Cerise’s eyes went wide with horror, and she began to step backward. “What are you suggesting? God! How sick! No, I don’t! No! No!” She was almost screaming as she fled as far from the coal pile as she could.
Violet looked after her, then shrugged. “Well, I’ve made a fair study of forensic medicine, so—”
“Why, this looks like a job for the Society-Girl Detective!” Sebastian said enthusiastically.
Violet glared at him for a second, then looked around at the others. “So, if there are no objections.…”
The lawyer clicked his teeth again, but there were no other objections.
Examining the ground carefully before she took each step, so she would not inadvertently destroy any minute bits of evidence, Violet slowly approached the coal pile. Then, taking a deep breath, she knelt and began her examination, aided by the portable but extremely powerful magnifying glass she always carried in her purse. Except for some muttered remarks from Sebastian about Sherlock Cornichon, the room was silent for the ten minutes she spent at her grisly task.
“Well?” Derrick asked when she at last stood up, wiped off her hands, and brushed her knees.
“Well, it’s a bit hard to tell because the coal is so dark and absorbent, but from the…uh…” She paused, trying to find the most delicate way to express herself. “…the…uh…dampness that I felt, I’d say that it—the…uh…butchering—”
“Ohh,” Budgie said, weakly.
“—took place right here, on that spot. I can’t be sure about the cause of death—whether it was due to one or more of the…uh…obvious wounds, or whether the…uh…dismemberment—”
“Unh,” Derrick grunted, looking a bit greener.
The Colonel huskily cleared his throat, a warning sound suggesting some caution was in order.
“Or whether it was done after death. But if so, judging from the…uh…amount of exsanguination, it would have to have been done almost immediately after.” Violet looked around, but no one seemed inclined to dispute her conclusions thus far. “The…uh…body is still quite warm, and there has not yet been coagulation to any significant degree. The wounds themselves are still moist and glistening; some slight…uh…seepage is still occurring.”
Mrs. Hook violently snorted, indicating that there were some things that a body just didn’t have to listen to.
“Even considering that it’s quite warm down here from the furnace,” Violet continued, “the murder must have taken place very recently. Certainly not more than two hours ago, probably within the last hour.”
“Oh, dear,” Budgie said.
“Claptrap!” the Colonel said. “Damned woman’s bonkers!”
Drupe sniffed as though to say, “You see what I mean.”
Then Mrs. Argus chuckled quietly—in a knowing sort of way—and everyone else fell silent.
“There’s something else,” Derrick said, noticing the curious expression on Violet’s face. “What is it?” Violet shook her head, but Derrick persisted. “What?”
“Yes. Do tell us what further discoveries you’ve made,” Drupe said.
“Well,” Violet sighed, “it’s the wounds themselves. They seem rough, brutal, the result of an insane outburst, a savage hacking.”
Drupe sniffed. “How perceptive.”
“No. I mean, I think they are supposed to look that way. But when I examined them closely using the glass, I believe I saw indications of precision and skill there. What I mean is that I have the feeling that the killer knew exactly what he—or she—was doing.”
Sounds of surprise, incredulity—mumbling and foot shuffling.
Violet looked over at Cerise, whose lips may have been compressed slightly, but who steadily returned the gaze.
“Hmm,” Sebastian said to himself from behind the pile of old cartons around which he was poking. He glanced at Mr. Ching who was standing slightly behind the others, muscular arms folded, dark eyes expressionless, impenetrable. It was impossible to tell if he understood the proceedings, but somehow Sebastian was sure that he did…and that he might even have been enjoying himself.
Mr. Drupe cleared his throat several times, a scratchy kind of sound, then pushed his hand deeper into his jacket pocket and stared unblinkingly at his brown wingtip shoes.
Sebastian waited until things had settled down again before announcing, “I found something, too, Violet. In the corner over there, behind that rubbish.”
“Oh? What?” she said, not much interested.
