by Joan Smith
Wide awake as I was, I heard the sounds from the front portion of the house when the family and Mr. Arouet came abovestairs to bed. Well over an hour, closer to two, had elapsed. It was another hour after that when the servants came up softly. Cook would have made them finish the dishes before she let them go. The saloon too and the dining room would be returned to their customary lifeless state of perfection.
Still, sleep did not come. I racked my brain for some ally at Palin Park, someone with whom I might discuss this business. The family were all too suspect; the servants not sufficiently well educated. Mrs. Steyne perhaps, except that she was a virtual mother to Mr. Palin. I think she would perjure her soul to protect him.
No, there was no one. I was alone. I was the only one who even suspected all of this. Protecting Bobby, and keeping my own head on my shoulders into the bargain, would be my sole responsibility. Till I learned more, till I reached the bottom of it, I would have to stay. After tonight’s attack, there could be no question of leaving him.
I was still wide awake, my eyes staring at the perfectly black ceiling, when the doorknob began turning softly. It was no innocent caller who trod so stealthily that not a sound had been heard of the approach. Me, or Bobby? Which one was the caller after? I too was a menace, leading the child to talk, and asking questions about my sister. Some of them at least knew who I was. Perhaps they even feared I knew more than I did, that Rosalie had communicated some knowledge to me. I heartily wished she had. The door widened slowly, slowly.
How would it be done? By knife, by gun, by rope or by some means that would appear accidental? By that time, there was no doubt in my disordered mind that murder was in the comer’s mind. How very foolish I was not to have prepared myself with a weapon for defense.
My eyes were adjusted to the darkness from lying so long. As the crack widened, the suggestion of illumination from the window was enough for me to make out a form entering. Fear, panic, clutched at my heart. Surely it was naked, primitive fear that made me imagine the form to be inhuman. It could not possibly be a lion that crouched at the foot of Bobby’s bed, ready to spring.
Without even rising from my pillow, I opened my mouth and emitted a shrill, blood-curdling scream. It was instinctive. I didn’t know I was going to do it, didn’t realize I had done it, till the sound rent the air. The lion’s advance was arrested. It jerked toward me, then came flying at my head, hit me, and came to rest on my chest. The feel of the rough mane against my cheek, my chin, nearly killed me with fright. The words “eaten alive” popped into my head. Bobby sat up, screaming, and in the same instant, I became aware of a stale dusty sensation in my nose. The thing—lion—was not moving. It rested on my chest, a dead weight.
Bobby was suddenly with me, reaching for me in the darkness, pushing the thing off, clinging desperately to me, crying. We clung together, trembling, when the light appeared at the door. It was Mr. Palin’s face that stood out in relief above the dancing flame. His eyes were two small fires, the candlelight mirrored in them, wavering. The nose cast a dark shadow upward, disfiguring him till he was nearly as frightening as the lion.
“Papa! Papa!” Bobby sobbed.
He darted forward, set the candle down and gathered his son in his arms, cradling him, uttering soothing words. I wished someone would do the same to me. I looked down at my bed to see the stuffed lion’s head from the attic turned over on its side, the yellowing fangs leering at me.
Mr. Palin turned his head to observe me. “You’re all right, Jane?” he asked in a low voice, without loosening his hold on his son.
I could not answer. Speech was still several minutes beyond me. He sat on the bed’s edge, holding his child in one arm, and took my hand, squeezing it. There was such a look in his eyes; frightened, sad, angry, worried and loving. For perhaps sixty seconds we sat, the three of us, fused in a huddle of speechless confusion. But there was a feeling, at least within myself, that it was all right now.
At the sound of flying feet approaching, Mr. Palin let go of my hand and stood up, holding Bobby in his two arms, clinging to him for dear life, the poor tyke. The child’s staring, dark eyes regarded me above his father’s shoulder. How wretched he looked, with the purple egg on his forehead, and his face white as snow. An anger welled up in me, futile, bubbling, growing against the unknown evildoer in this house. It was, strangely, Monsieur Arouet who was at the door.
