Of Lost and Found (the Kingsborough House): Kingsborough House (Virgil McLendon Thrillers Book 4)

by catt dahman

  The window she indicated looked out to the woods.

  “Right here, a dozen years ago, was where a tour took a bad turn. It was said most had filed out and there was grinding noises and that everyone felt disoriented. I think that somehow, and this is impossible to believe, that the room actually turned. If you will note the false windows on the other walls? That one and that one, I have never seen towards the light, but I have seen that one and the one right now face outside.”

  “How can a room turn?”

  “Maybe it’s all an illusion but I’m telling you what I think I saw. The other one was turned to light twelve years ago, from what I can tell from old newspaper clippings. That was all they could take a picture of, the window and the investigating officer.”

  “What happened?”

  “According to reports we have, a teen girl suddenly screamed and the room had shifted, a glass half wall appeared, and there was blood everywhere in a widening pool. The girl’s lower leg, from just below the knee down, was sliced into.”

  “Oh,” Vivian said, “That’s horrible.”

  “It was. She died before anyone could do anything and never said a word. Blood was splashed everywhere and no one who investigated could determine if the glass cut her or if it were splashed when something else cut her leg off. For some time, there was interest in a murderer on the loose, maybe carrying a sword or knife.”

  Virgil gritted his teeth. This, to him, was an example of weak investigative work and a failure to read a crime scene by looking at blood splatter and then speaking to witnesses to understand actions. This is what he tried his best to teach other law agencies and what Special Agent Lord kept asking him to show other people. Had he seen the room, he could have told them exactly what killed the girl. People lied; blood and physics did not.

  When they came back, that night, after a dinner at the town diner, there were guests checking in early. Most would check in by noon, in the morning, but a few families walked around, staring at the house with interest and excitement. Virgil’s group was tired and mentally drained, so they were all asleep before the last of the guests arrived that evening.

  In the morning, everyone gathered in the foyer; there were thirty in the group with two tour guides. One guide was a blonde with a ponytail and bright blue eyes who smiled and passed out stick-on name tags after she wrote their names on them. She made a point to shaking hands and welcoming them to the tour by name. She was Gina.

  Her tour-partner was named George and he was a heavy young man with acne and thick glasses but he was obviously unconcerned that he was in an ugly-duckling stage because he was outgoing, funny, and efficient, not minding that he was the center of attention at times, “How many of you think this house is haunted?”

  A few hands went up.

  “Well, you won’t find out if it is or not on this tour and probably will only know for sure if you meet a ghost, but I promise, you’ll be entertained and have a great time.”

  Some laughed and a few tourists groaned.

  “First, let me give you some rules. Please, no photographs, but you can buy pictures at the gift shop. Stay with the group at all times and don’t lag behind, go ahead, or stray away. It is true people have gone missing, but since no one has ever seen anyone go missing, that means they were not with the group as we ask. Please follow the rules. Gina?”

  Gina nodded, “Feel free to ask questions, but don’t touch anything unless we invite you to. Take a second, look at one another, and help us make sure everyone follows the rules. Most of all, have fun. Now, the Kingsborough House has hundreds of rooms, some of which we have never found, so we have a lot to cover. Today, we are looking at tricks and treats.”

  She went over the bare facts about John Kingsborough marrying Edith Roundtree. Next, as she led them down a hallway kept locked, Gina went on. In 1880, John Kingsborough presented his wife with a gift of a huge parcel of land and gave her cart blanch to build the biggest, most expensive, most lavish home in the entire country.

  On their honeymoon, Edith drew ideas for rooms and bought things for each of them as they toured, sending crate after crate back to the states. She picked out fabric, tea sets, and big items like a piano, a beautiful maple table with twelve chairs, French sofas, German bed room sets of dark wood, Italian glass wear and lamps, and English wardrobes set with ivory and jade. She planned at least three dozen rooms by colors and themes.

