“Come now, Mrs. Bindle,” I continued. “Surely, someone with such marked discernment as yours must have some kind of educated opinion on the matter. Can you not think of someone who wishes to do harm to your employer? One of the current or departing staff, perhaps?”
Mrs. Bindle set my breakfast plate down with a clatter on the table top and leaned across to stare at me. Her pristine white apron rumpled against the wood. “There are no such things as ghosts,” she spat. “And I have warned my employer, as you called him, of just that very fact. Spirits and hobgoblins are stories for schoolchildren, Mr. Eyers. And before you go making any further suppositions of my educated opinion , I suggest you remember that fact.”
So concluded my first and only interview with one of the few household residents that was neither drunken, ailing, nor deceased.
With that, I continued my investigation of the grounds by visiting the kitchen: the site of the late chef’s recent demise by way of hanging. The cooking room was simple, tiled floor to ceiling with white porcelain. A massive wood stove took up the entirety of the farthest wall, while ice boxes and narrow, wooden, butcher block countertops ran the lengths of both sides. The most imposing feature of the otherwise ordinary kitchen was the hastily-tied noose swinging from the center of the room, suspended by an overhead truss rafter.
“By God, man,” I said. “Why hasn’t someone taken the damned thing down?”
My question fell upon deaf ears, as Mrs. Bindle had already deposited my breakfast dishes and departed. The kitchen was empty, save for the malevolent length of rope that had already claimed one life.
I flipped open the flap of my pouch and produced the electromagnometer, which had been miraculously spared any damage whatsoever during my frantic chase through the woods.
I depressed the switch and the device’s bulb began to glow immediately. It was nothing like the overpowering trace signatures I’d seen the day before, but instead the pale, dim pulse that I was more accustomed to.
I walked with slow care toward the dangling rope and kept my eyes fixed on the bulb of my most trusted instrument. As expected, it flickered and brightened just a hair as I stepped forward and eventually placed it right beneath the tip of the noose.
“Standard residual,” I said aloud. This, as opposed to the ravenous, charging corpses of month-dead Labradors, was in line with my expectations. “Nothing else.” I actually sighed with relief.
“What’s a raced jewel?”
The voice nearly caused me to jump from my skin. Heart racing, I spun around in irritation.
“Hello, Lillian.” I put a hand to my chest and swallowed deeply.
“Sorry if I gave you a spook, Mr. Eyers. Suppose I should’ve knocked. You know how it is when you’ve worked in a place for so long that you get to knowing where to miss all the creaks and squeaks like the back of your hand.”
I waved her off and pointed a finger at the noose, hanging a mere two feet from my own neck. “It seems that the fates are indeed working together today. You’re just the person I need to talk to.”
“What a coincidence,” she said with a giggle. “Pull up a stool and I’ll tell you all you’d care to hear, maybe more. You don’t mind if I fix myself a spot of whisky do you? No, of course not, there’s a good lad.”
She meandered her way to a cupboard for what I could only assume was part of her typical breakfast routine. Lillian took a healthy swig and offered me the bottle of amber liquid.
“No, thank you,” I said with a wave of my notebook. “I’m on the clock.”
She shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
I pulled up a stool next to the alcoholic maid’s and gave her a passive grin. “Lillian, I’ve got to admit, I haven’t exactly found your coworkers to be helpful in my investigation.”
At this, she tittered.
“Anyhow, I was hoping that you might be able to help me shed some light on things. By the way, did you manage to get my letter sent off again this morning?”
“Of course,” she said with a grin, looking all too much like a squat, drunken, Dutch handmaid. “The postmaster and I have a fair understanding, you know?” She winked.
“I’d rather not know, if it’s all the same to you.”
She shrugged and took another pull from the whisky.
“As I was saying, none of the staff have been very helpful. And I believe, barring the kitchen boy and Mr. Vance’s family, I’ve spoken to them all, even Mrs. Bindle.”
“Bah. That sour old biddy. Don’t pay her any mind. She’s got no respect for anybody. Even her poor old sister.”
