Death in the Beginning

by Beth Byers

  Molly’s gaze narrowed. “I know where Guy hides his things. It’s not in the house.”

  Janey rose and said, “Let’s go then.”

  Molly grinned and the two of them wound through the wood towards the Bayles’s mansion. Janey asked about each of the boys, but Molly didn’t know much. She had been the only housemaid, and that house was pretty large. She had spent most of her days working hard and being scolded by Mrs. Bayles.

  Janey listened to Molly complain until they reached the edge of the property of the Bayles’s mansion. Janey followed Molly along the edge of the wood toward the back of the garden space. There was a little trail out of the garden and into the wood, and Molly mentioned a rundown treehouse that had been built by Guy when he was younger. Before they had taken a half step down the path, they heard the low argument of the boys.

  Janey’s eyes widened, and she realized suddenly that she had broken her promise to Georgette. Janey grabbed Molly’s hand and yanked her into the undergrowth while putting a hand over Molly’s mouth. The two of them eyed each other with wide eyes as they listened.

  “How can Alanson be dead?” one of the boys demanded. “How has this happened again?”

  “It doesn’t have anything to do with White,” Guy snapped. Janey recognized his mean voice from the day before, but the rest were foreign to her. “White drowned.”

  “What if he didn’t?” one of the others said.

  “Alanson hanged himself and White swam alone like a fool.”

  “What if he didn’t?” one of the boys demanded again. “What if neither of them did?”

  “Why are you being such a girl again, Hyrum?”

  Janey’s gaze narrowed at that.

  To her surprise the whiney voice snapped, “I’m not being a girl. White was a champion swimmer. He could have gone to the Olympics. How many times did we talk about that? And he drowned? Alanson said it was odd time and again, and now he’s hanged?”

  “It was suicide!” Guy snapped. “Alanson was weak.”

  “No he wasn’t,” another boy said. “Alanson wasn’t weak at all.”

  “And,” another of the boys added, “the police are still investigating. They’re going through our rooms right now.”

  “So?” Guy snapped back. “They have to cover their bases, right? It’s not like Scotland Yard is here.”

  “Yet,” the squeaky voice said. “Where are Alanson’s things? We thought he was leaving. He said he was going home, but he’s dead and his bag is gone.”

  “His bag?” Guy sounded shocked for a moment. “Where is his bag?”

  “Exactly,” squeaky voice added.

  Janey wanted to demand which of them had written a note for Alanson to keep quiet? Alanson must have been suspicious of White’s death if Janey was guessing right about the purpose behind that note. Maybe Guy had owed money to both of his friends. Maybe Guy had to get rid of his friends in order to stop them from ruining him.

  What would Georgette think? Janey wondered. She eyed Molly almost absently, but she could see the housemaid was worried. She wasn’t much older than Lucy and suddenly Janey desperately missed her sister. She’d be back soon, Janey told herself. Alanson—and perhaps White—weren’t so lucky.

  The two girls waited until the argument stopped and they heard the boys move away.

  “What do we do?” Molly asked.

  Janey stood blithely and pulled Molly up. “Go on a picnic.”

  “What?” Molly gasped. “They’ll kill us too.”

  “What we learned there,” Janey said, “was that they didn’t work as team. They wouldn’t be fighting about what happened to Alanson and White if they had murdered their friends together. So, only one is a murderer and he’d wait to get at us.”

  Molly squeaked, her eyes wide and horrified.

  “But we didn’t hear anything,” Janey explained. “If we run into them, we’ll say we’re on our way to the wild blackberries and a picnic.”

  “We will?”

  “Just look innocent,” Janey said. “Boys like them never have the imagination to realize we could be following them.”

  Janey walked down the path far enough to see where the treehouse was and then headed away from it. She’d made a promise to Georgette, and Janey would tell her what happened and how she’d been sidetracked. But she couldn’t search the treehouse too and feel right in her heart. Instead, Janey hoped, one of the others would go with her, and they’d find whatever Guy was trying to hide.

