The Glass Flame

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  I moved about the big room, exploring. Apparently it had been used as a conservatory at one time and there were a few pieces of wicker furniture remaining, along with several potted plants. Though some of the latter had died and showed only brown stalks in their large pots.

  “Not very cozy, is it?” Lori said. “When I was little I used to think it was like a lighthouse.”

  “How many stories are there?”

  “Five, if you count the tower. There are dozens of these high-ceilinged, pie-wedge rooms running around the outer edge. With the doors always closed. Spooky. Can you imagine my poor little great-grandmother rattling around in a place like this? Vinnie could go out to all his business enterprises in places like San Francisco and Chicago and Dallas and Philadelphia. Not New York because he hated New York. But little old Cecily had to stay here waiting for him until he chose to pop back. No wonder she couldn’t take it. Look—here’s what I suppose was called the drawing room.” She went to a door and pushed it open.

  Three of the pie slices had been expanded into one high-ceilinged space, and all the original furniture seemed intact, some of it very fine. There were rosewood and walnut pieces, with authentic Victorian touches in moldering tasseled draperies, their red velvet darkened by the years. There was even a horsehair sofa, only a little the worse for wear.

  “Vinnie was still young, but already very rich when he built this house just before the turn of the century. He was thirty and Cecily seventeen when they married and came here to live. But she never liked it. While I was little this room always smelled of Great-grandpa’s cigars, but now it just smells stuffy and dead. I wouldn’t dare struggle with those old windows.”

  “Has any of the vandalism touched the island?” I asked.

  “Vandalism?” she widened her eyes at me.

  “I mean the fires.”

  “No. Strangely enough, no one has ever bothered this place. I think kids have gotten in a few times, but the damage was small. Of course Trevor keeps a guard at the entrance to Belle Isle, but the whole place can’t be walled in and protected.”

  “What will Trevor do with the house?”

  “Nothing, for now. It still belongs to Uncle Eric, since Vinnie never let it go with the project. Trevor says it’s getting to be an antiquity and ought to be preserved. He cares more about taking care of it than Uncle Eric does. Maybe he’ll work out something so he can open up the ground floor at least, and make a sort of museum out of it. Me—I think I’d just burn the whole thing down.”

  “Oh, no!” I cried.

  She looked at me sharply. “I didn’t mean that. We don’t speak lightly of burning things down anymore. Come along and I’ll take you upstairs. That’s where you can get more pictures.”

  The zigzagging steps made steep climbing, but Commodore chose to come with us, still nimble, for all his years. Near the second floor he hopped up a step just ahead of me, again with that plaintive mew, and in the light that fell from the sunny tower, I noticed a stain on his thick white fur. Near his shoulder a wound shone wet.

  “I think Commodore has been hurt,” I said.

  Lori came down the stairs at once and sat on a step to part the cat’s fur. The wound looked open and raw, with some of the hair about it worn away, where he had probably been licking at the sore place.

  “Someone must have thrown a rock at him,” Lori said, stroking him gently. “How perfectly horrid! Stay around, Commodore, and when we leave I’ll get you to a vet.” She walked on along the second-floor corridor that circled the stairs, beckoning to me. “There’s something I want to show you here. A real curiosity. Pretty sybaritic for old Vinnie, I must say. Who’d ever have suspected him of this!”

  The door she stopped before opened upon a bathroom that had seen better days. Many of the floor tiles were loose, or missing, and several of the many mirrors were cracked. But the Roman splendor of the room was its sunken tub of pale, rose-mottled marble. The tub was circular, deep enough to sit in with water up to one’s chin, and with marble steps leading to its wide rim. There were even marble handholds to help one down into the bath, and golden faucets on the far side indicating the luxury of running water.

  “He had it put in when the house was built,” Lori said, “and he brought that rose-garnet marble here from Mexico. He used to invite guests straight upstairs to see this bathroom, he was so proud of it. But I expect he also enjoyed more private moments in it with Cecily. She would have looked beautiful reflected in all those mirrors.”

