An Old-Fashioned Mystery

by Runa Fairleigh

  “Now, I realize that this in itself is not very much,” Violet quickly continued, wanting to present her entire argument before answering objections. “But then I remembered something else. Several times in the afternoon, when inquiries were made about the transportation arrangements, Mr. Drupe either said nothing, or claimed ignorance. Last night, trying to urge us to wait, and do nothing, he said that we’d be picked up today. I pointed out that we didn’t know that, and he started to say something like, ‘But she specifically told me—’ and then cut himself off and looked uncomfortable. I think that was a slip. I think that between the afternoon, when Drupe knew nothing about the arrangements, and the evening, when he did, he’d seen Mousey. He’d seen her, and killed her. And then he tried to divert suspicion, not just away from himself, but off the island entirely.”

  Violet paused, smiled at the rapt attention she’d generated, and went on. “This seemed to account for what I’d noticed, but I still couldn’t see why he’d do it. I had one idea, though, and a little while ago, something Cerise told me seemed to confirm it. Apparently, Mousey’d recently had an audit done and, as Cerise said, reacted oddly to the report she received. My bet is that Drupe, as trustee of the estate, had been embezzling funds for over twenty years. Mousey found out and planned to nail him. Even Drupe couldn’t slide out of this one, so he killed her.”

  “My God!” Cerise said. “The plane ticket! He’s going to Rio in two days!”

  “Precisely,” Violet said, smiling.

  “And that knife of his!” Sebastian said. “It’s sharp enough to cut through anything.”

  “Oh, dear! We saw him yesterday in the study,” Budgie said to Sebastian. “He was looking through the desk, and seemed upset that we’d seen him.”

  “You didn’t tell me that, Sebastian,” Violet said.

  “It didn’t occur to me. Besides, how was I to know you were interested in him? You kept it to yourself…partner.”

  “I don’t like that foul old coot any better than you do,” Derrick said, “but you’re just guessing. You have no proof.”

  Violet nodded. “After I talked with Cerise, I went up to Drupe’s room. I wanted to see what was in that briefcase he guards so carefully, but not surprisingly, it wasn’t there. I thought I’d take a quick look around anyway, and in the back of a drawer I found this.” Violet held up a sheet of note paper with handwriting on one side. “It’s Mousey’s writing. Unless I’m very much mistaken, this is what was inside that envelope Sebastian found.”

  “What does it say, Sis?”

  “It says, ‘I have recently discovered that my guardian, Mr. Eustace Drupe, has systematically removed funds from the estate left me by my father, for which he was trustee. As near as the accountants can determine, all the stocks have been sold, all the property is fully mortgaged, and all the cash and other assets are gone. Apparently, much of this went to support questionable political activities, and the rest Drupe removed from the country for his own use. Because of Mr. Drupe’s depredations, the estate which I will inherit on my birthday is worthless.’ Is this enough proof?” Violet asked. “The letter certainly provides a motive. And the fact that Drupe had it seems to leave no doubt he’s the murderer.”

  “Damned scoundrel! Should be beaten!” The Colonel moved to pound his cane, then looked confused when he realized he didn’t have it with him.

  “Nothing?” Derrick said to himself.

  Mrs. Hook snorted, Cerise laughed softly and shook her head, and Budgie sighed sadly.

  “Hee, hee, hee,” Mrs. Argus said.

  “One thing, Violet,” Sebastian said after looking at the letter. “Why would old Drupe keep this around? Awfully incriminating, isn’t it?”

  Violet shrugged. “It is. Then again, when have you ever known a lawyer to destroy anything, no matter how damaging it might be?”

  “That’s true. But still.…Couldn’t the letter have been planted to cast suspicion on Drupe?”

  “I suppose that’s barely possible.”

  “So what if it was planted?” Derrick said. “Between Pinky’s accusations and Violet’s analysis, Mr. Drupe has quite a few questions to answer.”

  “Damned right! Full interrogation!” the Colonel trumpeted, rubbing his hands. “Where’s the damned fellow, anyway?”

  “Yes, where is he?” Violet asked. “Anyone seen him?”

  No reply. Then Mrs. Hook snorted. “The little man, dried up like a dead rat? Saw him going into the study this morning. But a body’s got enough to do without having to keep track of the lot of you. A body can’t be forever—”

  “The study!” Violet said. “Where the papers are kept? Again? He’s probably making sure that there’s nothing there that will point to his embezzling. Quick!”

  They all ran to the study, but the heavy door was bolted from the inside. They pounded and called Drupe’s name, but there was no answer.

  “I’ll go check the windows,” Cerise said, and ran out before anyone could stop her. After what seemed to be an awfully long time, she returned, slightly out of breath. “The windows are locked. I could see the back of Drupe’s head over the top of the chair, but he didn’t turn around when I knocked on the window.”

  “Stand aside,” Derrick said. “I’ll open the door.”

