MURDER AT BERTRAM'S BOWER

by Cynthia Peale

  “Don’t you understand, Caroline?” Miss Montgomery sobbed. “He was going to leave me—to marry that woman in New York and move away! He said he would stay here, but I didn’t believe him. I knew he would go in the end. But he won’t be able to do that now, will he? Not now. Not after—They will think he killed her, this girl tonight. And they will think that if he killed her, he must have killed the other two as well. It didn’t matter who it was, I had to provide a third girl, and I had to make sure that something would connect her to Randolph.”

  “Agatha, what are you saying? If you did not return that coin to him, then—”

  Caroline saw the gleaming metal blade in her friend’s hand, and for a moment, before her brain registered it, she did not know what it was. She stared at it, fascinated; then she jumped as the grandmother clock in the hall struck the half hour.

  “Agatha …”

  “You and your meddling brother,” said Miss Montgomery. “If only you had stayed out of it, Caroline. Why couldn’t you do that? But no. You had to intrude yourselves, you had to poke and pry—”

  She raised the knife and lunged.

  In the same instant, Caroline seized the hot-water pot and threw its contents into Miss Montgomery’s face.

  She heard a scream, saw the blade come at her.

  “Miss Ames!”

  Dr. MacKenzie stood at the open pocket doors, another man behind him. Not Addington. In one bound the Reverend Montgomery pushed MacKenzie aside, crossed the room, and seized his sister’s wrist to wrench the knife from her grasp.

  But she was as strong as he—stronger, perhaps, in her madness. Blinded by the boiling water, her face scalded, still she clutched her weapon, and as she wrestled with him, she cried, “Randolph, how could you?”

  They fell in a death struggle to the floor.

  “Miss Ames!” MacKenzie exclaimed again.

  He was at her side, helping her up. She managed to stand, and in the next instant she and MacKenzie were across the room and out into the hall. She felt a sharp stab of pain in her ankle, but she ignored it.

  “Hurry!” he said. His knee was on fire, and he didn’t know how much longer he could bear her weight leaning on his arm. Pray the elevator was on this floor and not stopped somewhere above. He couldn’t remember when he’d used it last, but— Yes. Here it was.

  As he pulled open the door, they heard a cry from the parlor—the reverend, he thought—but they had no time to stop, they must get into the elevator cab.

  “Can you stand?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  Her face was as pale as Death, but her voice was steady. He pulled the door shut and grasped the lever. Slowly they began to go up.

  “What will we do, Doctor?” Caroline asked. It had all happened so quickly that her mind was a blur.

  “We are safe here,” he said. Safe—but in this very small space. Already he was beginning to feel trapped—uncomfortably confined. “Your brother will come directly. He asked me to get my weapon. It is in my room. I will—”

  His voice died in his throat. Something was on the stairs that curved around the elevator shaft. He could dimly see its dark form, and he heard its harsh and painful breathing. Then he saw the gleam of a knife blade.

  Agatha Montgomery.

  The knife flashed through the grille, narrowly missing his midriff. With alacrity he stepped back, but he could not step far enough for safety because he needed to keep his hand on the lever.

  The elevator kept on rising, but too slowly. Sweat trickled down his neck, down his back. I will not panic, he thought.

  What had happened to the reverend? Had she killed him?

  The blade flashed again, and this time it nicked his hand just above the thumb. In the dim light he saw the dark spurt of blood, and he fumbled with his free hand for his handkerchief to stanch it.

  “Doctor—your hand!” Caroline exclaimed behind him.

  He half turned to her. “It is nothing. You must keep quiet.”

  As they kept on going up, he caught a glimpse of the creature on the stairs. He saw the dark, shapeless mass of her clothing, and for an instant he saw her face, which bore the blistering red wounds from the scalding water. She was muttering, but so low they could not make out her words. Every few seconds she emitted a low moan, as if she were in great pain.

  As she is, thought Caroline. She is in agony, and not just from her burns. But her natural feelings of compassion for her friend—for the woman who had been her friend, she corrected herself—were overcome by her terror, for this thing crouching on the stairs was not the Agatha Montgomery she had known. This was an alien creature, all her obsessions—with her life’s work, with the reverend—transformed into a murderous madness.