“Come again?”
Lillian rolled her eyes and put a dramatic hand to her chest. “Even though it’s only because of me that she got the nursing job in the first place.” She grimaced and took an exceptionally long chug from the bottle.
“Mrs. Bindle is your sister?”
“Missus? Hah!” At this, Lillian rocked atop her chair, and defied the laws of gravity by remaining upright. “She hasn’t been a missus for nigh ten years now, Eyers.”
“I’m sorry, Lillian. My mistake. Though I hardly see the importance of it.”
“Oh, but it is important,” she said with a conspiratorial wink and leaned closer. “If you ask me, it’s very important, yes indeed. If you don’t believe me, just ask her dead husband for a little light on the matter.”
“She’s a widow?”
“Oh, dear me, yes. And under shady circumstances mind you. It’s been rumored far and wide that it was her who pushed him down that staircase.”
“Are you implying that…”
“Dear old Joyce is setting herself up for a move on the old man’s money.” Now, her eyes were serious and grim. “I wouldn’t doubt it for a minute. You mark my words.” She let loose a soft hiccup.
“Mr. Leetsdale?” I said.
Lillian surprised me with an open-handed slap to the shoulder that I am sure she meant to land more gently. “Of course, Leetsdale. Who else has any money around here?”
I rubbed tenderly at my shoulder. “So, Lillian. Supposing that your theory holds water, how far do you believe your sister would go to secure her own future with Mr. Leetsdale?”
For the first time, worry lines circled her face and she lowered her voice. “The man is not well, Mr. Eyers. A genius chemist, maybe. But a man long for living, certainly not. And God knows he’s tried to fix one with the other.”
“What do you mean? Does it have something to do with the weapons manufacturing that made the family fortune?”
The stocky woman crossed her arms and eyed the bottle casually. “No, sir. Not at all, if you ask me. And if you were to ask me, I’d tell you it’s all got to do with that nonsense he’s got brewing down in the basement cellar.”
Casually, I lifted my pen to point in her direction. “And were I to go to this basement cellar, what exactly do you think I would find?”
“His laboratory, of course.”
I made immediate note to seek out this supposed subterranean laboratory before continuing with my work in the kitchen.
“But I’m afraid I’ve never seen it,” she continued. “So I can’t be much help in telling you how to find it. All I hear is rumors, and late night comings and goings.”
I frowned. “How can you not know how to reach the basement? You live here. Who else can tell me?”
Lillian grinned. “This house was built on secrets, Eyers. And I’d suggest you just try to find it on your own. I doubt that your free reign of the mansion is extended to the old man’s private laboratory, if you catch my drift.”
This revelation was as equally troubling as it was promising. Why would my employer bother hiding his workspace when his passion for chemistry was such common knowledge? Whatever the answer, my instincts shouted it imperative that I see this workspace for myself.
“Thank you very much, Lillian. Your help is incredibly appreciated. Now, if we can turn back to the matter of the deceased chef.”
“His name was Cleveland,
” she said. A tear slipped from her eye.
I wriggled my chair closer, taking in all that I could from this, my most reliable witness. “You loved him?”
She snorted and attempted a laugh, but her sadness melted it into something almost obscene. “Certainly not, sir. He was quite the bastard, actually.”
I blushed at my miscalculation. “I apologize.”
“No, it’s me who should apologize. I’m not usually one for tears. It runs in the family, as I’m sure you might’ve guessed.” She pulled a rumpled handkerchief from the pocket of her alabaster apron. “It’s just that, well, it really was an awful sight.”
Like Mr. Vance and the dogs in the trees, here was another of Leetsdale’s employees who bore mental scars from her poorly-timed discovery. “Of that I have no doubt, my dear. Please, take your time.”
Lillian Bindle blew her nose and followed it briskly with another swill from the bottle, which was now half emptied. Even in the barrooms of Burnside, I have never seen a man drink with such practiced dedication to obliteration of the senses.
“He didn’t do it, you know,” she said.
“He never showed any signs of melancholy tendencies?”
