Murder in the Locked Library

by Ellery Adams

  “I won’t increase your anxiety by delaying what is bound to be hard news,” Jane said. “I had to ask those questions about the gloves because I’m trying to understand what happened to Mr. Baylor. I’m so sorry to tell you this, but he passed away earlier this evening. It was very sudden. Though we tried to save him, I’m afraid we failed.”

  Jane fell silent. She knew she needed to give Rosemary time to process the terrible tidings. Studying her guest, she saw a range of emotions flit across Rosemary’s face. There was disbelief, confusion, and sorrow. And then, as expected, the burning need for clarification.

  “How?” Rosemary demanded, an angry glint in her eyes. “I saw Bart in the gardens during tonight’s party. He was fine. A little overexcited, maybe, but fine! How could he just suddenly die? You must have the wrong man. You must!”

  She jumped up, plunged her hands through her hair, and sank back into her chair again.

  Jane wanted to take the other woman’s hand. After all, Rosemary’s reaction was normal in the face of such incomprehensible news. She was trying to make sense of senseless.

  “Only the medical examiner can determine the cause of death, but Sinclair and I believe that Mr. Baylor may have had a reaction to the gloves he put on to show us something he’d discovered about our excavated book.” Jane took a breath and hurriedly continued. “I don’t think Mr. Baylor planned on touching the book, which is why he wore purple latex-free gloves instead of white cotton gloves. I’m sure he was more concerned over coming into contact with the bin or another object in the Henry James Library that many guests had previously handled, such as a reading chair or magnifying glass.”

  Rosemary shook her head. Her body still refused to accept what her mind had already begun to process. “If Bart wore his latex-free gloves, then why would he have a reaction? And please call him Bart. He wouldn’t want you calling him Mr. Baylor. He liked you, Ms. Steward.”

  “Thank you,” Jane said. Though touched by this remark, she had to get answers out of Rosemary. She couldn’t afford to be sentimental. “The gloves raise questions for us too. Bart wore them for several minutes before he showed any sign of distress. When his symptoms came on, they came on very swiftly. When Bart struggled for breath, we called another staff member to fetch his EpiPen. Mr. Sterling administered the medicine, but it didn’t help. Either that, or we just didn’t get him what he needed fast enough.”

  Rosemary looked out the window. Tears rolled, unchecked, down her cheeks. “It’s just so hard to accept that he’s gone.” She turned back to Jane. “Bart and I usually saw each other twice a year. We also e-mailed about this and that, but I’ve had a soft spot for the guy from the first.” She shrugged. “Maybe it’s because I’m an only child and I enjoyed fussing over Bart. He was so grateful to anyone who could see beyond his quirks. Or maybe it’s because I could always be myself around him, just as he could always be himself around me. Isn’t that the best kind of person to be around?”

  “It is,” Jane said with feeling. “And it’s rare to meet someone like that, as we all wear so many faces. It’s almost a necessity in this complicated world.”

  Jane reminded her guest that she had two fingers’ worth of whiskey at the ready should she need a dose of warm fortitude, but Rosemary politely demurred.

  “I want to feel the loss of Bartholomew Baylor,” she said. “He’s worth the pain.”

  To Jane, this was a strange, but beautiful sentiment. “Ms. Pearce, I need to know as much as possible about Bart’s movements this evening. Even in cases involving an accidental death, the sheriff’s department will conduct an investigation. My staff and I also want to know what happened. After all, Bart was a guest under my roof.”

  Rosemary dug a tissue out of her handbag and wiped off her damp cheeks. “I’ll tell you what I can, but I wasn’t with Bart the whole time.”

  “Could you make a list of the people you saw Bart with during tonight’s event?”

  Rosemary nodded. “It’ll be a short one. He had dinner with the Robert Harley members. After that, I barely saw him. He was very distracted. What he’d discovered about your cookbook made him more fidgety than usual and he was anxious to share what he’d learned with you. However, when he saw you, you were having dinner with a group of women. You were all laughing and seemed very merry. He didn’t want to interrupt your time together. He said that moments of true merriment are few and far between and should be protected.” Rosemary smiled sadly. “He was very sensitive of other people’s feelings. Sweet Bart.”

