by P. N. Elrod
Having suffered a violent death myself, I could understand.
“For me it was a miracle. I hadn’t lost her to death. She’d come back to me, beautiful as ever, and young again. I helped her through her first nights, easing things when I could, but after a time she found she couldn’t let go. She wanted to go back, to comfort Gaylen and to let her know she was really all right.”
His expression had turned inward again; he was half-sad, half-angry. “It was a mistake and a very bad one, but she couldn’t see it at first. She talked me into helping—pleaded, really—it was that important to her. So I helped. It was all right for a time, but when the happy shock of the reunion wore off and the implications sank in, Gaylen started to work on us both. She was slow and subtle about it, but she wanted to be like us. She said there was every chance of the change working in her since they were sisters.”
“She couldn’t talk either of you into it, though.”
“It wasn’t for want of trying, and finally she tried too hard. That was her mistake; that’s when Maureen realized how sick her sister was in her mind. Things got very ugly, very fast after that scene, and she had to put Gaylen away in Kingsburg, which all but broke Maureen’s heart. Gaylen was the cause of the rift between us; thereafter Maureen and I went on separate paths.”
“But you kept in touch?”
“Out of mutual self-interest and because of what we’d become. Those of our kind are despairingly rare.” His glance rested on me a moment and I couldn’t read his expression.
“What self-interest?”
“Gaylen was full of mischief and I had little confidence in the security of that so-called asylum. Bedlam may have been noisy, brutal, and stunk to high heaven, but they knew how to keep a door locked. We each had to know where the other lived in case something happened—which it did when she escaped.”
“Who paid for the asylum?”
“Maureen. She and Gaylen inherited enough from their parents to live in quiet comfort for the rest of their lives. When Maureen understood how things might be for her future with me, she made out a rather clever will that gave over her share of the estate to a nonexistent cousin. If the cousin did not appear within a year of her demise, then her share would go to Gaylen. It was easy enough to establish another identity in those days, and my background in law was proving to be quite handy for once. Maureen prepared for her change—if it happened, and so it did.”
“It surprised you?”
“I was truthful with her. I told her there was no guarantee she would rise again; it was only a chance and we took it.”
Escott stirred in his chair. “And the others?”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“Since your decease you must have been involved with women other than Maureen.”
Barrett was amused. “Of course I was. I’d changed, but not into a damned monk.”
“Did any of them return after they died?”
He didn’t answer, but Escott continued to wait for one. “No, none of them,” he said with a flare of anger. “Not one of them. D’ye want to know how many there were and all that we did together?”
Escott ignored the question. “What about the lady you knew in England? What was her story?”
“I was her lover, not her bloody biographer.”
Escott was patient, which irritated Barrett.
“Her name was Nora Jones and she made her living by accepting such gifts as we lads could afford to give her, but mind you, she was no whore—don’t ever think that. She was a lovely girl, truly lovely and lovable. Not all the students were poor, and I was doubly blessed with a bit of paternal lucre and good looks, both of which she took to like butter to warm bread.”
“Did she not warn you of the possible consequences of her relationship with you?”
“No, she did not. It was her way; she liked ’em young and fairly innocent, and was pleased to keep ’em so. I’ve also come to think that she honestly did not know there would even be consequences.”
“Your resurrection must have been quite traumatic for you.”
His face grew hard at the memory. “It was, and I’d rather not speak of it.”
“Then we shall return to the near-present: tell us about the night Maureen came here to you.”
“There’s little enough to tell. I’d obtained a position here some months earlier as Miss Francher’s secretary. As you’re already aware by now, she knows all about me, but however odd the hours might be, I am very good at my job.”
“And it’s safe here,” I added.
He considered the remark. “Yes, as safe as one can be from life. We had our share of ill fortune that year. Miss Francher’s mother died horribly in a fire that spring and I had my hands full for a time, helping her get through the worst of it and protecting her privacy. If not for young Laura it would have been impossible. She was only fourteen then, but a splendid child; the experience matured and strengthened her even as it seemed to drain her older cousin. Laura had been visiting us on her spring holiday that week and then stayed on. I arranged for a private tutor so she could finish out the year at home with us.”
“What about Laura’s family?”
“Her parents died ten years ago. Miss Francher’s mother was her legal guardian. When she died, Miss Francher assumed the responsibility. It was easy enough, for Laura is a good girl. Things were just starting to settle down at the close of summer when Maureen showed up at the gate asking for me. She was in quite a state about Gaylen and hardly able to think straight. I’d said that things had gotten very ugly between them, she was afraid of what her sister might do to her. She wanted help and advice, and I offered what little I could.”
“Which was?”
“I said she should set the police to watching her flat and to keep herself out of sight until they caught the old girl again. It seemed the most obvious thing to do, but she was that panicked.”
“Did Miss Francher know of this?”
“I saw no need to trouble her with my personal problems. I told her Maureen was an old friend dropping by for a visit and she was content with that.”
