Murder of the Mysterious Maid

by Megan Mollson

  Where was the pistol? Even as my eye swelled shut, I looked around. Donald didn’t have anything in his hand. I edged around the pair, my one good eye scanning frantically. Keeping the thief from his weapon was the only way I could think of helping Cal.

  There! I lunged for the gun and spun to point it at Donald. My hands were shaking so hard that I had to hold the pistol with both hands. I cocked it and drew in a shuddering breath.

  “Don’t move or I swear I will have no qualms about shooting you.” My voice was steadier than my hands, I was glad to see.

  Cal looked up at me in surprise, his own hands lifting automatically. It took him a moment to register my state of mind and then he strode over and took the pistol from me.

  “Call the police,” he demanded.

  “I already did,” I said, sinking onto a chair as my legs gave way.

  We stayed frozen in this tableau for a full five minutes until the sounds of a wagon clattering to a stop outside announced the arrival of the police.

  The next hour was a blur that kept slowing strangely and then leaping up and running. June came down from upstairs and made me a cold compress. Father arrived home and demanded a full recounting of the night’s events. Cal told me briefly that he had been concerned about me while at supper and had decided to leave early and make sure that I was all right at home alone.

  “I’m glad you did,” I admitted. “I didn’t have much fight left.”

  After I promised to give a detailed statement the next day, June was allowed to take me upstairs and sit with me until I fell asleep. It was a long time before my heart rate returned to normal and even longer before I was able to stop picturing the gun, inches from my face.

  ***

  I sat in Father’s office at the house the next morning defiantly. I had no intention of apologizing for anything that had happened. If Father or Cal pointed even one word of condemnation at me, I was prepared to let loose the scathing argument I’d worked on that morning while I bathed and dressed. My swollen, aching face only served to fuel my fiery spirit.

  “Who was that man?” Father began after he’d dropped himself into a chair across from me. “Was he the burglar we’ve been looking for.”

  “He was one of them,” I explained, casting a quick glance at where Cal sat taking notes. “His name is Donald and he was married to Flora. The two of them worked with Hal who was arrested burglarizing the Edwards’ house.”

  “How do you know that?” Cal asked, clearly annoyed.

  I pursed my lips momentarily. There was nothing for it; I would have to confess that I had gone expressly against his wishes. “Will and I visited Grace Church Street yesterday.”

  Cal’s jaw tensed and I knew he wanted to scold me again. I looked away from him and saw that, even though he wasn’t overly happy about it, Father wasn’t very upset by this information.

  Heartened, I went on. “We met with a girl who cleaned number 8, which is a boardinghouse. She knew who Flora was because she’d visited Hal who was renting a room there before he was arrested. This girl knew that the two of them were often with a gentleman named Donald.”

  “Why did they break in here?” This was the point that was most bothering Father. He was clearly upset that anyone would be so bold as to burglarize the police chief’s house.

  “I believe that Donald thought it would be the ultimate burglary.”

  “Yes, but how did he know to come last night? How did he know that the house would be empty? I only gave the staff the night off in the middle of the afternoon.”

  This was yet another point that worried me. “The group liked to place maids in the houses they intended to burgle. Flora was in the Dennis’ house and June was in ours.”

  “June? Your maid?” Father was flummoxed by this news.

  I nodded. “Although, June was coerced and tried to stop him once he was in. Please speak to her and I believe you’ll find that she needn’t be arrested.” I was pleading now, but I didn’t want June to suffer for her poor decision any more than was absolutely necessary.

  “But Flora was new to town. She hadn’t worked in any other house in Brinkman,” Cal interjected.

  “I expect that another girl was used in those cases. If you ask at the homes where the other robberies occurred, I expect that you’ll find that a maid began working in each house a few days before the robbery and then quit soon after.”

  Father asked me to explain in detail what had happened the previous night. I walked him through the entire episode, shivering when I recalled my wait in the office behind the clock. My eyes drifted there as I spoke and my voice faltered.

  “There, there,” Father reached over and patted my hand. “It’s over now. You helped to stop a dangerous criminal, Rose. I’m terribly proud of you. Well, Cal, we should head to the station and write this up. We’ll see you for supper tonight, Rose. Try and get some rest.”

  I took a long nap that afternoon and awoke feeling better, though my face was still very painful. Father was positively cheerful at supper. He was thrilled to have wrapped up two cases at once. I was content to sit quietly, for a change, and not take part in the conversation.

  The telephone rang and Harrison arrived, announcing that Father was needed to speak to the district attorney. The two left the room and I found myself alone with Cal.

  “You took a lot of unnecessary risks,” he hissed as soon as Father disappeared around the corner. “You were almost killed.”

  “I can’t imagine why you care so much,” I snarled. “Surely, I’m nothing to you.”

  He looked taken aback by this accusation. “You’re the daughter of my mentor. He lost his wife years ago and only just got his daughter back. It would crush your father if anything happened to you.”

