The Marlowe Murders

by Laura Giebfried

  “I would be happy to finish my examination under your watchful eyes,” Lennox said.

  “Oh, now you don't mind an audience,” Amalia snapped. “Quite a different tune than you had last night when you were sneaking around with the maid!”

  “Admittedly it does look rather bad,” Bernadette said conversationally.

  “I know I didn't kill John,” Lennox said. “But – unfortunately – I can't say the same for any of you. That's why I chose to do it without telling you.”

  “You seem very trusting of little Alexandra, though,” Marjorie said.

  Lennox glanced at her.

  “I don't think she had anything to do with it, no,” he said. “She has no connection to him, after all.”

  “No connection that we know of,” Cassandra said, folding her hands in front of her. “Though perhaps there's one that she hasn't revealed to us yet.”

  The pain in my skull was so intense that I didn't even try to respond.

  “There is something funny about her,” Marjorie said, eyeing me suspiciously. She put down her fork and leaned closer to me as though trying to detect what it was, but the only fear I felt was that I was going to vomit.

  “I'm sure Alexandra is innocent in all of this,” Rachel said.

  “Oh, you're sure everyone is innocent in all of this!” Amalia returned. “You seem to be under the impression that John was struck down by the heavens!”

  “No, I just think –”

  “If John wasn't killed with the knife,” Bill cut in, “then what was he killed with?”

  Everyone looked at Lennox. He slowly laid both hands on either side of his plate.

  “It could be a number of things,” he said. “A blow to the head, strangulation … poison.”

  The family's eyes went from Lennox's face to their glasses of juice. Edie looked horrified that she had finished hers, Marjorie looked relieved that she hadn't yet taken a sip.

  “Poison?” Edie said. “But where would anyone get poison –?”

  “Where wouldn't they get poison?” Marjorie said. “There's rat poison in the cellar! There's cleaning solution under the sink! There's a goddamn pharmacy in Mother's medicine cabinet!”

  “But how would John be poisoned?” Bill asked. “It would have had to be in the food, and none of us is dead.”

  “Well, maybe the killer only added it to his food,” Marjorie said impatiently, and Bill quickly adjusted his glasses to avoid holding her gaze.

  “No, it was the scotch,” Edie said. She shook her head. “It must have been in that horrible scotch that none of us was allowed to drink.”

  Bill put his hand to his throat as though imagining the poison going down into his stomach. Edie had put her hands on her face, her fingernails digging into her cheeks. Amalia made an odd gulping sound.

  Marjorie turned toward me.

  “You poured him his scotch nightly, Alexandra,” she said coldly. “Perhaps you noticed something … off about it?”

  I blinked but didn't respond.

  “Anyone could have poisoned the scotch,” Lennox said. “It's right out in the open. And we're not even sure that's what did it.”

  “Really? Then why don't you take a swallow?” Marjorie shot.

  “I don't drink,” Lennox said simply.

  Marjorie's nostrils flared.

  “Well, that's very convenient –”

  “And even if I did,” Lennox continued, “I believe it's in Amalia's possession now. Or somewhere in her digestive tract.”

  He gave Amalia a look. She squirmed in her seat.

  “You drank John's scotch?” Marjorie asked her. Her face lit up in delight. “Goodness, kudos to the killer …”

  “Considering that John died on the second night of his arrival, I would assume that Amalia will live,” Lennox said. He turned to her. “Though if you do start to experience any symptoms, at least we'll have some confirmation of what happened to the both of you.”

  Amalia seethed.

  “You slimy, slithery piece of –”

  “Let's all just calm down,” Rachel said as the others chimed in to add to the bickering. “Arguing won't solve anything –”

  “Neither will sitting here getting along!” Amalia said, slamming her napkin down to the table with a bang. “In case you haven't noticed, nothing's going to change the fact that someone poisoned my husband! Someone at this table!”

  “That's pure speculation,” Bernadette said. “It could have been Mrs. Tilly …”

  “She was rather upset that John let Tilda go,” Marjorie agreed thoughtfully.