It sounded as though Emily Francher had been remarkably accommodating for one who demanded such privacy, and I speculated that he might have influenced her into her contentment. “How long did Maureen stay?”
“She didn’t. I invited her to remain as long as she liked until they found Gaylen, and she accepted. With a place this big, there are any number of rooms she’d be safe and comfortable in, especially my own, which is well locked and fireproofed. The servants have standing orders never to go inside and they are paid enough not to be overly curious.”
“Convenient.” Again, I figured he’d have insured himself by slipping them some quiet suggestions on the side.
“Indeed. Maureen turned down the offer and picked another room. I saw that she was settled, did some work of my own, and stopped by to say good night and to see if she needed anything. She did not, so I went to bed.”
“You saw her?”
“I called through the door and she answered.”
That struck us both as odd and he knew it.
“She didn’t really want to see me,” he admitted.
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“We had a disagreement, more of a quiet fight, really. She didn’t approve of my job and I told her it was none of her business how I chose to live. Things rapidly deteriorated from there.”
“And she still accepted your invitation to stay the day?”
“By then it was too late for her to go elsewhere; the time had gotten away from us. She stayed, but left right after sunset the next night. By the time I was up and about, she was gone.”
“Without a good-bye?”
“Or even a thank-you. She must have been very angry with me, but then I was hardly feeling like a good Christian toward her myself.”
“How did she leave?”
“Same as she came; by taxi,”
“Do you know where she went?”
“No.”
“Anyone else see her leave?”
“Mayfair—that’s the gardener—had to let them in and out. You may ask him if you like, though I warn you he’s got a brain like a block of Swiss cheese.”
“And you never tried to contact her?”
“I called her flat a few times, but she was never home. Later on when I called, someone else had rented the place. She never called or wrote, I expect she never wanted to see me again.” He’d drifted away, as though he were talking to himself. I wasn’t the only one Maureen had hurt.
“Did you ever think that Gaylen might have found her?”
“Not seriously, no. Once Maureen had a little time to get over her upset, I knew she’d be able to take care of herself.”
“Was your disagreement serious enough for her to cut you off just like that?”
“I suppose it was, from her point of view. No woman likes to see herself supplanted by another in a man’s heart, even a man she’s long ago discarded.”
“Are you referring to your employer?” asked Escott in that carefully neutral tone of his, which meant he thought his question was important.
Barrett fastened him with a cold eye. “As I told Maureen, that is none of your business.”
Escott dropped the subject for another. “What about the phone call for Maureen you received the next night?”
“Call?”
“From her friend. Maureen gave her the number of this house as though she expected to be here for a time.”
“Oh, that. I remember.”
“You gave this person the impression Maureen was still here.”
“I think I offered to take a message and I wanted to know who was calling. I was curious and I thought she might be involved with Gaylen in some way. Who was it?”
“She was not involved with Gaylen and she asked that we not mention her name.”
He shrugged, uninterested.
“Are you not curious about Maureen and what happened to her?”
“Of course I am, why d’ye think I got the two of you in here to start with? A lot of good it’s done me since you’ve no news of her—or have you?”
“Regrettably, we do not.”
“That’s no surprise.” He turned his attention to me. “How well did you know her?”
“Very well.”
“That’s evident, laddie. You must have been something special to her altogether. So why hasn’t she tried to contact you, eh? Had a fight with her, too?”
“She left to protect me from Gaylen, that’s all I know.”
“And you said you met Gaylen?”
“She met me.”
“What about her? Did the asylum finally catch up with her? You said she was caught?”
I glanced at Escott. He left it up to me. “I said she was no longer a threat. She’s dead.”
He thought it over for a time, reading more off my face than I felt comfortable about. “How, then, did it happen? How did she come to find you?”
“It doesn’t matter, she just did. She thought I might know where Maureen was, but I couldn’t help her.”
“Perhaps not to find Maureen, maybe she wanted your help in other ways—and don’t look so dark, laddie, I knew her, too, and far better. I knew what she wanted and how badly she wanted it, and if you turned her down, I shan’t think ill of you. I said she was sick. Sometimes death is the best cure for her kind of misery. You did turn her down? She really is dead?”
“She is,” confirmed Escott. “Heart failure.”
I felt my face twisting in reaction. Maybe not all of the nightmare had left; something perverse inside me wanted to laugh. I got up and walked to the French windows instead. The pool lights were out and the blond swimmer was long gone. The water was still and smooth.
“Death is the best cure sometimes,” Barrett repeated. “It keeps her from passing her sickness on to others and making them miserable in turn. One can hope for as much at least.”
Some distance beyond the pool was a bare, fenced yard with a few trees in it and the dark, rounded shapes of horses dozing on their feet. No doubt they were part of Barrett’s food supply. It was very convenient and comfortable for him to have such an obliging patroness.