Lillian snickered. “Not unless you would have swiped a cupcake out from under his nose. No, Cleveland was always one for grins. Especially if you happened to be a new young maid who found herself alone with him in the kitchen for more than ten seconds.” She smacked her lips aloud and it was a wonder that she had any feeling left in her face to continue articulating. “Now, don’t get me wrong. He never actually hurt anyone, but he truly was a filthy old man.”
“Mr. Leetsdale said that when you discovered him, he was not yet dead.”
Her nod was grim and distant. “I tried to hoist him up, but the man was the size of a bull elephant.”
“It didn’t work,” I said.
“Obviously.” Again, she attempted to drown another chunk of the memory. “It was his eyes. They were scared, helpless. He was…”
I waited while she rubbed her temples and snorted with disbelief.
“He was surprised. It was as if he couldn’t believe what was happening to him. I told Mr. Leetsdale that, that Cleveland looked terrified. And not just because he was dying. But because he looked surprised by it. But Leetsdale didn’t believe me. He called me a silly little peach.” She shook her head. “A silly little peach.”
I relayed the quote to my notebook and regarded the rope suspended high in the air. “How did Cleveland reach the noose?”
“And that, Mr. Eyers, is the question of the hour. The one that has kept me from good sleep for weeks now.” Threatening to empty the whisky in one final draught, she coughed and slammed the glass container on the table. I had half a mind to pull the bottle from her grip, but in that state, I believe she would have pummeled me with it.
“There wasn’t a chair in sight. No ladder, nor table within reaching distance. Nothing. It was as if he’d just floated right up to it and stuck his head in.” She gave a whimsical upward flit of her hand. “And allow me to tell you, fat men are not borne of feathers.”
I thought for a moment on the impossibility of the scene. It would have taken the strength of at least two or three grown men to haul one large chef ten feet in the air. I began to sense a pattern in both his death and those of the dogs, and it troubled me.
“So, how about that drink, Eyers?”
Which brings me back to my room. I left Lillian to stumble her way back to the maids’ quarters after declining a drink. I have no real stomach for lunch at the moment, and feel a slight headache beginning to bud. A nap will clear my head, after which I plan to investigate the basement cellar which my drunken informant was so adamant I should visit.
8:15 P.M.
I have spent an inordinate amount of time sleeping since arriving at Leetsdale manor. One would be apt to think that I was not working, but rather vacationing. But, as you have already heard throughout my account, this has hardly been a holiday retreat.
And today is no exception. My early evening adventure was disturbing, to say the least. After napping away a healthy amount of the afternoon, I arose feeling slightly more myself, and searched the seemingly empty household for an entrance to the basement. Eventually, Vassar, the manservant, grew suspicious of my snooping and offered his assistance. Remembering Lillian’s warning of secrecy, I shooed him away from my supposed investigative procedures, and was rewarded when I finally discovered a secondary doorway hidden inside an empty closet in the main foyer.
The rank stench of molding brickwork assailed my nostrils. I found myself descending a spiral staircase forged entirely of concrete and stone. Only a matchbook from my pouch provided any light after I’d secured the door closed behind me.
At every turn I expected the stairs to end, but it seemed that they dropped clear into the depths of Tartarus itself. With every step, I felt the hairs on my neck prick to attention as the air grew ever colder. My battered knee ached, and I prayed that the Nurse Bindle’s stitching held. I thought of the decrepit Mr. Leetsdale, and wondered if he had been able to make this journey even once in the last decade. After a full minute, I finally reached the bottom.
I took a surprisingly full gas lamp from its crook in the wall and lit it. The circular room was washed in firelight.
I gasped.
I stood at the rim of a wheel-shaped room that was comprised of three converging workspace aisles, lined with a vast amount of steel shelves, file cabinets, and high countertops laden with all sorts of glass beakers, measuring devices, and expensive scientific apparatuses.