  14

  robert aaron

  Robert took the train to the village where a boy named Theodore White drowned and his friends had carried on without him. Robert eyed the school and felt a flashback of memories. The grounds were empty, but Robert walked up to the great doors. It was all too likely that some of the teachers lived on the campus. Perhaps one of them would talk with him.

  The fellow who opened the door was the caretaker. He was a scraggly old man and when Robert explained why he was there, the man nodded. “Never believed Teddy’s death was an accident. Justin is dead too?”

  “You didn’t?” Robert demanded after he confirmed Justin Alanson had died.

  “How did Justin die?” the caretaker asked, letting Robert inside. While Robert answered, the caretaker introduced himself as Hector Miranda and said, “Let’s get Jasper White up here.”

  “White?” Robert demanded.

  “The boy’s uncle. Teddy got a scholarship on his own merit, but Mr. White spoke for the boy. Course he did, but once you met Teddy—there was never a lad more deserving. He wasn’t our only scholarship boy, but he was the best.”

  Robert waited with Mr. Miranda while the dead boy’s uncle arrived in the office at the front of the school. Robert explained what happened to the boys and when he finished, Jasper White placed his head in his hands and muttered, “My god.”

  “I’m sorry,” Robert added. Then he explained about his own ‘nephew’ seeing the boys. He added that they’d bullied Eddy and that Robert was worried that once the boys realized the cover of a suicide had failed, they’d turn on Eddy.

  “Oh they will,” Mr. Miranda said. He sniffed. “School boys are like jackals. They go for the weak. They have a—a—-supernatural sense of which one of them is struggling and how to best torment him.”

  “So your Teddy White was weak?” Robert asked

  The two men who knew the boys shook their heads. “Not in the least. He was the poorest of them. My sister lost her husband even before Teddy was born,” Jasper White said. “But Teddy—he was a star. Strong, handsome, tall, brilliant. Not just in swimming, but in everything. Those other boys struggled to keep up with him while Teddy naturally excelled. Livingston tried to keep up with White in academics, but he couldn’t. Alanson was always the second place for athletics. Even Grantley—the school joker—was never as funny as Teddy.”

  “What happened to Teddy?” Robert asked.

  “He would get up every day before prayer and breakfast and swim. Rain or shine, hot or cold, Teddy was dedicated.” Jasper White sighed. “My sister hasn’t recovered. She’s lost all her smiles. I have as well. Why struggle to turn all of these other boys into men when the one I cared about has been stolen from me?”

  “One day Teddy didn’t come back. He was never late for prayer, so we were worried from the moment he didn’t show up.”

  “Did he swim in the school pool?” Robert asked.

  “Not that day. Often he didn’t,” Jasper White replied. “We found him in the reeds of the river. He’d preferred to swim in the river, because you had to work against the current. I told him it was unwise many times, but Teddy would just grin and shrug and then do what he wanted. That grin of his would get you to forgive him of anything.”

  “Who would want Teddy to die?” Robert asked.

  Mr. Miranda cleared his throat. “I always assumed it was one of his friends. Teddy wasn’t up to anything shady.”

  “We tried to prove it was one of them,” Jasper White said. “The con
stable questioned them endlessly. He tried everything. But—there wasn’t anything that could prove it. Not a single shred of evidence and a risky activity done in the dark and alone. In the end, even though none of us believed it, the death was ruled an accident.”

  Robert told the men of the things that had been found in Alanson’s wallet. The news article. The note. The IOUs.

  “Was it possible that one of the boys owed your nephew money?”

  Jasper White paused and said, “We would have stepped in. They knew that. None of them had real money except Alanson. The boys here gamble, but every time we find the IOUs, we make the boys forgive them. They’re gambling with fake money, they get fake payment when we catch them.”

  Mr. Miranda nodded. “The boys knew that. If they were really being pressured for money, they could have come to us. They’d have tormented each other, but we’d have stepped in. If nothing else, they wouldn’t be ruined.”

  “Teddy was the scholarship student?”

  “Teddy, Beau Grantley, Hyrum Livingston. None of the boys had real money but Justin Alanson.”

