by Tyler Colins
“Try the ears,” Percival suggested.
Nothing happened.
“Go for the Donald Trump backcombed coif,” I offered.
Adwin looked at me with a furrowed brow, then ran fingers across the gargoyle's head. Something caught his interest. A jiggle here, a joggle there, and ta-da, a three-by-five-foot portion of the wall slid sideways, sounding like a dull spade scraping pebbled earth.
“Keee-rist.”
“Cool.” Adwin peered inside. An impossibly narrow flight of stairs lead downward into blackness. “Grab a candle, plum dumpling, and place it in that holder-type thing on the windowsill.”
“… Got it, my little banana flan.”
Percival groaned and waited for me to lead the way.
* * *
“Anyone here?” Percival shouted.
Bumping into Adwin, who'd stopped in the middle of the narrow corridor, I rubbed my ear, hoping the damage from the strident question was temporary, and elbowed Percival not so lightly in the ribcage.
“Hey!”
“Hey yourself,” I muttered, turning back to the tight ash-colored passageway. Forty feet ahead, it forked. “We could split up,” I suggested.
“It would be better to stay together until we find the others,” Percival advised. “If this is all a stupid game, fine; if not, why play into some fruitcake's hand?”
Adwin and I glanced at each other and nodded, and the three of us marched solemnly to the left.
The bricked walls and rough flooring weren't dirty or overly dusty, which suggested the hidden passage had been in use throughout the years. Or maybe dust and dirt didn't collect in walled-off places. What did I know? It did smell moldy, though, and I fought an urge to sneeze.
“Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” I asked.
Percival's voice grew urgent. “I heard something. It was soft, hushed, and seemed to come from there.” He pointed to the left.
Adwin and I turned to each other and shrugged simultaneously. “Left it is.” He grasped the candle holder and took the lead. For an introspective laid-back kind of guy, he was being as valiant as one of the men sporting Reginald's armor centuries ago might have been.
“Ach-choo!”
“Gesundheit,” my valiant beau murmured as we halted. There was nowhere to proceed; solid wall lay immediately ahead.
Percival pressed a monogrammed linen hankie into my hand. After another violent sneeze and the blowing of my itchy nose, I pressed it back into the pocket of his sweater.
“Thanks.” You could hear the wince rather than see it.
I pointed a thumb to the rear. “As Rey would say: about face!” Making a crisp turn, I started to head back when Percival grabbed my forearm.
“Listen.”
We faced the wall. Subtle sounds suggested there was something or someone beyond the barrier. I ran fingers along uneven bricks on the left. Adwin, seeing what I was doing, did the same on the right. Percival inspected the barren floor and low irregular ceiling.
It was nimble-fingered Adwin who discovered a loose brick that – with a push and a pull – resulted in a wall shifting inward. “Just like in the movies,” he said with a triumphant smile.
“Too much so,” Percival said with a sigh. “If Mr. Hyde or the Wolfman pops out of nowhere, I won't be held responsible for what I may do.”
He wasn't intending to be funny, but I laughed.
An apricot light glimmered in the nearby distance and we moved toward it. The search for missing persons and goblins was on again as we picked our way down a short slope.
Adwin stopped dead in his tracks, prompting me to bump into him and Percival to stumble into me. “Speaking of horror-movie nasties, what's this? A lair?”
“Someone's been here,” Percival said, nodding to one of two antique parlor lamps that provided the gentle lighting. “Hey!”
The opening had slid back in place with a whoosh-thunk. We were in a square room of meadow green with a low beamed ceiling and walls finished with plaster. It resembled a cross between an old-world library and study, and would have made a great Victorian England stage setting. Had this been Reginald's little getaway? It was certainly reminiscent of the library-study in the main part of the house. Or could this be Aunt Matty's hideaway?
Adwin blew out the candle and we spent a couple minutes attempting to find a lever or switch that would reopen the wall, gave up, and decided to investigate the intriguing surroundings that suggested we'd walked into another era. We strolled around, entranced by quality furnishings and fine details, tempted to touch things, but knowing better.
