The Mammoth Book of Historical Whodunnits Volume 1 (The Mammoth Book Series)

by Mike Ashley

  “Why would Ilsa want to kill her own flesh and blood? It is unthinkable!”

  “And yet people will think it, rest assured. The whole ugly affair can be whitewashed and pinned to some mysterious assailant who stalked in the night season, but people will think it just the same, Madam.”

  She remained silent now, and I could feel Cork’s mind turn from one tactic to another, searching for leverage. He got to his feet and walked over to the portrait.

  “So in the face of silence, I must turn the ferret loose in my mind. Take, for example, the question of this necklace.”

  “The van der Malin Chain,” she said, looking up at the portrait. “What about it?”

  “If the painter was accurate, it seems of great worth, both in pounds sterling and family prestige. Its very name proclaims it an heirloom.”

  “It is. It has been in our family for generations.”

  “Do you wear it at times?”

  “No, of course not. It is my sister’s property.”

  “Your estates are not commingled?”

  “Our family holds with primogeniture.”

  “I do not. Exclusive rights to a first born make a fetish of nature’s caprice. But that is philosophy, and beyond a ferret. Where is the necklace, Madam?”

  “Why, in my sister’s strong box, I assume. This is most confusing, Captain Cork.”

  I could have added my vote to that. I have seen Cork search for answers with hopscratch questions, but this display seemed futile.

  “It is I who am confused, Madam. I am muddled by many things in this case. Why, for instance, didn’t your sister wear this necklace to the year’s most important social function? She thought enough of it to have it painted in a portrait for posterity.”

  “Our minds sometimes work that way, Captain. Perhaps it didn’t suit her costume.”

  Cork turned from the picture as if he had had enough of it. “I am told there is an Uncle Kaarl in this household, yet he was not in attendance at the Bal to-night. Did he not suit the occasion?”

  “You are most rude, sir. Kaarl is an ill man, confined to his bed for several years.” She got to her feet. “I am very tired, gentlemen.”

  “I, too, grow weary, Madam. One last question. Your late niece was irritable this evening, I am told. Did something particular happen recently to cause that demeanour?”

  “No. What would she have to sulk about? She was the centre of attraction. I really must retire now. Good night.”

  When the rustle of her skirts had faded down the silent hallway, I said, “Well, Captain, we’ve certainly had a turn around the mulberry bush.”

  He gave me that smirk-a-mouth of his. “Some day, Oaks, you will learn to read between the lines where women are concerned. I am sure you thought me a bully for mistreating her, but it was necessary, and it worked.”

  “Worked?”

  “To a fair degree. I started on her with several assumptions. Some have more weight now, others are discounted. Don’t look so perplexed. I am sure that Hetta’s note to us did not concern Gretchen directly. She did not fear for the girl’s life in this calamity she now chooses to keep secret.”

  “How is that?”

  “Use your common sense, man. If she had suspected an attempt on her niece’s life, would she stand mute? No, she would screech her accusations to the sky. Her seeking outside aid from us must have been for another problem. Yes, Trask?”

  I hadn’t seen the footman in the shadows, nor had I any idea how long he had been there.

  “Beg pard, Captain Cork, but Major Tell has retired to his room and would like to see you when you have a moment.”

  “Thank you, Trask. Is your mistress available to us now?”

  “Her maid tells me she is abed, sir.”

  “A shame. Maybe you can help me, Trask. My friend and I were wondering why the Dame’s picture hangs in this small room. I say it was executed in such a large size to hang in a larger room. Mr. Oaks, however, says it was meant for Miss Hetta’s room as an expression of love between the two sisters.”

  “Well, there is an affection between them, sirs, but the fact is that the portrait hung in the Grand Salon until the Dame ordered it destroyed.”

  “When was this, Trask?”

  “Two days ago. ‘Trask,’ she said to me, ‘take that abomination out and burn it.’ Strange, she did like it originally, then, just like that, she hated it. Of course, Miss Hetta wouldn’t let me burn it, so we spirited it in here, where the Dame never comes.”

