Kolney Hatch: Buried Secrets (The Secret of Kolney Hatch Book 2)

by Stefani Milan

  Just then the policeman returned with three more policemen, and together we were able to get the unconscious Harold out of the small chamber. Once he was out, I climbed out, and then helped the policemen get Harold into their car.

  “We’ll have to take him to the hospital in town,” the first policeman said.

  “I’d like to go with them,” Laura said. “Paul, would you go back to the cottage and take care of it while we’re in town.”

  “You don’t want me to come with you and help Harold?”

  “You’ve been through enough already, Paul. We’ll need the help once we get him home.”

  “All right.”

  I realized then that the ledgers and files were still in the hole, and I did not want the police to know.

  “What were you guys doing down there in the tunnels?” the policeman questioned. “This is still considered a crime scene, and you two were trespassing.”

  I quickly responded.

  “As you know, I was a doctor here before the fire, and Harold is technically still the head groundskeeper here. Anyway, I’m working with two detectives on what happened. They encouraged me to come back to see if anything would further jog my memory about the fire.”

  “Alone? I find that hard to believe.”

  I struggled to find a good excuse.

  “You’re right. I was to wait for them. But I thought I remembered something, and I followed my instinct instead of waiting.”

  The unamused policeman narrowed his eyes.

  “Wait for the detectives before returning here again, Doctor Watson. You and Mr. Newbury could have been killed. Now, get in my car and I’ll take you back to Mr. Newbury’s cottage.”

  “I’m quite all right thank you. I promise I’m leaving right now, but I’d prefer to take Harold’s car back so it’s not just sitting there.”

  “Would you like a ride to it then? The main entrance is a bit far from here.”

  “I’ll think I’ll walk,” I said, giving the officer a tight lipped smile. “But thank you.”

  The policemen left then and Laura and Harold with them. Once I was sure they were gone, I went back into the small hole and grabbed the box, the ledgers and the casefiles.

  I was about to leave the small abandoned house but an intuitive feeling begged me to stay. I thought about Mary’s poems, remembering one in particular—something she wrote which later became an oversight on my part. She’d written a poem about a little house where she felt freedom. Of course, she wouldn’t have walked the distance from Aunt Greta’s cottage as I first surmised. It would have taken much too long.

  I remembered the poem vaguely. Here she was free of brother’s bars and evil’s reach. This must be the place she wrote about. I placed my things on the rotting wooden table in the tiny kitchen and began to explore the house. I don’t know why I chose to explore it. I didn’t have a plan in mind, and I wasn’t sure if I would find anything at all.

  A tiny hallway led to two rooms. One was a bedroom, and the other, a sitting room. I entered the bed room and looked around. The entire room from floors to walls was made of wood. The room was a mess. Broken tea pots and clothing lay on the floor. I saw a folded blanket in the corner and a dresser full of empty draws. It was the cream-colored blanket that caught my eye. A gold threaded embroidery seemed out of place in this run down home. I picked it up and examined it.

  The words “With love, A.” were embroidered in gold, real gold thread. This blanket was extremely expensive.

  I opened it fully and to my surprise, a message was woven into the blanket. It said, “Sister, Mary, you are so very dear to me. Always remember you are a Loxley.”

  I didn’t understand. Mary Loxley. I rubbed my head with my hands as I tried to piece together what I’d found. Mary Loxley wrote the poems. Mary Loxley was the patient here. And she knew about Thomas Reid. She knew about Amy. She knew about Aunt Greta’s death. It all started to make sense now, and my mind began to race with questions. Did Aldous know about Aunt Greta’s death? Did he visit his sister here often? He acted as though he didn’t know Thomas Reid when I saw him at the dinner party. But he must have. He was in America now, so I could not speak to him. But once I examined what I found in the tunnels, I would return to London, track down Aldous, and confront him about everything.

  41 The Photograph

  Paul Watson’s Journal

  April 30, 1927—The night I returned home from the tunnels, troublesome thoughts raced through my mind. Something about my time at Kolney Hatch and the connections to the Loxleys and Aunt Greta’s death did not make sense.

