Dead and Breakfast

by David Crossman

  Joanna Capshaw was next; Caitlin wished she’d had time to warn her. Then Amber, her robe neatly tied, but her hair a wiry nest and her eyelids heavy with slumber. Heather and Delilah stumbled out next in various stages of assembly, giggling as they tripped over one another. “Where’s the fire?” Heather asked when she saw Piper, as he handed Miss Tichyara her dark glasses.

  “I don’t know, but we’d best get out as quick as we can: the nearest door is at the bottom of the tower.” He guided Miss Tichyara toward the stairs, capturing Mrs. Capshaw in his embrace as he passed her. “Come along, Mrs. C. You girls, come on . . . it’s probably a false alarm, but better safe than sorry. Come on.” He gestured with his head, since both his arms were occupied, and they followed obediently.

  “Where are the Wagners?” said Heather, as they passed the closet door. “Do you think they hear the alarm?”

  Piper stopped in his tracks and deliberated quickly. “Can you take Miss Tichyara downstairs?” he asked, handing the blind girl’s arm to Delilah. “I’ll go knock on some doors. Which one is Mrs. Griffeth’s?”

  Mrs. Capshaw pointed down the hall. “There.”

  “Okay.” Piper ran off on his errand of mercy. “You go on ahead; we’ll be right behind you.”

  Caitlin detected a nobility in the selflessness of his spirit as he admonished the women to be careful descending the stairs. The first door he came to was the Wagner’s which, as it had with Miss Tichyara’s, opened just as he reached for it.

  Mr. Wagner, who apparently eschewed the formality of pajamas, was first into the hall. He wore only a sleeveless T-shirt and brightly colored flannel shorts. He was wrestling to disentangle his glasses from his hair. “What’s going on, Piper? Is there a fire? Where is everyone?”

  “I sent the women downstairs. They’re safe. Where’s the Mrs.?”

  “I don’t know,” Wagner replied, punching his glasses into place on the bridge of his nose. “She wasn’t there when I woke up. Damn cigarettes, I bet.”

  “Cigarettes?”

  “She sneaks ‘em. Ten-to-one that’s where she is, out on the balcony, smoking. Probably what set the alarm off in the first place. Haven’t seen any sign of a fire, have you?”

  “Well, no . . . ”

  “Smell any smoke?”

  Piper sniffed the air. “No.”

  Wagner marched purposefully toward the opposite end of the hall, his skinny white legs flopping back and forth in his brightly colored shorts like undersized clappers in psychedelic bells. He disappeared through the balcony door and, seconds later, returned with his better half firmly in hand. “Those things will be the death of you yet,” he scolded, his anger edged with genuine concern. “Don’t you hear that alarm? You get downstairs now. Piper and I are going to make sure everyone else is okay.”

  “I can handle it, Mr. Wagner. You take her down.”

  “But . . . ”

  “Make sure she doesn’t fall,” Piper interrupted. “If there’s a fire, we could lose the lights at any minute. You don’t want her to fall and break her neck, do you?”

  “Well, if you’re sure . . . ” said Wagner doubtfully.

  “There’s only Mrs. Griffeth and Farthing left, though how they’re sleeping through this racket I can’t imagine. You go on ahead.”

  ‘Griffeth and Farthing’, Caitlin thought. What about her? Did Piper know she wasn’t in her room?

  As if in answer to the unspoken question, Piper said, “see if Caitlin’s down with Jill, once your wife is safe. Her door’s open, so she must’ve gone somewhere. Then see if you can get this damned alarm turned off.” One last ‘damn’ from tomorrow’s ration. “It’s giving me a headache.”

  Caitlin watched from her hiding place as the Wagners shuffled past. Mrs. Wagner, in sharp contrast to her husband, was wide-eyed and alert, clearly permitting her husband’s circumstantial ascendency over her rather than submitting to it as a matter of course. She wore pajamas, but a robe and slippers as well. How long had she been waiting for her husband to go to sleep before she could sneak her cigarette? Is that all she’d been doing?

  Piper rapped sharply on Mrs. Griffeth’s door.

