The Marlowe Murders

by Laura Giebfried

  “Why don't we just wait until Mr. Brookings can go over the will with us?” Rachel cut in with her forced-calm tone. “I'm sure there's no point in getting upset over something until we know exactly what we're dealing with.”

  “I know exactly what I'm dealing with,” Marjorie snapped, her eyes still on Lennox, but then she turned to Kneller. “Kneller, I'm ready to go home. Get the ferry ready, will you?”

  “Yes, ma'am,” he said, pushing from the door frame and leaving to do so.

  “You can't just leave!” Amalia insisted. “Not until the police come! No one's leaving!”

  “Feel free to give them my address,” Marjorie said, already turning from the room. “I'm not staying here another night.”

  She plowed from the room, knocking Bill with her shoulder as she went. As we watched her disappear down the hallway and into her room, Edie gave a violent shiver. She clutched her bony arms, then briskly followed her sister out of the room.

  “Get your things,” she shot at Bill as she passed. “We're leaving, too.”

  “You can't leave!” Amalia screeched again, but Edie had already hurried off. Bill slunk after her. Amalia turned to the rest of us, daring us to announce our departures next, but no one did. Her hands had clenched into fists, and she shook with anger as she stormed from the room. Rachel muttered that she had to check on James before following, and then Bernadette gave a loud huff and left, too.

  I looked over at Lennox. His face was still void of emotion. I tried to think of something to say to him, but before anything could come, a voice rasped from behind me.

  “Why couldn't you have just left him out there in the snow?”

  Mrs. Tilly was standing at the foot of Mrs. Marlowe's bed, clutching one of the posts with a white-knuckled hand. Her eyes were glued to John's body.

  “What?” I said.

  “Why didn't you just let him disappear? It would have been better that way.” She uncurled her hand, but she was still quivering from head to toe. “You keep those curtains closed, now – or the Devil'll send a moonbeam down to steal Mr. Marlowe's soul.”

  “Assuming he has a soul,” I replied, and Mrs. Tilly's eyes snapped up to me. She gave me a long, ugly stare and tore from the room. I crossed my arms and looked over at Lennox. He was staring at me with an odd look in his eyes.

  “What?” I asked him. “Do you think she's right?”

  “About the devil?”

  “No. About leaving him out in the snow.”

  His gaze returned to John. I followed it, and for a moment as I stared at the body, I saw the juxtaposing images of how he had smiled so widely when he had offered me the job and how his expression had turned monstrous when he had rushed down the stairs toward me the night before. I couldn't contend with who he had been, nor with what had happened.

  “I don't know what to think,” Lennox said at last.

  I started toward the door. Lennox's voice called after me.

  “Are you leaving?”

  “No.” I pulled off the gloves I was still wearing and shoved them into my pocket. “I'm going to check the phone line.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want to know what I'm dealing with.”

  I marched from the room and went outside, circling to the back of the house. The junction box was on the patio that Kneller had just shoveled. Yanking the door open, I ran my fingers down the various wires, searching for one that was no longer intact. It only took me a moment to find it: it was severed in two pieces. One piece came from the top, the other from the bottom. The entire middle section had been removed. My mouth twitched as I looked at it. We would have to go directly to the police station to get help after all. I went back to the house to inform Kneller.

  He was already on the front porch when I arrived.

  “I'd like a ride, too,” I said, pulling out my gloves.

  He shook his head.

  “I need to,” I said, tugging the gloves on. “I have to go to the police station –”

  “No one's going anywhere.”

  “We have to. The phone line's been cut –”

  Marjorie came out onto the porch. She was wearing her thick fur coat and had a scarf wrapped around her head to protect her ears from the cold, windy ferry ride.

  “My bags are upstairs,” she said to Kneller. “Second door on the left.”

  “I can't take you back to the mainland, ma'am,” Kneller said.

  “What are you talking about?” Marjorie said sharply. “What have Birdie and Amalia said? They can't hold me here against my will –!”

  “The ferry's gone.”

