A Testament to Murder

by Vivian Conroy

  Kenneth rubbed his palms together. He might have read about death – even self-imposed death like Socrates’ suicide – but that was a different thing from looking the beast in the eye. It was here and it was watching.

  Also watching him.

  With a sudden chill Kenneth wondered if it was possible that death had come to claim the old man Malcolm, but would suddenly cast a covetous eye on him, a young man, healthy, strong, and full of life, and figure that this was a much better prey. After all, who would prefer that worn-out carcass on the bed above his head?

  If death was greedy, his greed might extend to someone who made a much better victim.

  Kenneth wet his dry lips. He had to resist the urge to go outside so he could see the skies overhead and breathe the fresh air. He told himself that it was cowardly to walk away from something that inspired fear. Only if you looked it straight in the eye and conquered the fear, you could live on. What would life be worth if you were constantly running away from something?

  “Hello.” The soft voice made him jerk round.

  A woman in a white dress with a blue cardigan on top smiled at him. “Can I get you a drink?” She gestured at the bottles on the sideboard against the wall. “Some ice in it?”

  “Scotch, no ice please,” he said in his best adult voice. Apparently she took him for a man, not a schoolboy. It had to be his height or his clothes.

  She poured two drinks and carried them over to him. As she handed him the glass, their fingers touched briefly. Her skin was soft and still the touch pricked him like it entered into his deepest being.

  She toasted him with her glass. “To your stay here.”

  “To a great summer,” Kenneth said and took a swallow. The liquor burned in his throat and he burst out coughing. His eyes watered with the effort but also with shame for betraying his ignorance. The woman had seated herself on the sofa and patted the pillow beside her. “Come here for a moment.”

  Still coughing and blinking against tears, Kenneth went over and sat by her side. He looked down at first, but then forced himself to meet her gaze.

  She smiled at him. “I’m so glad you are here. I felt rather silly being the youngest. I’m Anna.” She held out her hand to him. He pressed it, feeling determination in it, a need to face life head on. It was in her dazzling blue eyes as well, that held his gaze with a strange intensity as if in the moment of their handshake something was decided between them.

  He said, “Kenneth. But you can call me Ken if you want to. Some people like that better.”

  “All right.” She kept smiling. She had little freckles on her nose and cheeks. “What are you going to do here, Ken?”

  He took a deep breath and asked, “Do you like boats?”

  Anna nodded.

  Kenneth said, “We can take a boat out some time.” He knew he was good with boats and he could erase the first impression of clumsiness. He’d show her muscle and he’d show her skill.

  Anna smiled even wider. “I’d like that. Mr Bryce-Rutherford has a boat here. It’s docked at the bottom of the hill.”

  “Excellent. We can take it out tomorrow.” Kenneth kept his voice level with an effort. It had been easy to impress Marie, a country girl who wasn’t used to anything. But Anna here was worldly; he just knew that looking at her gracious profile and her elegant silver watch.

  Maybe she had travelled with her parents or for work, seen Athens or even New York? Maybe she could talk about places he knew nothing about.

  The glass was cold in his hand, challenging him to take another sip and have a coughing fit again. Whispering at him that this boating trip would only serve to humiliate him further in her eyes.

  A deep dark anger formed in his stomach, a desperate determination to never be humiliated again.

  Anna said, “I don’t like alcohol either. But it’s so fashionable.” She nervously toyed with the glass. “There are guests here now and…”

  Kenneth said, “Are you also a guest? How did Uncle Malcolm make your acquaintance?”

  She stood up and said, “I’ll talk to you later.” She put the glass down on a table so hard it almost broke and ran from the room.

  Kenneth had the distinct feeling he had made a terrible mistake but he wasn’t sure what it was.

  * * *

  “But you have to change for dinner. Come on, don’t be such a lazy bum.” Patty tried to push her husband off the bed.

  Hugh resisted and then turned over on his stomach fast, grabbing her wrists. He pouted his lips as he moved his face close to her.

