The expression in her light brown eyes made me think that she detected something of the reason for our errand – she was a perceptive woman, I thought.
“I know you’ve been questioning others,” she said, “but I’m not much good for anything official. I’m not important here, you see.”
Holmes took his seat at one of the desks in the front row. “I know the truth,” he said. “And I want to know why.”
“What do you know?”
“I know that you murdered Cyrus Teed out of jealousy at his preference for Victoria Gratia.”
Several emotions flashed across the girl’s face, and she looked for a few seconds as if she might try to maintain her impervious demeanour. Finally, however, she sat down at her own desk, facing us. I stood next to Holmes, waiting.
“No, Mr. Holmes. That is not the reason why,” she said at last, then went quiet again.
She was admirably composed, though her face had gone pale. She stared down at her fingers and endured Holmes’s purposeful silence. Most people, as I had witnessed over the years, will succumb under this treatment.
“You thought he was coming back, didn’t you?” Holmes said after a while. Clever Holmes, I thought to myself, to offer her an escape, a way to soften murder back into the sepia tone of simply helping a man to the next stage of his divinity.
“No,” she said simply. “I knew him too well to think any of it was true. I’m not one of the deluded ones. Besides, if he was going to come back in resurrected glory, killing him would have been a favour, and I certainly didn’t intend to do him one.”
“Why then?”
“I think I’d better tell you a bit about myself, to explain. I was born in Chicago,” she answered. “My parents were wealthy, and I was educated along with my older brothers. My mother wanted me to marry early, but my father held progressive views.
“When I was sixteen and soon to enter teaching college, my father died. At that time, my mother was content enough to see me continue my education, for she had no sense with money and knew that she could not handle the estate herself, and my brothers had gone off to pursue opportunity in Europe.
“She met Teed; four years ago, she went to one of his gatherings. He would bring a fancy model of the hollow earth and explain how he was creating a new paradise where men and women were equal. My widowed mother, who’d hardly attended school of any kind, had never heard anything like this, and he, of course, understood his audience. She went back a few times, and then she promised my father’s fortune to Teed. In return, he promised her that if she moved to his New Jerusalem, she would find happiness and fulfilment like she had never known.” The girl’s lip curled in disdain.
“Within half a year, she was dead. Alone, without family and friends, her health failed. She wrote to me—” the girl faltered, “wrote to me that the high position promised to her had been denied her and that she had begun to wonder if she had been deceived for her money.”
Lucy’s eyes flashed. “It wasn’t the money, Mr. Holmes. My brothers and I can make our own ways in the world. No, it was the heartbreak. It was knowing that my mother spent her last days feeling forgotten and alone, suspecting that she had been duped.
“She wrote to me toward the end, and I travelled here, but she failed too quickly, and I did not arrive on time. I was angry, but I buried my fury and made myself out to be a new convert. I channelled my grief into sickly-sweet statements of devotion to the Devil and his Unity. I began as the teacher’s assistant. In time, the main position was mine, as you see.
“Teed was fond of me. He said I was clever. I acted as if his every word were heaven to me. I taught Koreshanity as diligently as the truest believer in the world. I waited.
“Becoming a friend of Victoria Gratia’s was the most difficult task. As you see, she is all soft, spoiled ease, and I am all angular rationality. However, I realised quickly that to get to the Founder, I must become her trusted friend.
“She is a stupid woman, and I quickly came to hate her. But I lived by thinking of my mother’s lonely grave. I flattered Victoria Gratia, even told her she was divine, heaven help me. I fetched and carried for her like she was the queen and I a supplicant peasant. Nothing was too small for me to do for her.
“Another sort of person might have suspected me, so fulsome was I in my praises. But she never had any discernment when it came to herself. She accepted everything I did as her right and appeared to think that if I was obsessed with her, such obsession must be deserved. Her extraordinary susceptibility to flattery is what opened the door to Teed for me. Had his right hand been more suspicious, my task would have been more difficult. But he loved the weak and credulous and proud. He loved to surround himself with those he could control, though they didn’t realise he was doing it.
“In time, I had gained enough trust to be allowed to serve the Founder. I did nothing out of the ordinary at first. I was too thrilled at my success and terrified that I would lose it at any moment. Teed was far less gullible than Victoria, but he liked my youth and my smiles.
“Once I had attained his trust, I knew that I must move quickly, for I was afraid that any day Victoria would grow jealous and deny me access to the man. Last month I took a journey north, my pretext being to learn a more scientific way of teaching children. Teed was in favour of this. He wanted the Unity’s children to be far better educated than their Fort Myers counterparts, especially in the sciences.
“That was when I procured the medicine. It was easy enough. I told a doctor I needed a sleeping draught for an ailing parent, and he gave me no more than a glance. I suppose I can thank my small stature and plain appearance for it. I travelled back to the Unity, keeping the weapon, for that is how I thought of it, on my person at all times, waiting for my opportunity.
“That was when serendipity assisted me. Teed’s health began to decline ever more quickly, attributed by most to the fight he had been engaged in two years ago. I had no opinion on whether that was the case, or whether he was simply experiencing the health vagaries of an old man.
