In Like Flynn (22 page)

Daniel put a hand on my shoulder. “Don't try to sit up. Lie back and don't talk too much. I don't want you overexerting yourself.”

“But I have to tell you everything I know,” I said. “When will I get another chance? It may be important.”

Daniel sighed. “All right. I've never been able to shut you up yet. I don't suppose 111 be able to now.”

I looked up at him and I can't tell you how wonderful it felt to know that he was here beside me. As a lady detective, I still had serious characterflaws.I wrenched my mind away from personal feelings and back to business. “If there was a mastermind behind the kidnapping, and that mastermind wasn't the Black Hand, then there are several possibilities,” I said. “My number one choice would be the secretary, Desmond O'Mara. He is well educated and brainy yet he has chosen to stay here when he surely could do better for himself. Smart and penniless. That’s a dangerous combi-nation, wouldn't you say? And I saw him leaving the house and heading for the cliff path the afternoon before Margie McAlister’s body was found,
and
he was away all night, showing up innocently the next morning.”

“Desmond O'Mara,” Daniel echoed. “I'll check into him then. Go on. Who else?”

“One of the gardeners, called Adam. He was a close pal of Bertie Morell and he has a good reason to get revenge against the Flynns. Bamey Flynn tricked his father out of his ice lease on the river. Why would Adam choose to work for the man who ruined his family if he has no ulterior motive? And then there’s Roland.”

“Roland? Another gardener?”

“No, the next-door neighbor. Roland Van Gelder. The Van Gelder family have been enemies of the Flynns ever since Roland’s father ran for the same office as Barney Flynn.”

“Oh, I'm well acquainted with the Van Gelders. Old money.”

“Not any more,” I said. “They claim they get along better with the Flynns now, but I'm not so sure. And Roland had a strong motive in needing money. He has expensive tastes but the family fortune has dwindled.”

“Anyone else?” Daniel grinned. “I must say you do a thorough job, don't you? Any more dark secrets that you have uncovered?”

“No, only I overheard Joseph Rimes and Bamey talking once about some scandal that could harm them if it came out.”

“Joseph Rimes?”

“He’s Barney’s political adviser. I don't like him much. Bombastic and blustering.”

Daniel nodded. “I really suspect that some political or business scandal may be at the heart of this murder, rather than the kidnapping itself. I can't tell you how thoroughly the police investigated every aspect of that abduction. We had pressure from the President himself, you know. But we came up with nothing.”

“Was Bertie Morell married?” I asked.

“Yes, he was. Why do you ask?”

“Because I saw a woman puttingflowerson his grave.”

“Interesting, but I shouldn't think it was his wife. She was a much older woman and they separated years ago. Couldn't stand the sight of each other, so one gathered. I thought she moved to Chicago or somewhere out West. I did meet her once at a hearing—a large dragon of a woman with a mustache. She must have had money. There’s no other reason he'd have married her.”

Then this definitely wasn't his wife,” I said. “She was slim and young and there was a child.”

“Interesting.” Daniel nodded. “Morell had no children, or none that we know of. Another of his former conquests, who still retained a soft spot in her heart for him, maybe. Women tend to do these things, don't they?”

“Do what?”

“Retain a soft spot in their hearts for the man they once loved.”

“Some women, maybe.” Even in my weakened state I was not admitting anything to Daniel.

Daniel grinned. “There are probably quite a few of his former conquests dotted around. He had an eye for the ladies, so I understand.”

“I wonder if she'd know anything,” I said. I was feeling so much better already that I propped myself up on my elbow. “We could—”

Daniel put his handfirmlyon my thigh. 'You are not doing anything more. You're only going to drink and eat what everybody else is eating and drinking until I come and fetch you.”

“Will that be soon?”

“As soon as I can arrange it. If this liquid tests positive, 111 be back with a warrant. If not, I'llfindan excuse to come for you. In the meantime you are to do nothing but get well, is that clear?” His hand on my thigh was very unnerving, even though the thigh was under the covers.

