“It’s exciting. I’m excited, Dermot. It’s so good not to be alone. I’m sorry that it distressed her, but I can’t deny it gives me hope. We may have discovered an unexpected ally. I was right to come back, I know it.”
“I’m worried that we frightened her, Arthur.”
“You’re going to have to tell her something. An explanation is in order. She certainly thinks that you saw something. I think that’s what upset her the most.”
“I rather picked up on that.”
“This makes things very interesting.” Arthur was looking pleased.
“Look, Arthur...” Dermot was less amused. “No disrespect, but I’m just coming to terms with events myself. I’m here to help you, and then I’m leaving. I don’t really need this...” What was he going to say? Distraction? “She seems a very nice girl, and all. I just hope that she’s all right with you here.”
Truth was, the thought of seeing the young Simonne again was foremost in his mind. Uncomfortably so. Fortunately, Arthur didn’t pick up on his discomfort and changed the subject to the practicalities at hand.
“Well, I’m sure that she’ll get over it. We’ll find out soon enough. Now. To business.” He sprung from the couch. “The birth certificates. We have some time before dinner and we had best make use of it. If you’re going up against my mother soon, you had better come ready and armed.”
Dermot prodded at the teeth of the snarling badger. “She struck me that way too.”
“They’re not likely to come right out and say it – too damned rude – but they will want you to make a clean breast of your news and get to the point pretty soon.”
“I got a taste of that in the library. I don’t blame them, I’d be curious myself. Strange man shows up, peddling a story... I’d say ‘Out with it or get right out.’ They’ve been generous to let me stay.” But here Dermot was hesitant. Wouldn’t they be upset by the news? Would they throw him out on his ear? He had rather enjoyed his reception so far and, despite his protestations, was in no mind to leave right away. Malenfer Manor had much to offer that he hadn’t considered before. “I think it best if the certificates do the speaking for both of us.”
“You are quite right, Dermot. I couldn’t agree more.”
“Assuming they’re here,” he quipped. Then Dermot got a picture of himself as the bearer of unlooked-for drama – for suppose these papers were discovered and he was really to hand them over? It strung his pride, more than a little, that his reputation by this charade would be tarnished. “But... I mean, how do I say they came to me? Do I tell them that you entrusted me with them during the war? And if so, then why didn’t I bother to forward them earlier? How does that look for me?”
“Don’t worry about that.” Arthur was dismissive.
“I just kept them tucked away for a few years and then one day decided to call? I’ll look thoughtless at best, certainly negligent, and not the most reliable of guardians.”
“Why the fuss all of a sudden? Whatever is the matter? You’re an outsider, Irlandais, and what’s more a foreigner. Please believe me, there is no amount of bad behavior they won’t be willing to credit you with. Tell them you were too busy to write, or that you forgot. You only remembered when you saw the newspaper, or you were in the hospital yourself, or tell them that you’re a drinker and couldn’t be bothered to come. Tell them anything you fancy, they’re not going to care very much.”
“I’m not going to come across as very dependable if I tell them any such story.” Dermot was stung. “What kind of a friend would forget the wish of a dying comrade to his children? I’d come across like an ass.”
“What the hell do you care? The birth certificates say it all, you don’t have to... oh, wait.” Arthur had been waving his arms, growing exasperated, but then settled as if a thought had come to him and the road ahead looked clearer. He nodded his head. “Oh, I get it now. I understand,” and he gave Dermot a knowing smile.
Dermot blushed a little redder than he already was.
“Don’t worry, Irlandais. She won’t think any less of you. They’ll be too washed up in the news itself to judge the messenger badly.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Dermot walked to the door, admitting and denying nothing but not convincing either of them for a second. “Well, where are they, then? Where’d you lock away your little secret? I presume I’m not to be lucky enough to find them hidden away in here?” He had a look at the badger again.
“Follow me,” said Arthur. “If you’ll open the door, monsieur?”
