The Complete Mystery Collection

by Michaela Thompson

Brian threw away his costume, she thought, even as she began to run across the bridge, but by the time she was kneeling where the black figure had knelt, she could see that the cloth hadn’t collapsed as wet cloth would. She could see the outline of Brian’s knuckles and fingernails inside the soaked white glove.

  “Brian?” she whispered, her rush of breath loud and hoarse.

  She reached for his hand. Pushed halfway into his glove was a square of folded paper. She removed it and felt for a pulse, but there wasn’t one. She shuddered, her arm jerked all by itself, and Brian’s hand fell back in the water, lazy ripples spreading from it.

  She pulled at Brian’s shoulder, trying to turn him over. He was heavy. The snakes, dime-store black rubber with red glass eyes, seemed malevolent witnesses to her dread. She managed to lift his head out of the water. His mask had loosened so that he seemed to be staring over the top of it, his own unblinking eyes above the mask’s empty eyeholes and distorted mouth. His face was a grayish color.

  She cried out and let him go. He was dead. She felt scalded and frozen at once.

  The square of wet paper was on the pavement beside her. She unfolded it. The black ink was running, but she could still read the message:

  The game is over. Come see me now.

  Under the words was a crudely drawn map. A rectangle was labeled, “Piazza S. Marco.” An arrow indicated another black line, over which was written, “Rio della Madonna.” Sally tried to concentrate on what the paper might mean, but the image came and went, leaving little trace in her mind.

  She was still kneeling, staring at the paper, when she heard a light, swift sound of running feet. She pushed the paper into her glove. A Harlequin dashed from a side street and took half a dozen steps before skidding to a halt. Motionless, he stared at the floating Medusa. The Harlequin wore a black two-cornered hat and had a round piece of wood stuck through his belt. He looked like the Harlequin in a sun-bleached print hanging in a stall on the Quai St. Michel.

  Slowly, and, it seemed, warily, the Harlequin approached Sally. She felt anaesthetized, disconnected, but when he was close enough she gestured toward the canal. “It’s Brian. He’s dead,” she said. She saw the Harlequin’s eyes blink, but she couldn’t tell if he’d heard. “Brian. My husband.” This time her voice seemed too loud.

  The Harlequin knelt beside her and, as she had, felt Brian’s pulse. When she saw him reaching for Brian’s shoulder, she looked away. She couldn’t stand to see Brian’s dead eyes again. She heard the Harlequin’s indrawn breath and a faint plashing sound, and felt her head begin to swim. Then the Harlequin took her hand and pulled her to her feet.

  “It’s Brian,” she said. “Something horrible happened. I have to tell the police.”

  The Harlequin’s strange black mask covered only the upper part of his face. She could see his lips, which were very pale, and she watched them form the words, “Yes. Come with me.” He had an accent— Italian, she thought. She continued to watch his lips, waiting for him to say more, until she felt a tug and remembered that he was still holding her hand. “Come now,” he said.

  She looked back at Brian. The snakes winked at her with hateful red eyes. The Harlequin dragged her forward. She stumbled. They ran.

  The Mirror Dismantled

  Rolf had to get out of Venice. He’d rigged his mirror-face so he could see out one side, but his field of vision was very narrow, and he had to twist his entire body to look around him. The sun, so bright earlier, had disappeared, and when he moved, cold wind snatched at his cloak.

  He whirled in a complete circle, trying to see if anyone was watching. He was back near San Marco, standing by the water on the Riva degli Schiavoni. In front of him, tied-up gondolas rode the increasingly choppy waves. At his back, laughing crowds surged by.

  He’d left the staff, forgotten it when the loony-looking figure in the tattered bride outfit surprised him. How stupid could he be? But even though the loony bride had seen him, she wouldn’t know, nobody would know, that it was Rolf behind the mirror, so nobody would know the forgotten staff was his. If he could get out of his costume without being seen, and get the hell out of Venice, he’d be all right. He wouldn’t go back to Paris, either. Not right away.

