by Byars, Betsy
She could smell fresh air, and she knew that this door led to the outside. She pushed. The door resisted. She pushed again, and this time the door yielded a few inches.
She could see two inches of daylight. She inhaled the sweet air of afternoon.
She could see now that this door had not been used in a long time—years, perhaps. Leaves and dirt had built up against it. She put her shoulder to it, and the door creaked open a few more inches.
One more shove, and she was out.
She paused. Now she was clearheaded, and she had her first thought worthy of a girl named Herculeah. She thought, Why didn’t I think to bring the knife? It has the murderer’s fingerprints on it. Now Mathias King has time to get rid of it.
From the top of the stairs came a faraway but plaintive cry. “Come back. Oh, my dear, please come back.”
“Yeah, right, come back and let you make a sacrifice out of me.”
Going back for the knife was not an option. Getting out of here as fast as possible was.
She ran around the house. She knew she could get to her bicycle before Mathias King could get down the stairs and out the front door.
She grabbed her bike on the run, kicked up the stand, and took off down the drive.
“Wait! Wait!” Mathias King called after her, but she was already on the street.
At the head of the stairs, Mathias King turned and went back into the Den of Iniquity. He took in the damage.
The velvet curtains had been pulled down with such force that there were tears from the hooks. The door, which had stood undamaged for a hundred and fifty years, was ruined. The mark of Herculeah’s boot was indented deeply in the wood.
“Oh, my dear,” he said to the empty stairway. “The candles of tranquility didn’t make you very tranquil, did they?”
And he went around the Den of Iniquity, blowing out the candles one by one.
25
BACK TO THE DEN OF INIQUITY
Herculeah took the bike trail through the park on the way home. She took it because it was quicker, but also because she feared that Mathias King might try to follow her in the hearse.
When she got home, she put her bike in the garage and started up the steps.
The phone began to ring. She knew it would be Meat calling to find out how the afternoon had gone. She knew he would be watching from the front window, so she took her time opening the door and going inside.
When she picked up the phone, she was surprised to hear Gilda’s voice.
“Oh, I’m so glad I got you,” Gilda said. “I just went by Rebecca’s house and there was a SOLD sign in the yard. I called the realtor on my cell phone and guess what?”
“Gilda—”
“It’s been bought by someone who’s going to turn it into a bed-and-breakfast! Isn’t that wonderful? Now it will be a happy house again with—”
“Gilda!” This time her voice was so forceful that Gilda stopped.
“Is anything wrong?”
“Yes, I’m just back from Mathias King’s house.”
“You went there?”
Somehow Herculeah got the feeling Gilda wasn’t that surprised.
“Yes. He’s got a room called the Den of Iniquity, and in that room is the very knife that killed your friend.”
There was a silence that continued so long Herculeah said, “Are you still there?”
“Yes.”
“I was locked in the room with the knife and I had to break my way out. I was all the way outside before I realized that I should have brought the knife with me. Why did I leave it? Now Mathias King can get rid of it, and we have no proof he was the murderer.”
“We have to go back and get it.”
“No, he’s in the house.”
“I’ll call him on my cell phone and see if he’s there.”
“I know the number,” Herculeah said. “I remember it from the invitation.”
She gave Gilda the number and waited while the phone rang on and on at One Kings Row.
“He’s not there. This is our chance.”
“I don’t know about this.”
“Can you get us inside the—what was it? Den of Iniquity.”
“If that outside door’s still open.”
“Let’s find out. I’m not far from your house. I’ll pick you up.”
“I just need to leave a note for my mom.”
Herculeah wasn’t sure this was a good idea, but she didn’t have a better one. So when Gilda honked her horn, she ran out and got in the car.
They drove quickly to Mathias King’s street with Herculeah pointing the way.
“You can’t see the house from here,” Herculeah said at the entrance to Kings Row. “Park here and let’s slip through the trees.”
They went through the trees together, keeping out of sight.
“The hearse is gone,” Herculeah said. “It was parked right there.”
“Then let’s go.”
“But what if he moved the hearse, put it in a garage or something, and is in the house waiting for us?” Herculeah said.
“We’ll take that chance.”
Herculeah had pretty much taken all the chances she wanted to for one day, but she led Gilda around the side of the house.
“The door’s still open.”
“We’re going to get that knife,” Gilda said.
As they walked toward the door, Herculeah said, “I don’t understand why a house would have stairs leading outside.”
“Oh, it’s not strange at all. Victorian gentlemen were very secretive—didn’t want their wives to know their comings and goings. They’d go into the room, ask not to be disturbed, and go out carousing. You lead the way up the stairs.”
“The stairs are steep. Be careful.”
Herculeah wasn’t as afraid with Gilda on her side. That woman was very strong. She had seen that in Tai Chi class.
The door at the head of the stairs was as Herculeah had left it. She slipped through and stepped over the fallen curtain. Gilda followed.
“Now, where’s the knife? Where’s the knife?” Gilda said.
“On the middle table.”
They walked to the table, and Gilda froze.
