An Old-Fashioned Mystery

by Runa Fairleigh

  But she was getting ahead of herself. There were still a few matters to be taken care of. The first of which was finding the housekeeper.

  As Violet started up the main staircase to the second floor, wondering how best to proceed, she saw Budgie descending. The poor little woman moved slowly, awkwardly, like a wind-up toy that was running down. Her face was an expressionless mask, her eyes were lowered, and she seemed totally unconscious of her surroundings.

  Violet stopped on the landing, directly in Budgie’s path. The older woman continued down the stairs until she reached Violet, and then she too stopped, again mechanically, like a toy that continues until it reaches an obstruction and can go no farther.

  Violet asked how she was feeling, but Budgie did not reply, merely raised her head so that Violet looked into two dull, unseeing eyes. Budgie’s gaze seemed directed far away—or deep inside—to another reality or to a terrible empty unreality. This blank, zombie-like stare caused an uncomfortable sensation to travel up Violet’s spine.

  Violet asked if Budgie had seen Mrs. Hook, and suddenly the blankness lifted. Budgie’s eyes grew round, and a tremor shook her body. To Violet, it seemed a look of absolute fear—or, perhaps, absolute hatred. Then, as suddenly as it appeared, it was gone.

  “I think I saw her go out of the house, dear,” Budgie said weakly, her voice as flat and lifeless as her eyes. Then, her manner once again vague and vacant, she took a step to the side and continued down the stairs.

  Violet shook her head. The expression about someone’s mind snapping was clearly not just a figure of speech; there were limits beyond which one could not be stretched and still remain whole. She again shook her head as she watched Budgie drift in the direction of the lounge. Too bad. But at least Violet now knew where she would begin.

  Violet reached the top of the stairs and was about to continue down the hall when a movement caught her eye. She quickly ducked behind a corner, then cautiously peeked around it. A door was slowly being opened, as though by someone who wanted to make sure the hallway was empty before coming out. Then Mr. Ching appeared and carefully shut the door behind him. He glanced nervously around, started to walk towards the rear of the house, then paused. Apparently something had just occurred to him. He took out a small book from his pocket, and jotted down a brief note. Then he hurried off and turned the corner in the direction of the rear stairs.

  Violet, while quite curious about what the cook had been doing in Mr. Drupe’s room, had much more urgent concerns. She doubted that she’d get a better opportunity than this, and she intended to take advantage of it. She went down the hall, casually stopped outside a door, checked that no one was watching, then quickly went into Budgie’s bedroom.

  If asked, Violet would have said that she found it most distasteful to violate other people’s privacy, but that circumstances sometimes required it. However, she was honest enough to admit (if only to herself) that there was something awfully exciting about being where she shouldn’t be—an unknown intruder learning secret things. It gave her a tremendous feeling of power. Of course, she would have been outraged if someone had tried to do it to her, and she took great care that no one got the chance. She sometimes thought that if things had worked out differently she would have made a good spy…or a good thief.

  Violet didn’t know what she was looking for; she could only hope that she’d recognize it if she saw it. Last night she had realized that it was mainly a question of looking at things the right way. If her conclusions were correct, she knew that she must still be looking at something the wrong way, making some fundamentally incorrect assumption. What she hoped to find was the thing that would give her the right perspective.

  She knew she should do her snooping as quickly as possible, but she could not help but linger over the large suitcase that contained what Budgie had called the “equipment.” Equipment, indeed! Why, there were things there that would make the Marquis de Sade pause. Again, Violet had the uncomfortable feeling that she was very sheltered and naive, maybe even priggish.

  Fascinating though it was, however, there was nothing in the suitcase that brought her any closer to resolving that one large problem she had. No, the answer was not there, although there were things whose function she could not even begin to guess at. She must remember to ask her brother about them; his knowledge of certain arcane matters was, she gathered, truly encyclopedic.

