The Bone Key (8 page)

“What are we going to do?”

“What choice do you think we have?”

“Oh,” said Miss Coburn in a very small voice.

As a senior archivist, I had the master key for the display cases. I took out my key ring and got to my feet. I could feel my hands shaking, but I advanced to the case. Madeline Stanhope watched me come, her eyes like the pits of Gehenna. I unlocked the case, opened the door. I could not bring myself to touch the necklace. Madeline Stanhope’s white hand snaked in past me, seizing the necklace in a grip like a vulture’s claw. As she pulled it out, her arm brushed mine; even through my coat and shirt, I could feel the burning cold of her flesh, like dry ice. She smiled at me, a terrible smile, full of teeth, and fastened the necklace around her throat. As I watched, sick and petrified, her eyes slowly filled with an unearthly green light, the same color as the emeralds that now gleamed on her chest and shoulders. I lurched back a step, unable to stay near her, consumed with terror that she might touch me again.

Then my eyes clouded, or the room darkened, for she was gone, and I did not see which way she went. Mechanically, I reached into the case and flipped over the placard, so that the side reading, R
EMOVED FOR
C
LEANING
, was uppermost. I closed the case again and locked it.

I turned back to Miss Coburn as I returned my keys to my pocket and found her sitting with a white-knuckled grip on the edge of the bench. “My God, Booth,” she said faintly. “Did you see her leave?”

“No. Did you?”

“No.” She shuddered convulsively, ending with a shake of her head as if it were something she wished to dislodge from her spine. “I understand now why you didn’t want to open this particular Pandora’s box.”

“Come on. I don’t want to stay here.”

“No,” she agreed, getting to her feet. “We’d better sneak back and look normal.”

“Normal?” The reality of the Museum Ball crashed back in on me. “How can we . . . we . . . the staircase . . . ”

Miss Coburn grinned at me. “They’ll just think we’ve been necking.”

“Oh, God, no.”

“If we go back right now, they won’t think we’ve done anything worse.”

I stared at her for a moment before I realized that she was not joking. “Then, please, let’s go.”

We went, hastily, furtively, both of us glancing back nervously over our shoulders.

“Where do you think she went?” Miss Coburn asked.

“Where have they put her bones?”

“Oh. Oh dear. Do you think . . . ”

“Yes,” I said.

“God help me, I do, too.”

“She has the necklace,” I said, trying to comfort us both.

“Yes,” said Miss Coburn, “but what worries me is what she may do to
keep
it.”

And to that I had no reply.

The loss of the Venebretti necklace was not realized until nearly six months later. Neither Miss Coburn nor I fell under suspicion, since the two persons with the legitimate authority to remove the necklace—Dr. Starkweather and Mr. Browne, the head of Restoration and Repairs—hated each other with a passion that would have made the daughters of King Lear proud. Each assumed that the other had taken it, and when it came out that no one in the museum knew where the necklace was, Dr. Starkweather insisted furiously that Mr. Browne had squirreled it away, and Mr. Browne maintained, apoplectically, that Dr. Starkweather must have damaged it—Dr. Starkweather’s rough and clumsy hands were the bane of Restoration and Repairs—and then hidden it rather than confessing to his crime like an honorable man. In the miasma of their mutual venom, no one thought to ask any of the simple questions, such as when the necklace had last been seen and who had the keys to its case, and the idea that the necklace might be genuinely lost never arose. The new inventory pleased Dr. Starkweather, but it did not change the fact that many things lost in the Parrington are never found again.

And so all was serene, although I confess that to this day, when my mind turns to Madeline Stanhope and the Venebretti Necklace, I cannot help imagining her, somewhere in the darkness of the museum basements, stroking the emeralds with her cold white fingers and smiling, smiling.

T
HE
B
ONE
K
EY

I had been in the paper when the Parrington opened its new fossil exhibit, an ugly, gawky presence half-hidden behind a diplodocus skull. That was why the letter came to me at work; the envelope, hand-written in a spidery copperplate with velvet-black ink, was addressed to Mr. Kyle Murchison Booth, c/o the Samuel Mather Parrington Museum. The return address was the Belfontaine Hotel.

