Murder at Malenfer

by Iain McChesney

  When Madame was born (it was only the very eldest who could remember her by any other name), Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte III sat upon the throne – he was the last king France had known. She’d been a child of the Third Republic in an age when empires ruled; progress for a continent, but under a gathering cloud. Hers was a time of colonial ambition that knew no moderation, of patriotic governments with feudal sensibilities. Disputes settled between gentlemen while the factories forged machine guns.

  The people that came to watch her go shared a bond that went unspoken, for they had endured the darkest years and had lived to see the springtime. The mourners had borne privation and suffered plague and seen the fighting, had loved and lost or simply lost, and now they gathered to remember. Brutal times were behind them all, but what lay in the future? All they knew was that life for them would somehow forever be different, and so the living took heart in life and enjoyed the Malenfer spectacle. Madame’s coffin trundled past, pulled by a team of horses, her casket draped in familiar black with lilies heaped high upon it. Malenfer Manor was opened to all and was a Wednesday long remembered.

  Madame had lived long enough to see the wedding of her granddaughter. Madame Simonne Ward had been given away by her much approving mother. The private Mass was small and short but no less moving for it. Arthur wore a handsome new suit and no one asked him where he’d gotten it. The more solid Émile was entrusted by Dermot with the care of the wedding bands, and so it was that the bride’s own cousin was best man to the groom.

  The Malenfer twin was free on bail and the charges against him were thin; with a warrant out for Crevel’s arrest, the case looked close to failure. Madame had sworn new written testimony against the absent Mayor, stating that he had confessed his deeds before threatening her life also. Madame had struck the prosecutor as a very convincing witness.

  Crevel’s car was recovered near a railway station some miles distant from Darmannes, while the man himself was not seen in weeks that turned into months. A warrant was issued for the Mayor in his absence at the summons, and his likeness still hangs on the wall of the local Chevecheix post office.

  “Do you take this man to be your husband, to love and cherish for all of your days?”

  “I do,” Simonne told the young priest, while Father Meslier scowled on from a pew. Dermot kissed his radiant bride. They honeymooned in London and Ireland before sailing home to France.

  Of Élise Beauvais there had been no further sign since the dark hour of the reckoning. Perhaps what humanity remained in Élise had accepted Arthur’s challenge, and that forgiveness had finally brought her a peace that revenge could not provide. Whatever the case, her blighted presence had been absent since that night, when Simonne had closed the window on her and cast her from the Manor.

  In the aftermath of that fateful dawn, Dermot had heard the tale.

  “She’s gone?”

  “I don’t know for certain,” Simonne had replied. “But I feel nothing of her now.”

  “What happened in Arthur’s room? What did you see when you got there?”

  “See?” Simonne thought for a moment. “It wasn’t quite that way.” Dermot knew not to rush her. “The children warned me she was coming. They were afraid, like they sometimes get, and I tried to calm them down. Then I heard him call. Arthur, that is. I felt his fear… his despair. It was terrible. When I got there, the window was open and the place was bitter cold. I hadn’t been in that room for years. Do you know that was where Grand-mère put her babies? The ones she delivered stillborn. Why would she do something like that? Who would do such a thing?”

  “I can’t imagine, Simonne. Let’s be generous and call her complicated. Perhaps she couldn’t let go?”

  “Well, when I got there, I felt a malice in the room. That’s what it was. It filled the open window like a tactile darkness, and I thought it was trying to get in.”

  “You weren’t scared?”

  “ I didn’t even think, my love, I ran over and pushed it back through. I didn’t want anything like that coming inside, being around people I care for. And then I saw her.”

  “Who?”

  “Élise Beauvais. She was there. Just a young girl in a pretty dress, lying broken on the ground down below. Her arms were all twisted and bent at angles; I knew she had fallen somehow. She was staring blankly up at me from the snow-covered ground. But do you know the oddest part?”

  “What’s that?”

  “I thought she looked quite peaceful.”

  Dermot thought about that. “There was nothing at all. There was no-one there. We went out afterwards and looked.”

  “I know. I know that. I can’t explain it. But she was there. She was there. Lying like a broken doll. And the room was so cold that I closed the window. But I could see her through the frost on the panes.”

  “And you think she’s finally gone?”

  “Oh, I hope so, Dermot. I don’t know for certain. But I’ve felt nothing of her since.”

  The crops had been sown, the weather improved, then summer arrived on cue; and when it did it found Dermot thinking more about his friend. He had seen less and less of Arthur over the last few months, though when he had come across him, his friend had always been content.

  “Is there anything I can do for you?” Dermot had broached one day, catching Arthur in the library. “Is everything all right?”

  “Just make sure Berthe keeps turning that book,” Arthur replied gently. “She forgot one day last week.”