  She could smell the liquor on his breath. “Don’t.” She pulled back. “You’ll ruin my makeup and crinkle my dress.”

  Hugh exhaled in a huff. “You never said that when I first met you.”

  Patty gave him a dazzling smile. “Be a dear and change. The gong for dinner will be rung soon.” She sat down at the dressing table and studied her reflection in the large gold rimmed mirror. “So pretty…” she whispered.

  “That’s rather vain, even for you,” Hugh called out, digging through his suitcase for a tie. She should probably help him as he had atrocious taste or was even colour-blind. She could never decide which it was.

  “I don’t mean my looks,” she said indignantly. “I mean, the dressing table. Imagine owning such a thing with inlaid ivory.” She ran her finger across the shiny white elements. “They form such a pretty pattern.”

  Hugh had no idea Malcolm had said she could become his sole heir. Imagine his shock, his facial expression when he found out about that. She was already dying with laughter.

  But she had to be smart. If Hugh got wind of it, before Malcolm actually died, he might persuade his uncle to change the will again. Then she’d be left with nothing, or in any case with less than she might have had. So she had to make sure Hugh stayed ignorant until Malcolm was dead.

  Was the will changed already? She had heard a car arrive and, looking down, had seen this quite discreet-looking gentleman in a dark suit go in. That had to be the lawyer Malcolm had mentioned. The one who was coming over to change the will.

  She had to suppress a burst of laughter. This was simply priceless.

  Hugh had found a tie and was trying to get it on. Patty rose to her feet and went over to do it for him. The poor sod couldn’t help it that he was so bad with clothes.

  In fact, she was hard pressed to think up anything Hugh was good at.

  She studied his face as she tied the silk. He had a good jaw, she supposed, although his cheeks were a little chubby. His eyes were nice enough, especially when he laughed. But he wasn’t laughing a lot lately. Maybe his book had made him so serious. It couldn’t be a very good book then. Books were supposed to make you feel happy. Like you could just reach out and touch the skies.

  “There,” she said and patted his chest. “All done up. Now we must hurry down.”

  “Malcolm isn’t going to show his face at dinner anyway,” Hugh protested, but he followed her out of the room.

  Downstairs in the dining room Patty spotted several new people. She went over at once, her hand outstretched and her ears poised to enjoy the pleasant thrill of her newly acquired double name. “Patricia Bryce-Rutherford. How do you do?”

  It pleased her no end that three of the new people were called Jones – such an ordinary unimaginative name – and she was saved from a faux pas with the fourth when Hugh said, just as she wanted to sail down on the rather attractive young woman, “That’s Uncle Malcolm’s nurse.”

  Patty gave the woman who was now of no interest anymore a curt nod and took her place at the table. She was seated between the two male unremarkable Joneses, feeling the eyes of the teenage boy on her naked shoulders. But not for long as he seemed to fall into a deep conversation with the nurse about the nearby town where she had detected a church from a certain architectural style.

  Patty was about to comment on the soup, although there was really nothing worthwhile to say about it, when the door opened and the woman whom Malcolm had called D
odo came in. She had changed out of her shapeless black dress into a close fitting deep green gown and conspicuous jewellery as if this was some large dinner party with a titled family instead of a simple family affair. But after all, “Dodo” was not a part of the family and perhaps felt like she had to assert herself to belong. Why had Uncle Malcolm invited her anyway?

  Howard Jones said to Patty, “The heat was sweltering today. We might get a thunderstorm later.”

  “Oh, I hope not, I hate thunder and lightning,” Patty said. “And the house is on a hill. Can lightning strike us?”

  Howard rushed to reassure her that this was unlikely as there were other houses nearby and tall trees that made a target for the lightning. Kenneth forgot for a moment about his discussion with the nurse and explained to Patty how lightning came to be, something others had tried to explain to her before him but not in quite such a concise and understandable way.

  “I think I actually get it now,” she said, and immediately caught the flash of ridicule in Theodora’s eyes. Of course she was so smart and knew it all. Patty bet that if Theodora had been asked to explain it, before Kenneth had spoken, she couldn’t have done it in that same way.

