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

            “Well, I have been in conversationwith Corinthiana.”

            “Yes!” Crockett leaned forward.

            “And she told me what was in theletter.”

            “Yes!”

            “She said it was sent under thecover of night because…it, perhaps, could be viewed as scandalous.”

            “Yes!”

            “So, she confided it to Martha inthe dead of night.”

            “Y—es.” Crockett was quickly losinghis enthusiasm.

            “Well, my boy, the letter, the letterof which Martha has spoken to you, of which I have spoken to Corinthiana, whichwas directed at a heretofore unknown party which I will reveal in this nextmoment…” Pimento paused here looking intently at Crockett.

            Crockett looked back at him,perceptibly extending his neck forward to imply he was ready to hear the revealof the mysterious addressee. The two men remained locked in an uncomfortablesilence, each waiting for the other to advance. During this odd standoff,Crockett noticed the detective’s sideburns looked wilder than they hadpreviously, uneven on his round face.

            Finally, Crockett softly said,“Yes?”

            “The letter—it was, definitely, spokenfrom Corinthiana’s mouth directly—was addressed to none other than theestranged, distant—”

            Pimento went on for some time,stringing together a litany of adjectives and descriptions, all providing arobust portrait of the mysterious letter recipient. At a certain point,Crockett lost all interest, his thoughts turning to the bird who hadunceremoniously died during the séance, then, in turn, to the ghost biscuitswhich he had never had the opportunity to try.

            “And what do you think of that!”Pimento leaned back in his chair triumphantly.

            Crockett, coming back to theconversation, nodded and said, “Yes?”

            “Mr. Cook! It ties back to yourtheory! The letter was intended for Pip Hawsfeffer!”

            “My stars!” Crockett put his handsto his forehead. “So Corinthiana alerted him to his father’s death!”

            “Indeed.” Pimento played with thefeather in his lapel. “It appears he had nothing to do with the death of BixbyHawsfeffer, Sr., but he may fit somewhere in this web.”

            “So, I may be right!” Crockett’sface glowed with pride. After the sore defeat in his conversation with Martha,he felt they were at the turn of the tide.

            “My brain is still parsing all thisnew information,” Pimento said energetically, “but I think we should review thecurrent facts of the case as we prepare for the evening. I feel,” the detectiveadjusted his glasses, “that we are heading toward the climax.”

            Crockett nodded. His heart poundedin his chest.

Pimento cleared his throat and commenced. “Our current suspects areCorinthiana Hawsfeffer, her daughters, June and May, Robert Edward Harrington, PipHawsfeffer,” here he winked at Crockett with warmth before continuing, “June’shusband, August—”

            “Augüst,” Crockett said out of habit.

            “Awgoost, yes, his and June’sdaughters, Kordelia and Brontë, the groundskeeper, Dexter, who has left us,Martha the maid of many years, and, of course, to be completely fair, yourselfand your master, Petrarch Bluster.”

            “It’s a rather long list.”

            “But it grows much shorter when wereview motive.”

            Crockett’s eyebrows went up inshock. “Detective! You found motive? Brontë and I have been confounded allweek. Even if my theory is correct, why is Pip involved? Does the note toLucinda reveal some hidden fortune, or is Pip being contacted simply acoincidence? Did someone actually kill Bixby Hawsfeffer? Did someone want toexpedite the reading of the will? Is there some treasure buried in the tomb ofsome importance…? The séance incident seemed a trick to scare people but—why? I’dthought it was Kordelia, but there are beginning to be too many coincidences—theLucinda letter, the Pip letter, the séance…And, likewise, the death of Beatriceseems to be some sort of warning, but, for what?”

            Crockett paused, exasperated, lost,and hopeless in his own thoughts. Detective Pimento eyed him shrewdly.

            “And there is,” the detective said,“the attempt on Mr. Bluster’s life. Allegedly, it was someone searching for thetomb key.”

            “Oh, yes, that, too,” Crockett said.He sounded as if he was speaking from far off. “So, you think someone wants insidethe tomb, then?”

            Detective Pimento sniffed. “Do you?”

            “I don’t know what anyone wants. Itold you, we’ve been absolutely confounded.”

            “But what have you found? Talk methrough your theorizing.” Detective Pimento leaned forward slightly, his lips pursed.

            “Well, I thought it was Augüst at first, before my theory with theyounger Bixby Hawsfeffer. You see Mr. Winterbourne has been stuck in this housefor years, an emasculating situation, always at the hands of his father-in-law.I thought he wanted the money, so he was the one who killed the patriarch andthen, perhaps, revising my previous theory, he was the one who tricked thefamily with the séance and then killed Beatrice to precipitate the willreading.”

            “But you no longer think that?”

            “No, Augüst didn’t have the key to get the rapier. He flatly deniedeverything.”

            “But let’s return to your idea of twopeople working in collusion. Augüst didn’t have to have the key”

            “Perhaps,” Crockett looked into thedetective’s eyes. “That’s what lead me to the Pip Hawsfeffer theory—I thoughtsomeone outside the house was running the affair. It could be someone who knewit well, or, at the very least, knew the people within it. They were pullingthe strings while someone else took action in the house.”

            “What if,” Detective Pimento’s smilegrew immense, “it could be our dear Aunt May’s lover?” He stared intensely atCrockett.

            “I hadn’t…thought of that.” A smilecrept over Crockett’s face but quickly faded. “My goodness, this is getting fartoo complicated.”

“But hear me out, my boy. You see, May would have wanted her fatherdead. With him out of the picture, there would be debts repaid that wouldreturn to her farmer beau’s hands. When I spoke to her about this affair thismorning, she burst into tears. It’s a very emotional situation.”

“It’s a very interesting theory. It could make it fit together,”Crockett added. “The farmer would have the skills to dismember Beatrice whileMay was safely in bed. And…er…I suppose he could get the gun and go afterPetrarch.” The young man sat back in his chair and breathed deeply. It couldmake sense. But the solutions to the mystery seemed only to be getting morenebulous rather than taking on a clearer shape.

            “I still don’t understand the attackon Petrarch,” Detective Pimento said, never keeping his eyes off Crockett.“That is the one thing that doesn’t fit