  “It wasn't her!” Amalia screeched. “It was one of you! I know it was one of you!”

  She stood and made a thrashing motion with her arms to knock the plates and glasses within her reach off the table and onto the floor. They clattered loudly onto the wood, half of them smashing to bits, and Bill gave a wild jump that dislodged his glasses again. For a moment Amalia stood and surveyed the damage she had caused, and then she threw her head back and let out a long, wailing scream. It pierced the air and vibrated off of the walls, raining down upon us like fire from the sky, making my head pound harder and harder until I thought that my head would crack open. I was rather convinced that she wasn't half as upset at John being killed now as she was the thought that she might succumb to the same fate, though she had enough dignity left not to openly say it. When she finally stopped, she stormed from the room, but not before the full extent of her damage was done: my head gave one last resounding pound, and then I lurched forward and vomited onto the floor.

  The family turned to stare at me.

  “Well, that ruined my appetite,” Marjorie said briskly, tossing her napkin over her plate.

  “Oh, Alexandra,” Rachel said kindly, “are you still not feeling well?”

  “Either that or she had whatever did John in,” Marjorie muttered.

  I couldn't stand for a moment longer. Dropping to my knees, I fell to the ground – barely managing to avoid landing in the pile of sick in front of me. I barely registered the sound of a chair scraping across the hardwood, but a moment later someone was helping me to my feet.

  “Oh, yes, you take care of her, Lennox,” Marjorie called. “Put that degree of yours to some use.”

  “You can bring her to the Drawing Room, Isidore,” Rachel suggested. “If you don't think she'll make it up the stairs …”

  “I think she just needs some fresh air,” he responded, holding me up by my elbows.

  “Oh, no, Isidore,” Cassandra cooed. “Why don't you take her upstairs? She looks like she needs you to tuck her into bed …”

  Lennox ignored her.

  “Come here,” he told me gently. “Let's get you outside.”

  “And who's going to clean up this mess?” Bernadette asked as he led me to the door. “I can't eat with the smell of bile filling up my nostrils, you know –”

  “You're welcome to clean it up yourself,” Lennox said. “I believe the mop is in the front hall closet.”

  Bernadette huffed indignantly, but it was Cassandra who spoke.

  “Don't worry, Birdie,” she said. “Lennox is just very protective of her. Aren't you, Lennox?”

  His head moved as though he was throwing her a look, but I didn't see. He led me to the door and down the hallway, then bundled me up in my coat and brought me outside. The pounding in my skull had lessened slightly, but I sank down to sit on the porch even so. I leaned my head up against the mermaid pillar. Lennox crouched down next to me.

  “Now, despite your attempts to will it away, you're exhibiting symptoms of a concussion,” he said. “May I look in your eyes?”

  “No.” I shifted away from him. I was embarrassed enough, and I certainly didn't want him anywhere near my face. I wiped at my mouth with my apron. “It's not a concussion.”

  “Forgive me, but I believe I'm the doctor.”

  “And I believe I'm the one who took an extra eight-hundred milligrams of my medication last night, so I know tha
t's what's made me sick.” I leaned my head back, finally consenting to look him in the eye. “I'm sorry.”

  The words were muffled, and I wasn't even certain that I knew what I was apologizing for. Being sick? Not helping him explain to the family what we had been doing the night before? Fighting with him? Maybe all of it, or maybe something else entirely. I let my eyes wander back over to his wedding ring. My heart gave another rueful pang.

  “That wasn't as bad as I thought it would be,” he commented.

  “It was pretty bad for me,” I replied, though I was grateful that he didn't chide me further for the pills. “I seldom apologize.”

  “I was referring to the conversation with the family,” he said with a smile. “The apology was unnecessary, especially since I'm the one who owes you an apology. I spoke out of fear and I was wrong. Please forgive me.”

