She reached the second floor, and proceeded cautiously down the empty hallway, alert for any sound of Mrs. Hook, but she heard nothing. She knocked twice on Mrs. Hook’s door, and when there was no reply, quickly entered the room.
Violet noted with a slight frown that Mrs. Hook had installed herself in one of the better bedrooms. It must originally have been intended for one of the family or the guest of honour, as opposed to the rooms to be used by ordinary visitors. Violet, who had a well-developed sense of propriety, was not amused by this, particularly since she herself had been given a rather tatty little room near the rear that even had a shared bath. Still, Mrs. Hook’s presumption in her choice of accommodation did not necessarily make her a homicidal maniac.
Nor did Violet’s initial glance around the room reveal anything more sinister than the evidence that the housekeeper kept her own room much cleaner and shinier than the rest of the house. Hell, Violet thought, you could probably eat off the floor here, whereas she’d been somewhat reluctant even to eat off the plates that Mrs. Hook had supposedly washed.
Violet looked into the large closet, but it held only three black and white uniforms in some synthetic, quick-drying material, and three pairs of rubber-soled, square-toed white shoes. She went next to the dresser, and found it contained mostly underclothes—of a sort which Violet had not realized were still being manufactured. No wonder they were once known as foundation garments, she thought; they made Mrs. Hook look as though her body was moulded out of concrete. Why, compared to some of these contraptions, Aunt Budgie’s paraphernalia seemed positively innocent, almost naive. In the top drawer, Violet did find a neat stack of frilly handkerchiefs, each identical to the one Sebastian had picked up, each with the monogram HM, but there was nothing else of interest in the dresser.
On the nightstand next to the bed, there was a pile of scientific papers, all printed in small dense type, with numerous graphs, charts, and lengthy chemical formulae. On looking through the pile, Violet saw they were all reports giving test results of recently developed poisons—pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and so on—all identified only by a combination of letters and numbers. The reports, of a highly technical nature, presented information concerning such matters as potency, half life, primary and secondary target populations, optimum dispersal techniques, MLDs (Minimum Lethal Dosages), interaction in the food chain, and much more. To Violet this seemed awfully peculiar bedtime reading, but she knew that there were some people who found mysteries to be boring and stupid, so there was no accounting for tastes. Peculiar, yes, but nothing more; now, if it had been a manual on home butchering.…
Violet quickly went through the rest of the room and the attached private bath, but found nothing else out of the ordinary. Which was probably to be expected, Violet thought; even totally wigged-out psychos could be amazingly cunning when it came to self-preservation. Indeed, the utter innocuousness of Mrs. Hook’s room struck Violet as being a bit fishy. However, she couldn’t make a case out of that. Disappointed that she was no closer to finding out what bothered her about Mrs. Hook, Violet started to leave.
As she waited by the door, listening to make sure no one was coming along the corridor outside, Violet suddenly realized that she had not seen something that should have been there. She returned to the centre of the room, took another quick look around, then went over to the bed, dropped to her knees, and lifted the edge of the bedspread. You’re getting slow, Violet, she told herself, as she pulled out a large, battered old suitcase.
Luckily, the clasps were not locked. Taking a deep breath, Violet raised the top. The first thing she saw was a shapeless, short-sleeved, square-necked shift made of dingy grey, much- washed coarse cotton. It might have been the kind of smock that is worn to protect the clothes when doing dirty or messy work like heavy cleaning; but Violet recognized, with a nod and a slight smile, that it was also precisely the kind of gown that was regulation issue for female inmates of prisons and other similar public institutions.
Beneath the gown was the only other item in the suitcase, a fairly new and expensive leatherette scrapbook. Opening the cover and flipping through the pages, Violet saw that it was filled with newspaper clippings about a very sensational murder and trial that had occurred a couple of years earlier. She also noticed, from the smudges and the wear, that the book had been examined a good many times.
Violet had to do no more than read the lead sentence of the first article to see that a great many questions were now answered. Quickly going through the book, she saw that one large question still remained, but she figured that would take care of itself soon enough.