“I hope they’re still where you left them. Otherwise I can see your mother throwing me out long before breakfast is served.”
“She’d probably enjoy that – don’t tempt her.”
Arthur made certain the coast was clear, and Dermot followed him into the corridor.
“Down here – it’s on the same floor. My old room in the other wing.” Having guided him past the staircase without incident, Arthur now ran ahead. “I’ll shout if I see anyone coming! It’s at the end. You’ll be fine. Follow me.”
Dermot kept as quiet as he could and walked close to the cover of the wall. He figured if anyone saw him around, he’d just say he was stretching his legs.
There was ample light from the staircase lamps, but the darkness intruded and filled the corridor the further down it he went. This floor, like the library below it, was paneled in whorled wood. Dermot’s shadow fell in front of him and stretched longer as he progressed. The grill of a window at the end of the hall seemed to float detached in space. Dermot, wary of where he trod, gradually slowed his pace.
He passed a succession of paintings – the Malenfers enjoyed their art. All in this hall were scenes of Napoleonic wars: cavalry towing artillery and wounded men on stretchers, provision wagons bogged down in mud, comrades supporting friends. Winter in Russia had little to recommend it; he made a note to give it a miss. Moving on a little further, the gilded frames gave way to crossed muskets, muzzle fed, of rod and charge and ball. A rosette of pistols hung around them in a display of bygone power.
Dermot had lost sight of Arthur. There was nowhere to go except deeper down the hallway, and so, one hand upon the wall, he progressed. The paned glass was his target now, its frames like bars to a prison. With painful anticipation he drew near – it gave light to a final portrait. Ensconced within an enormous frame stood a cavalier with sword in hand. He loomed above a slaughtered deer, newly dispatched by his hand. Dermot gave it a casual glance but was taken aback in shock, for it was Arthur he saw staring out at him, the soldier in the canvas. The resemblance was uncanny. But this Arthur was centuries old – his equine haircut dated him. The man bore a look of cruelty he had never seen on his friend.
“Long, long time ago.” The deep voice was just behind him.
Dermot jumped. “Jesus Christ, man. What are you thinking?”
“One of my predecessors.”
“Don’t sneak up on me like that. You almost scared me to death.” Dermot voiced his objections. They looked at the painting again. “Who’s that, then? Your great-great-aunty with the deep gruff voice? That’s some moustache she’s sporting.”
It was a powerful man, richly dressed, but savage and unforgiving. The deer had had its throat cut, and the cavalier was bleeding it.
“I was named after him; he died a long time ago. My grand-daddy’s grand-daddy or something. It was that Arthur who established our papers of title and made an estate from one farm.”
“The big man.”
“And he was the first of the cursed Malenfers. It was him that started it all.”
“How do you think they kept all that hair clean? And how would you dry it afterwards?”
“I’ve always liked the pants myself. You just don’t see those anymore.”
“The buckles. Check out the buckles on those boots. I’m hoping buckles come back.”
“Well, if you’re finished denigrating my esteemed ancestor, shall we get back to the task at hand?�
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“You’d look good in a pair of those. All I’m saying.”
“Strange.” Arthur changed the subject. He looked about, concerned.
“Where to now, then?” There was a servants’ stairway at the end of the hall, but nothing else that Dermot could see.
“I don’t understand why they did this, Dermot.”
“What do you mean? What’s the matter?”
“It was here.” He pointed. “The door was here. My room is right across from the painting.” But there was no door now. “They can’t have moved the door. They must have blocked it up.”
“Maybe on another floor?” Dermot offered helpfully. He had the awful feeling that this was all a fabrication and the joke was about to fall. No birth certificates, no old room, just the ravings of a long dead veteran tearing holes into his mind. He’d take the Malenfers’ dinner, dry his clothes, and apologize for the misunderstanding. Clear out after breakfast and book himself into an institution.
“This” – Arthur jabbed a finger at the wall opposite – “was my old room.”