  “Did he tell you what he’d found?”

  “About the cookbook? Of course.” Rosemary seemed surprised by the question. “It was way too fascinating to keep to himself. Bart’s life revolves around books. As does ours. It was only natural for him to share such an interesting story with his closest friends and fellow bookaholics.”

  Jane gave Rosemary a plaintive look. “I don’t think Bart had the chance to tell me the whole story. Would you repeat what he told your group?”

  Rosemary did. The details were the same until she said, “The cookbook was akin to a modern vanity press project. The bigwigs behind three of Britain’s most successful food and beverage companies created the recipes. The Mrs. Tanner of the title was probably some random woman who served tea to one of these men and agreed to lend the book her name for a few pounds. Either that, or she was told to pretend she’d written the book or she’d be out on the street.”

  “So who started the fire?” Jane wanted to know.

  “No one claimed responsibility. According to the Times, it was a clear case of arson. The businessmen were furious and tried to blame the publisher, but dozens of witnesses put him at the opera house while the warehouse burned.”

  Jane mulled this over. “What about the scientist who wrote the articles decrying the adulteration of the food?”

  Rosemary reached for her whiskey glass and took a sip. She’d been so caught up by the tale of how Mrs. Tanner’s Everyday Receipts had come to be and of how it had almost disappeared into obscurity, that she momentarily forgot her grief. Jane was also freshly hypnotized by the story of a cookbook that later became known as The Devil’s Receipts.

  “By the time of the fire, Doctor Otto Frank had already fled the country.” Rosemary stared into her glass tumbler as if she were an auger who could see into the past. “Apparently, he received multiple death threats after his articles were printed. Bricks through the window with messages attached—that sort of thing. Frank named specific products made by specific manufacturers. He took a serious risk writing what he did. In my mind, he was a hero.”

  “Because the good doctor’s findings threatened the bottom line of those food manufacturers,” Jane said. “If people believed him and heeded his warnings. Did they?”

  “Bart believed that Mrs. Tanner’s Everyday Receipts was created to divert attention from Frank’s articles.” Rosemary’s glance strayed to the bookshelves. “The point of that cookbook was to charm the public with its illustrations, approachable language, and the vast variety of recipes. It was also priced lower than competing cookbooks. Everything seemed geared to encourage the masses to purchase the book.”

  Jane wondered if she should ask about the concealed typeface, but decided against it. If Bart hadn’t mentioned that detail to his peers, there may have been a reason he kept it to himself. Perhaps he hadn’t trusted all of the Robert Harley Society members. And because the companions had sat together at dinner, it was impossible to know which he’d trusted and which he hadn’t.

  “Did he say anything else about the cookbook?” Jane prompted.

  “Just that yours was most likely the last copy in the known world.” Rosemary frowned in confusion. “He was incredibly excited by this possibility, which baffled me. What was dug up in your garden looks like a desiccated shoebox.” She pointed at the bookcases across the room. “As obsessed as we rare book nerds can get about bindings, printings, paper, signatures, engravings, et cetera—what value is a book without
words? I’m not including illustrated works, like children’s books, in this rhetorical question. I’m talking about the idea of capturing the story of humankind on parchment or paper and binding those pages together between two unyielding, protective covers.”

  Rosemary took another healthy swallow of her whiskey. “Bart was probably just thrilled by the thought of one of the cookbooks escaping the fire. To him, no book was detrimental. Only their authors. All it took to truly upset Bart was the mention of a book burning. He could never stomach Fahrenheit 451. It was too painful.”

  “I can see why he’d feel that way,” Jane said.

  Then again, Bartholomew Baylor’s existence wouldn’t have been threatened by the publication of a book, she thought. He was an educated man with a trust fund. He wasn’t a woman in early twentieth-century Europe who could have been forcefully sterilized by a publication touting eugenics. Neither was he an African-American who would have been institutionalized because of a phrenology book. Both of those books were brought to Storyton Hall before they could be mass produced, and the words found between their covers deserved to remain in the dark for a period of time.

