The Twelve Crimes of Christmas (20 page)

“Yes,
they were.”

“And
no one spoke to its occupant?”

“No,
we didn’t.”

“Strange,
isn’t it? Such a festive occasion, and yet no one spoke?”

“We
were in a hurry to get her out to where the Governor was waiting. Wait, someone
did say, ‘Hang on, Gretchen’ when we lifted the chair. I don’t remember who
said it, though.”

“You
heard no sound from inside the chair? No groan or murmur?”

“No,
sir, not a sound.”

“Well,
thank you for your candor. Oh, yes, Miss Daws-Smith, when you left Gretchen,
was she still standing by the fire?”

“Yes,
Captain.”

“Was
her mask on or off?”

She
frowned. “Why, she had it on. What a queer question!”

“It’s
a queer case, young lady.”

The
great clock in the center hall had just tolled three when Cork finished talking
with the other five young men who had carried the murdered girl in the sedan
chair. They all corroborated Brock’s version. All were ignorant of any
expression of love between Brock and Lydia, and they were unanimous in their
relief that Brock, and not one of them, had been Gretchen’s intended. As one
young man named Langley put it, “At least Brock has an inheritance of his own,
and would not have been dependent on his wife and mother-in-law.”

“Dependent?”
Cork queried. “Would he not assume her estate under law?”

“No,
sir, not in this house,” Langley explained. “I am told it’s a kind of
morganatic arrangement and a tradition with the old van der Malin line. I have
little income, so Gretchen would have been no bargain for me. Not that I am up
to the Dame’s standards.”

When
Langley had left, Trask, the footman, entered to tell us that rooms had been
prepared for us at the major’s request. Cork thanked him and said, “I know the
hour is late, but is your mistress available?”

He
told us he would see, and showed us to a small sitting room off the main upstairs
hall. It was a tight and cozy chamber with a newly-stirred hearth and the
accoutrements of womankind—a small velvet couch with tiny pillows, a secretaire
in the corner, buckbaskets of knitting and mending.

Unusual,
however, was the portrait of the Dame herself that hung on a wall over the
secretaire. It was certainly not the work of a local limner, for the controlled
hand of a master painter showed through. Each line was carefully laid down,
each color blended one with the other, to produce a perfect likeness of the
Dame. She was dressed in a gown almost as beautiful as the one she had worn
this evening. At her throat was a remarkable diamond necklace which, despite
the two dimensions of the portrait, was lifelike in its cool, blue-white
lustre.

Cork
was drawn to the portrait and even lifted a candle to study it more closely. I
joined him and was about to tell him to be careful of the flame when a voice
from behind startled me.

“There
are additional candles if you need more light.”

We
both turned to find Wilda van Schooner standing in the doorway. She looked
twice her seventeen years, with the obvious woe she carried inside her. Her
puffed eyes betrayed the tears of grief that had recently welled there.

“Forgive
my curiosity, Miss van Schooner,” Cork said, turning back to the portrait. “Inquisitiveness
and a passion for details are my afflictions. This work was done in Europe, of
course?”

“No,
sir, here in New York, although Jan der Trogue is from the continent. He
is—was—to have painted all of us eventually.” She broke off into thought and
then rejoined us. “My mother is with my sister, gentlemen, and is not
available. She insists on seeing to Gretchen herself.”

“That
is most admirable.” Cork bid her to seat herself, and she did so. She did not
have her sister’s or her mother’s coloring, nor their chiseled beauty, but
there was something strangely attractive about this tall, dark-haired girl.

“I
understand, Captain, that you are here to help us discover the fiend who did
this thing, but you will have to bear with my mother’s grief.”

“To
be sure. And what can you tell me, Miss Wilda?”

“I
wish I could offer some clue, but my sister and I were not close—we did not
exchange confidences.”

“Was
she in love with Brock van Loon?”

“Love!”
she cried, and then did a strange thing. She giggled almost uncontrollably for
a few seconds. “That’s no word to use in this house, Captain.”

“Wilda,
my dear,” a female voice said from the open door. “I think you are too upset to
make much sense tonight. Perhaps in the morning, gentlemen?”

The
speaker was the girl’s aunt, Hetta van der Malin, and we rose as she entered.

“Forgive
our intrusion into your sitting room, ma’am,” Cork said with a bow. “Perhaps
you are right. Miss Wilda looks exhausted.”

“I
agree, Captain Cork,” the aunt said, and she put her arm around the girl and
ushered her out the door.

“Pray,”
Cork interrupted, “could
you
spare us some time in
your niece’s stead?”

Her
smile went faint, but it was a smile all the same. “How did you know this was
my
room, Captain? Oh, of course. Trask must have—”

“On
the contrary, my eyes told me. Your older sister does not fit the image of a
woman surrounded by knitting and mending and pert pillowcases.”

“No,
she doesn’t. The den is Ilsa’s sitting room. Our mother raised her that way.
She is quite a capable person, you know.”

“So
it would seem. Miss Hetta, may I ask why you invited us here this evening?”

I
was as caught off guard as she was.

“Whatever
put that notion into your head? My sister dispatched the invitations herself.”

“Precisely!
That’s why you had to purloin one and fill in our names yourself. Come, dear
woman, the sample of your hand on the letters on your secretaire matches the
hand that penned the unsigned note I received.”

“You
have looked through my things!”

“I
snoop when forced to. Pretence will fail you, ma’am, for the young lad who
delivered this invitation will undoubtedly be found and will identify you.
Come, now, you wrote to invite me here and now you deny it. I will have an
answer.”

