Three. There was the Colonel’s considerable temper; his barely controlled tendency to violence; the near-total absence of any check or restraint on his own desires; his inability to recognize those around him as anything other than objects existing solely for the gratification of those desires; his flaring anger in the face of any opposition; his oft-expressed eagerness to inflict pain and to see it inflicted. To some, the Colonel might seem like a minor character from a British bedroom farce, but Violet had taken an extension course in abnormal psychology, and she knew a psychopath when she saw one.
Four. Like most psychopaths, the Colonel was terrified lest any crack appear in the image that he carefully presented to the world. Reality had to be what he said it was and only what he said it was. Any attack upon that reality must be immediately squelched. Violet recalled the way the Colonel reacted every time Budgie was about to reveal some innocuous little truth about him, something at variance with the way he wanted to be perceived. How he would have responded to the truly major threat that Mousey’s revelation would have posed was anyone’s guess. Violet guessed it could well have been with an insanely savage violent outburst.
Five. Poor Mousey was killed in what could only be described as an insanely savage violent outburst. Violet remembered saying that she thought the butchering might have been performed in coolness rather than passion, but that did not necessarily contradict her theory here. After all, one of the marks of psychopathic violence is a kind of detached rage, a purposeful, methodical madness.
Six. If the Colonel’s fear of being exposed as the disgusting monster that he was was not a sufficient motivation, there was his obsession with the treasure of Komondor Island. Again, it didn’t matter whether there really was a treasure, only that the Colonel thought so, and believed, moreover, that he was being thwarted in his attempt to get it. As Budgie had told him, the gold wouldn’t belong to him even if he found it. No doubt, though, he was familiar with the terms of the will and knew Budgie would inherit if his niece died. The treasure would then be his, and so, from his point of view, it would make perfect sense to remove the one obstacle standing between him and his desire. Probably neither motive by itself would have been sufficient; but the two together would be irresistible. There, in the person of poor Mousey, was the one thing that jeopardized both his current well-being and his future happiness. Especially if Mousey, with her new-found aggressiveness and desire to avenge wrongs done to her, had taunted the Colonel. Budgie was right that there’d been a streak of nastiness in Mousey; Violet could well imagine that being goaded by the girl in her whining little voice might have been all it took to push the Colonel over the edge.
Seven. The reason for murdering Eustace Drupe was not quite so clear. Possibly, Violet thought, Drupe knew something about Mousey’s accusations; he had seemed quite well informed about a lot of things. Or perhaps the reason had something to do with the will or the treasure map. It was not difficult to come up with a number of plausible scenarios, but which was correct was far from certain. What was certain, however, was that the implement that had killed the lawyer was the Colonel’s cane—the cane with a large silver lion’s head for a handle, the image of which was so clearly visible in Drupe’s crushed skull.
Violet had been walking back and forth on the house’s long stone terrace—she found that it often helped to walk when she was considering complicated problems—but now she paused and leaned against the railing, gazing out at the island and the grey water and sky. No, she thought, you don’t need a map if you can read the road signs; and Violet had always been a pretty good navigator.
There were still a few details that she’d like to have, but those were not much more than the final decorations on the package. There was the question of the time of Mousey’s death. The Colonel had left the dining room about ten minutes after he’d driven Budgie away, and Violet wondered how much time was unaccounted for before he joined her in their room.
She doubted, however, that she could get the information from Budgie. The poor woman obviously knew—or at least strongly suspected—the truth, but a lifetime of conditioning had made it impossible for her to take direct, positive action. Instead, she had gone about it in the only way that would permit her to live with herself; she had relied on Violet to penetrate the veils of her necessary deception. That way Budgie could continue to be the shocked, concerned wife, while Violet acted as Nemesis. No, Violet didn’t think she could get more out of Budgie than she already had. Maybe Cerise could help, though; her room was next to the Dijons’.
