The Downward Spiral

by Ridley Pearson

  “Father supported the Boy Scouts when he served on the Baskerville board of trustees,” I said, ever the dutiful daughter. “When empty, the school grounds amount to hundreds of acres of beautiful woods with no one taking advantage of them.”

  “It wasn’t the caravan arrangement,” Sherlock said, “it was the marching.”

  “Marching?” James questioned.

  “They marched to a chant recited by all. Led by the troop leader. A call and response. I quote: ‘You have to go home with your left, your right!’”

  “Fascinating,” James mocked.

  “It instructs them when to place their right foot forward, their left, et cetera. It’s a rhythm, a cadence that keeps them marching in step.”

  I covered my mouth so that Sherlock wouldn’t see me smiling at his expense. He sounded like a total fool.

  “You lost me,” James complained.

  “It was the reference to left and right, just like your father’s desk drawer. And I quote: ‘when all that’s left is right.’ You see?”

  “Not at all,” said James.

  “Marching orders. Instructions,” Sherlock said, his lips twisting into a smirk. “It’s not a riddle. He branded into the drawer how to use the key. All the way left, then to the right. At least, that’s what I think he’s telling us.”

  James stepped forward, and though Sherlock shied, took his roommate’s cheeks between his palms, squishing his face. “You . . . are . . . brilliant!”

  “Sandwiches are served!” came Ralph’s ragged voice from the first floor.

  We three exchanged looks of panic.

  James spoke to me, then to Sherlock. “We’ll put him in Father’s office. You’ll wait for us. You’ll do nothing until we’re there. Agreed?”

  “But of course.”

  “Brilliant!” James repeated, slapping Sherlock for the second time, this time a little too forcefully.

  CHAPTER 4

  WITH SHERLOCK TUCKED AWAY IN FATHER’S office, James and I joined Ralph and Lois around the dining room table. The room itself was extraordinary, festooned with plaster bunting crown moldings, white pilasters, and a matching chair rail. The room’s centerpiece, a polished mahogany table from an 1810 Southern pecan plantation, had been in our family since the Civil War. It was the size of a tennis court. Lois had placed James and me on opposite ends, with her and Ralph squarely in the middle of opposite sides.

  I needed an intercom to speak to James in my normal voice. “How’s the weather down there?” I called to my brother.

  “Pity we can’t be in the same zip code,” he shouted back.

  “Very funny, children,” Lois half scolded. “As I pointed out in the compound,” she added, referring to the family property on Cape Cod where we’d spent Christmas, “you two will have to grow accustomed to your new roles as head of the Moriarty household, like it or not.”

  “Not,” I said quickly.

  “There will be charitable events, public functions. The family plays an important role in this city. You two must fulfill certain civic duties.”

  “Excuse me for a moment,” I said in a silly, haughty voice as I stood. “I shan’t be long. A quick visit to the loo, if I may?”

  James applauded dully.

  I made a quick stop in the downstairs bathroom, but only as an excuse to check on Sherlock, as Father’s study was the door at the end of the short hall.

  I spent too much time whispering that we’d be finished as soon as possible. With the door partway open, I heard footsteps and turned to see Lois approaching.

  Sherlock ducked behind the partially open door.

  “Moria, dear? What on earth . . .”

  She caught up to me, only the thickness of the door between her and Sherlock. Maybe she smelled Sherlock, who was prone to using cologne to mask his lack of a shower. Maybe she sensed my apprehension.

  “Aha!” she said, noticing the framed color photograph-on-canvas surrounded by the study’s built-in bookshelves.

  It was one of the few family portraits. In it, Father held James, while Mother cradled me as a newborn. Of course I had no memory of the moment, but I’d seen it my whole life and I felt as if I could remember. Taken by a professional, it showed the four of us posed in the green backyard of the Cape Cod house, frothy waves breaking in the distance. Father wore a white cable tennis sweater. Mother, a tennis dress and cardigan. They smiled widely, their skin young and flawless, eyes sparkling.