  I wasn’t sure why the bathroom with its glass and enormous marble tub made me a little uneasy.

  “It’s not exactly Victorian,” I said.

  “Oh, but it is—from what I’ve read about the Victorians. Only Vinnie must have been more open about his predilections.”

  Perhaps Cecily really had enjoyed herself in this hard glass and marble setting. At least I hoped so as we walked back along the circular corridor.

  Lori stopped before another brown door that seemed like all the rest, until she pointed to a brass bolt that had been set on the panel, to close it from the outside.

  “He used to lock her in sometimes,” she said. “Whenever she got especially rebellious. Cecily was his greatest treasure, you know, and he had a phobia about someone stealing her from him.”

  “Or of her running away, I should think.” I was beginning to sympathize with poor Cecily and the life she must have led.

  “Probably. He got over all that with his second wife. Maybe Cecily scared him so badly by what she did that he stopped trying to be a jailer.”

  Lori pulled the door open and drew me into the dim interior of the room. I was immediately conscious of an odor that was different from that of the rest of the house. This one room was not damp and musty like the others, but carried a familiar scent that I couldn’t quite place.

  Lori sniffed the air. “Smells like Nona’s sandalwood candles. Someone’s been over here. There’s no electricity in the house now, so it’s dark. But this is where our little ghost lives.”

  She tittered nervously, and I looked about the shadowy, wedge-shaped room. A couch stood against one wall, and various easy chairs, footstools, tables and taborets were set here and there in a rather haphazard manner. Pictures still crowded one inner wall that slanted toward the center of the pie.

  “This was Cecily’s sitting room,” Lori told me. “The bedroom she shared with Vinnie is through that door over there. And of course people say she still comes here and that she’ll haunt these rooms forever. Though I can’t see why, since she always hated the house. Anyway, this is the one part that Lu-Ellen won’t clean. Sometimes I come over and do it—just for Cecily. Because, after all, I can’t have my poor little great-grandmother living here in dust and cobwebs.”

  Lori went ahead of me into the room and opened a window that moved up easily enough upon fresh air and sunshine, as though it had been recently used. The shadows fled and dust motes danced in a gilded beam as Lori moved on about the room, opening a cabinet here, touching a finger to a marble tabletop there, pausing beside the couch.

  “You can see that Cecily’s been sleeping here,” she said.

  Startled, I glanced at the green coverlet on the one piece of furniture that was a modern anachronism. An indentation showed where a head might have lain on the pillow.

  “Ghosts hardly ever leave imprints like that,” I objected. “Perhaps it was Commodore.”

  Lori gave her odd little gurgle of a laugh. “No, I suppose it’s not very ghostly to dent pillows. It was probably Girl. He could have used the candles too, to freshen the air and give him light. I expect that’s why the front door was unlocked. Sometimes, since the fires began, Giff has stayed here overnight. Aside from the drawing room and library, there are only two rooms still furnished—this one and Great-grandpa Vinnie’s bedroom. Giff would certainly prefer Cecily’s company. He thought he could roam out from here and see who was starting the fires. You can view all of Belle Isle from the tower. I thought it was pretty
enterprising of him since he doesn’t usually make that much effort.”

  “Has he learned anything?”

  “I’m not sure. If he’s onto something he isn’t talking. I shouldn’t think he’d really want to know, since Uncle Eric, his father, will profit if Belle Isle reverts into his hands.”

  I asked my question quickly, to take her off guard. “Which side are you on—Trevor’s or your uncle’s?”

  She shrugged a careless response. “Maybe I’m not sure. Anyway, it doesn’t matter anymore because it’s over now. Whoever set that last fire must have taken off pretty fast. He wouldn’t stay around for a murder charge.”

  “You said there was wickedness,” I reminded her. “What did David tell you?”