“That is the knife, isn’t it?” Herculeah asked.
“It’s the knife.”
She looked closely at Gilda. Gilda was very pale. It was as if all the blood had drained from her head.
“Are you all right? You look like you’re going to faint. Don’t faint, because I could never get you and the knife back down those stairs.”
Gilda didn’t answer.
“We shouldn’t have come. It’s too much for you to see the actual knife—”
As if in a trance, Gilda stretched out her hand toward the knife.
“Don’t pick it up,” Herculeah said.
But Gilda paid no attention to Herculeah’s warning. Her hand hovered over the knife.
Herculeah said, “No! No! You’ll mess up the fingerprints. You’ll ruin everything.”
“Don’t worry about that, Herculeah.”
Herculeah glanced around the tabletops, looking for something. She said, “We need to get something firm—this manuscript cover ought to do it. I’ll slide this under the knife and the scarf. We won’t even fold the scarf over the knife. We don’t want to do anything that would erase Mathias King’s print.”
“You don’t have to worry about his prints.” “But that’s the whole reason we’re here—to get Mathias King’s fingerprints on the knife.”
“You won’t find Mathias King’s prints on the knife.”
“Why?”
“Because the prints on the handle of the knife are not his.”
“Then whose?”
Gilda turned and looked at Herculeah. Her face was still pale, but in the vague light that filtered through the open doorway, her eyes burned with the intensity Herculeah had last seen in the library of the murder house.
It was as if a mask had slipped from her face, and Herculeah’s blood
froze at what was revealed.
“The fingerprints on the knife,” she said, “are mine.”
26
THE HEARSE
“Could you tell me what a hearse is doing in front of the Jones’s house?”
“A hearse?”
Meat went to the window. You could count on this happening. You stood at the window staring at nothing for an hour, then you went to the refrigerator for ten or fifteen minutes and a hearse drove up.
“It was here the other day, too,” Meat’s mother said as he joined her at the window. “A man got out—a very suspicious-looking man, I might add. He was all in black.”
“Mathias King,” Meat whispered.
“He went up the steps, dropped something in the mail slot, and left.”
“Has he gotten out of the hearse today?”
“He went up the steps, rang the bell, got no answer, and got back in the hearse. He’s still there.”
Now Meat could see Mathias King’s profile in the front seat of the hearse. He was staring straight ahead.
“I don’t like it,” Meat’s mother said. “It gives the street a bad name. It’s as if the man’s waiting for someone to die.”
“I’ll find out what’s going on,” Meat said.
“I’ll go with you.”
“I’ll do this myself.”
He spoke so manfully that his mother nodded. Meat went out the door alone, crossed the street, and rapped on the window.
Mathias King rolled down the window and stared up at Meat with his black eyes.
“What are you doing here?” Meat asked bluntly.
“I’m waiting for Herculeah.”
“Why?”
“Oh, dear. She was at my house for tea and I scared the girl. I didn’t mean to. It was the last thing in the world I wanted to do. ”
Meat waited. He knew there was more.
“I get carried away. First I showed her the sacrificial altar. And I indicated—I didn’t insist—I just indicated that I wanted her to get on it. I felt it would inspire me.”
“And that scared her, so she left.”
“There’s more. Then we went in the Den of Iniquity, and I was explaining that she would be in my next mystery—she would be the next victim.”
“And that scared her, and she left.”
“There’s more. Then I locked her in the Den of Iniquity.”
“And that scared her and she left.”
“Hurriedly,” Mathias King said. He sighed. “I have to apologize to the girl. I really carried the whole thing too far.”
“I agree.”
“I thought she might be home by now. Maybe she is and she just won’t come to the door. Could you go up and try? She might open the door for you.”
“She’s not home.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know. A woman picked her up in her car about a half hour ago. They haven’t come back.”
“A woman?”
“Yes.”
Mathias King’s eyes sharpened. “What did she look like?”
“Well, I couldn’t see much—she didn’t get out of the car—but she had white hair, and it was cut sort of like a monk’s.”
“Herculeah’s in danger. Get in.”
“In the hearse?”
“Get in! You want to save your friend’s life, don’t you?”
“That would make up for a lot,” Meat admitted.
“Then get in!”
27
THE SACRIFICIAL DAGGER
“Your fingerprints?” Herculeah asked. She didn’t want to believe it, but the crazed look on Gilda’s face made it true.
“Yes, my fingerprints.”
“Wait a minute. Are you saying your fingerprints are on the knife because ... because”—she could hardly get out the words—“because you killed her?”
“Yes.”
“You killed your friend.”
“Yes.”
“But why?”
“Do you remember when we were in Rebecca’s house? When we were leaving, I said that only a person who was insane could kill someone like Rebecca.”
“I remember.”
“Well, that’s what it was like—insanity. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t plan to kill her. I don’t even remember doing it.”
“How did it happen?”
Herculeah was relieved to see that Gilda had not actually picked up the knife, and had withdrawn her hand. Herculeah knew Gilda had murdered with that knife. Once it was in her hand, she wouldn’t hesitate to use it again.