Sebastian smiled and held up a finger to indicate that she should wait a second. He went over to Cerise and showed her a white, business-size envelope. “Is this what’s-her-name’s writing?”
Cerise looked at the envelope, then at Sebastian, an expression of extreme puzzlement on her face. She nodded her head. “It’s hers—Rosa’s.”
“What is it, Sebastian?” Violet said, putting her hands on her hips and sounding impatient.
“It’s an envelope, Sis.”
“I can see that, you fool!”
“On the front here it says, ‘To be opened in the event of my death.’”
“What! Come on, Sebastian!”
“And someone’s followed the instructions.”
“Well?”
Sebastian shrugged, then smiled. “Well, it’s empty.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
When the party once more reassembled in the lounge, it was, understandably, even less chipper than before.
Using the pocket camera with which Aunt Budgie had planned to document her niece’s birthday celebration, Violet took several photographs of the ghastly scene in the basement, in order to be able to provide the authorities with a precise and accurate record of what it had been like. The awful remains were then taken upstairs and put into the walk-in freezer for preservation.
Back in the lounge, the topic was, of course, what to do next. Naturally, the telephone had long since been disconnected, so that was out. Cerise then asked if anyone had looked in the boathouse. Derrick quickly jumped to his feet and volunteered to go out and see if there wasn’t something there that could take at least a couple of them back to the mainland for help.
As they waited for Derrick’s return, the tension in the room was palpable. So this is what they mean by being able to cut it with a knife, Sebastian thought, then grimaced; under the circumstances, there were, perhaps, better metaphors.
Derrick came in slightly winded, drops of moisture attractively beading on his tanned face where it had been exposed to the storm. He shook his head.
“Nothing?” Violet asked.
“Worse.” He looked grim. “There was a boat there—two, in fact. And they were in pretty good shape, would’ve gotten us out of here easily. Until someone chopped big holes in them with an axe.”
“Hell and damnation!” the Colonel said.
“Was this done recently?” Violet asked.
“Very. You can see the cuts are fresh.”
“Damned fellow! Needs to be taught a damned good lesson! Oh, yes!” The Colonel’s eyes gleamed at the thought, and he pounded his cane.
“Now, dear, try to calm down,” Budgie said. “Can they be fixed, dear?”
“No. They’re completely ruined.”
“So that’s that,” Cerise said.
Derrick nodded. “Oh, yeah…there is some diving gear there—fins, a wet suit—in case anyone feels up to a five- or six-hour swim in near-freezing water.”
“Then we have no choice but to wait,” Drupe said. “In any event, it should not be long. A boat should come for us tomorrow.”
“Not necessarily,” Violet corrected. “Poor Mousey made all of the arrangements, you know, and as far as I can tell, none of us has any idea what they were. Maybe a boat’ll come tomorrow, maybe it won’t.”
“But she specifically told me that—” The lawyer abruptly cut himself off, looked nervously at the others, then put his arms even more tightly around his briefcase.
“Do you mean, Violet,” Sebastian said, “that we’
re here in the middle of nowhere, with a deranged killer running around loose? And that there is no way for us to communicate with the outside world, or get help, or get away? And that we don’t know how long we’re going to have to stay here? Charming!”
“Hee, hee, hee,” Mrs. Argus said to herself, very quietly, as she rubbed her large bony hands together.
“My God!” Cerise said. “What should we do?”
“We should each take some bread, and cans, and stuff,” Sebastian said, “then go up to our rooms, and lock our doors, and stay there until somebody arrives.”
As things turned out, this might well have been pretty good advice; of course, had they followed it, there wouldn’t have been much more of a story to tell.
“Nonsense!” Derrick said, striking a dashing pose. “What we’ve got to do is mount a search and find the maniac. Flush him out!”
“Hear, hear!” Again the Colonel pounded his cane. “Distribute arms! Beat the bushes! Got enough fire power here to blow the bloody bugger clear to Athabasca!”
“Now, dear.”