  “Ah – well, alright,” I mumbled, avoiding his eyes. I tried to think of anything else to say to lead the conversation back to the murder, but every thought was about him. They raced through my mind as though mocking me, trying to get me to admit what I hated to believe. I shut my eyes as they pinged off one another, bounding back and forth within my skull: the fact that we had both been brought here by John Marlowe, both been promised things we would likely never see now, both been stuck together in the adjoining rooms in the servants' corridors. It had made me feel a kinship with him that I otherwise wouldn't have felt, for if we hadn't been stuck here on the island with no chance of getting off until someone noticed our absences, then surely I would never have felt that way about him. Surely …

  I lifted my head slightly. A thought had just occurred to me – one that conflicted with the little information I thought I knew about him. He had told me that his colleagues would only notice his absence when the New Year came, but his wife must have noticed by now seeing as he had only planned to stay on the island for a night.

  “Won't your wife wonder where you are?” I asked.

  Lennox's head turned to me in surprise.

  “What?”

  “Your wife,” I repeated, indicating his ring. “Won't she wonder where you are?”

  Lennox looked down at his hand, a frown appearing on his face as though he hadn't realized that his ring held any such symbolism. After a moment, he stuck his left hand in his pocket, seemingly to rid it from sight.

  “No.”

  “But you said you were only staying for the night,” I said. “So won't she –?”

  “I'm not married,” he said shortly. “Not – anymore.”

  “Oh.” A part of me knew that I was supposed to add some sort of sentiment to my statement and offer my condolences for the breakdown of his marriage, but all I felt was a sense of relief that I was far too worried I might accidentally speak aloud if I tried to say more.

  “Perhaps we should head back in,” Lennox said. “I don't want the family to think we're out here conspiring.”

  He insisted on re-bandaging my hand when we got inside, then tried to get me to go to bed, but I declined. I was hoping that having something to do would keep me from thinking of him, but as I returned to the now-empty Breakfast Room to clean up, I couldn't stop the thoughts from coming. My mind was battling with itself as it tried to come to grips with my feelings, which it so seldom had to deal with, and I ran through every possibility as I mopped up the floor and swept the broken dishes into the trash. It was the danger that was drawing us together: scientifically speaking, the increase in my heartbeat due to all of the unsettling events was simultaneously tricking me into believing that I was falling in love. Or it could have been transference: I was substituting feelings that I had pushed aside and dumping them onto him, thereby believing that I actually had feelings for him. Or …

  I stopped midway through stacking the breakfast plates, trying to come up with another excuse. Or it could have just been that he was kind to me. It had been so long since I had had a conversation that wasn't met with irritation at the way I constantly challenged and corrected people. If anything, he seemed entertained by it. But even if that was true, and even if my feelings were somehow requited, the only thing I ought to have been focused on was finding out who killed John and getting off the island, after which Lennox and I would never see one another again. Yet even with that knowledge, I couldn't get him off my mind.

  The house seemed even warmer than usual, and I found myself tugging constantly at my turtleneck and cap as I worked. I wished that they would turn the heat down, or at least stop telling me to light the fireplaces, but no one else seemed to mind the unbearably stuffy air. I went to my room to change into something lighter, tossing my dirty apron into the laundry chute on the way. Not caring if Bernadette scolded me for not wearing my uniform, I put on the dark green skirt and blouse that I had traveled to the island in, grateful to get the fabric off my neck. As I perched on the edge of my bed, I had the urge to lay down and shut my eyes, but forced myself up again. Cleaning the rooms would give me another opportunity to look through their belongings; and this time, rather than searching for a blood-soaked article of clothing, I would be searching for anything that could have been used as poison or a blunt weapon.

  Once again, only the door to the Mabel Room was open, though it was the others that I longed to search. My hands shook as I began to clean, and the bright yellow walls were glaring in the morning sun. I couldn't imagine Edie feeling comfortable in there: it seemed as though someone ought to have painted it a dull, drab gray decades ago. As I made up the bed, I shook the sheets harder than usual in the hopes that something would come tumbling out, but they only rose up like a parachute before gracefully falling back down; likewise, when I fluffed the pillows, there was nothing hard hidden within the down feathers that waited for me to uncover it. Nor did I truly think there would be, I reasoned as I finished making the bed, as I suspected by now that the killer was intelligent enough not to stash evidence in their room – especially if they were willing to let me in to clean it.