  Like the flickering tongue of a deadly serpent, the knife blade flashed through the grille again, this time at their feet. Keep going, MacKenzie told himself. But what would they do when they reached the top? With his game knee, he would never be able to reach his room in time to fetch his pistol, not with Agatha Montgomery hot on his heels, intent on stabbing him to death.

  The elevator whined and moaned. Miss Montgomery panted up the stairs alongside them. The blade flashed again through the grille, and then again. Then her dark shape passed them, heading on up.

  “She will wait for us above,” MacKenzie said in a low voice.

  “Then do not go all the way up!” Caroline whispered. “Stop—stop now.”

  With a little jolt, he did. They were just short of the third story, with the hall floor at eye level. They could see Miss Montgomery’s worn boots, the sodden hem of her skirts.

  “Go down,” Caroline whispered. “We cannot get out while she is there. We must just keep going up and down until Addington comes.”

  If he does, MacKenzie thought.

  He reversed the lever, and with agonizing slowness they descended toward the second floor. As they did so, they saw a movement—a shadow—on the stairs: Miss Montgomery, following them down. She stood a little below the cab, awaiting them.

  He stopped. In the sudden silence they could hear Miss Montgomery’s breath come heavy and hard. It was her madness that sustained her, thought MacKenzie—that gave her the strength to fight her exhaustion, her pain.

  Suddenly she came back and thrust at them again. The blood-tipped blade slipped into the elevator at their feet.

  With his good leg, he stepped on it—put his booted foot down hard. He heard Miss Montgomery grunt as she tried to pull the knife free. He started up the elevator again. Miss Montgomery held on to the knife with a death grip. He bore down on the blade with all his weight. Suddenly they heard a sharp snap! as the blade broke, and with a cry of anger Miss Montgomery fell back onto the stairs, still clutching the handle. A small portion of the blade was attached to it; the rest lay under MacKenzie’s heel.

  “We must—” Caroline began, but then she heard a sound on the stairs below. She peered out.

  It was the reverend.

  He was on his hands and knees, crawling up, trying to reach his sister. They heard his gasping, agonized breath, and when he managed to utter a few words, his voice was weak.

  “Agatha … stop … you must stop.…”

  She made no reply—not in words—but they heard a snarl like the snarl of a devil hound, and then a strange, high sobbing as if she felt not remorse but some faint memory of remorse.

  “Agatha …”

  Somehow the reverend had managed to get to his feet. He staggered up a step or two, bracing himself against the banister. His sister waited for him. He put out a hand and seized the hem of her skirts, but he had no strength to pull her down. Caroline, craning her neck, saw dark red stains on the stair carpet. Agatha must have wounded him very badly, she thought. He must be attended to, or he will bleed to death.

  With a sudden movement, Miss Montgomery pulled away from his grasp and he fell facedown onto the stairs, his arms thrust up in front of him.

  And now—most horrible of all, to Caroline—Miss Montgom
ery began to curse him.

  “Damn you, Randolph! Damn you to eternal hell! Why? Why?”

  He lifted his head. His eyes, caught in the light of the hall gas jets, seemed to blaze with an anger equal to her own.

  “It would have been—” he began, but then he broke off, as if he were saving what little strength he had left for his last effort.

  Groaning, he braced himself and slowly got to his feet. He took one step up, and then another.

  Miss Montgomery backed away.

  He went after her.

  She turned and scrambled to the second-floor hall. To Caroline’s amazement, the reverend kept on.

  “Doctor,” she whispered, “do you think—”

  “Yes,” he said. He shifted the lever and they began to rise again. Above them now, they heard Agatha Montgomery and her brother stumbling up the stairs. The sound of their footsteps had an erratic rhythm: She ran up a few steps, then waited for him nearly to catch her; when he had staggered up and was almost upon her, she ran up a little farther.

  Caroline heard them even as she heard her heart pounding, pounding, the sound of it mingling in an eerie way with the footsteps, and with the whine and moan of the elevator, until it was all one sound in her ears.