  I played the sympathy card, forcing my eyes to mist over.

  “Now, now, we mustn’t dwell on those things out of our control, but be grateful for all we have.”

  “I’m not dwelling. I’m savoring. I’m allowed that, aren’t I, Lois?”

  “You’re allowed that, indeed.” She laid a warm hand on my shoulder, looking at the photo herself. “And I’m an old witch for interrupting. Join us at the table when you can.”

  “I’ll be right there.” I felt cheap for taking advantage of her like that. I didn’t mind bending rules or altering the truth in my favor when it served a higher purpose, but this struck me as something selfish: a secret I was hiding. An act of betrayal. I had long since set betrayal as off-limits.

  So why was I now changing the rules?

  CHAPTER 5

  JAMES DEPOSITED HIS PLATE INTO THE DISHWASHER and was, as always, the first out of the kitchen. I stayed behind, wiping the countertops while Lois washed the remaining dishes. It didn’t take long.

  I said a polite good night and headed for the stairs. Once into the vestibule, I stole to my right down the narrow hallway that led past the washroom, the library’s pocket door, and into Father’s office.

  James held a finger to his lips and carefully shut the door behind me. He locked it.

  I signaled James and Sherlock to stay put as I kneeled in front of the cold fireplace and dug into the ash at the back. I latched onto and withdrew the small key hidden there, the secret Father had shared with me.

  His large, antique desk held a multi-line telephone, a Swedish glass paperweight, and a framed photo of James and me, with a green leather desk pad set before the cracked leather office chair.

  Sherlock turned, inserting the key into the upper right drawer as a performance. He rotated it counterclockwise while whispering, “All that’s left . . .” It rotated fully around once, twice, three times, and stopped. We all three heard the faintest of clicks. No louder than the ticking of a clock.

  “No way . . .” James said, almost a moan of regret. For him, everything with Sherlock was competition.

  “Is right . . .” Sherlock turned the key to the right.

  With a pronounced click, the desk pad popped open on a hinge, revealing a hidden space beneath. We all made a sucking sound of surprise.

  “Why’d he tell you and not me?” James complained.

  The three of us just stared at the secret hiding place.

  Sherlock, whose vast intellect seemed to have missed the chapter on human emotions, launched into an explanation of the mechanics. “The spring-loaded trigger was initiated by the revolution of the key.”

  James told him to shut up.

  I answered James, as careful with my words as I was when trying to pull burrs from London or Bath, our dogs. “I don’t think it was trust, or anything like that. You were always the important one to him. Maybe he just wanted me to feel like I had a role in our family.”

  “I’m not buying that,” James said.

  “He kind of warned me he might disappear.”

  “He what?”

  “Yeah. He gave me a timetable. I wasn’t to use the key unless we hadn’t heard from him.”

  “This is not happening.” James had gone the color of the fireplace ash.

  Sherlock made the mistake of offering his interpretation. Never wise when it involves someone else’s family drama. “We can assume your exclusion, James, had something to do with a boy’s proclivity for curiosity. Spontaneity. He didn’t want you opening the drawer in the spirit of inquiry. He ob
viously trusted Moria to simply obey his wishes.”

  “Give it a rest,” James said.

  But Sherlock had no off switch. “Think about it. You, Moria, would have discovered the clue burned into the drawer and would have sought your brother’s advice.”

  “I would have, James!”

  “Never mind,” Sherlock added, “that the two of you would never have arrived at the proper solution to the clue without me.”

  “He says in all modesty,” quipped James.

  “Am I wrong?” asked Sherlock. He never was. Never. And we all knew it.

  “Arrogant, insulting, and annoying,” returned James, “but rarely wrong. And for the record, I agree with you. Father would have expected Mo to include me.”

  Both boys looked at me for my agreement. I answered by pulling up on the partially open desk pad.

  Inside lay a manila envelope.

  “Oh, my,” I gasped.

  Next to the envelope was the unexpected. Lying in the drawer, halfway wrapped in an oily rag, was a gun.

