Body In The Belfry ff-1

by Katherine Hall Page

  This was something Faith did know. " Oh, so she kept her maiden name ? "

  “Yes, she was always known as Persis Dudley, never Persis Cox, although the children were named Cox.

  “And of course there was her will. Really she was quite advanced for her time. The money was left in trust to the women in the family for five generations. She thought men could make their own money and by leaving money to the women of the family she would give them some independence. She hoped that after five generations women would have the same opportunities as men and the stipulation wouldn 't be necessary."

  “ So when she died the estate passed to her daughters and not her sons ? "

  “Well, there weren 't any sons and I have the feeling that if there had been, Captain Cox might not have agreed to have his hard-earned money left the way it was, but yes, it went to the eldest daughter. He did insist that the estate not be split up. He made provisions for each, but the bulk went to Harriet, lucky girl. There 's a chapter on the will and its meaning for women in her book. She was, of course, pretty enthusiastic about the idea."

  “I'd like to read the books, Peg, could you tell me where they are ? "

  “ Of course," and she led Faith to a shelf set aside for local history.

  “Now that 's odd. I saw them both just the other day when I was shelving some other books and now it seems they're out. Let me just double-check that, Faith.”

  Peg went to the desk and Faith sat down to wait, quite disappointed. This had been her big brainstorm and she wasn't sure what she would do next. Although aside from the will, there didn 't seem to be much more to mine in stories about ocean voyages or reprints of women's rights speeches.

  Peg was back in minutes, "I'm afraid you're out of luck. They have both been checked out, but I can put a reserve on them for you."

  “Thank you very much, Peg, I'd appreciate that.”

  Faith left the library and slowly walked down the wide front stairs to the street. So somebody else was interested in Patricia and Cindy 's roots. Who could it possibly be ?

  She walked along Main Street toward the green and thought about begging Millicent to lend her her copies, but she knew just what would happen. She, Faith, would grovel all over the threadbare Orientals and Millicentwould find a way to say "No" with the suggestion in her voice that it was because Faith would break the bindings or spill jam all over the pages.

  Faith looked across the Green and tried to decide what to do next. As if in reply, Eleanor Whipple 's house snapped into focus and Faith realized she could ask her if she had copies of the books. Eleanor was related to Patricia somehow and perhaps it was on the Cox-Dudley side. And if that didn 't work out, she would have to go into town to the Massachusetts Historical Society or Boston Public Library.

  It was a beautiful day and Faith strolled across the green basking in the late afternoon sun. She took a deep breath of Aleford fresh air as she crossed the street to Eleanor's. Missing the crunch of people on the crowded sidewalks of Manhattan—and the store windows everyone was trying to look at—she still felt a surge of wellbeing. She would have to be careful, she realized. Aleford was growing on her. Like some tenacious lichen.

  She walked down the front path and climbed the stairs to Eleanor's porch. In the summer, one pot of red geraniums stood neatly at the end of each step with two Bar Harbor rockers facing each other in unvarying positions on either side of the front door. All these things were presumably spending the winter in Eleanor's potting shed to appear like clockwork on the first of May.

  Faith didn't doubt that Eleanor was home, probably working on one of her projects for the church fair. She didn 't go out much, just to church and occasionally to a friend's. Eleanor didn 't drive, but then Faith knew quite a few New Yorkers who had never learned either. The reason was the same—they didn't need to. Eleanor walked to the center every day or so and bought her groceries at the Shop and Save. Faith had never heard her talk about buying clothes. They looked like they had grown on her and Faith imagined she just replenished them with similar ones from the trunks in her attic, adding a little of her own tatted lace here and there, those "touches of white at the throat and cuffs" so beloved of ladies of a certain class and age. Every few months someone drove her to the hairdresser's for the permanent that kept her short white hair in soft ringlets. Faith thought of her as a very old lady, but as she rang the bell, she realized Eleanor might not be that old, probably not much older than Aunt Chat. It was all in the way one dressed. Faith gave a small interior nod as one of her most basic beliefs was yet again confirmed.

  Eleanor answered the door immediately.

  “ Faith—and Benjamin—this is a nice surprise ! Come in and have a cup of tea with me.”