  John hired Charles Fontaine Moreau, a resident of New Orleans, and France and Germany before; he was the most expensive designer, and only took projects that interested him. Moreau signed on at once when Edith said she wanted her house to be the strangest, most stunning house on earth. For the next fifty years, the house would be under construction.

  Some of the tourists muttered about those facts. Half a century of work seemed daunting. A man raised his hand, “Didn’t people think it was strange to build for so long?”

  Gina nodded, “Everyone thought that, actually. We still do. But as much as it was strange, people were also entertained by the house being built, speculation, and rumors. People who came through town stayed to go look at the house and that helped the town’s economy.”

  Each time, Moreau presented her with an idea that anyone else would rip to shreds and fire him over, ideas so preposterous that they verged on insanity, Edith clapped her hands and questioned him for hours on the details. In time, as work continued, he stopped asking her permission, installed oddities, and then showed her later, thrilling her and John both. With an endless supply of money and creativity, the designs became more and more intricate and unusual.

  Some innovations were simple or just quirky, but some were brilliant and took months to complete. In between the stranger projects, Moreau also designed beautiful, perfectly normal rooms meant to be the most luxurious rooms in the world.

  A woman asked, “Didn’t John Kingsborough mind the expense?”

  George took this question, “He was still making more money than he could spend and in that time, they didn’t take expensive vacations, so they had plenty of cash to spend. John Kingsborough’s steel industry alone would have paid for the house several times over.”

  Gina opened a door and ushered everyone inside. It was a fairly simple drawing room with mahogany walls, and light oak floors with strips of mahogany between the boards for drama. White brocade sofas and chairs sat around the room, close to the fireplace alongside tables, and a wall of shelving covered with delicate glass baubles, bleached leather-bound books, lacey doilies, and beautiful mirrors set on stands so they could be rolled around the room and adjusted.

  Using German clock working, French innovation, and imagination, the rooms became one-of-a kind. Gina stepped over to a wall and smiled, “Watch this.” With a little pressing of levers, panels slid so that the wall went from mahogany paneled, then to white and yellow silk wallpaper, and then to a yellow plastered wall with a realistic false, painted window with a winter landscape. It looked real and everyone blinked as they saw, just beyond the pretend-glass, fir trees tipped with snow, a white ground, and a misty forest.

  With a few manipulations, two parts slid from pockets in the walls for the three scenes. A fourth scene was a plain white wall decorated with dramatic prints of botanicals that filled the entire wall. Edith could slide the panels to get whatever look she desired.

  “Did anyone ever vanish from this room?” Tina Rant asked.

  “Good question,” Gina said, “Not that we know of. This was one of the rooms we call safe because of that. When the family lived here, there was a huge carpeting of stitched sheepskins, so soft and white that people couldn’t believe it. The Kingsborough children played on the rugs when they were small.”

  George pointed, “In the clear box, there by the door, is a piece of the rug and you can reach inside and feel how soft it was. The rug is kept stored now because of the tours. Also look at the crown molding…it’s in gold leaf and when Edith used this room, every day that they were in season, she had bouquet
s pf purple, white, and yellow daisies in big vases. The vases on the shelf are decorated with amethysts and they were mined from Brazil. The white knick-knacks are carved of marble and from Spain and Italy. Some of this was sent back from Edith’s honeymoon where she and John bought back thousands of trunks of pretty things they found in the travels.”

  Vivian waited her turn and felt of the sheepskin, “Where is this from, Gina?”

  “India. It’s interesting that back then, people used natural herbs and such instead of chemicals and yet, with all of our advances, we still can’t make skins turn out so soft and durable.”

  “Sheriff, would you like to examine the panels,” Gina asked. “We are fortunate to have special guests on this tour today: Sheriff Virgil McLendon, his wife Deputy Vivian McLendon, Deputy Tina Rant, Deputy-in-Training Fairalee ______, and FBI agents Finn Carter and Ed Ripley. Continuing the tradition of solving the mysteries of the Kingsborough House, this team is here to attempt to unlock secrets.”

