Welcome to Nevermore Bookshop

by Steffanie Holmes

  “It would be my pleasure.” David rose and offered his arm. “Perhaps we will find your father on the way.” Just as they disappeared, Cynthia stopped by our table and wished us a fun night. I couldn’t help but feel a little flutter of excitement as the band struck up a jaunty tune. This really was quite fun.

  When everyone in the room had taken their seats and the waiters came around with appetizers – smoked quail breast with Asian pear gel, cauliflower puree, and spelt grains – Cynthia took to the stage to welcome us and explain how the evening would work. There would be a round of dancing between appetizers and the main course, and then the music would continue through dessert and long into the evening. The band struck up one of the popular tunes, the ‘Duke of Kent’s Waltz’, and two lines of dancers took to the floor.

  Heathcliff hadn’t returned by the time I finished my quail. Morrie swiped Heathcliff’s plate and refilled mine and Alice’s glasses. “We must take the opportunity to have the next dance together,” Morrie’s eyes sparkled at me.

  “Standing close, staring adoringly into each other’s eyes while we remember a complex pattern of steps?” I raised a suggestive eyebrow. “Are you sure the world’s foremost criminal mind is up to the challenge?”

  The band finished their song, and Morrie held out his hand. “Let us find out.”

  Morrie led me onto the dance floor and we lined up alongside the other couples. Luckily, the next dance was ‘A Fig for Bonaparte’, which was one of the easier country dances we learned the previous day. Even so, I managed to begin by stepping the wrong way.

  “Ooops, sorry, sorry,” I apologized as I bumped my way through the frowning dancers and found my way back to Morrie.

  “At least when you go blind, you’ll have an excuse for your appalling sense of direction,” he grinned.

  Weirdly, that comment that might’ve upset me on any other day just made me poke my tongue out at him. I stuck my foot out as Morrie swept past. He tripped and skidded into Lydia, who shoved him away with a grimace.

  We wound our way down the line without any other disasters. The next dance was more complex, and I hadn’t been able to see the instructor very well. I shuffled us to the back of the line so I could watch the other couples first. When it came to our turn, I managed to spin the right way. As I twirled around the couple behind me, my gaze flicked to the bar. Gerald slumped over the hardwood surface, a piña colada in his hand. When I spun around again, he was still there, this time with a pink drink. On the next spin, he had a glass of clear liquid that I guessed wasn’t water.

  “Morrie? Do you see Gerald?” I pointed toward the bar.

  “He’s wearing an awfully cheap cotton shirt for the ball. And it hasn’t escaped my attention he’s trying to drink his way through the Baddesley cellars,” Morrie observed as he lifted his arm so I could pass under. “Heathcliff will not be amused if there’s nothing left for tomorrow’s whisky tasting.”

  “Do you think he’s upset about that incident with Professor Hathaway this morning?” I turned back and noticed Gerald accepting an Old-Fashioned.

  “He certainly appears agitated—ow.” Morrie winced as my boot landed on his foot. “Focus on the dance, gorgeous. My shins are not as robust as Heathcliff’s.”

  I was puffing by the time we finished the set. Cynthia bade us return to our seats amidst raucous applause. I beamed from my place on Morrie’s arm. That was actually heaps of fun.

  My breasts vibrated. Another text message from Mum. I resisted the temptation to toss my phone into the nearest punch bowl.

  Our main course was served – wild duck confit, quince poached in mulled wine, white bean puree – and I dug in, ravenous from all the dancing. Cynthia took the stage again. “We have a very special treat tonight. It is my pleasure as the President of the Jane Austen Appreciation Society Argleton chapter to present our Lifetime Achievement Award for the pursuit of Austen scholarship and the furtherance of the society’s aims to promote her work to a new generation. I think it’s no surprise that I stand here tonight to present this honor to Professor Julius Hathaway.”

  The room erupted into applause – all except Professor Carmichael and Alice, who glared at the stage. I turned around to see what Gerald thought of this announcement. He scowled at the bartender and swiped another cocktail.

  Cynthia beamed, scanning the crowd as the applause died down. “If Professor Hathaway could come to the stage and accept his award. Where is he?”

