The Marlowe Murders

by Laura Giebfried

  “Dammit!” I said aloud, pounding my palms against my head. And then, from somewhere in my jumble of thoughts, came Marjorie's voice in my ear. There's a goddamn pharmacy in Mother's medicine cabinet!

  I snatched up the key and unlocked my door. Bernadette had said that her mother had taken tranquilizers, and Mrs. Marlowe surely wouldn't miss them now …

  Hastening out of the room and down the stairs, I flattened myself against the walls for fear of being seen. The house seemed oddly empty, and though I hoped that the family was gathered downstairs, I kept my footsteps as light as possible as I went past the bedrooms.

  I reached the Augustus Suite and unlocked the door with the master key, then slipped inside. My eyes immediately swept over the room to check that Cassandra wasn't in there again. Mrs. Marlowe was on her bed alone, and Rachel's body had been laid next to John's on the window seat. My coat was still wrapped around her like a blanket, and her fingers had been intertwined with John's in the most unnatural hand-holding I'd ever seen.

  I crept across the room, maneuvering over the polar bear rug and around the floor lamp, then felt along the wall for the bathroom light switch. As soon as it was on, my frantic state of mind overtook me. I hurried to the cabinet and fumbled with the various prescription bottles, twisting their labels toward the light as I read the drug names. My hands got more and more shaky as I searched, and in my carelessness I knocked one of the bottles from the shelf, sending it shattering into the basin, but I hardly had time to care as I found the one I needed: Meprobamate.

  Relief flooded over me. I twisted the cap off the bottle and emptied the contents into my hand, but there were only three two-hundred milligram pills: less than half of my usual dosage. I swallowed them hurriedly and searched for another bottle, but to no avail. They would be enough, though, I tried to convince myself as I bathed myself beneath the bright overhead lights. All I needed was to slow my thoughts so that I could think.

  I stepped back into the bedroom and started toward the door. The first thing I needed to do was hide until I could work out who to trust. The Smoking Room or Music Room would be the best places, or maybe even one of the storage rooms on the third floor.

  I slipped back past the bodies of Rachel, John, and Mrs. Marlowe, debating and deciding all at once, but just as I reached the polar bear rug I realized that something was wrong. A chill ran down my spine that had nothing to do with the open window, and head turned slowly back to the bed. Mrs. Marlowe was gone.

  “Shit –”

  I spun around just in time to see Cassandra raising her arm, and I barely had time to register the heavy book in her hand before it came crashing down against my cheek. I fell sideways onto the rug.

  “So it was you!” she hissed. “Stealing more medicine, are you? To kill the rest of us?”

  “What –? No, I –”

  She swooped down upon me again, wielding the book like a hammer and taking aim at my face again. I ducked down and put my arm up to shield myself. The hardcover struck my forearm instead.

  “Don't lie!” she said. “I saw you sneak in here! I heard you going through the bottles!”

  “No – that's not –”

  She struck me again and again, smacking the book against any part of me that she could. As the corner of it caught my eye and jabbed into the socket, I let out a cry of pain and flattened myself to the floor, covering my face.

  “I knew I shouldn't have trusted you!” she screeched. “I knew you wouldn't be what I wanted!”

  I turned to get onto my hands and knees but the book crashed into my back, flattening me down again. Gripping the soft white fur, I yanked myself away from her, but she grabbed me by the hair and pulled me back.

  “Ah!”

  I twisted around and aimed a kick at her stomach, catching her off guard and sending her doubling over with several of my hairs still clutched in her hand. I scrambled to my feet, but my shoe caught the head of the polar bear and I went crashing back down to the ground next to the bed –

  “Jesus –”

  The utterance barely left my mouth. My chin had hit the floor, but that wasn't what had stunned me. For there, staring out at me from the darkness beneath the four-poster bed where she had been hidden, was the sunken, dead face of Mrs. Marlowe.

