Dead and Breakfast

by David Crossman

  Caitlin shook her head. “Me, too. But Mrs. Wagner says she saw him go out while they were playing cards.”

  Jill looked at the clock. “He usually goes out to smoke a cigar after dinner, but that was nearly two hours ago. He came in again after that.” She got up from the table and began a mental inventory of her preparations for breakfast.

  “Go on and say it,” said Caitlin.

  “Say what?” Jill avoided eye contact.

  “Worse luck.”

  “Caitlin!” Jill gasped in mock surprise. “I’m shocked to hear you say such a thing – and about a paying client, no less! Everyone has some redeeming quality . . . even Mr. Farthing. At least one. Somewhere. We just have to dig a bit to find it. Besides, I’m sure you’ll find he’s safe in his room. Mrs. Wagner simply mightn’t have seen him come back in, especially if he used the tower door.”

  She squeezed Caitlin’s shoulders, but there was no response.

  “Cait? What is it?”

  Caitlin shook her head. “This has been the longest, strangest day of my life. Bodies in the moat; that whole tragic story about Amber’s sister; the Peeping Toms; Farthing missing . . . ”

  “He’s in bed,” Jill stated flatly. “I’m sure of it.”

  Caitlin ignored her. “Not to mention this murderer of girlfriends still loose in the countryside. It’s all just too . . . bizarre.” She laughed. “Things like this don’t happen in my life. I’m just a country girl from Stow-on-the-Wold.”

  Jill hugged her around the neck. “I’m sure everything will sort itself out come morning. Once you’re out in your element – terrorizing the flora and fauna with your Kodak.”

  “Pentax,” Caitlin corrected. “That’s another thing! Somebody seems to have stolen Mrs. Griffeth’s film.”

  “Stolen it? From where?”

  “From her camera.”

  The small reserve of optimism that had kept Jill afloat for two very trying days leaked out of her balloon, depositing her urgently beside her friend. “Where was the camera?” she asked, not wanting to know the answer.

  “I hate to say it,” said Caitlin truthfully, “but she thinks someone got into her room.” She explained about the footprints on the carpet.

  This information cut Jill to the heart. “We’ve run this place nearly nine years now, and no one has ever had anything stolen. Never!”

  “It was only a roll of film,” Caitlin said feebly.

  “That’s not the point, and you know it,” said Jill heatedly. “It’s about trust. People can lock their doors if they want to, but I need to know they don’t have to. I need to know they can leave anything, no matter how invaluable or inconsequential, lying about anywhere, and that’s just where they’ll find it. It’s always been that way. That’s why Joe and I came here from Plymouth, to see if we couldn’t carve out one little island of sanity in a world where people can’t be trusted.”

  There was a deeper story there, but Caitlin didn’t pry. Jill was clearly exhausted; her emotions very near the surface. She patted her hand and lied. “Then again, maybe she imagined the whole thing. She was hoping to get pictures of fairies yesterday morning.”

  “That is silly,” said Jill. She got up and closed the pass-through to the dining room, invariably her last chore before retiring for the night. “Everyone knows the fairies only come out at night.”

  She clicked off the light, plunging the kitchen into darkness. “There was nothing else missing?”

  “Not that she can tell,” said Caitlin. She got up and pushed open the dining room door. They walked through.

  “Why the film?”

  “Good question,” said Caitlin softly. “Speaking of Mrs. Griffeth, she’s been having trouble with her glasses. Is there anyplace she can get the frames tightened?”

  “There’s a place in Breteneau where Joe gets his reading glasses. They’d probably be able to fix them. Have her give them to Genevieve in the morning. She’ll run them over.”

  Caitlin glanced at her watch. “I could sleep ‘til noon.”

  “Don’t even say it,” Jill moaned. She shut off the light over the wine cabinet, that, in a concession to her husband’s fondness for architectural oddities, doubled as the door to her bedroom. “I swear the sun rises earlier here than anywhere else in the world. Good night. I’m not going to think about any of this now. Tomorrow, when we’ve had a good night’s sleep behind us, then we’ll make sense of it.”

  “I’m sure you’re right,” said Caitlin, who wasn’t sure at all.

  “I am. Latch the tower door on your way up, will you?”

