by Van Reid
Beneath her folded hands there appeared a small painted box of about six inches long, by four inches wide, by three inches deep, and the other two men left it to me to slip it gently from beneath her lovely fingers. Upon inspection, a catch was discovered, and with the lid raised, the gems representing the last wealth of the Linnett estate were revealed. a quick scrutiny of the inside of the casket provided no other anomaly, and the only piece of jewelry left with the mortal remains was a small chain that was held between the hands and from which depended a tiny silver cross.
The work had taken the better part of an hour, the final stage of which gave us the labor of no more than ten or twelve minutes. With renewed sorrow for the lovely Eleanor Linnett, we resealed the casket, and Mr. Oakum locked the tomb behind us.
We stepped into the snow outside the Linnett tomb and were very glad to see Mister Walton and Mr. Moss, as if they were come from the land of the living to retrieve us and bring us with them back across the river. They were amazed, but very sober, when we showed to them what we had found.…
Daniel tried not to think about it, but he found the image of Ian Linnett visiting the tomb of his granddaughter difficult to shake. Had he gone there only the once, or had the gems been brought to her, like offerings, as Daniel delivered them to the old man?
What had Ian been thinking? Perhaps it had been a form of penance for his pride and his anger to place the worth of everything he had ever worked for and loved beneath her still hands. Like some last adherent to the customs of ancient civilization, he had sent her on her journey with the fare to take her wherever she might care to be.
Daniel changed trains in Brunswick, and at Rockland he took a steamer to Bucksport, where he picked up a third train after dark. All the while he felt a growing awkwardness about his destination; he knew that there might be little to say to the O’Hearns, that it would be as awkward for them to host a stranger on Christmas Eve, yet his sister had insisted that he go, and here he was, two or three miles outside Bangor and perhaps only three-quarters of an hour from the station at Veazie.
There was a great deal of cheer in the car, people boarding and leaving would wish Merry Christmas to all, and many miles had been taken up with one carol or another or a good tale being told. Daniel found himself easily distracted, however, and he made a game of enumerating the events he had experienced with Miss Burn brake, as if he were recalling the chapter headings of a favorite book.
When he recalled the evening spent with the five elderly sisters, he was reminded of the locked door and of his letter to Mr. Edward Grimb, the ladies’ attorney, and this-very naturally-led to his recalling the letter from Mr. Grimb that lay unopened in his coat pocket. He had received it that day by post but had been so concerned with packing and wrapping presents that he stuffed it in his pocket and promptly forgot about it.
He couldn’t find the letter at first but eventually had the envelope before him. It looked like a typical bit of business, from one lawyer to another, and he wondered that Mr. Grimb might simply request that Mr. Plainway respectfully mind his own business. When he opened the letter, however, he found it of a completely different, if formal and old fashioned, tone.
Dear Mr. Plainway,
I received your query of the 15th and very much esteem the measure of your concern as well as the extent of your discretion. The locked door at the estate in question represents a conundrum for this writer, and if you in your wisdom can comprehend a better plan concerning it, I would be obliged for your instructions.
The deceased, whose daughters now reside at the house, was a man of importance in both the world of trade and politics, but more important, he was a man who doted upon his wife when she was alive and whose grief was plain and painful to his friends when she died.
Two or three years after his wife’s passing, the husband began to spend more time away from home, and the bills that I handled for him ranged between the cities of Bangor, Portland, and Boston. These were mostly hotel accounts, however, and I thought little of them till the man himself had passed away.
When I came to the house upon his death, the man’s personal effects were given over to me till the will was read, and in a cursory tour of the estate, I was puzzled when the sisters told me of the locked door. Having on my person the father’s keys, I inspected the room and was astonished and dismayed by what I found there.