  During the main course Patty dug into her beef pretending it was Theodora she was cutting up, or else Hugh, who had to make a fool of himself by telling everyone who wanted to hear and who did not want to hear, about the novel he was working on. Someone said, probably to stop him, “But I thought you were a sculptor” and that made it even worse because Hugh then started talking about his collection of unfinished statues of all kinds of obscure mythological figures who were mostly female and stark naked, a subject not quite suitable for a dinner table with two unmarried women and a teenage boy present.

  Patty tried to divert attention by mentioning an art gallery that had wanted to buy one of Hugh’s pieces and Cecily seemed eager to pick up on it and tell about galleries in Paris, but Hugh cut across her, lamenting that of course the gallery had asked for a piece he couldn’t possibly finish because the Muse had left him and he didn’t dare touch such a promising piece without inspiration.

  Scooping up her beans, Patty wished that Hugh would choke on one and have to leave the room, at least until dinner was over. She glanced at the nurse and caught her wide-eyed look of admiration. Patty was used to older women falling for Hugh’s artistic glow, widows or spinsters whom Hugh would never look at, but this girl with her smooth skin, lush blonde hair and alluring eyes could actually pose a danger if Hugh started to notice her adoration.

  Patty decided that the two of them could better never be left alone in the same room, or happen to walk in the garden and bump into each other. She had to find out if Malcolm disliked his nurse gawking at men, for if he did, she might use the old man to separate the nurse and Hugh. It was always easier to let someone else do something than to have to do it yourself.

  “I do wish our host was well enough to join us,” Theodora said in a simpering tone. “It’s not the same without him.”

  Patty gave her a warm smile and asked, “How long have you worked for him?”

  “Until I came around,” Cecily said. She was smiling as well, but there was a certain chill in her eyes. “Theodora had been Malcolm’s secretary during his first marriage, but when he met me and we decided to get married, Malcolm let her go.”

  She didn’t give an explanation as to the reason for this, but Theodora had turned a deep red and wrung her napkin as if it was Cecily’s neck.

  The door opened again, and Patty expected to see the butler coming in with the desserts – some ice cream would be terribly refreshing – but to her surprise it was Malcolm, leaning heavily on his cane.

  Chapter Three

  The butler hovered over him, and on his other side was the discreet-looking man in a suit, whom she had taken for the lawyer. Suddenly the air seemed charged with all the electricity of the building storm outside.

  Did that mean something about the will would be mentioned?

  Patty put down her knife and fork, rubbed her fingertips on her napkin and took a quick sip of water to make sure she didn’t gawk too conspicuously as all her hopes of a large fortune made their way to the head of the table.

  Malcolm sighed with relief as he sank into the chair with armrests that stood there waiting for him.

  The butler piled pillows behind his back, while the lawyer said something at his ear and then withdrew to stand along the wall.

  Malcolm gestured with his right hand to indicate that the butler could clear the table. The clatter of plates was nothing like the solemn atmosphere Patty had imagined for a grand inheritance announcement. Would she forever have to recall that she had been pronounced sole heir to a fortune, while a fork almost fell into her lap?

  It wouldn’t matter of course for the money would be just as good, but still she would have liked this moment to be special.

  Malcolm waited until the butler had left the room and then said, his gaze slipping past all of their faces, “I’m very pleased that you’ve all accepted my invitation and have come out here to spend some time with me while you still can. I’d like to introduce you to my lawyer Frederick Koning, who is here to ensure everything is done legally.”

  At the latter word an excited shock drifted through the room. Everybody was suddenly aware of what was about to happen.

  Patty tried to look normally curious and not over anxious, although of course from the very moment everybody knew about her privileged position, they’d start undermining it. She had hoped Malcolm would keep his new will a secret until he was dead and nothing could be changed anymore.

  Malcolm said, “For my entire life I worked hard and lived frugally. I put money in the bank; I bought houses and horses and cars.”