'You're very masterful when you want to be,” I said. He smiled. 'For once I'm not about to take advantage of your weakened condition,” he said.

“Oh, so you are a gentleman, after all.”

“And you're not exactly looking your most desirable, my sweet.” He leaned forward and kissed me very gently on the fore-head. I nuzzled my head against his sleeve, taking in the familiar smell of his pipe tobacco. It didn't matter that Miss Arabella Norton would be waiting for him. He was here with me now. That was all that mattered.

He pulled me to him and cradled my head, stroking my hair gently. Take care of yourself. Don't forget there is a very desperate person in the vicinity of this house. That person has already killed at least once. The next time will be easy. I don't want it to be you.”

“I don't want it to be me, either.”

“Good girl.” He kissed the top of my head again. “I ought to go before I am discovered and your reputation is ruined forever.”

'You take care of yourself as you climb down that creeper,” I said. 'You won't be much good to me if you're lying splattered on the trellis.”

He smiled as he opened the window. Then he swung his leg over the sill and blew me a kiss. I heard the creeper rustling as he climbed down it. Then silence.

Twenty-six

S
omething woke me just before dawn. It was still that gray, soft half darkness before the sun comes up, but I could hear activity going on in the house. Running feet past my door, raised voices and someone crying. I got up and reached for my robe and slippers. I had to hold onto the bedpost to steady myself but I made it as far as my bedroom door and opened it.

“Dr. Chambers is on his way,” I heard Barney’s voice. “Oh, do stop that wailing, woman. It’s not doing any good.”

I crept out, my hand on the railing to steady myself. Below me in the hall Soames ran to the front door—actually ran with coattails flying. This was such an unusual sight that I started down the stairs in my robe until I came upon Theresa’s maid, Adèle, sitting on a side chair, crying her eyes out.

“What is it, Adèle?” I asked. “Is somebody ill?”

“Madame,” she gulped between sobs. “She is dead, mademoiselle.”

“Theresa is dead?” I hastily made the sign of the cross, reverting to the religion I had not taken seriously for years.

She nodded and burst into renewed sobs, holding her lace handkerchief up to her face. Barney came out of his office looking haggard.

“It’s true then?” I asked him.

He nodded. “She killed herself sometime last night. Apparently she'd been hoarding sleeping powders and she took the lot. I knew that alienist was a bad idea. He drove her over the edge, that’s what he did. Ill have him in court for it. Ill have him horse-whipped! And her stupid sister who brought him here—she can go straight home, and that interfering cousin. I want the lot of them out of my house!” His voice had risen to a distressed shriek that echoed through the two-story-high hallway.

I put a restraining hand on his arm. “Barney, I know you're terribly shocked and upset by this, but don't go blaming people. Theresa has been living under a black cloud, as she put it, for years. Let’s pray she is finally reunited with her son and is at peace now.”

“Yes, let’s pray that,” he said and made the sign of the cross himself. “God, Molly, I lived in fear that she'd do this and now she has.” I could tell he was trying to master his tears. Then he shook his head in a defiant gesture. “That’s it for me. I'm selling this house and moving right away from here. I was so proud when I moved in here—Barney Flynn from the Lower East Side slums has finally made it next to the Van Gelders. But it’s brought me nothing but grief.”

“I'm so sorry. If there’s anything that I can do—”

“I'm glad to have you here, Molly. It’s comforting to know that one of my family from the old country is with me at a time like this. All of Theresa’s clan will come for the funeral, of course, and they'll all blame me.”

“Why should they blame you?”

“Because I didn't treat her well enough. Because I couldn't protect our son. Because I put her through hell.”

“Don't be too hard on yourself.”

He sighed. “No, you're right. I'd better get dressed before the doctor gets here and then wake up Joe and Desmond to discuss what the press might do with this and what sort of statement I should make. It still seems like a bad dream.”

“And what about your daughter? Should she be told?”

“I'll tell the nurse and she can decide the right way to do it.”

