"You saw us?" Maggie would have been embarra.s.sed, but she was too curious. "How did you see us?"
"Take up that flashlight and take a peek for yourself. Although I warn you, if we wondered where the bats came from, we now know, as the roof is damaged and a pa.s.sage is now open to the roof."
"There"s bats in there?"
"I believe most have adjourned to the attic by now. Still wish to go exploring? Be careful not to trip over the vent pipe, as it hugs the floor just inside the opening."
Maggie took a deep breath, let it out slowly, then dropped to her knees and crawled into the pa.s.sage, holding the largest flashlight in front of her. Once inside, she got to her feet. She trained the flashlight upward and saw the narrow, steep flight of stone steps and, higher still, a small, ragged square of what might just be the first faint light of dawn. Not that this mattered, because she sure wasn"t going up there. She knew her limits. "Okay, what now?"
"Now look to your left and up, Maggie," Alex told her. "See the light?"
Maggie lowered her flashlight, at which point she saw two pinpoints of light shining into the pa.s.sage. "What"s that?"
"That, my dear, would be me, shining my flashlight onto the painting above the mantel. A lovely pastoral scene that quite effectively disguises the holes. Now, point your flashlight toward the floor. See the steps?"
Maggie did as he said and saw the three or four stone steps that led up to a narrow area stuck between the false wall of the room and the wall of the building. "Two peepholes," she called out, not really anxious to climb those steps to look through them. "I could use this in one of our books. But doesn"t the chimney get in the way? Don"t answer. I"m coming out. This place is giving me the creeps."
She took Alex"s offered hand after crawling out of the pa.s.sage and got to her feet. "Where are Sterling and Perry?"
"I sent them back downstairs. Sworn to secrecy, of course."
"Probably a good move. And I repeat," she said, looking at the pastoral scene above the mantelpiece, "doesn"t the flue of the chimney get in the way? Why could I see into the room?"
"I didn"t look too closely-all that distracting caterwauling, you understand-but I believe the chimney itself has to be slightly corrupted in order to compensate for the secret staircase. Curved, as a matter of fact, before rising straight up. A fire in this grate would be smoky and not very robust. I imagine a guest forced to stay here in the dead of winter quickly found a reason to bid his host a fond adieu and move on to another more hospitable residence."
"I doubt Tabby and Dennis noticed," Maggie said, brushing her hands on her slacks. "The pa.s.sage goes only from here to the attics, not outside or anything? Why do you think the guy who built this wing built it?"
"I could only hazard a guess."
"Hazard it."
"Very well. The majority of the servant chambers are located in the other wing, with only the one room of any real size, in addition to a few smaller rooms, in the attics of this wing. If the master of the house wished to have a mistress among the serving staff, he could hardly house her with the other female servants. He could, however, give her a chamber in this wing, then visit her at night via the secret pa.s.sage. Either he climbed up or she climbed down."
"Oh, she climbed down," Maggie interrupted. "He wasn"t going to bend himself in half to go up to her."
"You"re probably right. And n.o.body would be the wiser. Married couples rarely shared a chamber in those days, in any case, so no one would really know if the master of the house left his chamber for this one several evenings a week."
"No wonder, then, the pa.s.sage wasn"t marked on the plans. Servant quarters didn"t have fireplaces in lots of the old houses. They had to take coals from the kitchen in warming pans. But maybe the guy felt his mistress should have at least some heat as she sat in her attic waiting for him to summon her. What a prince. And now that we"ve had all this fun, what have we proved? Proven? Whatever."
"I would say that we have proved that Uncle Willis could, one, hear anything that was said in this room, and two, realized that he might just be able to escape via the secret pa.s.sage-once he"d found it, that is."
"Sir Rudy said he"d almost escaped. But they must have caught him before he"d recovered the jewels from wherever he"d hid them, or they would have found them on him."
"True. And he would be watched more closely after that. I would imagine, once he"d realized the direness of his position, he went a little mad and eventually began contemplating doing away with himself."
"Then he hanged himself, and the location of the jewels died with him."
"My first thought, yes, until we discovered the pa.s.sage. There is, after all, no record of the pa.s.sage anywhere that we know of or Sir Rudy would have been overjoyed to show it to us. As a matter of fact, I think that Uncle Willis, broken and beaten in mind and spirit, as we are made to believe, actually had the last laugh."
Maggie looked at Alex from beneath her eyelashes. "Go on."
"Gladly. Shall we suppose that no one ever discovered how Sir Willis temporarily escaped his attic prison? Shall we suppose that his guard may have been increased, but the secret pa.s.sageway was left unguarded? Shall we also suppose that, knowing he would never truly escape, or survive for very long if he did achieve freedom, Uncle Willis roamed the house at will after everyone was abed? Possibly raiding the kitchens for cherry tarts, possibly helping himself to his uncle"s port and cigars? Living, as a matter of fact, quite well."
