by Wendy Webb
Harriet turned to me, and I wrapped my arms around her in an effort to keep her from falling to the ground again.
“No, Penelope,” Harriet wailed. “Not this. Not now . . .” Her words were swallowed by the grief that was settling in around her.
“We need to call the police,” I said.
“The police? But—”
“Yes, Harriet,” I broke in. “This is a police matter now. I’ll contact them; you find Mr. Baines and let him know what’s happened.”
“Mr. Baines.” She nodded. “Yes. He’ll know what to do. Yes,” she said again, wiping her eyes with a handkerchief she pulled from her sleeve. “And then there’s the dinner to finish. Miss Penny likes her dinner promptly at six thirty.” This was shock, I assumed, and I talked to her in as soothing a tone as I could muster, pushing my own bewilderment away, as I had done so many times before, at so many similar scenes.
“You head back downstairs now, Harriet,” I said, my voice low and soft. “Go find Mr. Baines, ask him to let the rest of the staff know, and I’ll deal with whatever comes next.”
She nodded and backed out of the room, her eyes still on Miss Penny. “Mr. Baines,” she said, more to herself than to me. “I’ll find Mr. Baines.”
I watched her until she disappeared down the hallway and then turned back to the body of Penelope Dare. Quick as a flash, I slipped the envelope out of her hands and stuffed it into my pocket. I needed to read what this letter said, and I knew that the police would confiscate it as evidence if they got to it before I did. This way, I could read it and give it to them when they arrived. No harm done.
I hurried down the hallway and the third-floor stairs to the director’s office—my office—on the second floor, where I knew there was a phone on the desk. I picked up the handset but then thought better of it and sank into the office chair instead. I fished the letter out of my pocket, opened it, and found a single sheet of stationery inside. I unfolded it and began to read the words written in Miss Penny’s spidery scrawl.
Dear Officer Hanson,
I’m sorry to bring you out to Cliffside at this hour of the day when I’m sure you’d rather be home enjoying dinner with your family. I am assuming it is in the neighborhood of five thirty, perhaps closer to six, if my plan has come together as it should. When I did not appear for cocktail hour, Harriet Baines surely came looking. Finding me must have been terribly shocking and frightening for her. Please apologize to her on my behalf. I hope my appearance wasn’t too ghastly.
This is a suicide note, in case it’s unclear to you. I, Penelope Dare, have chosen to take my own life today. There are two bottles of pills on my bedside table. Legal prescriptions, if you please. You’ll find both bottles empty. I’ve ingested their entire contents along with several glasses of my father’s prized Highland Scotch, which I have been saving for many years for just this occasion. I know enough to know that the combination of pills and alcohol will do the trick and I will swiftly leave this earth, bound, I do hope, for somewhere more pleasant.
I suppose you want an explanation, and the truth is, I am simply too tired to continue. Everyone I loved—my mother, my father, and my dear, dear sister—is gone. It is a burden to be the sole survivor, the last of the line. I am tired of carrying it.
And so, after finding a worthy successor in Eleanor Harper, I am able to put down my burden once and for all.
Do not for a moment think that anyone else had a hand in this decision. You know as well as I do that I am of sound mind. The decision was mine alone; the action was mine alone. Do not pester the staff, who will be grieving, with questions about this. They knew nothing.
My funeral arrangements have already been made and paid for. I wish only to be buried in our family plot, next to my sister Chamomile. Anyone who wishes to attend the committal at the cemetery may do so, but there is to be no service, no wake, nothing of the kind.
I sent two letters in this morning’s mail—my obituary to the newspaper and a list of instructions for my lawyer. Please tell the staff to expect compensation for all of their years of hard work when my will is read.
And, so, I take my leave for the last time. I feel my eyelids already getting heavy. I’ll close them, and that will be that. My nightmare is over.
Yours very sincerely,
Penelope Dare
I stared at the letter for a moment before I picked up the handset and dialed the police.