Then there was the question of the weapons. The Colonel was clearly linked to the murder of Drupe. While it would be useful to know what had happened to the cane, the fact that the Colonel no longer had it—after having previously never been without it—was in itself extremely telling. Indeed, Violet decided, maybe even more damning than if he’d still had it with him.
It wasn’t absolutely essential, but Violet dearly wanted to know what had been used to kill poor Mousey. If she could find the weapon, and link it to the Colonel, she would have a case with which even her picayune brother could not easily cavil. Failing that, if she could locate the rest of Mousey’s letter, or—shudder—Drupe’s teeth, it might be almost as effective. Especially if they turned up in the Colonel’s luggage.
Violet paused in her deliberations when she noticed someone approaching the house from the upper end of the island. As the figure got closer Violet saw, with some amusement, that it was Derrick. He’d said he was going to make another search of the island in case they had overlooked anything the night before. Violet doubted that they had, but Derrick certainly seemed to have thrown himself into the task. His trim muscular figure and elegant European clothes were almost entirely covered in a thick layer of dark mud.
He climbed up onto the terrace. “I put my foot into a damn gopher hole and went head first into a mud puddle.” He shrugged, and gave an embarrassed laugh. No longer the slick man-about-town, Derrick looked as though he’d just come from some Melanesian tribal ritual, and it was all Violet could do to keep from howling.
“Did you find anything?” she asked.
He shook his head disgustedly, causing cracks to appear where he was starting to harden. “I’d better get inside before the old Guccis are ruined for good.”
“Dodo,” Violet muttered as he disappeared around the corner of the house. Though he does have rather incredible shoulders, she added to herself, then angrily tossed her head to get rid of the thought.
She considered how best to proceed, and decided to start with Cerise… if she could find her. Once again, everyone seemed to have wandered off somewhere.
Suddenly, as Violet was about to go inside to look for Cerise, a scream pierced the chilly late November stillness.
A scream. And another scream. And another.
They came from the wooded portion of the island, and Violet hurried in that direction. Separately, most of the other members of the party also hastened towards the sounds of terror, and soon all but Derrick and Mrs. Argus were gathered around their source.
Violet had located Cerise, but she was no longer interested in talking to her.
It was Cerise who had screamed. She was standing next to a large, deep hole that had recently been dug in the muddy ground. At the bottom of the hole was the Colonel. He was face down. There was a heavy spade sticking out of his back.
Violet looked down into the pit and shook her head. A dead body naturally generates a certain sense of shock, but Violet was honest enough not to pretend to any sorrow or pity. If she’d felt satisfaction at the prospect of exposing the Colonel as the murderer, she was not about to be distressed when he became a victim. No, about all she felt was relief that she’d not gone public with her hypothesis.
“Well,” Sebastian said, “it looks like the Colonel’s shoveled off to Buffalo. Oops!” He put a hand up to his mouth, looking sheepishly surprised at what had just popped out. “Budgie, I’m sorry. I—”
Aunt Budgie looked at
him, her eyes round and crazy, her cheeks and her bosom quivering. Her little bird-like mouth opened, and she cried something like “Yiiii!” as she ran at Sebastian, plump arms straight out in front of her. She hit him in the chest with her little fists and sent him flying backwards into the hole, where he landed next to the Colonel with a gasp and a viscous splash. Budgie did not hesitate, but turned and ran towards the house, all the way emitting her mad, keening “Yiiii!”
The others went over to the edge of the hole and looked down. Sebastian, covered with sticky mud, was just getting to his feet, trying to shake some of the muck off himself.
“I guess I had that coming,” he said. Unthinkingly, he picked up a small piece of cloth that was half under the Colonel’s outstretched arm and began to wipe himself off with it.
“Sebastian! Stop it!” Violet cried. “What’s that?”
Puzzled, Sebastian looked at the cloth in his hand. “It’s just a handkerchief, Sis.” Then he did a double-take. “Golly! It’s monogrammed!”
