“Lucy, what are you doing?” Mother asked me. “Ever since we left the house, your head keeps bouncing all over like a ball!”
Despite the cold, my cheeks flushed hot.
“I am searching,” I admitted haltingly, “for the man who murdered Aunt Helen.”
I would not have imagined that Mother could laugh at anything having to do with that tragic event, but laugh she did.
“And you think you will find him in the park? You think that, a citywide manhunt involving every policeman in London having failed to turn him up, you will now stumble upon him here?”
I knew it was foolish. Even before her scathing utterances, I had known it. But, still, I had to try.
Apart from the funeral, this was the first time I had really been out of the house since …that day, and the man could be anywhere!
“He has no doubt fled the country by now,” Mother said, as though responding to my unspoken words. “Only a madman would remain behind after what he did.”
Her words were bluff and blunt, but it sounded as though she was trying to convince herself of our safety as much as she was trying to convince me. I knew she still had nightmares that the monster would come back, still heard her scream out about the blood at times in the night.
“Lucy?”
The speaker was not Mother.
It was a tall man.
I had been looking for a tall man, had I not? But I had been looking for a monster with red hair. This tall man did not have red hair. Rather, he had thick black hair peeking out beneath his hat, dark eyes too.
“Mr. Brockburn!” I could not prevent the joy at the sight of him from entering my voice. It had been a long time since I had seen him last and in a world gone dark, the sight of him was an unexpected bright light.
“Lucy!” he exclaimed again, taking my gloved hands in his, spreading our joined hands wide. “Let me look at you! You have changed so much!”
I blushed at the attention. “I hope you have been well, sir, since … since you left us,” I hastily added, not wanting to say “since you were dismissed.”
“Oh?” he said vaguely. “Oh, yes.”
I had noticed that not once while we were talking did he glance at Mother beside me, nor did she try to speak to him. It was as though, for some reason, he was avoiding her.
At last he turned to her, tipping his hat with a grand nervousness.
“Miss Smythe,” he said with a bow, “I cannot tell you how happy it makes me to see you again.”
I felt her stiffen beside me. Mother had been inside the house for so long, her face was practically the color of paper, but at the sound of Mr. Brockburn’s words, I saw her blanch further still.
Well, who could blame her? If it had been shocking to be mistaken for a twin before, it would be doubly shocking after the murder.
“Miss Smythe,” he repeated again warmly when she did not immediately respond, holding out a hand as though he wished to clasp on to hers.
“Mrs. Sexton,” Mother corrected, drawing back from him.
“What?”
“I am not Miss Smythe,” she declared with hauteur.
“But of course you are,” he said, confused. “At least … when I first saw you …”
“Aunt Helen is dead.” I delivered the news as gently as I could, placing my hand softly on his sleeve. “She was murdered this past January.”
“But that is not possible!” he cried. “How could such a thing happen?”
“Did you not read about it?” I said. “It was in all the papers.”
He shook his head in confusion, shock. “I was in Italy,” he said. “After your father dismissed me, I took a position with a family who was traveling there and have only returned to London this past week.”
“I am sorry, then,” I said, “to be the one who had to tell you.”
“No,” he said, regaining his manners, despite his own obvious devastation at the news. “It is I who am sorry. This must all have been so dreadful for you.” He stood back, for the first time taking in our black mourning garments, recognizing them for what they were.
“I am so very sorry,” he said again. “Lucy.” He tipped his hat at Mother. “Mrs. Sexton. I shall leave you to your walk.”
I watched him stride away, slowly at first, then more briskly, as though leaving something behind him.
Somehow I was sure that I would never see him again.
“Well, Lucy,” Mother intruded upon my thoughts, “what shall we do now? Are you going to continue trying to locate the murderer?”
I could not remember Mother ever having been so … sardonic before, but I supposed I was going to have to get used to it. What had happened to our family had changed each one of us, Mother most of all.
. . . . .
In truth, I did plan to continue trying to locate the murderer.
If all London gave up looking for the guilty party, I never would.
Not only that, but exercising my mind was the greatest antidote I knew to crushing sadness.
“Father!” I banged on the door to his study as soon as we arrived home, turning the knob without even waiting for a response.
“Yes?” my father said, seeing me.
He was seated at his desk, working, a large glass filled with whiskey off to one side. It seemed to me that it was early in the day for that, but it was not for me to say.
“Do you have any books of detective fiction?” I asked with a breathless eagerness. “I do not have any among my books in the schoolroom and I wish to read one. Really, I should like to read as many as possible.”
“An odd request,” he said. Still, he rose from his desk, scanned the titles in his bookshelves.
“Here,” he said at last, holding out a volume to me.
The title read The Experiences of a Lady Detective. The author? Andrew Forrester.
“Oh, yes,” I said, with the first real excitement I had felt in a long time as I grabbed on to the book with both hands. “This is exactly what I wanted!”
“There are seven cases collected in there,” he said, “each one solved by a character named Mrs. Gladden. Mrs. Gladden has a most unusual sense of evidence.” He chuckled. “An expert at interpreting boot marks, she says that more men have been hanged because of boot marks than because of any other evidence in the world. Indeed, she advises the criminal who would succeed to bring an extra pair of boots along for just such a purpose.”
