Death in Detail

by Andrew Stanek

  Fee is no object.

  Agatha Bellinger.”

  “This is a little odd,” Alders said. “If she thinks someone in her house is trying to kill her, why not call the police? And this paper is strange, too. It’s thick.”

  He held it up to the light and examined it for a watermark or some other indication of origin. Nothing appeared.

  Meanwhile, Felix was carefully examining the envelope, turning it over in his pale hands. Apparently finding nothing, he dropped it and shrugged.

  “Well, Ms. Bellinger has asked us to call on her at our own convenience,” Felix remarked, taking the letter from Alders. “Now is convenient for me. What about for you, Sam?”

  Alders shrugged. “Unless we have some other case pending that I don’t know about.”

  “We don’t. Why don’t you drive?”

  Felix reached into his pocket and fished out Alders’ keys, then tossed them to the other.

  “I wish you’d stop doing that,” Alders muttered.

  The address enclosed in the envelope was on the outskirts of the city, in Great Redmond’s internal equivalent of a suburb. As they neared the location, apartments gave way to houses. The houses then grew taller and more refined, larger and increasing in size, sophistication, and in Alder’s estimation, cost.

  “She must be a bit hoity-toity, this one,” Alders said. “Or maybe she’s just rich. I should have guessed. Didn’t she write that she suspected someone in her household was trying to kill her? I assumed she meant a relative or something. From the looks of these places, she might mean a servant.”

  He nodded to a passing mansion, with what looked like half a golf course for a front yard.

  “Fee is no object,” Felix repeated from the note. “I am going to make several guesses about this woman and we will see if I am right. One, she is elderly, two, she is rich, and three, she has one or more relatives she thinks are after her money.”

  “I won’t argue with you on any of those points,” Alders replied. “Here we are.”

  He maneuvered the car into a parking place outside a mansion, distant and set apart from its neighbors. It was a huge, sprawling building that had at least three floors, built in a Victorian style, with batteries of twin, arching windows and a handsome pair of double-doors with rounded tops. The house did not have such a large front garden as the one Alders had pointed out earlier; there was merely a fence of iron bars blocking access to a modest lawn and walkway that led to the front doors. An iron gate, topped with little black winged cherubs, stood wide open in the center.

  “Do you still have the letter?” Alders said, eyeing the open gate with a certain irrational apprehension. “We may need to show it to whoever answers the door.”

  “I have it. Here.” Felix thrust his hand into a particularly baggy pocket of his jacket and produced the letter, handing it to Alders.

  They walked through the gate and approached the front door. As there was no visible doorbell, Alders rapped his knuckles smartly against the wood paneling. After ten seconds or so, a young woman with sleek black hair answered.

  “Yes?” she asked, looking at them inquiringly.

  “I’m Sam Alders and this is my partner Felix Green. We’re here to see Ms. Agatha Bellinger.”

  The young woman put her hand to her mouth, startled.

  “Is there something wrong?” Alders asked. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Felix’s expression darken.

  “It’s just that you must not have heard,” the young woman said. “Aunt Agatha died yesterday.”

  Chapter 3

  “My name is Stephanie Reins,” the young woman said, as she ushered them into the hallway. “I’m Agatha’s niece.”

  “She died yesterday?” Felix asked quietly. “How did it happen?”

  “Just old age, they think. She turned a hundred this month, you know - she wasn’t young. I’m very sorry for your trouble. I actually remember your name, Mr. Green. It was an envelope that Aunt Agatha posted - she wouldn’t let me mail it, she insisted on doing it herself, which was very unusual. Normally, she wouldn’t even go outside the house except to garden in the back yard, so I knew it must have been very important. May I ask what she wrote to you about?”

  Alders was about to show her the letter, but Felix thrust out a cautioning hand and stopped him.

  “I am a private detective,” Felix said calmly, as Alders returned the letter to his pocket.

  “A private detective? Oh dear. Is this about the maids?”

  “What about the maids?”