“Mon Dieu! Qu’est-ce qu’il est arrivé?” he demanded, staring at us, at the stuffed lion’s head on the counterpane, at the empty beds. He wore a very elegant navy dressing gown, borrowed, as he had not intended remaining overnight.
Mr. Palin regarded him with deep distrust for a moment. “A good question.”
I suddenly realized my state of dishabille, and flung on my dressing gown, causing Monsieur Arouet to smile, and Mr. Palin to frown.
“We need some brandy,” Mr. Palin decided. “We can’t talk here. We’ll go downstairs,”
“Bobby go!” his son implored, clutching more tightly. “Bobby no stay.”
“Bobby will go,” he was assured.
The four of us, three in dressing gowns, Bobby wrapped hastily in a blanket, trooped down the elegant staircase to the saloon, where the fire had been banked in an effort to keep it alive till morning. Bobby was tucked up on the sofa, and lay staring at us with his big, dark eyes.
“What can it mean?” Monsieur Arouet asked. “The lion’s head did not fall from the wall, I take it?”
Mr. Palin was busy filling glasses with brandy. “Drink it, Jane. It will brace you to tell us what happened,” he ordered.
I sipped, nearly gagging at the burning strength of it.
“A glass of wine, perhaps?” Monsieur Arouet suggested. When I nodded gratefully, he went for the wine decanter. The gentlemen waited, not very patiently, till I had sipped half a glass, and was collected enough to outline what had happened.
“This is outrageous! Who would do such a thing? I am convinced English servants are mad,” Arouet declared when I had finished. “Frightening a child in the middle of the night with a stuffed animal. It reeks of insanity.”
“Yes,” Mr. Palin agreed mildly, though I knew he did not subscribe to this theory any more than I did myself.
“Did you see anyone in the hallway? You were there before I was,” he said to Mr. Palin.
“No, I didn’t. Did you notice anyone? Any doors open?” he returned the question.
“No, and it is odd the screaming was not heard by the others. My room was farther down the hall than your wife’s, but she did not seem to be disturbed by it.”
“She is a heavy sleeper,” he explained.
“Me, I think the sound would raise the dead,” he answered, unconvinced. “Is it possible an outsider got in?”
“He would have had to get into the attic to get hold of that lion’s head.”
“Eh bien, it is very strange,” Arouet concluded, arising to stretch his arms, stifling a yawn. “Some jealous servant. Whose beau have you stolen, eh, Miss Bingham? Cherchez la femme.”
I did not bother to reply to this foolishness. He bowed, told us he planned to return to his bed, then added in an effort to cheer me, “No more screaming, s’il vous plait, mam’selle. We artists require our sleep. Bonsoir, ‘tit.” With a tap on Bobby’s head, he lounged gracefully from the saloon.
The child’s head was beginning to nod. With his father at his feet to give him security, he no longer felt threatened. I was less easily reassured.
“I take it you disagree with Arouet as to a jealous servant girl’s being at the bottom of this?” he asked.
“No one is jealous of me.”
“It was not anyone from the family end of the house. I was awake the whole time, sitting up with my door open. After Bobby’s accident I was worried,” he explained, with a glance to confirm that the child was beginning to sleep.
“You may have dozed off,” I suggested.
“No, I kept moving about—was down the hall a dozen times,
peeking around the corner. Whoever it was came from the nursery wing of the house.”
“One of the doors was ajar earlier, before I went to bed. I went and closed it.”
“You didn’t happen to take a look inside first?”
“No, it didn’t occur to me. I thought the wind had done it.”
“Perhaps the lion’s head was already there, the whole thing planned and arranged beforehand.”
“If that is the case, it is only Bobby they meant to harm—frighten. No one knew in advance I would be sleeping in his room.”
“That’s true. Why would anyone want to frighten a child? Or worse—there might have been a weapon as well.”
“That shove down the stairs was meant to do more than frighten him,” I pointed out.