  A rapid but thorough search of the rest of the room revealed nothing of any consequence. Violet was disappointed, but she knew she couldn’t remain much longer. Just a quick glance into the bathroom, then out.

  Again, nothing. Only the large case holding the Colonel’s medication. For the sake of thoroughness, though she expected nothing, Violet looked through it quickly, and then turned to leave.

  She was all the way to the bedroom door when she experienced the mental equivalent of feeling the earth shift under her feet. Her mouth dropped open in amazement.

  “So that’s what it was,” she said in a husky whisper.

  She went back into the bathroom and took something out of the case.

  She had found her mistake. She had discovered the proper angle of view. She didn’t have to find a way around the obstacle. When you looked at it the right way, there was no obstacle.

  Violet was smiling broadly as she came out of the bedroom. Not only did she know the answer, but it was so deliciously intriguing that it would be talked about for years. Oh yes, she thought; the Society-Girl Detective has done it again.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “You’ve got that look, Violet,” Sebastian said.

  Violet grinned at the five people gathered around her in the lounge. Poor Budgie had floated off somewhere, and Mrs. Hook had not yet turned up, but Violet figured she had all the audience she needed.

  “Well, come on, Sis. Out with it. Who is it?”

  Violet waited a long minute before saying, “Beatrice Dijon.”

  “What? Ridiculous!” Derrick said.

  “Oh, Violet! No!” Cerise said.

  “Aunt Budgie? Come on, Sis. You’ve really gone off the deep end this time. What’ve you been doing—taking diving lessons from Mrs. Argus?”

  Violet smiled forbearingly at her brother. “She has been saying that Death is a woman. It looks like she was right.”

  “Hee, hee, hee.”

  “I assume,” Derrick said, “that you’re basing this preposterous idea on something more than that?”

  “Oh, yes.… Look, I’m not saying it gives me any pleasure to reach this conclusion,” Violet said, trying hard not to smile. “I think the woman is to be pitied more than anything else—and I hope that will be taken into consideration—but the facts leave no room for doubt.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  “You will,” she said, looking at Derrick. “After all, you were the one who pointed me in the right direction.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes. Last night at dinner, right after Budgie ran out. Remember? You listed all the blows the poor woman had suffered. Only you gave them in a particular order—an order that was a little different from the one in which we got the information. I didn’t notice the difference at the time, but later I realized that your sequence not only was correct, but also contained an explanation for the things that had happened.”

  “What are you talking about, Sis?”

  “Okay. I’ll lay it out for you, step by step. I admit there are a few assumptions, but by the time I’m done, I’m sure you’ll all agree that they are not at all unreasonable. To begin with, it’s not hard to accept the idea that living with the Colonel for thirty-five years took its toll. If Budgie hadn’t actually been driven mad by the man, she had certainly been pushed to the point where she could endure no more. We all saw the looks of anger and frustration and hatred she gave her husband. Sebastian, you said she told you that she wished she could leave him.”

  “That’s right. The first afternoon. Only she said there was no way she could manage to support he
rself if she did, so she was stuck.”

  “She said that?” Violet said. “I didn’t know. I had assumed something like that, but the fact that she said it just makes my case stronger. It provides a solid motive for the action that initiated a terrible chain of cause and effect.”

  “What action?” Cerise asked. “What chain?”

  “The action was the murder of Mousey, of course. That’s the beginning. That’s the key to it all. Look: Budgie wants to leave the Colonel, but she can’t; however, if she had some money, she could; and there’s only one way of getting the money. We only learned about the will yesterday, but Budgie has certainly known its terms for years—that she would inherit everything if Mousey died before her twenty-fifth birthday. Only, time was running out, and Budgie saw her last chance for freedom, for a new life—a life without the Colonel—slipping away. So she seized that chance in the only way left to her. She killed her niece.”

  “Sweet little Aunt Budgie?” Cerise said. “How could she?”