“What?”
“I said it’s monogrammed. It’s got the initials HM on it.”
The stunned silence lasted until Violet said softly, almost to herself, “But none of us has those initials.”
Mrs. Hook shifted from one square-toed shoe to the other, scowling darkly. “A body’s still got work to do, I suppose. You’ll be six for dinner?”
“Oh, I do hope so,” Sebastian said.
“My God!” Cerise shrieked, the terrible reality of their situation striking her almost like a physical blow. “There must be a homicidal maniac on the loose.”
She wasn’t, as it turned out, far wrong.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Dinner that night was not exactly a festive occasion.
And the meal itself—in keeping with the standard already established by Mr. Ching—did little to improve matters.
For starters there was a soup that Sebastian identified as “cream of flour”, and things went down after that. The main course consisted of what were obviously chops, though from what animal it was impossible to say. For a moment, Sebastian wondered if Mr. Ching had taken the wrong piece of meat out of the freezer; atypically, he refrained from voicing this idea.
Still, considering the circumstances and the food, most of the party didn’t do too badly. Mrs. Argus was ravenous, as usual, and Derrick positively wolfed down his dinner, having somehow acquired an extremely powerful appetite. Budgie, though, barely pecked at her food, and Violet, looking slightly dazed, listlessly pushed bits of grey meat around her plate.
Sebastian glanced at Budgie. Her eyes were round and glassy, and she seemed oblivious of everything around her. Then he turned to Violet, speaking softly. “Before…uh…this afternoon, Sis, you were starting to think it was the Colonel, weren’t you?”
“What makes you say that?” Violet said, staring down at her plate.
“I saw the expression when you looked in the hole. Like you couldn’t believe it.”
Violet said nothing, merely prodded a glaucous, resistant substance that might have been mashed potatoes.
“Oh, it couldn’t have been the Colonel,” Cerise said.
Violet looked up for the first time. “Why not?”
“Well, last night—God! Is that all it was? Last night, after I left here, I went up to my room. I wasn’t there very long before I heard Budgie come into her room. I heard her talking to herself. I couldn’t tell what she was saying, but she sounded very upset or annoyed or angry. Then not long after—probably not more than ten minutes—I heard the Colonel come in. I don’t know when he left the dining room.…”
Violet nodded. “About ten minutes after Budgie.”
“So there’s no way that there would’ve been time for him to…for him to do what was done.”
Violet looked at Aunt Budgie, but the poor woman just sat there stunned, giving no indication that she’d heard anything. Violet sighed, slowly shook her head, and again looked down at her plate.
“Ah, the plot thickens,” Sebastian said. “Actually, considering the amount of gore around, I suppose one could say that the clot thickens.”
Cerise started to giggle, then abruptly stopped. “My God! What’s the matter with me? That’s not funny.”
Budgie, showing her first signs of animation, apparently agreed. She stood up, a wild, crazed look in her eyes, her lips pulled back in a silent snarl. She reached down, grabbed a chop from her plate, hurled it at Sebastian with a wicked side-arm delivery, then ran from the room, again making that strange sound of “Yiiii!”
Sebastian, eyebrows raised in surprise, gingerly touched his temple, then looked at his fingertips. It was just gravy, thank goodness. Fortunately, the chop had only grazed him, or it might have done serious damage.
He shook his head, bewildered. “I probably shouldn’t have said that, and I realize that this is all very shocking and upsetting, but still...Considering that yesterday she told me she wished she could leave the Colonel, Budgie does seem to be acting strangely—overly distraught.”
“I don’t think it’s so strange,” Derrick said. “Look what’s happened in the last twenty-four hours. Wouldn’t you be distraught if your only niece was gruesomely murdered? If, as the only relative, you inherit, but then you find that there’s nothing left in the estate? If another person is killed, and everything points to your husband? And then your husband is killed? And if, on top of it all, some silly ass keeps making flippant comments? How would you react after all that? I’d say she’s behaving very reasonably.”