She was about to get to her feet when she stopped. “Damn!” she said out loud as she realized with a combination of disgust and amazement that her brother once again had hit a bull’s-eye without knowing he was even aiming at a target. When was it, she wondered; oh, yes—dinner the first night. Incredible! And even Derrick, not twenty minutes before, had put his finger right on it—though of course he’d had no idea he’d done so.
If she only had some of that blind luck, Violet thought, there was no telling what she could do. She looked down at the scrapbook and smiled broadly. On the other hand, she wasn’t doing all that badly without it.
She pushed the suitcase back under the bed, put the scrapbook under her arm, got to her feet, and left the housekeeper’s room after making certain the coast was clear.
It was a good half hour before Derrick, Cerise, and Sebastian separately straggled back to the lounge where Violet was waiting. Derrick seemed slightly flushed and perhaps more excited than usual, while Cerise seemed quieter, vague and distracted, as if in a state of mild shock. Sebastian displayed his customary air of faintly supercilious amusement that Violet usually found so annoying. Under the circumstances, though, she was not really unhappy that he was taking their situation so casually; if anyone had a chance of beating her to the solution, it would be her brother, and this was one race where, if she was not first, she would be literally out of the money.
Violet smiled at the others, took the scrapbook from beside her, and put it on her knees. She opened the cover and began slowly turning the pages, a smug look on her face.
“Oh, come on, Sis.”
Violet let her brief flare of anger subside, then coolly looked up at the others as she closed the scrapbook with a nice dramatic thunk.
“I know what the initials HM stand for,” she said and waited a beat. “Have any of you heard of Helga Milch?”
Cerise shook her head.
“That sounds familiar,” Sebastian said, “but I can’t place it.”
“I say! That’s her! That’s who I was telling you about!” Derrick gushed.
“Who? What?” Sebastian said.
“That’s the woman who killed the family she worked for.”
“That’s right,” Violet said. “All nine of them.”
“Nine! My God!” Cerise said, coming to life for the first time.
“Charming. You know, Sis, I’m not exactly surprised. I’ve said all along that the only sensible thing about Mrs. Hook was her shoes.…But if this is true, what’s this Milch woman doing loose? Did she escape too?”
Violet shook her head and opened the scrapbook to the back. “No. It seems the jury believed her story that it was all a terrible accident, that the rat poison somehow got into the sugar bowl by mistake. She was acquitted.”
All the colour drained from Sebastian’s face. “Rat poison? Sugar bowl? But I—! Didn’t I—? Isn’t that what I—?” He put a hand up to his throat.
“Yes, you did,” Violet said. “The first night at dinner. You made a little joke about that very thing when Mrs. Hook brought in the coffee service. If you remember, her reaction was to drop the dishes she was carrying.”
Sebastian moved his mouth, but nothing came out. Violet smiled at him.
“But Violet,” Derrick said, “are you sure that Mrs. Hook is really Helga Milch?”
Violet hesitated before replying. “We
ll, there are more of those hankies with HM on them in her room. There’s a stack of reports about the latest poisons next to her bed. And there’s this scrapbook filled with newspaper stories about the arrest and trial of Helga Milch.”
“I say!”
Sebastian raised his eyebrows and nodded as the colour returned to his face. “So that means that Mrs. Hook is Helga Milch, and not this escaped killer, Frances Hacker.”
“Not necessarily.”
“Huh?” Derrick said.
“That’s why I didn’t answer you right away,” Violet said. “I’m sure that Mrs. Hook was Helga Milch. I’m not positive that she still is.”
“Huh?”
“Look, it’s not that complicated. Suppose after Frances Hacker escaped, she somehow came into contact with Mrs. Hook, and found out what she was doing and where she was going. It would have been almost impossible to resist. Remember, the news report said that Hacker worked here at the time of the murders.”