  “What about Guy Bayles?” Robert asked.

  Jasper White shrugged. “His grandfather paid for the boy. Both here and for the university starting next year.”

  “What about the other two boys?”

  “Livingston got the school scholarship after Teddy died. There’s a foundation that sends one boy to university every year. Grantley has a way, I think. Someone from his village, if I recall correctly.”

  Robert wondered if tuition could be the motive? But why did Alanson die too? Unless Alanson figured out what happened? Robert wasn’t sure he believed such a thing.

  “What would have happened to Livingston if he didn’t get the money from your foundation?”

  “I think he had a lesser scholarship,” Jasper White muttered. “It was enough to see him through. Like here. The foundation one is a bit better, but not worth killing over. That’s the problem. Why? Why would any of those boys have killed Teddy? Let alone Alanson, too?”

  Robert shook his head. He had no idea.

  “Those boys are jackals,” Mr. Miranda said again fiercely. “All boys are as far as I can tell.”

  “Mr. Miranda has struggled with the worst of the boys here for too long,” Jasper White said with a quelling look at the caretaker.

  The man wasn’t silenced however, “I’m not wrong. Two of them are dead.”

  Robert didn’t think there was any arguing with that, so he just nodded.

  “They might have run as a little pack, but they fought amongst each other. Just like the rest of them do. You want to know the truth? You can drone on about honor till you run out of breath, but they lie, cheat, steal, the moment you turn your back. And then they pull out phrases like, ‘On my honor, sir.’ All while they laugh up their sleeve and crow about getting away with their crimes.”

  Robert listened, but Jasper White cut Mr. Miranda’s tirade short. The man should work elsewhere, Robert thought, but he remembered himself as a schoolboy, so when Mr. Miranda walked Robert back to the front of the school, he held out his hand and shook the caretaker’s heartily.

  “Those boys are rotten,” Mr. Miranda told Robert.

  “Beau Grantley thinks he’s funny, but he goes for the most painful joke. That Guy Bayles fellow wanted to be the leader, but Teddy White always was despite being the poorest of the lads. Justin Alanson was always number two, and he knew it. Hyrum Livingston is a weakling who follows the others trying to make a space for himself among them. He doesn’t fit, and he knows it. But the meaner of them let him hang around just to make him the butt of every joke.”

  “Which of them do you think killed him?”

  Mr. Miranda shrugged. “They’re all guilty. They’ve been jumpy since Teddy White died. They might pretend not to know what happened to Teddy, but there’s no way they don’t have suspicions that Teddy’s death wasn’t an accident. Yet who has spoken up? Not one of them. They hurt other boys time and again and when some of the other boys weren’t around, they turned on each other.”

  Robert stepped away from the school only wishing that he’d learned something more useful. He took the train home, worrying over Eddy and wondering if Eddy was a cretin like those other fellows. It was different at school, Robert knew. There was too much pressure and too much opportunity for the mean and the strong to rise up and rule over the rest. He’d seen more than one boy tortured by a pack of boys.

  If Alanson had been the one being picked on, Robert would have returned home and said with confidence that the boy had killed himself. Robert wrote out the names as he returned. Justin Alanson—the boy who had likely realized what happened to Teddy White. Or maybe they all knew and Alanson was just the one who had enough pretending.

  Guy Bayles. He hadn’t benefited from Teddy White’s death, but he was cold. With boys, the benefit didn’t need to be obvious to others. It wasn’t just about financial gain. It was about years of potential bullying. The mean asides that colored every day. The way boys could be so cruel, and the victim burying the feelings in his heart only to fester slowly.

  How do you kill a boy who swam like a fish? Robert leaned back. If he knew that a boy swam every day, how would Robert get rid of him? Justin Alanson had been hit over the back of the head. Had someone done the same to Teddy White? Only, there hadn’t been any evidence, and they’d been looking for it. If there had been a wound on the back of the boy’s head, surely the doctor would have found it.