“I think it should come from you, Barney. She’s just lost her mother. She needs to know she can count on her father.”

He sighed. “I suppose you're right, but I never know the right thing to say to children. I was too busy to get to know Brendan and now I've been the same with Eileen. And Theresa always kept her shut away in her own quarters.”

“I expect she wanted to know she was safe,” I suggested.

“Yes,” he said. “I expect that was it.”

“So you'll tell her?”

“I'll try.”

“I'll visit her later this morning, if you like,” I said. “She seems to like me. And at that age they have little concept of tragedy. I remember my own brother Thomas wanting to know if we could still go to the fair the day my mother died.”

Barney managed a smile. “Lucky for them,” he said. “We seem to carry around tragedy with us all the time.”

He trudged back up the stairs like a man carrying a heavy load. I went back to my room, washed and dressed hurriedly One glance in the mirror and I could see what Daniel meant about my appearance. I looked terrible, drawn and haggard—great hollow circles around my eyes, hair plastered to my forehead. Not exactly desirable. I rinsed my hair in the basin and brushed it back. I even wished I had been daring enough to bring rouge to put on my cheeks; at least that might have made me look more human. As I tied back my straggly hair, a chilling thought struck me. Everyone assumed that Theresa had killed herself, but if someone was trying to poison me, had that same person also succeeded in poisoning her?

The question was why. Had I stumbled upon a secret or a piece of knowledge I didn't even realize I possessed? In which case, had Theresa stumbled upon the same piece of knowledge? And why kill her now? I came up with a chilling reply to that one—the alienist. An outsider had come to the house who was about to probe Theresa’s deepest thoughts and fears. He had suggested hypnotizing her, during which she would have no control over what she revealed. And it was Barney who had been so adamantly against hypnosis. I turned to stare out of the window, watching the peaceful river scene outside as I digested this thought. Could Barney have used the advent of the alienist as an excuse to do away with a wife who was no use to him?

I shook my head. I just couldn't believe that. I had been with Barney and his grief and confusion seemed so genuine. If he had masterminded the whole thing, then the man was a brilliant actor. But 1 had to admit that it did seem logical. He had set the scene beautifully—protesting the arrival of Dr. Bimbaum, claiming that Theresa was worse after his session with her and could easily be driven over the edge, then forbidding the hypnotism. I hugged my arms to myself, shivering in early morning chill.

They were not my family, I reminded myself, and yet in my short time there I had become fond of Theresa, and of Barney, too, in a way. And Theresa had come to rely on me. If she had had any suspicions about anyone in the house, she could have shared them with me when we sat reading poetry together.

I felt a wave of weakness and grabbed at the window ledge, sending pigeons flapping from the gutter above my room. Was that it? Did someone fear that Theresa had divulged a secret to me during the time we were alone together? Certainly my cramps and vomiting started immediately after we had spent the day in Theresa’s room. But if someone wanted me dead, why not do a better job of it? Was this method designed to make it look like a natural death and not arouse suspicion—so that I'd get weaker and weaker until the final dose finished me off?

I shivered again. It was almost beyond belief that someone in this house was plotting my death. And yet I had seen evil and insanity before. I had faced murderers and guns and I knew what desperate men would do if threatened. It was just that this quiet country home was so removed from the back streets of New York.

I pulled out my notebook and sat at my desk, trying to harness my racing thoughts.

Baby kidnapped, I wrote. Margie McAlister killed. Molly slowly poisoned. Theresa dead. Four tragic events, the latter three of which would not be investigated as murders. People would say this was a cursed house, and find comparisons with other families who experienced more than their fair share of tragedy. But my year as an investigator had brought me to believe that not much happens by coincidence. If there were four deaths in one place and three of them within a week, then they had to be linked. Most probably there had to be one person behind them. The most logical assumption was that the circumstances surrounding the first of the events, the baby’s kidnapping, led to the next three. And this came back to my next theory—that there was a master planner, a puppeteer behind the kidnapping, and Albert Morell was the puppet.