  Eleanor was so glad to see them that Faith felt a twinge of guilt at not coming more often.

  Poor soul, she's probably very lonely, she thought as she followed her down the hall.

  Eleanor brushed aside Faith's offer to help and told her to make herself comfortable in the parlor instead. " I won 't be a moment, dear.”

  Faith sat down, glad to loosen the Snugli. She suspected Benjamin might be getting ready to cut his first tooth. He had been drooling a little more than usual lately and was apt to get fussy if moved from one comfortable position to another not immediately rewarding, so she kept him on her lap and let her eyes wander around the room. Eleanor's parlor was a little like the Moores' in that you felt nothing that entered the house had ever gone out again. The big difference was in the kinds of things that came in. Where Patricia's sideboard held a well-rubbed and often used Georgian silver tea service, Rose Medallion bowls, and a bevy of Battersea boxes, Eleanor's Victorian veneer table set in front of the bay window held a few large pieces of cut glass and a small case of what looked like some souvenir spoons fromvacations long past. An intricate arrangement of wax flowers and stuffed birds in gravity-defying poses beneath a huge glass dome stood in solitary splendor on a marble-topped sideboard. There was a slightly pathetic dignity to the room. It tried very hard and sought to cover up any mistakes with antimacassars and embroidered centerpieces.

  A bookcase that looked to be the major repository of the Whipple book collection stood against one wall. Advice on gardening elbowed Hawthorne and Thoreau. There was an exhaustive edition of Joseph C. Lincoln, which looked well read, and scores of old children's books. Between Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and Lad, a Dog, was The Ship Captain's Daughter.

  Faith felt a little thrill of discovery. She called out to Eleanor, " May I look at one of your books?”

  “Certainly," she replied, "help yourself. We're almost ready. I don't know why it should be true that a watched pot won 't boil, but it is. I hope Lapsang Souchong is all right ? "

  “Yes, of course," she answered, shivering slightly, because it wasn 't. She knew she would never be able to drink the tea without thinking of Patricia.

  While she was waiting, Faith stood up and took the book from the shelf. She was just opening it when Eleanor appeared carrying a tray with the tea things. By now Faith had mastered the art of managing the tea strainer, hot water pitcher and all the accoutrements that accompanied tea in Aleford. At first she had tended to make a cup that was either hot water or pure tannic acid.

  Eleanor put the tray on the table in front of Faith. "Would you like me to hold Benjamin while you pour yourself a cup ? That way you can make it the way you like it."

  “Thank you." Faith smiled and started to close the book she had been holding when her gaze was pulled down sharply by the frontispiece. It was a reproduction of the three ship paintings that hung in the hallway at the Moores'. The Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria, Patricia had said they called them when they were children. But that wasn't what they were called at all. No, they were the Harriet, the Elnora, and the Rose. Another rose. And Elnora. Another Eleanor Eleanor Whipple was looking at her speculatively. Faith felt suddenly uneasy. This wasn 't Peg Bartlett's genial musing, but more like the look a poker player casts across the tabl
e before asking for a card.

  She's wondering what I have in my hand, Faith thought in surprise.

  “I see you've been looking at Aunt Hattie 's book," Eleanor said carefully.

  “Aunt Hattie's book?" Faith countered.

  “Why, yes. Harriet Cox Eliot was my aunt.”

  The whole thing is going to be clear in a moment, Faith thought, but I'm not sure that I want it to be. And with the feeling of a person who finds himself alone in an unfamiliar bog at midnight, tentatively squelching along trying to avoid the holes that will engulf him, Faith stood up slowly and tightened the straps of the Snugli around her shoulders.

  “Eleanor, if you don 't mind, I'd like to take a rain-check on the tea. I'm suddenly feeling a little tired and I think I'd better go home."

  “I'm terribly sorry, Faith," Eleanor replied gently, "but I think you had better sit down again. You see, I'm afraid I can't let you go now."

  “ What on earth do you mean ? " Faith was genuinely aghast.

  “You may not have figured it all out yet, my dear, but you are so clever that I 'm sure you will and I really can 't have that. You never should have taken the bookdown." She eyed Faith reprovingly much as she would have if Faith had been caught taking pennies from her purse.