  “Do you have any leads. Sheriff?” A woman asked.

  Virgil shook his head and smiled, “Not yet, but I am hopeful there’s a logical explanation and not a bunch of ghosts.”

  The group laughed.

  A teenaged girl pouted, “We came to see ghosts. I’ll be disappointed if there aren’t any.”

  Gina shrugged, “People claim to see shadows and say that they hear strange noises in the halls at night. You might be lucky enough to see or hear something scary.”

  They waited a few minutes as Virgil examined the panels carefully, “I don’t think this room is dangerous. This is a place the children often played, so it would have been safe, I think.”

  “If we find the secrets to the vanishings, Gina, will that affect the house’s tourist draw?”

  “Good question, Tina. I think we could relax the rules more and open more rooms to the tour. I also think it would be fascinating to tell guests on the tour what caused the disappearances and how you all solved the case,” Gina said.

  George led the group into more areas that tourists could see into and enter far enough to see everything, but that was roped off with velvet and brass. These places were not to be touched and couldn’t be ruled out as unsafe. Everyone enjoyed the added danger and eeriness.

  Virgil leaned over to whisper to Vivian, “I can tell the guides are very well trained and are good at their jobs. I’m impressed with the safety here, are you?”

  “Very. They work hard to be safe, but it’s still a spooky tour. Gina and George are fantastic at keeping the mood fun and informative. It would be simpler if we found that the guides were of bad quality or sneaky so we could investigate them.”

  “I did have the boys check all guides and Josie. All are clean. I don’t think any of them are to blame so we don’t have to investigate them,” Virgil said.

  Some rooms were covered in stained glass in ornate designs, imported from Austria by Tiffany’s of New York and brought southwest. Walls were paneled in expensive woods and silk wall papers, floors were of inlaid wood and tile, and some featured raised areas that one could see as a sort of stage, and then access when levers were used to make stairs raise up from the floor. Everyone wanted to try the raised stairs and marvel at how they could vanish with only the slightest noise.

  “The Kingsborough children put on little plays or sang and danced on the little stage in here. This wasn’t a great mechanical feat, but considering that all the work had to be planned and everything fitted and constructed into this small space, it’s brilliant. This room was more of a side-thought and a nod to the arts than an important room,” George explained.

  Gina kept the line moving forward so several people could raise or lower the staircase. Virgil and his team spent their time looking over the stage area to see if there might be a trap door or a slight crack, but they found nothing: no levers, and no hidden cubby holes. No one had vanished from here, but it was still important to understand how each room was set up.

  Gina urged them onward, “Wait until you see this room…and you may all participate in a game that was played here. This was very popular when the Kingsboroughs had parties.”

  “Did they have parties while the house was still being built?” Fairalee asked.

  “Yes, they did. At first, there were few allowed to visit, but in time, more townspeople and guests from out-of-town came to see the Kingsborough House. After a few vanishings, there was more activity here in terms of visitors. Guests were shown that new work was happening, but those places were off-limits,” Gina said. “Edith , at some point, began to enjoy showing off her home and did so. A guest might see a room was being started and a year later, return to see the room.”

  In the room, where people could dance, each person would stand on a tile square, facing a partner while music played from a band that was seated in a far corner . With a few manipulations, several squares turned ninety degrees, leaving one to face a new partner. In all, each made a full circle and there was a dancing game created around the room so that the last couple who was partnered, was the winner. George waited until everyone had a square and began to play music from a tape recorder.

  The group laughed because it was a modern, popular tune. When the tiles turned, a few tottered, trying to keep their balance.

  Only a quarter of squares were taken, but those on the edges were eliminated quickly as Gina moved the levers. Once she finished a hundred and eighty degrees, she turned the tiles counter clockwise to catch some more players unaware and then went clock wise again. In the end, Vivian and a teen boy were left, and were declared the winners.

  “The rooms have some imaginative twists to them,” Tina said, “What inspired the designs?”