  “Sure thing,” said Caitlin.

  Resting her head against the doorjamb, in an attitude of sheer exhaustion, Jill sighed. “The woman brushes her carpet . . . ”

  “Goodnight, Jill.”

  “Goodnight, Cait.”

  Jill closed her bedroom door, leaving Caitlin alone in relative darkness. Despite an almost numbing fatigue, she wasn’t ready for bed. Too many things had happened, none of which yielded to easy resolution, and Caitlin – a fixer by natural inclination – was frustrated.

  Even more unnerving was a terrible, inexplicable sense of foreboding that worse was yet to come.

  All that remained of the fire a half-hour later were fringes of sparks trimming a jumble of ashes. The warmth, too, had gone, and it was a shiver that shook Caitlin from her contemplations. She blinked away a gathering miasma of useless speculation and rose to go to bed when the distinctive squeal of the tower door arrested her in mid-stride.

  She held her breath; surely it must be Farthing and, though it would be reassuring for purely practical reasons to know he was safely under the roof, she definitely didn’t want to see him . . . or let him see her.

  She waited to see where he would go, and her breath congealed in her throat when the doorknob rattled softly, and the door opened an inch or two.

  Backlit by the night light at the foot of the tower stairs, the man’s silhouette was barely discernible in the narrow slit of light. Could he see her? She doubted it, but if he should reach in and flip the light switch . . .

  The door swung silently shut. Caitlin exhaled and her heart, which had nearly stopped, rattled her ribs like a caged animal.

  Quietly, she removed her shoes and opened the door, straining to hear footsteps receding up the stairs. Suddenly the knob turned in her hand, and the door flew open, missing her head by a whisker as she dodged aside.

  Chapter Nine–Words with the Castle Ghost

  “Good heavens, Caitlin. Is that you?” Piper’s unmistakable baritone, diminished not one iota by his garish green pajamas and brown slippers, boomed throughout the chateau. “What are you doing here in the dark, girl? You could trip over something and break your neck.” He slapped at the wall to his right and flicked the switch. The room exploded with light, shafts of which went straight to Caitlin’s over tired brain.

  “There! Now,” said Piper, rubbing his hands together vigorously. “I suppose Jill’s hit the sack?”

  “Yes,” Caitlin replied in a whisper, hoping Piper would modulate his tone accordingly.

  “Damn. I want a snack,” Piper bellowed, unmodulated and unbowed. “You don’t suppose she’d get her knickers in a twist if I helped myself to a cheese sandwich, do you?”

  “Mr. Piper, you had a huge dinner not two and a half hours ago.” Having regained her composure somewhat, Caitlin took Piper by the elbow and, rotating him back in the direction from which he’d come, turned off the light and closed the door behind them. “Jill has cleaned up and, believe me, she doesn’t like anyone in her kitchen.” She prodded him gently toward the stairs.

  Piper looked like he was about to say ‘damn’ again, but ultimately returned it to his quiver for use at a later date. Probably not that much later. “I don’t suppose there’s a vending machine hiding around the place anywhere. I’d pay ten bucks for one of those little packs of peanut butter crackers . . . or Oreos. No,” he amended on second thought. “You have to have milk
with Oreos.”

  “I’m afraid you’re out of luck,” Caitlin replied in her most sisterly manner. He permitted himself to be led a few steps up the stairs, which he climbed morosely, like a child being sent to bed without his supper.

  He hadn’t taken three steps when he turned suddenly and faced her, the gleam of inspiration in his eyes. “Did you eat the mint on your pillow this morning?”

  “Yes,” said Caitlin, and added a little more cruelly than necessary, “It was the best mint I ever had.”

  Piper was not easily deterred. “I bet Miss Tichyara didn’t eat hers.” He rose another step or two. Caitlin was immediately behind him now, propelled upward by the vivid image of Piper bursting into Miss Tichyara’s room demanding her mint.

  “What made you think of that?”

  “Simple. She’s blind, couldn’t see the damn thing,” said Piper, reduced by circumstances to brutal logic.

  “Mr. Piper! I’m sure Miss Tichyara is dead to the world, and has been for some time. I wouldn’t wake her unless the house was on fire.”