  It was my annoyance at his scolding and old fear that Father didn’t care that made me say, “He’d get over it in time. He was only too happy to get rid of me when Mother died. I’m sure I’m little more than a complication he doesn’t need.”

  Cal snorted. “You’re really too self-absorbed to be believed. He hated having to send you away. I’ve known him for ten years. Every time he’d receive a letter from you, he’d keep it in his pocket and read it to anyone who’d sit still long enough to listen. He was so excited to learn that you were moving back that he smiled for a week.”

  I sat back, stunned. “But he never came to visit me. He hardly ever wrote back.”

  “He’s been a detective working his way up to the chief of police. How easy do you think it is for him to leave town? Besides, your grandparents never encouraged him to visit. They always made him feel as though it was his fault that your mother died. I think he feels like he doesn’t deserve you.”

  My mouth dropped open and I gaped at Cal. “I… I never knew.”

  Father returned and suggested we move to the parlor. Cal excused himself, pleading paperwork that needed finishing, and bid us good night.

  I felt as though the wheels of my brain were spinning too fast. Father read his book and I picked up my needlepoint, but kept laying it down in my lap as I remembered Cal’s words. He made it sound as if Father loved me. Was he telling the truth or just saying what he thought I wanted to hear?

  My musings were interrupted with Will’s arrival.

  “Rose, I just heard! Tell me everything!” He threw himself into a chair and grilled me for the next twenty minutes. Finally, he sat back and grinned at me. “I can’t believe you did it! You figured out who killed Flora Dobson. I told you you’d make a great detective. Now we simply have to open our own agency.”

  “What’s this?” Father asked, his interest sharpening.

  “Rose and I want to open our own detective agency,” Will said easily.

  I put up a hand and tried to temper his words. “It’s just an idea that Will had. I told him I’d think about it.”

  “Why would you need to have a detective agency when this town has a perfectly good police force?” He was becoming insulted.

  “I’m sure
there are cases that the police can’t investigate legally. People could hire someone else to look into things and ask questions even before they could prove a crime had happened. Besides, I’m sure there are dozens of small cases that you don’t have the manpower to investigate. An outside agency could be hired to handle those.”

  Father’s eyebrows were slowly lifting. “It’s not a bad idea,” he said slowly. “I can’t say I like the idea of my daughter being put into dangerous situations, though.”

  Will batted that fear away with a casual hand. “Anything truly dangerous would be handled by the police. We’d be looking into small time thefts or suspicious gardeners.”

  I looked between the two of them with wide eyes. Was this conversation actually happening? I couldn’t believe that Father would ever approve.

  Nothing was decided immediately, but Will and I felt hopeful as we headed out to the garden for a walk. I lifted my face to the sun, the warmth soothing my aching jaw.

  “I’d say your introduction to Brinkman has been quite eventful,” Will laughed.

  “I hope my second month is much quieter than my first,” I smiled at him. “I never expected it to be so exciting around here.”

  “Well, we don’t want to disappoint. It would be too tragic if you came and found yourself without anything to do. On the other hand,” he paused as though thinking, “I don’t know that we’ve ever had quite so much excitement before. It might be argued that you’re to blame.”

  “Me? I had nothing to do with Flora’s death!”

  “I had nothing to do with the robberies,” Will pointed out.

  I felt a pang and put a hand on his arm. “I know. I’m so sorry I suspected you.”

  He shrugged. “I would have thought the same thing had I been in your shoes. Now, though, you can rest easy that you’re partnering with someone who is completely innocent.”

  “Hah! I doubt that.”

  “You know me too well. But we are going to start a detective agency, aren’t we?” He turned pleading eyes on me.

  “I admit that I would enjoy it,” I said slowly. “And we do make a good team.”

  “We make an excellent team! So, you’ll give it a try?”

  I took a deep breath. “Yes, I will. Shall we call it the Lunceford-Edwards Agency or the Edwards-Lunceford Agency?”

  “I do like the sound of that. Why don’t we call it something like Criminals Beware or No Stone Unturned?”

  I laughed. “We’ll figure out a name later. I suppose we’re in business.”

  We stood in the garden grinning at each other.

  *The End*

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  Constance Aberfield has it all. Not only does she own and operate a successful hotel that she loves to bits, but she’s married to a wonderful husband and they have a son together. Oh, and just to make things even more perfect, the town she lives in, Modest Peak, is about as close to being a missing piece of paradise that exists. All in all, things are going pretty well for Constance.

  This reality very quickly spirals out of control when her husband—Randall—is fired from his job at a local construction site. This firing sees Randall announce his desire to leave Modest Peak for good, regardless of what Constance wants. And then, just to make things even worse, the construction site that Randall was fired from burns to the ground in suspicious circumstances, trapping and killing someone inside.

  A quick investigation concludes that the fire was set on purpose, the death is a case of murder, and Randall is the lead suspect. With her world coming down around her, Constance will have to prove her husband’s innocence if she has any hope of rebuilding her marriage and restoring order to a life she thought she loved.

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