I picked up the handset with no intention of actually conveying Bernadette's absurd request to the operator, but was met with silence. I tapped the receiver cradle several times to see if the dial tone would come back on, then followed the line to the wall to ensure that it was still intact. The storm must have affected it. I decided that I would wait a few minutes and try again. I was in no rush to return to the bickering voices in the Dining Room anyhow.
I opened the desk drawers and shuffled around the contents. An old stack of yellowing papers scribbled with tiny, messy writing sat next to an empty ornate golden sheath, a dip ink pen and its various tips, and a worn photograph of a young girl sitting in a clover-covered field with a small, well-groomed dog on her lap. I stared down at her with the odd sensation that I had seen her somewhere before, then willed my mind not to harass me with the unknown. I couldn't stop myself from wondering what was going to happen next, though. What was I going to do now that John was dead? Be Bernadette's maid? Return to the university and beg for another chance? They wouldn't uphold my agreement with John; I wasn't even certain that he had been planning to uphold it himself. I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples, trying to think of what I could do. I couldn't go home: not without the money and no way to take care of my mother.
I plucked one of the pen tips up and held it between my thumb and pointer finger, holding it there as I breathed and breathed in an attempt to fill myself with something other than the utter hopelessness that I felt. When no relief came, though, I pressed down on the tip until it poked through the skin and created a bubble of blood. I imagined pressing the point to my skull and creating a hole through which the solution to my predicament could escape. But the answer wasn't there, I knew, tossing the tip back down. All that I could be certain of was that, whatever John had been planning for me, this had not been it – and I didn't know whether to be relieved or not.
I wiped my finger on my skirt and picked up the handset again. There was still no dial tone. My mind shifted, returning to the image of John's body out in the snow. A dead man and no way to phone for help: what was the likelihood of that? I shook my head and pushed the concern away. My rational mind knew better than to give in to the eeriness of the bitter cold island. It was just as Marjorie and Bernadette had said: he had simply died.
I retreated to the Dining Room to inform the Marlowes about the phone line.
“What do you mean, out?” Bernadette said. “It can't be out.”
“There's no dial tone, Mrs. Carlton,” I said, unsure of how to make it any clearer. “The storm might have blown it out.”
“The storm couldn't have blown it out,” Bernadette said. “It's an underwater line.”
“Something could have hit the junction box,” Bill said, but she paid him no mind.
“Alexa, you must be mistaken.”
I bit down on my tongue.
“Perhaps I misheard, Mrs. Carlton,” I said.
“Someone with competence go check on it,” Bernadette ordered.
No one moved. Bernadette narrowed her eyes.
“Lennox, I assume you're not an imbecile,” she said. “Go call the police.”
Lennox was sitting at the farthest end of the table from her, quietly drinking his coffee. He glanced over at me.
“I doubt I'm more skilled at listening for a dial tone than Alexandra,” he said, and there was a hint of crispness in his voice as he warned her not to challenge him. I felt a rush of approval for him, along with a sense of satisfaction that my instinct to like him had not just been about his looks after all.
“So maybe the storm hit the junction box,” Bill muttered again.
Bernadette gave a huff.
“Remind me what time you're leaving again, Lennox?” she asked irritably. “Directly after breakfast?”
“I'm not entirely sure anymore,” he said. “Given the circumstances.”
“Well, this is just wonderful,” Amalia said scathingly. She tossed her long hair over her shoulders and shook her head. “We should have never come to this house in the winter!”
“I'm so sorry that my mother didn't die at a convenient time of year for you,” Marjorie said with the least amount of pity I had ever heard in a voice. “I guess we Marlowes just don't think of others when we decide to kick the bucket.”
“My husband is dead!” Amalia said.
“Yes, and you seem simply devastated about it.”
“More devastated than all of you,” she snapped. “Maybe you're hoping that your mother's estate will be divided up between just the five of you now – is that it?”
“There's an idea: maybe John purposefully froze to death just to spite you so that you wouldn't get any of the money that you've been banking on getting ever since you laid eyes on him!”
“I don't – I'm not – I don't care about that!” Amalia said indignantly. “And if anything, you all probably conspired to kill him because you're upset that he got the island!”
“Now that's just absurd, Amalia,” Rachel said.
“Is it? Is it more absurd than him wandering outside for no reason, then freezing to death instead of just coming in?”
“He was obviously too drunk to make it back,” Bill said.
“Alcohol consumption increases the risk of hypothermia,” Bernadette said. “Blood flow to the skin and extremities increased, making him feel warm, while actually his body got colder.”
“He had three scotches! Four at the most – that's barely what he drinks at a dinner party!”
“Maybe he had more,” Marjorie said. “He might've been down here drinking after we'd all gone to bed.”
“Speaking from experience?” Bernadette asked in her carrying whisper.
Marjorie ignored her.
“Listen, he had a few extra drinks, fell in the snow and died,” she said. “It's not that difficult to believe, Amalia.”
“Yes, it is!” she screamed. “And the way you're all acting is – is proof! You did this! I know you did this!”
