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

wing and the portrait of you and himabove the fireplace. That’s when I realized that it was both of you, together.It all came tumbling into place then—I understood that’s why the portrait ofthe real Bixby Hawsfeffer and Lucinda had been marred in the basement.”

            “Ah!Yes.” Bixby nodded. “I’d forgotten that portrait. Again, Dexter’s affection forMartha gave another clue. Martha asked that it be kept as the sole remembranceof her friend, Lucinda.”

            “Butthat’s why you didn’t want to be painted until you were older, ‘gray haired,’as you told Brontë.” Crockett furtively stole a glance at the house—the noiseshad faded. “You kept the original portraits—you disguised as a war general andhero in the west wing murals—as a trophy to your old self. Even though you gotrid of Hawsfeffer, you wanted them up. You took a chance no one would recognizeyou in them.”

            BixbyVon Bunson was silent. His glittering eyes stared at Crockett; to the youngsolicitor’s surprise, the look was not one of contempt or loathing but acertain fondness.

“You know, Crockett,”the old man said, “you and I aren’t terribly different. I’m better in everyway, of course—richer, more handsome, cleverer—but there is a charmingsimilarity. You are shockingly intelligent. You pieced so much of it together.I’d like to think in the same way I would have.”

            “I’mnothing like you.” The hair on Crockett’s neck stood up.

            “Aren’tyou, though?” Bixby took a step forward, his eyes locked on the solicitor’sassistant. “We both hoped to ascend from what we were. You were on the streets,shoved into Petrarch’s closet to learn law; I was moving out of my stranglingBritish background to reinvent myself in the wilds of America. But, neither ofus could find acceptance, could we?”

            “That’swhy you came back from America?” Crockett felt a slight pang of empathy.Despite Bixby’s tendency toward homicide, some raw emotion was creeping into theold man's voice. Crockett let himself think of a younger Von Bunson, abandoned,alone in the vast wasteland of America. “You couldn’t find acceptance…”

             “I couldn’t find it anywhere.” Bixby loweredthe gun. Crockett’s shoulders, which had been full of tension, relaxedslightly. “When I was young my father didn’t like my flair for the dramatic—magic,smoke, mirrors, that kind of thing. We didn’t get on well. So,” Bixby crossedhis arms and began pacing, “I went to America to find a new beginning. And thepeople there loved it.”

Von Bunson appeared toswell with authority. He was on stage, recounting his storied past; Crockettwas now a member of an abstract audience. His gesticulations grew moredramatic, his voice louder. “The Americans loved the deception, the art ofillusion. P.T. Barnum made freaks into stars. Drama, intrigue, magic…I met Dexterwhen I joined the little traveling show, and we tried our hand at it. We hadquite a measure of success.”

            Thenoises in the house ceased all together. A fear grew in Crockett that he wouldnot be saved, that the heroic conclusion he envisioned when he had seen Brontëdescending the stairs to his prison could fade to darkness.

But Bixby had lost hissense of urgency. The old man, awash in a wave of memory, continued his tale.“Dexter and I wanted to be the next Barnum and Bailey with a traveling WildWest show, but things didn’t turn out. When we went out on our own, we took athird partner, but he wasn’t willing to play nice.”

“Not nice at all!”

Crockett leapt highinto the air. A similar shriek to the one which escaped him during his earlymorning chat with Brontë erupted as he lifted off the ground. It wasn’t acanary that inspired a fear in this instance; although, it did have some avianqualities. Pimento, his large feather shaking, appeared from the shadows. Heheld a second gun pointed at Crockett’s back.

“Shhh!” Bixby ranforward and put a hand on Crockett’s mouth.

Pimento laughed. “Youwere coming to my favorite part of the story, Bixby! And don’t worry about theboy’s shriek.” Pimento motioned for Bixby to let Crockett go. “I’ve convincedthe house that I’m coming out to stop him from… something…something about theriver, I think I said.” Pimento shrugged. “I’ll be honest, it wasn’t veryclever. I am running out of lies to tell.”

Bixby relaxed. “The boyknows. Well, he knows most of it.”

“Does he know who Iam?” Pimento wiggled his eyebrows.

Crockett looked at thefake detective darkly. “Dexter,” he said.

“Well done!” Dextersaid. Both he and Bixby clapped.

“Would you like to tellthe rest of our story, Dexter?” Bixby asked. “You can add some panache!”

“Oh,” Dexterstraightened his jacket. “Let’s just say that I practiced what I did toBeatrice on our third partner. When he wouldn’t give us a fair shake, I gavehim a fair taste of a blade.”

Bixby laughed so loudlyCrockett jumped. “Oh, clever! ‘Shake’ and ‘taste’—slant rhyme, delightful!”

“Thank you!” Dextersmiled. “Anyway, it was murder but nothing personal.”

“We English try to keepmurders dispassionate. I tried to teach that to Dexter—he took to it, even ifhe is a dense American.”

“Well!” Dexter waggedhis finger. “You killing Bixby Hawsfeffer and assuming his identity was ratherpersonal. I’d say you are the bad Brit.”

“We all get carriedaway! You took the Beatrice disembowelment a few steps too far, if I may say!”

            Crockettcleared his throat to interrupt the two old men. He found their banterannoying, especially in light of his diminished hopes of help arriving.

“Where’s Brontë?” heasked. Hoping that if he was going to die by the hand of these two blowhards,she, at least, would be safe.

            “Oh!Your dear little friend!” Dexter looked toward the mansion. “She’s being heldin her room. It didn’t take much for me to convince the rest of them that shewas hysterical. I simply reminded them all that she was, in fact, a woman, andthey quite agreed with me. I convinced them you used her to escape, and I wascoming to save the day." Dexter tsked and shook his head at the youngsolicitor. "You should have told them it was Robert, Crockett, for assmart a boy as you’ve been, no one has even asked where the estranged continentalcousin is tonight.”

            BothDexter and Bixby found this painfully amusing. Crockett’s scalp grew hot withembarrassment.

“Well, then let’s get tothe conclusion, shall we.” Bixby pointed his gun at Crockett