“Oh-oh.”
Adwin and I turned to Percival, then to what he was viewing. Oh-oh was an understatement.
Jensen Q. Moone was reclining on an elaborately carved mahogany recamier in a far corner niche, a slender pine stake wedged into his heart through a fine designer shirt and the gold chain and cross he'd sported since arrival draped around the stake. If you looked beyond the blood-covered chest, you might have claimed the barrister was sleeping, so serene was his expression. Hadn't the man protested or fought? Or had he known his killer? And if he had, why would he have allowed that person to drive a wedge of wood into his body? Maybe the killer had been swift, surprising? Or had Jensen Q. Moone been drugged, his senses dulled so he couldn't react?
“So much for the crucifix. It didn't do him much good,” Percival murmured, peering over my shoulder.
“Vampires are the ones to get stakes through the heart, and they don't wear crosses – at least not in the movies I've seen,” Adwin said.
“He was a bloodsucking lawyer, Addy boy. They're a different, hardier breed.”
I swallowed a chuckle and attempted to appear grave. Okay, maybe “grave” wasn't the right word, considering.
“My word, what a spot of bad luck,” Adwin said with a West-Country English dialect.
I roared. Adwin tittered. Percival looked at us as if we'd lost it, but seconds later, he was laughing like someone who'd sucked in too much nitrous oxide.
Several tears and gasps for breath later, Adwin was checking out a large handcrafted oak fireplace that hadn't seen a fire in years, if ever. Percival was investigating a beautiful mahogany bookcase with a lovely brass swan neck he swore was from the Chippendale period, while I was searching a handsome handcrafted nineteenth-century oak armoire with satyrs and other mythological creatures lining triple-paneled doors. Besides the wall that had swung back into place, there had to be an alternative exit somewhere.
I was about to test the rear panels of the armoire when a grinding sound from beyond the unit drew my attention. I glanced across the room to see if my cohorts had heard it. They had and their expressions mirrored mine: wary.
Like a loaded car carrier, slowly and noisily, the heavy armoire slid aside.
12
Hyde-n-Seek
“You found it!” Linda, smiling jubilantly and waving a waterproof lantern, rushed forward. Her left cheek sported dirt shaped like a top hat while the tip of her ski-slope nose missed a couple of layers of skin.
Rey raced in from behind, followed by Prunella and then May-Lee.
“What? The room?” I grabbed the intense light and switched it off. I was already suffering from partial hearing loss, no thanks to good ol' Perc, so partial blindness wasn't on the rest of the agenda.
“The entrance to the hidden passageway.” She motioned the corridor from which they'd emerged.
“It was you who found it.” Peering past her shoulder, I viewed only exaggerated shadows and darkness. I motioned the opposite wall. “We came across the other one during our travels.”
“They actually loop around. It's kind of weird and wacky the way things connect, but this place is really cool,” Rey exclaimed, pulling cobwebs and dust balls the size of marsh plants from disheveled hair.
“It has a certain fun factor,” Prunella agreed, stepping alongside her brother. Her costly cashmere sweater was layered with grime and a three-inch te
ar graced one sleeve. A jagged scrape bloodied one cheek and an abrasion divided an eyebrow the size of a Tootsie Roll.
“Did you ladies meet a mad ghoul along the way?” Adwin joked.
She fingered the wound and smiled dryly. “It was more like erratically positioned pipes and cobweb-mad spiders.”
Percival regarded her worriedly.
She waved his unvoiced concern aside. “A huge repugnant arachnid caught me by surprise. I panicked and smacked iron … face first.” She grinned. “Then, just for effect, I did it again.”
“Pruney, that's one fabulous scream you have,” Rey declared with a wide smile, sticking an index finger in one ear and jiggling it back and forth.
Pruney appeared to be the name of choice and endearment this evening. Well, there were worse names to answer to.
May-Lee swung around from the rear. She suppressed a sneeze. “I believe I have had more adventure in the last few hours than I have in the last five years.” Sighting something crawling along her stretch linen-blend jeans, which had to cost more than the six pairs of denim I owned, she cast it aside with a soft wail.