I could understand Maureen’s reaction to it all. In her day she had been well off and certainly attractive. Then Barrett came into her life, offering her love and a possibility of eternal youth in exchange for her money and protection. It could have been that way, an old story with a new twist that Barrett apparently repeated if he had the same arrangement with Emily Francher. No wonder Maureen had been upset, but I didn’t think she’d have simply gone off without a final word to him. She had manners as well, she would have surely left him some kind of a note.
I turned back into the room. They were both looking at me; Escott alert and Barrett . . . watchful. I focused my full attention on him, freezing hard onto his brilliant eyes, reaching into his mind.
“Where is Maureen? Tell me.”
Escott held his breath. There was total silence except for his heart thudding a little faster than normal.
“You know how to find her,” I said. “Where is she?”
Barrett looked slightly surprised, not blank, as I’d expected.
“Tell me.”
His face darkened.
“Where is she?”
He stood up to face me square on: a tall man, well built, wearing modern, elegant clothes. Hard, primitive fury flooded and marred his features. I’d done exactly the wrong thing by trying to influence an answer from him.
His hands had worked into fists. He made an effort to keep his voice steady.
“I have already told you I do not know where she is.” He was shaking from his anger, but holding himself carefully in check. “And remember this, Fleming, no one has ever called me a liar and lived.... Keep that in mind before you say aught else.”
Something moved out in the hall, a light footstep as someone passed the door. Escott started breathing again, but his heart still thumped very fast. It was just distracting enough, so I did think twice about my next words and it was damned difficult to get them out.
“If . . . if you should ever see her again—” I paused, but Barrett held back, listening “—tell her Gaylen is dead. Tell her I only want to know that she’s all right.” My mouth was very dry. “If she doesn’t want to see me again, I’ll respect her decision.”
Barrett was a perceptive man; he could see what it had cost me to say that. His expression softened and he gave a slight nod. “And you’ll do the same for me?”
“Yes.”
He nodded again. “If I should ever see her again, I will tell her that for you. If . . .”
And he left that last word hanging in the air between us with all its attendant uncertainty and doubt.
Our car rumbled slowly down the drive, gravel spreading and crunching under the tires as we followed the gardener’s truck to the front gate.
“What do you think?” I asked Escott.
He replied with a shake of the head.
Fair enough, I felt about the same. “I can’t believe the trail stops here.”
We rounded the turn at the side of the non-ruins of the old house and rolled gently downhill at a slightly faster speed. The truck was now nearly up to ten miles an hour.
“Got any questions for Johnny Appleseed up ahead?”
“If you mean the gardener, yes, I have. As for Barrett, he said much that agreed with what we heard from Gaylen—the manner of Maureen’s death, her separation from Barrett—on those points we can assume he was being truthful.”
“And of Maureen coming here and leaving?”
“I don’t know. Her abrupt departure is just odd enough as a story to be true. He could just as easily have told us something more plausible. Having never met her, I do not know if such behavior is something you’d expect from her. Is it?”
“She left me, didn’t she?” Like a spectator standing apart, I noticed the bitter tone
in my voice. Escott remained mercifully silent.
The gardener got out to open the front gate for us. Escott followed him and cornered the man. His wife appeared on the porch of the gatehouse and glared at them both, but Escott had anticipated her and carefully maneuvered the man so he was unaware of her presence.
Escott talked and got some mumbled replies along with head scratching, head shaking, and shrugs until the fellow caught sight of his better half and decided it was past time to go inside. Escott shook hands with him briefly. From the look that passed between them I knew he’d given him a private tip for his help, such as it was.
We drove out. Escott waved at him and got a guarded half wave in return.
“What’d he say?”
“A moment,” he said, and a quarter-mile later pulled the car onto the road shoulder and cut the motor. “Lord, but that place was oppressive.”
“And I thought it was just me.”
My answer had to wait more than a moment as he got out his pipe, tobacco pouch, and matches. Soon he was successfully drawing smoke into his lungs and filling the car up with the aromatic exhaust. The excess floated out the windows into the cool night air of the woods around us.
He looked at the pale gray swirl without really seeing it. “Mr. Mayfair confirmed Barrett’s story. It was a memorable spring because of the fire and death of Mrs. Francher, but things were more or less back to normal by summer. Unlike her mother, Miss Francher did not encourage visitors, and after her views were made quite clear to her various relatives, they ceased to call. Young Laura was the only one she’d have anything to do with. Again, he confirmed Barrett’s statement that Emily took over the girl’s guardianship.”
“Did he remember Maureen?”
“Not by name, but he did recall admitting a young woman on Barrett’s authority that summer. The circumstances were similar enough to our own arrival to bring the incident readily to mind. She arrived in a Green Light cab one night and departed the next, also by cab; a local called out from the nearest town.”
“Green Light is based in Manhattan.”
“Mr. Mayfair was aware of that at the time, which was another unusual detail for him to remember. He’d spent some thought on speculating how high the fare had been.”
