The Clarrington Heritage

by Ardath Mayhar

  When she unrolled the sheets the name Floyd Neill jumped out at her. She looked at the date, which was Tuesday’s. The date of his death was the preceding Friday.

  She read with concentration, a prickly unease spreading through her. Then she turned to page 3. NO FURTHER CLUES was the headline of a short paragraph recapitulating the story of Neill’s murder.

  Marise scrambled through the pile of rolled-back issues and arranged them in order of their dates. Then she began with the first account of Neill’s death and moved forward chronologically. The story unfolded inevitably.

  When she was done she leaned back in her chair. That inner pocket was the one in which he kept the key to her gate. Through the glass panels, she had often seen him fumble in his jacket and bring out the big key to unlock the gate. Despite the humid August heat, she felt a chill run up her back.

  Marise reached for the telephone, dialed the number on the plastic overlay, and waited.

  “Channing Police. Edgeware.”

  It was a young voice. Too young? She had to risk it. “Is the chief in? Chief....” She looked again at the paper. “Tory?”

  “Jussa minute. Who’s callin’?”

  “Mrs. Clarrington. 317 Myrtle Street. About Mr. Neill, the postman.” Again she waited.

  After a long buzz a deep voice said, “Roger Tory here. May I help you?”

  She took a deep breath before answering. “I don’t really know. I just read in the Clarion about the death of Floyd Neill, my postman. I am Mrs. Marise Clarrington. I live in the big stone house on Myrtle Street.”

  “I know the family, yes, Ma’am,” he rumbled. “What’s the problem?”

  “I am not really certain at this point that there is one. Did you happen to find among Mr. Neill’s personal items a rather large brass key with the numbers 317 engraved on its shaft?” She felt a surge of almost-panic as she thought what it might mean if it had been missing.

  “He had a key to my front gate. You may be familiar with the tall iron fence with the matching gate that surrounds my property. The key allowed him to get in to deliver my mail. I wondered about it. One doesn’t like to think of a...a murderer who strangled a postman walking around with your key in his possession.”

  “Hmmm.” She had a mental picture of a big, florid face, frowning perhaps, the eyes speculative. She could almost hear his wheels turning as he thought about what she had said.

  “We didn’t find a key, Mrs. Clarrington. We’ll look among his things at the Post Office, and we’ll keep in touch. All right?”

  She could hear skepticism mixed with concern in his fruity voice. Clarrington Enterprises, the largest employer in the county, swung a lot of weight. Despite her oddities, Marise was the head of that concern. She could hear him biting down on the ideas of power and money.

  But she also intuited his other thought. She felt him searching among his memories of stories about the old tragedy and the death of her sister-in-law Penelope.

  “Thank you. I shall call again, if you don’t mind,” she said.

  The phone clicked into place and she sat staring at the wall. Whatever happened in this house ten years ago, whatever part she might have played without knowing it, she now knew with total certainty that she had nothing whatsoever to do with Floyd Neill’s death.

  This might be cold comfort, but it was better than nothing.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The Watcher

  He lay in his room, chuckling silently. The conversation he had just overheard as he passed quietly up the stairs to his cubbyhole had almost brought a snort of laughter from him.

  Ellie, his landlady, was trying to pump information from Don Glass, the police dispatcher who lived in the third floor front. She was talking so fast, at first, that Glass had no chance to answer her, and the eavesdropper had paused on the landing to listen.

  “I saw a police car across the street from her house this morning. What’s going on, Don? I always did think she was too high and mighty to be real. Is she in trouble?”

  “Now, Ellie, you know I can’t give out that kind of information. Chief Tory just said to look over the house, see that the fence is sound and everything’s okay. Old man Neill’s murder has us all jumpy, and she called the station the other day and asked to talk to the chief. Probably wanted him to tell her everything was okay. God knows, you do the same thing to me, every time I come or go.”

  Ellie snorted. “I still think she’s one to watch, for more reasons than one. You hear about people living alone and going nutty, every so often. Shooting into crowds or cutting folks’s throats at night. Somebody who’s lived alone for ten years has got to be squirrelly.”

  Don didn’t answer, but pretended to fumble with his room key. “I hear tell she’s a tiny little woman. Frail. Neill was a big fellow and would be mighty hard even for me to strangle. Nobody small could have got him.” But he never answered the woman’s charge, and the watcher had run on up the steps on soft-shod feet, his shoulders shaking with laughter.

  It was reasonable that people should suspect her, he thought. She seemed to be a pink monkey among all the brown ones, and they’d be sure to hate her and want to tear her to bits. She was different, and that meant dangerous. He rolled over and laughed into his pillow.

  When he’d laughed himself out, he sat up to gaze out of his window. He could see, just barely, the tower of the Clarrington house, if he peered out sideways. The shape of that round tower sobered him.

  A familiar fury washed through him, engulfing him in a flood of fire and blood.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Penelope’s Room

  Although she had not gone near Penelope’s room in years, Marise remembered the chamber far too vividly for her own comfort. Only twice in her life had she visited the place, and the first time she had been so shaken and concerned she had not taken any clear picture of the rooms away with her.