I liked that the detective was a woman. It was wonderful to think of a woman being able to do such a thing when the women I knew were mostly adept at needlepoint, gossip, and singing in church.
“Do you think that is true?” I asked.
Perhaps if I searched London for the biggest boot marks I could find, I would find her killer.
“I do not know,” my father said. “I suppose it would be nice if it were.” He looked at me more closely. “Why the sudden interest in detective novels?” he asked.
I thought to lie, not wishing to be laughed at again as Mother had laughed at me. Still, I took the chance.
“I want to learn the art of detection,” I said, straightening my spine to show that I would not be mocked. “The professional detectives have failed to solve the mystery of Aunt Helen’s death. Perhaps if I gain greater knowledge concerning how a person goes about the process of solving crimes, I can figure it out for myself.” I could not stop myself from adding, “I will not rest until he is caught!”
But my father did not mock me, as I had feared. Rather, he reached out a hand, stroked his finger against my cheek. He was so close, I could smell the strong whiskey on his breath.
“You are a good girl, Lucy,” he said with a wondering sadness. “Aren’t you?”
. . . . .
As it turned out, Mrs. Gladden was quite a talented amateur detective, solving all seven of her cases when the police could not. Indeed, Mrs. Gladden clearly regarded the constabulary as being less competent at solving crimes than her dog.
From where I was sitting,
I could not say that I blamed her.
. . . . .
MURDERER
APPREHENDED!!!
The headlines blared a week later.
The article went on to say that the monstrous red-haired giant had been seen coming out of a pub in one of the seedier parts of the city. He was so drunk, so huge, it had taken six officers to subdue him sufficiently enough to take him into custody.
“Fine,” the story quoted the murderer as saying, “I confess. I did it!”
“You would think,” my father said, throwing aside the paper in disgust, “that we would have been notified first, rather than stumbling upon the information like this!”
No sooner did he speak than there was a knock at the door, followed by a servant leading in Chief Inspector Daniels.
Immediately, he took in the discarded newspaper on the breakfast table.
“I am terribly sorry,” he said, sounding sincere. “I would have liked to be the first to tell you of these latest developments, but I am sure that, being a man of great literary talent, you know how these mere newspaper hacks are. One was in the pub at the time of the arrest and apparently felt no scruples about publishing the story before the family was notified.”
My father was hardly mollified at this. “I am only glad,” he said haughtily, “that you have finally caught him, that justice will be served at last.”
“I wish to see him with my own eyes,” Mother said abruptly, rising from the table.
“Dear!” my father said. “Do you think that is wise? It would only upset you!”
“Your wife should identify him,” Chief Inspector Daniels said, “even though the man fits the description she gave perfectly and he has already confessed.”
“He killed my sister.” Mother addressed my father with steel. “What more reason do I need?”
“I will get my coat then,” my father said, starting to rise.
“No.” Mother stopped him with a word. “I must do this myself.”
. . . . .
An hour later, Chief Inspector Daniels accompanied Mother back home again.
Immediately, my father was out of his chair. “Are you all right, dear?”
“I am going to lie down now,” Mother said vaguely, heading upstairs.
“What happened?” my father demanded once Mother’s footsteps had safely retreated out of hearing distance.
For once, Chief Inspector Daniels looked perplexed.
“We let the prisoner go,” he said simply.
“You what?” my father practically shouted, forgetting the need for silence.
“We had to.” Chief Inspector Daniels shrugged. “When we showed your wife the prisoner, one Paul Peter, she was outraged. Well, why wouldn’t she be? He had, after all, murdered her sister. But then when we asked her, for mere formality sake, if this was the man who murdered Miss Smythe, she opened her mouth, started to say ‘y—,’ hesitated and then shook her head no. ‘No,’ she said. ‘This is most definitely not the man who killed my sister.’ ”
“But the man confessed!” my father said.
“Yes,” Chief Inspector Daniels said. “Yes, I know. So I sent Mrs. Sexton into the other room and asked him about that. He said he had simply been drunk and tired of getting beaten up by the constables. He said it was easier to confess than resist. We would have liked to keep him, if only on general principle, but Mrs. Sexton was so adamant and she was the only witness to the crime.”
“So you let him go,” my father said.
“We had no choice.”
• Twenty-seven •
“I wanted so badly to have someone else to blame for what happened,” Mother said the next day. “And when I first saw this Paul Peter, I half convinced myself that he was the one.” Her expression showed real regret as she sighed. “But then I was forced to admit he was not. And I could not allow someone else to hang for a crime he did not commit, however much I might want someone to hang.”
. . . . .
And then Aunt Martha came back.
Well, strictly speaking, she had never been away.
She had gone on accompanying us to church every Sunday, coming back to the house afterward for Sunday dinner. It was near the end of one of those dinners that Aunt Martha, with a rare nervous clearing of the throat, pled her case.