It seems that the father, in the well of his loneliness following the death of his wife, had developed an extraordinary fixation upon a certain actress who was at least fifty years younger than himself and who divided her time between the stages of the aforementioned cities. The room was a shrine to this personage: Her portraits covered the walls, newspapers praising her powers and charms filled several notebooks, and one tabletop was covered with playbills. Wreaths of dried flowers adorned the room, and I was driven into a fit of sneezing by the overpowering perfume that permeated the room’s atmosphere.
You can be sure that when I left the room I locked the door again and that I extended the sisters’ banishment from the chamber while I weighed the situation. It seemed cruel to reveal the secret of their father’s last years to his daughters; they are so devoted to the picture of their parents as singularly constant to one another, which (I repeat) was the case while they both lived.
I considered hiring someone to remove the articles of their father’s obsession, but it would have been difficult to get all five of the sisters out of the house, and in our tightly knit community I feared that word about what had come out of that room would eventually return to these innocent women.
What I did discover, during the weeks while I honestly dithered about the situation, was that the sisters seemed enlivened by the idea of the locked room’s mystery and indeed honored to be guarding their father’s secret, even if they did not know what it was. In short, I decided to leave things as they were, and from the tenor of your letter, I think you will understand this resolution.
I thank you, on behalf of my clients, for your unselfish concern and for the trouble you have already taken in their regard. I am sure I shall hear about your visit the next time I drop by to see them. Again, if you see the opportunity for another solution, please feel free to advise me.
With all due thanks and regard,
Edward Grimb, Esq.
Thoughts of the five sisters made Daniel smile, and the letter itself gave him an unexpected level of contentment, since it presented an excuse to pen Miss Burnbrake. He knew that the mystery of the locked door had been of great interest to her, and he believed in her discretion as much as he wanted a reason to communicate to her. He thought he might begin the letter now, but decided instead that he should be preparing himself for his meeting with the O’Hearns and little Bertram Linnett.
Crossing the river and making the stages through Bangor took less time than he had imagined, and he felt he was mentally scrambling to be ready when the station at the head of the conductor’s litany was Veazie.
The train had been surging through light snow since leaving Bucksport, and as they braked into the Veazie station, Daniel looked out his window to an idealized picture of Christmas Eve as the lights of the buildings glowed through the falling snow and the few vehicles waiting for passengers were decked out in bells and greenery. Daniel caught the glimpse of a tall man and a small boy standing together by a team of horses and a sleigh, and he craned his head to one side to keep them in sight, but the corner of the station fell between them.
“Merry Christmas, sir,” said the conductor when Daniel stepped down from the train. The fellow touched his hat.
“Merry Christmas,” returned Daniel.
“Visiting family?” asked the conductor with unfeigned interest.
Daniel hesitated, then said, “Yes, in a manner of speaking.”
Further good wishes were traded as Daniel gained purchase upon his bags and wandered uncertainly toward the station.
They were there then, the tall man and the boy, watching for someone, and Daniel gav
e a reverse nod that they marked.
“Mr. Plainway?” said the man; he was, as advertised, a large redheaded fellow with a broad, pleasant face. He held his left hand stiffly toward Daniel, and Daniel took it carefully, remembering that the man was still recovering from a terrible bullet wound. “Wyckford O’Hearn,” said the man. Then he directed Daniel’s attention to the wide-eyed brown-haired little boy who stood beneath his protecting arm. “This is Bird, whom I think you have met.”
Daniel stood amazed. Eleanor Linnett’s four-and-a-half-year-old son stretched out his small hand and raised to the lawyer a pair of clear, serious eyes. He had some of the robust carriage of his ne’er-do-well father, Asher, and Daniel could see how the child was recognized as Nell’s son, but he was most struck by how much the boy looked like his uncle; it was as if by some accident of Asher’s, by some act of will on the part of Eleanor, and by the singular grace of God, Jeram Witllum had been given a renewed destiny among them. Daniel was filled with gratitude to see something of that brave young man before him, and as he took the boy’s hand, he lowered his head, ashamed at the tears that coursed down his face.