“Yes, but it was meant to pass as an accident. An outright murder, committed on a sleeping child—the perpetrator would have little hope of escaping. Heaven and earth would be moved to catch him. This looks like pure malice. I only hope it doesn’t set back his progress too much.”
“Maybe that’s why it was done,” I said, with quiet deliberation. Whatever else Mr. Palin had done, he had not and would not harm his own child. If I should have to leave the house, for some reason, I thought he must know my theory as to why Bobby was in jeopardy.
He listened, intrigued, working his lower lip with his teeth to aid concentration in a way I had not seen him do before. “Bobby will sleep with me from now on,” he said when I had finished. My theory had enough credibility with him that he was not taking any chances.
“But what could they have seen, Bobby and Rosalie?” he asked. He considered this for a few moments, as I did myself, then suddenly his head snapped sharply up, his eyes wide. “But if what you say is true, then Rosalie’s death was not an accident. It was murder!”
“Yes,” I agreed calmly, scrutinizing his every flickering expression.
He looked absolutely dumbfounded. There is no other word for it. I had heard madame call him a murderer; he had not denied it, but this was surely the face of an astonished man.
“It’s not possible,” he said at length. “No, it was an accident.”
“What were the strange circumstances you spoke of, Mr. Palin?”
“It is only strange that she should have fallen from a balcony with a railing waist-high. Unless she was outside the railing, for some purpose, or walking on it, balancing as a game, something of that sort, it is impossible to see how she fell.”
“Yes, unless she was pushed,” I said. It was a dangerous remark, but I wanted to read his expression when I said it. He turned his head and looked me in the eye, slowly. There was guilt, sorrow, fear—all the signs I did not wish to see. The fear surprised me, the fear, and the lack of anger.
His eyes turned to look at his son, lying peacefully asleep now. Was this the cause of the fear? That Bobby would have to learn his father was a murderer? I could not accept it for a real, cold-blooded murder. It was an accident in which he was culpable. But why did he seem surprised that it was murder? Was it possible he didn’t know he had done it, or exactly how he had done it? If he had been very intoxicated, for instance.... His next remark gave my thoughts a new direction.
“It is odd about that poison Mr. Arouet mentioned—curare. The speed with which it takes effect.”
“Yes, it sounds just the way the kitten died,” I said.
“And a parrot. It also resembles remarkably the manner of my wife’s death. Yet I don’t see how curare could have been administered.”
Was this the answer? He had killed Rosalie accidentally, by curare, as I had accidentally killed Huck? I felt a rush of hope, then went on to tell him I had killed Huck, in hopes he would confess, or inadvertently admit, the same had happened to my sister.
“Where did you get this ointment you speak of?” was his only question.
“I found it, on the moors,” I answered vaguely.
“You shouldn’t wander about the moors, Jane. It is too easy to get lost. You left the thing there? Didn’t bring the case home?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Let us hope someone else doesn’t pick it up and kill himself. It would be nearly impossible to find. Maybe I should have a look all the same. There was nothing distinctive about the container?”
I described it to him.
“That’s not much help. Everyone uses those headache powders. I do myself.”
“Not many have access to curare.”
“That’s true, and Rupert had not even come to the neighborhood when my wife died. I am assuming he is the source of it. It’s not likely we have two travelers from the Amazon jungles in our midst.”
“He was here when Rosalie died, though,” I said, then sat thinking about this. Rosalie had been chasing the parrot, who had died suddenly, like Huck. Then at about the same time, Rosalie died. Was it impossible she had killed herself, by not knowing how lethal the curare was?
There was a longish silence, while we both sat, conjecturing. “I think it’s time for bed,” Mr. Palin said at length. “I only hope this hasn’t upset the boy too much.”
“I hope so too. He does strange things when he’s upset, doesn’t he?”
“He used to. Do you have something particular in mind?”
“Nothing important. After Huck was killed, he took the corpse, carcass, whatever one ought to call it, and threw it down from the balcony. You remember I told you that day he unlocked the door, and went out? Such an odd thing to do. Not so bad as throwing down a live kitten, of course. He meant no harm, but it seemed strange. He looked so dignified and stately, as though it were a ritual.”