  “The designer, Charles Fontaine Moreau probably learned many of the tricks in Germans, England, and France, but he and Edith Kingsborough used literature, music, and pure imagination,” Gina said.

  “I liked the wall papered in musical pages,” Virgil said. He knew the music and unconsciously played a part with one hand against his leg, as he walked. It was a piece he had played before.

  In one section, a staircase rose, rambled, and sloped, so that when one traversed the entire staircase, he would end up at the same level, right across from the first step. The walls, mirrored, and painted and paneled upside down in places, confused the senses and made a person unbalanced and laughingly clutching at the bannister.

  George told the group, “At some point, the building and imaginative ideas became an obsession. It is said that John told Edith, ‘Build forever, because forever, I shall love you. This is our tribute to our love.’”

  “She took it to heart,” Fairalee noted, “I wonder if she wasn’t a little crazy?”

  George laughed, “What is insanity?”

  Virgil, thinking of his work on a case in an institute for the criminally insane, nodded. He learned that the lime between sanity and insanity was thin.

  Gina told them more history before they entered the next room.

  From 1880 to 1895, Edith and John had nine children, after losing four to miscarriages or sudden infant death. Tirelessly, she worked through her pregnancies, claiming the exercise and mental work kept her healthy, had easy labors despite her small size, and recovered quickly employing a wet nurse to feed her babies.

  Vivian mumbled, “Way too many babies. That had to be miserable for her body and unhealthy for her mind. I can’t imagine.”

  “It is almost abusive, but I wasn’t there so maybe she wanted that many children,” Tina shivered.

  Gina went on.

  During that time, Edith continued to work with the engineer, Charles Fontaine Moreau and armies of builders and workers who constructed more rooms, brought in furnishings, designed secrets, and crafted expensive rooms. John was excited each time his wife showed him a new addition or a new mechanical addition. He was fascinated by her brilliance.

  In those years, several events came to pass that were of particular interest.

  George pointed out a port
rait of the designer that graced a wall. The man was handsome, had intelligent eyes, and looked young for his age. He said, “Moreau, a friend by this time, of both Edith and John, spent most of every year working on the house, sometimes clandestinely, refusing to allow anyone but the owners to see his additions. His wife and children remained in New Orleans where they had a beautiful home right in the center of the city. Although Moreau’s work on the Kingsborough House partially paid for his family to live in the grand style, his wife, Constance, resented her husband being away for fifteen years.”

  “I can imagine,” A man growled, “Sally throws a fit when I’m gone for a week.” He laughed with his wife as she elbowed him in the ribs.

  “Twice, she came to see the house, graciously invite by the owners, but she kept her eyes narrowed and cold as she looked at everything. She thought the furnishings were vulgarly expensive, questioned why there were doors that opened up to blank walls, and sniffed at the mechanics. In other words, Constance Moreau was not happy with this house,” George went on.

  He opened a door and the tourists gasped as they entered.

  In the Rabbit Room, there were two levels, the topmost one eight feet higher than the lower one. A small staircase led up to the top level. At the top were several large statutes of gem-encrusted rabbits sitting on their haunches or standing upright as if begging a treat. Some rabbits had large, emerald eyes, blue topaz eyes, ruby noses, spots of onyx, and citrine tipped ears. One rabbit had an amethyst encrusted belly and some had sculpted fur tipped in silver and pearls.

  The floor was deep green, Persian tile, designed so that each tile seemed to have great depth and shine. Right in the center of the tableaux was a hole with a circumference of eight feet. Gina relayed the conversation that took place:

  “What is this for?” Constance asked.

  Edith glowed, “If you’ve read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which I adore, you will recognize this as the rabbit hole.”

  Constance Moreau stared blankly, “A what?”

  “The children love this and many adults as well. You simply fling yourself into this hole and it gently twists and turns for a thrilling ride and see here….” She pointed, “You pop out right here so it’s just like jumping down the rabbit hole in the story.”