She had to keep her talking. Maybe Mathias King would come home. Maybe something would happen. She knew she could always dart around Gilda and beat her to the stairs, but she would have to leave the knife! With the fingerprints!
“She was like a sister to you,” Herculeah said.
“Oh, yes. She was the older sister. She handed down her clothes to me. My mother was housekeeper there—did I mention that? I wore her cast-off clothes, and she never let me forget it. In front of our friends, she would say things like, ‘I always wore that blouse with the top buttons open. It showed off my gold chains.’ ”
“She doesn’t sound like much of a friend to me.”
“She was a very greedy girl. She had everything, but like so many greedy people, she wanted it all.”
“I don’t understand people like that.”
“If I got a friend, Rebecca would move heaven and earth to get the friend away from me. And she had the money to do it. I thought when we went to high school that I would be free of her. She was going to an expensive private school, but at the last minute, it was decided that I would attend the private school, too—it was a gift from her parents. My mother wouldn’t let me refuse—she said it would be ungrateful.”
Herculeah took a step backward, away from the table with the knife. Gilda followed, too intent on her story to notice she was being led away from her weapon.
“All my life it was like that. The first real happiness I had in life was at Magnolia Downs. I made real friends. I had a nickname for the first time in my life. I was Gilda. People liked me. I had my Tai Chi class.”
“But if you were so happy—”
Gilda interrupted. “I wasn’t going to be happy for long.”
“Why? What happened?”
“On that day—the day of the murder—Rebecca asked to see me. She said she had a surprise.
“I went and she was in the library at her desk. Spread out before her were papers.
“‘Look,’ she said. I walked around the desk and looked down.
“‘Isn’t it wonderful!’ she said. ‘I’m going to be at Magnolia Downs with you. I’ve bought the Magnolia suite. They’re renovating it for me. It has a lovely living room.’ She pointed to the picture of a beautiful, spacious room. She said, ‘I can have parties there, and—I was saving this for a surprise, but I have to tell you. It’s too good to keep. I’ve been taking Tai Chi classes. I have a private teacher and I’ve caught on so quickly I’ll be able to help you teach your classes.’
“And I remember nothing of the next few moments. I only know that I looked down and there was a knife in my hand and Rebecca had been stabbed—I had just stabbed her once—and she was dead.”
Herculeah took another measured step backward. She held her breath. Yes! Gilda followed.
“I ran out of the house. The knife was still in my hand, and I flung it aside. I got into my car and drove away. On the way home I lost control of the car and struck a tree. I wasn’t wearing a seat belt—I was too upset—and my face struck the steering wheel. When I got back to the Downs I was in shock, trembling, incoherent—and bloody. I got a lot of sympathy for my accident, and the nurse checked me into the infirmary at once.”
“Did the police come?”
“No, it wasn’t a serious accident.”
“I meant about the murder.”
“Rebecca’s body wasn’t discovered until Monday, when the maid arrived. From Friday till Monday I was in and
out of consciousness. I kept calling her name—Rebecca, Rebecca. And they tried to reach her—everyone at the Downs knew she was my best friend—but of course they couldn’t. I had such dreams that I actually believed the murder hadn’t happened.”
“Until the police came.”
“Yes, I knew what I’d done then, and I expected I would be arrested. My prints were on the knife, but that was the strange thing. They didn’t find the knife. I had thrown it on the lawn in full view of anyone who came up the walkway, but they didn’t find it.”
“And they never found it.”
“No. If they had, I would have been arrested.”
“But your clothes! Her blood must have been on your clothes. Didn’t the police ask about that?”
“By the time the police came to the Downs, the clothes had been washed, and all traces of blood—hers and mine—had disappeared.”
“That’s quite a story,” Herculeah said. “You got away with murder.”
“Not yet I haven’t. That’s why I’m here.”
Herculeah’s hair was beginning to frizzle. That meant the danger was real.
“I’m going to take the knife”—she glanced back to the table where it lay—“I’m going to wipe off my prints, and put it where it will be sure to be found.”
“Like where?” Herculeah asked.
She didn’t like the look on Gilda’s face. It was as if another person had taken over her body, her mind. Her eyes glowed with madness.
Like in my chest? Herculeah thought. Surely not.
“Then I will depart—alone—and your body will be found in Mathias King’s Den of Iniquity, and he will be the prime suspect.”
Herculeah glanced aside. Now she was beside the last table. And there was the sacrificial dagger that Mathias King had hoped to embed in her chest.
“You’re not going to stab me with that little letter opener,” Herculeah said with a loud, scornful laugh. Startled, Gilda turned to look at her. “Sure it worked last time, but your friend was unarmed. And I’m not unarmed. I’ve got a dagger.”
She picked up the sacrificial dagger and waved it in Gilda’s face. Gilda’s fevered eyes followed every movement.
When she goes for the dagger and tries to stab me, I’m throwing her to the floor, grabbing the murder knife, and I’m outta here, Herculeah thought.