  Jane shook her head, returning her thoughts to the moment at hand.

  “Do you know how Bart came to love books with such fervency?” she asked in a reverent tone. “It’s something I wonder about all my guests, but don’t always get to ask them. Sometimes, they’ll tell me about a family member, teacher, or librarian—that special person who started the fire in their soon-to-be reader’s heart.”

  “My mom kindled my fire,” Rosemary said. “We had mother-daughter library dates. These days, when we can find the time, we have bookstore dates. Bart’s story is much sadder.” She paused to gather herself. “His parents and older brother were killed in a boating accident. I’m no psychologist, but I think that’s why Bart hated odd numbers. One is an odd number. Four is even. He was once part of a family of four. See? He was supposed to go out on the boat too, but he’d just broken his foot and was still laid up in bed. Before his family left for their outing that fateful morning, they gave Bart a picnic basket filled with boredom busters. One of these was an old book. A beautifully illustrated copy of The Goblin Market, by Christina Rossetti.”

  Jane smiled. “I remember that poem from my college days. It was about two sisters. Because one sister ate the goblin’s food, she became gravely ill. The other risked her life to save her sister from death. Wasn’t Dante Gabriel Rossetti the illustrator?”

  “As well as Arthur Rackham. At least, he illustrated Bart’s 1933 edition. I’d bet my collection of hand-colored maps that Bart’s copy is in his guest room right now. He never went anywhere without it. That book is . . . was ... his talisman.”

  Rosemary set her empty glass down and Jane reached for one of her hands and held it. “I want you to know that Bart wasn’t alone at the end. His gaze searched for, and found, a wall lined with books. They were the last things he saw.”

  “I hope that eased his fear,” Rosemary whispered.

  Unable to assure her on that point, Jane decided to leave her guest to her grief.

  Lachlan offered to escort Rosemary to her room. Once they were gone, Jane’s next move was to summon Felix Rolf. Unfortunately, Sheriff Evans foiled her plans by calling her to the Henry James Library.

  When she arrived, she found him pacing around Sinclair’s desk while murmuring into his cell phone, which gave her the necessary time to adjust to her surroundings. The signs of an ongoing investigation gave the library an alien appearance. Glancing at the yellow evidence markers on the floor, Jane guessed that they’d been placed to mark where the EpiPen had rolled, Bart’s gloves had been discarded, and where Bart had fallen.

  “Ah, Ms. Steward.” The sheriff pocketed his phone. “That was the ME. The blood work won’t be ready until tomorrow morning, so we’ll have to wait a little longer for the official cause of death. Mr. Butterworth and I have searched Mr. Baylor’s room and nothing seemed amiss. I’ll take Mr. Baylor’s laptop with me and give it to a deputy to examine. If we can access Mr. Baylor’s files, perhaps we’ll discover the motive for what happened here tonight.”

  “Is the investigation on hold until tomorrow?”

  The sheriff nodded. “Until then, I’d like this room to remain locked. No one should enter without me. I also realize that you’ll need to make an announcement to your guests in the morning. Without more information from the medical examiner, we’ll stick to the accidental death ruling. But should anyone attempt to check out—”

  “That would certainly raise a red flag, seeing as all the guests are attending the same conference and it doesn’t end for several days,” Jane interrupted.

  “Good to know,” Evans said. “I’d like a copy of the conference schedule as well as a list of attendees when I come back. And if there’s a particular guest or guests you think I should interview first, let me know.”

  An image of Felix Rolf’s badger-like features immediately appeared in Jane’s mind, but she kept her response limited to, “I will.”

  Butterworth showed the sheriff out and stood by the front door. When the taillights of the cruiser were faint red blurs in the distance, the butler turned to Jane. “Shall I disturb Mr. Rolf’s slumber?”

  “Yes.” Jane continued to gaze out into the darkness. “And I don’t want to make him as comfortable as we made Rosemary Pearce. Please escort him to the William Faulkner conference room.”