Twenty minutes later, the staff was assembled in the drawing room. Harriet, inconsolable, wept softly on the shoulder of her husband, whose face was ashen and drawn. The police had come. Miss Penny was already on a stretcher headed to the coroner’s office. I knew from years of crime reporting that every death at home was investigated, but I also knew it was very clear this was a suicide.
A uniformed officer made his way down the stairs and entered the room.
“Who is in charge here?”
I looked to Harriet before I realized all eyes were on me. I cleared my throat. “I guess I am,” I said, taking a step or two closer to the officer.
“And you are . . . ?”
“I’m Eleanor Harper,” I said. “I’m . . .” I stumbled over the words, not quite believing what I was saying. “I’m the director of Cliffside.”
“I thought Penelope Dare was the director here,” he said.
“She was,” I said, my voice wavering. “Until today. She handed the reins of Cliffside over to me”—I let out a sigh and shook my head—“today. I’ve been here only a few hours.”
I fished the envelope out of my pocket and handed it to him. “I found this in Miss Penny’s room,” I said.
The officer took the envelope from me, opened it, and spent a few moments reading.
He looked up at me. “Is this Penelope Dare’s handwriting?”
“I believe so, but I’m not certain. Harriet?”
Harriet crossed the room toward us and took the letter in shaking hands. She nodded her head, unable to form the words.
“Do you have examples of her handwriting so we can compare them?”
Harriet just looked at him. Mr. Baines crossed the room and put an arm around his wife. “Of course we have examples of her handwriting. Although I don’t much like what you are insinuating.”
“I’m not insinuating anything,” the officer said. “We investigate all deaths at home, even if it’s fairly clear it was suicide.”
“Fairly clear?” Mr. Baines said, his face reddening.
The officer ignored this, turning to the assembled staff. “You all can have a seat. My partner and I are going to take some time to talk to each of you. But before we do that, I’ll just ask—does anyone here know if Miss Dare was suicidal?”
Stunned silence. A few people shook their heads. Others dabbed at their eyes with tissues. Finally, Harriet found her voice.
“She was not suicidal,” she said, the words seeming to shred into pieces in the air. “She was happier than ever, or so it seemed to me.”
“Aye,” her husband echoed. “That’s right.”
The officer nodded. “Okay, then.” He turned to me. “I’ll start with you.”
I followed the policeman down the hallway to the dining room where we each took a seat at the table. I spent the next fifteen minutes or so telling him what he needed to know, that Penelope Dare had contacted me weeks ago about this job, that I had taken it, and that I had arrived just today. I took him through what had happened, step by step, from my arrival to the moment Harriet discovered the body.
He shook his head. “That’s one hell of a first day on the job,” he said.
I leaned back in my chair and sighed. “Tell me about it.”
“What will you do now?” he wanted to know. “Will you stay on?”
In all of the commotion, my future was the last thing I was thinking about. He was right; I did have a choice. I could simply pack up and leave. But as soon as the thought floated through my mind, I knew it wasn’t the right thing to do. Penelope Dare had entruste
d me with continuing Cliffside’s mission to foster and support the arts. I had agreed to take the job, given up my apartment, and moved here. That hadn’t changed. I thought about why she was open to me applying for the job in the first place—my involvement in the deaths of her father and sister all of those years before. She was grateful for my efforts, she had told me.
“I feel like I owe it to her to do the job she hired me to do, at least for the time being,” I said to him, finally.
He looked at me, a little too long, I thought. “Miss Dare’s personal fortune keeps this place running,” he said. “Now that you’re director and she’s gone, do you have access to those accounts?”
I held his gaze, determined not to look away. I had nothing to feel guilty about. “Not entirely,” I said to him. “My name has been added to her accounts because, as director, I’ll be writing the checks for Cliffside’s monthly expenses. But Miss Penny’s accountant is the one who sets the budget and oversees the finances. He has been with her family for decades.”