Percival stepped on it when it landed by his foot. “What did you find, besides multi-legged companions?”
“Besides bugs – and looping corridors – we discovered a couple of alcoves and another secret room, a smaller version of this one, with a concealed bar and fridge, just off the tower,” Linda offered. “We didn't find Jensen, though.”
“We did.” I pointed at the recamier.
The women raced across the room like runners in a track-and-field sprint.
Prunella's tiny lips disappeared while Rey and Linda peered so closely they could have administered mouth-to-mouth. May-Lee simply appeared resigned, but took one long stride rearward.
“You didn't tell us he was dead,” Rey said flatly.
“You didn't ask.”
“He wasn't here when we passed through earlier.” Linda.
“When was that?” I asked.
She glanced at a pumpkin-orange Swatch watch and shrugged. “Twenty minutes ago, give or take.”
“More like fifteen.” Rey.
“More like thirty.” May-Lee.
“Thirty, at the very least.” Prunella.
“You're certain he wasn't here when – whatever time – you moved through here?” Adwin asked, baffled.
They looked at one another, then at Jensen, and shrugged simultaneously.
Percival's eyebrow arced like a gooseneck. “We'd better call the police.”
“What do we do with Jensen the Jokester?” Linda asked, jerking a thumb.
“He's not going anywhere,” he replied.
“Dead bodies always disappear in the movies,” she said.
“Then why don't you sit beside the unfortunate bugger and make sure he doesn't – wait a minute. Has anyone checked that he is dead? He's already played one prank.”
We regarded Percival as if he'd offered a dramatic and enlightening disclosure.
“Well?” he asked.
I pressed Linda's lantern into his hands, marched forward and scanned Jensen's tranquil expression, his torso, legs and arms. The digits of his right hand were crusted with blood. Was this all fake? Was it theatrical make-up? I wasn't inspired to check that closely. Besides, there was no way someone could remain that inactive for that long and not be dead – hold on. CPR 101, courtesy of a ten-minute segment I'd hosted on first aid, kicked in. I pressed two fingers alongside the outer edge of his trachea to feel the pulse of the common carotid artery.
“What's the verdict, Dr. Fonne?” Rey asked.
“He's as dead as Fred the Ghost.”
“Let's hope he doesn't start singing anytime soon,” Adwin said.
“He's not going anywhere,” Percival repeated, moving into the opening the trio had emerged from. “But you're all welcome to keep him company.”
We were on his heels faster than kids on cotton candy at an annual state fair.
* * *
The witching hour found a steady stream of ice-heavy rain saturating the state and spreading towards Pennsylvania, New York, and eastern Canada. It also found the return of our two favorite law enforcers.
Thanks to temperamental locks and those “looping” corridors, it took a quarter of an hour with skeptical Sheriff Lewis and surly Detective Gwynne in tow, to find the way back to the secret room. And wouldn't you know it? As sure as the sun rose in the east, Jensen Q. Moone wasn't where we'd left him. There was no blood, no weapon … nada.
Back to the drawing room we traipsed, where coffee and sugary treats and an immense roaring fire awaited. Lewis, fifty if he was a day, had an easy-going air about him. When he smiled, sea-green eyes sparkled with sincerity. He'd probably seen a lot of mischief in his youth. Gwynne, on the other hand, leaned toward the somber. He couldn't have been more than forty, but appeared to have seen it all. Or maybe fourteen years on the Bronx police force had taken its toll; made him familiar with violence and, consequently, indifferent.
The sheriff had a soft Massachusetts accent that recalled fond memories of cherry clams, colorful falls, and saltbox houses. “It's nawt that I don't believe you, but there's no body and no blood.”
“Bring out the Luminol. You'd find trace amounts of it,” Linda suggested with a hint of smugness.
Lewis laughed and took a chocolate-walnut cupcake from a large oval plate. “This isn't one of those police procedural shows, Miss.”
“What about the fact that Thomas Saturne died?”
Gwynne sighed. “It was an accidental death –”
“For sure?” Linda challenged. The screenwriting assistant was becoming feisty.