“Well, there’s got to be an explanation.” I’ve gone mad, he thought to himself. That’s what’s going on here.
He had a closer look to please Arthur. The light from the landing was just enough to make out the line of something – an edge perhaps? In the light of day the velvet paper would have convinced the eye there was nothing, but the long shadow that was thrown down the hall caught on the tiny ridge under the covering.
“Just a minute.” He took out his pocket-knife. The blade slipped into the paper. Soon enough he had cut the shape of a door where before there hadn’t been one.
“Why do you think they’d do that, Dermot?”
“It’s your family, mate. Let’s find out.”
The handle to the door had been removed but the mechanism remained, keeping the spring lock shut. Dermot located it with his fingertips and then wedged the blade in tight. “Let’s hope they haven’t nailed it shut or we’ll need a battering ram.” The lock turned, clicked, and opened inwards, making a hole in the once solid wall. They entered and Dermot closed it behind him, with the air of the conspirator. Whatever the reason for hiding the room, he knew he wasn’t invited.
“Should have brought a candle,” he said helpfully; the room was inky opaque. Gradually his eyes adjusted, as he’d known in time they would. He made out the sketch of a bed that seemed drawn in indigo lines. And there was a chair, and there a dresser, and over to the side a desk. It was cold in the room, a stale cold, and it was noisy, noisy too. It was loud like he hadn’t heard in the hall; a noise that became intrusive. The rain and wind played like a snare against the pane of a window. Arthur opened the drapes but got little more light as the moon was behind the clouds.
Dermot risked a match, and saw the room in color. He couldn’t shake an eerie feeling. Partly it was the suspense of a forbidden room, but it was also in the arrangement of things. Bed sheets crisply folded back, and on the pillow folded pajamas. A trio of what looked to be dolls laid out in parallel, all turned to face away. He lifted an edge of the dustsheet that was draped over top of the dresser. On it he found a man’s coiled belt and a handful of change and papers, a packet of half empty cigarettes, and a rosary wound around a crucifix. Personal items, but nothing scattered – everything stacked perfectly. This wasn’t a spare room at all – he stood in a museum. The precision with which he saw everything laid out made the hairs on his neck rise straight.
“What am I looking for, Arthur?”
Arthur didn’t say a word in answer. He hadn’t moved since they’d first entered, as if he were soaking it up. He raised one hand and pointed in answer to Dermot’s question.
“You left them in the wardrobe?” He opened the door wide enough to see shirts still on their hangers.
“Behind it.”
Dermot put his shoulder down and wrestled the tallboy aside. On the wall behind he found a loose join between two planks of wainscoting.
“Remove it and reach inside.”
Dermot teased the board back and felt inside, discovering the edge of an envelope, which he withdrew.
“Open it.”
“This is everything?”
“That’s it all.”
“You want to sleep in here tonight, Français? Seems like they were expecting you.”
But Arthur wasn’t laughing.
“Shall I bring your dolls back at least? Maybe a comfy blanket?”
“What dolls? What are you talking about?”
Dermot reached to pick one up, but recoiled when he turned it over. The toy on the bed looked back at him with hollowed peeling eyes.
“The love of God.” He stumbled back.
Three mummified newborns, side by side – three skeletal swaddled infants. One had rolled, disturbed by Dermot, and it drew his genuflection. Its mouth was set in a frozen suckle; tiny milk teeth fixed in a cry. Its lips were bared, withered and drawn, its gums eaten away by time. Dead these many years it was, frozen in an animate hunger.
“What the hell are these?” Dermot recovered, lifting himself from the floor. He had dropped his match and it had gone out. His hands shook as he lit another. “What are they doing here?” He couldn’t escape his initial horror.
Arthur moved up close to the babes and reached out a hand to touch them. “Poor little things. I’m really not sure. They’re tiny little children.”
“Don’t touch them.”
“They died long before I went away. I’ve never seen them before.”
Dermot wanted to believe him. “This room is a bloody museum. Is this what you do for all your dead relatives? Is this how she fills this place here?”