  “I don’t think he’s arrived yet,” David called out. “Christina and I haven’t seen him at our table, although his dinner’s gone, so maybe he came by while we were taking a turn of the room—”

  “Nope. That was me,” Morrie said, rubbing his stomach. “I couldn’t very well let a perfectly decent duck confit go to waste.”

  “So no one’s seen the good professor all evening?” Cynthia looked confused. Murmurs stole through the crowd.

  “He attended the final lecture of the day,” said Christina. “I left to prepare for the ball, and he stayed behind to correct Professor Carmichael on one or two points of scholarship. I went to his room immediately before the ball to collect my mother’s jewels, but he wasn’t there. Professor Carmichael must’ve been the last to see him.”

  “That’s hardly what happened,” Professor Carmichael stood up, her face flushed with anger. “He expounded on some problematic theories and I corrected him on facts. I left him to continue with his favorite activity – blowing hot air out of his arse to a circle of adoring young women.”

  Nervous whispers circled the room.

  “He attended me in Uppercross,” Lydia stood up, her face aglow as she realized all eyes in the room were on her. “He was sitting by the fire and seemed in good spirits, although exceptionally tired. Perhaps he retired early?”

  “Perhaps he retired with some new young conquest?” Alice muttered into her phone without looking up. The woman at the table behind her heard the comment and leaned forward to whisper it to her friends. On the other side of our table, David bristled. Christina’s face reddened. Gerald slammed his drink down on the counter and strode toward the stage.

  “I’ll accept the award on his behalf,” he bellowed. “Seeing as it’s really my work that you’re awarding.”

  “Oh, this is going to get ugly,” Morrie leaned forward, steepling his hands together in gleeful anticipation.

  Christina’s face fell, her whole body crumpling as her father’s reputation become the talk of the room. And even though I thought the guy was a creep, I didn’t want to see her hurt, especially among her peers. “I saw him nodding off in his chair just before the ball,” I called out. “Perhaps he’s fallen asleep after the excitement of the day. I’ll go fetch him.”

  Thinking it best to get the professor onto the stage before the room erupted into chaos, I raced into the antechamber where Professor Hathaway had been sitting with Lydia draped across his lap. The chair still sat beside the roaring fireplace. Tufts of his blonde hair poked over the top.

  I knew it. I knew he must have fallen asleep. That fire looks so warm and cozy.

  “Professor Hathaway?” I approached the chair, hoping I wouldn’t startle him.

  Something dark spread around his feet. Was the rug dark crimson, too? I could have sworn it was white. I smiled to myself. That would be just Cynthia’s taste to add red everywhere. I rested my hand on the back of the chair and leaned down to gently wake the professor.

  “Professor Hathaway, everyone’s waiting for you in the ballroom. You’ve won a prize—”

  No. Oh, no.

  It’s not a red rug.

  I staggered back, bile rising in my throat. I opened my mouth, and screamed and screamed.

  Professor Hathaway’s eyes bugged out of his head, his mouth frozen open in a grisly and silent shriek. The hilt of his sword stuck out of his chest, and blood dribbled between his legs to stain the rug at his feet.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I sank to my knees, my legs no longer able to s
upport my weight. Footsteps thundered on the marble behind me. “Mina, did you find him—Oh, shite.”

  Morrie’s arms went around me, pulling me into him, swallowing me in the warmth and safety of his body. He swore again as he too noticed the sword quivering in the professor’s chest.

  He’s dead. He’s dead.

  Those wide, terrified eyes, that jaw frozen in his death cry. He must have yelled out, but no one heard him over the frivolities in the ballroom.

  The room spun. I buried my face in Morrie’s chest, wishing I could step back in time so someone, anyone else could have come out here instead of me. The professor’s expression would haunt my dreams. Even when I went blind I’d still see that horror behind my eyes.

  “Well, this weekend finally got interesting,” Morrie murmured into my hair. “We were hoping for a jewel thief, but this is infinitely more intoxicating.”