  Passersby buffeted him. Some of them might remember his costume. His strong impulse was to tear it off here and now. He couldn’t, though, because everyone was looking at him— the lounging gondoliers, the chubby woman in a brown coat dodging through the throng with her shopping bag, the— God almighty, the idiot with his camera up to his eye about to take Rolf’s picture. Rolf turned his back on the photographer, pushed his way into the crowd and shuffled with the rest, step by slow step, over the bridge next to the Doges’ Palace. Naturally, even in this mob, the goddamn gawkers had to stop and look down the canal at the Bridge of Sighs. Rolf willed himself to be calm. The crush would clear once he was over the bridge.

  It did, and he felt freer, lighter. He flexed his hands. Now to get out of this fucking outfit. He wished he hadn’t done such a good job of modifying the around-the-neck shaving mirror he wore and attaching it to his hood. Stupid games, and now look what had happened.

  He had thought he was so smart, with his mirror disguise. He’d finally decided on the mirror instead of the Devil because he didn’t believe in any true self. People reflected each other. What one person saw in another was his own image, nothing deeper or more profound than that.

  What am I thinking about this for? I must be crazy. He had reached an out-of-the-way street where curved lines of laundry, strung between upper stories, flapped over his head. In a sheltered corner, he unfastened his cloak, unhooked the mirror, and lifted it from around his neck. He wadded cloak and mirror into a loose ball.

  First, he felt the shock of the chilly air; then the vast, overwhelming relief of being able to see all around him. His chest filled and expanded, and he expelled the air in a long, whistling sigh.

  Okay. Okay. Now he was just a guy in jeans and a sweater holding a crumpled black bundle. He put it on the ground and stamped on it, over and over again. The faint crunch of the mirror breaking was satisfying, as was the violent, repetitive motion of his leg. Sweating, he picked it up and went to look for a garbage can.

  The one he found was overflowing, surrounded by additional bags stuffed with trash. He picked up one of them. It contained the remains of a meal— the end of a loaf of bread, cheese rinds, shriveled brown apple cores, an empty plastic mineral water bottle. He dumped it all on the ground, shoved his cloak inside, wadded the bag tightly, and managed to force it into the overfilled can. He walked away without looking back.

  Next, he had to get over to the Giudecca, where he was staying with his boss’s cousin, get his stuff, and get out. He’d have to go back to the Riva to catch the vaporetto.

  When he reached the stop, he’d just missed a boat. He bought his ticket and sat on a bench inside the wooden waiting platform, leaned his head back, and felt the platform move slowly up and down with the swelling and subsiding water.

  Rolf’s head was drumming. He had managed to forget the poem for a while, but now, before he could clamp down, the verses came into his mind again:

  The creature whose visage turns others to stone

  Changes trusting friends into people alone.

  The creature who has snakes for hair

  Changes faithful lovers to men in despair.

  There’s no way to guess what the Gorgon will do.

  Who can predict what she’ll change about you?

  The poem had been delivered that morning. The first he’d known of it was when one of the kids shuffled upstairs and handed him the envelope with his name typed on it.

  As soon as he’d read it, he’d known it was about Sally. Changes trusting friends— because of her, the group had lost all coherence. And as for changing faithful lovers to men in despair, the situation was obviously rocky between Brian and Jean-Pierre these days, and who was to blame for that but Sally?

  What bothered Rolf mo
st, though, was the last line: Who can predict what she’ll change about you? The person who had sent the poem to Rolf knew something. Now that Sally was dead, the person who had sent the poem could be dangerous to Rolf. Rolf pictured Brian, Tom, Jean-Pierre, Francine, trying to guess behind which face lurked knowledge of his secret.

  Sally the Medusa was dead, floating in the canal near the little bridge. Rolf hadn’t thought she’d be so strong, or react so fast. Nothing had happened the way he’d wanted.

  Rolf was shaking convulsively. He had to get the hell out of town. People drifted onto the platform. A balloon popped. Confetti drifted through the air. Finally, the boat arrived.

  In The House Of The Harlequin

  Sally blinked at the rice-shaped pieces of pasta swimming in the bowl in front of her. The Harlequin sat on the table, his feet resting on a chair and his chin in his hand, watching. They were in a large kitchen. All around them people came and went, stacking cartons, putting down armloads of lilies or radishes. Pots banged, glass clinked, cleavers made decisive thuds, and everyone spoke Italian at top volume.