  Harold was in the hospital for a few days. Meanwhile, I went to work and examined everything I had found. The only thing I didn’t touch were the ledgers. Wicksy and Barnes were to be there any day, and I decided to wait for them this time. I didn’t need any more trouble from the Whitemoor Police, and I didn’t trust them anyway. Once I knew the truth, I would present them with all of the evidence.

  I sat alone at Harold’s wooden kitchen table with the stack of papers and the box in front of me. Whoever stole the box had broken the lock, and so it opened easily.

  The first items I found in that box were more poems from Mary Loxley.

  Water made the roses bloom

  Brother leaves much, much too soon

  One, two, three, over the moon

  Little girl in room, room, room.

  Mary wrote about Aldous in this poem, but what did it mean? I was not sure why that was significant, so I read the next poem.

  A cemetery’s not contrary

  Not at Kolney Hatch

  No head stones and no flowers

  Just some wood and sticks mismatched

  But check the wood and sure you’ll find

  The grave for which you seek

  Beneath the bones of honest men,

  A loon lies in deep sleep.

  I wondered what Mary was trying to tell Aunt Greta. Perhaps there was someone buried in the Kolney Hatch graveyard that was of some significance. There were two more poems in the box, and when I read the first one, I jumped out of my seat. It was about Aunt Greta.

  Greta Greta where’s your tea,

  Did they pour it fresh?

  Or was there something in it, now,

  That’s eating up your flesh?

  Greta, Greta where’s your tea?

  Should have thrown it away.

  Because you know too much,

  You will surely die today. M.

  “Oh my,” I said to myself.

  This poem suggested that my aunt was murdered. I thought about the details surrounding her death. My mum had stayed with her in her last days. She grew ill one day and never recovered. The town doctor said it was natural causes. I felt nauseated as I wondered if that doctor was actually Doctor Reid.

  Now I could not wait for Wicksy and Barnes to arrive. I put the poem aside. I would give them all of the poems and see if they could find out more about the details of my aunt’s death. There were two items left in the box, and my heart began to race as I realized what they were. The first was the poem Aunt Greta wrote about in her journal.

  Watch out for the man with the double face.

  His grin will quickly be replaced.

  For when you see his other face.

  His evil will leave not a trace.

  I assumed that poem was about Doctor Reid. Clearly, Mary understood how terrible he was and tried to communicate that to others. I put the poem down and picked up the other item in the box. It was the other piece of the ripped photograph I’d found in the second box at my aunt’s cottage. I took the ripped piece of photograph and what I found was so shocking that I began to perspire.

  It was a little boy, and when I put the ripped piece next to the other part of the photograph, I saw that the older little boy in the first picture was identical to the one in the second picture. When I turned the second picture over, I gasped. At the top of the photo in the right hand corner in writing said, “The Reids.” And the
name below was Edan. Thomas Reid had a twin.

  42 Meeting at the Barry House

  Paul Watson’s Journal

  May 1, 1927— The detectives arrived on April 30 in the late evening, and I made a plan to meet them in the morning at the Barry House, a small restaurant next to the inn in town. Wicksy had said to meet him in the private back room, and when I arrived, I saw the two detectives sitting at the table, along with a well-dressed older gentleman with thick glasses and a full head of white hair.

  “Doctor Watson, it is good to see you. Please meet Mr. Darrow. He’s a lawyer and is helping us with your case,” Wicksy said pulling out a cigarette and lighting it. I placed the stack of files and two boxes on top of the table and took a seat.

  “Pleasure to meet you,” I greeted although I was not happy to see him. Trusting Wicksy and Barnes had not come easy. And although Mr. Darrow was a lawyer, I had doubts about everyone I met after what happened at Kolney Hatch.

  “And you,” Mr. Darrow said. “Well, I might as well get to it, so you can discuss what you found at the asylum.”

  I lit my own cigarette and kept close-lipped as Mr. Darrow talked.

