Beatrice: An Alarming Tale of British Murder and Woe by Tedd Hawks (the reading list book .TXT) 📕

            Crockett turned and saw Kordeliastaring at him from the shadow of the hallway.

            “Hullo,” she said sweetly.

            “Hullo. You may come in, Kordelia.”

            The young woman glided to the bed.Her wide eyes looked at Petrarch with a deep empathy. “I came to be sure he’sall right.”

            “It sounds like he will be fine.He’s been sleeping a long while.”

            “Not from the concussion,” she said.“There are bats in this room. They sometimes defecate on the bed. I didn’t wanthim to be used as a toilet.”

            Crockett sighed.

            Kordelia gently ran her finger overthe bed cover. She breathed in sharply.

            “Are you all right?” Crocket asked.

            Nervously, the young woman looked atCrockett. “I heard you,” she said softly. “With the detective. I used the samevent that was used to pipe in the music from the phonograph.”

            Crockett frowned. “Oh?”

            “It’s a wonderful theory. It getsaround all the characters in the house. It’s someone outside it. Bixby from thepast.” Kordelia drew closer to Crockett, her voice lowering. “It’s very like Mère,Bélier, Mort, Chapeau. In the play the viscount’s ram is the one poisoningthe well by defecating in it. It’s revealed in the fourth meat pie scene.”

            “I feel this conversation hasdiscussed defecation with alarming frequency,” Crockett said.

            “It’s the one you don’t suspect.It’s like the play or a book.” Kordelia leaned in conspiratorially, her voicebecoming a whisper. “There are only a few people who can link the past to thepresent. You should talk to them.” She hesitated and then, in a barely audibletone, she quoted the same passage from the day they met on the river. “The pastdoesn’t die, just like ghosts don’t.”

            Crockett turned toward her, but thegirl had moved away. She was skipping from the room.

            “Martha,” she called back in asing-song voice, “is cleaning up the detective’s room.”

            He would at least be able to ask theold maid some questions that focused his theory and could eliminate oraggrandize Pip’s status as a suspect. The first time he’d encountered hercleaving meat, it hadn’t yielded results, but time was running out, and perhapsafter that first exchange, she would trust him and recognize a rapport betweenthem. As Kordelia’s footsteps died away, Crockett took a deep breath andsqueezed Petrarch’s hand. “There are worse ideas,” he said quickly and rushedafter the youngest Winterbourne daughter.

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            Kordelia disappeared, so that whenCrockett found himself in the west wing, he was alone in his quest to faceMartha. Tentatively, he knocked on the open door to the detective’s room, whichshe was still cleaning. He waited patiently for the old woman to call him in.She ignored the sound, however, and continued sweeping, her shuffling gate theonly sound in the room. Crockett was unsure if it was his imagination, or ifthe maid’s roving eye was fixed on him, but it made him feel unsettled.

            He attempted two more knocks, to noavail, before stepping into the room.

            “Pardon,” he said, his throat congesteddue to nerves. “Excuse—pardon? Ma’am?”

            Martha stopped for an instant beforeresuming sweeping.

            It was clear she saw no rapportbetween them.

            Crockett cleared his throat anddebated his next course of action. At the very least, he knew he had to refrainfrom directly accusing Martha of the murder. As he pondered the most usefulquestions to ask, he looked up and discovered the macabre mural painted on theceiling. It was a dramatic scene of the French and Indian War in America. Thepicture was painted with intricate detail, the blood a dark, rich red. In thecenter of the portrait was a proud American warrior on a large, white horse,his eyes breaking the mystique of the painting, looking straight out of theartwork and at the viewer. Crockett had never seen anything like it before; heshivered slightly in spite of the warmth of the day. Something about the faceappeared familiar, but the young man couldn’t quite place the visage in hismemory.

            “Master Bixby Von Bunson,” Marthacroaked, never interrupting her sweeping.

            Crockett looked to her, trying to catchher eye. He pasted a smile on his face in an attempt to disarm the old woman.“I’m sorry,” he said moving closer to her. “Bixby Von Bunson?”

            “Yes,” she said shortly. “He had allthese painted before he disappeared. He painted himself into the pictures.”

            “And Bixby Hawsfeffer allowed that?He supported his cousin painting himself into the images in his house?”

            “They were very friendly before theyweren’t,” she said coldly. “When Von Bunson went to America he made them both alarge sum of money. Dexter is painted in them, too. They came over from Americatogether. He and Bixby Von Bunson were very close friends…then things fellapart.”

            Crockett stared at the old woman. Itwas as if she was saying something important and, yet, as if she wasn’t sayinganything at all. Most of this was information Brontë shared with him duringtheir adventure in the family vault. The number of Bixbys and betrayals in thefamily was certainly a point of interest, if nothing else.

            “If you go into the study upstairs,the painting over the fireplace is the same, just them in different dress. MoreEnglish.” She paused here, and for the first time looked directly at Crockett.

            A tense moment unfolded between thetwo individuals. The single eye rolled slowly in its socket.

             Crockett cleared his throat. “Why did VonBunson leave?”

            “Money,” the old woman said. “Hewanted the house back, but it was legally Hawsfeffer’s, you see. The two mencouldn’t agree on what to do, so he went back to America.”

            “And he’s never been back?”

            “Never. There’s been no word of himfor decades.” She again looked as if she wanted to add something more.Hesitantly she spoke, “Miss Corinthiana had me deliver a secret letter afterthe master died.”

            Crockett took a step closer. Hisheart thudded in his chest. “Do you know what was in the note?”

            “I promised the lady I wouldn’tlook. Martha keeps her promises.”

            “But you think that it was addressedto Bixby Von Bunson?”

            Martha looked around anxiously. “Ihave no firm idea, but it was my guess. Even if it was, with his habits oftraveling with the Wild West show, it would never