He had not realized what an odyssey of the heart he had experienced, and if his hopes and fears had not traveled a mythic twenty years, they had ranged through at least as many dangers of the imagination.
Of course, he thought, I’ve thought of him all along as Bertram Linnett when he’s the very Willum that Ian thought might someday make good, though here he is a hundred years before the old man would have predicted it. “Bird,” he said quietly. The little boy looked concerned for the distress in Daniel’s face, and the man braved a smile through his tears. If Nell did not know why she did what she did, he thought, perhaps God Himself has given her a reason.
Daniel took a breath and lifted his head. “I am so glad that you have such a wonderful family now,” he said to the little boy, and to Wyck he said, “I am so grateful.”
63. Hat in the Ring
“Where’d you get a fine hat like that, Henry?” wondered Minnie Weitenkarl. She folded her round forearms on the bar and fixed an all-encompassing smile on Henry Hamblin; Minnie was pleasant to all the young men who patronized the Weary Sailor.
Henry lowered the tankard from his lips and brushed the foam away with the back of his hand. “It’s my good-luck hat, dear,” he said. He had garnered many a compliment since trading Doc Brine a dozen oranges for the homburg.
One wouldn’t have guessed that since 1851 there was a standing law against the sale and consumption of liquor in the state of Maine. The tavern at the sign of the Weary Sailor was fit to burst this Christmas Eve, and Henry had to drink standing up. Behind him a dozen men were singing “Silent Night” at the top of their lungs and giving a fair imitation of a cat fight.
“You look like someone important,” admitted Minnie through the noise. Leaning against the counter on her forearms, the cut of her holiday blouse was conducive to some interested stares, and she leveled her own bright blue eyes on several men at the bar, each of whom suddenly found great fascination in Henry’s new hat.
“Good luck, is it, boy?” said one old salt.
“I wore it tonight,” informed Henry, “and my girl said she’d marry me.”
The level of noise in the immediate vicinity rose at this news, and two or three patrons who actually knew the young lady in question were quick to sing her praises. Minnie, rather paradoxically, made this the occasion to call Henry up to the bar and give him a large kiss. One grizzled old man stood from his stool and maintained that he had been engaged several times that day himself, whereupon Minnie threw a wet bar cloth at him and he fell over.
Another tankard was thrust into Henry’s grasp, and his health was cheered. a good portion of the tavern’s population had no idea what this new celebration meant, but they joined in with a roar. The singers had stumbled over the third verse of their song, so they returned to the first, declaring that “all is calm, all is bright,” in the midst of this uproar.
“I thought I’d see Tommy in here tonight,” said Henry to Minnie.
The woman pointed to the back of the room, where several backs were huddled over a card table. “I hope his luck has changed or he’s learned something about the game,” she said.
Henry had a bad feeling about this, and with a nod, he left the barside to thread his way through the tables. His cousin Tommy had been seen more and more at the cards these days, and he’d already forfeited wages he had yet to earn to Colin Kinross, who was the sharp here at the Weary Sailor.
Colin was sharp in every sense of the word: the way he dressed, the way he walked, the way he looked at you over his cigar. He was a good-looking man, tall and strongly built, but not particularly likable. He concentrated his powers and his energies on making money without the appearance of spending either his powers or his energies. He was good at his chosen profession-that is, gambling-like a magician really, and not the least of his talents was the ability to draw victims into his range without once pretending to be anything but what he was. Henry was a little afraid of him.
Tommy was afraid of Colin as well, the way a moth fears the flame, and Henry could almost hear his cousin’s heart beating as he stepped up behind him. Two or three pairs of eyes recognized Henry, but Colin never looked up.
“How long do you intend to work over at the rope factory?” Colin was saying evenly.
“I’ve got a good position there, Colin,” Tommy replied, his voice shaking. “I’d be a fool to leave now, when I’m so close to running the floor.”