“So, Sis, you’re saying that this Hacker killed Mrs. Hook and took over her identity. But all the time Mrs. Hook was not Mrs. Hook, but was really Helga Milch. And thus it turned out that Hacker, who is a convicted murderer, is posing as a woman who was herself playing a part to hide the fact that she’s an acquitted murderer. What a delicious irony!”
Violet nodded. “I’m not certain that’s the case, but it is a real possibility.”
“It is real confusing, is what it is,” Cerise said.
“I’ll say it is!” Derrick agreed. “I assume there are no pictures of this Milch woman in those newspaper clippings.”
“Unfortunately not. That would resolve the matter one way or another.”
“So is there in fact any reason to think that Mrs. Hook is really Hacker?”
“There are a few things. First, there’s this business of Mrs. Hook not always answering to her name. If she’d been playing the role for a couple of years, you’d think she’d be more comfortable in it. Then, there was the smock-like thing I found in her room, just the kind of dress that Frances Hacker would have had on when she escaped from that institution.”
“That’s not much to go on, Sis.”
“I know it’s not, and I’m not pushing it. But the third thing is more significant. Mrs. Hook—rather, Helga Milch—is a poisoner, and poisoners traditionally love the idea of poison. The appeal for them is not in murder per se, but instead in murder by poison. But what we’ve got operating around here is a killer with an entirely different mentality, someone who likes direct contact, who likes to see the blood flow.”
Sebastian nodded and spoke slowly. “If Mrs. Hook is Frances Hacker, Mr. Ching must realize she’s an impostor. He must have known it from the beginning, or.…”
“That’s right,” Violet said. “Or?”
“Or he’s the accomplice we heard about.”
Violet nodded.
“But if he’s the accomplice, why did he get that note?”
Violet shrugged. “It could be to put us off the trail. Or it could be that things have got out of control, and as the only person who knows who Mrs. Hook really is, he’s become a dangerous liability. As you probably know, the problem about getting involved with killers like Hacker is that you can never trust them. You can never be sure that they won’t suddenly turn on you.”
“I still say this is too confusing,” Cerise said.
“Okay, let’s look at it this way,” Violet said. “Whether as Frances Hacker or as Helga Milch, our Mrs. Hook is a mass murderer. We’ve already had four murders. So…I’d say that it’s about time we had a talk with Mrs. Hook. Has anyone seen her?”
Only no one had, since she had left the lounge. Nor had anyone seen Mr. Ching or Mrs. Argus.
As they were considering where Mrs. Hook might be and how they should go about locating her, Mrs. Argus came in from the terrace. After listening to the discussion, Mrs. Argus informed them with a laugh that she had seen the housekeeper. When asked where, she laughed again and went back outside, coyly gesturing that they should follow her. With considerable uneasiness and very little enthusiasm, they did.
They didn’t have far to go, only about a hundred yards from the house. There, in the shelter of an evergreen bush, they found Mrs. Hook. She was lying face up in the mud, arms and legs spread out, hands clenched in fists.
Apparently a cleaver, or something very like it, had been used. She had been cut nearly in half. She appeared even more surprised than the people who were looking down at her.
“Wrong again, Violet,” Sebastian said after a moment, flashing his sister a friendly grin.
Cerise began to sob hysterically, her body shaking with each new burst.
Sebastian moved to comfort her. “Take it easy,” he said. “No use crying over split Milch.”
Cerise stopped crying and stared at Sebastian, her green eyes round and startled. She began to giggle, then abruptly stopped, putting a hand over her mouth, looking surprised and puzzled and more than a little afraid. “What’s the matter with me?” she said to herself. “It’s happening. I’m going mad. I must be going mad.” She hugged herself, rocking her body slowly forwards and backwards.
“I say! What’s that?” Derrick pointed to the ground next to the body.
“Golly, you’re right!” Sebastian said. “Look, Sis. It’s the footprints of a gigantic duck!”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
They all stared at the indentations in the mud around the body. These did indeed resemble tracks made by the webbed feet of some tremendous water bird.
“The diving gear!” Derrick said.
“I saw Mr. Ching going in the direction of the boathouse!” Violet said.