“That is damned odd.” He frowned at the little figure, curled in innocent sleep. He reached out and patted the boy’s head, tenderly, then lifted him up in his arms. “You need your sleep too, Jane. You look burned to the socket, my dear. I don’t anticipate any more excitement tonight, but it might be a wise precaution to lock your door, just in case. Is there a lock on the inside?”
“Yes, there is a hook.”
“Use it. I’ll keep my son with me. Will you bring the taper?”
We had not thought to light the gas lamps. I followed behind him, up the stairs. His valet, Laver, was just coming out the door of his room when we reached the top.
“Put him in my bed,” Mr. Palin said, handing the child to him. “I want to have a look at his room.”
“Monsieur Arouet told me what happened,” the valet said, blinking.
The stuffed lion’s head was still on my bed, leaning crazily on one ear, with those grotesque, fierce teeth glaring at us. Mr. Palin picked it up, to reveal several hairs fallen out, onto the counterpane below. “This thing looks about a hundred years old,” he said.
“It can’t be that old. Mrs. Palin’s father shot it in Africa.”
“Yes, so I hear,” he replied, but he sounded unconvinced. “I’ll take it away. You go to your room now. Goodnight. I never imagined things would be like this when I asked you to stay with us. They won’t be for long. After we have solved this business and get back to normal...”
“I understand.”
I closed my door, lifted the latch into place, and stood thinking. The anger was draining out of me; I felt very sorry, I no longer believed Rosalie had been cold-bloodedly murdered. It was an accidental death that should have been avoided by better care on Mr. Palin’s part. He had done wrong to conceal it, but not so bad a wrong as I thought. I felt too that perhaps the concealment was done in part to protect his son from the harsh truth. About the attempts on Bobby’s life, and sanity, I could form no theory. It had to be some separate affair after all.
Chapter Twenty-six
It was no surprise that Bobby was feeling beneath the weather the next morning. Between his fall, lack of sleep, and shock, he was done up. Molly brought me a message from Mr. Palin that Bobby had breakfasted with his papa, and was to spend the remainder of the day in his own bed, where I was to attend him after taking my own breakfast.
It was not much past eight-thirty when I went up to the nursery wing. Bobby’s door was standing open, with the sound of voices coming from it.
“This malingerer says he wants to stay in bed today,” Mr. Palin told me, speaking in a jovial way to cheer the child, though the shadows of worry were not hard to read in the father’s eyes.
“A good idea,” I agreed.
“Molly has taken away the extra bed to make room for a chair for you, Jane. I hope you will not be too uncomfortable, confined to the room. Call the servants for anything you want—books, refreshment. Molly is to keep an eye on you. Laver too will be in from time to time, as I will myself.”
“Is anything to be done about last night?” I asked, for we could not go on indefinitely in this state of siege.
“Yes, I am making inquiries into a few matters. I shall keep you informed, when I learn anything. Better let Bobby take it easy all day today. Don’t press him to do any learning.”
“I’ll get him some books and pencils to pass the time.”
“Might as well do it while I am here to watch him,” he said. This intense guarding of the child surprised me a little. He was not, literally, to be left alone a single minute.
I gathered up toys to amuse the boy, then went back to the room.
“Monsieur Arouet is leaving this morning,” Mr. Palin said. “He particularly wished to have his adieux made to you and Bobby.”
“The roads are passable then, are they?”
“He thinks so. They are wet and muddy, but the warmer temperature has melted the ice, and the wind is no longer howling like a banshee.”
When he left, I settled in for a quiet morning. I was fatigued enough to welcome it. I read by the window while Bobby sketched, and played with a set of toy soldiers he had displayed in his room and had asked to have in his bed. The bulges and folds of blankets were his battlefield, with scarlet jackets cunningly concealed to attack the enemy. His soldiers were all British, which detail did not bother him. Molly came twice to look in on us, the valet three times, and at noon, Mr. Palin returned.