  Marjorie and I stared at him.

  “What do you mean, 'gone'?” she said.

  “Gone, as in not here,” Kneller said. “It's not at the dock.”

  “Well, this is just – this is just –” She threw her hands in the air and marched back into the house. Her shrill voice rang out from the Foyer. “Birdie! Rachel! Edie! Get down here!”

  I dropped my gloves down to the porch. My stomach sank with it. Marjorie was waving her arms around as she shrieked at her sisters.

  “The ferry is gone!” she said. “Gone! Vanished!”

  “Well, then that proves it!” Edie said, crossing her arms over her chest as though to protect herself from another impending knife attack. Bill had come out of the Study at the sound of their voices. He fumbled with his eyeglasses as he listened. Amalia stood in the doorway to the Parlor, her arms crossed rigidly. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lennox on the stairs, though he stayed on the second floor landing. “Someone else was here, killed John, then fled!”

  “And how did they get here, might I ask?” Marjorie said. “Did they stow away on the ferry?”

  “Well – yes! Yes, I imagine they did!”

  “So a vagrant stowed away on Frank's ferry without him noticing – despite being as big as a Cord Cabriolet with no room to hide – and then came here, hid, killed our brother, and fled back on the ferry?”

  “It's the only logical explanation!”

  “Says the woman who was frightened of a ghost the other night,” Marjorie said, her voice dripping with scorn.

  “Just because you don't believe in things doesn't mean they're not real!”

  “Don't get upset, Edie,” Rachel said. “We're all under a lot of stress –”

  “If I may, ma'am,” Kneller said, stepping forward to cut her off. “It's possible that no one took the ferry, but that the storm set it off into the ocean.”

  “Just like the storm knocked the phone line out?” Marjorie retorted. “You've tied the boat up in storms hundreds of times, Frank! Someone set it out into the ocean!”

  “On purpose?” Bill asked. “Why?”

  “To keep us all here,” Marjorie said, her eyes boring into her eldest sister's. “Isn't that what you wanted, Birdie?”

  “That doesn't mean I set the ferry loose. I wouldn't even know how to do that.”

  “It can't be much more difficult than operating a car,” Marjorie said. “You've seen Kneller operate it more than anyone –”

  “This is getting out of hand,” Rachel said. “We can't keep blaming one another for something that none of us would do –”

  “Where were you last night, Kneller?” Amalia cut in. “You would have an easy time sneaking outside – no one would have heard you from the main house.”

  “I was in my bed, alone,” Kneller said. “And in case you're hoping to accuse me further, remember that whoever killed your husband locked the doors of the main house with a deadbolt behind them.”

  Amalia drew herself up haughtily so that her nose was an inch above his.

  “How did you know that?” she asked.

  “Your maid told me,” he replied.

  “Did she?” she said, turning her cold stare to me.

  “I told him what had happened when I went to get him earlier,” I said. “I didn't think –”

  “Don't worry, Alexa,” Bill said kindly. “No one thinks you did th
is.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Amalia said. “She's a more likely culprit than the rest of us!”

  “Oh, for Christ's sakes –” Marjorie said. “She's the maid!”

  “The maid that John hired!” Amalia screeched back. “Who knows where he found her! She probably got one look at the estate and – and –”

  “Decided to stab him and take his wallet?” Marjorie finished blandly.

  Amalia fumed.

  “No one would hurt John,” Rachel said, cutting in hurriedly. “I'm sure of it.”

  “But that's just it, Mrs. Langston,” Kneller said. “We don't know that no one would kill your brother, so we're all going to be a bit on edge until we discover who did it.”

  “None of my siblings would kill John,” Rachel said firmly.

  “Well then, I guess that leaves you with five suspects,” Kneller returned. “Me, Lennox, your sister-in-law, the cook and the maid … and two of us have alibis. What do you propose to do about it?”

  “I'm not sure either of you have an alibi,” Marjorie said. “Just because the doors were locked doesn't mean anything. You might have gone through the window for all we know!”