  “Yes. Yes,” came the reply, flustered but musical. “Who is it?”

  “It’s Ambrose Piper, Frances. Can’t you hear the alarm?”

  Mrs. Griffeth opened the door. She was brushing her hair. “Of course I hear it, Mr. Piper. You think I’m deaf?”

  “Well, you’d better get a move on if you don’t want to be barbecued.”

  “I suppose you’d have me run outside half naked,” Griffeth remonstrated. “I have to pack my things yet. Why don’t you go rescue everyone else?”

  “You’re the last, Mrs. Griffeth. Except for Farthing. And if you don’t get moving this instant, I’ll carry you out. And don’t think I won’t.”

  “You wouldn’t!” Mrs. Griffeth cried. Something in his eyes, however, convinced her it was not an empty threat. “What about my things?”

  “To hell with ‘em,” Piper snapped, moving as if he’d throw her over his shoulder. It was all Caitlin could do to keep from laughing out loud.

  Mrs. Griffeth relented. “I’ll go. I’ll go,” she said, and did so, mumbling to herself as she passed Caitlin’s place of concealment.

  Piper was already at Farthing’s door. “Farthing!” he called.

  There was no answer. He rapped loudly on the door. “Farthing!”

  Still nothing. He tried the latch and the door swung open. He stepped into the room and, for no more than two seconds, was out of sight, then he reemerged into the hall. Without hesitation, he strode quickly back to Miss Tichyara’s room, the door of which stood open. He went in.

  Chapter Nineteen–Don’t Believe Your Eyes

  Caitlin could hear the faint thumps and bangs of drawers being opened and closed. These were followed by a brief silence, then the door opened. Piper poked his head out, and after a brief survey of the hallway, stepped out tucking something into the pocket of his robe.

  “Now what are you up to, Mr. Piper?” Caitlin wondered under her breath.

  Piper continued down the stairs, leaving Caitlin alone in the dark to consider the evidence. Amber, Miss Tichyara, Mr. Piper, Heather and Delilah, and Mr. Wagner had been asleep, that left Mrs. Wagner, who may or may not have been sneaking cigarettes on the balcony, Mr. Farthing, who should have been in his room convalescing, Mrs. Griffeth (mightn’t there be more to her than met the eye?), and most troubling of all, Joanna Capshaw herself. She had come from her room fully dressed. Whatever she’d been doing, she hadn’t been sleeping.

  Caitlin was under no illusions about her own gullibility. Could Joanna be fabricating the appearance of madness for reasons not yet apparent?

  Jill’s quick thinking had substantially whittled the list of possible eavesdroppers from ten to four. What could be done to winnow the remaining quartet? And what had Piper removed from Miss Tichyara’s room?

  A light tread on the stairs was followed by the appearance of Jill in the hallway.

  “Well?” she said, opening the closet door.

  Caitlin leaned back on a stack of linen, massaging her temples. “Four possibilities,” she said, reserving, for the moment, her newborn doubts about Joanna Capshaw. She synopsized her observations.

  “My guess is Farthing,” Jill opined, with curious hesitation.

  Caitlin agreed. If anyone seemed equal to such behavior, he was the prime candidate. “You haven’t seen him, have you?”

  “No.”

  “Were could he be?”

  “Piper checked his room, you say?”

  “Mm. Has he been out of his room today?”

  “Yes. He went out earlier to have a cigar, and had lunch with me in the kitchen.”

  “You poor thing!” said Caitlin.

  “Actually, it wasn’t as unpleasant as you might imagine.”

  “Not unpleasant? Are we talking about the same Jeremy Farthing?”

  Jill smiled. “I wondered that mys
elf. He certainly wasn’t the Mr. Farthing we’ve come to know and love. He even had me laughing. Quite a sense of humor. And a storyteller.”

  Caitlin was having difficulty reconciling the image of Farthing as a convivial raconteur with the more indelible impression of the acid tongued individual of her acquaintance. “He didn’t happen to mention an evil twin, did he?”

  They laughed.

  “What made you think of that . . . the fire alarm?”