  “I’m not saying it was an easy step for her to take, nor am I in any way suggesting that Budgie is an evil person. No, I suspect that by the time she thought of it, she was quite unbalanced. If the murder was not literally an act of madness, it was born of a desperation so great as to be virtually indistinguishable from madness. Maybe it wasn’t even premeditated, but a spur-of-the-moment inspiration.”

  “But her own niece?” Derrick said.

  “Statistically, murder is very much a family affair.” Violet flashed her brother an enigmatic smile. “Besides, remarks that Budgie made to me indicated that she didn’t really like Mousey all that much. Just because she was her aunt is no reason for Budgie to have liked the poor girl any better than any of us did.”

  “Okay, Sis. So maybe she didn’t like Mousey. So maybe she wanted to get away from the Colonel. So maybe she was desperately disturbed. I still don’t—”

  “Wait. I said there was a chain involved here, and like any chain, this one gets its shape and strength from the links that comprise it. I realized that we couldn’t be dealing with isolated events, that they had to be connected. Derrick showed me the way by listing—unwittingly—the events in their true sequence.

  “But let me continue. So Budgie kills her niece, and has enough presence of mind to make it look like the work of a maniac. She will never be suspected. ‘Who? Little Aunt Budgie? Don’t be absurd!’ So, she’s home free. Then what happens? She finds Mousey’s letter, and learns that there’s nothing left. There is no estate. Gone. Stolen. Imagine how she must’ve felt at that moment. Having already committed a ghastly, hideous act, she discovers it was all pointless, to no purpose. Wouldn’t that push anyone to the breaking point—and beyond?”

  “My God!” Cerise said. “Poor Budgie! So you’re saying that—”

  “Precisely. To commit murder for money was one thing. But with the money gone, there was no possible justification. She was guilty of the worst possible crime. Only she was and she wasn’t. In her unbalanced state, it would not have been difficult for her to transfer the guilt to the person who was responsible for making her crime meaningless.”

  “I say! You mean—”

  “Yes. Mr. Eustace Drupe, the embezzler. Maybe she decided he was ultimately the guilty party, or maybe she decided that if she couldn’t have the money, neither would he. Either way, she decided to get even. As you may know, with multiple murderers the first killing is usually the hard one; after that, it gets progressively easier. I suspect that, by this time, she really was mad. If you’ll remember, she seemed strangely subdued yesterday morning. In any event, even if she was mad, she was not crazy. She never lost sight of the reason she had begun this terrible course of action in the first place—to escape the Colonel.”

  “You mean, she saw a way to kill two birds with one stone,” Sebastian said.

  Violet looked disgustedly at him. “That’s one way of putting it, I suppose. Since she’d determined she was going to kill Drupe anyway, why not make it look like her husband was responsible? That way she could get rid of both the person who had ruined her life and the person who had taken away her future. We know the Colonel’s cane was used to kill Drupe. Since subsequent events have shown that the Colonel almost certainly wasn’t the one who wielded it, who was the person who would’ve had easiest access to it?”

  Violet paused. Mr. Ching muttered something to himself in his own language, took out his pocket notebook, and scribbled something in it. Violet looked at him, then shrugged.

  “You were right, Sebastian,” she continued. “Yesterday I did think it was the Colonel…in large part because Budgie gave me the information that led me to that conclusion—in fact, compelled me to that conclusion. At the time, I thought that she was much less reluctant to talk than she pretended to be. But I assigned the wrong reason to it. Now I understand. And I also realize that I made another incorrect interpretation yesterday. That fainting fit of the Colonel’s in the study had nothing to do with Drupe. It happened when he noticed the map was missing. I was pleased with myself for spotting that reaction, and assumed that the missing map was somehow connected with the murder. However, I now realize that if the Colonel had killed Drupe, either the map would not have been missing or the Colonel would not have been surprised that it was. On the other hand, Budgie certainly knew her husband well enough to know how he would react. What better way to direct suspicion towards him than to force him to act suspiciously? She gave me the bait, and I grabbed it. I never stopped to think that it didn’t make any sense.”