  “No one went through a window,” Bernadette said with a tone that suggested no one could be so low class. “The shutters were closed and locked from the inside because of the storm. I oversaw Alexa do it myself.”

  “Not all of the windows have shutters!”

  “All of the windows that open do,” Bernadette said. “Mother made sure of it. She wanted to make certain that no one could sneak in without her knowing. And the nursery doesn't even have a window anymore, so Lennox would have had to have had a key to get out.”

  Edie gave a horrible shudder as though the thought of the nursery was too disturbing to stand.

  “Well, maybe he did have a key,” Marjorie said. “There's the master key!”

  “The master key went missing ages ago,” Bernadette said. “So unless you think he's been hanging onto it for all these years –”

  “He could have picked the lock,” Amalia said. “And then re-picked it to lock himself in again!”

  “That makes him sound like quite the criminal mastermind,” Bernadette said. “I would think a man that clever would find a better way to kill someone.”

  “What's that supposed to mean?” Amalia said.

  “Just that stabbing a man and leaving him in the snow is rather flagrant. If he was trying to kill John in the hopes of getting the inheritance, you'd think he'd want to make it look as though he'd died of natural causes – something a doctor ought to know how to do.”

  “Or a nurse like you, Birdie,” Marjorie shot.

  “It doesn't matter how he died!” Amalia said. “The fact is that he's dead!”

  “It does matter, Amalia,” Bernadette chided. “Millions of dollars aren't going to help Lennox if he's sitting in a jail cell.”

  “He probably thought he could get away with it!”

  “I think I'll go check the phone again,” Bill said hurriedly, but I stopped him.

  “Don't bother: the line's been cut. I just checked it.”

  “I – what?” he spluttered. “No, it can't be –”

  “Christ Almighty!” Marjorie shrieked. “When I find out who did this, I'll see you laying in the Augustus Suite next to John!”

  “And when I find out who did it,” Amalia added, “I'll help her!”

  “Assuming it wasn't either of you,” Bernadette said.

  “I had no reason to kill John!” Amalia screamed, her golden skin deepening with red and her hair flying up around her face wildly, but her words were peppered by someone else's chuckle. Everyone turned to look at Kneller, who couldn't quite hide his amusement behind his hand.

  “You think this is funny?” Marjorie asked.

  “No, no,” Kneller said, though the smile still tugging at his lips begged to differ. He nodded to Amalia. “I just thought your choice of words was … interesting.”

  “And what's that supposed to mean?”

  Kneller lifted his chin, and his skeletal cheekbones jutted out as he raised his eyebrows.

  “I just think, if we're being perfectly honest,” he said, “then we should all admit one thing: everyone here wanted John dead, for one reason or another.”

  Amalia's face twisted, but it was Rachel who spoke.

  “You're out of line, Frank.”

  “And you're in denial if you think it's not true,” he returned. “We all got something out of his death, whether it's the inheritance or just the lack of his presence on this earth.”

  “Get out!” Rachel said. She was white and shaky. Bill laid a hand on her arm in an attempt to calm her. “Go back to the guesthouse if you're – you're just going to – to –”

  “To point out what everyone's thinking but no one will say?” he finished for her.

  “Just because we didn't like John doesn't mean we wanted him dead,” Bernadette said matter-of-factly. She ran her hands over her large stomach, smoothing out the wrinkles in her dress. “And the only person who would kill him is whoever's next in line to inherit.”

  “Unless John's death was only the first,” Edie whispered.

  “Don't be ridiculous,” Marjorie snapped. “The killer can hope to get away with one murder, but they're not going to get away with slaughtering half the family!”

  Creaking came from the staircase. Lennox had moved from the landing onto the topmost step. He slowly made his way down the stairs, but Amalia moved to block him from the Foyer.

  “You did this,” she breathed. “You bring death wherever you go.”

  Lennox looked at her carefully.

  “A gross exaggeration, Amalia,” he replied. “Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to have a cigarette.”