I turned at the sound of a tap on my door and Alice the maid came in. Her eyes were red with crying.

“Oh miss, you're up and dressed,” she said. “Miss Clara sent me up to see if you were all right or you needed anything.”

“I'm feeling better, thank you, Alice.”

“Oh, that is good news, miss. The dear knows we need some good news around here. You've heard about the mistress, have you?”

“Yes. I've already spoken with Senator Flynn.”

“Isn't it awful, miss? She was such a sweet lady. Adèle is beside herself. She came in with a jug of hot water, the way she always did, because Mrs. Flynn was an early riser, and there she was sprawled half out of the bed. Adèle went to lift her back into bed and she was cold.” Alice put her hand to her mouth and turned away.

“It must have been a terrible shock for all of you,” I said. “I'm quite upset myself and I had only known her for just over a week.”

“I don't know what will happen now,” Alice said. “The Senator is ranting and raving about the house being cursed and that he’s going to sell up and take the child away from all this.”

“Poor little thing,” I said. “Now she'll grow up with no mother.”

Alice sniffed. “It’s not as if she'll want for anything. That child has always had the best that money can buy. And the Senator dotes on her. I think the two of them will get along just fine.”

She went over to my bedside table. “Oh, you didn't drink your beef tea, miss. They had it made specially for you to build you up.”

“No, I didn't feel like beef tea last night,” I said.

“It would have done you good. There’s nothing more nourishing than beef tea.” She went to pick up the cup. “I'll take it away for you then, shall I?”

I realized that she would be destroying the evidence. “Oh no, don't bother. Ill bring it down myself. I'm just coming.”

“No trouble, miss.”

“I'd rather you took the chamber pot away first,” I said.

“As you wish, miss.” She picked up my chamber pot and nodded with satisfaction. “And a night without sickness too. That is good.”

“Alice?” I asked as she was about to leave the room with the chamber pot.

“Yes, miss?” She turned back.

“Who gave you the beef tea to bring up to me?”

“Gave me, miss? It was on a tray in the kitchen and Cook said, That’s to go up to Miss Gaffney when you've a minute.”

“So you brought it up to me?”

“Well, miss, I was running an errand for Miss Clara and you know how she hates to be kept waiting, so I put it down on the table in the front hall for a minute or two.”

“And was anybody else in the front hall at the time?”

“Just Mr. Soames. He ticked me off for leaving the tray there. Will that be all then, miss?”

“Yes, thank you, Alice. You've been most kind.”

I sank onto my bed, my heart racing. I had never considered Soames before. He had always seemed like the perfect English butler, impeccable, invisible. I remembered mentioning that they had kept him on after the kidnapping when they had sacked all the other servants, and his haughty reply, “Maybe that was because I'm not like an ordinary servant.”

A butler would have had the perfect opportunity to carry out any of the crimes—apart from pushing Margie McAlister off the cliff, maybe. But I remembered that overheard conversation with the man’s voice asking, “What the devil do you think you're doing here?” and telling the other person that he or she had been paid off well. What if the voice I had heard was the butler’s—if he was the one being blackmailed and he found a way to silence Miss McAlister? I tried to remember whether the voice I had heard spoke with an English accent. Soames had caught me snooping on a couple of occasions. I tried to remember the details. Once I had been opening the door to Barney’s study, once to the seance room. What possibly could I have seen in either place that represented a danger to Soames?

Then I thought of something. Maybe he had caught a glimpse of the letter I had written to Daniel and he knew I was in touch with the police. I didn't think that was likely because I had kept the letter between the pages of a book until I posted it, but he could have an accomplice at the post office. I wished Daniel had not gone away again last night. I wanted him here right now. He should know about Theresa immediately and he would also be in a position to check into Mr. Soames’s background. And to be honest, I would have liked someone around to protect me. It’s not an easy feeling, knowing that someone wanted me dead. But Daniel had promised to come back for me, hadn't he? I just hoped I would still be alive.