“By this time, I had established myself firmly as a devotee of Victoria’s, of the Founder, and the Unity. I convinced her to let me take Koresh his tea, with medications prescribed by our own doctor, one of which was identical in appearance to that which I had procured. The first dose I gave him, three times the normal amount, only made him ill, which actually strengthened the Unity’s anger against those in town, whom they perceived to have put him into such a state. No one suspected anything, not even the doctor. I waited a few days, and it seemed like discovery was around every corner. I could not believe I had both failed and gotten away with an attempt on the Founder’s life. You might think I would have been horrified, but on the contrary, I was determined to carry through what I had begun.
“Teed’s condition improved within five days, and he asked for me. I felt like Ehud of the Bible, Mr. Holmes, except I was armed with a bottle instead of a knife. I brought him his tea, and this time I doubled the dose I had given him before, then left, giving Victoria the excuse that I needed to help one of the children with his studies.
“This time it worked. He died! According to the Unity, the Founder had succumbed to his old injuries after rallying briefly. Of course, many in the Unity were so sure that he would rise imminently that his death did not even much worry them.”
“Why did you stay in town?” Holmes asked, which was the question that had occurred to me as well.
“I packed my things,” she answered. “I intended to go, but I was seized with fear that the cause of his death might be suspected and that I might be connected to it. Perhaps it was a wrong decision, but I chose to stay. Perhaps you now think me even more brazen than before, but I have been in constant worry. My wish was to leave in a month’s time, thinking it would be less suspicious than running off like a terrified criminal.
“I tell you this because I know that you cannot prove anything. The Unity will never allow an outside examination of the corpse, and even if they did, it i
s unlikely such an examination would reveal anything. They have their answer as to why the man died, a very satisfying answer for their purposes. The bottle with sleeping powder I threw away. There is a relief in telling all this, knowing that you cannot do anything about it.” Her voice was strangely flat, without any indication of glee or triumph.
Holmes nodded. “I am satisfied with the conclusion of this mystery, and I thank you for your candour. As you say, nothing will go to official channels. This is not the first time I’ve learned of how a woman killed a despicable man. I feel less satisfaction in the current circumstance, but, as you so intelligently surmise, I cannot prove what I know.
“Still—” and he looked at her for a long moment, “you are young. You will pay for your deed, in mind at least, for a long time. I hope for your sake that revenge was worthwhile. I would advise that you leave this place. If you choose to remain longer, I may still prove what I currently cannot.”
“I will write to my brother that I will be joining him abroad more quickly than I had anticipated. I’ll be gone within a fortnight, as if I had never come here at all.”
As if she had never come at all! The girl had done more to alter the course of the Unity than any other person except Teed himself. This place, I thought, would bear her mark for ever. Holmes rose. The girl didn’t speak again, and I fancied as I took a last look at her that she might already have an inkling of what Holmes had meant when he had said that her act would remain with her. She appeared drawn and tired, far older than her years.
Once outside, Holmes looked at me. “We have our answer, Watson, though it will be no more than that. The prejudice grows against Victoria Gratia now and is so closed to outside influences that I doubt it would be possible to change the minds of the believers with evidence, let alone without it. I am satisfied, but it is purely academic satisfaction, since no earthly good can come of it.”
“I confess, Holmes,” I said as we walked away, “I had hoped the marshal had something to do with it. He’s a very unpleasant man.”
“So he is,” Holmes agreed. “His behaviour during the fight was unconscionable, but that does not make him a murderer.”
“What will become of Victoria Gratia?”
“She is the victim of her own insistence upon divinity. Goodwill hangs by but a thread when one insists on being the light of God. If that light isn’t detected, one is liable to be taken to the edge of town and stoned, or so was the conclusion of many a biblical story.”
Holmes did not seem overly disturbed. I felt a pinprick of compassion for the unfortunate woman, but I could not find it in myself to lament the loss of faith in a divinity who was nothing more than one Annie Grace, enthraller of two men. Perhaps false accusations were simply a manifestation of the scales of justice finding balance for someone who had attempted to set herself up as the force controlling the lives of the people surrounding her.
“What will you tell the Unity?”
“Nothing. The members will not agree to an exhumation, so they will remain solid in their belief that the townsmen murdered their Founder. No, Watson, this was a far from perfect crime, but it will remain a successful one, as I do not have the evidence to press a conviction upon the guilty, regrettable as it is. I cannot claim that I think the man and his manipulations are any great loss to this community, though his end was carried out in a deplorable fashion.”
“I still find it difficult to credit that this thin little girl did it.”
“Murder has no particular appearance,” Holmes retorted, “however much the public may wish otherwise. I have known many a pleasant murderer and many a repugnant law-abiding citizen.”
* * *
We collected our few possessions from Victoria Gratia’s house, glad to find that she was not at home, then proceeded to the home of the farmer, the peculiar man who was neither a member of the Unity nor outside of it. We found him sitting on his porch with his knife and a piece of wood.
“Ready to leave for good, are you?” he asked, observing our bags.
“We are, if you would be so kind as to drive us to Fort Myers,” I answered. Holmes held out a coin, but then shook his head.