“You really think that we murdered our own brother, Amalia?” Marjorie said. “Maybe you and Lennox should go sit in the other room for a little while – I'm sure he can sort you out –”
Amalia stood up so quickly that her legs bashed into the table, sending coffee splattering over the sides of everyone's cups. I stepped forward to mop up the mess.
“You're the crazy ones,” she spat between clenched teeth, looking at each of John's siblings in turn. “I'll find out which one of you did this, and I'll take you for everything you have!”
“You've already inherited everything we might have had,” Marjorie said blandly, wiping the bottom of her coffee cup as she lifted it to take another sip.
Amalia stormed from the room. As the door slammed shut, a lingering unease filled the space she had left behind. I kept my eyes trained on the coffee soaking my cloth, watching the fabric turn from white to brown. Something was tugging at my memory, but I couldn't separate my thoughts clearly enough to get to it.
“That couldn't be true, could it?” Edie said at last. “Someone – someone murdered John?”
“Of course not. When the police show up, they'll confirm what we already know,” said Bernadette. “It was an accident.”
No one else seemed quite so certain. Bill was glancing around nervously, his tall, thin frame quivering; Edie's face had paled to a shade whiter than white; Marjorie's jaw was locked. Rachel was simply staring down at her coffee, seemingly numb.
“I think I should go tell Cassandra,” she said after a moment, standing up. She tucked her curly hair behind her ears. “She needs to know.”
“There's nothing stopping her from coming down,” Marjorie said, but Rachel had already hurried from the room. Marjorie rolled her eyes. “Well, she's feeling guilty, isn't she?”
“She had nothing to do with this,” Bernadette said.
“Of course not,” Marjorie replied. “But that doesn't change the fact that she wanted him dead.”
The Marlowes turned to
look at James, who was struggling to bring his coffee cup up to his mouth in a slow, arduous movement, and an uncomfortable silence rose up around them that wasn't broken until Rachel returned several minutes later.
“Cassandra's not taking it well,” she said as she took her seat. “She'd like her breakfast brought up, if you could let Mrs. Tilly know, Alexa.”
I left to do so. When I returned, the sisters were still arguing.
“But I never saw John too drunk to know what he was doing,” Edie was saying. “He could drink half a bottle of whiskey and still walk straight!”
“And maybe he did walk straight,” Marjorie said. “Straight outside.”
“But –”
“Maybe Mr. Kneller saw something,” Rachel cut in.
“I'm sure Mr. Kneller has seen something,” Bernadette said in that same carrying whisper, and Rachel's face flushed.
“Why don't you ask him to come over?” Rachel said, turning to me as she pointedly ignored her eldest sister.
“Oh,” I said. “Well – sure.”
Mr. Kneller lived just an acre away in the guesthouse, a little stone cottage which was only the size of a double garage. It was situated on the edge of the yard against a backdrop of forest trees and soundless air. I climbed up his front steps and rang the bell just as the sun had risen above the trees. He answered a minute later.
“Am I late?” he asked. “Usually they don't need the path cleared until ten or so.”
I had only caught glimpses of Kneller in the days that had passed since he had ferried me over to the island, but now that I saw him close up, his skeletal features had softened somewhat, though his skin was still as pale as bone. He was in his seventies, perhaps, with tufts of hair that stuck out wildly all over his head as though he so often pulled his hat from his head that he never bothered to smooth it, and he wore a wide, toothy grin as though he found everything about the world endlessly amusing, including me. I was rather surprised that Bernadette hadn't ordered him to adopt a more solemn expression by now.
“No,” I said. “I'm supposed to tell you – Professor Marlowe died.”
Kneller frowned.
“John's dead?” He pulled a face, not of remorse, but of concerned interest. “You want a cup of coffee?”
“I –” I began, thrown off guard by his response, “I'm supposed to bring you back to the main house.”
“I'm not going over there until I've had my coffee. You want to wait or go ahead?”
I followed him into the kitchen. It was small and cramped, and his table was mostly taken up by a large book that had been propped open.
He poured some coffee into a mug and handed it to me before taking a seat. He indicated the chair across from him.
“How'd John die? Heart attack?”
“We don't know,” I said tonelessly. “I just found him out in the snow.”
“You say that with such sorrow,” Kneller returned, clearly not meaning the words.
I shifted my jaw, debating whether to blame my apathy on numbness, but then decided against it. It wasn't as though Kneller seemed particularly upset, either.
“I'm just telling you what happened,” I said.
“Was there some sort of accident?”
“That's what they want to ask you: if you saw anything.”
“If I saw a man die outside my window, I like to think I'd walk over and inform his next of kin,” Kneller said, his toothy grin returning. “I wouldn't just wait around for them to send the maid over to question me.”
“Well, they're going to want to ask you themselves anyway, so you'd better come over.”
“Ah, yes, all the Marlowe women together in one room, cross-examining me – it's my lucky day.” He gave a gleeful laugh. “In the room the women come and go, talking of Michelangelo …”
I stared at him blankly, though he didn't seem to notice.
“I'm actually a bit excited,” he said. “It's not every day I'm invited up to the main house.”