  “We’ve looked into the Kolney Hatch property. You know, who owns the land, who is mismanaging it, and such...” Mr. Darrow began. “The property has always been up to date in its payments, yet there is no record of who is making these payments. I’m hoping that there’s something in those ledgers you found that lead us to the owner’s whereabouts.”

  “Wasn’t it the Kolneys?” I asked.

  “The last of the Kolney clan died years ago. There was rumor of a large fortune.” Darrow raised an eyebrow as he looked at the detectives. “And I don’t mean, just the property of course. The Kolney fortune might well be the largest fortune I’ve ever seen, and I have seen quite a bit.”

  “I see,” I said.

  “I’m trying to find out exactly how far their wealth spans and where the current possessor of this fortune is. After all, he is responsible for caring for the asylum after the fire.”

  “I understand. May I ask why you’re telling me this?”

  “Well, I need some information from you.”

  “All right.”

  “Was your Aunt Greta a Barrowman?”

  “Yes. She married Alfred Barrowman, my uncle.”

  “Did she have any children?”

  “Yes. The detectives know this already. She has a son Bran. My cousin.”

  “And where is he?”

  “I’m....I’m not sure.”

  Mr. Darrow narrowed his eyes.

  “Well, the truth is Paul. George Kolney, the last of the Kolney clan, he...left his fortune to his distant cousin, your uncle, Alfred.

  “What?” I shook my head in disbelief. “That can’t be true.”

  “I’m afraid it is,” Mr. Darrow said seriously.

  “My uncle’s dead. Are you saying that Bran is the Kolney heir?” I laughed as I said it. The proclamation was too absurd to react otherwise.

  “We believe he is. Do you know where I might find him?”

  “I truly don’t,” I said shaking my head once more. “I told the detectives already. My cousin Bran was sent off to boarding school at a young age, and...”

  “Yes, I understand. We must find him though. So, um, we’ll keep you in the loop about it. Well that’s all from me,” Mr. Darrow said, and he stood. “I’ll speak to all of you soon.”

  Mr. Darrow left the room, and now I sat with the two detectives.

  “I don’t know how I can be of more help with this situation.”

  “We need to find your cousin,” Barnes asserted. “So if you hear from him...”

  “I see you’ve acquired some things.”

  Wicksy was already examining the contents I had brought.

  “Yes, and I was going to wait for you before investigating, but I found out some rather disturbing information.”

  “Yes. We were informed about you and Harold’s little...quest,” Barnes remarked.

  I told the detectives about my first visit to Aunt Greta’s cottage, about how I was attacked and about how the box was stolen. Then I explained my visit to the tunnels and everything that happened there.

  “And when I opened the first box, I found the other piece of the picture. And there was a second Reid.” I showed the photo. The detectives exchanged a look.

  “This makes sense,” Barnes said stroking his chin. “When we were on Kolney’s grounds we saw a graveyard. There were names etched in sticks. One said Edan Reid.”

  “I looked through the case files,” I continued. “Most of them were from patients I didn’t know. But I did find one on Edan. Many of the pages are torn and faded, but I could make out some of what the doctors wrote about him. He was completely insane. He had psychotic delusions, fits, he saw imaginary people who told him to do things. He had a personality disorder...and psychopathic tendencies from a young age but...he did have a difficult life.”

  Wicksy and Barnes perused the file as I spoke.

  “It says here the mother was a prostitute,” Wicksy said. “Father unknown. Brother, twin, Thomas. Third brother, name unknown from same father.”

  “Carson,” I interjected. “I believe the third brother’s name was Carson, judging by the photograph.”

  “Okay,” Wicksy said, and then he read more of the file. “Mother....well aware of her son’s behavior at an early age. She...locked him under a stairwell cupboard for days on end with no food. He killed and ate vermin that made their way into the cupboard and was often violently ill. When he was allowed out, he was made to watch terrible things that involved his mother.”