  Jane turned on the lights in the conference room and tried to decide where to sit. Though she didn’t want to take the chair at the head of the table and risk looking like a dictator, she wanted to make it clear to Felix Rolf that he had one chance to be honest. If he lied to her this night, she would make him pay for his deceit.

  She sat down at the head of the table and waited.

  When Butterworth ushered Felix into the room, the book dealer was obviously anxious. Jane couldn’t leap to the conclusion that his darting eyes or fidgeting revealed a guilty conscience, however, because anyone would be nervous in his position.

  “I apologize for disturbing you at such a late hour. I would never do so without an urgent reason,” Jane said. “And because I don’t want to keep you a moment longer than necessity requires, I’ll get right to it. Would you tell me about the conversation you had with Mr. Baylor by the gazebo earlier this evening?”

  Felix stared at her. “Ex-excuse me?”

  Jane didn’t respond. She simply returned his stare. Only his was wide eyed and fearful, while hers was as flat and cold as a snake’s.

  “It was nothing, r-really,” Felix stammered. “Just a brief exchange about a book. Why? Did Mr. Baylor lodge a complaint against me?”

  “I’ll explain why I need to know in due time,” Jane said, infusing her tone with a steely edge. “Please repeat the conversation in as much detail as possible.”

  Felix glanced from Jane to Butterworth. The butler stood discreetly off to the side. His posture was as stiff as a wooden soldier’s. Finding no reassurance in Butterworth’s bland expression, Felix looked at Jane again.

  “I don’t know why Mr. Baylor has turned against me,” he said despondently. “I’ve always been able to trust him with the finest pieces in my inventory. I’ve been fortunate enough to hire him to work wonders on a damaged book many times, but quite suddenly, he changed. He refused to do a repair for me. When I e-mailed him per usual with a written description and images of the requested repair, Mr. Baylor immediately responded by saying that he wouldn’t accept the project. That’s the word he used. ‘Wouldn’t.’ Not couldn’t. Wouldn’t. I have no idea why.”

  The subject was transforming Felix. His anxiety had morphed into indignation. As he spoke, spots of color bloomed on his jowly cheeks.

  “You can’t think of any reason why Mr. Baylor refused your request?” Jane asked skeptically. “None at all?”

  Felix’s pique was instantly replaced by embarrassment. Without meeting Jane’s searching gaze, he said, “My name was mi
xed up with a forgery case. I didn’t realize that the item in question wasn’t genuine. I swear it on my honor as a southerner and a gentleman. Certain people refused to deal with me following this unfortunate incident. But Mr. Baylor was not one of them. In fact, he repaired a signed, first edition of Little House on the Prairie for me two weeks after that wretched case was publicized.”

  “Then what happened by the gazebo? We heard of tension between the two of you.”

  Seeing that it was futile to protest, Felix shot another furtive glance at Butterworth and swallowed. He then spoke so quickly that his words were almost unintelligible. “It’s been a difficult year for my shop. Sales have been weak. I’m not sure if people’s interest in rare children’s books are waning or if my customer base is aging and passing on, but I need every sale I can get.” He paused for breath before launching into another hurried speech. “I have a customer with a fondness for adventure tales, especially those involving survival against great odds. This customer is both wealthy and discerning, so when I came across an 1814 first English edition of Swiss Family Robinson, bound in tan calf with gilt titles and marbled endpapers at a reasonable price, I knew I could make a profit if Mr. Baylor would help me improve the book’s very good condition into fine condition. This was the very book he rejected via e-mail. I brought it here, you see. I thought if I showed it to him, he might be persuaded. . . .”

  Jane had listened closely to Felix’s tale. Now that it had reached its end, she was baffled by it. Why did Bart suddenly develop such an aversion to Felix? Or was it the book itself that he disliked with such intensity?

  “Mr. Rolf, you’ve been very accommodating. May I beg one more favor? If you don’t mind, I’d like to see this book.”

  Without giving Felix a chance to speak, Butterworth waved at the door. “I’ll accompany you, sir.”

  “Yes, yes. Of course.” Felix jumped out of his chair and scurried from the room.