Must the Maiden Die (42 page)

"I'm afraid," she began, "there is no
agreeable way to phrase this. Perhaps it is best if I simply
apprise you, Miss Tryon, that this"—she held up the paper—"is a
written confession. I am the one who killed Roland."

Whatever Glynis had been expecting, it was
not that, and she gripped the arms of the chair in astonishment.
She had known there was no positive proof. That almost everything
would have to turn on circumstantial evidence. But she had never
considered that Helga Brant would confess to murder. As she tried
to recover her wits, she began to wonder at the woman's
purpose.

"You look surprised, Miss Tryon."

"I am surprised. And I don't know what to
say. Forgive me, but would you mind if I asked a few
questions?"

"Not at all. In fact, please do. I know
Constable Stuart has left town, and that was a deciding
factor."

"A deciding factor?" Glynis repeated.

"I hoped I might prevail upon you to give me
some time before you notify him. I have several things to which I
must attend."

"I doubt if I can do that, Mrs. Brant. What
amount of time are you asking for?"

"Until tomorrow morning should be
sufficient. I will not leave this house, and on that I give you my
word of honor, Miss Tryon—if you believe that murderers can have
honor. I am hardly a danger to anyone "

"Mrs. Brant, if you would answer a question
or two?" Glynis said again.

"Yes, certainly."

"Well, for one thing, until right now I
didn't believe your husband died in his library."

Ever since she had heard Tamar's account of
that night, Glynis believed that Roland Brant had been killed here
in this bedroom. Because it was directly over Tamar's room. And
since she couldn't imagine Helga Brant transporting his body to the
downstairs library, she had excluded the woman from suspicion.
Obviously, she had been wrong. Brant
must
have died in his
library.

She became aware that Helga Brant was
watching her, again with an amused look. The woman now moved from
the window to seat herself in another wing chair, saying, "You
were correct, Miss Tryon. Roland died in this room. His bedroom
adjoins this one—through that door over there—as I'm sure you have
learned."

Glynis stared at the woman. "Was he
stabbed
in this room?"

"Yes."

Glynis looked down at the floral-patterned Brussels
carpet underfoot. In places, it was a trifle worn, as she had
noticed when Tirzah had encouraged her to look, but there were no
spots that looked as if the carpet had been recently cleaned.

"Then I'm afraid I don't understand," she
said. "For one thing, there must have been blood. Unless he was
already dead when stabbed. Which I came to believe was actually the
case."

Mrs. Brant frowned slightly, but added
nothing.

"Was the Millville Rose paperweight the real
weapon then?" Glynis asked, trying unsuccessfully to avoid looking
at it. "The paperweight that Tirzah correctly identified, but in
the wrong person's hands?"

"Yes, it was. I struck him in the head with
it, and he fell. Quite heavily. You look somewhat doubtful, Miss
Tryon. I am much stronger than I appear, I can assure you."

So that would have been the noise that Tamar
had described. The thump she had heard from her room below this
one.

"But why?" Glynis asked. "I understand there
was an argument, but still—"

"Oh, yes, there was an argument," Mrs. Brant
interrupted. "I had learned, as I told you, that Roland had added
to his other perfidies by smuggling arms to the South. That his
guns could be used to kill men fighting for the Union cause, in
which I believe. I have known my own particular variety of slavery,
you see, and I am sympathetic to the arguments of the
abolitionists. Konrad is now on his way to the South, Miss Tryon,
as he had intended before Roland's death, and there was the
possibility that one of those smuggled guns might be used against
my own son. It was, simply, intolerable!"

Glynis nodded. The rage Brant's gunrunning would
produce was understandable. And she could believe it was a motive
to spark murder, fueled by years of betrayals and ill treatment.
But there were other things that she had more difficulty
understanding.

"Mrs. Brant, forgive me for asking this, but
I must. Did you know what was being done to Tamar Jager?"