  The ritual of the book advancement was a mystery to the servants: every day they flipped a page and never were the wiser. But this was no less peculiar than some of the other goings on. For one thing, under the new Master and Mistress, the tenants had been encouraged to buy their own land. The estate was giving out lease purchase agreements that the talk had labeled “generous.” No one wished to ask or question, and the pages were dutifully turned.

  “Arthur?” Dermot had been bucking up the nerve to talk about the subject.

  “What can I do for you, Irlandais?” He mulled over the paper, his pipe clacking between his teeth.

  He thought his friend had been different since the night the witch had left. “I was wondering...” Dermot continued, hesitantly, “would you like perhaps to...” He paused and then got it out. “Would you like if we had you exhumed? Your remains, I mean, Arthur. Would you prefer to be brought back to Chevecheix?” He’d been thinking about the tomb, the racks of Malenfer ancestors, Arthur’s mother and father among them, old bones stacked like so many cairns of stones. “Would you like to be brought home?” He hoped he hadn’t upset his friend by asking.

  The spirit looked up at him, removing his pipe before he spoke. “It’s a very nice thought, thank you, Dermot, and you know, I think I will accept. Why not?” He smiled. “I’m feeling quite... comfortable. I guess that’s the word I’m looking for. Comfortable, and yet not quite settled. I believe I might be nearing... my rest?” He looked content, but a little distracted, a little preoccupied, as if the affairs of the living, their conversations and cares – including this one – were an abstraction to him now. A whisper he had to strain himself to hear.

  Dermot said a few words more, but Arthur had returned to his newspaper. It was clear that he was immersed in it and was no longer listening. Dermot stopped trying to get through, feeling an unbidden tear in his eye. He knew it irretrievably now, that he was losing his friend once again.

  One hot day in August, Dermot crossed the city square. He kept to the shade under the trees to avoid the direct heat, out of the way of the annoying cars that seemed at once to be everywhere.

  “Four first class tickets to Épernay, please. Day returns, thank you.”

  They had set out together that morning: Dermot, his mother-in-law, Émile, and Simonne, newly expectant with child. The party lunched in Paris, where they bought their onward tickets, and found themselves in sleepy Épernay as the afternoon was fading. There was an evening train that would take them back, departing three
hours later. They had no plans to stay the night. It was a long way to come for such a short visit, but for their purpose it was adequate.

  The hospital at Épernay was in the process of being handed back. Dermot found he recognized little of it from the day, four years ago, when he’d driven up its gravel track. The rows of wounded, the efficient nurses, the stern-faced doctors all were gone. The sounds of pain, the cloud of fear, the smell of rot were nowhere to be found. It was a lovely house in mature gardens set far back from the road. They admired its form before entering and complimented its line. Inside they found it hollow, a few folding tables all that was left, and these stacked up in one room. There was a caretaker who met them; he got hold of an Army Corporal who looked fresh out of shorts. The boy was aware of the arrangements.

  “Easiest if you go round the back, sir. Through the gardens, past a big tree. You can’t miss it.” He thrust his arms like semaphore to indicate the way. “There’s a door in the wall at the back of the garden. I’ll round them up and follow behind.”

  They trod the sod of the manicured lawn beneath the grand old maple’s canopy. The grass was clear but for an occasional twig, while underfoot the crocus bulbs slept hidden.

  The stout wooden door in the ivy brick wall was closed, but its lock bore a key and it worked. They walked single file through a small copse of woods on a trail that led them to a stream. They crossed the gully, with its trickle of water, and emerged at last to a field.

  The crosses went on, row after row. There were hundreds of them, all neat and clean. So many of them, and yet almost none, for this was the hospital’s own cemetery. Not like at Ypres, not like the Marne, not like at Verdun, not like the Somme. At a pallbearer’s pace they went down the rows; Simonne reached for Dermot’s hand. Almost all of the graves here had names – they were grateful – it wasn’t like those other sites at all. Simonne paused by an exception and was joined by the others: Here lies a soldier of the Great War, known only unto God. Everyman. Her father perhaps. The somber party moved on.

  Most of the men here were French. They shared the ground with the odd Belgian, and a dozen other nationalities: a Canadian, an American from their expedition only months before, an Italian, a Pole. Everyone a brother now beneath the verdant sod. Eventually they found what they had come for: Lieutenant Arthur Malenfer in the engraver’s practiced hand. They stopped, gathered around it, and paid their respects silently, each in their own way, to the man who lay below: uncle, brother, father, friend. They had brought no wreath and they said no farewell, for they were taking Arthur home. The Corporal came with men bearing shovels; he didn’t make them wait long.