Looks were exchanged, and without another word everyone ran to the boathouse. In the dim light they saw the two boats that could have taken them to safety had someone not put holes in the bottoms.
“The fins and the wet suit were back there,” Derrick said.
They all looked in the direction he was pointing, but it was obvious that the equipment was gone. After a quick search confirmed this, they went back outside. They scanned the lake, trying to catch sight of the swimmer, but the surface was smooth and grey, unbroken as far as they could see.
“So that’s that,” Derrick said.
“It was Mr. Ching all along,” Cerise said.
“It has to be,” Sebastian said. “Do you agree, Sis?”
Violet slowly nodded her head, frowning, looking as though she was giving the matter serious consideration. In fact, she was wondering if there was any way in which she could still get some benefit from this situation. Clearly, the Society-Girl Detective bit was right out; not only had she not come up with the solution, but the killer had got clean away, perhaps for good. Or perhaps drowned in the lake, which would be just as bad, especially if the remains were never found. No, it would be extremely difficult to have this reflect favourably on her detecting abilities, or to get any good publicity out of this.
On the other hand, she knew this would generate a hell of a lot of interest. There had to be some way she could capitalize on it. If she couldn’t be the star, why shouldn’t she be the one to provide the inside story? Yes, why not? This would be big news for weeks, maybe months. There would be a huge market for the story. And it was a natural: isolation, intrigue, strange characters, an escaped killer, violence, bloodshed, murder, even an ancient curse; it was just like one of those old-fashioned mysteries that everyone loved, only it was real. It couldn’t miss.
Why, Violet thought, if she got right down to it, and if they weren’t picked up for another couple of days, she could have the book fully outlined—if not completely written—by the time she set foot back on the mainland, and be all ready to entertain bids. With any luck, three million paperbacks would be on the racks while the story was still making front-page headlines. Looked at this way, her failure, and the escape of the killer, could even serve to make the story more challenging, mysterious, exciting. Christ, the film sale alone should be in the uppe
r six figures. That would be enough to turn her company around. Hell, that would be enough to forget the company entirely! The Tragedy of Komondor Island. Slaughter on Komondor Island. Komondor Island: Three Days of Murder and Terror as told by a Survivor. Oh, yes.…
“What?” Violet said with a start when she realized Derrick was speaking to her.
“I asked if you have any ideas about all this. It’s plain that it was Mr. Ching, but it doesn’t really make sense to me.”
Violet looked at Derrick, who was wrinkling his forehead in bewilderment, and thought that that was hardly a surprise. She certainly didn’t have to worry about his scooping her. Sebastian, though, was another matter.
“Well, we don’t have all the facts yet, do we?” she said.
“No, but does this mean that Mr. Ching is the escaped killer?”
“That’s certainly one possibility,” Violet said. “Though Francis Hacker is not one of your common Chinese names. That’s one of the facts—whether this Hacker is Chinese, or even a man—that we don’t know yet. But if I had to guess right now, I’d stick with Mrs. Hook being Hacker, and Mr. Ching being the accomplice.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Well, maybe they came here because she knew the area and thought it would be a good place to lie low for a while. Disturbed individuals like that have a tendency to return to familiar territory. But once they got here, things started to get out of hand. Mrs. Hook/Frances Hacker lost control, and Mr. Ching got scared. Either he was going to be next, or he’d get caught along with her. He realized his only chance was to kill her and then try and swim for it.”
“But you’re just guessing again, Sis.”
“That’s true, but one thing is certain: whatever else he may be, Mr. Ching is not a cook. We’ve had—what?—five meals that testify to that.”
Sebastian grimaced at the recollection. “You’re right about that. If he’s not a criminal, his cooking sure is. And something else is certain: the man knows his way around sharp weapons. You all saw the way he carved the roast the first night, and I saw the way he handled a cleaver. My goodness! Not to mince words, it wouldn’t have taken him very long to turn us all into Big Macs.”
An Old-Fashioned Mystery Page 15