For the first time, the other woman
displayed emotion, and it was unmistakably that of shame. Her eyes,
which had been trained levelly on Glynis, dropped, and then her
gaze went to the window.

"Yes," she answered in a voice no more than
a whisper, "yes, I knew. And I did nothing. Tamar Jager wasn't the
only young girl. The first one I managed to free—I sent that girl
away. When Roland discovered what I had done...well, I would rather
not go into the consequences that I suffered. And so I was afraid
to do it again when I learned about Tamar. It was cowardly of me,
reprehensible, and I am greatly ashamed."

Glynis sighed, as the extent of Roland
Brant's evil became ever more staggering. But there were still
other questions.

"Mrs. Brant, if I can go back to the night
of his death. Why did you stab him? If he was already dead from the
blow you struck?"

"I wasn't confident he
was
dead. I
needed to be certain. I had planned to kill him for some time, Miss
Tryon. I was merely waiting for my anger to give me courage. I
imagine a prosecutor will call it premeditated murder, and indeed,
I admit that it was."

Glynis straightened in the chair. "Mrs.
Brant, again forgive me, but I am finding this difficult to
accept. Your husband's body was found in his
library.
And
while I appreciate that rage can generate unusual strength, I
simply cannot see how you managed to move his body down those
stairs. Those steep stairs. But for that fact, I would have
considered you a likely person to have been your husband's ..." She
stopped, and then said, "His executioner."

"As I told you, I am stronger than I appear.
No, don't shake your head, Miss Tryon, it is true. It is also true
that I had some assistance."

"Assistance?"

"Surely it has not escaped your notice," said Helga
Brant, "that there is a door right beside the door to this bedroom.
And another door directly below it—beside the door to Roland's
library."

Glynis slumped back into the chair, stunned
beyond words. Of course she had seen the doors. But she had not
made the connection. The dumbwaiter.

It must have been her expression that nearly
brought a smile from Helga Brant, since she was not a murderer who
would enjoy the cleverness of the crime.

The woman said, "I dragged Roland's body to
the dumbwaiter—he was rather a short man, if you recall—and lowered
it quite easily to the first floor. Where I dragged it into the
library."

"What time was that?"

"I believe it was an hour or two after
midnight. Roland had been drinking heavily, more so than usual
after Derek Jager left—and I knew what that drinking might mean.
When I heard the door to the library open, and then heard nothing
more, I feared he had gone to the girl's room. That was when I made
the decision to act. I called him back upstairs."

"Was no one else in the house awakened?"

"It is a large house, and the other bedrooms
on this floor are at the far end of the corridor. A great many
things happening in this room have gone unheard."

"You created the disarray in the library?
And removed the Baccarat crystal paperweight I found on the
drive?"

"Yes, I took the paperweight out there.
Riffled and also removed several documents from the safe. And
opened the library's glass door to the outside. Those were simply
melodramatic and cowardly attempts to shift the blame to an
outsider. I thought I just might get away with it, Miss Tryon."

"But you almost did. And, frankly, it
puzzles me that you're now confessing. Why?"

Helga Brant sat forward in the chair.
"Because I am not the monster my husband was. I cannot permit that
girl, or Gerard Gagnon either, to be accused of a crime I
committed. I've already harmed Tamar enough by my silence. And I
agree with young Gagnon that Roland all but killed his father."

There followed a silence that Glynis did not
feel strong enough to breach. Finally, she asked, "Did you know
that your daughter-in-law attempted to point the finger of blame at
you?"

"By taking my Millville Rose paperweight to
the library?" Mrs. Brant said. "Oh, naturally, I knew. Tirzah is an
unhappy and unstable woman. She wants to leave this house, and this
town, but if I should refuse to waive my dower rights, the house
could not be sold. And Erich would likely insist upon staying
here."

Glynis nodded, and then asked, "How much did
Erich know about his father's financial difficulties?"

"Very little, I imagine. Roland didn't give
either of his sons much credit for shrewdness, or venality, and
would not involve them in his business schemes. I don't believe
that Erich or Konrad realized the extent to which Roland was
prepared to injure not only his family but his country."