  Cassandra gave a furious cry from behind me, and I rolled to my side just in time to avoid her pouncing on top of me. As I scrambled up to crawl over the bed, though, she caught me by the ankles and yanked me back down. My shoulder crashed into the ground and I rolled onto my back, my right arm pinned beneath me, and no sooner had I registered her hands leaving my ankles than she was on top of me, her knees pressing into my chest and making it hard to breathe and her veiled head hanging over me like a phantom.

  I raised my untrapped hand and shoved it up into her face, trying to break her nose. She caught it in between her teeth instead and bit into my burned, bubbled skin, and I let out a cry of pain as the wound gave a terrible, forceful throb. I tried to yank it from her clamped jaw, but she was relentless now, and in her crazed costume made up of her deceased mother's clothes, she looked so monstrous that I thought she might very well eat me alive.

  “You – crazy – bitch!” I said, closing my fingers around her mouth to force her jaw open, but I only caught a fistful of the opaque fabric of her veil instead. Grimacing, I tugged my hand away from her with all of my might, my burned skin tearing from my palm as it scraped through her teeth, and as I flung my arm away with a howl of pain, it tore the veil from her face.

  For a moment all I saw was long, silvery hair that fell down upon me. At first I didn't know who – or what – I was looking at. For the reason Cassandra wore the veil had nothing to do with being in mourning, but rather because she had done something to her face to change the wide smile and big eyes I had seen in her portrait to a thin, pursed mouth and narrowed, angry slits of eyelids, and there was now a large mark on her face running from her right eye over her cheek and down to her mouth like a stain. Suddenly the long black dress decorated with beads and the heavy silver ring adorned with diamonds and sapphires that she had plucked from her mother's hand made sense, and the reason her appearance had caused me to confuse her with the dead woman became clear. She looked just like –

  “Mrs. Marlowe.”

  Chapter 15

  I hadn't meant to say the name aloud. Cassandra's tightened eyes tried to widen, but the action was unnaturally stopped by whatever surgeries she had had done. For a moment she simply looked as horrified as I felt, but then her face morphed into a livid, twisted scowl and she bared her teeth like a madwoman.

  “You.”

  Her arm shot out and snatched me, trying to get me to release the veil, but the damage was done.

  “You wicked little thing!” she cried, crawling further up my chest with her hand still locked like a shackle around my wrist. Her voice was no longer the sweet, unknowing one that piped her fantasies into conversations, but a harsh, frightened woman who had been discovered. She shook me by the arm, repeating, “You wicked, wicked thing!”

  “I – I didn't –”

  “You had no right!” she said, and her knees were so far up my chest that they were pressing into my neck and choking me. “You had no right!”

  “I – I – didn't –”

  “Liar! You think you're so clever, do you? So clever for seeing beneath my veil?”

  The words barely audible from her shaking voice, and her hands sprung out to wrap themselves around my throat. Even if I could have spoken, I wouldn't have known what to say.

  I squirmed beneath her and grabbed at her hands, trying to yank them off, but her fingers squeezed tighter in response and her sharp nails dug into my bare neck. My eyes watered until my vision blurred and my chest thumped and thumped as it waited for the breath that wasn't coming, struggling violently to fill with air again –

  “Well guess what?” she hissed. “I've seen beneath your veil, too, and I know who you really are – and you're not my daughter,
no matter how much you've tried to look like her!”

  I pulled at her fingers one by one, trying to break them off of my throat, but she was growing stronger and I was growing weaker, and I couldn't see anything anymore except the bright white light of the moon flooding my wide open eyes, and I was certain that it was ending, certain that it would be over soon and I wouldn't have to fight anymore –

  I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, I thought as my eyes rolled back into my skull, and could see inside my head to where the words were endlessly built up inside, stored and useless, remembered and soon to be forgotten for good. And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, and in short, I was afraid …

  “No!”

  A muffled sound came from above me and Cassandra's weight was thrown from my body. I gasped and choked, blinking frantically to get the blurred shapes around me to sharpen back into things I recognized.