  “But if she went to all that trouble to frame the Colonel,” Cerise said, “why did she kill him? I assume that’s where you’re headed.”

  “Yes. And I don’t know why. Maybe she was afraid it wouldn’t work, that the Colonel would get off. However, I expect she just decided that after two murders she didn’t especially want to commit, she might as well kill the one person she’d really wanted dead all along. Once she started on the slide, she couldn’t stop. Until now. You’ve seen the way she is. That’s a person who’s finally hit bottom. And if her own torments are not enough, I think Mrs. Hook is adding to them. Either she’s an accomplice, or she somehow figured it all out and is blackmailing Budgie, or both. Certainly, Budgie is scared of her. Mrs. Hook’s saying she saw the Colonel in the study was probably another part of the plan to make the Colonel look suspicious.”

  “But even if Mrs. Hook helped,” Derrick said, “I can’t believe it’d be possible. I mean, physically possible. Aunt Budgie’s just an elderly little lady.”

  “Who’s also remarkably strong. You didn’t see her carrying two big heavy suitcases. No, she most definitely has the physical capability. I noticed right from the beginning that there was a lot of tightly coiled strength beneath that soft, plump exterior.”

  “I saw that, too,” Cerise said. “I thought that that was one surprisingly tough little lady. But what I haven’t seen—what I still can’t see—is any indication of a violent nature. Even if you flip out totally, you don’t necessarily become a murderer, not like we’ve seen here. No, Violet, I’m sorry. Maybe what you say makes sense, but I haven’t seen anything in her character to support your theory.”

  Violet nodded. “You also haven’t seen the suitcase full of—uh—implements with which Budgie and the Colonel amused themselves.”

  “Oh, really?” Sebastian said, wondering how he could get a peek at that.

  “And,” Violet continued, “you haven’t heard Budgie describe the kind of things the Colonel liked her to do. Believe me, that is one woman who’s had a lot of experience with punishment and torture…and violence.”

  Violet smiled as she let this last revelation sink in. She saw heads begin to nod in agreement as the force of her argument became clear and the solid strength of the chain was perceived, each link reinforcing the others.

  “There’s only one problem,” Sebastian said at last. “She couldn’t have killed Mousey.”

  Violet raised her eyebrows, trying not
to smile in too superior a fashion.

  “The time, Sis.”

  “I was wondering if you’d notice that.”

  “Of course!” Cerise said. “I heard her in her room after dinner the first night. At the very time Rosa was killed. So she couldn’t have done it.”

  “That’s what I thought at first,” Violet said. “That was the problem. I knew she had to be the one, but if you were correct, I also knew it was impossible. Then I realized I had made another mistake. Right at the beginning. I was looking at things the wrong way. Mousey wasn’t killed after dinner, she was killed before dinner. Budgie would’ve had lots of time then.”

  “But Sis, that contradicts what you said.”

  “I know. I was wrong. I had to be mistaken either about Budgie’s guilt, or about the time of death. Since I knew Budgie did it, the other had to be wrong.”

  “But you can’t just ignore the evidence if it doesn’t fit your theory. The body was still warm.”

  “It was next to the furnace. That would retard cooling. And at most we’re only talking about a couple of hours. The furnace could easily account for that difference.”

  “But coagulation hadn’t even started. You said so.”

  “Quite right.” Slowly, smiling, Violet took a small bottle from her pocket, and held it up between her thumb and forefinger. “I found this in the case containing the Colonel’s medication. Budgie made no secret of the fact that he was prone to thrombosis.” Violet jiggled the nearly empty bottle. “This is heparin, an extremely powerful anticoagulant used to treat that condition. If even a portion of this bottle had been injected into Mousey just prior to death, bleeding would have been profound, and there would have been no coagulation.”

  “My God!” Cerise said, turning to Sebastian. “Budgie attacked you right after you made that sick joke about the clot thickening.”