  “It’s terrible,” I said. “I can’t imagine. I do feel sorry for Edan. But...someone went through great lengths to keep this a secret. They’ve attacked me, and Mr. Newbury, and with the Reid twins dead, I wonder who it is?”

  “Did Thomas Reid have a case file?”

  “No,” I said shaking my head. “He was a doctor here. That’s all I gathered. I did find certificates of his education. He attended Oxford. He was a normal person as far as I could see, extremely intelligent, as was Edan. Perhaps Thomas had Edan locked away at Kolney Hatch, so he could keep watch on him.”

  “Perhaps,” Wicksy stroked his chin in contemplation, and then he looked over at Barnes. “And Edan may have killed his twin and posed as Thomas Reid. The grave that is said to hold Edan may very well hold his brother, Thomas. The good news is, either way, Edan Reid is dead.”

  “What about the Reid’s third brother?” Barnes said stroking his mustache. “And what was that girl’s name again...Thomas Reid’s niece?”

  “I don’t know about him,” I answered. “But the girl’s name was Rosalind. Rosalind Reid.”

  “If she was a Reid, then her father must be a Reid,” Wicksy reasoned.

  “More than likely,” Barnes agreed. “Given her age, it would have been one of the twins.”

  “More than likely, indeed,” said Wicksy. “Well, we are going to sort this out. Paul, there is something else we want to discuss, but we’d prefer to wait until we return to London.”

  “There’s something else I’ve discovered,” I blurted. “Two things, actually. One, is that Mary Loxley, Aldous Loxley’s sister, was a patient at Kolney Hatch. She wrote poems, many poems for my Aunt Greta, a subtle way of telling her what was going on at Kolney Hatch, and I think you’ll find they back up the Reid story.”

  “Very good, we’ll like to see them.”

  “Yes, I have them all here for you. I want to know Aldous’ involvement at Kolney Hatch. Something doesn’t seem right. He pretended not to know Thomas Reid at his dinner party.”

  “We’ll...look into it.”

  “And then the last thing. I’d like to reexamine how my aunt died.”

  “Why?”

  “One of Mary’s poems seems to suggest my aunt was poisoned. It’s in there, along with her journal. I don’t know. I don’t know how I could have been drawn into this situation
when my aunt is connected and so is Aldous Loxley. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “We have a good idea, Paul, but right now it’s confidential. We’re investigating something, and once we have the details, we promise we’ll tell you first. For now, though, please, go home. And please don’t discuss any of these details until we complete our investigation.”

  Although I’d grown wary of most people, I did trust Wicksy and Barnes, so I left my items with them and headed back to Harold’s cottage. I stayed a few days longer to help Harold recover and then made my journey home to London.

  43 The Production Party

  Paul Watson’s Journal

  June 1, 1927—Richard held his production party on the 27th of May. John Loxley had insisted that Richard hold the party at the Loxley mansion, so I traveled to John’s home as torrential rains pummeled London on that spring evening. The party was held in the drawing room. I greeted Mr. Waldorf, the Loxley’s butler, and after handing him my umbrella and coat, headed into a smoke-filled drawing room overflowing with people drinking, laughing, and dancing. An upbeat waltz played on the Loxley’s gramophone. I was still uneasy from what I learned at Whitemoor. Knowing that Mary Loxley had been a patient at Kolney Hatch left me with a strange feeling, and I still wanted to know how Aldous was involved.

  I spotted Oscar Baker immediately and headed over to where he stood talking with Edgar.

  “Paul!” Oscar said excitedly when he saw me and patted me on the shoulder. I noticed he looked a bit older in this lighting. His spectacles hung low on his long, thin nose. “I’m glad you’re home safely. How was Whitemoor?”

  “I found out a lot of things,” I shrugged. “It’s in the detectives’ hands now, though. I’m not allowed to talk about it at this point.”

  “Have a drink sport,” Edgar said, handing me a glass of Chardonnay.

  “Thanks,” I answered.

  “Listen, Paul,” Oscar said, “I do want to speak with you later. It’s rather important, so please don’t forget.”