of greatest help.”

  “She’s a fake.” Lucy deposited her mobile in a convenient pocket. “All posh, but she was a maid.”

  “No, she’s not fake,” Lillie corrected. “She really did marry a count and she really is a contessa.

  “Her station in life changed, Lucy,” Ivy explained. “For the better. Only in Italy.”

  “There was something in the paper about that.” Wilkie recalled. “Young Dave Exton interviewed her just a few days ago. As a youth, she was in service at Swithy Hall, but I don’t recall her.”

  “Nobody did,” Edsel agreed.

  “Not quite true, Edsel,” Berdie exacted. “The contessa arrived, a paying guest, at Swithy Lodge. Robin, Evergreen Pitts, settled the contessa into the lodge the evening we were there for dinner.”

  “Cauliflower soup.” Lillie wrinkled her nose.

  “The young woman recognized the contessa from a dated photo of the twins. It was taken at Swithy Hall before Robin, Evergreen, entered the household.”

  “The snap of the two three-year-olds was Rosalie and the real Robin,” Lillie informed.

  “Thus the spider,” Lila declared.

  “Well sorted, Lila,” Berdie praised.

  “What did the contessa tell you that helped?” Edsel brought his fizzy water to his lips.

  “She informed me that when Rose and the girls came to Swithy Hall, Mr. John Darbyshire her husband, was with them. Mind you, they were there for only three days in full. John Darbyshire was, by all accounts, a man in hiding. He was given to drink, not violent, but none settled either.”

  “Colonel Preswood wouldn’t let him in the house.” Wilkie scowled.

  “The colonel wasn’t there, nor Mrs. Preswood.” Berdie went on. “I genuinely believe the child’s death may have been an accident.”

  “How’s that?” Cherry asked.

  “John Darbyshire was a dandy, not a killer. However, neglect entered in. Full of drink and rowing with his wife, he knocked into the child and sent the small boy tumbling. The lad hit the rare glass that crashed to the marble floor below where he landed.”

  “He would have died instantly,” Loren assured. “Mrs. Elliott’s scenario fits with forensic evidence.”

  “Poor lad.” Ivy ran her hand along the edge of her pinny.

  “If it was an accident, why not bury the child properly?” Jeff had fire in his voice.

  “Darbyshire was on the run.” Hugh spoke up. “He couldn’t chance the questions that would arise at such a death, the publicity, or the law getting involved. What we gather, goons from defrauded enterprises in Venezuela were hunting him.”

  “Still,” Jeff said, “he was a coward.”

  “When Mrs. Santolio told me that Darbyshire scrambled to London the very day the rare glass was discovered missing, well…”

  “Shameful.” Wilkie gently rocked the dozing Dotty.

  “Darbyshire hastily buried his son, Rosalie’s twin, Robert, the night before he fled to London. He planted a Lenten rose at the grave.” Berdie raised her eyebrows. “A floral memorial and criminal neglect. Strange bedfellows, but there it is.”

  “He planted the Lenten rose, the one we identified?” Milton’s eyes were wide.

  “As attested to by John Darbyshire’s brother.”

  “How could he not be seen?” Cherry leaned against her husband’s shoulder.

  “Someone did, actually.” Berdie nodded. “He was s
een in the woods that night, but not entirely recognized.”

  Berdie glanced quickly at Hugh who went coy.

  “The account given was that Darbyshire carried a spade and wore the hat identified with another person, an estate worker, to throw off his own identity.”

  Wilkie’s face became a light-turned-on. “That scoundrel!”

  “Scoundrel,” Duncan echoed Wilkie’s words in his cherub voice.

  As several chuckled, Duncan climbed into Milton’s lap and fingered the colorful eggs in the basket. Fritz lay next to the boys, but kept astute for possible edible morsels.

  “So Rosalie’s twin was really a little boy.” Martha cocked her head. “That’s weird. I mean wouldn’t someone notice when boy, Robin, was suddenly a little girl?”

  “Apart from mom and dad, no,” Berdie answered. “The Preswoods knew only that Rose had twins, born in Venezuela.”

  “Mrs. Santolio, as the domestic, had to see the twins. And she didn’t know?” Loren’s tone was skeptical.

  “She was a kitchen maid. She never changed nappies or had a great deal of contact, and children that young aren’t immediately recognizable as male or female.”

