Murder by Magic (29 page)

Another slap. The window was creeping open, seemingly by itself. A sliver of light shone between the sash and the sill. Another slap and the window stood open an inch.

“George, if you were to open the side jambs, I believe you would find that the sash weights are a fraction too heavy. An earthquake tremble too light to be felt would still be enough to open the window.”

“You mean there isn’t a ghost?” Mary asked.

“The chill you felt last night, the candle that blew out—the opening window created a draft,” Orville said. “A day or two longer should finish my researches, and I will be able to tell you whether a ghost is here or not.”

“But you just said there wasn’t one,” Roger said. “Listen, Nesbit, I’ll double your fee if you just take the next train out. I’m tired of your rigmarole.”

“I was hired by Mrs. Collins,” Orville said mildly.

“I’m still curious,” Mary said. “Please, Roger, for me.”

“You’ll be sorry,” Mr. Collins said, and turned on his heel.

Journal of Orville Nesbit—

My researches today were fruitless, or perhaps not, if a negative answer can be considered to rule out possibilities. No murders, no suicides, no stillbirths in the house. The police blotter is clean, save only the accident in which Mrs. Collins was injured, and one other thing. No suspicion of foul play revolved around the accident. The question of the servants may be simply answered—a police report and an insurance claim dating from the following week, for a missing-presumed-stolen emerald and gold choker necklace. Perhaps during the time Mr. Collins kept vigil by his wife’s side one of the servants took the opportunity to indulge in larceny, and, unable to determine which one, Mr. Collins dismissed them all. They are scattered now, though it seems they were all given excellent references.

The only one of the servants whom Orville had not yet interviewed was Helen, the cleaning woman. He found her in the pantry, capped and aproned, feather duster in hand.

He began his interview by asking how long she had been in the Collinses’ employ, although he already knew the answer. With notebook at the ready he asked about the house, about feelings she may have had, about anything odd she might have noticed. He walked with her as she made her rounds. She talked, he listened.

Helen was a dull woman, perfectly suited to drudgery. She did not guard her tongue. She had been the first of the new servants to be hired, and she had known the last ones. She wasn’t worried about her job. She had never seen anything odd in the house, but “that window, I never touched it, sir, not like Mr. Collins said.”

Orville’s pen scarcely touched his notebook.

“Does the name Ned mean anything to you?”

“No.”

“Which room was it where Mrs. Collins had her fright?” he asked.

“The tea room,” she said. “That’s where she screamed.”

“No, before that,” Orville said. “Where she saw the ghost.”

“She never did any such thing,” Helen said. “I’d have heard.”

Of that Orville had no doubt. Servants hear everything. No man is a hero to his valet. He had been hoping that the person who cleaned a room would have something to say about that room. A thorough cleaning differs very little from a thorough search.

“Ah,” Orville said, “thank you,” and left her straightening the antimacassars in the drawing room.

Mrs. Collins herself was in the piano room. He had avoided questioning her about the apparition. Mr. Collins had been right about her delicacy, that was certain, nor had Orville any reason to upset her with questions that could lead to questioning her veracity.

“Excuse me, Mary,” Orville began without preamble. “There exist two more questions which I need to research. Your answers will help my efforts to give you a report by this time tomorrow.”

“What do you mean?”

“I would appreciate it if you could show me the room where you saw the ghost.”

“Upstairs, the guest bedroom,” she said.

“Show me.”

“I’d prefer not to,” Mary replied. “I haven’t been back in that room since that afternoon.”

“Afternoon?”

“Night.”

“Where were you standing?”

“In the hall—what difference does it make?”

“I would appreciate knowing. My research . . .”

“I don’t—very well.” With that Mary walked silently past Orville, up the stairs, and to the door, the first one to the left of the window that George had now repaired. The smell of fresh paint where he had touched up the stops perfumed the air.

“Was this always the guest bedroom?” Orville asked. An attached bathroom shone with mirrors and polished tile. He could see through its door from the hall. “It seems larger than your room.”