  Don’t say that. I never wished for this. I never—

  More footsteps clattered behind us. “Whatever is the matter—” Cynthia’s words cut off in a piercing shriek as she too saw the professor’s body. More people crowded around, shrieking and exclaiming as they saw what had transpired.

  “It’s Professor Hathaway!”

  “He’s been stabbed!”

  “Stabbed through with his own sword.”

  “Everybody, stay back,” Morrie cried. “Heathcliff, call Inspector Hayes. Tell him there’s been a murder.”

  “And a theft!” Christina yelled. “My jewels have been stolen.”

  I opened my eyes. Christina stood, picking up a velvet pouch from the floor directly behind the chair. Her whole body trembled as she held it up so we could see. “We kept my mother’s jewels in this pouch,” she sobbed. “Daddy was going to give them to me at the ball. But it’s empty. This rotten person has come in here and killed my only daddy because of a few baubles.”

  “Look behind you,” Morrie said. “That window is open. It looks as though the murderer might have escaped through it with the jewels.”

  Heathcliff went to the window and pushed open the frame. “There’s a torn piece of fabric snagged on the latch, and a couple of beads on the ledge.”

  Christina howled. “How could someone do this? How could they kill my daddy over a bunch of jewels? I just saw him this afternoon and he was so beautiful and full-of-life.”

  David rushed over, wrapping her arms around her. “There, there. The police are on their way and they will catch the villain who did this.”

  Cynthia wrung her hands. “I can’t believe it. The Argleton Jewel Thief has hit our house, and murdered the good Professor Hathaway!”

  As Cynthia fretted and Christina wailed, I cast my eyes around the room, and couldn’t help but notice both Professor Carmichael’s calm expression and Alice frantically scribbling on her pad. A sinister thought leaped into my head, but I stuffed it down. This was clearly the work of an opportunist – someone rambling around the grounds took a peek in the window, saw the professor lying asleep by the fire and the jewels beside him, and took a chance. Perhaps the professor awoke and this assailant stood over him, so he lashed out with his sword, but the killer got it out of his hands and plunged it into his chest.

  So if that was true, then why did I have such an awful feeling in my gut?

  * * *

  Inspector Hayes and DS Wilson showed up soon afterward and ushered everyone back into the ballroom so they could take our statements. I waved to Jo – the pathologist and my friend – from across the room. She lifted an eyebrow as if to say, “not another one?”

  I poked my tongue out at her. I did seem to collect murder victims the way other people collected shoes.

  “Mina Wilde, stop making faces at my pathologist, or I’ll haul you off to a cell again,” Hayes growled, only half-joking. I’d been close to too many murders in Argleton in recent months. I nodded in obedience and allowed Morrie to usher me to my seat. Beside me, Alice’s face was as white as a sheet. She tapped notes on her phone with lightning speed.

  “Can you talk to me about what you saw?” she asked. “At last, this story got actually interesting.”

  “Maybe… I don’t know.” I rubbed my head.

  “Let us get through the questioning first,” Morrie told her. “We don’t want to accidentally say something the police don’t want revealed.”

  Alice nodded, but she looked disappointed. I knew that as the person who found the body, I’d make a compelling source for her article, but her mercenary attitude was a little shocking. A man had just been murdered in the very same house as us, and all she was thinking about was her byline?

  In an attempt to keep our spirits up, Cynthia had the band continue the music and the desserts brought out, but the party atmosphere had been shattered. Everyone huddled together in small groups, whispering in hushed voices and weeping into their handkerchiefs.

  All except the Brontë society. The three goth girls stood beside the dance floor, peering over their black veils at Heathcliff and giggling to each other. Gerald scanned the length of the bar, pouring cocktails down his throat at the rate of one a minute. I noticed a smudge of red on the hem of his leather jacket. Blood?

  I nudged Morrie. “Gerald’s still drinking.”

  “That he is. And there’s a smudge of something dark on his coat,” Morrie squinted. “And I detect a few hairs on his cuff that appear to match the shaggy rug under the good professor’s chair.”

  I reached across the table to Heathcliff. “Get over there and talk to your girlfriends. We need to know Gerald’s movements over the evening.”