  CHAPTER 6

  JAMES REACHED FOR THE WEAPON, A LONG-BARREL revolver, what was often called a six-shooter in the cowboy Westerns.

  “Uh uh uh!” Sherlock said quickly, stopping James dead to rights. “Fingerprints, dear boy!”

  “Do not call me that!”

  “Might I suggest you avoid the rag as well?” Sherlock produced a pen from his pocket. “Insert it into the barrel ever so carefully.”

  James adroitly picked up the wrapped gun. He set it down on the desktop as if it were warm to the touch. We stared.

  “Father?” James said.

  “We don’t know,” said Sherlock, “hence the precaution. The gun may hold your father’s prints, no prints, or the prints of a yet-to-be-disclosed third party.” James wasn’t impressed by the explanation. Sherlock continued. “The envelope could contain something as benign as take-away menus, or a letter of explanation on how to use the revolver to one’s political or financial advantage. Perhaps a photo or a news clipping. It could be a ransom or a threat.”

  “Oh my word! I never would have thought of that!” I said.

  “Nor would you have picked up the gun first,” said Sherlock. “The feminine response would more likely be to read the contents of the envelope rather than handle the weapon. Perhaps your father’s expectation, and the reason he left the key to you and not James.”

  “That’s—” I was interrupted.

  “Entirely possible,” James whispered distastefully. “He’s right, Mo. I would have reached for the gun first.”

  “Might I suggest,” Sherlock said, “that you, Moria, read whatever’s contained in that envelope before we do anything else?”

  I picked up the envelope.

  Beneath it, burned into the wood, was written:

  For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

  Nevermore

  “Interesting,” Sherlock said. Pointing out another branding along the right edge of the compartment, he said, “There’s another here, as well.” The burned lines created five rectangles stacked vertically, like a capital H with two additional middle bars.

  “‘Nevermore,’” James said. “Meaning what? He’s not going to let money ruin things? Or is it simply never again? No longer? Fed up? Sick and tired?”

  I sat down in a chair by the unlit fireplace and withdrew a single sheet from the envelope. It contained symbols. Some looked familiar. Most did not.

  Sherlock looked over my shoulder.

  “What do you think?” I asked him.

  “It’s Greek to me.”

  “Me too.”

  “No. I mean it’s Greek. Some of the letters are Greek. Though all run together so that it feels more like a cipher. May I?” he asked. I handed it to him.

  The front doorbell chimed.

  The three of us froze. Sherlock folded the sheet and tucked it into his back pocket.

  “Not . . . good,” said James.

  “Here’s what we do,” I said, knowing that Lois would be making the trip from her second-floor bedroom behind the kitchen. The bell rang again. It would take Lois a minute or so. “Sherlock, you put everything back as it was. You’ll stay here, in this room—all night, if necessary. You don’t leave until we come for you. James, you get the front door. I’ll head upstairs and get ready for bed, as that’s what Lois would be expecting me to do.”

  The boys looked as if they were about to argue with me.

  “Now!” I said, unlocking and opening the office door.

  To my delight, James followed. I hurried up the front staircase as silent as a ghost and glanced back to see James looking up at me. Waiting for me. We connected, brother to sister, conspirator to conspirator. I felt positively wonderful. James nodded at me proudly, and turned toward the front door.

  I fumbled with my clothes, racing to start a bath.

  CHAPTER 7

  JAMES HAD BECOME THE CAUTIOUS SORT EVER since his initiation into a secret society called the Scowerers that I wasn’t supposed to know about. (Credit Sherlock.) He’d also become more distant toward me, which broke my heart.

  With our having returned home only hours ago, he reasoned, whoever was at the front door must have known our schedule. Already past nine, it was too late for a random caller. That drastically limited who might be ringing our bell at this hour.

  Father had been a cautious man as well. A state of mind that had evolved into outright paranoia toward the end. He’d upgraded our home security to include at least two video cameras—that I knew of—covering the front and back doors. The windows were alarmed. Movement-sensing floodlights had been mounted high up near the roof gutters.