  There hadn’t been any evidence. But something must have happened. Something that added up later for Justin Alanson. Maybe Alanson had confronted the murderer with his suspicions. Maybe, there had been a confrontation and Alanson had lost. There had been a struggle. Which of the boys was strong enough to hoist Justin Alanson?

  But…a relatively healthy boy? A little cleverness and time, and Robert guessed that any of them could have done it. Robert frowned and leaned back as he took a seat on the train. Which of the boys killed his friends? And did the other boys suspect? If they didn’t, was it as easy as getting them to turn on each other?

  On the way back to Charles’s house, Robert watched as the local constables knocked on the doors around the Aaron house. Robert’s head tilted and his gaze narrowed and then the local fellow blushed deeply.

  They were, Robert thought with frustration, checking to see if anyone had seen Eddy out during the important hours. If they weren’t, the constable wouldn’t have been ashamed to meet Eddy. Robert’s mouth snapped shut as he watched Barnaby Mustly open his door and talk to the fellow. Eddy needed them to find the killer. Because Constable Rogers had realized if he didn’t follow up on what happened the day Justin Alanson died, whoever was sent from Scotland Yard would.

  15

  georgette dorothy aaron

  Eddy saw the constables knocking at the doors on their lane, and his face paled. He watched out the window as the fellows went door to door without ever coming to the Aaron house.

  “What if I am arrested?” Eddy finally asked. His voice was steady, but his hands were shaking.

  “Then we’ll hire you quite an excellent solicitor,” Charles replied. “No need to worry, my boy.”

  The proclamation did not, however, make Eddy feel better. He remained pale and then breathed out hard when Robert approached the walk. They watched Robert just as a constable left the Mustly house and rode his bicycle toward the Bayles’ home.

  “No one would have seen me,” Eddy said, “so they can’t say they did and speak on my behalf.”

  “Any motive you could possibly have,” Georgette told him, “is weak and any jury will agree. It’s going to be all right, Eddy.”

  Robert came through the door a moment later, and he was followed within moments by Janey.

  “They’re trying to prove you were out and about!” Janey sounded furious. “I thought Constable Rogers was on our side. I am tempted to let the air out of his tires.”

  “Don’t,” Charles said.
<
br />   Janey didn’t look interested in the order, and Georgette could almost bet that Constable Rogers would regret the day’s actions before the week was out.

  “They have to check,” Eddy told his sister. “It’ll look worse for me if they don’t.”

  “The idea that you would murder someone over being a jerk is stupid.” Janey’s voice was shrill and furious. “Besides, Molly said those boys were all fighting amongst themselves. And, she thinks she heard someone leave as she arrived.”

  “But she didn’t see who?” Eddy asked.

  Janey shook her head and added, “It’s possible Mrs. Witham did.”

  Eddy tried to look brave, but Georgette could tell he was worried.

  “Don’t worry, Eddy,” Robert added. “I found out quite a bit about their other friend who died. No one there, including the constables, believed it was an accident.”

  “They didn’t?” Janey gasped and she sounded exultant. She jumped up and said, “See, Eddy! You’ll be fine. One of those stupid boys killed his friends and we just need to find out which one.”

  “I don’t know that we do,” Charles said carefully, and then held up his hands when everyone but Georgette turned on him. “We’ve countered whatever the killer intended. Really, this whole cover-up is sloppy. Eddy might have come across Justin Alanson, but Eddy couldn’t have gotten Alanson’s things from the Bayles’s house.”

  “And,” Robert said a moment later, “whoever did get rid of Alanson’s things and left the note about Alanson heading home on the early train didn’t get the wallet. Which proves that Alanson didn’t leave on his own. Eddy might have come across Alanson, and maybe—though hard to believe—the boys could have escalated their argument from the day before, but there was no way for Eddy to flub up the rest of things.”

  Eddy almost collapsed into a chair. “I’m safe?”

  “You’re safe,” Charles agreed.

  “But Justin Alanson and the White boy aren’t,” Georgette added softly. Her gaze narrowed for a moment and she added, “This boy has gotten away with one murder. I don’t think we should allow him to get away with another.”