"And laying the groundwork for ghostly happenings once he was gone?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact, although that hadn"t occurred to me. What did occur to me is that Uncle Willis visited his hidden jewels at some point and relocated them to an even safer place."
"The pa.s.sageway. He sneaked out of his prison, grabbed the jewels from wherever he"d first hidden them, and hid them again in the pa.s.sageway, where n.o.body would ever find them," Maggie said, ready to face possible bats, spiders, and anything else. "Let"s go look."
"I have, alas," Alex said, closing the doorway to the pa.s.sage. "There is, indeed, a hand-hewn niche cut into the wall. A rather large niche. But it"s empty. The pattern of dust and, sadly, bat droppings tell me that until quite recently, there was something in that crude but carefully cutout niche. Something of a size approximately that of my hat box."
"And it"s gone."
"Vanished."
"So somebody has it."
"A brilliant deduction."
"Well, h.e.l.l."
"Yes, that, too."
Chapter Fifteen.
"If I please could have your kind attention, ladies and gentlemen?"
Saint Just leaned on the sword cane and waited until everyone in the main saloon was looking at him, and for Maggie to be done with glaring at him, before he spoke again.
"Thank you so much," he said, inclining his head slightly. "I am aware that we are all weary, cold, and quite naturally apprehensive, but I do believe I have news."
"You have news?" Maggie said out of the corner of her mouth. "What am I, chopped liver? Why didn"t you tell me you were going to say something when we got back down here? What are you going to say?"
"Go wake Bernice, if you please, Maggie."
"No."
"Maggie...don"t be contrary."
"I"ll be more than contrary. What are you up to? I hate it when you do this."
"My dear," Saint Just said as the occupants of the room variously pushed themselves out of their chairs or lounged more deeply into them, "I have absolutely no idea. But I will count most heavily on your a.s.sistance."
"You"re going to wing it? Oh, Alex, I don"t know..."
"What"s going on?" Evan Pottinger asked, standing none too steadily, a gla.s.s in his hand. "Are the police here? Did you find another body? I don"t want to be a spoilsport, but I"m not touching another body that can"t touch me back."
"No, no, no, Evan," Saint Just said, motioning for Maggie to go rouse Bernice as he himself stepped more fully into the room. "But thank you so much for providing me with my jumping-off point, as it were. For we have found something I believe will be of interest. If everyone would care to adjourn upstairs?"
Tabby, still wrapped in blankets beside Dennis Lloyd, said, "Oh, Alex, do we have to? I was just getting warm. And you"re letting a draft in here with those doors open. I feel like I"m in a refrigerator."
"You want to feel cold," Evan said, pouring himself more wine, "try touching a dead body. That"s cold."
"Do you have to keep talking about Joanne that way?" Nikki Campion asked, then buried her head against Byrd Stockwell"s shoulder.
And that"s all it took, unfortunately, before everyone in the room began speaking at once.
"Try a cold, wet, hanging body, Evan, if you want nightmares. We had to spin Sam around twice before we could get a good hold on him. Sam the Piata. Cripes!" Arnaud Peppin declared in his high-pitched voice, which had increasingly become a whine as the hours pa.s.sed.
"And how about me?" Troy asked, once more brandishing the sword cane he"d claimed as his own. "Huh? Huh? How about me? Is anybody ever going to pay attention to me?"
"No," at least four voices chimed at once, and the arguing began again.
"And once more, the inmates have taken over the asylum. It"s easier when I write all the lines and then feed them to you one by one, isn"t it?" Maggie asked, coming to stand beside him once more. "You want me to whistle them to order? I can do that, you know. You put your little fingers in each corner of your mouth and-"
"Anybody got a tissue? I"ve run out of tissues. And who do I kill for waking me up again, you or Alex?"
"Oh, Bernie, go sit down, honey," Maggie told her worse-for-wear friend. "I"ll find you some tissues. Oh, and I woke you, but you want to kill Alex. I"ll hold him for you."
"More coffee, anyone? There"s plenty," Marylou chirped, circulating with a silver pot as Sir Rudy trailed behind her with containers of cream and sugar, and a besotted expression on his face.
Saint Just was momentarily nonplussed, although he"d never admit that to anyone, most especially Maggie. He"d come back to the main saloon without the glimmer of an idea as to what to do after announcing the existence of the secret pa.s.sageway, and that clashed badly with his need to have this unpleasant adventure over and done so they could all get back to Manhattan...and the rat.
Wendell hadn"t called. Mary Louise hadn"t called. He was faced with two dead bodies and a room full of decidedly uncooperative murder suspects who didn"t seem the least bit interested in hanging, breathless (Lord knew, none of them ever seemed breathless), on his every word.
The idea of taking everyone upstairs had popped into his head, thanks to Evan"s inquiry, however, and Saint Just was liking the notion more and more.
If only he could find a way to stifle everyone long enough to listen to him.
"I say, Saint Just, they"re an unwieldy group, aren"t they?"