  “When are the police going to come?” she said. “I have to tell them.”

  “Any minute,” the Harlequin said. “Take off your gloves, so you can eat.”

  She glanced dazedly at her gloved hands lying in her lap. After the Harlequin dragged her here, she ran through some rooms trying to find a phone. He assured her he would make the call. Then a doctor came. Despite her protests and struggles, he gave her some sort of injection.

  “Come,” said the Harlequin. He took one of her hands, tugged at the fingers of her glove, and peeled the glove off. When he repeated the process with her other hand, a damp folded paper fell out of her glove and fell to the floor. At that moment, Sally didn’t remember seeing it before.

  The Harlequin hopped down and picked up the paper. He unfolded and studied it, his lips pursed. Although Sally thought she was watching him every minute, she didn’t see how he made the paper disappear.

  “What happened to Brian?” she asked. Her tongue felt thick.

  “I thought you could tell me,” the Harlequin said.

  Sally took a breath. The explanation seemed too complex for her abilities. “There was a mirror-man.”

  “Ah. And his mirror broke.”

  “The one on the staff broke.” Sally was doing better than she had expected. “His face was—” She lost the drift. “Where’s that paper?” she asked.

  “Don’t think about the paper. Eat your soup. Think about mirrors.”

  Sally stared into the bowl. Steam curled up and enveloped her. “His face was a mirror. He had a black cloak and hood, and his face was a mirror.” She looked up, triumphant at having managed the story so well. Abruptly, her eyes stung. “Brian’s dead,” she said. “We have to call the police.”

  “Yes indeed,” the Harlequin said. Sally’s white mask and circlet of flowers lay on the table, but he was still in full costume. Behind his mask, his eyes were unreadable. He picked up the spoon lying next to her soup bowl and handed it to her. “Please eat. A few small bites.”

  She spooned some of the soup into her mouth and swallowed it. Brian was dead in a canal. She thought the Harlequin was taking her to the police, dragging her to the police, but instead they had rushed through the streets of Venice until they reached this place.

  They had run down a lane to a wrought-iron gate that stood ajar and passed through the gate into a small, bleak wintry garden. She remembered walls covered with stringy ivy, a shed with a red-tile roof, a haphazard stack of empty red clay pots.

  They had climbed stairs, and Sally had broken away to find a phone, even though she couldn’t speak Italian and didn’t even know the word for “police.” Then the doctor came.

  “Another small bite,” said the Harlequin, but she couldn’t. She knew that if she weren’t so woozy she would be dreadfully afraid.

  She mustered her strength and said, “I have to leave.”

  “Not now,” the Harlequin said. “The police are coming.”

  Right. The police. “Who are you?” she asked.

  “First, I am someone who wishes you well,” he said, holding up an index finger with a theatrical air.

  “Yeah, but—”

  “You may call me Michèle.”

  She squinted at him. “Kelly? Aren’t you Italian?”

  “Well— I am Venetian.”

  “Then why is your name Kelly?”

  He paused, then said, “I see. You have misunderstood. My name is Michèle. It’s like Michael in English, only pronounced Michèle.”

  “Sounds like Me Kelly.” To her surprise, she gave a little hiccupping giggle.

  “No, no, no.” The Harlequin took her shoulder. “This won’t do, Sally. I can’t have you laughing at me in my own house.”

  He was right. Sally had been hopelessly rude. As tears of shame welled in her eyes, she wondered when she had told the Harlequin her name.

  She dabbed at her nose with a piece of the gauze that was still wrapped around her body. “I’m tired,” she said. She looked at the worn surface of the table. She could put her head down there, although that probably wouldn’t be very polite, either.

  She decided to do it anyway, but once she started, her head dropped more rapidly than she’d planned. Someone caught her, though, before it hit anything.

  Jean-Pierre’s Discovery

  Jean-Pierre’s mouth had a bitter, metallic taste that was unpleasant to swallow. The pillow beneath his face was soggy with sweat, tears, saliva. A part of his brain that hadn’t realized his life was over sent a memory: of a pillow cover slick and disgusting with the fluids of despair; of his fists clenched, his tooth marks on a knuckle; of this horrible taste in his mouth. He had been— ten years old? Eleven? And his dog, Hercule, had been killed by a car. Jean-Pierre saw the brown eyes, the panting, furry face of Hercule, and his tears poured again.