  “Well, it doesn’t matter now that she’s dead, but Aunt Agatha was convinced the maids were stealing things from the house. I’m quite certain it was nothing, though - my grandmother got the same way when she got on in age. I’m sorry you came all this way, Mr. Green.”

  “Since I have come all this way, why don’t you tell me whatever it was your Aunt wanted me to hear?”

  Stephanie hesitated. “Well, alright then. It can’t do much harm now. This whole house is full of very valuable heirlooms, or so my aunt seemed to think, and she was afraid the maids were stealing things. I don’t think they were though, because everything she thought had been taken always turned up, and I think she was just misplacing them - and some of the things she’d thought were gone, were... well, I’m sure they’d never gone anywhere. This picture, for instance.”

  She gestured to a large portrait hanging just down the hall, portraying a tall, handsome dark-haired man with a heavy cane and a luxurious mustache.

  “Who’s this?” Alders asked, looking at the portrait. “I think I’ve seen him somewhere before, but I can’t place him.” He frowned.

  Stephanie pointed to a small plaque below the picture that read “Sebastian Virgil Bellinger.”

  “He was Aunt Agatha’s father - my grandfather,” she explained. “I never knew him - he died a very, very long time ago - but Aunt Agatha thought the world of him. He was a fruit baron in the early twentieth century, with plantations in South America and that sort of thing. Most of Aunt Agatha’s money came from him - that which didn’t come from Great-Great Uncle Horace, that is. Aunt Agatha thought the servants were trying to steal all kinds of things, including this picture.”

  “I’d like to see someone try to steal this,” Alders said, grinning at Felix, who was running his hand along the frame. “It would be a bit tough to fit under your coat.”

  “It would be difficult to steal,” Felix admitted.

  “Yes, well, as I said, I don’t think the maids were really stealing anything, but you know, I think Aunt Agatha got a little silly towards the end. Just the other day she was telling me a story about the silverware. She said Great-Great Uncle Horace had gotten it as a gift from the Emperor of Mexico, Maximilian somebody or the other, and that he’d something to do with the French leaving Mexico. Then she started going on about the Austrians and the French and I couldn’t make hide nor tail of it, because of course Mexico doesn’t have an Emperor and don’t have anything to do with the French. They speak Spanish.”

  Felix gave her a sharp look. “Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph van Habsburg, Archduke of Austria, was also Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico from 1864 to 1867. The French Emperor Louis Napoleon III, nephew to the famed Napoleon Bonaparte and the last Bonapartist ruler of France, installed Maximilian on the Mexican throne in attempt to create a pro-French monarchist regime in the Americas. Maximilian himself was captured and executed by pro-democratic forces in Mexico in 1867. It’s more than likely your uncle Horace was part of the diplomatic mission from the United States that forced the French to withdraw their support for Maximilian in 1866.”

  Both Alders and Stephanie looked at Felix in shock.

  “Oh,” said Stephanie faintly.

  “How did you know all that, Felix?” Alders asked.

  “I dabble in history, but a slightly better question might be why don’t you know it,” Felix shot back. “I guess that’s just the state of education.”

  “I thought she was jus
t talking nonsense,” Stephanie said, slightly pale. “It was like when she said that Teddy Roosevelt was only president because of Czechoslovakia.” She gestured to a picture of her grandfather standing next to a bombastic-looking grinning man with a monocle.

  “A Czechoslovakian anarchist shot and killed then-president William McKinley,” Felix said crisply. “Vice President Teddy Roosevelt ascended to the Presidency. I am not telling you all this because I think it is necessarily relevant to the case, Ms. Reins,” he added. “I’m simply suggesting that your aunt had not gone - as you put it - ‘silly,’ and maybe there was something to her accusations against her maids.”

  “Well, maybe so,” Stephanie said, shaking her head. “But I always checked and I don’t think I ever found anything missing. It all turned up in the end.”

  “Hm...” Felix stared the portrait for a while longer, running his hand along the frame. He felt one of the corners for a second, nodded to himself, and then turned to her.