“Since my accident,” Mary said, her hand rising to touch the side of her head and smooth back her hair, “Roger and I have had separate bedrooms. This used to be the master bedroom.”

“For the first five years you lived here.”

“Yes.”

Journal of Orville Nesbit—

Helen tells me that the maid she replaced was young, much younger than any of the current staff.

Mary is strangely reluctant to help me now. I plan to leave tomorrow, regardless of the state of my researches. I have come to suspect that there was no haunting here; merely an overly loose window and the imaginations of an ill woman. Perhaps her husband has prevailed upon her.

Still, from the description of the movements of the apparition in her initial letter, I have reconstructed its motion.

And from its motion, I know that the furniture could not now be where it stands.

The account is false. The account is true. I need to study this. I am still concerned about the missing element of water.

The Ouija board concerns me as well. I dislike conundrums.

Orville Nesbit packed his bags in the guesthouse. Mary Collins had dreamed the ghost. A lifelike dream, remembered as real upon awakening. Such things were not unknown.

“Logical entities should not be unnecessarily multiplied,” Orville said, fixing the last strap on his largest case.

The accident had happened at 3:55
P.M.
The angle of the sun, then, would have been much as it would be at three o’clock today. Orville stood on the porch of the guesthouse and watched as Mrs. Baxter arrived. He hurried across to intercept her before she could raise the knocker on the front door.

“Excuse me, Shirley,” he said. “You can help me, I think.”

“What is it, Mr. Nesbit?”

“The spirit that Mary saw. I would like you to re-create its motion. Could you do that?”

“I don’t know . . .”

“Come inside.”

He opened the door and motioned her in. Together they mounted the stairway and walked to the guest bedroom.

“Here,” he said. “Starting in the bathroom, walk across the room, to this spot.” He pointed.

“Do I walk around the bed?”

“Yes.”

He watched from the door as she moved. His pocket watch said 2:50.

“Excellent,” he said. “Now, please, humor me. Would you put this on?” He held up one of the long black dresses and white aprons that the maid Helen wore about her duties. He had borrowed it from the wardrobe in the basement.

“Whatever for?”

“You’re far too brightly dressed to be a ghost,” he said. “You can put it on over your clothing.”

“If you insist.” Shirley wore a puzzled frown.

“Humor me. This could be important,” he said. “It will help Mary.” Knowing that he lied as he spoke.

She vanished into the bathroom; cloth rustled. She emerged black and white. “I feel like a fool.”

“Now,” Orville said, “walk across the room.”

She did so, smiling nervously. “Is this necessary?”

“I believe so.”

She did as he said.

“Now, I assure you that I am completely serious when I ask you to lie on the bed and remain there.”

He walked down the stairs, into the tea room, and out the French doors. A garden hose lay coiled to his right, attached to a spigot in the brick foundation. He turned it on, extending the hose into the flower bed, and let it flow. The water stained his linen trousers. Then he walked back into the house.

He found Mrs. Collins in the parlor, sitting in a chair reading a book. Three o’clock by his pocket watch.

“Mrs. Collins, if you would indulge me one last time,” he said. “I’m about to go to the station. There is one matter which still puzzles me, and I hope that you can find it in your heart to ease my mind in this tiny detail.”

“Of course, Orville,” Mary said.

“The upstairs hall. If you could merely walk the length of it?” He looked at his watch again. “I would like to time you.” He smiled. “It’s a small detail.”

“Oh, if it helps,” she said, rising from her seat. “Since you’re about to leave.”

“Just that one thing.”

She walked up the stairs. He followed. At the end of the corridor that ran toward the window he stopped, letting her continue.

She started down the hall. At the door to the guest room she stopped as if frozen. She spun toward the door, her face twisting into rage.

“You bitch!” she screamed. “You bastard! How could you? In my own bed!”

Mary dashed into the room where Shirley was trying to rise. In an instant Mary was on her, pummeling her with her fists. Orville was close behind.

“Mary!” he shouted. “Mary, stop it!”

She threw him off her back where he was trying to stop her flailing arms with a bear hug. Then she turned and dashed for the door.

Orville landed on his back where she had thrown him.