  “Ha, you see I was right, Oaks. Thanks for settling the argument, Trask. Where is Major Tell’s room?”

  “Right next to yours, if you’ll follow me, gentlemen.”

  Tell’s chamber was at the back of the house where we found him sitting in the unlighted room, looking out at the moonlit yard.

  “Nothing yet, Major?” Cork asked, walking to the window to join him.

  “Not a sign or a shadow. I have men hiding at the front and down there near the garden gate and over to the left by the stable. Do you really expect him to make a move?”

  “Conjecture costs us nothing, although I have more information now.”

  Although the room was bathed in moonlight, as usual I was in the dark. “Would either of you gentlemen mind telling me what this is all about? Who is coming?”

  “Going would be more like it,” the Major said.

  “Going – ah, I see! The killer hid himself in the house somewhere and you expect him to make a break for it when everyone is bedded down. But where could he have hidden? Your men searched the den and passageway for secret panels, did they not?”

  “Ask your employer,” Tell said. “I am only following his orders – hold on, Cork, look down by the passage door.”

  I looked over Cork’s shoulder to catch a glimpse of a cloaked figure in a cockade, moving among the shadows towards the stable.

  “Our mounts are ready, Major?” Tell nodded. “Excellent. Let us be off.”

  As I followed them downstairs, I remarked on my own puzzlement. “Why are we going to follow this scoundrel? Why not stop him and unmask him?”

  “Because I know who our mysterious figure is, Oaks. It is the destination that is the heart of the matter,” Cork said as we hurried into the ballroom and back to the den door.

  Once inside, I saw that Tell had placed our greatcoats in readiness and we bustled into them. Cork walked over to the weapon wall and looked at two empty hooks.

  “A brace of pistols are gone. Our shadow is armed, as expected,” he said.

  “I’ll take this one,” I said, reaching for a ball-shot handgun.

  “No need, Oaks,” Cork said. “We are not the targets. Come, fellows, we want to be mounted and ready.”

  The night was cold as we waited behind a small knoll 20 yards down from the stable yard. Suddenly the doors of the stable burst open and a black stallion charged into the moonlight, bearing its rider to the south. “Now keep a small distance, but do not lose sight for a second,” Cork commanded, and spurred his horse forward.

  We followed through the drifts for ten minutes and saw our quarry turn into a small alley. When we reached the spot, we found the lathered mount tied to a stairway which went up the side of the building to a door on the second-storey landing. With Cork in the lead, we went up the cold stairs and assembled ourselves in front of the door. “Now!” Cork whispered, and we butted our shoulders against the wood panelling and fell into the room.

  Our cloaked figure had a terrified man at gunpoint. The victim was a man in his forties, coiled into a corner. I was about to rush the person with the pistols when the tricornered hat turned to reveal the chiselled face and cold blue eyes of Dame Ilsa van Schooner.

  “Drop the pistols, Madam, you are only compounding your problem,” Cork said firmly.

  “He murdered my child!”

  “I swear, Dame Ilsa!” The man grovelled before her. His voice was foreign in inflection. “Please, you must hear me out. Yes, I am scum, but I am not a murderer.�
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  Cork walked forward and put his hands over the pistol barrels. For a split second, the Dame looked up at him and her stern face went soft. “He’s going to pay,” she said.

  “Yes, but not for your daughter’s death.”

  “But only he could have – ” She caught herself up in a flash of thought. Her lips quivered and she released the pistol butts into Cork’s control. He took her by the arm and guided her to a chair.

  The tension was broken, and I took my first look about. It was a large and comfortable bachelor’s room. Then I saw the work area at the far end – with an easel, palettes, and paint pots.

  “The painter! He’s Jan der Trogue, the one who painted the portrait.”

  “You know about the painting?” the Dame said with surprise.

  I started to tell her about seeing it in her sister’s sitting-room, but never got it out. Der Trogue had grabbed the pistol that Cork had stupidly left on the table and pointed it at us as he edged towards the open door. “Stay where you are,” he warned. “I owe you my life, sir.” He bowed to Cork. “But it is not fitting to die at a woman’s hands.”