  Moving away from me on another circuit of the room, she touched an article absently here and there. Then she seemed to make up her mind and turned to face me.

  “He said that someone had been hired to damage Belle Isle houses. He said the man was a pro who had been brought in. Somebody named Bruen. Joe Bruen, I think.”

  “How could he know? Had he seen the man?”

  “He didn’t tell me that.”

  “Have you told this to Trevor?”

  “Trevor hasn’t asked me. He’s not interested in my conversations with David.”

  “But who hired this man? Did David tell you that?”

  “That’s the trouble—he didn’t. I think he knew, but he didn’t have enough proof. Maybe he found the proof. Maybe that’s why he was killed.”

  “That’s what I think,” I agreed. “But until we know who was behind this man—or find this Joe Bruen—”

  Lori gave me a quick, frightened look. “Leave it alone, Karen. David’s been killed, and whoever caused his death could be twice as dangerous now. I don’t think there will be any more fires, so just leave it alone. It would have been better if David had never come here. Though of course there are other possibilities. Trevor—”

  “You know Trevor wouldn’t harm Belle Isle!”

  “Oh, not at first. But he might if he could get rid of David. They always hated each other.”

  “I don’t believe that, and you don’t either. It was Trevor who asked him to come down here.”

  “How do you know what I believe?” She began to back away from me toward the door. “Just because you were in love with Trevor a long time ago doesn’t mean that you know him now. Oh, yes you were! David told me about that too. David told me a lot of things. About Trevor. And about you.”

  “There was nothing to tell. I was barely sixteen when he used to come to see my father. He didn’t know I was alive.”

  She fumbled for the gold chain she wore at her throat and pulled out the ornament that dangled on it—concealed until now. “Do you see this?”

  As she held it up, I recognized the gold circlet. Not an ornament, but a ring with an empty setting. So Nona must have returned it to Lori.

  “I gave this to David!” she cried, and there was a kindling of excitement in her eyes that I didn’t like. “It came out of the ashes of that house, and now it’s all I have of him. You never really knew anything about either of them. Not about David—or about Trevor.”

  She was moving into excitement again and I could find no words to quiet her.

  Still backing toward the door, she made a quick, astounding move. She sprang through the opening, banged the door upon me and shot the bolt. I was locked in as Cecily had been, and I could hear Lori’s light gurgle of laughter beyond the heavy wooden panel.

  I wasn’t immediately frightened—only astonished and annoyed. This was a child’s trick, irresponsible, and I would not give Lori the satisfaction of rattling the door or commanding her to open it. When she found that I wasn’t going to respond in a satisfactory way, she would open it again, and I would ask her to take me back to the house. I’d had enough of Lori Andrews’ company, and I was beginning to realize that she hadn’t brought me here merely to take pictures.

  Out in the hall the silence was complete and I fancied that she must be standing close to the door, listening for any outcry from me. I swung my camera bag from my shoulder and set it on a small table. Then I went to the door of the adjoining bedroom and tried the knob. The door was locked, of course. Two wide windows looked out into the dark branches of hemlocks, and I knew that it was only now when the sun was high that light was able to fall into this room at all. It would be dark with shadow later on—and without electricity.

  Even from this second floor the ground seemed far away—much too far for climbing or jumping, had I been so inclined. But there was no need. This was a waiting game, and after a while Lori would tire of it. In the meantime I might as well amuse myself by examining Cecily’s hideaway. Or prison.

  As I moved about I made no effort to be quiet. Let Lori deduce what she could from any sounds I made. Near the couch where Giff might have slept, I found that a bedroom item had been brought into the sitting room. On a low commode had been set an old-fashioned washbasin and pitcher—white with large blue flowers. Beside it rested a clean towel and a used cake of soap. Undoubtedly water had been turned off in the house as well as light, but there was water in the pitcher, so Giff must indeed have been using this room. Here, at least, was something I could do.