Her feet pounded down the stairs. The front door slammed.

From outside, male voices shouted, “Mary, what in the name of heaven!” and “Mrs. Collins, no!”

By the time Orville—accompanied by Shirley Baxter—had limped down the stairs, George and Roger were pulling Mary out of the driver’s seat of the automobile in which they had just arrived. George had her in a full nelson, still saying, “Ma’am, ma’am, don’t.”

“You,” Roger said, turning and pointing at Orville. “This is your fault. I warned you. I’ll sue you. I’ll ruin you. You fraud. You quack.”

“Perhaps,” Orville said, going past him and around the corner of the house. He went back to the garden shed and found a shovel. Then he walked, still limping, to the spot where the water from the hose had run to its lowest level and was soaking into the ground of the garden, amid the red and yellow flowers.

He pushed the blade into the soft mud and pulled up the sodden earth. It made a plopping sound. Again he shoved the blade into the hole, pushing it deeper with his foot. All at once a foul smell burst from the earth. He retched. As the other members of the household arrived—Helen, Dolores, Roger, Shirley—Orville held his breath, bent, and shoved his hand into the muddy water.

He reached deep—feeling for something in the muck—and pulled. His hand came up with a bone, long and white, and still hung about with scraps of rotting flesh.

“I think I’ve found your ghost,” he said.

Roger stepped back, his hand darting into his pocket and pulling out a small chrome-plated pistol. “All of you, stand over by that man,” he said. “Don’t try anything; I have a round for each of you.”

The little group did as they were told.

“Now I’ll make ghosts of the lot of you,” Roger said, raising the weapon.

He never fired. Instead, a sharp metal point appeared through the front of his shirt, a red stain surrounding it. Roger fell, the pistol tumbling from his limp fingers. And there was George standing behind him, edging shears in hand.

“You killed her,” he said to the fallen man. “You son of a bitch, you killed her and buried her in my garden.”

Orville shook his head. “Not exactly. But it will do.”

Journal of Orville Nesbit—

The apparition and the first message that the Ouija board gave have perfectly rational explanations. They were the subconscious memories of a woman who had arrived home unexpectedly to find her husband in the arms of another woman. She snapped, she attacked, and she unintentionally killed her rival. The girl fell, perhaps striking her head. No one who is alive remembers. The police found bloodstains in the backing of the carpet.

Mary ran from the room, perhaps not fully comprehending what she had done. She may have intended to kill herself when she hit the gate, or perhaps not. I do not know and she cannot tell, because the concussion and the coma stole her memory of that day.

Roger dismissed the servants. He couldn’t have hidden a bloody carpet and a grave in the flower bed with observers present. The missing necklace was a ruse; it was in the shallow grave with the girl. A convenient, believable excuse. He waited anxiously by Mary’s bedside, to make sure she wouldn’t accuse him when she awoke. Perhaps he would have strangled her had she remembered. He won’t tell us now, not without the aid of the Ouija board—which I am not inclined to try.

But Mary’s subconscious could not forget. The memory returned as a lucid dream of seeing the girl in her bedroom, and the subconscious recollection drove the movement of the planchette to spell out “MURDER.”

As to what force caused the Ouija board to begin to spell “GARDEN” (backwards, I admit), information neither Mary nor her friend had or could possibly have learned—that I am not prepared to say.

Murder Entailed

Susan Krinard

Trained as an artist with a B.F.A. in illustration, Susan Krinard became a writer when a friend read a short story she’d written and suggested she try writing a romance novel.
Prince of Wolves
was the result. Within a year Susan had sold the manuscript to Bantam as part of a three-book contract.

Susan now makes her home in the Land of Enchantment, New Mexico, with her husband, Serge, her dogs Brownie, Freya, and Nahla, and cats Murphy and Jefferson. In addition to writing, Susan’s interests include classical and New Age music, old movies, nature, animals, baking, and collecting jewelry and clothing with leaf and wolf designs. Her recent novella “Kinsman” was the winner of the SF Romance Sapphire Award. She is currently working on her first fantasy novel.