“The Colonel’s right,” Derrick said. “There are slickers and sou’westers in the closet, and some flashlights that work. Even with just a few of us, we should be able to stick close together and still comb the island from one end to the other.”
“Speaking of maniacs…” Sebastian muttered. “He wants to walk out and announce, ‘Here I am, Number Two for the Ripper.’ And people call me crazy.”
“What do you think we should do?” Cerise asked Violet, who’d been listening to all this with a thoughtful expression.
“I suppose we should do as Derrick and the Colonel suggest.” She sounded quite tentative—either unconvinced about the approach, or amazed to find herself agreeing with anything that those two might propose.
“Violet!” Certainly Sebastian was amazed.
“Do I take that to mean you won’t be helping us?”
“Well, Violet, it is pouring outside.”
“Fine. Then you can search the house. You’ve already had lots of practice.”
“But—”
“Now, how should we arrange.…”
Eventually it was decided that Derrick, the Colonel, Violet, Cerise, and Mr. Ching would search the island. The others, working as a group and sticking close together, would cover the house from top to bottom. Mr. Drupe seemed disinclined to participate, but was persuaded it was in his own best interest to stay with the group.
In less than three-quarters of an hour, the outside party was back inside, its search completed. The island was not really that big, and even in darkness and a driving storm there simply were not that many places an intruder could hide. The younger members returned muddy and tired. The Colonel, though, seemed exhilarated, despite the fact he’d been prevented from popping a few rounds into the darkness—”just to see what jumps out, y’know.”
It took Sebastian and the others nearly as long to go through the large house, but that too proved fruitless. They came upon no one, nor did they discover anything to indicate that any intruder had been there.
Thus it was with considerable relief that the two groups met back in the lounge and exchanged negative reports.
“That takes a load off a body,” Mrs. Hook said, dropping heavily into a chair and fanning herself with her hankie. It sounded as though she’d been concerned that the presence of a deranged killer would somehow have made more work for her.
“Cowardly bugger’s scarpered,” the Colonel said.
“Don’t sound so disappointed,” Cerise said.
“Yes,” Derrick agreed. “I don’t mind admitting that I for one am pretty happy we didn’t find him. He must’ve cleared out right after.”
“Not necessarily,” Violet said slowly, as though thinking out loud.
“What do you mean, dear?” Budgie asked, worried.
Mr. Drupe sniffed. “Miss Cornichon is just trying for more theatrics.”
Violet stared at the lawyer until he looked away, then turned to the others. “I mean, the killer might be here.”
“Nonsense!” Derrick said. “He couldn’t be hiding. We’ve looked everywhere.”
“Yes, Violet. We have, you know,” Sebastian said.
Violet paused, then shook her head. “No. I mean here.” She pointed to the floor. “In this room. The killer may be one of us.”
CHAPTER NINE
“What!”
“I say!”
“Hell’s bells! Damned woman’s gone right ’round the twist!”
“Oh, dear.”
“Surprise, surprise,” Mrs. Argus giggled.
“Well,” Sebastian said, leaning forward, eyes round and gleaming. “This is more like it.”
“Perhaps Miss Cornichon would be good enough to explain,” Drupe said, his tone suggesting that clearly no explanation was possible.
“It’s not that difficult to understand, Mr. Drupe—even for a trained legal mind.” Violet smiled coldly at the lawyer, and held up a finger. “One: there’s been a murder. Two: all evidence suggests that it took place quite recently. Three: even though we instituted a prompt search, we did not find the supposed intruder. But even more important—Four: we found no traces that anyone other than the people in this room has been on this island.”
“We might have missed something,” Derrick said.
“A few minutes ago everyone was certain that nothing had been overlooked. You can’t have it both ways.” Violet turned to the housekeeper. “Mrs. Hook, you and Mr. Ching arrived two days ago to get things ready. Was there any sign that anyone had been on this island recently?”
“Nothing. Dust an inch thick all over. Far too much work for a body to do. I told Missy. I told her she’d be sorry.”
“Hee, hee, hee,” Mrs. Argus chuckled.