  Lennox was grappling with Cassandra. He had her pinned to the floor, but she was wriggling like a rabid animal beneath him that had been caught in a trap. As he tried to hold her hands down, one escaped and came up to slice him across the face with the sapphire and diamond ring –

  “Ahh!”

  He grabbed at where she had torn his flesh and she took her chance to escape. She pulled herself out from beneath him and shot back over to where I was still laying on the rug, but –

  He grabbed her and yanked her back. As she kicked and flailed her arms, I scrambled backwards away from both of them, hitting into the window seat where John and Rachel's bodies laid.

  “What in God's name –?” Lennox started, finally noticing her face, but his voice was drowned out by a wail that erupted from her mouth like a flood. He clapped his hands over her mouth to stop her.

  “She's trying –” I croaked, “to look – like – her mother –”

  “Like Sylvia –?”

  His question ended in a shout: she had bitten his hand, too. He shook it frantically, cursing as he went. Cassandra bared her teeth at him.

  “I am Sylvia!” she shouted. “I – am – Sylvia!”

  Lennox's face reflected the shock that I was feeling, though mine wasn't just due to Cassandra's appearance, but the revelation of what he had done, too. I wanted to run, but my hand was throbbing and my chest was heaving, and I couldn't seem to move. Instead I reached back, and in a split's second decision, I plucked the letter opener from John's chest and shoved it into my pocket.

  “Cassandra,” Lennox said, adopting his calm, patient tone, “Sylvia is dead –”

  “Lies!” Cassandra said, and her eyes – fighting so hard to widen that they looked ready to burst – went from anger to dejection in an instant. “Lies made up by my children to get my fortune!”

  She swiped at his face but he pulled back just in time. He grabbed her by the wrist to keep her from trying again, and from the way his knuckles had turned white, it looked as though he was holding her more tightly than he needed to.

  “You can't replace your mother, Cassandra,” he said. “It won't help your grief –”

  “My grief?” Cassandra echoed. “My grief is that my baby is dead! My poor Mary – the only one who really loved me – pushed from the window with my grandson!”

  Lennox's face hardened.

  “She wasn't pushed!”

  “You think I don't know? You really think you know better than her mother what happened to her?”

  “You are not her mother!”

  “You couldn't stand how close we were! You couldn't stand it when she wanted to come home! You wanted to keep her all for yourself! But Mary loved me more than anyone – anyone – and she would have never left me here alone! Never! So you pushed her!”

  Without warning, Lennox raised his hand and struck her across the face. I jumped back, nearly as stunned as Cassandra ought to have been, but a huge demented smile came over her face instead.

  “You're insane,” Lennox growled.

  Cassandra let out a laugh. It filled the room like a haunting cry, sending chills up and down my skin. Lennox shoved her back down to the floor. He looked nearly as deranged as she was: his mouth was twitching and his teeth were grinding, and for a moment as he bent over her, I was certain that he was going to hit her again, beating her into the floor until the smile left her face, but then –

  He stood up and took me by the arm, pulling me from the room. Cassandra's laughter followed us. I was too numb to react as he brought me upstairs, but as we reached the nanny's room and I saw into the nursery where the boarded up window was, my senses kicked back in.

  I yanked myself from his grip and tried to run, but he grabbed me around the waist, holding me back. The breath was knocked from my lungs and I fought to get away from the grip, twisting and turning violently –

  “Alexandra – what're you doing?”

  “Let – go!” I said, still trying to fight him even though it was a useless cause. He was far stronger than me, and if he had been able to overtake John then I certainly stood no chance –

  “What's wrong with you?” he said, wheeling me around to face him. “What happened?”

  I pulled away with every ounce of strength I contained, and my arms slipped through his grip with a jolt. Shocked at my success, I teetered off balance and fell back onto the floor with a thump, my arm breaking my fall and twisting painfully beneath me.