  “Your mention of Sherlock Holmes. He did something similar in one of the stories. I don’t remember which. He needed to know the hiding place of some important papers, and got the culprit – it was a woman, I think – to reveal their hiding place by making her think the house was on fire. When she went to save them . . . he just watched.

  “The leisure hours of your youth were not misspent,” said Caitlin, throwing an arm around Jill’s shoulder.

  “Well,” said Jill, after a brief lapse, “what now?”

  “I don’t know,” Caitlin replied. She’d been considering the question herself. “I feel like I’m battling shadows. I mean, what if we do find out who was listening on the extension? So what? It’s not such a stretch to imagine that kind of behavior by a couple of incurable busybodies among our little coterie, Mrs. Wagner and Mrs. Griffeth not to mention any names.”

  “Two and three on the short list, in my opinion.”

  Caitlin nodded. “Whoever was listening outside Joanna’s room might have had their curiosity piqued and simply decided to get the rest of the story. Certainly the phone in here’s no secret. The door’s open all day.”

  “But locked at night. I can’t imagine either of those women breaking in like this.”

  Caitlin clicked on the light and, dropping to one knee, examined the door latch. “Nothing’s broken that I can tell.”

  Jill bent for a closer look. “How can you tell if a lock’s been picked?”

  “Darned if I know,” said Caitlin. “You’re sure it was locked?”

  “I know Genevieve always locks the closet when she leaves,” said Jill. “Can I say with absolute certainty that she locked it tonight? No.” She selected a key from among several on the chatelain’s ring in her apron and inserted it in the lock and turned. The mechanism clicked. “It’s not been broken, at any rate.”

  “Small favors,” said Caitlin, rising. She dragged her hand through her hair and sighed deeply. “He playeth upon us as upon a finely tuned fiddle.”

  “Quoting Jeeves, huh?” said Jill. “I wish he was here now.”

  Caitlin clicked off the light, and Jill followed her to the landing. “I still can’t shake the feeling someone’s playing me like a musical instrument. This whole business is ludicrous, when you step back and look at it – bodies floating in the moat and hanging from hooks in the closet, Mr. Farthing’s accident. Murderers roaming the countryside. And every time I’ve been about to wrap my wits around something, at least to the point I can begin to think clearly, it evaporates.”

  “We’ll have to let everyone back in,” said Jill, starting down the stairs.

  “I suppose,” Caitlin agreed, falling in behind. “I’m going to go get Mrs. Griffeth’s picture from the kitchen. Then I’m going to bed.”

  Jill seconded the suggestion.

  In the dining room, dark and quiet but for the gentle bubbling of the aquarium, Caitlin waited and listened as the guests filed in. Most accepted Jill’s apologies for the faulty alarm system with relative equanimity. Caitlin doubted she’d have been as gracious had she been dragged from her warm bed in the middle of the night.

  Mrs. Griffeth seem to have enjoyed a brief adventure. “My word,” she said as she scuffed up the stairs, “To think my husband didn’t come because he was afraid he’d be bored silly! It’s just been one thing after another!”

  “Where are Caitlin and Farthing?” Piper asked, his voice echoing hollowly in the stairwell. “If this had been a real fire, they’d be nothing but the stains that mark the spot where the tragedy happened.”

  “I’ve seen Caitlin. She’s okay. No doubt Mr. Farthing will turn up directly,” said Jill. “Can I get anyone a cup of warm milk, or cocoa?” Her hostesses’ heart was feeling remorse for having inconvenienced her guests, however noble the cause.

  Heather accepted enthusiastically, “Oh, I’d love some hot chocolate!” She folded her arms and patted her shoulders. “It’s cold out there.”

  Delilah opted for one of Jill’s specialties, warm milk with cinnamon and a stick of vanilla.

  Miss Tichyara whispered to Mr. Piper. “That sounds good to Miss Tichyara, too. I don’t care for anything, thanks. Just want to get back to bed.”

  The Wagners and Mrs. Griffeth also declined.

  “Very well. Get some good sleep. I’m really so sorry. I’ll bring the drinks up straightway.”