  She glared at him without moving, holding her ground for so long that I thought for sure he would push past her, but he simply waited, and waited and waited, and finally she stepped aside. He crossed the room and went out the front door. As it shut behind him, the cold air that had slipped in rushed over us, and a collective shiver went around the room.

  His departure ended the conversation. Edie rushed back upstairs, and Rachel turned on her heel and returned to the Drawing Room. I took my chance to escape next, crossing behind Bernadette and Marjorie to get to the stairs, and made my way to the third floor. I went to the nanny's room and took a seat on the bed instead, rubbing my palms against my temples as I tried to think of what to do. But there was nothing to do, I realized. The choice had been made for me by someone unknown, and I was staying on the island and in the house with a murderer for an indefinite period of time. The only thing to decide was what to do about it.

  Hide, was my initial thought. Hide in my room, or in a separate part of the house, and hope that someone somehow knew to send help our way. Yet already the task made me feel useless, and something was tugging at me to do more – to help myself, save myself – though I didn't know what that would be. As Kneller's words floated back to me, suggesting that all of us had wanted John dead, I gripped my sheets tightly and tried to decide if that was true. For if John had truly planned to go through on his promises to me, then his death was more disadvantageous than I could stomach; but if he had only brought me to the island in the hopes of having his way with me, then I was only sorry that he hadn't died before I had been dragged all the way out to the island.

  The uncertainty of it all, though, made it feel as though a disease had settled in my chest and was eating away at me from the inside out. I reached for the bottle of prescription medication on my bedside table and uncapped it, then tapped out four pills even though it was too early to take any. My thoughts were running through what had happened, flooding me with the broken images of John's face swaddled by the snow and the ornate handle sticking out of his chest. I pulled off my cap and tossed it at the foot of the bed, changed into my nightgown, then undid my hair so that I could lay comfortably back on the pillow as I waited for the medication to take effec
t. A solution would come as soon as my mind had time to rest, I told myself.

  The familiar feeling of ease came over my head several minutes later as though clouds had been piped into my brain to momentarily hide my thoughts from my mind's view, and yet I frowned. There was something bothering me about the knife that I had seen sticking out of John's chest. I had seen the ornate gold pattern somewhere before, though I couldn't place where. Not the dining room or kitchen: the former only had sterling silver utensils, and the latter's had wooden handles. Yet I was certain – certain – that I had seen the exact etchings somewhere. I tried to pull open the drawers to the filing cabinets in my head, but the fog created by the medication was too thick now, and I couldn't sort through my stored thoughts.

  A knocked sounded on the door and Lennox called through the wood, asking if he could enter.

  I didn't respond. My mind was elsewhere.

  He stepped over the threshold and then halted in shock. For a moment I thought he might have been embarrassed to see me there in my nightclothes, but from the way his olive skin had paled and his pupils had dilated, his expression looked more frightened than anything. One of his hands was still on the doorknob, seemingly incapable of letting go, and when he spoke, there was a slight waver in his voice that contrasted sharply to his usual tone.

  “Alexandra?”

  I lifted my heavy eyelids slightly to look at him. The pills were rendering me careless.

  “Yes?”

  “I –” He wrenched his hand from the doorknob and folded his arms together instead. “Are you alright?”

  I felt that I ought to have been the one asking him the question: he looked more unsettled than he had when he had first seen John dead.

  “I found a man dead out in the snow this morning,” I said tonelessly. “Then I found a knife in his heart. Am I supposed to be alright?”

  “I only meant –” he began, but he was having trouble focusing on the words. His eyes kept running over my disheveled hair and face, searching for something unknown. Emotion, I guessed, judging from the fact that he couldn't seem to find it. “I just – you looked – never mind.”

  He glanced at the glass bottle on the bedside table.

  “I'll leave you be,” he said hurriedly, then crossed to the nursery. He was just a blur, and as his muddled form disappeared behind the door, I wondered what had brought him to Exeter Island. He wasn't family, so who was he? Mrs. Marlowe's psychiatrist? And why had Amalia said that death followed him wherever he went?