“No matter,” he said. “Be happy to take you back to the City of the Unenlightened.”
Once we were settled into the wagon, the man spoke not a word until we arrived in Fort Myers at dusk. Again Holmes tried to offer payment, but again he was refused.
“The City of the Unenlightened,” said my friend, as we made our way to the marshal’s office. “If the Unity is where the enlightened reside, I’m pleased to find myself among the ignorant.”
Holmes had not reacted to the cheerless atmosphere of Founder’s settlement, but now he looked relieved. “Even Marshal Sanchez cannot dent my spirits today, Watson,” he said. “I hope you will join me for a celebratory dinner in the dining carriage of the train later on, for we have concluded another case in my long career, and I should be very pleased by your company.”
“Of course,” I said, as we stepped into the marshal’s office.
“Mr. Holmes, Dr. Watson, good evening,” said the man, not deigning to rise from his seat behind his chipped wooden desk. “I trust you’ve had a satisfactory conclusion to the case.” He smiled smugly.
“We have,” Holmes answered. “In short, you colluded in harassing Cyrus Teed for the sake of Mr. Wilson, who was in love with Victoria Gratia – Annie Grace, as she was previously known. You allowed other men to assault Teed and participated in the assault yourself, and I gather you would have been happy to look the other way on a murder. Murder, though, is not what you are guilty of, but I don’t feel inclined to explain the true course of events. In any case, I have no evidence and therefore nothing else to offer.”
The marshal shrugged dramatically. “Well, it’s too bad, but the Unity people have no interest in cooperating with the local authority, so it was always doubtful whether anything could be done.”
Holmes gave a curt nod and turned. “Come, Watson, we have one more person to see in this town.”
Back in the street, my friend allowed his features to express his true feelings. He was irate. “The impoliteness I could cope with,” he said sharply, “but did you see his face? He was positively disappointed to learn that the attack on Teed did not actually lead to his demise.”
“Strange,” I answered. “He’s less responsible, yet I dislike him far more than the girl who administered the poison.”
“He’s a duplicitous blunt object,” Holmes responded, “proud of his ability to remain in power by taking advantage of the idiosyncrasies of the circumstances here. Lucy is honest, both outwardly and inwardly, about her actions and their motivations. Her straightforwardness is appealing.”
As the sun dipped low in the sky, we walked to the blue house on Main Street, where the reporter, Miss Owens, now resided away from the Unity. She ushered us in and had us sit down in a well-appointed living room. Then she excused herself and disappeared into an adjacent kitchen, only to return shortly thereafter with a tray of coffee cups and a plate of biscuits.
“I have come to give you a report on the investigation,” said Holmes. “I will tell you the truth, though knowing it will provide you with only limited satisfaction, I fear, for there is nothing that can be done about it.”
“Do go on,” she said.
“This is not something that can be printed,” my friend cautioned her, while taking a biscuit. “You will not find substantiation of it, nor would the Unity believe you if you told them.”
“Very well, but do me the credit of believing that I would like the answer all the same. You are not the only one with curiosity, Mr. Holmes.”
I found her as irritating as ever, but I supposed she was right. She had brought the case to my friend’s attention and had a certain entitlement to the truth.
“Teed’s health may have been compromised by the infamous altercation,” Holmes said, “but it is not what killed him.” He then continued to provide the woman with all the
facts as we had ascertained them. While Holmes spoke, Miss Owens began shifting in her chair, unable to conceal her surprise, and by the time he concluded there lay outright shock on her face. She was emblematic at this moment, I thought, of the entire Unity, a community that had taken in a woman who appeared unassuming and sincere in her allegiance, but had in fact been an angel of wrath.
“I would report this!” Miss Owens exclaimed. “I would find a way to tell everyone, but—” She shook her head. “I want Lucy to get away with it. I want her to walk free on behalf of all the widows whose money Teed extracted to pay for his luxuries, all the lives given in service to his messianic insanity, the women he claimed to free, whom he actually enslaved to his will. I will let the story rest, because I’m glad he’s dead.”
Holmes did not betray his opinion of this speech, but he moved to go. “Our business here is concluded, and we will return home. I thank you for bringing an interesting case to my attention, but I doubt we will have occasion to contact one another in the future.”
The woman smiled. “I see that you still resent me for my little trick, Mr. Holmes, but you really must understand my side of things. I was right, after all, about there being foul play.”
“Resentment suggests a level of care that I don’t remotely possess,” said Holmes imperiously.
I smiled to myself. It was rare to see my friend’s politeness slip, but I understood his frustration. The reporter preyed on the unsuspecting for the sake of her craft, leaving in her wake the pain of those who had trusted her. A difficult type to like and an even more difficult type to wish well.
As we were walking towards the train station, I asked, “Did you expect she would take that attitude towards the murder?”
“Yes,” answered Holmes. “Even if she hadn’t, she’d be unable to convince the entire Unity, but I strongly believed she would side with the schoolteacher. Miss Owens is a woman of flexible morals, and since she despised Teed, she saw the act as justified.”
“Flexible morals,” I sniffed. “Flexible to the point of nonexistence. But do you side with Lucy?” I asked, for I had been curious about his opinion for some time.
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