He nodded and closed his notebook with an air of finality that caused me to exhale the breath I didn’t know I was holding.
“Thank you, Miss Harper,” he said. “I assume you’ll be open to answering any other questions, should they come up.”
“Of course,” I said, pushing my chair back from the table. And that was that.
I walked back into the drawing room, where the staff was still assembled, waiting for their turns to talk to the police. I was the director of Cliffside now, and I might as well start acting like it. I took a deep breath and began to speak with an air of authority that I didn’t really feel.
“Okay, everybody. Each one of you will be talking with the police, just as I’ve done. Tell them anything you think is important to mention. We’ve all had quite a shock today, and I know you’re grieving.” I looked around the room at their stricken faces. “Tomorrow is Friday—everybody take the day off.”
This was greeted with murmurs from the staff and a scowl from Harriet.
“Monday is Memorial Day,” I went on. “You’ll have a nice, long weekend to yourselves to begin to come to terms with what’s happened here today. We’ll meet back here on Tuesday refreshed and ready to do what we need to do to prepare for the fellows, who will arrive a week from today, just as planned. It’s up to us now to continue the work Penelope Dare dedicated her life to. We all owe it to her. I, for one, will not let her down, and I know you all feel the same way.”
I looked around the room and saw tears and nods.
“Once you’ve finished talking with the police, you can go home,” I said. “I hope you all have a relaxing, restful weekend, and I look forward to seeing everyone back here on Tuesday, ready for action.”
That said, I wasn’t sure what to do, so I turned and walked out of the room, Harriet at my heels.
“Mr. Baines and I will not be taking the day off,” she said to me.
“Oh, Harriet,” I said, taking her hands in mine. “You of all people need a break.”
She shook her head. “Work is what we need. Continuing the business of the household. It’s our life, Miss Harper. One doesn’t take breaks from one’s life. I’ll be readying for the fellows, and Mr. Baines will be working in the garden this weekend, just as we had planned.”
I squeezed her hands. “Very well,” I said, understanding her need to keep the normal routine running. I had seen it before in victims’ families. “But please, if you need time, promise me you’ll take it.”
She nodded. “Would you like your dinner in the dining room now, or would you prefer it up in your room?”
Dinner. It had been the last thing on my mind. All at once, I could feel the tide of exhaustion that would soon engulf me. “In my room would be lovely, Harriet. Unless you and Mr. Baines want to join me in the dining room.”
“Join you? Oh, heavens no. We’ll be eating in the kitchen when our work is done. I’ll have Mary bring up a tray.”
“Thank you, Harriet,” I said, and she turned to go. She seemed smaller than she had this morning when I’d met her, and as she walked back into the drawing room, I wondered if grief and pain could actually diminish a person.
I made my way through the drawing room and spied a bottle of Chardonnay in an ice bucket on the sideboard. Harriet had opened it for Miss Penny and me, apparently. I poured a glass and took it upstairs.
As I settled into my suite and sank into the armchair with the glass of wine, something in Miss Penny’s suicide note floated into my mind and stayed.
My nightmare is over. Whatever could she have meant by that?
CHAPTER 5
Later, after I had finished the dinner Mary had brought to me, I decided to curl up in the armchair by the fire with a book. But, try as I might, I couldn’t lose myself in its pages. I set the book in my lap and turned my gaze to the flames dancing in the fireplace.
Long day didn’t begin to cover how I felt about what had happened to me in the past twelve hours.
My now-familiar sense of dread settled in around me like a scratchy wool blanket. Here I was, in this big, old building, nearly alone. I knew all of the staff had gone—I had watched out the window as they had gotten into their cars one by one after talking with the police. For all I knew, it was just Harriet, Mr. Baines, and me. All of those empty rooms. Those long, desolate hallways. Miss Penny’s face, her grotesque smile, flashed through my mind, and I wondered if her spirit had found the peace in death that she hadn’t found in life. Or was it wandering these halls still?