  He was still wearing his white satin Pierrot costume. The elaborate ruff, layers and layers of floating black net, was crumpled around his head. His black skullcap and mask with its melancholy face and glittering tear had been flung into a corner.

  Jean-Pierre had chosen to represent himself as Pierrot because the figure of Pierrot was so banal. Pierrot, the sad clown, the deceived, the unrequited lover, was everywhere— on sentimental cards silly people sent each other, in advertisements, on scented letter paper intended for schoolgirls. Jean-Pierre’s love for Brian had reduced Jean-Pierre to that banality. His love had scalded out whatever individuality and volition he had and left the dross. It had destroyed Jean-Pierre and left the debased Pierrot.

  Over the past days, as Jean-Pierre watched Brian drift away from him, he had seen himself consumed. He had said nothing. What could he say? He was at the mercy of the slight indentation at the corner of Brian’s mouth, the line of Brian’s backbone, Brian’s hair when the light caught it. Aching, he had watched Brian drift and change. Yet there had been a pretense of normalcy, moments when Brian’s finger would trace the line of Jean-Pierre’s cheek, when Brian’s body would respond to Jean-Pierre’s touch. At those times Jean-Pierre was gloriously happy, almost able to convince himself that the shadows under Brian’s eyes weren’t deepening, that Brian day by day wasn’t more distracted.

  The tears continued to roll from Jean-Pierre’s eyes. He lay still, inert, letting them flow.

  Brian’s decision to dress as Medusa had been a slap at Jean-Pierre. Jean-Pierre was convinced it was a deliberate attempt to wound, to hit at Jean-Pierre’s obsession with Brian’s beauty. He had known Brian’s disguise beforehand because, finally, they had told each other what their costumes would be. Brian hadn’t wanted to cheat, but Jean-Pierre begged until he gave in. As the time drew near, the thought that they might not recognize one another had become agony for Jean-Pierre. Actually, Jean-Pierre hadn’t been afraid that he himself wouldn’t recognize Brian, but that Brian wouldn’t recognize him.

  “If I don’t recognize you, that would be the poi
nt of the game, wouldn’t it?” Brian asked. His eyes were wide, guileless.

  “Not really.” Jean-Pierre searched for a way to explain, to justify. “We know we’re secure in our love. Unshakable.” He watched Brian narrowly, no longer sure his words were true.

  “Unshakable.” Jean-Pierre heard irony in Brian’s tone as he repeated the word.

  Jean-Pierre went on, “It isn’t our love that’s in question. This game is just an outward sign, something silly and basically unimportant—”

  “If it’s unimportant, then why—”

  “The opinions of others don’t count, of course they don’t. If the opinions of others counted, we would never have been together at all.” Jean-Pierre felt dizzy at the thought of the others sneering and exchanging significant looks when he and Brian failed to pierce each other’s disguise. “I would simply like to show, to prove publicly—” He stopped, and looked helplessly at Brian.

  After a silence Brian said, “All right.”

  Jean-Pierre was flooded with shame. “Not if it makes you uncomfortable,” he hastened to say.

  Brian’s expression didn’t change. “I said all right.”

  It had been dreadful. Brian went on, without a flicker of preparation or ceremony. “You want me to say first? I’m going to dress as Medusa the Gorgon.”

  Jean-Pierre was stunned. He made Brian repeat himself, to make sure he’d understood. He stared at Brian in horror and cried, “But why?”

  Brian shook his head. “We said we’d tell each other what. We didn’t say we’d tell why.”

  Stung, Jean-Pierre fell silent. Brian said nothing else, but rubbed his eyes wearily with his long fingers. Jean-Pierre stole glances at him. Medusa! He had assumed Brian would dress as a medieval knight errant or a supple young Greek athlete— something admirable and heroic. Instead, Brian would be costumed as a monster. Jean-Pierre knew, with desolate certainty, that no matter how much he loved Brian, he would never have been able to recognize him disguised as Medusa.