  “ Well, really, Eleanor, I can't imagine what you are talking about and I only took the book because I am getting interested in local history and heard it mentioned. Now I really must go. Tom will be wondering where I am." Faith walked toward the door firmly, but was stopped by the sound of a drawer opening followed by a small steely click and the even steelier tone of sweet Eleanor's voice.

  “Faith, if you don't sit down, I'll have to shoot you. And Benjamin.”

  Faith managed to make her way back to the chair, where her wobbling legs collapsed beneath her. This couldn't really be happening. She was in Aleford, sitting in Eleanor Whipple 's sunny parlor, facing a tiny but menacing-looking gun firmly clutched in the hand of the woman who held the record for top sales of needlework at the church bazaar. It had to be a dream.

  “ It's father's gun. He always believed a house should be armed, though he never had occasion to use it himself. “

  Eleanor 's poker face was gone, yet the one Faith knew so well, the gentle, slightly bemused pleasant face she was accustomed to see in church, was not in evidence either. Eleanor looked tired, a little sad, and very determined.

  Faith realized she had absolutely no idea in the world what to do. Screaming was useless. She couldn 't pretend that Tom was arriving soon as she had so fatally revealed that he didn 't know where she was only a few minutes before. She remembered you were supposed to try to keep an attacker talking until help arrived and, failing anything else, she figured she might as well try it.

  “ Eleanor, don 't you think you could put that away or at least hold it lower ? “

  At the moment the gun was aimed just where Faith's eyebrows met, or would meet but for assiduous tweezing. Slightly hysterically, Faith wondered if she would ever tweeze her eyebrows again, before forcing herself to concentrate on getting out of the parlor alive. Eleanor lowered the gun, but did not loosen her grip.

  Would Eleanor really kill her? Faith wondered. And an innocent little baby ? Was it worth the risk to make a run for the porch? Unfortunately Eleanor's house was set far back from the sidewalk and further obscured by a tall Canadian hemlock hedge. But surely she wouldn't shoot them both ? Maybe the gun wasn 't really loaded.

  Of course, Faith reflected, as the numbing realization that Eleanor had already killed two people hit her, two more murders at this stage might not seem to matter much. She decided to stay where she was for the moment and play dumb.

  “Perhaps you'd like to tell me what you imagine I know? Eleanor, really, I don't know what is going on and things seem to be getting a little out of hand."

  “ Now Faith, you do know what it is about and I will excuse the minister 's wife from a lie in view of the circumstances, but I do so wish you had not interfered in all this. I will miss you at our Alliance meetings.”

  Eleanor sounded a bit peevish and the allusion to missed Alliance meetings had not escaped Faith. And by now Eleanor was right. Faith knew exactly what was going on.

  First Eleanor had killed Cindy, then two weeks later Patricia, and now Faith and Benjamin had ingenuously walked into her parlor to be the third and fourth victims. Spilled curds and whey were nothing compared to what Eleanor had in mind.

  Eleanor was thinking out loud.

  “ It's a shame I never learned to drive. It really makes things awkward." She paused.

  Faith could feel her heart beating against her chest. She was surprised it didn't send Benjamin bouncing up and down. Talk. She must keep Eleanor talking. Murderers always liked to discuss their crimes, she had read. So be it.

  “Eleanor, can you really be saying that you killed Cindy and Patricia and that this is what I have figured out ? “

  Maybe she would deny it and this whole business would turn out to be some sort of passing dementia. Faith half expected Eleanor to laugh and hand over the gun. But only half.

  “Why, yes, Faith. You see, I knew you knew," Eleanor sounded triumphant.

  “But why? What possible reason could you have for killing them ? " Faith found herself looking forward to Eleanor's explanation in spite of everything, although the circumstances were not what she would have wished. Better to have had Eleanor explaining from a straitjacket.

  “Why ? " Eleanor sounded puzzled, " For the money, of course. I thought you would realize that. For Grandmother's money.”

  Faith realized she had missed an episode.