  “Nor a hangman’s,” Cork said. “For you will surely go to the gallows for your other crime.”

  “Not this man, my fine fellow. Now stay where you are and no one will get hurt.” He whirled out onto the landing and started to race down the stairs. Cork walked to the door. To my surprise, he had the other pistol in his hand. He stepped out onto the snowy landing.

  “Defend yourself!” Cork cried. Then, after a tense moment, Cork took careful aim and fired. I grimaced as I heard der Trogue’s body tumbling down the rest of the stairs.

  Cork came back into the room with the smoking pistol in his hand. “Be sure your report says ‘fleeing arrest,’ Major,” he said, shutting the door.

  “Escape from what? You said he didn’t kill the girl! This is most confusing and, to say the least, irregular!”

  “Precisely put, Major. Confusing from the start and irregular for a finish. But first to the irregularity. What we say, see, and do here to-night stays with us alone.” He turned to the Dame. “We will have to search the room. Will you help, since you have been here before?”

  “Yes.” She got up and started to open drawers and cupboards. She turned to us and held out a black felt bag which Cork opened.

  “Gentlemen, I give you the van der Malin Chain, and quite exquisite it is.”

  “So he did steal it,” I said.

  “In a manner of speaking, Oaks, yes. But, Madam, should we not also find what you were so willing to pay a king’s ransom for?”

  “Perhaps it is on the easel. I only saw the miniature.”

  Cork took the drape from the easel and revealed a portrait of a nude woman reposing on a couch.

  “It’s Gretchen!” I gasped. “Was that der Trogue’s game? Blackmail?”

  “Yes, Mr. Oaks, it was,” the Dame said. “I knew it was not an artist’s trick of painting one head on another’s body. That strawberry mark on the thigh was Gretchen’s. How did you know of its existence, Captain? I told no one, not even my sister.”

  “Your actions helped tell me. You ordered your own portrait burned two days ago, the same day your sister sent me a note and an invitation to the Masque.”

  “A note?”

  “Portending calamity,” I added.

  “Oh, the fool. She must have learned about my failure to raise enough cash to meet that fiend’s demands.”

  “Your sudden disdain for a fine portrait betrayed your disgust with the artist, not with the art. Then Wilda told us that you had planned to have your daughters painted by the same man and, considering the time elapsed since your portrait was finished, I assumed that Gretchen’s had been started.”

  “It was, and he seduced her. She confessed it to me after I saw the miniature he brought to me.”

  “Why did you not demand its delivery when you gave him the necklace to-night?”

  “I never said I gave it to him to-night.”

  “But you did. You went into the den, not to see your daughter, but to meet der Trogue at the outside passage door. You lit a taper there, and he examined his booty at the entryway, and then left, probably promising to turn over that scandalous painting when he had verified that the necklace was not an imitation.”

  “Captain, you sound as if you were there.”

  The clews were. In the puddle just inside the door, there was a red substance. Oaks believed it was blood. It was a natural assumption, but when the question of your anger with a painter came to light, I considered what my eyes now confirm. Painters are sloppy fellows; look at this floor. Besides, blood is rarely magenta. It was paint, red paint from his boot soles. Then, Madam, your part of the bargain completed, you returned to the den. Your daughter was still by the fire.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you returned to the ballroom.”

  “Yes, leaving my soiled child to be murdered! He came back and killed her!”

  “No, Dame van Schooner, he did not, although that is the way it will be recorded officially. The report will show that you entered the den and presented the van der Malin Chain to your daughter to wear on her night of triumph. My observation of the paint in the puddle will stand as the deduction that led us to der Trogue. We will say he gained entry into the house, killed your daughter, and took the necklace. And was later killed resisting capture.”

  “But he did kill her!” the Dame insisted. “He had to be the one! She was alive when I left her. No one else entered the room until the honour guard went for her.”

  Cork took both her hands.

  “Dame van Schooner, I have twisted truth beyond reason for your sake to-night, but now you must face the hard truth. Der Trogue was a scoundrel, but he had no reason to kill Gretchen. What would he gain? And how could he get back in without leaving snow tracks? Gretchen’s executioner was in the den all the time – when Lydia was there, when you were. I think in your heart you know the answer – if you have the courage to face it.”