  Arthur reached the top of the staircase. He passed a short table on which sat the stump of a burned down candle. He turned south down the hallway, long with shadow from the afternoon sun, walking away from Simonne’s and Dermot’s rooms towards the sound of a distant shutter. He wound his way through the twisting passage, back towards the end of the house. Back towards the last of the rooms where the attic could be found.

  Little stairs fell down in bundles and then rose in twos and threes. The hallway fingered a tortured path that led to the old nursery. The door gleamed bright in fresh cream paint and muted sunlight from the window. Arthur paused and checked himself, and then leaned up close against it. He could hear the voices now, little whispers stifling laughter.

  “It’s me!” he said. “Let me in!”

  He saw the brass handle slowly turn and the door begin to swing. Arthur bucked up, and pulled out his pipe. He smiled and stepped within.

  That’s strange, he thought as the curtains fluttered in front of the dormer window, then he noticed that all the noise had stopped the moment he crossed the threshold. A draft pulled the door and threw it shut and rattled the hinges behind him, and only then did he catch the scent on the wind as it blew in off the hillside.

  And something, somewhere, was burning.

  * * *

  THE END

  Author’s Notes

  As in many works of fiction, there is much based on real events. The battles of the Aisne and Verdun and the Spanish Flu occurred. The loss of life was not exaggerated. Paris, in 1919, did play host to the Peace Conference where the ‘big four’ divided up Europe – there is a marvelous book by Margaret MacMillan that should be standard reading.

  You can see the Chaumont Viaduct to this day and ride across it by train, but other locales, Chevecheix being one of them, were borrowed in name alone. The maple tree on the grounds of the Épernay Infirmary is real, as are its hidden crocus bulbs, but they live 5000 miles away, here on the Canadian west coast.

  I like to think that somewhere on the way to Montmartre there is a rue des Trois Frères. You won’t find it on Google or on any maps, but if you stumble over it, and follow it trustingly, you will come to your garden of swans. Absinthe was banned in France in 1914, but was legalized once more in 1988, under a different name, and finally in 2011 as absinthe again. Names rise and fall in popularity: “Simonne” was common from the early 1900s until the 1930s, but these days has been almost entirely supplanted by the spelling “Simone.”

  Malenfer Manor itself is imagined: two parts historic, one cup familial, and more than a pinch of gothic literary. It is not entirely Warpole’s Otranto, Du Maurier’s Manderley, or Lovecraft’s New England bizarre, but then again, it is not entirely not. If the characters bear resemblance to anyone you know, put it down to chance or fate. And what of the metaphysical? Curses, witches, and spirits? I leave their existence to the conscience of the reader, lest I intrude on a place none should meddle.

  * * *

  A historical novel set in a foreign country is a minefield for the unwary writer. My misunderstandings about issues culinary, automotive, socio-hierarchical, sartorial, equestrian, and colloquial were far greater than I imagined. In educating me, and correcting my blunders, I would like to thank the advance readers who graciously read and commented on early drafts. In particular, Caroline Pettinotti Strasmann provided invaluable information and insights into French culture and customs. Any remaining faux pas are mine and mine alone. My editor, Dorothy, deserves a warm thank you, not least for her grammatical wisdom. I accepted far more of those comment boxes than I ended up rejecting. The book would not be the same without the considered wisdom of many.

  The majority of ink was put to paper during a fertile year in Ubud, Bali, Indonesia, where I sat at a desk in that tropical land with a towel over my head. It takes a special sort of understanding to go along with such an undertaking – snakes, spiders, and dengue fever aside, there is the matter of giving up a paycheck. Without the unending support of my darling wife Adrienne the book would not have happened.

  More from Iain McChesney

  If you enjoyed Murder at Malenfer, we hope you’ll take a few moments to leave a brief review where you purchased your book to share your experience with other readers, who depend on comments from those who’ve read the book to help guide their purchasing decisions. Thank you for your time!

  Iain McChesney’s Countdown to Death is a modern adaptation of an Agatha Christie classic:

  Ten strangers are lured to a remote Scottish island at the invitation of a reclusive industrialist.

  Stranded on Lord Black’s wondrous estate, the disparate guests have more in common than they first realize.

  Accused in a mysterious letter of having committed crimes in their past, one by one they are hunted down. But who is the killer? Will any of them live to find out?

  * * *

  Purchase Countdown to Death wherever ebooks are sold, or order a paperback from your favorite bookseller.

  To be notified about the release of future works by Iain McChesney, as well as other new titles and special contests, events, and sales from Wayzgoose Press, please sign up for our mailing list. (We send email infrequently, and you can unsubscribe at any time.)

  You’re also invited to join Iain McChesney on Facebook or stop by his blog site for news of upcoming works.
/>