The letter was from someone who signed himself L. M. Ogilvy, Esq. He was a semi-retired lawyer, he said, and he was writing on behalf of a client who had been dead for twenty years. His client, Regina Murchison, had wished to leave a legacy to her granddaughter, Thekla Murchison, and Mr. Ogilvy had been instructed to institute a search, armed with only the knowledge that Thekla had married a man named Grimbold Booth and moved to this part of the country; being in the city on another client’s business, he had observed my picture in the newspaper and noted the unusual conjunction of my names. Therefore (he wrote), he wondered if I might be the son of the woman he sought. If I was, and could produce proof of my identity, he thought we might have a very profitable little chat. As well, there was a daguerreotype of Thekla Murchison which I might be interested in seeing.

The names were right; difficult though it was for me to believe, this lawyer seemed truly to be a representative of my mother’s family. I had only been twelve when my parents died, and they had never talked to me about their pasts. I knew my father had no family and had always assumed the same was true of my mother. By the time I was old enough that I might have found better answers among their effects, their belongings had all been sold, stolen, or destroyed by my guardians, the Siddonses. Even my memories of my parents were faded, crumpled, stained. A picture of my mother, a chance to rebuild her face around the wide dark eyes that were all I remembered . . . 

I wrote to Mr. Ogilvy. My letter was stiff and cautious; I knew that as I was writing it, but I could not help it. I wrote merely that I had been orphaned young and knew nothing of my parents, further that I would be pleased to meet with Mr. Ogilvy, if a mutually convenient time could be found, and signed myself, sincerely, Kyle Murchison Booth. It was a dreadful letter, and posting it felt like the worst mistake I had ever made.

Mr. Ogilvy wrote back promptly, suggesting that I should come to his room in the Belfontaine that Friday evening. And since I could not find any excuse not to, I wrote back to say that would be convenient.

The great edifice of the Belfontaine Hotel loomed up out of the darkness and spitting snow and swallowed me whole, like a giant in a fairytale swallowing a fool. The hotel was a blazing citadel, a palace of electricity in the city’s cold gloom. Inside, it was warm, red velvet and brass, an echoing clamor of the elite and the demimonde. I asked at the desk for Mr. Ogilvy and was directed to Room 334. I took the stairs.

The third floor was the same red velvet and brass as the lobby, the numbers gleaming on the dark-paneled doors. I found 334 and knocked. After a pause that seemed interminable but lasted probably no more than five seconds, I heard the chain being released and the bolt drawn back.

The door swung open, and I was confronting L. M. Ogilvy. I am generally very slow in forming impressions of people, but I disliked Mr. Ogilvy from the moment I laid eyes on him. He was probably seventy or so, a small, shriveled, dried-up man with a sour, twisted mouth. He wore an ugly brown suit with an even uglier burgundy bow-tie, and his sparse white hair was neatly combed. His eyes were brown, the same mud-brown as his suit, and slightly pop, giving him a strong resemblance to a desiccated toad. I had ample time to remark the likeness, for he stared at me in silence for some moments before saying, “You must be Kyle Booth.” His voice was bull-frog deep, but as dry as the rest of him.

“Yes.”

“Come in, please,” he said and stood aside.

The desire to refuse wrenched at me like an undertow, but since I had admitted to my identity, I could not commit the atrocious rudeness of running away. It was beyond my capacity. I entered the hotel room.

“Sit down,” said Mr. Ogilvy. I sat, in an uncomfortable armchair; he took the other, so close that we were almost knee to knee. He smelled overwhelmingly of pipe tobacco, a scent I have always found unpleasant.

“Make yourself comfortable. Do you smoke?”

“No, er, thank you,” I said.

“Well, I do,” he said, with a croaking noise that he probably meant to be a laugh. He pulled out a meerschaum pipe and a tobacco pouch. I watched, repelled and fascinated, as he stuffed the bowl of the pipe with tobacco and then expended an amazing quantity of matches in getting it lit. Finally, though, he said, “So then, you’re Thekla Murchison’s son.”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“Did you bring any proof of your identity?”