"Yes, Sterling, they are. The term "herding cats" keeps running through my mind. Ah! Excuse me, Sterling," Saint Just said, extracting his cell phone from his pocket. "Perhaps this will be good news from some quarter."
He stepped into the candlelit hallway and closed the doors behind him before opening the phone. "Blakely, here. Speak to me."
"Where"s Maggie?" Steve Wendell demanded, his anxiety obvious even though the man was more than three thousand miles away. "You did what I said and didn"t snoop around, right? You waited for me to get back to you? You"re waiting for the local cops?"
"Is there any question in your mind, Left-tenant?"
"d.a.m.n straight there is. Look, I ran those names myself, all of them. And nothing, not that any of them are Boy Scouts. Peppin, the one you said is the director or something? He got picked up once for indecent exposure, and Evan Pottinger has a couple of DWIs-driving drunk. Troy Barlow was caught with a lid of marijuana a couple of years back; using, not selling. Par for the course out in La-La Land. I think they throw parties if their mug shots make it to the tabloids. But that"s it. Except for one of your stiffs."
"I beg your pardon?" Saint Just asked, opening one of the doors just slightly, to hear that mayhem still pretty much reigned in the main saloon. "One of the victims?"
"Right. Undercuffler. He"s got a short sheet. Some juvey stuff that"s sealed, so I can"t get it-something he did when he was underage, if you don"t know what that means. That could mean anything, from shoplifting to hacking up his parents with a butcher knife."
""Juvey" being cop talk for "juvenile," I suppose. I"m certain I would have worked it out, but thank you," Saint Just said, pacing. "Yet there"s more, isn"t there?"
"Yeah, there"s more. He has a B and E-breaking and entering. Nothing big. He rolled over on his partner and did eight months in the local lockup in Los Angeles, then probation. But he"s been quiet for about six years, far as we know."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning either he cleaned up his act or he got better at it."
Saint Just thought about this long enough for Steve to begin calling his name, asking if he was still there.
"I"m sorry, Wendell. I was just thinking about your last statement. You have a record of Undercuffler"s adult misdeeds, but does the rest of the world? In other words, if anyone wanted to keep such a criminal background concealed, is that possible?"
"If he kept his mouth shut, probably. But he has to admit to it when he applies for a job. Many don"t do that, but if anyone finds out, the guy"s a.s.s is fired, so it"s smarter to just list the arrest up front, on the employment application. Why?"
"Oh, nothing. I was only wondering if any of our small party here might be aware of Undercuffler"s less-than-pristine past."
"And threatened him?"
"Possibly. Or invited him to join the party." Believing he"d revealed enough, Saint Just said, "A thousand thank-yous for all of your help, but if there"s nothing else...?"
"There"s a lot else, d.a.m.n it. I want to talk to Maggie. Now, Blakely."
"Of course, you do. Unfortunately, she is at the moment indisposed. I"ll have her phone you as soon as possible, as I am expecting another call. Again, thank you. You"ve been a tremendous help."
"Another call? What, you called out for pizza and a canoe? d.a.m.n it, Blakely, don"t hang-"
Saint Just closed the cell phone and slipped it in his pocket before returning to the main saloon.
"Sterling told me you got a call. Who was on the phone?" Maggie asked him in an, unfortunately, accusing tone. "Was that Steve? I"ll bet that was Steve, and I"ll bet he wanted to talk to me and you wouldn"t let him."
"We are rather in the middle of things, my dear. I told him you"d phone him back. Or would you choose to bill and coo rather than solve two murders? If so, may I say I"m crushed, truly crushed?"
"Don"t push, Alex. Just don"t push," Maggie told him, then turned and stuck the little fingers of both hands in her mouth and quite literally whistled the room to order. "Works every time. My dad taught me that when I was ten. He couldn"t do it before that because I didn"t have my second teeth yet. Gosh, a good childhood memory surfacing. I ought to write it down," she said as everyone immediately stopped what they were doing and came to attention.
Most especially Sterling, who raced up to her, grinning, to ask how she"d done that, and, "Will you teach me?"
"Sorry, Sterling, but Alex says everything goes to the back burner while he takes center stage to play the big macho hero."
"The back...? Oh, Saint Just, you"ve solved the crime? I never believed for a moment that you wouldn"t do it. Isn"t that above everything wonderful!"
"He"s solved what? He"s solved the murders? Spanking jolly good for him." Sir Rudy, still holding the sugar and creamer aloft, grinned broadly. "Well, then, let"s all have some coffee, eh?"
"Thank you, Sir Rudy, and may I say, spoken like an innocent man," Saint Just said, amused, and very aware that everyone in the room was listening to him now. "But I have only just deduced the how of it, and the why, but not the who, which is why I would ask that everyone adjourn upstairs to Mr. Lloyd"s bedchamber."
"My room?" Dennis Lloyd leapt to his feet, sending Tabby quickly sideways on the couch, so that she had to right herself, which she did, straightening her scarf as she, too, got to her feet. "Are you saying I killed Undercuffler and that wretched woman?"