  I poured water into the basin and washed my face as well as I could manage without a mirror, and scrubbed my hands thoroughly. The odor still clung to my smudged clothes, but at least I felt cleaner.

  Now I could continue my examination of the room. The spread of photographs on one wall drew me and I crossed the faded Aubusson carpet to look at them. There were several pictures of a young man, probably in his late twenties, dressed in the mode of the well-to-do of his day—frock coat, watch chain, gold fob and all. Vincent Fromberg undoubtedly, in the early days of his burgeoning business ventures. That must have been shortly before he had married the girl who appeared in several of the pictures.

  Cecily at seventeen, when she had come to this house, was a gentle beauty with dark hair and lustrous dark eyes that not even the photography of that day could quench. In one picture she looked up adoringly at her taller husband, but mostly she was pictured alone in rather artificial poses. Theatrical poses. I was especially fascinated by a profile portrait in which she sat in a carved chair, with a garland of flowers across her knees, her gaze upon a very artificial crescent moon, her costume in the Grecian style of Isadora Duncan.

  I bent to look at the printing across the lower corner of one picture and saw that it had been taken by a theatrical photographer. As a young and beautiful girl, Cecily had been on the stage. Poor young thing. Even if she had married for love and not wealth, to be brought like a captive to this island and buried alive in such a mausoleum was hardly a happy fate.

  The turn of my own thoughts was unfortunate. Being buried alive was not something I wanted to think about right now. Time was passing, and apprehension began to grow in me. Surely Lori wouldn’t carry this small trick too far. Moving more nervously now, I returned to the window, but I could see nothing except trees and a space of ground immediately below. Lori’s car was out of sight on the other side of the house and we had walked quite a distance from it.

  At least there were sounds from far away that told me that I was not wholly isolated. Across the lake that I couldn’t see, workmen were making the sounds of their craft as the building of Belle Isle houses continued. If I became desperate I could at least shout for help and someone would surely hear.

  A sound reached me that was closer than the noise of construction—the sound of a car starting, moving away over the rough road that led to the causeway. So Lori had abandoned me. This was carrying her joke too far! Or was it merely a childish prank? Was Lori driven by something more spiteful, more dangerous and unpredictable than I had been willing to face?

  Now I had no hesitation about rattling the door. I even flung my body against the bolted panel that shut me in, and only a bruised shoulder jarred a little sense into me. Losing my head wasn’t
going to help.

  Was there any tool to be found in the room? Any instrument that I might use to break through the panel? I was no wilting Cecily to take my imprisonment without fighting back, but I must do it sensibly. Of course Cecily had fought too, in her own sad way—eventually. I wondered where she had died. Had she flung herself from the high tower at the top of this house? How old had her daughter been at that time? How old had Cecily been? Lori had said she would show me where it had happened, but a more intriguing form of amusement had offered itself, obviously.

  I wondered if Lori had planned from the first to bring me here and shut me in. Somehow I didn’t think so. More likely, it had been a spur-of-the-moment impulse.

  Nothing offered itself immediately as a means of attacking the door, and I returned to my exploration. The double doors of a wardrobe pulled open easily, revealing only a storm lantern on the floor inside, a box of kitchen matches and several candles. I sniffed at one and wrinkled my nose at the scent of sandalwood. I hoped I would need none of these.

  Near the double windows stood a small desk, where Cecily might once have sat writing notes to her friends—if she had been allowed to keep any friends.

  I sat down in the small chair with its faded upholstery, and began to open drawers idly. All were empty. Not even a scrap of notepaper remained that might be of interest.

  As I studied the cubbyholes above, equally unrewarding, I rested my hands on the old-fashioned blotting pad. Its corners were tucked into a leather holder and the green blotter under my fingers bore faded traces of brownish ink. For want of anything else to do, I examined them. The script was in reverse, of course, and most of the blottings I couldn’t make out. Spelling backward, one word seemed to be “lonesome,” and another looked as though it might be “desperate.”