Pieces of Hate (A Wendover House Mystery Book 4) (10 page)

The fire was
all but out, but I kindled a light. Taking a lantern, I went out in the storm.
I was affrighted but would not play the coward. Slow I went, and as I walked
the
lyght
died. All that was left on the beach was
the damned casket I had cast away, sitting there open, still filled with pieces
of
hayte
.

That seemed to be it. Frustrated and wanting to be sure that I hadn’t
overlooked something because the papers were simply out of order, I went back
to the beginning and started reading again. It was not an easy task because the
entries weren’t all dated and the ones that were not damaged by water were
yellowed and curling pages that had no numbers.

A lot of the sheets were unreadable and not all of the entries were
relevant to my problem, but I set anything from Nicholas aside for Ben and made
a stab at putting them in order. Though his words frightened me, there was a
fascination in looking at the confession written in his own hand.

I drank
myself mad and grew reckless with my
lyfe
. How else
can I explain my deeds, the memory of which I tried so hard to flee? Fear and
tyme
subdued my more savage nature. The forgetting of my
inhuman
wyckedness
and lust which overran my fear of
God or the laws of man was gradual, but after a piece with my gentle
wyfe
at my side. The dreams ceased and I no longer heard
the
nytly
(nightly?)
lamentations of the
plaguey
Spaniards sewn up
dead and
lyve
together in the winding sheet and cast
overboard to drown.

“Good God.” Barney, young but understanding his job, rushed over to
comfort me.

So this was what had happened to the crew. Reading the words made me
cold and dizzy. How could anyone do that? What sort of monster had Nicholas
been? How could I have come from his genes?

We could tell
day from
nyght
but made no discovery concerning the
sun. We traveled along the coast seeking an opening in the clouds whereby we
could pass through, but no eye could penetrate the gray darkness.

The
shadders
, they followed us and of a sudden we had become
the prey. I do not know what they are that
bryng
the
eerie storm but fear they are the dead, unable to rest because they did not
deliver the
wytch’s
cargo and they are here to
reproach me.

Reproach him? How about rip his guts out for being the murdering son
of a bitch that he was? I found one more entry on a scrap of torn parchment,
but where it came in the narrative I could only guess. Possibly before he first
cast back the box, though perhaps after when the sea returned it again.

My
wyfe
asserts that the necklace is gone, that it has been
lost. I have told her of the danger we face but she says
agin
and
agin
that the necklace was taken. After close
questioning, we have set the servants to search for it, a great collar of a
thing made from black pearls and a gold
coyn
, but it
has not been found. I fear the
shadders
may grow
bolder and come on land. My
wyfe
will not suffer. She
is protected by her infernal bane. But
wyll
they take
me when the moon bloats full?

Was this why the chest came back? Was still coming back? Because he or
his wife had not returned everything he had stolen? And had the shadows taken
him? Was that what the wife wanted? Had she discovered that she was married to
a murderer and wished him dead?

I couldn’t recall from my reading if Nicholas had been another
Wendover “lost at sea.”
Or if he had managed to dodge his
deserved fate and die in bed.

Ben would know.

Ben.

“Damn.”

My neighbor had twenty-twenty vision but only on his area of focus,
which in this case was his book. I didn’t think that he would be able to take
the long view. For him—for anyone else—this was a kind of spectator sport. I
and I alone, as Nicholas’s descendent, could theoretically pay off his debt and
make this nightmare go away. But it would mean doing something that Ben and the
historians would hate. I was feeling discouraged and exhausted. It was not just
the weariness of the body but that of an overworked mind and revolted soul. I
had had to make too many accommodations with radically new ideas of how the
world worked and had to accept improbable and horrible realities.

But then I looked over at Barney snoring as Kelvin bathed him and I
began to feel better, or at least stronger. We had weathered all kinds of
weirdness. I would figure out what to do this time.

I got up and began to pace. Barney and Kelvin opened their eyes and watched
me. I thought about the necklace which was probably worth far more than the
coins. It would be beautiful and have a rich history. It was literally a
treasure as calculated both by dollars and by history.

Too bad it was also potentially something more.

I reached the bottom of my coffee cup and found my decision there.
Really, I had always known what I would have to do. Or at least what I would
have to attempt to do.

“Ben will hate me,” I said to the cat.
“Even if he
doesn’t know about the necklace.”

Barney knew Ben’s name and thumped his stumpy tail hopefully.

“But I don’t think I have a choice, do I? Maybe it just wants the coin
in the necklace, but I can’t take that chance. Of course, I’ve got to find that
damned necklace first, gather up everything, the gold and the bones, and dump
it back in the sea.”

Kelvin raised his head, prepared to listen now that I was getting down
to business.

“Then I can let Ben read these notes. They should be enough to finish
his book, right? And we have the pictures of the chest if he wants them. I can
even photograph the necklace, but maybe it would be best if Ben never hears
about that. Losing it would break his heart.” It would mean holding back those
pages of notes where the necklace was mentioned. Because if he thought the
necklace was still in the house somewhere he would give me no peace until I let
him look for it.

Kelvin chuffed. He was a very sensible cat and I was glad he agreed
with me.

“And Harris will understand.
If I tell him.
No
one wants to lose out on money but … well, he
believes
.” Harris also liked me. Of course, I was the last
Wendover. He’d like me if I had tentacles.