Glynis sat trying to absorb all of this, and
yet much of it she had suspected for several days. "I have one or
two last questions," she said. "How much, in regard to his father's
death, did Erich suspect?"

Helga Brant abruptly shifted in the chair,
as if made uneasy by the question. "I don't really know," she
answered. "Since I've confessed, I would assume he can't be charged
with anything, if that is what you are asking."

But Glynis thought that Erich
had
suspected his mother, or possibly his wife; had tried to block the
autopsy, because he feared what it might reveal. What, in fact, it
had revealed.

"Mrs. Brant, why have you told
me
all
of this? Why not just send your confession to Constable
Stuart?"

"I knew there would be questions I could not
anticipate—and you have certainly proven me correct! And I was
afraid that something—or someone—might prevent a written
confession from reaching the constable. Do those explanations seem
irrational? Well, perhaps they are, and I admit I have not been
myself recently. Guilt does exact a toll."

Glynis shook her head. "I don't think they,
or you, seem irrational."

"Then, if you have finished your questions,"
Helga Brant said, "may I again ask the favor? That you not contact
the authorities until the morning?"

"You're placing me in a difficult position,
Mrs. Brant. While I may sympathize with the motives for killing
your husband, I can't knowingly disregard the law. I grant you
that our laws can be absolutely perverse—the issue of slavery is
obvious—but women especially need law. Otherwise, we'll be faced,
as we have been for centuries, with the principle of 'might makes
right.' Men are stronger, more powerful, and, I assume, always will
be. It's only the law that can balance the scales."

"The law did not protect me, or the girl,
Miss Tryon."

"No," Glynis sighed. "No, but I look to the
day when it will. However, Mrs. Brant, I can say this. I honestly
don't know where Constable Stuart is at this hour. By the time I
get back into town, and then send a wire to Albany, there will be
no trains running west. Not until the morning."

Everything comes to light... sooner or
later. When God Almighty wills it, our secrets are found out.

—George Eliot,
Silas Marner,
1861

Morning had been too late.

Glynis, with a deep sadness settling over her, put
down the newspaper to gaze out the window of her library office at
a sky absent of clouds. There was only a vast uninterrupted arc of
blue which ordinarily would have cheered her. But not today; the
first morning train had not come soon enough. By the time Cullen
had received her wire and arrived by rail in Seneca Falls, Helga
Brant was dead.

And the murderer of Roland Brant was also dead.

Glynis started at the knock on the office door. She
rose and opened it to Cullen.

"Neva will do an autopsy," he told her, "but
it seems straightforward enough. Everything points to a massive
overdose of laudanum. We found the empty bottle on her night table.
Glynis, was there any indication Helga Brant would take her own
life?"

"I may have guessed that she might."

"What? You
knew
—"

"No," she broke in, "I didn't say I knew.
And what would you have had me do about it, Cullen? Post Liam
Cleary and Danny Ross inside her bedroom? To prevent her from doing
what she obviously was determined to do? I very much doubt those
lads could have stopped her. She was a remarkably strong-minded
woman."

"What about her son and daughter-in-law?"

"She would have found a way around them.
Everyone in the household deferred to her, Cullen, even her
sons."

He nodded. "I noticed that more than once.
It probably answers the question I've had since the beginning—did
that entire household know of Brant's death for hours before I was
notified?"

"I think they did. At least the family
members must have. But everyone waited until Helga Brant chose to
make the murder public. The more hours that passed, the less likely
the murderer was to be implicated. And Helga was very persuasive.
She almost persuaded me that she had killed her husband.
Almost."

Cullen gaped at her, searching her face for
meaning, "Would you repeat that, Glynis? Since I have Helga Brant's
signed confession."

"You haven't read this morning's paper yet,
have you?"

"I just glanced at the headlines—it's all
I've had time to do. Tell me what you're talking about."

"Take a look at that item across the bottom
of the front page."