  “No way.” Heathcliff glowered. “Thanks to the two of you abandoning me, I’ve already suffered through two marriage proposals and a catfight over which one of them has a right to use the ‘I am Heathcliff’ line as their social media status. I’m not spending another moment of my time with the ghoul girls. Besides, this case isn’t any of our concern. If the professor has been murdered, it’s up to the police to solve it, not us.”

  Morrie nudged him in the direction of the bar. “Aw, go on. You know Mina was only keen on this weekend because she needed a distraction from her father’s letter. Well, solving the professor’s murder is the perfect kind of distraction, much better than shagging you in a bathroom.”

  “Hey, how did you know about that?”

  “The scent of hyacinth soap when Heathcliff returned to the breakfast table – the flavour of which is not present in the male bathrooms – and an indent of the hand dryer on the back of your shoulder. It was a simple deduction.” Morrie waved a hand. “Go on, Sir Snarkypuss, work your charms on the young Miss Hannah. If you don’t get over there soon, Gerald will have drank the place dry.”

  Heathcliff folded his arms. “If I go over there now, I’m going to be cravat-deep in marriage proposals. I even heard Hannah talking to Cynthia about the possibility of holding a wedding at Baddesley Hall. If you’re so desperate, you talk to them.”

  “Fine.” I shoved my chair back and stood up.

  “No, Mina.” Heathcliff reached for my hand, but I jerked it away. If I sit here and do nothing, Professor Hathaway’s face is going to haunt me all night, mixed with all my ugly thoughts about my father and his letter, and I’ll feel even worse tomorrow.

  While Hayes and Wilson were otherwise occupied, I could help by getting a little information out of Gerald.

  My legs still trembled as I made my way across the room, but I managed to hold my poise as I swept up to the bar, nonchalantly picking up a piña colada from the dwindling supply.

  “Can you believe this?” I said to Gerald, sipping my drink as I leaned in close to him. “A real murder right here in Baddesley Hall. This never happened in Jane Austen.”

  “True enough, but in Austen novels, the rakes and scoundrels always end up tamed in the end.” Gerald knocked back another cocktail. “The only way to tame a first-class git like Hathaway was to drive a sword through his gut.”

  Wow, that’s harsh. “You can’t mean that. I know yo
u had your academic differences, but that’s no reason to wish someone dead.”

  “Academic differences?” Gerald scoffed. “I admired the man once. He was my advisor for my Masters’ degree. But that was before he tried to steal my girlfriend and plagiarized my work.”

  “His speech over breakfast this morning indicated he’d been acquitted of that crime.”

  But Gerald wasn’t listening to me. “…can you just imagine? I open the Jane Austen periodical, and what do I find but excerpts of my Masters’ thesis – rough drafts that I’d sent him for his feedback – polished and published as if he himself had written them. I complained to the university. They set up a farce of an academic trial, with a jury of his sycophants who lapped up his explanation that, in fact, it was I who’d copied him. They kicked me out of the graduate program and refused to grant me credit for the papers I’d already written.” Gerald shook his head. “Luckily, Hannah has more sense, and she’s not interested in Hathaway unless he’ll read lines from Wuthering Heights to her while they shag. And since he probably only wanks to his own books, that was never going to happen. Unfortunately, her rejection came too late to save my career. Thanks to Hathaway, my name is mud in academia. I can’t get another university to accept me for graduate studies. But I’ll not go quietly into the dark night. I’ll get my revenge.”

  Maybe you already did, I thought but didn’t say. Instead, I pointed to the stain on the hem of his jacket. “You’ve got something there.”

  Gerald picked up the corner and rubbed the stain, so it disappeared. As he did, I noticed the cuff of his shirt was torn, with a triangle of fabric missing. “Oh, yes, mulled wine reduction. The food here’s a bit ostentatious.” He eyed my drink. “You going to finish that?”

  I handed it to Gerald, and he knocked it back, gripping the edge of the bar to remain upright. “It’s just so distressing,” he said, his speech slurred. “Hathaway is murdered, and it looks as though this jewel thief has made off with another fine haul. That’s why I’m drinking so much. I need it to nerve my calms. I mean… calm my nerves.”