“For now.” Lewis drained his coffee and stood. “Matty Moone was a good lady and she made a tasty pear crumble pie –”
“Pear crumble pie?” Rey and I asked simultaneously. Our aunt baked?
“Your ahnt enjoyed baking in the fall. Never did it any othah time of the year, except for the week around Christmas, of course. She dropped off a couple of pies, like clockwork, every second Friday throughout the autumn months.” He smiled wistfully and gazed into the distance, as if a slice were within reach.
“Shouldn't you check out the entire property?” Linda asked.
“I was going to say, before I was interrupted, she made tasty pear crumble pies but she made even greatah jokes.” Lewis glanced at me, then at Rey. “As her nieces, you'd know that bettah than anyone. She probably got this Jensen Moone fellow to play anothah prank.”
“But –”
Gwynne's concentrated stare silenced Linda.
She frowned and turned to the mammoth fireplace.
“If you won't find him, we will,” Rey stated haughtily, standing.
“When you find him, I'm sure he'll be roaring with laughtah,” Lewis said with a grin, smoothing his shirt over a belly that had enjoyed many of Mathilda Moone's pear pies and more. “We'll see ourselves ount. Please thank the team in the kitchen for the hospitality.”
“Do you believe that?” Linda asked angrily, watching the two men leave.
“You can't blame them,” Percival said, attempting to stifle a yawn. “I wouldn't believe us, given the situation: no corpse.”
Adwin sipped green tea. May-Lee nibbled a pecan tart and stared into the distance. Linda rubbed her raw nose and Pruney continued to pick at a large bandage on her cheek. I was too tired to care. If Jensen were indeed playing a joke, we'd get him back threefold. If he wasn't, then the million-dollar question was where was he? Which prompted the two-million dollar question: if he were truly dead, who the hell had moved his body?
“I'm annoyed,” Linda announced, crossing her arms and adopting one of Rey's peevish moods.
“I'm curious,” Rey offered.
“I'm itchy.” Pruney pulled at the bandage and winced as it came off, with a couple of layers of skin. A tissue quickly found its way to bleeding flesh.
“I'm ready for bed,” May-Lee announced, standing.
“I'
m gone.” Percival marched from the room.
“I am, too.” Adwin followed.
“I say we go searching.” Rey.
“I say we get some sleep and start our search with fresh eyes and a decent breakfast in our stomachs.” Keeping the tissue pressed to her wound, Prunella rose slowly.
“I agree. We need to recharge,” I said.
“Hear, hear.” May-Lee strolled into the hallway.
Rey did her pouty thing and Linda sighed, and we ambled upstairs.
13
Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are
“Oh!” With thoughts back in North Carolina and eyes on the cork flooring, I hadn't immediately sighted Beatrice ten feet in front.
“Ma'am.”
On a small acacia-wood serving tray sat a steaming floral mug and slice of poppyseed strudel. She was wearing an Empire nightgown under a long matching cotton robe, belt loose, and a padded, quilted bonnet, something I thought could only be found in PBS sagas and epics. A thin sheen of oil glistened on her shriveled face. It seemed a little late in life for moisturizing and/or attempting to soften those “fine facial lines”, which she had more of than an Asian bitter melon.
“I've heard a few footfalls traipsing hallways this late evening,” I smiled. “I guess I'm as restless as you and the others. Maybe hot cocoa will help me relax.”
“Warm milk and honey works as well as any sleeping pill, and is much healthier.” She nodded to the mug and her lips twitched. A smile? “Ma'am.” With the tray held firmly in both hands, off she ambled like a devoted lady departing church with the Good Book.
The milk was easy to find: there were three large cartons in the fridge. The honey took longer to locate, but finally showed up in a cupboard – the sixth of fourteen. There was a selection, too: blueberry, clover, apple blossom and fireweed. The fireweed sounded novel.
Two minutes later, as I was whisking a liquid “sleeping pill”, Percival Sayers walked in, wearing the same bedtime attire as the evening previous.
“You couldn't sleep, either?”