  Her second visit had been even more traumatic than the first, for she had gone to tell Penelope of her twin’s death. She had approached the many-bolted door with her senses keyed to fever pitch and her nerves strung too tightly to bear. She remembered fumbling in her pocket for the key to the big lock and turning it, hearing the tumblers click. Andy, behind her, had cleared his throat gruffly and reached to undo the bolts.

  She recalled noticing for the first time the smell of dust, linseed oil, turpentine, and the oily scent of paints. But another odor, faint and pervasive, also had reached her. She had noticed it every time she had encountered Penelope, though it was stronger here. She had unconsciously labeled it the smell of madness, though once she thought about it she knew it was ridiculous.

  She had moved out of the corridor, which was dim even with the flower basket lamps on. Going into the room, whose skylight allowed the blaze of natural light needed for painting to pour through, almost blinded her.

  Penelope had stood against the door leading into her bedroom, evidently drawn from her inner lair by Marise’s knock. Tall and dark, strong and agile, she seemed unsure of herself and defensive. Her shoulders were huddled as if to protect her from some attack, as she watched Marise approach her. She ignored Andy completely.

  Marise remembered the dryness of her throat, the tightness in her chest as she said, “Pen...Penelope, I have come with very bad news. It’s hard for me. It’s going to be terribly hard for you too. Please sit down, won’t you?”

  The woman nodded and moved to sit on the small couch. Marise perched on a low chair, facing her. And though Marise was intent on her grief and the difficulty of conveying this new death to Penelope, the room swam into focus and she had to glance around. It almost took her breath.

  “Penelope, how beautiful those paintings are! I never realized how wonderful your work is!” she had gasped.

  For the walls were covered with canvases, and its corners were stacked with more. Abstract designs of intricate color
variations jostled dreamscapes that were infinitely detailed, real or misty, bright with the blaze of day or dim with the silver of moonlight. Whatever other tragedies it had achieved, the Clarrington heritage had produced at least one authentic genius.

  But her words meant nothing to her sister-in-law. “What do you want?” Penelope asked, her voice harsh and hostile.

  Andy cleared his throat, grunted once, and indicated Penelope with his pipe. Now Marise could read his signals as well as the others, and she sighed.

  Despite her determination to remain calm and in control, she felt her eyes fill with tears, but she blinked them back sternly. “Penelope, Ben died early this morning. Before daylight. His old illness that he had when I met him...it came back.

  “We took him everywhere, to any specialist we could find. Nobody could ever diagnose his problem, and this time was no different. Nobody could cure it. He’s been getting weaker for a long while, and now he’s dead.”

  She gulped, wiped her eyes, and said, “His last words were, ‘Tell Pen...,’ but he didn’t last long enough to tell me what to tell you.” Now the tears flowed uncontrollably, though she managed to keep her voice even. “He’s to be buried tomorrow at ten o’clock. He’d want you to be there. Will you come?”

  Penelope stared at her, through her. Those black eyes blazed with something Marise couldn’t understand...was it excitement? Hatred? Triumph? She couldn’t be certain.

  But his twin must come to Ben’s funeral, she knew, dangerous and unwise though it might seem. They had been born together and she deserved to see him buried.

  Marise felt her sister-in-law controlling herself. It was like an electrical field in the room, making her own hair prickle on her scalp. The vibrations of those taut nerves veiled the room and even Andy squirmed. But Penelope only looked at her visitors, those eyes bright with unspoken things that neither could interpret.

  But after a very long pause she said, “I’ll come. Tomorrow. At ten.” She rose and turned away from them, moving to an easel in the corner. She began squeezing colors from tubes onto a stained palette.

  After that interview, Marise had never returned to Penelope’s rooms. Andy had gone up and brought the madwoman down for the funeral the next morning, and she appreciated his sparing her the effort.

  Now, after all those years, the paintings came back to haunt her. I should have had someone appraise them, she thought. I should send them to a gallery or an art dealer, even though she has been dead for a decade; such work has to command a market. It’s such a waste, leaving them up there at the mercy of the damp.

  A random thought floated through her mind. What was it Penelope intended to paint, that last morning? She had approached a blank canvas, but there had been purpose in her attitude, and her hands had been sure as she put color onto her board.

  Marise thought of the note on her nightstand. It was a threat, she had no doubt. The postman who had brought it was now buried in the same cemetery holding the rest of her own family. She might as well end things tidily, if it came to that.

  She would go up and look into Penelope’s rooms at last, for better or worse. It couldn’t hurt her worse than any of the other horrors she had already borne. And such a visit might explain something. You never could tell.

  She turned toward the third floor for the first time in years. The corridor beyond the hospital suite was a disgrace, cobwebs festooning the cornices and dust dimming the carpet. It smelled musty, unaired. She should have hired someone to come in, at intervals, to take care of the worst of the dirt in the unused part of the house.

  Marise sneezed, the sound sharp and startling in the stillness of the third floor. The blank doors of empty rooms seemed to echo the sound, and she shook herself.

  Fancifulness had not carried her through all those years. Only hard self discipline and her own peasant stamina had done that.