  A small video screen inside the door revealed two men in topcoats. James used the intercom to ask they take a step back and show their faces. Mr. Lowry, Father’s lawyer, and Dr. Crudgeon, headmaster of Baskerville Academy. Venerable company, indeed.

  “Sorry!” James said, speaking through the intercom. Lowry and Crudgeon had been behind James’s initiation into the Scowerers, the secret society that had links to generations of Moriartys and also to Baskerville Academy. Now officially a member of the group, James was being “groomed” to take over leadership of the Scowerers, an entity he still knew little about. These two men were his tutors, his advisors, his guides. The idea of following in Father’s footsteps, of running a secret group of men and women, charged James with purpose, provided him a newfound sense of self-importance, and influenced his every decision. Since his initiation (something Sherlock had secretly witnessed) James had grown colder to me and Sherlock. He’d formed a select group of friends at school and pulled them around himself in a way that reminded me of Malfoy. But unlike Malfoy, James was no coward. He was no one to mess with; as his sister, I knew that only too well. He could be cunning, creative, and cruel. He considered himself a prince in line for the throne. The arrival of Lowry and Crudgeon told him: a) either he or our home was being watched, for the Scowerers knew we’d returned, b) something important was happening, or else why would they visit the house so late at night, and c) he, James, was central to whatever was going on. This last bit gave him a keen sense of importance.

  Pulled between the excitement of our discovery only minutes before in Father’s study, and the unexpected arrival of these two, James felt unsure of his footing. He felt compelled to keep Sherlock’s presence secret. At the same time, he was part of the secret society and sworn to loyalty.

  He unlocked the door’s double locks and admitted the two men into the vestibule. They stomped snow off their shoes and pulled off their overcoats without invitation.

  “Please . . . come in, why don’t you?” James said, to put the two men in their places and remind them whose home this was.

  “Yes. Sorry. Kind of you.” Dr. Crudgeon’s wide shoulders and stout frame made removal of the overcoat something of a struggle. Lowry helped the man out of
it then shook some of the melting snow from it before finding a hook.

  Crudgeon patted down his gray-tipped hair where the overcoat’s collar had ruffled it. He cleared his throat and checked the small mirror hanging on the wall. In its reflection he saw the stony face of Mr. Conrad Lowry, Esq. looking over his shoulder. The cold had nipped the tip of Lowry’s long nose a brilliant red. The lawyer’s bushy eyebrows were matched in peculiarity only by the dark tufts of hair escaping his ear canals. He looked something like a human woodpecker, at once both menacing and intelligent.

  “Snow flurry,” Lowry said overly loudly.

  “Ah! Good evening, gentlemen!” Lois called as she came from the kitchen. “I see you’re in good hands!” She caught up to James and placed her hand on his shoulder.

  “Perfectly!” said Crudgeon, eyeing James. “A fine host.”

  Ralph said hello as he slipped behind Lois, a mug of something steaming hot in hand, and climbed the staircase. Lois greeted both guests by mentioning the snowstorm. Idle chitchat gave way to a moment’s silence.

  “Well, I’ll leave you then,” Lois said, getting the message she wasn’t wanted. She retreated toward the back of the house.

  “Good to see you, James!” Lowry clapped James on the back. “How was the Cape? I hope you’ll tell us all about it!”

  The three moved through the foyer and into the library. Like Father’s office, the library walls held floor-to-ceiling bookshelves with not a sliver of empty space for an additional volume. The drapes were a rich burgundy velvet, the hand-knotted rugs Afghan. An antique world globe rested alongside a brass lamp with a green glass shade. The library was among my favorite rooms. James was indifferent to it, preferring Father’s office for its intimacy and the power it represented.

  James slid the pocket doors shut and ensured the other door leading to the hallway outside Father’s office was pulled snug as well. Their conversation, he knew, would not be meant for Sherlock’s ears.

  The three sat down. Crudgeon glanced at his wristwatch.