  Just then Jill opened the door behind them, yawning as she tied her bathrobe. “Caitlin? Mr. Piper? Anything wrong?”

  “You go back to bed, Jill,” Caitlin commanded.

  “But, if she’s awake . . . ”

  “Mr. Piper!” Caitlin turned to Jill and toddled off with her fingers. “You go back to bed this instant. Mr. Piper simply lost his way, and I can direct him back to his room.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “Well,” Jill was in no mood to argue. She obeyed.

  “I wouldn’t have to wake Miss Tichyara,” said Piper as they reached the top of the stairs.

  “Mr. Piper!”

  “She’s a sound sleeper, even slept through the racket that Capshaw woman made this morning. Wouldn’t take five seconds to nip in and out . . . ”

  “You’ll do no such thing,” Caitlin forbad flatly, not entirely certain whether or not Piper was joking, though he continued a pretty convincing hangdog performance all the way to his door. With a lost, forlorn look toward the door of the sleeping Miss Tichyara, and another futile appeal to Caitlin, he entered his room.

  Caitlin waited until Piper’s door latched, then flew silently to the circular hall at the foot of the stairs. She aimed her flashlight at the floor and turned it on. Leading from the exterior door to the small cloakroom alcove, separated from the wider world by an old chintz curtain in burgundy and gold, was a set of damp footprints.

  Her heart thudded apprehensively in her chest, and she was seized by a single sustained violin note of suspense as she reached out and took a fold of the curtain in her trembling hand. Despite her better judgment, which was screaming at her in several languages to get a grip and get out, she tore the curtain aside and stabbed the darkness with the intrusive beam of her flashlight.

  ‘What in hell are you playing at, Farthing?’ The words were wound tight on her tongue and ready to be sprung when she realized that the jacket to which she was going to direct them was empty, hanging from a hook on the rear wall. Apart from two folded umbrellas, a pair of rubber waders, and a pink and white-striped raincoat, it was the only occupant of the closet.

  As if not willing to trust her eyes, she frisked the walls. While the thought of a secret passage occurred to her, there were several in the place that Jill had shown her over the years, she decided that was unlikely. Besides, all that had been found had been sealed off. The rear wall was shared with the dining room, the left wall was also the exterior wall, and on the right the underside of the spiral stairs formed both wall and, as it fanned overhead, ceiling of the closet.

  Once again she directed the flashlight at the floor. The damp footsteps were perfectly clear, but only entering the closet, not leaving. Yet, no one was there. She put her foot beside one of the prints for comparison. It was several sizes larger. Definitely a man’s. The tread was distinctive, and she was sure she could recognize it if she could somehow make a study of people’s shoes without drawing attention to the fact.

  Unfortunately, subtlety, she had been told by those who knew her best, was not one of her virtues.

  If the prints were Farthing’s, and she had little doubt they were, then whatever he’d been doing skulking around Quercy in the middle of the night, he had returned safely. It occurred to her that he might easily have stepped into the closet, removed his shoes and turned into a bat. It was supposed to be a joke, but all the talk of murder and fairies and bodies in the moat of the ancient chateau made it somehow unfunny.

  Removed his shoes! Of course. Farthing, or whomever it was, had come in, gone to the closet, taken off their shoes, perhaps put on a pair of slippers they’d secreted there for the purpose, and gone up to bed. Mystery solved.

  “Elementary, my dear Watson,” Caitlin said, chiding herself as she locked the garden door and climbed the stairs.

  The hallway was lit by a dim cluster of bulbs in a sconce between the windows at the far end. A sliver of light under Farthing’s door as she tiptoed by in her stocking feet assured her that the bat had come home to roost – or whatever it was bats did. No doubt he was hanging comfortably from the rafters by this time. The only other rooms similarly lit were her own and Joanna Capshaw’s.

  Caitlin by-passed her own room a few steps, then stopped, battling a strong compulsion to rap on Mrs. Capshaw’s door and get her side of the story.

  The amenuensis of her subconscious hastily scripted the scene: ‘Well, Mrs. Capshaw . . . what’s this about bodies in the moat? Are you nuts? Tell me about your dead daughter.’

  So much for artifice and cunning.