I did, in fact, have my birth certificate in the inside pocket of my suit coat, but my dislike of Mr. Ogilvy had been growing steadily, and his tobacco smoke was making me light-headed. I said, “Is my hair not proof enough?”

My answer seemed to please him, for he croaked out another laugh and said, “So you know about the Murchison hair, do you?”

“My mother told me before she died.”

“Ah, yes. And that was when?”

“Twenty-three years ago. I was twelve.”

“I see. Why did the executors not get in touch with your mother’s family?”

“I don’t know. I was only a child.”

“Yes, yes, of course.” He waved that away in a cloud of pipe smoke. “Well, you certainly
look
like a Murchison, but I’m afraid we lawyers can’t proceed by appearances alone.” He laughed again.

“Of course not,” I said. My birth certificate sat like a dead mouse in my pocket, but I did not want, for no reason that I could explain, to give it to Mr. Ogilvy. “What sort of proof would satisfy you?”

I fully expected him to ask for documents—at which point my foolishness would be rebuked and I would produce my birth certificate like any normal person—but instead, he asked, “How did your mother die?”

“Beg pardon?”

“If she died twenty-three years ago, she must have been what? About thirty-five?”

“Thirty-four,” I said.

“Then how did she die?”

“How will this constitute proof of my identity?”

“Just answer the question, Mr. Booth,” Mr. Ogilvy said. For a moment, he looked to me less like a toad than like a crocodile.

“She committed suicide the night of my father’s death.” I remembered sitting on the stairs, alone and unregarded, listening to the harsh, terrible sound of her crying. She had come out of my father’s room and looked at me without seeing me. She had gone up the stairs, leaving me there on the landing, half-formed words dying in my mouth. Less than a minute later, I had heard the crash as she threw herself out the attic window.

“I see, I see. And your father? What did he die of?”’

“I . . . I don’t know exactly. He had been ill for months, but the doctors couldn’t agree on a diagnosis.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Ogilvy. I thought he was about to start rubbing his hands with glee. “Thekla thought she could outrun her blood, but it can’t be done. Can’t be done!”

“I beg your pardon. Did you know my mother?”

“
Know
her? Dear boy, I almost
married
her!” He began to laugh again, a croaking, rasping, vile sound that made me want to stop my ears with my fingers. “Murchisons can only marry each other,” said Mr. Ogilvy. “That’s our curse. Thekla thought true love could carry the weight of death, but she was wrong. Wrong!”

“Mr. Ogilvy,” I said, and I was astonished to hear how level and even my voice was, “I believe you have not been honest with me.”

“I’ve lied only by omission. I
was
Regina’s lawyer, and I most certainly
did
search for twenty years without finding a trace of Thekla. ’Course, I didn’t know she’d been dead for three years when I started. The only thing I didn’t tell you, Kyle my lad, is that the M in my name stands for Murchison, just like in yours.”

I felt as if I was drowning in his pipe smoke and his hideous revelations. It was just as well he did not wait for a response from me, for there was no response I could imagine making.

“There’s even a legacy, though I don’t imagine it’s going to do you much good.” He grinned, revealing an array of yellow, crooked, corroded teeth. “The truth. The curse of the Murchisons. Did your dear departed mama ever tell you stories about her family?”

“No.”

“Poor stupid Thekla.” He sighed, but it was as fake as the tears of a crocodile. “So, then, you need some family history.”

“Mr. Ogilvy, I really don’t think—”

“
Sit down
.” Involuntarily, I sat.

“An ancestor of yours, Geoffrey Murchison, married a woman named Alabaster Whalen. Mary Anna and Claudine always maintained that Alabaster was from Salem, but they were a pair of romantic ninnies, and I say it as their cousin. In any event, there seems to have been a good deal of coercion involved, and their only child, your five times great-grandfather, John Whalen Murchison, was conceived by rape.”

He paused, giving me a sly look to see how I was taking all of this. I do not know what he saw on my face, but it must have satisfied him, for he continued: “Alabaster Whalen Murchison died in childbirth with her only son—whom she had never wanted—and she cursed both son and father with her dying breath. Regardless of Alabaster’s origins—Salem witch or some other kind—her curse was effective, and it has transmitted itself to all of her descendants, including,” and he gestured with his pipe at my hair, “you.”

