A Trick of the Eye

by Jane Stanton Hitchcock

  She then withdrew the object she was holding from the folds of her robe and placed it on the floor directly in front of my face. It was a ceremonial dagger shaped like a crescent moon, the hilt encrusted with cabochon sapphires. I held my breath as I stared at the dark stones glinting in the changing light.

  “I don’t remember if the knife was exactly here,” she said. “I think it was, but I’m not sure. This isn’t the actual weapon, of course. This one is from my collection. But it was a knife, and I think, I think it was here. I’m almost positive I saw it. I think—oh dear . . .”

  She stopped speaking and rolled her eyes back into her head. She seemed disoriented. She held her head.

  “Mrs. Griffin? . . . Mrs. Griffin? Are you all right?”

  She didn’t answer me. She just knelt there, swaying back and forth, holding her head. I stared at that awful dagger and its light-spangled sapphires. Was Madi the murderer? Or was it someone else? Did she know who killed her daughter? Lying there, I felt the truth was as close to me as she was. I knew that in the end all veneers are scratched away, no matter how carefully they are applied, no matter what craftsman has applied them.

  I stayed still for as long as I could. Finally, I rolled over on my back. Mrs. Griffin was staring down at me. She held my gaze; then all at once her eyes flashed as if she’d suddenly seen something terrible. Her skin was parchment pale. She began to tremble. Her fingers flitted around in the air, dabbing at her face, her hair, her robe.

  “Oh dear, oh dear!” she cried over and over. “There’s been a mistake, there’s been a mistake! Get up, please—there’s been a terrible mistake!”

  I did as she said while she remained on the ground, crouched and trembling. Her panic increased. She picked up the dagger. Her hand shook so violently she dropped it. She began to writhe and shake all over, emitting pathetic little moans. I stood above her, mesmerized by the sight of her, trying to imagine what horrors were racing through that tormented mind of hers. All at once, she shuddered violently and let out a horrible scream. In that second, I saw terror as tangible as that dagger rip through her body. It was a fearful sight.

  Still quivering from the force of the seizure, she looked up at me with pleading, unfocused eyes and reached out to me, her arms emerging from the wide sleeves of her robe, frail and brittle. I knelt down to embrace her. Her body felt like a bundle of splinters wrapped in silk. She nestled into my chest, breathing hard. After a while, she calmed down.

  “You’ll feel better once you’ve told the truth, Mrs. Griffin. I promise you. You must tell the truth if you know it, for Cassandra’s sake.”

  “Yes,” she said in a small voice. “I know.”

  “You know who killed her, don’t you?”

  She looked up at me with a perplexed look on her face.

  “You know, don’t you?” I repeated.

  “Oh yes,” she hissed. “I know.”

  “Who? Tell me.”

  She shook her head. “I . . . I can’t.”

  “Mrs. Griffin, don’t you want to bring your daughter’s murderer to justice?”

  She blinked once or twice. “Justice . . . ?” she repeated absently. “There is no justice.”

  “Was it Madi? Was it Roberto Madi?”

  She closed her eyes, and the faintest hint of a smile gathered around her mouth.

  “That’s what everyone thought,” she said.

  “And was it? Did he do it?”

  “I think . . .” she began, then murmured something I couldn’t hear.

  “You think what? What do you think?”

  “I’m very tired.”

  I couldn’t let go of my prize now. I pressed on.

  “Do you think Madi did it?”

  I took her silence as a confirmation.

  “Yes?” I said anxiously.

  “Everyone thought so, I suppose,” she said dully.

  “But Mrs. Griffin, you know who did it. You do. I know you do. Why won’t you say?”

  She lapsed into a long silence. Then she said: “Murder can be a very slow process.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It can happen over years so you don’t know it’s happening. You want the best for your child. If you see your child in pain, it kills you, and then you realize one day that your child—your innocent child—is already dead.”

  “Go on—” I said.

  “But, you must understand, some people who kill aren’t really guilty of murder. They’re just carrying out a sentence.”