  Then she heard something new. “Listen!” she said.

  A key in the front door lock, the door bursting open—

  “Addington—at last!” she cried, no longer caring if Miss Montgomery heard her. Relief flooded over her, making her suddenly weak, and she clung to MacKenzie’s arm.

  And pray he is not too late, MacKenzie thought. He was exquisitely conscious of her presence, her touch, but this was not the moment to respond to it. They were nearly at the third floor now; he heard Miss Montgomery in the hall there, the dragging steps of the reverend in pursuit.

  “Addington!” Caroline called. “We are here—in the elevator! And the reverend is on the stairs, and he is wounded! Be careful—Agatha has a knife!”

  Broken the knife might be, it was still a weapon that could inflict a serious wound.

  In no more than an instant, Ames was bounding up, calling to her. “Are you safe?” he cried. “Stay there! Crippen is with me!”

  And now she heard someone else, and she caught a glimpse of the little inspector, close on Ames’s heels as they raced up the stairs past the elevator.

  Footsteps thudded along the third-floor hall. The elevator shuddered to a stop. MacKenzie pulled open the door and stepped out, wincing at the pain in his knee but unutterably relieved to be free of that small, panic-making space. Above, on the stairs to the fourth floor, he heard Crippen’s voice: “Halt! Halt, I say!”

  Intending to get his weapon, MacKenzie limped to the door of his room. Before he could utter a word of warning, Caroline had slipped past him and was heading up to the fourth floor behind the others.

  Please, she thought, gritting her teeth against the pain in her ankle. Please let them stop. Let Agatha not harm anyone—not anyone else.

  When she was halfway up the stairs, she felt a sudden draft of cold air. She came into the fourth-floor hall just in time to see Addington and Crippen disappear up the last little half-flight of stairs to the roof.

  As fast as she could, she hobbled up behind them. She heard Agatha’s voice—“Randolph!”—and his reply—“You fool! See what you have done!”

  She heard a warning shout from Addington, a single explosive oath from Crippen.

  She came out onto the roof.

  She felt the cold night wind on her face, and a spattering of rain. She saw two dark forms grappling near the edge. They might have been lovers entwined in a deadly embrace. They swayed back and forth—they staggered and teetered—they fell, still clutching each other—rolled over—and then—

  Agatha went over the edge.

  But she did not fall far, because she held on to the reverend, truly in a death grip now, both hands grasping his above the wrists while he sprawled flat on his stomach. She had dropped her broken knife; it lay, gleaming dully, halfway across the rooftop.

  In two steps, Ames reached them. With a warning cry, he seized the reverend’s legs. Caroline started to shout—“No, Addington!”—but then, afraid of startling him, she bit back her words.

  They will all three fall to their death, she thought. Please, Addington, let him go, let Agatha go—

  Ames hauled back on the reverend, and for a moment it seemed that Agatha could be saved as well.

  But she could hold on no longer. They heard her scream—a sound that would haunt Caroline to her grave—and then she was gone.

  Early the next afternoon, a cold, cloudy day with the wind strong from the north, Ames strode purposefully across the Public Garden and exited through the tall iron gates at the Commonwealth Avenue Mall. The city was Sunday-quiet, which suited his pensive mood.

  How could he tell her what had happened? She was convinced of Agatha Montgomery’s near sainthood. How could he find the words to say that far from being some kind of saint, the proprietress of Bertram’s Bower had been a woman who, tormented by her demons, had committed murder three times over and possibly four?

  He paused to allow a brougham to pass at Arlington Street, and then, buffeted by the wind, crossed and strode on down the avenue. Snow by nightfall, he thought. Well, he didn’t mind snow. Winter in New England wouldn’t be right without it. Some of his friends had taken to wintering in the South. He’d had jolly notes postmarked from Charleston and Savannah. Unnatural, he thought: a winter of sunshine and mild breezes, weather warm enough to sit outdoors.

  He rounded the corner and crossed in the middle of the block to the Berkeley Arms. He hadn’t thought to send a telegram warning her of his arrival, but surely she’d be at home.