At the center, where all three aisles met, a perfectly spherical glass orb the size of a bathtub sat balanced atop a metallic rod bolted into the floor. Even in the absence of any true light besides my lamp, the smooth sphere emitted a rhythmic, pulsing glow of deepest green. I knew not what the contents of that spectacular cask were, but I was utterly transfixed by their glimmering beauty. For an indeterminable amount of time, I stood there, stunned in fascinated disbelief. I did not even register the sound of footsteps as someone approached my back.
“A real peach, is she not?”
That voice and its suddenness could have made me shed my skin. I spun to find Mr. Leetsdale wearing a smirk of admiration as he stared at the orb.
“What is it?” I asked.
“My death’s work,” Mr. Leetsdale said with a cough.
I wrinkled my brow and watched as the old man hobbled his way over to the workbench nearest me and braced himself against it. “You mean your life’s work.”
“You heard me just fine, young man.”
It was only then that I realized I had trod into unwelcome and private territory. “My apologies, sir. I only stumbled across the entryway during my investing—”
He patted my shoulder in a friendly manner. I did my best not to shy away from the bony touch. The frail rap of his fingers was like a greeting from the dead. “You know what they say of curiosity, Mr. Eyers.”
My shoulders tensed, and I told myself it was due to the cold.
“Curiosity is the firing pin of life.” He grimaced, and I sensed venom in his voice at what was surely his reminiscence of the bloody source of his family fortune. Intrigued, I decided to press him on it.
“Is that a common saying in the family business?”
He snorted and scratched at the stubble of what would soon be a beard. “You could say that, I suppose. But, as you can see, I’ve devoted my family’s ill-begotten gains to a much nobler cause.” He patted the tabletop proudly. “Oh, I hope you don’t mind.” Mr. Leetsdale went to the wall and depressed a lever. Sparks showered overhead before the room was filled with abundant electric light. “I had them installed recently. Ah the marvels of the modern age.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, sir, what exactly is the noble cause of your work?” I thought quickly of the pain medication he had supplied me with, and wondered if indeed his hobbies were any nobler.
Leetsdale
clasped his hands together and a warm smile filled his gaunt, sunken face. “Curiosity at work, my good man. Curiosity at work. And I most certainly do not mind your inquiry into my work. I am a proud scientist, after all.” His teeth were age-yellowed, but that did not stop him from grinning.
“What I am doing here, Mr. Eyers, is unlocking the secrets of God himself.”
Surely a scientist should be granted his eccentricities, especially an unknown, un-academic one who is knocking at death’s door. I glanced again at the giant glowing marble that was the room’s focal point. “And how would you say that is going for you?”
He coughed. “I do not blame your disbelief. You are not a man of chemical science. You are a spirit detective, which, I must admit, does not entirely lend itself to accepted credibility.”
I could feel my cheeks go crimson with embarrassment. “I’m sorry. I meant no offense.”
“None taken,” Leetsdale said. “None at all. And I’m well aware that you are, after all, trained to use skepticism as a tool. Nevertheless, I fear I must once again cut short our conversation.” He clutched at his chest with one hand and beckoned with another.
From the shadows behind me stepped the stony faced butler, Vassar. He offered me no real greeting and I knew that he had likely unraveled the real reason for my previous scouring of the mansion. He hoisted the old man slowly by the shoulders and gestured for me to go ahead of them. Not wanting to see the man’s shame at being carried up the lengthy flight of stairs, I hurried back up to the main floor and shut myself in my room.
I sat on the bed and removed my pouch to examine my rather modest looking set of tools. It was then that I saw the terrible state of my electromagnometer. Sometime within the last hour, and without my feeling it, its bulb had exploded, blackening the rest of my tools with soot. I thought of the large, glowing orb and bit my lip.
My headache had returned.
My dearest, I have seen something spectacularly troubling this evening. In the chemical laboratory (which might have bankrupted a czar in its cost to construct) I saw the result of what I at first assumed to be the result of increasing madness. Though his creations were things of wonderment and beauty, as Leetsdale rattled about the likes of God’s mysteries, I could not help but think him a madman, fueled by a need to atone for family sins past.
Chasing the Sandman Page 26