  She moved along the corridor and found the cross passage where she turned toward Penelope’s rooms. The door stood open, as Andy must have left it on that last morning.

  She didn’t dare to hesitate outside, or she might turn and run away down the flights of stairs and out the front door. She pushed the door wider and stepped into the room where Penelope Clarrington had spend almost the entire span of her life.

  Her easel still stood, back to the north light. The palette, its oils caked and dusty, lay on the little table beside it. Brushes stiff with old paint and dust stood in a jar from which the turpentine had long since evaporated. There was still a faint tang in the air recalling linseed oil and paint.

  Marise crossed the room, her heels clicking sharply on the uncarpeted hardwood. She moved past the little sofa, the chair in which she had sat to tell Penelope her brother was dead. She went around the table and stared at the canvas on the easel.

  A hand seemed to clench about her heart, squeezing it painfully. She backed blindly toward the window seat and plopped down amid a puff of dust and mold.

  Penelope’s last work had been a portrait. The genius that had been her gift permeated it, gave it life even beneath the coat of dust veiling its intense colors.

  At first Marise thought it was a likeness of Ben, remembered from their youth by his twin. The dancing black eyes stared from the canvas in their old familiar manner. But when she looked more closely, she realized the shape of this face was subtly different. The hair lay smooth instead of kicking up into rebellious curls.

  This wasn’t a portrait of Ben at all. It was a likeness of Benjie. And that was impossible.

  Marise sat still on the window seat, her eyes fixed on the picture. Her mind was racing. As far as she knew, Pen had never laid eyes on Benjie until the morning of Ben’s funeral, yet the woman had turned her back on her visitors and begun work on this canvas immediately after being told of her brother’s death.

  They had all known Penelope got out of her rooms at times, and it had been a constant worry to everyone. But when did she see Benjie? She had usually been out at night. Hadn’t she?

  Her son had never mentioned seeing his aunt, though it had been explained to him that she was very sick and had to stay upstairs. They had to tell the boy something, for he was too quick and curious to miss the fact that food was taken up three times a day.

  How did she see him without his knowing it? Marise wondered. Or did he know he was being watched and keep it a secret?

  Marise rose and lifted the portrait down off the easel. Carrying it carefully, she took it downstairs to her rooms, where she cleaned it with a soft cloth and soapy water. As she worked, she saw the tangled colors of the background clear and brighten and sort themselves, under her probing gaze, into another face. It was almost hidden in dreamy clouds of color, but it was Penelope’s own, staring out of the canvas over Benjie’s shoulder.

  The expression was unlike any she had ever seen Penelope wear. Focused. Alive. Triumphant?

  Marise dried the canvas with a towel, blotting it carefully before she leaned it against the wall and stood back. For her sanity’s sake, she had to explore her memories of that last terrible day. Perhaps when Evan called her at last she might have something useful to tell him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The Clarrington Plot

  The morning of Ben’s funeral had been cloudy, threatening rain at any moment. The services were held in the Clarrington parlor, and it had been attended by a few close friends and one very distant and very ancient cousin, the last remaining Clarrington except for Aunt Lina, Penelope, and Benjie.

  Evan Turner, young as he was, had been her right hand in attending to such matters. He had arranged, as Aunt Lina insisted, to have the body held at Offberg’s until time to go to the cemetery. Despite the weather, the timing had gone off well, and the cars from the house had pulled up just behind the hearse. Marise thought it strange that such an irrelevant detail had stuck in her memory when she had been, she would have sworn, blind and deaf with gr
ief.

  There had been a canopy over the grave, the raw earth hidden by blankets of artificial grass and ranks of flowers. The small procession followed the pallbearers into its scanty shelter and stood while the coffin was set into place.

  Although Evan indicated a bench at the front, Marise did not sit, nor did anyone else. It was as if they stood at attention for Ben while the minister who had christened him said a short prayer and intoned the Episcopal service for the dead. As he spoke, the rain began falling softly, then harder, and they turned at his final prayer and made for the cars.

  Marise had been so weary and so sad that she clung to Benjie’s hand, noticing only irrelevant things like the timing and the rain and the warmth of Benjie’s small paw in her own. He squirmed from time to time as if to pull free, and she knew this alien ritual had not really served to help him bid farewell to his father. He was too young to grasp the full impact of what had happened to their lives.

  Andy and Hildy had stood at the rear of the family group, together with a strange man whom she took to be someone hired to look after Penelope. She stood between the two servants, with the guard just behind her. When the group turned to leave the gravesite, those four led the way, picking their way over the damp grass and the graveled walks between the tombstones.

  They reached the curving drive where the cars waited, and Penelope stepped forward calmly, as if to enter the limousine. Instead, she jerked her arm from Andy’s unready hand and darted forward, stiff-arming the driver out of her way. She dashed around the vehicle as Hildy’s shriek seemed to spur her to greater speed. Then she was gone across the drive and into the maze of plots and trees and headstones beyond it.

  Marise stood frozen, and around her everyone else seemed frozen too. Nobody stirred to give chase for what seemed an endless moment. Then the young guard ran after her through the thickening mist, followed by the patrolman who had led the procession on his motorcycle.