“You were just up there a few days ago,” I said. “You brought the groceries into the kitchen – remember?”
“That doesn't count: I was ordered, not invited.”
“I'm fairly certain you're being ordered now, too,” I said, taking a sip of my coffee. “It's not like they're having you over for crumpets and tea.”
Kneller waved off my sardonic tone.
“No, those days are over,” he mused. “Sylvia used to have me over for tea every Tuesday to help her open the mail – four o'clock sharp. Granted it was because she'd gone completely blind, but I take what I can get.”
“So are you coming over?” I asked.
“I will, I will. I'm in no rush, though. I'd rather hear your version before they try and sell me theirs.”
“I don't know what you mean,” I said, even though I had an inkling that I did. It wasn't as though there was nothing odd about the Marlowe family, with their put-on airs and carefully coined diction, not to mention the lifestyle that was better suited for the 1920s than the 1950s. “I just found him dead outside, and now his family's trying to figure out what happened.”
“Have they called the police yet?”
“No. The phone's out.”
“Is it? They must not be happy about that.”
“Mrs. Carlton is: it's giving her time to eat breakfast,” I said without thinking, but before I could worry that I had spoken out of line, Kneller laughed.
“Ah – there will be time, there will be time,” he said, raising his cup to me, “to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; there will be time to murder and create, and time for all the works and days of hands that lift and drop a question on your plate; time for you and time for me, and time yet for a hundred indecisions, and for a hundred visions and revisions, before the taking of a toast and tea.”
“Excuse me?”
“T.S. Eliot,” he said, tapping the book that lay on the table between us. “He often ruminates about time.”
“Oh.”
“Oh?” Mr. Kneller echoed, his tone turning incredulous. “'Oh' is all you have to say about the greatest poet of the century?”
I shrugged.
“I don't really like poetry.”
“You can't dislike poetry. That's like saying you dislike food just because you have an aversion to green beans.”
“Well, I don't like any poem that I've ever read,” I said, not grateful for the way he was deciding my feelings for me. If he had been like me, he wouldn't care for poetry, either. “But whatever you say.”
I lifted my mug to take another sip of coffee before deciding against it. The lines he had recited were settling into my memory, and though I hated the way they took up space there, I hated the alternative more: forgetting. As the words time to murder and create circled back through my thoughts, my mind returned to Amalia's accusation that her husband's siblings had plotted to kill him. The idea sounded like a crazed conspiracy from her mouth, and yet it had just occurred to me what was bothering me about John's death: both the servants' door and the front door in the main house had been locked when I had gone out that morning. If the house had been in its original state then the information wouldn't have meant anything, but I knew for certain that the other four external doors in the house – which I had found in the Sun Room, the Ballroom, the Lounge, and the Cellar when I had first toured the house to memorize its layout – had all been boarded up.
“Something wrong?” Kneller asked, eyeing me over the rim of his mug.
I set my coffee down and leaned toward him.
“Do you think Professor Marlowe could have been murdered?” I asked. My voice carried no emotion. Kneller raised an eyebrow.
“Why would you think that?”
“The doors in the house were all locked. He couldn't have gone out and locked them behind him: not with the deadbolts, at least.”
Kneller's eyebrows raised further, and for the first time he genuinely looked surprised.
“Well, that's rather interestin
g,” he hummed. “Is that what the family's saying?”
“No, that's what I'm saying. I haven't told them yet.”
“You plan to?” Though his head was bare, he made a motion as though tipping his hat at me. “You're a brave girl.”
“I just think they should know. So do you think it's possible?”
He gave a coarse laugh.
“Do I think it's possible that a man like John could have been murdered in his own house after inheriting millions of dollars that his siblings wished they had?” He drained the rest of his coffee from his mug and stood up. “Why, yes, Alexandra – I do.”
He grabbed his coat to put on, then ushered me toward the door, a smile pulling at his face.
“Now let's get over there, or else the murderer might be after us next.”
They sat Kneller down and grilled him, then sent him out to shovel the path upon determining that he had seen nothing. It was unclear why the path had to be cleared at all, seeing as the weather was rendering it impossible for him to operate the ferry, but he was out there even so, walking back and forth and back and forth as he scraped the heavy snow from the frozen gravel while more continued to pelt down, clearly much stronger than he looked. I watched him from the window of the Eleanora Room while I was supposed to be cleaning, wondering how and when to relay my thoughts about John's death to the family.
I decided to tell them while they were eating lunch. The Marlowe women had arranged themselves at the table, along with a nervous Bill and disgruntled Amalia, and I had just finished bringing the tray of creamed chicken pasties around the table. While everyone's mouths were occupied chewing rather than speaking, I cleared my throat.
“Mrs. Carlton?”
Bernadette had her eyes fixed on her fork, seemingly counting how many peas were in the bite of food she was about to consume. She ignored me.
“Mrs. Carlton, I wondered if I could bring up –”
“Are we not having wine?” Marjorie asked loudly, cutting me off as she looked around the table.
“It's barely noon,” Bill said.
“Tell that to the woman who takes her morning coffee with liqueur,” Bernadette informed him.
The Marlowe Murders Page 6