  “Ms. Reins-”

  “Please, call me Stephanie.”

  “Stephanie, then. From the way you talk, I gather you lived with your Aunt.”

  “Yes, I did. I mean, we’ve all been here for the past few weeks. I lived here, but about two weeks ago, Aunt Agatha took a turn for the worse. She was dizzy and sometimes she had trouble keeping her balance. A few days she didn’t even get out of bed. That’s why I was so surprised when she left the house to send you that letter a few days ago. I didn’t think she was well enough.”

  “You said ‘we’ve all been here.’ Who is ‘we all?’”

  “Oh, since Aunt Agatha’s birthday, we’ve all sort of been staying here, meaning the whole family. There’s me, I’ve always lived here, and my cousins, Henry, Jasper, Diane, and Chester. Chester hasn’t really been living here. He lives nearby; he’s been in and out. Oh, and Gloria. Her father was a very good friend of Aunt Agatha’s a long time ago, and she’s been staying here as well. Since Aunt Agatha started, you know, fading, we all thought we ought to be close by. Anyway, I’m very sorry to have dragged you out here just about that theft nonsense. I know nothing’s missing, and Aunt Agatha was very strange about the maids sometimes. She refused to have - er - ethnic, maids. She demanded they be, you know, white, but even then she didn’t trust them.”

  “That’s illegal,” muttered Alders, but Felix shushed him.

  “How many maids do you have?”

  “Two, Lisa and Jackie. And we have a cook as well. That’s the whole household. But again, I can’t imagine they’d steal anything. I’m sorry to have wasted your time.”

  “Actually, Stephanie, I know that your aunt didn’t call me here to discuss her suspicions about the maids. Is it possible she mentioned some other matter to you? Something else she was worried about?”

  Stephanie bit her lip, then glanced up and down the hallway. Alders was sure she was making sure they were alone.

  “Well, now that you mention it...” she started. “Aunt Agatha did mention to me a few weeks ago... and this is very, very silly, and I don’t believe it for a minute... you have to understand that this was the kind of thing Aunt Agatha thought... she told me that she thought someone was trying to kill her.”

  “Ah. I see. Did she give you any details?”

  “No.”

  “Was this before or after her health started to worsen?”

  “A day or so before. It was the day after her birthday party. I didn’t want to mention it to anyone because, given that she just died - I knew it would sound suspicious - but Aunt Agatha didn’t die because she was murdered, she died because she was old.”

  “Did she mention that she thought someone was trying to kill her on any other occasion?”

  “No, though, a little afterwards she said she wanted to fire Lisa. She’s one of the maids. I thought it was because she suspected Lisa of stealing, but maybe it had something to do with the murder.”

  “And did you fire Lisa?” Felix inquired.

  “No.”

  “Is it possible you could tell us exactly where you were and what you were doing at the time she told you she suspected someone was trying to kill her?”

  Again, Stephanie hesitated. “Oh, I don’t see why not,” she said at last. “I can show you where we were.”

  They trekked down the hall, entering a large sitting room with a single sofa, covered with antiques - stands, cabinets, clocks of all descriptions, and a large antique chess set.

  “This was my Aunt Agatha’s living room,” Stephanie explained. “She really did most of her living here, when she wasn’t out in the garden working with her vegetables. It’s supposed to be full of old family heirlooms and antiques and so forth. She was telling me that clock over there was a gift to my grandfather from the Duke of Baden.”

  Felix’s hand darted towards the gold-and-jade clock as soon as Stephanie’s back had turned. Alders quickly slapped his hand away.

  “Only looking,” Felix said calmly.

  Alders shot him a critical look.

  Felix meandered across the room to the free-standing chess set, covered with pieces of handcarved ivory and ebony.

  “Did your Aunt Agatha play chess?” Felix asked.

  Stephanie nodded. “Yes, but it was more of my grandmother’s game - that is, her mother’s game, than it was Aunt Agatha’s. I don’t think she’d played for a very long time.”