  The gaggle of guests shuffled up the stairs, barefoot or in slippers, and peeled off, by ones and twos, to their respective rooms. Jill waited at the foot of the stairs until the last latch clicked into place. She flung open the dining room door and, finding Caitlin standing there in the dark, collapsed on her shoulder. “Once word of this gets out, I won’t be able to give rooms away.”

  “Don’t be silly,” said Caitlin, patting her friend on the head. “Your cocoa’s not that bad.”

  A brief duet of laughter diffused the moment’s tension.

  “I could use some help, come to think of it,” she said, taking Caitlin by the arm and tugging her toward the kitchen.

  An antique electric lantern, tucked among the ivy by the back door, provided the only light in the kitchen – window-shaped oblongs of faded yellow that intersected the deep shadows at odd angles.

  Jill removed a copper kettle from its hook over the counter and, in a single fluid motion, placed it on the stove and pressed the peizo-electric starter to ignite the flame. “The cocoa’s in the cabinet by the sink,” she said as she stepped to the refrigerator for the milk.

  In the moment during which the light from the refrigerator washed over the room, Caitlin lifted the cutting board.

  “It’s gone!”

  “It can’t be.” Jill bumped the door shut with her bottom. “I just had some this afternoon.”

  “Had some of what?”

  Jill, suspended midway between the refrigerator and the counter with the milk in her hand. “Hot chocolate,” she said hesitantly. “Isn’t that what we’re talking about?”

  “I’m talking about Mrs. Griffeth’s blankity-blank-blank picture!” cried Caitlin, her frustration bursting to the surface as she slammed the cutting board on its back, revealing nothing.

  “The picture’s gone?” Jill set the milk on the counter and, as if in a trance, came to Caitlin’s side. “It can’t be.”

  They conducted a brief fruitless search of the counter and the floor. “Are you sure you didn’t put it in your pocket?”

  Caitlin was sure, but she ransacked her clothing anyway, with no result. She wilted on a stool beneath a bright array of copper pots and pans. “I give up.”

  Jill stood behind her and massaged her neck and shoulders. “I won’t begrudge you a good cry, if you like. Maybe I’ll join you.”

  The mere suggestion was enough to bring tears welling to Caitlin’s eyes. She’d love nothing more than to break down and sob, to wrap herself in someone’s arms and have them tell her not to worry, everything was going to be all right. She was exhausted. She was frustrated. And, beneath it all, she was becoming frightened. At the same time, she knew tears were a luxury she couldn’t afford. Once they started, they might not stop. She straightened her back and sniffed mightily. “I need sleep.”

  “That’s sensible,” said Jill, with a final squeeze and pat that told Caitlin the neck rub was over. “I’ll get these drinks together.”

  “I’ll help,” said Caitlin, rising.

  “No, you won’t. You go back to your room and go to bed. I’ll call you in the morning.”

  “Just what you need on top of everyt
hing else, tending out on another emotional invalid,” said Caitlin. Nevertheless she shuffled obediently toward the door.

  “Things will look better in light of day,” said Jill. “Can I fix you anything?”

  “I can’t take liquid before bed, or I’m up all night running to the bathroom. All I need right now is a pillow and a horizontal surface.”

  Sleep proved elusive. Despite her exhaustion and the gritty heaviness of her eyelids, Caitlin was hypersensitive to the perpetual conversation the ancient chateau carried on with its inmost parts, every subtle creak and groan seemed a sinister whisper.

  The chateau knew all the answers, but it wasn’t telling.

  If Mrs. Capshaw was insane, it wasn’t the gentle nursing home madness of a favorite uncle who was convinced he was The Fairie Queene, but the cancerous madness of one who is being consumed, in small painful bites, by their own private demons. The kind that left the host with just enough of their reason to make their paranoia – buttressed by a series of coincidences and flimsy circumstantial evidence of which the observer could make anything they wished – plausible.

  And if she wasn’t mad? Someone was trying to either drive her to it, or make it seem she was no longer in control of her faculties.

  In either case, Caitlin’s heart went out to her, compounding her frustration that she was unable to do anything to help.