  And yet, even with that thought, I continued to stoop and look beneath the bed, then carefully went through the contents of the bureau, slid my hands inside Edie's shoes, opened the suitcase at the bottom of the closet to ensure that it was still empty, checked behind the curtains, and crawled up onto the foot of the bed so that I could peer onto the top of the canopy. Finding nothing, I repeated my search in the adjoining bathroom – going so far as to lift the back off of the toilet and look into the water tank. I was readying to leave when I saw the faintest hint of a dark brown bottle peeking out from behind the clutter of toiletries and makeup on the sink. Snatching it up, I quickly read the name: Chlorpromazine. A quick shake of it told me that it was still nearly filled with pills, though I didn't recognize the name to know what they were for. Anxiety, I guessed, or depression. Lennox would be able to tell me.

  So what had happened, I wondered as I carefully wiped the bottle down and replaced it in its spot. Had John been poisoned – possibly by Edie's or someone else's pills – or had he been murdered another way? Words were skimming the surface of my mind, but I couldn't slow them enough to read them, and my shaking form was rattling me and making it difficult to think at all. All I knew was that I didn't know the people inside the house, and more than ever I didn't know why John had brought me here. What game had he been hoping to play by hiring me? What game had been stopped by whoever inside the house had killed him?

  My skull pounded as I tried in vain to figure it out. Who had killed him? Marjorie – who might've lured him outside by saying she needed a cigarette? Bill, who wanted to say something that Rachel had begged him not to? Amalia, who may or may not have been set to inherit his life insurance as well as the Marlowes' fortune and island? Bernadette, the eldest child who thought nothing of sitting down to breakfast moments after seeing her brother's body in the snow?

  Who killed Professor Marlowe? said my own voice in my ear as I spoke to Kneller about John's death.

  They all did it. To themselves.

  I squeeze
d my eyes shut, trying to think of what he meant. Were there multiple assailants? Was it possible that the family – either two of them or more – had conspired together to kill John? And now they were playing us, hoping that we'd believe their game of charades at the dinner table that covered their true feelings of glee that they could all share in the inheritance they thought they ought to have received?

  I set the water pitcher back on the nightstand and then took a seat on the bed, staring at the yellow walls as I tried to think. If the whole family was in on it, then perhaps Lennox and I had simply gotten in the way. Lennox was never supposed to have shown up, and – now that I thought about it – neither was I. John had hired me on his own, kicking out the previous maid without warning. Had the servants been in on it, too? And John had messed it all up by promising Lennox a picture and promising to get me back into my program? Or had he inadvertently helped them, as now they had two people who, despite being innocent in all of this, could take the blame for what they had done?

  And if that was true, then Lennox and I truly were in trouble. The fear that I ought to have felt days ago descended upon me all at once. I had been blinded by the Marlowes' eccentricities when I ought to have been mistrustful. They were people who discussed murder no differently than what type of wine would go best with their meal, and who, as far as I had seen, would readily and easily band together to say that I had been the one to plunge the letter opener into John's chest. The image of Lennox and myself being marched from the house by the police floated before my mind before being replaced by another one: our bodies, rigid and blue, disappearing beneath the falling snow, never to be uncovered again. Because if either of us had figured it out, I knew, and they had any inkling that we knew what they had done, then that was surely what they would do to us.

  And it would be so simple for them to succeed in killing me, at least – so easy to do away with me like a soiled rag. If my aunt didn't hear from me for weeks, then she would undoubtedly assume that I saw no point in trying to call again given how poorly my mother reacted to my voice on the phone. It would only be weeks from now when I was due to return home that she would finally realize something had happened, and even then she wouldn't have the means to do more than report my absence to the police. She couldn't come looking for me – she had to watch over my mother.