  Felix leaned down towards the pieces. Alders watched him hawkishly, and started when Felix’s hand moved towards the chessboard. However, he came up not with a chess piece, but a small scrap of paper. He held the scrap up to the light and squinted.

  “What’s that?” Stephanie asked.

  “It’s a piece of paper, of the same kind that your Aunt Agatha’s letter was written on. It has a message written on it. It says, ‘Defeat in Detail.’ Have you ever seen this piece of paper before?”

  Stephanie shook her head, mystified.

  “Alders, could I see Agatha’s letter to us?”

  Alders drew the letter out of his pocket and handed it to Felix, who compared the two documents.

  “The handwriting matches,” Felix announced. “Would you say this is your Aunt’s handwriting?” he asked Stephanie, showing her the small scrap of paper but not the letter.

  “Yes,” she affirmed. “What’s Defeat in Detail?”

  “Defeat in Detail is a doctrine in military strategy. I suppose it could be extended to games of strategy, such as chess, as well. Rather than defeating your enemy all at once, in a grand sweeping move, you defeat them in a series of small victories, one battle at a time. It’s a similar idea, to say, death by a thousand papercuts. I suppose an analogy in chess would be taking a less important piece every few moves while guarding your own.”

  Felix meandered again around the room, but apparently found nothing else of interest.

  “Do you remember what you and your Aunt were doing when she said she suspected someone was trying to kill her?”

  “No,” Stephanie said. “I’m sorry, I don’t. Um... I actually have to get going,” she said, glancing at the clock. “We’ve got a busy day ahead of us.”

  Felix shrugged his shoulders. “I understand. I’m sorry to intrude on your grieving. We’ll show ourselves out.”

  Alders listened to him in shock. Stephanie nodded her head and departed, shuffling quickly away.

  “What are you doing, Felix?” Alders asked.

  “I wanted to have another look around the hallway without her,” he replied calmly, striding up to the large portrait of Sebastian Virgil Bellinger. He again started to run his finger along the frame.

  “You wanted to look at the portrait?” Alders asked in surprise. “I can’t shake the feeling I’ve seen this man somewhere before.”

  Felix said nothing, but continued his examination. Alders shook his head.

  “Felix, I doubt the old woman wanted us to investigate the thefts - it’s a good thing she didn’t. Imagine, she suspects her maids of stealing so she hires a kleptoman
iac detective to investigate.”

  “Sam, you’ve never told me you’re a kleptomaniac.”

  “You know, Felix, the first step on the road to recovery is admitting you have a problem.”

  “That’s the spirit, Sam,” Felix replied, patting him on the shoulder.

  “I’m talking about you, you nitwit!” he hissed. “And put back the portrait of Bellinger and Teddy Roosevelt. They’ll notice if it’s gone.”

  “I was only looking,” Felix said innocently, reached into his pocket, and produced the portrait.

  “I’d shudder to think of the questions you’d get with that on your desk,” Alders muttered.

  “Let us consider the case instead,” Felix said. “An old woman says she suspects she is going to be murdered. By the time we reach her house, she is dead. Coincidence?”

  “Possibly, but I doubt it.”

  “An old woman dies,” Felix said, now kneeling to examine the body of the portrait. “She is murdered, but her death is not suspicious enough to alert the family. How does she die?”

  “Smothered, poisoned, or choked, maybe,” Alders answered.

  His examination of the portrait complete, Felix rose, apparently satisfied.

  “You somehow discover someone is covertly plotting to kill you, but you do not know who. Say you have narrowly dodged death once. Who do you most suspect?”

  “You,” Alders said instantly.

  “Exactly,” Felix answered, much to Alder’s shock. “You would not, for example, suspect your wife or your immediate family, unless - and maybe even if there were - extreme standing animosity between you. You, Sam, would suspect someone you worked with. In Agatha’s case, she perhaps suspected her maids of more than stealing. It is more reasonable, more thinkable in some ways than suspecting family. But, because she went down to mail her letter herself, we see that she must have not trusted her family either.”