  Lucy snapped her fingers. “Robin tried to kill the contessa for no good reason. Mrs. Santolio didn’t know that Robin wasn’t Robin.”

  “Hello,” Lila responded loudly, “I already said that.”

  “Well, I didn’t hear you,” Lucy protested.

  “Well, you wouldn’t.”

  “Girls, we’re with guests, mind,” Edsel corrected his daughters.

  Cherry tapped her finger on her knee. “So Rose Darbyshire replaced, if you can use that word, boy Robin with girl Robin to protect her husband. Yeah?”

  “Yes.” Berdie put forth what she had placed-like-a-puzzle together. “We must assume that in trying to find enough physical resemblance to Rosalie, there were no boys so she chose a girl. Hugh actually made a critical discovery in all this, too.”

  “Yes,” Hugh sighed. “Though not until late in the game. Christening certificates: Robin’s had been altered. Not apparent at first, but close examination showed that an A had been added to Robert, so it became Roberta. The same with Daniel, which became Daniela. I dare say Rose Darbyshire altered the original.”

  “So, where did the pretend Robin come from?” Milty looked a bit confused.

  “Ah, well,” Berdie tipped her head toward her friend, “Lillie helped there.”

  “Rather inadvertently I’m afraid.” Lillie smiled.

  “But Lillie’s mention of the village of St. Erts created a thread.”

  Now everyone in the room looked a bit confused as they searched out Berdie’s face.

  “Well, it was after I, well we, took a trip to London to learn more about a previous spider death. That’s where we learned of Wanda Pitts. Her demise was done much in the same way as the attempt on Mrs. Santolio’s life.”

  “She’s Robin’s, Evergreen’s, birth mother.” Lillie sounded somewhat precocious as she filled in the details.

  “It took some difficult work by a professional friend, Mr. Beaton, to uncover it all. Mrs. Pitts, unable to keep her own at the best of times, gave up her child to an institution, St. Erts Home for Children in London.”

  “So Rose Darbyshire adopted Evergreen Pitts.” Ivy stated the next step of deduction.

  “Indeed.” Berdie folded her hands in her lap. “Then, when Evergreen reached the age of eighteen, Wanda made contact with the girl, as was a provision of the home’s adoption plan. When Mrs. Pitts found out her daughter had been taken into the wealthy Preswood family, she threatened to reveal all unless Evergreen paid her large sums of money.”

  “Blackmail.” Jeff furrowed his brows.

  “Her mother did that?” Martha sounded horrified.

  “When everyone thought Robin was going through teenage angst about being a twin; changing her eye color, hair, trendy style, even moving away to a new school, it was instead her reaction to a new identity. Lucy and Lila helped me to glimpse that.”

  “Get over, Mrs. Elliott.” Lucy laughed.

  “Lucy,” Ivy corrected then looked at Berdie. “How did my girls possibly do that?”

  “Girls Hockey uniforms,” Berdie replied.

  “The day we went to Ivy’s for a meeting.” Lillie raised her index and third finger. “Two very different young ladies, albeit sisters, dressed in the same clothing, I remember that.”

  “I certainly won’t forget it soon either.” Lila pursed her lips. “I hate hockey.”

  “Yeah, well I’m still changing nappies.” Lucy wrinkled her nose.

  “Girls, enough.” Ivy squalled like a North Sea gull, then quietly turned to Berdie. “Go on Mrs. Elliott, please.”

  “When the girls were in the same uniform, their differences, though easily discerned, became far more revealed. In Evergreen’s case, creating differences distracted from the whole idea of similarities, making it more plausible for her to carry on as Robin Darbyshire.”

  “Well, I thought her black hair looked a bit naff,” Cherry said.

  “Naff, perhaps, and rather desperate.” Loren put his arm on the back of Lillie’s chair. “Eventually, Evergreen had to do-in Wanda Pitts to maintain her established Preswood identity and all it held for her.”

  “Money.” Jeff shook his head.

  “Charles was an attempt to marry money, too, a backup plan to move into an entirely new identity: Mrs. Roberta Swindon-Pierce.” Hugh ran his finger over his collar.

  Ivy shifted her weight in the chair. “Money or not, I can imagine the poor bloke’s shattered.”

  Little Dotty, still in Wilkie’s arms, made a cooing sound while drifting in and out of dreamland.