  I looked at her askance. What was she trying to tell me?

  “Who carried out your daughter’s sentence, Mrs. Griffin?”

  She covered her face with her hands.

  “Leave me alone. Please,” she moaned. “Leave me alone.”

  “You know! I know you do. Why won’t you tell me?” I pleaded.

  “I don’t know anything! Leave me alone!” she cried.

  She began writhing again. I held her tighter.

  “You must tell me, Mrs. Griffin. You must tell somebody. You mustn’t die with this on your conscience.”

  “There is no justice,” she said again.

  “Why won’t you tell me what you know?” I begged her.

  “I can’t, I can’t . . .” she whimpered.

  Finally, she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep. I watched her. Her skin looked as dry as powder, her lips as red as blood. She was a vision of decay. With each breath she took, she seemed to wither away, to shrink into the ornate folds of her silk robe, to sink deep into the embroidered tide. I rocked her back and forth, cradling her in my arms, wondering if she would ever part with her terrible secret.

  Chapter 10

  My latest and eeriest encounter with Mrs. Griffin only whetted my appetite to solve Cassandra’s murder. In the meantime, I had my work cut out for me at The Haven. Mrs. Griffin sent word to me through Deane that she had approved my final drawings.

  The following week, men arrived to put up the scaffolding. They honeycombed the ballroom with poles and planks. I was there to supervise, as was Deane, who proved helpful in dealing with the workers. He seemed to enjoy the sudden flurry of activity as much as I did. I believed it helped to take his mind off Pom-Pom, whom he still mentioned sadly every now and then. I always liked this part of a job. Deane took to calling the ballroom “the Sistine Chapel,” and me, “Miss Michelangelo.”

  The workers left, and for the next few weeks, I sat perched atop the scaffolding, mixing paint, sketching, thinking about Mrs. Griffin and her strange, sad life. Hanging in the air twenty feet above the cold marble floor, I wondered how the fashionable world would have reacted to the sight of its patron saint crumpled on the ground, weeping and shaking, cradling that sapphire dagger in her arms as if it were a dead child—she, the epitome of style and refinement, the queen of elegance and good behavior?

  Every once in a while, I found myself slipping into a day-dream about the famous coming-out party. The ghosts of that enchanted night appeared on the floor below me. I could almost hear the distant strains of a dance orchestra playing the butter-smooth medleys that always accompanied such festivities. I imagined Mrs. Griffin sweeping into the ballroom, all ease and sophistication, wearing silk and diamonds, waving a plumed fan over her guests as if it were a magic wand. I imagined Cassandra, slightly awkward and uncomfortable in her satin dress, standing in the receiving line, shyly extending a gloved hand to the society into which she was born a princess, keeping the world at bay, while her mother, the self-invented queen, soaked up the attention and flattery as her due. I imagined Holt Griffin, tall and elegant in white tie and tails, at his daughter’s side, proudly helping her make her entrance into his kingdom. A night of promise, with the Griffins above it all, above the ordinary, the ugly, the untoward, suspended in a dream.

  What had gone wrong? What was the secret? I felt s
orry for Mr. and Mrs. Griffin, for Cassandra, sorry for them all. I wondered if it had ever really been as I imagined it.

  Despite occasional fantasizing, I was able to get on with my work, making certain artistic decisions with assurance. Long years of experience had conferred upon me the ease of movement and sureness of stroke which are so essential to the craftsman. The application of paint to surface was now second nature to me. In the mornings, when I was sharper, I worked on the sky. Lying on my back on the scaffolding, I painted with my nose so close to the ceiling I would sometimes touch it inadvertently. Day by day, a heaven emerged, filled with clouds and stars and little cherubs peering down from their celestial nests at the scene on the ballroom walls. I liked fussing over my creations, making sure they looked their best. There was always some detail to go over with my rags and spotting brushes, heightening an effect here, softening one there, hoping to imitate nature with such a degree of perfection that even the suspicious eye would be deceived for a moment.