“I meant, it wouldn’t be ready on time. I meant—” Mrs. Hook glared around the room, then folded her arms and took refuge in a stony silence.
Violet nodded. “So no one was here before Mrs. Hook arrived, and we have no reason to think that anyone came after—besides us, that is. And finally, we have that envelope that Sebastian found. Several of us here mentioned that poor Mousey had been acting strangely recently—making cryptic remarks, and so forth. And it seems that she considered this gathering to be particularly important. Though precisely why we don’t know. Perhaps she had reached an important decision, or was going to make an announcement. Perhaps someone here would not have been happy about what Mousey was going to do. Perhaps that person tried to stop her.”
“Pure speculation,” Drupe said.
“Perhaps. But the envelope is not speculation, it is fact. And it indicates that Mousey thought something might happen. Why else would a normal, healthy young woman on her way to her birthday celebration prepare something like that? Why indeed?—unless she had a reason to think she might not survive?”
“Ah,” Drupe said, as though a magnificent vista had suddenly opened up before him. “The key words in your…uhm…most ingenious analysis are ‘normal’ and ‘healthy’. While it grieves me to speak ill of the dead—”
“Sure it does,” Violet muttered. “They don’t fight back.”
“—I must inform you that, in my opinion, Miss Sill was neither normal nor healthy. You yourself commented on the fact that she’d been acting strangely. I, too, had been aware of that for some time, and had reluctantly reached the conclusion that Miss Sill was suffering from a number of severe mental and emotional disorders that most frequently manifested themselves as schizophrenic fantasy, paranoid delusion, and/or persecution mania. I had urged her for a long time to seek assistance, but she saw my solicitude merely as another aspect of the supposed plot against her. In short, my ward was a grossly disturbed young woman, and thus the envelope—to the existence of which you attach such importance, Miss Cornichon—is only evidence of her illness.”
The stunned silence that followed this startling revelation was broken by Sebastian who cleared his throat and smiled pleasantly at Dru
pe. “Except that the bits and pieces of her are now in the meat locker. I mean, I’m the only one here who didn’t know little Pinky Mousey Squeak, or whatever. For all I know, your diagnosis, Doctor, is correct, and she did suffer from all those things. But so what? Don’t we all? I know I do. I know Violet does. I’d be surprised if any of you didn’t.” Sebastian had to pause a minute for the angry denials and outraged protests that greeted what was one of his typical, cavalierly sweeping generalizations. He held out his hands. “What’s the big deal? After all, what’s raging dementia but another aspect of life’s varied tapestry? Anyway, the point is that events proved little Squeaking Pink Mouse correct. Didn’t they? Apparently, someone was out to get her.”
“Yes, you disgusting old coot!” Derrick said to Drupe. “How dare you say such things about my fiancée!”
“Ah, yes,” Drupe said drily. “Your fiancée—who recently came to me to see what could be done to ensure that you could not touch any part of her estate in the event that you two married.”
“That’s a lie!”
“Even in the midst of her delusions, there were apparently lucid moments during which Miss Sill had the presence of mind to want to guard herself against a fortune hunter.”
“That silly bitch! No! She didn’t say that! I don’t believe you, Drupe, any more than the federal prosecutors did.”
“Fortune hunter!” The Colonel came out of his half-doze with a start. The phrase in some way seemed to agitate or alarm him severely, and he repeated it. Then he noticed that everyone was looking at him, and he cleared his throat several times. “Gad, sir! That’s disgusting. A thrashing’s too damned good for your sort. Nothing lower than a fortune hunter.”
“No?” Derrick said. “What about a child molester? Pinky told me about when she visited—”
“That’s a damned lie, sir! I always said she was called Squeak because she had a screw loose. And if you believe anything that little gooney-bird said, you’re just as bad. Why I could—”
But the Colonel couldn’t. His face became so congested with dark blood that he was only able to sizzle like a boiler about to burst.
An Old-Fashioned Mystery Page 7