Sebastian shrugged, looking unconvinced. “Well, given the choice, it’s probably less dangerous to be hit with the dinner than to eat it.”
Just then Mrs. Hook strode in. She looked at Budgie’s empty place, inhaled sharply, and scowled. She turned to go, viciously kicking the fallen chop across the oak floor. She paused in the doorway. “There’s brown stuff for dessert if anyone wants it,” she informed them, and went out.
No one seemed to feel much like dessert, and they all decided to make an early night of it. Before they separated, Mrs. Argus pleasantly reminded them that She was still with them, watching and waiting.
“Oh, good,” Sebastian said. “That means we still have enough for a baseball team.… Especially since we already have an old bat.”
In the middle of the night, Violet awoke from a shallow, restless sleep. It is not unusual, when one is troubled with a difficult problem, for the consideration of it to continue subconsciously, and it is on that level that a solution, or the way to a solution, will sometimes be perceived. Thus it was with Violet, who suddenly sat upright in bed, fully alert, her eyes open wide in that instantaneous flash of recognition.
The discovery of the Colonel that afternoon had so taken her by surprise, so shaken her, that she had been in a kind of stunned fog for the remainder of the day. Still, while she had hardly focused on what was going on around her, conversations and reactions had none the less registered. It was these that her sleeping mind had manipulated like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle until, with an abrupt click, they had fallen into place. Now, sitting up in bed, she realized that she had the key—unknowingly given to her by Derrick, of all people.
As with so many things, she thought, it was all in the way you looked at it. If you had the right angle, the right perspective, the right frame of reference, things that otherwise seemed isolated and incomprehensible were suddenly seen to fit together and make perfect sense. Obviously, the things that were happening on Komondor Island—however demented and inexplicable they might seem—could not be random occurrences, discrete events only coincidentally linked together. No, if three unexpected things happened, one after the other, there had to be a connection; if not, this was not a world of logic and probability, but one buffeted to and fro according to the whims of laughing, indifferent deities. And that, Violet thought with a shake of her head, has not been an acceptable explanation of events for quite a few years.
No, the three murders were not random. There w
as a connection between them. There was even—dammit!—a chain of cause and effect. And once you saw that, once you looked at it in the right way, it was clear that there was an explanation—an explanation that was not just possible, but plausible, that accounted for everything. Or at least everything of consequence.
There was one very big problem with this explanation, Violet realized. A problem of timing. At this point, it looked like an insurmountable obstacle, but Violet was sure she was on the right trail and therefore convinced there was a way around it. Which, when found, would lead not just to a triple murderer but also, she suspected, to a blackmailer into the bargain.
Oh, yes, Violet thought with a smile as she lay back down and closed her eyes; she’d better have a little chat with Mrs. Hook in the morning.
But Mrs. Hook was nowhere to be found.
It seemed that she had put out the breakfast things and then gone off somewhere. In itself this was no cause for concern, since both the house and the island were large enough to enable one to disappear for long periods of time; indeed, most members of the party had already done just that, and more than once.
Violet was concerned at this development, however, because she was beginning to feel the press of time. Boats could be coming to pick them up at virtually any moment. If the others were eagerly anticipating rescue, Violet was in no particular hurry. Although she was sure that she had enough evidence to allow the police to wrap up the case—and that it would also resound greatly to her credit—she would much prefer to be able to present them with an absolutely air-tight explanation. How much easier and more straightforward it would be for the media if they could say, “Society-Girl Detective does it again,” instead of reporting that she’d merely helped the police, or provided them with valuable information. And how much more often her name would appear, each time coupled with the information that she was the founder and head of Cornichon Cosmetics. You couldn’t buy that kind of publicity, not for any amount of money, and if that wasn’t enough to push her to the forefront once more…
An Old-Fashioned Mystery Page 11