  In the afternoons, feeling lazier, I glided my brushes over the pilasters, niches, and crown moldings framing the body of my work, imitating the rare woods and marbles highlighting the scene. I sat for hours creating faux marbre and faux bois finishes the way others might sit leafing through the pages of a book.

  At the end of a day, I was flecked with paint, looking as if I’d been caught in a storm of confetti. I loved the preparation, the smells, the mess of it all. The act of painting gave me a sense of continuity, of pulling the world together somehow, and shaping it into a form I could grasp.

  Deane often came into the ballroom and had a cigarette or two while he watched me paint. He never said much. Occasionally, he brought me a cup of tea and a piece of pastry made by the chef, who, not having any grand company to cook for, had taken up baking for the help.

  I kept waiting for Frances Griffin to come to the ballroom to see how I was progressing. I felt both relieved and let down at the end of each day when she’d failed to show up and there was no word from her. I knew I’d been on the verge of getting her to admit the truth to me and that the passage of time was a hindrance. Her being such a short distance away was frustrating as well. Sometimes I thought of marching up to her room and simply demanding an interview. But on reflection this seemed pointless. Forcefulness was not the answer. I tried inventing a few excuses to see her on the pretext of needing her advice about this and that. But word always came back through Deane that she was “indisposed.” Indisposed—a wonderful word, perfectly in keeping, I thought, with the anachronistic atmosphere of the house.

  Things went along nicely. I finished the ceiling in less than a month. The men came back to take down the scaffolding. When the ballroom was clear once again, Deane brought the members of the staff in to see my work. They stood in silence as they looked up at my own version of heaven, a navy sky filled with tufted clouds, peering cherubs, dancing stars, and a shimmering white moon. They congratulated me one by one, shaking my hand as they left.

  The scaffolding down, I now set to work finishing the revelers on the walls, my “paint-by-the-numbers” phase as I called it. Scheme set, characters in place, all that was left for me to do was fill in the details—the faces, colors, and textures which would bring the scene to life. I particularly enjoyed working on the little visual jokes scattered throughout the murals—a gentleman groping a lady’s breast, another dancing with his hand up the folds of his partner’s dress, a waiter leering down an ample bustline, a drunken musician slumped over his cello, one dog licking spilled champagne, another peeing on a man’s leg, a bird flying off with a large diamond earring—mischievous vignettes, discreetly placed, hardly noticeable at first glance.

  Summer drifted into fall. The humid, wilting weeks of August were gradually replaced by a succession of cool, autumn days. Harry and I spoke to one another occasionally, but I was much too preoccupied with my work to really catch up with him. One evening I called him to chat, however, and there was a message on his machine saying that he was out of town and couldn’t be reached. This was unexpected and annoying. Harry usually informed me when he was planning to go away for any extended period of time.

  On a chilly afternoon, as I was strolling around the garden on a break, I noticed a strange car parked in the driveway, a black Cadillac. When Deane came into the ballroom later offering me a piece of lemon cake and a cup of tea, I asked him who the car belonged to.

  “Don’t tell me Mrs. Griffin’s breaking down and having a visitor?” I said.

  “Just breaking down, I’m afraid,” he replied, lighting a cigarette. “That was the doctor. They’re deciding whether or not she should go to the hospital.”

  “Oh dear. How bad is she?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Doctor says he’s coming back tomorrow.”

  “I hope she’s going to be all right.”

  “There’s a lot to be said for heart attacks,” he sighed wearily. “The last house I was in the lady died of a heart attack. If it was me I’d stay put, take my chances in my own bed, no hospitals.”

  Deane crushed his cigarette out on the floor, picked up the butt, and slid it discreetly into his pocket.

  “Hospitals are where they kill you,” he said, leaving.