  He moved across the hallway, then ran at the door and kicked just beneath the handle, the full weight of his body behind the blow. With a ripping sound, the bolt pulled out of the wood, and the door was open.

  They all rushed into the study. In front of them, Drupe was sitting behind the desk. His little eyes were round, and his lower jaw had dropped open. He looked surprised.

  But not at their intrusion.

  The lawyer’s bald lumpy skull was now a red, pulpy mess, split open like an over-ripe plum.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “Well, it certainly looks like old Eustace has drooped,” Sebastian said after the initial exclamations of shock and dismay had died down. “It also looks like you were wrong about him, Sis.”

  “Yes,” Derrick said. “He seems to have established his innocence in a rather conclusive fashion.”

  “Hmm,” Violet said, not really listening. If she was disturbed by this new development, she didn’t show it. Instead, her eyes were bright and keen as her gaze darted from point to point, examining the scene before her, trying to take in as many details as possible.

  It was curious, she thought, but other than the ghastly centrepiece, the setting was lacking the sense of disruption or chaos that usually accompanies violent death. There was no disorder in the room, no sign of haste, or frenzy, or struggle; no drawers were pulled open, no chairs overturned, no papers scattered about. Even the corpse itself seemed composed, the body seated comfortably in the large leather chair, the hands resting on some papers on top of the desk. Nothing suggested panic or fright or that Drupe had tried to defend himself, or even that he had been aware of the approaching attack. All the more curious, Violet thought, since the position of the wound—high up on the forehead, about where the bald lawyer’s hairline must have been years before—made it unlikely that the death blow had come from behind. Well, she’d know more about that when she examined the body.

  No, besides Drupe’s skull, about the only thing not as it should have been was the wall safe. The large painting that usually covered it was swung to the side on its hinges, as was the round door of the safe. Like the lawyer, the safe looked surprised at what had been done to it, the dark circle of the opening seeming to say, “Ooh!”

  As she mentally recorded her important first impression of the crime scene, Violet also took careful note of the reactions of her eight companions. Aside from Sebastian, who was trying unsuccessfully to look appropriately serious and grim-faced, most of the others seemed to display the combination of astonishment, fascination, aversion, distress, and uneasiness that was to be expected. Mr. Ching, though, appeared to be merely curious in a detached kind of way. He looked at the body, his hand absent-mindedly running over his sh
ort spiky hair, his expression like that of a man doing a complex mathematical calculation.

  The Colonel, too, seemed unmoved as he looked at the bludgeoned remains, grunting once, as though in acknowledgement of something. Then he glanced up at the wall to the right of the desk—the wall opposite the one that held the safe—and suddenly his eyes widened and all colour drained from his face. The intricate network of sclerotic blood vessels across his cheeks and nose stood out darkly against the abrupt pallor, and gasping, panting sounds came from deep in the Colonel’s barrel chest.

  Sebastian looked up, interested, thinking that a beached walrus had somehow blundered into their little get-together.

  Budgie bustled over to support her husband, whose legs seemed suddenly shaky. Soon her body was trembling with the effort of holding him up, and Mr. Ching stepped forward to lend a hand. That was all it took for the Colonel to recover from his fainting fit. Colour returned to his face as he backed away from the cook, making warning sounds and shaking his arm, evidently forgetting that he was still not holding his cane.

  Violet noted with some interest the sequence of the Colonel’s reactions, and she also saw that she had overlooked something in her initial survey of the study. At eye level on the wall to the right of the desk was a rectangular patch much lighter than the surrounding panelling. Until very recently, something had hung there. Something, a quick glance confirmed, that was no longer in the room.

  “Hmm,” Violet said to herself, nodding. A silent smile formed itself on her lips as she thought how much more interesting these new developments made the case. With a start, she realized that the others were looking at her expectantly and, returning to the present, she briskly took charge of the situation.

  She ordered the others to stand back and to touch nothing. As with the first body, Violet’s approach was cautious. She worked her way around the desk in ever-diminishing circles, careful to ensure that she destroyed no piece of evidence, overlooked no tiny clue. But, as before, there was nothing to be seen. The safe was empty. The French windows behind the desk were securely locked and bolted. There were no suspicious bits of ash or dirt or lint on the Aubusson carpet—or at least nothing that could not be accounted for by the less than enthusiastic efforts of Mrs. Hook.

  Finally, Violet reached the desk. Still without touching anything, she looked over the papers spread out across the top of it. They mostly seemed to be connected with the running of the estate, account sheets, employee lists, and so forth. All looked to be fairly old, though even a cursory inspection made it clear that only one document was of any potential interest. Carefully lifting Drupe’s hand—noticing as she did so that the body was still quite warm—Violet pulled out the sheaf of papers on which it was resting. She quickly skimmed through the dense type, shrugged, then looked up and held it out for Sebastian.

  At one time, Sebastian, like his sister, had had considerable experience deciphering testamentary intricacies, and the six pages of this document gave him no trouble at all. When he finished, he turned to Budgie, grinning hugely.