  “Even a plane,” Patty mouthed, but Malcolm didn’t seem to see it and continued, “I collected antiques and other valuables. What you see on the walls in this room alone is enough to pay for a modest house in London.”

  Sharp intakes of breath suggested that Malcolm’s wealth was suddenly greater than any of them had expected.

  Malcolm continued, “I have gathered things upon things, not thinking about the time when I would have to leave this mortal existence without being able to take anything along. Now the time has come to think about it. I’m forced to think about it as my doctors have told me I will not recover.”

  He coughed a moment and used a handkerchief to wipe his mouth.

  Nobody said they were sorry to hear that he was dying.

  They just waited, their faces tight, until he continued, “I decided to ask all of you to come over here so I can tell you what I will do with everything I own.”

  His eyes were bright and intense as he glanced round again. “I could have done this the conventional way, I suppose. I could have decided to give something to everyone who played a part in my life. But why would I give any of you anything? My ex-wife Cecily showed herself so eminently able of spending my money whether I wanted her to or not. I think she spent quite enough and need not have any more.”

  Cecily turned pale and seemed to want to protest, but Malcolm didn’t give her a chance. “My ex-partner, Howard, not only took my business but also my wife. I doubt I can give him anything that would go beyond that.”

  Kenneth stared in shock from his mother to his father, and for a moment Patty felt sorry for him. The poor boy had probably never understood how things were in his family. This was a rude awakening, a blow dealt by an unsympathetic old man who had apparently chosen these moments for a little revenge.

  Malcolm said, “My nephew Hugh could no doubt use money to keep him fed and lodged while he tries to decide whether ‘walked’, ‘trotted’, ‘marched’, ‘rushed’ or ‘ambled’ is quite the right word to convey his character’s current action. And as his masterpiece can’t end up shorter than at least three hundred thousand words, you can imagine such careful choices take up a lot of time.”

  Hugh opened and shut his mouth like a fish out of water.

/>   Malcolm said, “In addition to the demands of his fickle Muse, Hugh now also has the wishes of his new wife to take into account. Although I can imagine that a nanny who exchanged three screaming charges for only one, already got the better end of the deal and should not ask for more.”

  Patty was numb with shock at being exposed like this at dinner and grabbed her wineglass, gulping down the contents.

  Malcolm calmly continued, “She rather likes to drink…”

  Patty lowered her glass to the table with a bang.

  “And has expensive taste in clothes, although it is beyond me why dresses containing so little fabric have to cost so much.”

  Theodora snickered, and Patty wanted to throw something at her. She had no idea why Malcolm who had promised to give her everything was now tearing her apart in front of everybody else. He had to be losing his mind.

  * * *

  Malcolm said, “I could also leave some money to faithful servants like Jenkins, Dodo or Anna.”

  Theodora shocked upright as if he had struck her across the face. How could he do this to her? Listed among the servants and mentioned in the same breath as Anna, who couldn’t have been in the household for long. But such a pretty young nurse was exactly the kind of person Malcolm liked to look at. If only she fell down the rocks one day and died…

  Malcolm said, “I do appreciate loyalty and hard work. But I knew that you, the more logical choices as heirs, would not appreciate it and perhaps start lengthy claims to keep the money away from them. So I decided to do this strictly fair.”

  Theodora scoffed inaudibly. Fair! Malcolm didn’t know the meaning of the word. If he had treated her fairly, she need not have done what she had. She needed not have become what she was.

  Malcolm said, “Every night, when the clock strikes midnight and the new day begins, I will sign a new will. Leaving everything I own to one person. You will not know who that person is and he or she will only be heir to everything for the course of that one day. If I die during that day, that person will get everything. But as soon as the day is done and the clock strikes twelve again, I will change the will to make a new person my heir. You will each get a turn. You don’t know when it is your turn. You don’t know if I will die on your day. If I do, and I am indeed very close to death, you are rich. If I go on breathing and the time has passed, you have nothing.”