  The concierge announced him and he went up. She’d opened the door before he reached it, and she welcomed him with a heart-quivering smile.

  “Mr. Ames,” she said softly, giving him her hand. She wore a dark green velvet tea gown and a necklace of baroque pearls. Her eyes were shadowed with sorrow, and her lush, beautiful mouth trembled a bit. “What has happened?”

  “I cannot stay long. But I wanted to—I did not want you to—”

  Already he was bungling it; he should not have spoken so abruptly. He deposited his cloak and hat and gloves with the maid and followed Mrs. Vincent into her warm, expensively elegant parlor. Her little dog, who was apparently becoming used to him, lifted its head and yawned.

  “Can I give you lunch, Mr. Ames?”

  “No, thank you.” He looked around. He saw a stack of Sunday newspapers on a low table. “You have seen the news?”

  “Yes. But the news is not the whole story, I imagine.”

  “No. The whole story— Perhaps you had better sit down.”

  Her eyes widened in surprise, but she did as he suggested, and with a graceful gesture waved him to a seat opposite.

  He hesitated, wanting to get it right, conscious that he had her fixed attention. Many men, he knew, would have given much for that. As he always did in her presence, he felt awkward, like a gawking schoolboy.

  “Well, Mr. Ames? What is it? I cannot believe that Agatha Montgomery is dead, and yet the Sunday Herald prints it, so it must be so.”

  “Yes. She is dead.”

  “Did she really fall from your roof? Or …”

  She held his gaze, wanting him not only to finish her question but to answer it. But when he kept quiet, she said, “Or was she pushed?” Her voice—her splendid actress’s voice—was low and throbbing and filled with emotion. As it always did, it set his pulses racing even as he reminded himself that this was a woman beyond the bounds of polite society. Polite society be damned, he thought. If he was going to cause her pain—and he was—he wanted that pain to be as brief as possible.

  “She was not pushed,” he said curtly.

  “Then—how did she fall?”

  “She was struggling with her brother—trying to kill him.”

  Mrs. Vincent was obviously shocke
d at that, but quickly she collected herself and said, “So she found out about him at last?”

  “You mean about his—ah—tendency to take liberties?”

  “Yes.”

  “At least one person—Dr. Hannah Bigelow, a friend of my sister’s—tried to warn Miss Montgomery about that, but Miss Montgomery would not listen. This episode last night occurred not because of his liberties, however, but because he planned to marry a woman from New York. And perhaps—so Miss Montgomery feared—to move there. Thus, in her view, deserting her.”

  “But surely—” She broke off, trying to make sense of it.

  Ames leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. He wanted very much to take her hand, but he did not quite dare. He hated to distress her with what more he had to tell her, and yet he must do it; he couldn’t let her learn it from the newspapers.

  “Mrs. Vincent, I came here today to tell you what all the city will know soon enough. I didn’t want you to see it first in the public prints, because I know how much you admired Miss Montgomery, and I know it will hurt you to learn that she … was capable of … what she did.”

  “What she did?” she repeated.

  Make it quick and clean, he thought. “She was the Bower killer.”

  She went quite pale, and her face—her beautiful face, beauty beyond men’s dreams, beauty a man could die for, and had—froze as she absorbed what he’d said.

  Quick and clean, and tell it all. “She killed all three of those girls, and she may have killed her brother. He is at Mass General now, near death.”

  “But—why?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t really know, I mean. The facts of the case—” He spread his hands in a gesture of futility. He saw the rapid rise and fall of her bosom, and he wished he could comfort her somehow, make it up to her for shattering her faith in the woman she’d called a saint.

  Failing that, he tried to explain it to her: Mary’s pregnancy, Bridget’s threats, Peg Corcoran’s bad luck to be at hand when Miss Montgomery needed a third victim to avenge herself on her brother.

  She heard him out in silence, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes never wavering from his—very strong, she seemed, and yet he could not help thinking that even as he spoke, he was watching some part of her wither and die: the part that had believed in Agatha Montgomery.