  “This is Ripley Sill’s will,” he said, then paused and made a face. “That’s a real tongue twister. ‘In Ripley Sill’s will, will Ripley Sill will, or won’t he?’” He smiled again at Budgie. “Oh, he will, all right, and he did. It says that—except for a few minor bequests—the entire estate goes to his daughter, Rosa. But it also says very clearly that if she should die before her twenty-fifth birthday, it all goes to you as her only living relative. Congratulations! It’s all yours!” Sebastian, who knew how exciting it was to inherit, was genuinely delighted about Aunt Budgie’s good fortune, but his smile faded when he noticed her sad expression. “Or it would have been all yours if there’d been anything left to get.” Sebastian shrugged and looked sympathetically at her. “Oh well. Easy come, easy go. Right?”

  Budgie tried to smile at Sebastian, but wasn’t quite successful.

  Meanwhile, Violet had examined the body, but had discovered very little beyond what was immediately evident. The dead lawyer, a fist-sized hole in his forehead, was a textbook example of what happened when the human skull came into contact with the classic blunt instrument. Violet did, however, determine that there had been just one blow, and that—judging from the depth of the indentation—it had been an exceptionally powerful one. Either the killer was very strong, or the weapon was one that could build up considerable momentum before striking. Like a golf club, Violet thought. She couldn’t be sure, but judging from the shape and position of the wound, she thought that the blow might have come from the side, rather than the front. If from the front, the attack would have involved reaching across the large desk, which might have been awkward, and which Drupe would certainly have seen coming.

  Violet straightened up and, as she did so, saw the wound from a slightly different angle. She froze where she stood, half bent over, staring at it, an expression of near-disbelief on her face. She used her magnifying glass for another close examination of Drupe’s skull. Then she got out a clean handkerchief and carefully, very carefully, let it soak up the blood and fluid that had filled the indentation. She again looked closely at the wound and shook her head, as though she still could not believe her eyes. She looked up at the others, then asked Cerise to join her.

  Cerise hesitantly went around behind the desk, and Violet asked her to examine the wound. At first she refused, but finally agreed when Violet kept insisting that was essential that she do it.

  “Tell me what, if anything, you notice about it,” Violet said. “You may have to look at it from different positions.”

  Reluctantly, Cerise took the magnifying glass and bent to her unpleasant task. After a couple of minutes she started to stand up. “Nothi—wait!” She bent over again, again looked through the glass for a long time, then straightened and went over to Violet. “There’s an imprint there,” she said quietly. “It’s hard to see at first, but once you spot it, it’s very clear. Whatever it was that was used to do this, it left a very precise imprint in his skull.” She grimaced.

  Violet nodded. “What’d it look like to you?”

  “Like some kind of animal head, I think. The deepest part looks like it could be the snout.”

  “Yeah, like a dog.”

  “Maybe, but not quite. I think it looks more like…I don’t know…like a lion’s head, or something.” Suddenly Cerise stopped and stared at Violet. “My God! Isn’t—”

  Violet held up a silencing finger. “Shh.”

  Cerise looked at Violet, then nodded, and went back to where the others were waiting. She stood apart and gazed speculatively at one particular member of the party.

  “Well, has the Society-Girl Detective wrapped up another one?” Sebastian asked pleasantly.

  Violet’s eyes narrowed as she considered her brother. “Idiot,” she muttered, then proceeded to relate her findings, such as they were, omitting only the detail of the imprint.

  “So you’re saying that once again it could be any of us?” Derrick asked when she’d finished.

  Violet nodded. “Apparently no one saw Drupe between breakfast and the time we broke in here. Or, I should say—for a rather obvious reason—no one will admit to having seen him. Did any of you see him?” Heads moved from side to side, and Violet nodded again. “One of you is lying, of course, but I’d hardly expect it to be otherwise. And furthermore, I doubt that any one of us can completely and conclusively account for the way we spent those hours.”

  Several protests started but quickly died, as everyone realized that Violet was correct, that everyone had been alone for significant portions of the period in question.

  “Do you think,” Derrick asked, “that the same person killed both of them?”

  “At this point there’s no way to be sure, but it does seem to be a reasonable assumption. Certainly, the alternative—that Drupe killed Mousey, and then was himself killed—is not very reasonable. Circumstances force us to accept the fact that one of us is a killer, but to think that there could be m
ore than one does seem to be pushing things a bit far.”

  Most of the group nodded in agreement. It was, as Violet said, reasonable; moreover, they had no way of knowing that Violet’s assumption was, simultaneously, both correct and incorrect.

  “But why kill Drupe?” Derrick persisted. “You made a good case for why Drupe’d want to kill Pinky, but why would anyone want to kill him?”

  “That’s the question, isn’t it? If we knew why, we’d probably know who.”

  “Maybe whoever it was wanted something from the safe.”