Henry felt his stomach fall to hear Tommy lie. There was a large pot in the center of the table, and at least one player’s hand was already folded.
“You’d be foolish,” agreed Colin, “considering you owe me the next three months of your life.”
“You’ve been real understanding, Colin.”
Kinross was unimpressed with the praise. “It’s funny, though, Tommy,” he drawled, “Eddy here thought he saw you over to Sawtooth Sally’s just this afternoon. Didn’t you, Eddy?”
Eddy shrugged.
“They must close the rope factory on Christmas Eve, I guess,” said Colin. “Is that what they do, Tommy?”
“Some of us got some time off,” Tommy began. “For the holiday, you. know.”
“They really like you up there,” said Colin.
Everyone within hearing knew what was up and where it was going. Henry wondered if he could pull Tommy away from the table before Colin lived up to his reputation for deadly speed with a knife. He’d seen a man who had purportedly been cut by Colin Kinross, and the recollection froze in Henry’s blood.
“I had the impression,” came Kinross’s quiet, smooth tone, “where the rope trade is slow in winter, that maybe you’d been let go.”
“I’ll get the job back in the spring,” said Tommy, barely loud enough to be heard.
“And here you are trying to earn your debt back from me, and losing to boot.”
“What’s he owe?” said Henry. His head was reeling with the two beers he had thrown down so quickly.
“Sixty-seven dollars and thirty-five cents,” said Colin Kinross as if he had a ledger opened before him. The man did not look up from the table and otherwise did not acknowledge Henry’s presence.
“What are you doing, Tommy?” said Henry.
Tommy looked as if he was most distressed to have his cousin there to see his predicament. “It’s all right, Henry,” he said, hardly daring to look away from Colin.
“I am glad to hear you say it,” said Kinross, and there was such a note of hazard in the man’s voice that talk at several tables nearby came to a halt.
“Mr. Kinross,” said Henry, his normally jovial air shaken by pounding nerves, “I’ll stand for Tommy on this one and promise you’ll get your money, and he won’t be back to the table-”
“Do you have sixty-seven dollars and thirty-five cents?”
Henry didn’t. The most of his money was tied up in capital at the s
tore and he had a wedding to be thinking about and a wife after that. “I don’t,” he admitted.
Colin Kinross raised his head for the first time and locked a pair of dark eyes on Henry. “I’m not sure what you’re promising then.”
Henry tried to speak. a hush spread throughout the tavern like a visible thing, touching one table after another and freezing their inhabitants in attitudes of interest and apprehension. Henry’s voice was working, but his mind wasn’t providing the necessary words.
“It’s all right, Henry,” said Tommy again, but with the voice that a man might use to comfort his loved ones on his way to the gallows.
“There must be a way of making this right, Mr. Kinross.”
“Do you think?”
Henry nodded. It was simply a test of how badly Kinross wanted to punish Tommy.
“What day is it?” said Kinross to Eddy, who sat to his immediate right.
“It’s Christmas Eve, Colin,” said Eddy. He was considering the cards in his hand.
Tommy flinched as Kinross’s arms came up from the table, but the man was only putting his hand behind his head in an attitude of repose. He leaned back in his chair and looked at Henry carefully for the first time. “Where’d you get that hat?” he asked.
Henry felt more afraid than ever to have the man’s attention turned solely on him. “Took it in trade,” he said.
“That’s a nice hat,” said Kinross. “Isn’t that a nice hat, Eddy?”
Eddy thought it was a nice hat.
“It seems to me that Tommy here doesn’t belong at the table,” pronounced Kinross. “Wouldn’t you say, sir?”
Henry nodded, but barely.
“Tommy?”
“Yes, Colin?”
“Wouldn’t you say?”
“Yeah, Colin, I’m not good at this.”
“I tell you what, seeing as this is Christmas Eve, and I do one good deed on Christmas Eve, I’m going to let Tommy go clear on the whole deal.”