Barney began to look serious. Harris was kind but not a real dog
person and when he visited it often left me in a pensive,
non-tennis-ball-throwing mood.

“The first thing I have to do is find that damned necklace.”

I looked around the room, again feeling a little overwhelmed. Kelvin
got to his feet.

It was time to stop feeling and to start thinking.

Since there was little hope of discovering the necklace if it had left
the island, and since Abercrombie’s daughter had been disinclined to leave her
gilded prison, I decided that it made sense that the necklace was somewhere
within reach. Probably within the house since there had been no other buildings
on the island back then.

“They shared a bedroom at least some of the time,” I said to the cat.
“When Nicholas saw the will-o’-the-wisp he said that he was sleeping with his
wife. So what room
were
they in that he could see the
beach?” Assuming the box had washed up on the same bit of land. It almost had
to be that way. The rest of the island was stony cliffs and fractured rock.

I went back to the notes and read again about the night the cask came
back. Nicholas had looked out a west-facing window which faced the beach, in a
room with a fireplace. There were three bedrooms that it could have been and
one of them was very small and therefore not a likely choice for the lord and
lady to be using.

Of course, the wife could have hidden the necklace anywhere in the
house. But there was less chance of her being observed by servants or her
husband in her own bed chamber.

Barney sighed and dropped his head in my lap. Kelvin climbed into his
favorite box, figuring my brain was working slowly enough that he could take a
nap.

“
Me
too, kid. I sure hope I don’t have to rip
up the floors and walls. How will I explain that? Harris will have a fit if I
ruin anything,” I explained, petting his soft ears.

Reading through the papers again for clues while I delayed taking the
last drastic step, I finally had to admit that I was dragging my feet because I
was afraid to have to ask the gossipy carpenter to come out again and repair my
excavations. Scolding myself for cowardice and indecision, I finally got up.

It was time that I actually began looking for the room that most
likely was
Halfbeard’s
or his wife’s chamber. After
all, night would come again all too soon.

Kelvin mewed and I looked up from the papers I was stacking on the
desk.

“Do you know which room we want?” I shook my head at his affronted
stare. “Sorry, of course you do. What was I thinking, trying to solve this problem
myself? Well, lead on then.”

The cat jumped out of his box and sauntered from the room and I
followed obediently. I had given up feeling strange about taking orders from a
cat.

Kelvin led me to the bedroom I had been thinking was the most likely
candidate. At least we agreed on this.

Feeling certain that what I wanted would be in the wall and not the
floor, which had been explored fairly thoroughly while the electrical work was
being done and outlets set into the floorboards of the upstairs rooms rather
than the walls, I began with taking down paintings and mirrors. If that wasn’t
enough then I would start moving furniture away from the walls, but hoped that
wouldn’t be necessary since it would involve using bar soap on the floors to
help the heavy pieces slide without damaging the floor.

I found a suspiciously square bit of lighter plaster behind a painting
in the corner of the north wall beneath a painting of a ship. Was it unintentional
irony that the painting might well
be
of the
Calmare
? I hadn’t
noticed the painting before because there are a lot of pictures in the house
and most of them were painted by people with no discernible artistic talent. I
squinted at the signature. Maybe I was imagining things, but the writing looked
a bit like Nicholas Wendover’s spiky hand. And damned if, in the very corner,
so tiny as to be a smudge, there wasn’t an Indian maiden on what might well be
an unpopulated Goose Haven Island.

Putting the painting aside, I looked at the wall. It could be the
remains of an old mend to an accident, but I didn’t think so. It was about the
perfect size for a jewelry box.

“This is it, isn’t it, Kelvin?”

He chuffed.

A careful homeowner and respecter of historical properties would call
in an expert to look at things before doing anything impulsive to the three-hundred-year-old
plaster.

But an expert would have questions about the things I might find. Certainly
they would talk about the necklace. And it would take time to get one out to
the island. So, I went to get a saw and hammer. I didn’t have a stud finder but
I didn’t need one to get through lathe and plaster, especially not when the
site was all but marked with an X.

The first part of the demolition went well. I ended up having to
enlarge my first hole when I found the small leather pouch that had been nailed
to a stud. The spike affixing it had been driven in deeply and I could not
remove it by hand and the leather refused to tear. That meant enlarging the hole
so that I could get the hammer inside and remove the spike.

Pulling and pushing and smacking, the dried leather gave way, and
though I was able to snag the necklace before it fell—a lovely thing of black
pearls with an empty medallion frame that might have held a coin, just as
Halfbeard
had noted—something else in the bag fell down
between the studs.
Something heavy and metallic.

I used a word that Barney was too young to hear though I think it
amused Kelvin.

I set the necklace and its pouch, which turned out to be a man’s
glove, on the small table that held the hurricane lamp.

“Now what?”
If I pulled
the lathe and plaster off all the way to the floor, the painting wouldn’t be
able to cover the damage.

“Screw it. I’ll shove the armoire over here if I have to.”

I tried to be careful, I did. But the saw was dull and it was getting
dark, so I finally just used the hammer. I stopped every couple of inches to
check that there wasn’t anything else hiding in the wall, but it remained
empty. The whole time I was muttering to Kelvin that this had better be
something important and not just a loose nail.

At last, about a foot from the floor, I stopped bashing in the wall. I
could reach whatever had fallen. All I had to do was stick my hand in the dark
hole and get it.