“Captain
Cork,” I cautioned him, for the woman was quivering.

“Yes,
I sent it.” Her voice was tiny and hollow. “But it had nothing to do with this
horrible murder. It was trivial compared to it, and it is senseless to bring it
up now. Please believe me, Captain. It was foolish of me.”

“You
said ‘calamity’ in your note, and now we have a murder done. Is that not the
extreme of calamity?”

“Yes,
of course it is. I used too strong a word in my note. I would gladly have told
you about it after the coronation. But now it would just muddle things. I can’t.”

“Then,
my dear woman, I must dig it out. Must I play the ferret while you play the
mute?” His voice was getting sterner. I know how good an actor he is, but was
he acting?

“Do
you know what a colligation is, Madam?”

She
shook her head.

“It
is the orderly bringing together of isolated facts. Yet you blunt my efforts;
half facts can lead to half truths. Do you want a half truth?” He paused and
then spat it out. “Your sister may have killed her older daughter!”

“That
is unbearable!” she cried.

“A
surmise based on a half truth. She was the last person to see Gretchen alive,
if the Daws-Smith girl is to be believed. And why not believe her? If Lydia had
killed Gretchen, would she then send the mother into the room to her corpse?
Take the honor guards who were to carry the sedan chair: if Gretchen were alive
when her mother left her, could one of those young men have killed her in the presence
of five witnesses?”

“Anyone
could have come in from the outside.” Miss Hetta’s voice was frantic.

“Nonsense.
The evidence is against it.”

“Why
would Ilsa want to kill her own flesh and blood? It is unthinkable!”

“And
yet people will think it, rest assured. The whole ugly affair can be
whitewashed and pinned to some mysterious assailant who stalked in the night
season, but people will think it just the same, Madam.”

She
remained silent now, and I could feel Cork’s mind turning from one tactic to
another, searching for leverage. He got to his feet and walked over to the
portrait.

“So
in the face of silence, I must turn the ferret loose in my mind. Take, for
example, the question of this necklace.”

“The
van der Malin Chain,” she said, looking up at the portrait. “What about it?”

“If the painter was accurate, it seems of great
worth, both in pounds sterling and family prestige. It’s very name proclaims it
an heirloom.”

“It is. It has been in our family for
generations.”

“Do you wear it at times?”

“No, of course not. It is my sister’s property.”

“Your estates are not commingled?”

“Our family holds with primogeniture.”

“I do not. Exclusive rights to a first born
make a fetish of nature’s caprice. But that is philosophy, and beyond a ferret.
Where is the necklace, Madam?”

“Why, in my sister’s strong box, I assume. This
is most confusing, Captain Cork.”

I could have added my vote to that. I have seen
Cork search for answers with hopscratch questions, but this display seemed futile.

“It is I who am confused, Madam. I am muddled
by many things in this case. Why, for instance, didn’t your sister wear this
necklace to the year’s most important social function? She thought enough of it
to have it painted in a portrait for posterity.”

“Our minds sometimes work that way, Captain.
Perhaps it didn’t suit her costume.”

Cork turned from the picture as if he had had
enough of it. “I am told there is a Uncle Kaarl in the household, yet he was
not in attendance at the ball tonight. Did he not suit the occasion?”

“You are most rude, sir. Kaarl is an ill man,
confined to his bed for several years.” She got to her feet. “I am very tired,
gentlemen.”

“I, too, grow weary, Madam. One last question.
Your late niece was irritable this evening, I am told. Did something particular
happen recently to cause that demeanor?”

“No. What would she have to sulk about? She was
the center of attraction. I really must retire now. Good night.”

When the rustle of her skirts had faded down
the silent hallway, I said, “Well, Captain, we’ve certainly had a turn around
the mulberry bush.”

He gave me that smirk-a-mouth of his. “Some
day, Oaks, you will learn to read between the lines where women are concerned. I
am sure you thought me a bully for mistreating her, but it was necessary, and
it worked.”

“Worked?”

“To a fair degree. I started on her with
several assumptions. Some have more weight now, others are discounted. Don’t
look so perplexed. I am sure that Hetta’s note to us did not concern Gretchen
directly. She did not fear for the girl’s life in this calamity she now chooses
to keep secret.”

“How is that?”

“Use your common sense, man. If she had
suspected an attempt on her niece’s life, would she stand mute? No, she would
screech her accusations to the sky. Her seeking outside aid from us must have
been for another problem. Yes, Trask?”

I hadn’t seen the footman in the shadows, nor
had I any idea how long he had been there.

“Beg pardon, Captain Cork, but Major Tell has
retired to his room and would like to see you when you have a moment.”

“Thank you, Trask. Is your mistress available
to us now?”

“Her maid tells me she is abed, sir.”

“A shame. Maybe you can help me, Trask. My
friend and I were wondering why the Dame’s picture hangs in this small room. I
say it was executed in such a large size to hang in a larger room. Mr. Oaks,
however, says it was meant for Miss Hetta’s room as an expression of love
between the two sisters.”

“Well, there is an affection between them,
sirs, but the fact is that the portrait hung in the Grand Salon until the Dame
ordered it destroyed.”

“When was this, Trask?”

“Two days ago. ‘Trask,’ she said to me, ‘take
that abomination out and burn it.’ Strange, she did like it originally, then,
just like that, she hated it. Of course, Miss Hetta wouldn’t let me burn it, so
we spirited it in here, where the Dame never comes.”

“Ha, you see I was right, Oaks. Thanks for
settling the argument, Trask. Where is Major Tell’s room?”