  Caitlin had taken an unwitting step or two toward Mrs. Capshaw’s room, but so loud was her interior soliloquy she didn’t hear the floorboards creaking beneath her weight. She had just decided to mind her own business and go to bed when Joanna Capshaw’s door opened a few inches, then stopped at the end of the lock-chain. “Who’s there?” Her shadow against the dim light of the room, the thin, firm neck and diminutive chin, the slightly upturned nose and broad, smooth forehead could have belonged to a twenty year-old; her voice alone betrayed her.

  “It’s me, Mrs. Capshaw . . . Caitlin,” she whispered, leaning toward the door. “I’m just making sure everyone’s settled before I turn in. Are you all right? Is there anything you need?”

  There was a long pause, during which the shadow on the wall did not move.

  “Joanna?”

  “Caitlin?” the woman replied, as if she had just put a face to the voice. She undid the chain and opened the door just enough to expose a perplexed eye. “Who else?”

  “No one,” Caitlin said flatly. She smiled and gestured expansively at the empty hall.

  “I thought I heard voices.” The door opened a little more. Caitlin wanted to be comforting. “Oh, that was probably Mr. Piper and me. A few minutes ago, we . . . ”

  “Women’s voices,” Caitlin interrupted.

  Instantly, Caitlin was reminded of the girls voices she had heard outside her door.

  “I thought it might have been Amber and . . . ” Mrs. Capshaw didn’t complete the thought.

  “And who, Mrs. Capshaw?”

  The door closed suddenly. Silently. Despite her exhaustion, Caitlin wasn’t going to let the interview end without a fight. She stepped quickly to the door, placed her hands on it and, speaking in hushed but urgent tones through the crack, said: “Mrs. Capshaw.” A quick glance up the hall showed that Farthing had turned off his light. “Joanna? Please . . . ”

  The light scuff of slippers on stone told her Mrs. Capshaw was just on the other side of the door, listening. “Joanna? What’s the matter? Let me help.”

  An interminable moment etched itself on the silence, during which the chateau sighed a chorus of distant creaks and groans as it settled down for the night. Caitlin had grown up in old houses and was used to such sounds, but these, amplified by her fatigue and sense of foreboding, seemed sinister and threatening. Unb
idden, her imagination conjured the image of spectral hands reaching out to seize her by the neck, damp fingers leaving a trail of moisture on her throat. She broke out in goosebumps. “Mrs. Capshaw,” she repeated sharply. “Isn’t there anything I can do?”

  From the other side came a soft, indiscernible response.

  “Beg pardon? I couldn’t hear you.” Caitlin alternately applied her lips and her ear to the crack.

  “Don’t let morning come.”

  Caitlin could feel the warm breath that carried the startling plea. Given what Amber had said, she felt she understood their meaning.

  “Would you like to sleep in my room tonight?” It was the last thing Caitlin wanted, but whatever comfort she could offer this woman, who was clearly at her wits end, was of far greater importance than any inconvenience to herself.

  The door opened as abruptly as it closed. This time Mrs. Capshaw’s face, haggard with anxiety, her eyes set in bruise-colored pockets of exhaustion, was only inches from her own. “Yes,” she said softly. Caitlin’s heart sank with the prospect of a sleepless night, and Farthing in the morning.

  “Good,” she lied as warmly as possible. “Get whatever you need. Can I help?”

  Mrs. Capshaw stood away from the door and it swung open of its own volition, revealing herself dressed in layers, as Amber had said, and a room that was a shambles of her personal belongings.

  The floor was strewn with wads of used tissues, clothing had been deposited haphazardly on every available surface. In the washroom – to her left – Caitlin’s attention was drawn by a persistent dripping to the sink, which was filled with cold water. Joanna caught her curious eye as she returned gripping her pillow. “It’s for my headaches,” she explained. “I soak my head in cold water. It’s the only thing that helps.”

  Caitlin shivered involuntarily. The thought of sticking her head in a basin of ice-cold water, in a place where the fireplaces generated far more light than heat, made her queasy. She clutched her collar tightly around her neck and, taking Joanna by the hand, guided her to her room.

  “You don’t mind sharing a bed?” said Caitlin, half-hoping she would protest. She opened her bedroom door.