  To watch her face was to see ice melt. Her eyes, her cold, diamond-blue eyes watered. “I can. But must it be said – here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wilda. Oh, my God, Wilda.”

  “Yes, Wilda. You have a great burden to bear, my dear lady.”

  Her tears came freely now. “The curse of the van Schooners,” she cried. “Her father was insane, and his brother Kaarl lives in his lunatic’s attic. My mother thought she was infusing quality by our union.”

  “Thus your stern exterior and addiction to purifying the blood-line with good stock.”

  “Yes, I have been the man in our family far too long. I have had to be hard. I thank you for your consideration, Captain. Wilda will have to be put away, of course. Poor child, I saw the van Schooner blood curse in her years ago, but I never thought it would come to this.” The last was a sob. Then she took a deep breath. “I think I am needed at home.” She rose. Thank you again, Captain. Will you destroy that?” She pointed to the portrait.

  “Rest assured.”

  As he opened the door for her, she turned back with the breaking dawn framing her. “I wish it was I who had invited you to the Bal. I saw you dancing and wondered who you were. You are quite tall.”

  “Not too tall to bow, Madam,” Cork said, and all six-foot-six of him bent down and kissed her cheek. She left us with an escort from the detachment of soldiers that had followed our trail.

  The room was quiet for a moment before Major Tell exploded. “Confound it, Cork, what the deuce is this? I am to falsify records to show der Trogue was a thief and a murderer and yet you say it was Wilda who killed her sister. What’s your proof, man?”

  Cork walked over to the painting and smashed it on a chair back. “You deserve particulars, both of you. I said that Wilda was in the den all the time. Your natural query is how did she get there unseen? Well, we all saw her. She was carried in – in the curtained sedan chair. In her twisted mind, she hated her sister, who
would inherit everything by her mother’s design. One does not put a great fortune into a madwoman’s hands.”

  “Very well,” Tell said, “I can see her entry. How the deuce did she get out?”

  “Incipient madness sometimes makes the mind clever, Major. She stayed in the sedan chair until her mother had left, then presented herself to Gretchen.”

  “And killed her,” I interjected. “But she was back in the ballroom before the honour guard went in to get her sister.”

  “There is the nub of it, Oaks. She left the den by the back passage, crossed the yard, and re-entered the house by the kitchen in the far wing. Who would take any notice of a daughter of the house in a room filled with bustling cooks and servants coming and going with vittles for the buffet?”

  “But she would have gotten her skirts wet in the snow,” I started to object. “Of course! The spilled punch bowl! It drenched her!”

  Cork smiled broadly. “Yes, my lad. She entered the kitchen, scooped up the punch bowl, carried it into the ballroom, and then deliberately dropped it.”

  “Well,” Tell grumped, “she may be sprung in the mind, but she understands the theory of tactical diversion.”

  “Self-preservation is the last instinct to go, Major.”

  “Yes, I believe you are right, Cork, but how are we to explain all this and still shield the Dame’s secret?”

  Cork looked dead at me. “You, Oaks, have given us the answer.”

  “I? Oh, when I said the killer took off his boots to avoid tracks in the den? You rejected that out of hand when I mentioned it.”

  “I rejected it as a probability, not a possibility. Anything is possible, but not everything is probable. Is it probable that a killer bent on not leaving tracks would take off his boots inside the entry where they would leave a puddle? No, I couldn’t accept it, but I’m sure the general public will.”

  The major looked disturbed. “I can appreciate your desire to protect the Dame,” he said, “but to suppress evidence – ”

  “Calm yourself, Major, we are just balancing the books of human nature. I have saved the Crown the time and expense of trying and executing an extortionist. God knows how many victims he has fleeced by his artistic trickery over the years. And we have prevented the Dame from the commission of a homicide that any jury, I think, would have found justifiable. Let it stand as it is, Major, it is a neater package. The Dame has had enough tragedy in her life.”