“I have been thinking,” she said, addressing her words directly to my father. She paused, cleared her throat one more time before starting again. “I have been thinking that it would be best for everyone concerned if I were to move back in here again … permanently.”
The startled look on Mother’s face revealed that as far as she was concerned, the only person such an arrangement would be “best” for was Aunt Martha.
“Oh?” My father raised his eyebrows as he lifted the glass before him to his lips, draining the last of the wine.
Aunt Martha colored. It occurred to me that when she had planned this, she hadn’t anticipated having to explain the logic behind her reasoning to her own brother, despite how things had ended the last time she’d sought to live with us permanently.
“It is just that all that has happened has put such a strain on poor Aliese. If I were here, I could help her with the managing of the household. And,” Aunt Martha continued, “there is Lucy to consider. She is getting older. Do you not think it would benefit her to have the example of two proper women to guide her on her own road to womanhood?”
She did not add, but we all knew, that the prime motivation behind this was her desire to escape her own parents.
“I realize that you and Aliese do not go out in the evening now, while she is in mourning, but the time will come when you will return to society. At that time, again, would it not be good in the evenings to have a woman here with Lucy who is not a servant?”
Mother had said nothing through all this.
“And, Frederick, I am getting older.” Here I thought Aunt Martha looked her most sincere, wistful too.
Aunt Martha’s great distinctive nimbus of hair had thinned and lightened from its graying black, so that now it was a mere wispy cirrus of white, all threat of storm removed.
“Indeed,” Aunt Martha continued, “some days, I do not feel as though there are very many years remaining to me. I should like to spend what is left with my own brother, friend of my youth.”
Based on my father’s wistful expression, it was obvious that he too was imagining simpler times.
It is odd to try to picture one’s own parents as having been children once. Mother, whenever I tried to envision her thus, I could just make out a glimpse of a golden-haired child chasing jewel-colored butterflies on an emerald lawn somewhere. But my father? I had only ever seen him in my mind as a properly suited gentleman … even when he was wearing his dressing gown! And Aunt Martha, well, even in my earliest memories of her, she had always seemed so much older than my parents. But now I pictured the two of them, Aunt Martha and my father, as being yet younger than I was now. It was a curiously happy picture: a dark-haired girl, even a pretty dark-haired girl, sternly cautioning her bare-kneed younger brother not to be so loud in church, then bending down to whisper with a mischievous smile, “If you can only sit still for five more minutes, once we are out of here I will play a great game with you. You will enjoy it.” Flash of merry dark eyes. “There will be worms involved.”
“I will not be any trouble,” Aunt Martha hastily added now. “I only want to help out. If there is something I do that you do not like, you need only ask me to stop, and I will do so immediately.”
“What do you think, Aliese?” my father asked Mother.
It struck me as odd that my father would ask Mother such a question publicly, but then it occurred to me that after the debacle of Aunt Martha’s previous stay with us, he wanted all such matters to be carried out in the open, however embarrassing they might be for some parties. I suspected he was tired of being positioned between the two women.
It was obvious what Mother thought. She thought it to be a horrendous i
dea. And who could blame her? Although she had seemed to forgive Aunt Martha when she reluctantly submitted to an embrace on the day of Aunt Helen’s lying in state, I had seen the recoil. I knew she had not truly forgiven her, not in her heart. Not to mention, just as I had resented ancient Mr. Thomason for going on living when Aunt Helen was dead, so must Mother resent that my father’s sister went on living while hers was in the ground, being eaten by worms.
Still, Aunt Martha was being so supplicating, she was practically begging to be allowed in, that it would have taken the hardest heart in the world to deny her one last chance.
The hardest heart in the world? Despite what had happened to her, the changes I saw in her—the abruptness she often exhibited since Aunt Helen’s murder, particularly when she addressed my father; the anger that seemed to ever lurk beneath her formerly placid surface—that was not Mother.
“And you will not ask for the bedroom to be redecorated again?” Mother said at last, turning to Aunt Martha.
When Aunt Helen was still alive, Aunt Martha had once asked me what had happened to her old bedroom here after Aunt Helen inherited it. I had described it to her in detail, only to have her respond with outrage, “It sounds as though that woman has turned my tasteful room into a bawdy house!”
Now all she said was a meek, “I am sure it will be fine.”
“Very well,” Mother said. Then she turned a warning look upon my father. “We can try it.”
“Now that that is settled,” my father said, patting his growing waistband, “I think I shall retire to my garden for a cigar.”
My father had never been a smoker before. But Mother, having recently seen a sketch of a gentleman smoking a cigar in one of the newspapers, had decided that my father would look handsome with one in his hand and had further taken it upon herself to order him a box.
He had taken to them, you might say, like a house on fire.
. . . . .
I was fifteen, I was sixteen.
And Kit was now eighteen.
I had long since given up searching passersby whenever I was outside of the house, hoping for a sighting of the red-haired man, finally admitting to myself that Mother was right: a man so noticeable, he had no doubt fled the country. I still believed that one day I would find him, or at the very least get to the bottom of the mystery, but that this would not be accomplished by hoping to stumble upon him in the park.
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