  “ Grandmother's money ? “

  Eleanor sighed. Faith had not been as clever as she thought.

  “You see, Faith, my grandfather and great-grandfather made rather a lot of money with their ships. My grandmother was a very forward-thinking woman who realized that men make much more money in this world than women do, so she had better take care of her female descendants. Unfortunately Grandfather didn 't want to have his estate divided. He wanted the money to go with the house, so whoever had it would always be able to keep it up. As if there wasn't plenty," Eleanor gave what could only be described as a snort of disgust.

  “Yes, I heard all this," Faith said, "But forgive me, what does it have to do with killing Cindy and Patricia'?'' As she spoke, Faith suddenly understood exactly what it had to do with killing them. She knew what Eleanor would say now. She owed Tom a dinner. And the sooner the better.

  “ My grandmother always intended the money to be shared equally, no matter what the will said. But when she died Hattie got everything. Elnora, for whom I am named, never married and lived with them, so she never needed any money. I suppose in a way she did get her share. But my poor mother, Rose, didn 't get anything much." Eleanor was beginning to speak a bit dreamily. Faith watched and waited for her chance.

  “You know I didn't grow up in Aleford, Faith. Oh, no. My father was just a poor country doctor who worked hard every day of his life for us. We had to move to this house when he died. It belongs, or I should say, belonged to Patricia. We have life tenancy. Tenants ! " Eleanor spat the word out.

  “You never knew Mother, of course. She was much more suited for the Captain 's house than the Moores. After Hattie died, it should by rights have gone to her and that was what grandmother had intended. Patricia and Polly 's mother, Phoebe, was nice enough, but she wasn't a real lady like mother. And her husband, Lewis, was just a common boy.

  “Mother died two years after we moved here and I think part of what caused her death was seeing what had happened to all her things and having to live in this pokey little house. Then everything went to Polly, but she just wanted the money. So much for Grandfather 's idea. She was happy to let Patricia and Robert live inthe house while she and that husband of hers flitted all over the place. I remember when my sister Rose and I heard the news that they had been killed. Rose just looked at me from where you are sitting now and I knew wh
at she meant. There is some justice in this life after all." Eleanor sat up straighter with a complacent smile on her face.

  “ You know I am a very devout woman, Faith, but it did give me just the tiniest bit of pleasure to kill Cindy. She was an extremely wicked girl and she hurt Rose's feelings terribly one time. No, it was necessary to kill her so I could inherit, but it wasn 't exactly a disagreeable thing to do. I used to see her go up there," Eleanor waved the gun toward the belfry, then swung it immediately back toward Faith.

  “That Friday when I saw her, I knew she would be meeting somebody and I'd have to go quickly, so I just nipped off one of my roses and slipped out the kitchen door. She was inside on one of the benches and didn 't even bother to get up when I entered.”

  Eleanor was indignant and Faith resolved if she ever got out of this to teach Benjamin all the social amenities. One never knew when manners might save one 's life.

  “Really," Eleanor sounded surprised, "she made it so easy. I didn't have to think. I just stabbed her. I have been studying father 's medical books, so I could get it right and I did," Eleanor sounded proud. "The rose was in memory of Rose, and Mother too, of course. I wish I had thought to do all this when they could have been here to enjoy it with me. I know Rose especially would have been glad that Cindy was dead."

  “But Patricia ? I thought you liked her ? "

  “Of course I liked Patricia. She was a very good woman, but Faith, dear, don't you see, I wouldn't get the money if Patricia was alive. I didn 't want to hurt her, so I just put the snail killer in her tea. Dave Sven- son was in the back talking to her about her garden. Not that he ever thought to help me with mine. I knew the police would suspect him again. It was really very lucky.”

  Faith saw everything now and spoke aloud a thought better left alone, " So you plan to kill Jennifer as well ?" Eleanor was quiet for a few moments.

  “ I don't think you ought to be asking so many questions. You know I saw you go up the hill that day and was glad we hadn 't met. I certainly never intended for you to be involved in all this. And sweet little Benjamin. It never concerned you." Eleanor looked at Faith reproachfully, using the tone of voice she might have if Faith had been asking her for whom she was going to vote in the next election.