I shivered and pushed myself to my feet, crossing the room to check my door for the umpteenth time. Still locked.
Out the window, I could see some light hanging on in the western sky. The fog had lifted, and complete darkness hadn’t fallen yet. I was glad of it. Maybe I could be asleep by that time. I pulled the shades on all of the windows and turned on the light next to my bed, the fire in the fireplace dancing merrily. Wasn’t that nice, I asked myself, a cheerful fire? I took a couple of deep breaths, hoping I could inhale some calmness with it.
I changed into my pajamas, grabbed my book, and padded to the bed. I drew back the comforter, and that’s when I saw it. An envelope had been slipped under my bedcovers.
Eleanor Harper, it said across the front, written in the same spidery scrawl as the note from Miss Penny I had read earlier in the day. I picked it up gingerly.
My dear Eleanor,
Well, this is a surprise, isn’t it? I’m sorry to foist this upon you within hours of your arrival, but it had to be done, and done now. I wanted to leave you some time and space to acclimate to this new “state of affairs” before the fellows arrive at the end of next week. It’s very important that they arrive on schedule and everything goes as planned. You understand that, don’t you, Eleanor? I’m sure that you do. The work of Cliffside must continue, and you must be the one to continue it.
In case you are thinking of leaving on account of my death, please think again, dear. You signed an employment contract for a year’s service earlier today, and it is on its way to my lawyer’s office as you read this. What you might not have noticed in that contract is the severe financial penalty you will pay for leaving this job before your term is finished. I know you can’t afford it, Miss Harper. I’m sorry for the manipulation you must be feeling at this moment, but it had to be done. I needed to know you’d be here, and now I can leave this earth in peace, knowing you are at Cliffside to stay, at least for the time being.
By now, you have discovered me. Police have been called. Tears have been shed. Poor Harriet and Mr. Baines. Please do all you can to comfort them. They have been loyal servants for more years than I can count and will be well taken care of, provided they stay on at Cliffside. That is in your, and Cliffside’s, best interest, so I have stipulated it in my will. As far as the funds necessary to keep Cliffside running are concerned, don’t worry about that. Aside from some stipends for the staff, I’m leaving my entire fortune to Cliffside.
And,
by now, you have all read my suicide note. The substance of that note, Eleanor, is all anybody else needs to know. That’s the information I want to be shared for public consumption, for police, for the staff, etc. But you need to know more.
The truth is, the time for me to join my father and my sister was long ago. Twenty years and sixty-seven days ago, to be exact. I know that now. I’ve known for some time. That I lived so long without them was an abomination. It is a tiring thing, carrying that burden.
But there is more to it than just that, I’m afraid.
Cliffside has been my home for nearly my whole life. I can scarcely remember a time when we lived anywhere else. Milly and I spent our youth running up and down these hallways, splashing in the pool, playing on the cliff, writing in our diaries before turning off the light at night. We grew up here. We were going to live the rest of our lives here together, she and I. Twenty years and sixty-seven days ago, all of that changed.
And now, you are the director of Cliffside. You are the next in line, my successor.
In my wake, I have left a puzzle for you to solve, Eleanor Harper. You, the would-be sleuth. You, of the curious mind. I know you will latch on to it, just as you latched on to the murders of my father and sister all those years ago. I trust you’ll be more successful this time.
You see, that’s why I chose you and brought you to Cliffside. Only you can work out all of the mysteries that are swirling through these halls. You will be a quick study, I’m sure, and you’ll soon learn all that you need to know.
Ah, I see the car pulling into the drive through the fog. You have arrived at Cliffside. It is time.
In closing, Eleanor Harper, about whom I have thought so much and so often over the past twenty years, I’ll say this. The last line of my suicide note says that my nightmare is over. And, by now, it is. Yours, however, is just beginning.
Sweet dreams, Eleanor.
I sat there for a moment, holding this letter in my hands. Then I dropped it as though it were on fire and hurried across the room to the intercom.