  “I have to ask you, Mrs. Elliott.” Wilkie spoke softly. “What is it about orange sherbet that sets you going?”

  Lillie had a good laugh.

  “Ah you, Wilkie, put the final puzzle piece in place for me. Orange. More specifically, chocolate truffles infused with orange blossom water.”

  “Those from the French place in Timsley?” Ivy ran her tongue over her lips. “They’re so moorish. Edsel brought some home. They lasted about three minutes.”

  Milton thrust his thumb towards Edsel. “Dad ate all of them.”

  “No, sir, you did,” Martha interjected.

  “Put a sock in,” Edsel warned his twins. “Let Mrs. Elliott tell us how orange truffles solved everything.”

  “It wasn’t the truffles themselves. It was that Robin, Evergreen, ate them without effect. And that dovetails with John Smith, who is, as we all now know, an alias. He is the uncle to Rosalie Darbyshire. Robert Darbyshire is the dead lad’s namesake.

  The room buzzed.

  “He revealed himself as a Darbyshire kinsman, so he could attend the private family burial of his nephew,” Hugh informed. “I conducted the service. Robert related that he was aware of his nephew’s demise and committal. His long estranged brother, John, called Robert to his death bed in Canada to confess before he died, though not in complete detail.”

  “But what was a problem for Robert.”—Berdie took the lead—“He was asked to pass on John Darbyshire’s legacy to the one remaining Darbyshire twin, a daughter. When he arrived here, presumably on a coach tour, there were two Darbyshire girls. They both held enough resemblance to confuse. He had no idea who was the real niece.”

  “He was trying to find the truth while living a sham.” Lillie raised her brows. “That’s certainly not a combination for success.”

  “I have to put my oar in, Mrs. Elliott.” Jeff was intent. “When Smith, Darbyshire, absently drank from the teacup of another guest one breakfast at the B and B, he became covered in red lumps. An allergic reaction to citrus that vexed his family he said.”

  “Yes,” Cherry agreed. “The poor fellow really suffered. And just from one tiny sip.”

  “I saw him in the Upland Arms car park that same morning. I can attest to the bumps.” Berdie ran her finger across her neck. “Ro
bert Darbyshire sent citrus gifts, some covert, to the Preswoods to see if the spots would reveal themselves on the real Darbyshire daughter. It didn’t work. But it was that morning I saw those lumps that I began to consider the allergic problem in relation to identity. It wasn’t until bumping into Wilkie that I remembered. We saw Robin shortly after she had eaten orange infused chocolate truffles at Le Petit Chaumier, and not a bump in sight.”

  “Oh yes, that night,” Loren said in a low voice.

  Lillie smiled uneasily.

  Berdie gazed at Wilkie. “So then, when you said orange sherbet, it all suddenly fit together.”

  Wilkie grinned. “I wonder if Sherlock Holmes needs another Watson.”

  “There you are, Granddad, you could go into the detecting business.” Cherry giggled.

  “A divine reality,” Berdie remarked, “is that the resolution to the whole mystery was given to us at the burial site, right there in the back garden. She looked to Milton. “Remember the wild geranium?”

  “Herb Robert I think.” Milton’s eyes widened. “Herb Robert!”

  “Forgotten by some, unknown to most, God remembered little Robert with a simple flower where he laid in that cold earth.” Berdie sighed. “And right near was where John Darbyshire planted the Lenten Rose.”

  “An evergreen,” Milton exclaimed with a sense of wonder.

  “Sometimes the things most difficult to see are the things right before us,” Berdie expounded.

  “How tender is our God.” Wilkie rocked little Dotty in his arms.

  A knock came at the door. Fritz burst from his spot and went into a barking frenzy.

  “They’re here.” Ivy jumped from her seat and answered the door.

  It was Mr. Webb and Constable Goodnight, followed by Dave Exton.

  “Please come in.” Ivy, arms waving like Easter bunting in a spring breeze, could barely get the words out for her excitement. “Now, Mr. Webb, explain to all what this is about.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Butz.” The well-dressed gentleman tipped his head. “I won’t keep you from your Easter lunch or rest on ceremony. Constable Goodnight and I are here with the reward I sponsored. It is, as I stated when announced, to go to the individual who was instrumental in bringing down those responsible for Mrs. Santolio’s attempted murder. One in this room will receive five hundred pounds. Would you all be upstanding?”