He stopped there, waiting, his eyes like a crocodile’s judging the strength of a drowning man. I wanted to walk out on him, to deny him the satisfaction he sought, but the story had hold of me, and I could not.

“What was the curse?”

“Murchison men kill their wives; Murchison women kill their husbands. If your hair goes white before you’re twenty-five, your spouse will be dead before you’re thirty-five. And they all die like your father did, Kyle: a mysterious ailment that slowly saps the vitality. No doctor can understand it or halt its progress. Geoffrey Murchison survived his wife by about six months. John Whalen Murchison’s first wife died when he was thirty four. His second, third, and fourth wives each lasted about five years. Divorce can’t save you, and the absence of children is an iffy protection at best—and don’t think that immorality will save you, either. It’s been tried. Your great-great-grandparents were second cousins who each had the white hair when they got married; they lasted well into their sixties. That’s the only effective counter-measure we’ve ever found: bad blood balancing bad blood. But then we found, in our generation, that there weren’t enough Murchisons to go around.”

He blew another enormous cloud of smoke and peered out of it at me like the cruel dragon in a fairy tale. “Thekla thought that if she cut all her ties with the family and married a man whom she loved beyond words—as she put it in a letter to Claudine—then Alabaster’s curse would miss its grip. Guess she was wrong, wasn’t she, Kyle?”

“Did he know?” I said, my mouth numb and ashy.

“Of course he knew. Perfect love means perfect honesty, that was what Thekla thought. She told him the whole thing before she consented to the engagement.”

“And he married her anyway.”

“He was a fool,” Mr. Ogilvy said, his mouth twisting further with contempt. “Just like Thekla.”

I remembered my father well enough to know that he had never been foolish. He had simply loved my mother enough to make the gamble. But perhaps, in Mr. Ogilvy’s lexicon, that was the same as being a fool.

“We’re almost all dead now,” he continued in a quieter voice. “Thekla was right enough about that. Three generations of marrying your cousins, and most of the vitality goes out of the stock. There’s me, and there’s Mary Anna—she’s in a convent in Ohio—and there’s Claudine’s kids, but the boy’s half-witted, and poor Mavis is as barren as salt. Planning on getting married, Kyle?”

No one calls me Kyle, and I hated hearing my given name from this mummified toad, but telling him so would only please him. Mr. Ogilvy did not like me any better than I liked him; I wondered if it was on my mother’s account.

“No,” I said. My voice was rusty, shrill, little more than breath. I could feel Alabaster Whalen Murchison’s hate, and I suspected I would go on feeling it for a very long time, perhaps forever. But there was no love left in my life which she could kill, no happiness which she could blight.

His eyebrows went up, but he said, “Well, no matter. Now, since it seems that you are indeed Thekla’s son, Mavis would like to meet you, and give you that daguerreotype of Thekla I mentioned in my letter.”

“Mavis?”

“Your cousin, Mavis Murchison Davenant.”

“Oh. I, er . . . ” I wanted to run, to bolt out of the smothering red velvet warmth of the Belfontaine like a fox who hears the baying of hounds. But I also, painfully, wanted to see my mother’s image. “Yes, very well.”

“She’s down in one of the lounges,” Mr. Ogilvy said, getting up. “Come on.”

I am a fool, I thought despairingly. But I followed him.

I felt my cousin as we came out of the elevator, before I saw her, a pocket of black stillness in the midst of the bright jubilation. I turned my head and there she was, standing beneath the lobby’s enormous clock. Mrs. Davenant was easily a half-foot taller than Mr. Ogilvy, her white head rising from the black collar of her dress like a funeral lily. As we crossed the lobby toward her, I saw that she was near my own age; she wore her hair unfashionably long, seeming almost to flaunt its whiteness with the heavy braids that crowned her skull. She had a narrow, high-cheekboned face, very medieval, and her dark eyes were myopic and dreamy. She looked like Julian of Norwich, as painted by Millais.

Mr. Ogilvy said, with unwholesome chirpiness, “Mavis, my dear, this is your cousin Kyle. Kyle, this is Mavis.”