“Mother must have had the room sealed up.”
“But who are the children, Arthur?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t. Why would she put them in here?”
The conversation had to wait, owing to a noise from the hallway. Someone or somebodies were coming along, talking as they approached. Dermot snuffed the match and crouched low beside the door, keeping an ear open for danger. Dermot was no lawyer – being discovered wandering the halls, he figured, would be little more than an inconvenience, but breaking into a room full of dead babies? How would you explain that away? The voices came closer, and he made out two people.
“…it’s a fact, she did,” said the one. It was a woman’s voice, and though Dermot wasn’t sure, it sounded like the housekeeper Berthe.
“Well, she’s more fool for it. But she’ll set them right. You see if she don’t. You know the old bird always will, there’s no getting around her.”
Dermot didn’t recognize the man’s slang tongue and he struggled with its French colloquialisms. He tried for a second to peer through the keyhole, forgetting it was papered over.
“And what about that new fella, the one who sent them the telegram? He’s all polite and ingratiating but he’s common as anything, you can tell. And how come he shows up now, I ask you?”
The pair of them had come to a stop, right outside the hidden door-frame. Dermot held his breath as he listened, but the illusion of the unbroken wall held.
“I tell you why he shows up now.” Dermot judged the man older. His voice was more guttural than Émile’s. “He’s a squeezer is why. Simonne being in the newspapers, you knew they’d start to show up. He’s the first of many, mark my words, out trying his luck for an earner.” He had a callous vindictive tone and a tongue like a paring knife. “Lift anything he can and feed his face, then get a few francs to push on. You keep an eye on him. You watch him.”
“He said he knew Arthur, though.”
“Said he did. And maybe he did. I’m sure Arthur knew lots of soldiers. What does that prove? Chain him up is what I’d have done. Thrown the bugger out.”
“Gustave,” Berthe objected.
“Sponging thieves. Bloody foreigners. Send the lot of them back home.”
“What about that other thing?” Berthe turned the conversation. “
Has Madame said anything more?”
What was discussed after that, Dermot never found out, for the conversation and the servants moved out of earshot. He lifted the wardrobe back, but could not touch the infant – he balked at touching the child.
“Let’s get out of here, Arthur. I think I’ve had enough.”
They fled, Dermot knowing he could do nothing about the cut wallpaper. It would only be a matter of time before someone discovered the invasion. But he had the birth certificates. He would tell the Malenfers tonight at dinner. He would eat his fill and discharge his promise and be gone from this place in the morning.
14
Message from the Grave
Where Dermot had lost the time he did not know, on the sortie to Arthur’s old room or engrossed in his thoughts. Tidying himself as best he could, he remembered to pocket the envelope.
Dinner had begun. The disheveled new arrival held the floor, all eyes on him. Madame with Sophie beside her, and Simonne, he was glad to see.
Madame had not risen from her seat as the other Malenfer women had done. She lowered her spoon and glared at him the full length of the table.
“We’re late,” he said, redundantly.
“We?” said Arthur, shaking his head.
Sophie and Simonne retook their seats on either side of the table, a signal for their tardy guest to enter and join them. Dermot gave Simonne a little smile hello.
“Keep those birth certificates in your pocket.” Arthur volunteered his advice. “Better to wait for them to ask you.” Had Simonne cocked an ear at his whispers?
Madame motioned for dinner to continue.
A ruddy-faced woman bearing a cauldron of soup lumbered towards Dermot; she looked like the sort that could split firewood using only her bare hands. He guessed creamed potato with something green, judging from the plates of the others. The handles must have been hot to the touch – her chubby fingers gripped towels.
Dermot felt uncomfortable being served. In the army everyone stood in line with their Dixie cans held out. In Paris he’d eaten at laborers’ cafés or out of tins up in his room. There seemed too much cutlery and an abundance of plates for one man having dinner.
Murder at Malenfer Page 14