  “Alexandra, what's happened? What's wrong?”

  He was still playing his game, thinking that he could win me over to his side by manipulating my feelings and getting me to believe he was anyone but whom he said he was, but there was nothing in his voice that I trusted anymore. I could feel the cold metal of the letter opener against my leg through the fabric of my skirt, waiting for me if I needed it.

  “You killed John!”

  “Alexandra, you know that's not true –”

  “I know you did it! I know about your key!”

  Lennox stiffened. As he took a long breath, the scent of alcohol wafted over me, and I noticed that his eyes were a bit brighter than usual. He had evidently been helping himself to liquor while the family was gathered in the Parlor, despite the fact that he had claimed he didn't drink.

  “I – yes, I have a master key, but …”

  “But you didn't use it? You just carry it around as a keepsake?”

  He stood up straighter.

  “I took the master key with me years ago when I left the island,” he said. “It was an accident: it was in my pocket.”

  “And you saw no reason to return it? You just held onto it for all these years?”

  “I brought it back many times: unlike the rest of the family, I actually visited Sylvia several times a year, and it made it easier to have my own key when I stayed here. And then when John invited me back –”

  “You thought you'd just bring it along in case you had to sneak out at night and kill him?”

  “I thought he might not be planning to give me the painting, so I figured I'd bring it in case I had to search the house for it myself.”

  “So that's why you sneaked out of the nursery that night?”

  “I didn't sneak: I knocked for five minutes and you didn't answer because you were knocked out from those pills you take!”

  Cold came over my skin as he admitted it, and the last bit of hope that I had harbored left me. My breathing was quick and shallow, and his own had turned labored.

  Floorboards creaked from outside the room, and we both turned in time to see Mrs. Tilly's white apron whipping out of sight as she dashed past the room.

  “We need to keep our voices down,” Lennox said, turning back to me.

  “Why? Afraid that the family will find out what you've done –?”

  He grabbed me and yanked me to my feet. For a moment I thought that he might strike me as he had Cassandra, but instead he glared at me in his disappointment that I hadn't fallen for him the way he had wanted me to. He marched me over to the bed and pushed me down to sit upon the mattress. I look
ed up at him steadily, rearranging my face so that I didn't look frightened.

  “You're being ridiculous,” he said, his tone a forced calm. “You're forgetting that I've been the one helping you find out what happened to John since he was killed.”

  “You've been pretending to figure it out, you mean.”

  “Why on earth would I do that?”

  “So that I wouldn't think it was you! You said as much when I was trying to convince you to help me: that there were only a handful of choices of who killed John, and you were well-aware that none of the family cares what happens to you! So you realized I would be your only ally!”

  He gave a frustrated growl; he was unraveling. His perfectly poised answers and calm demeanor were slipping faster than the seconds ticking by.

  “You're being impossible,” he said. “I had no reason to tell you that I was out that night – not after you'd given me an alibi, and not when I knew it was the only reason you were trusting me. I would have been a fool to throw all that away!”

  “So why were you outside?”

  “I went to the cemetery,. I knew the family wanted me to leave first thing in the morning, and I couldn't sleep without going to see Mary and Oliver's graves first.”

  “What – suddenly feeling sentimental about the family you pushed through the window?”

  Lennox's cheeks hollowed.

  “It's one thing to accuse me of killing John,” he said quietly, “but don't you dare say I killed my wife and son, especially when you know that Cassandra says things – and does things – that bear no resemblance to the truth.”

  “It's not her I believe. Mr. Kneller told me.”

  “Did he? Well, I'm not surprised: he's been very adamant about it since the trial. I'm a bit surprised that you'd believe it, though.”

  “She went through the glass.”

  “Of course she did! It was a stained-glass window: it didn't open!”

  “She fell backwards,” I hurried on, desperate to keep him from changing my mind. The medication and the fight were rendering me dizzy, and I longed to put my head down and shut my eyes, blocking out everything that had happened today. “Who would do that?”