  I got to thinking what would happen if Mrs. Griffin went to the hospital and died without my ever seeing her again. I knew I’d never feel quite right about myself if I didn’t make one last effort to pry that secret from her. I sipped my tea and picked over the cake wondering how best to go about it. I figured at this point I had nothing to lose by simply going upstairs to her bedroom and trying to talk to her one last time. I’d refrained from this direct approach before, not simply in the interest of propriety, but because there didn’t seem to be a great deal of urgency. Now there was. I thought, the hell with it: this is the moment.

  I felt like a mischievous schoolgirl as I sneaked across the garden and ducked into the house, hoping not to be seen by anyone, especially Deane and the nurse. I tiptoed quickly up the grand staircase, pretending to be invisible. On the first-floor landing I stopped to make certain no one was around before hurrying down the corridor toward Mrs. Griffin’s bedroom.

  The door was slightly ajar. I gave it a gentle push, then entered. The room was dark except for faint edges of daylight around the drawn shades of the windows. Walking to the center of the room, I could barely make out the small shadowy figure lying tucked up in the bed. I heard a distant voice, which startled me. At first I thought it was the nurse calling from the dressing room. Then I realized it was Frances Griffin herself.

  “I said who’s there?” she whimpered from her bed.

  “It’s me, Mrs. Griffin, Faith.”

  “Faith,” she repeated drowsily.

  I approached the bed, aware of a smell which was both sweet and slightly putrid. The smell of death, I wondered? I gazed down at her wigless head, palish brown with irregular strands of hair shooting out from it, like a coconut. It hardly made any indent on the pillow. Mummylike, her body lay still beneath the bedclothes, neatly wrapped in the linen folds so that no limbs were visible.

  “Mrs. Griffin?”

  The head bobbed slightly. Her eyes blinked open. She looked startled.

  “Who . . . ?”

  “It’s Faith, Mrs. Griffin. Faith Crowell. You remember me, don’t you?”

  She blinked two or three more times, as if she were trying to bring me into focus. With some difficulty, she extracted her arm from underneath those tight covers and gave me her hand. I took it. The skin was clammy and cold.

  “Water,” she whispered, licking her lips, which were shiny white and dry, like two old scars.

  I poured her a glass of water from the crystal carafe on her night table. Holding the back of her head with one hand, I pressed the glass to her lips so she could drink from it. The water seemed to refresh her. After a few sips she waved me away.

  “Faith . . .
Thank you.”

  “How are you feeling, Mrs. Griffin?”

  “What an idiotic question,” she said feebly.

  I smiled.

  “I heard the doctor was here. I was worried.”

  She was silent for a time. Then she spoke slowly, as if every word were an effort: “Tell me, Faith . . . Am I going to die? Don’t lie, please.”

  “I don’t know, Mrs. Griffin. I think they might take you to the hospital.”

  “To die . . . ?”

  I paused.

  “I can’t say. I don’t think anyone can.”

  She gripped my arm, but so weakly I hardly felt it.

  “Stay . . . I’m frightened.”

  “Of course I’ll stay. I’ll go with you to the hospital if you like.”

  My presence seemed to comfort her and she revived a little.

  “Talk to me. Tell me a story.” She sounded like a child.

  I wondered if she could really listen to what I was saying or if she just wanted to hear the sound of a voice, any human voice.

  “The ballroom is coming along nicely, Mrs. Griffin. I’ve done a great deal of work since you’ve been by to see it. I hope I’ve really been able to capture the spirit of that evening.”

  “The spirit of that evening . . .” she repeated sourly.

  “Well, I hope I have.”

  She let go a morbid little chuckle.

  “I hope you haven’t,” she said bitterly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve heard of a ‘date that will live in infamy’? There was one in this house.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “That ballroom was built for her. Especially for her. Every detail, every cornice, every molding . . . I put my life into it. I wanted her to have everything I’d never had—a mother who could give her everything . . .”

  “Go on,” I said, realizing she was slightly delirious.

  “You saw the dress. I gave it to you. Wasn’t it the most beautiful dress?”

  “Yes. Beautiful.”

  “You would have worn a dress like that, wouldn’t you?”