Deadlier Than the Pen Part 17

They pa.s.sed a garden. Although it was difficult to tell much at this time of year, the area appeared to be used to grow shrubs, flowers, and herbs as well as vegetables. In spite of recent rains, snow still covered the beds.

Beyond, the path became uneven underfoot. Patches of mud were interspersed with puddles, making it difficult to navigate, and in shady spots there was ice. Diana had to concentrate just to stay upright but Maggie was sure-footed as she wove her way through a profusion of immense trees, mostly beech, elm, and maple. At the center of a stand of ash stood a small stone building. Until the last moment, even without their foliage, the trees had concealed its presence.

"Come along," Maggie insisted, giving Diana's arm a tug when she hesitated. "They won't hurt you," she added, grinning. "They're quite dead."

She let go to draw an oversized bolt and open a heavy wooden door. It swung back with a loud creak to reveal a short flight of stone steps leading downward.

Reluctantly, not at all rea.s.sured by Maggie's cheerful disclaimer, Diana followed her through the arched opening and into the crypt.

Like the house, the Northcote family vault was of fairly recent construction and st.u.r.dily built. With solemn ceremony, Maggie produced a tinderbox and lit several of the lanterns stored in niches along the walls.

Although the crypt was below ground level, the flagged floor was dry. No rainwater or melting snow had seeped in. The air was close but did not smell stale or unpleasant. More rea.s.suring still, the current residents of the Northcote family crypt had chosen to be sealed in stone. There were no coffins stacked like cordwood in sight.

"You'll want to read the inscriptions," Maggie said, handing Diana one of the lanterns.

It seemed easier to go along with the plan than to argue. Diana had just gotten close enough to a wall of bra.s.s plaques to pick out the name Abraham Northcote when she heard Maggie's scurrying footsteps on the stairs.

"Enjoy your visit!" she called as she dashed outside. An instant later, the door thudded closed with ominous finality.

Too stunned to do more than stare at the blocked exit, Diana grappled with the horrifying fact that Maggie had imprisoned her in the family crypt.

A shudder raced through her. Then, with a strangled cry, she ran up the steps and flung herself against the barrier. "Maggie!" she shouted. "Come back here and let me out!"

There was no answer.

She could hear nothing from the outside.

Diana called for help. She used every trick she'd learned in the theater to project her voice, only to have it bounce back at her off the solid walls of the vault. With a sense of growing horror, Diana realized the place was probably soundproof. She was on the verge of full-scale panic, certain she was going to die in this terrible place, when the door swung open.

Aaron Northcote stood on the other side.

Diana didn't know whether to be relieved or more frightened than before, but she managed to put up a brave front. "Thank heavens you heard me calling."

"Oh, but I didn't. The walls are far too thick. But I did see Mother lead you down the garden path. When she pa.s.sed by again alone, I decided to look for you."

"Thank you, Mr. Northcote."

He stepped back, a bemused expression on his face. "It must be the full moon," he said.

"But the moon is not at the full," Diana murmured, still unable to believe that Ben's mother had deliberately imprisoned her. She looked back as she emerged from her underground prison and shuddered.

"You must forgive Mother," Aaron said. "She has an odd sense of humor."

Diana did not find anything to laugh about in what had just been done to her. This was not the action of a sane person. Her earlier suspicion that Ben had been visiting madhouses for Maggie's sake seemed confirmed. What if Aaron hadn't come? How long would she have been trapped? The crypt was isolated from the rest of the buildings. It might have been days before anyone thought to look for her there.

"Come along, Mrs. Spaulding," Aaron said in a bracing voice. "You look as if you could do with a nip of brandy. I have some in the carriage house."

She followed him meekly. A few minutes later, she stood in his studio, holding a brandy snifter in one hand. At a loss for sensible conversation, she said the first thing that came into her mind. "I thought Maine was a dry state."

Aaron laughed. Too heartily, Diana thought. She supposed he felt as awkward as she did.

"The law is more often honored in the breach than in the practice," he told her. "Here in Bangor, groggeries openly operate all along what's called Peppermint Row and in the Devil's Half Acre on the other side of Kenduskeag Stream. Never any trouble getting beer or rum, which they call White Eye. That's what the tigers drink."

"The woodsmen?"

He nodded and sipped his own drink, comfortably sprawled in the studio's one overstuffed chair. "When a man's been far from civilization all winter long, it isn't wise to deny him anything. In some ways we're a frontier town here, for all that we're located on the civilized east coast."

Like Denver, Diana thought, or Leadville. But for all their gamblers and wh.o.r.es, neither of those cities tolerated lunatics. Or sorcerers.

Into which category, she wondered, did Aaron Northcote fit?

The contents of his studio provided no answer to that question but they did distract Diana from pondering it further. The smells a.s.sociated with a working artist filled the air -- linseed oil and turpentine and drying paint. A small pedestal stood in the very center of the large room, upon it a bentwood chair, unoccupied at present. The work-in-progress visible on a nearby easel showed Diana a woman straddling that same chair, her hands folded under her chin and her elbows propped on the curved back. Although only stocking-clad ankles peeped out from beneath the hem of her long skirt, the pose was undeniably risque, and when Diana looked more closely, she saw that the bodice of the dress was nearly transparent, all but baring the model's bosom.

Gla.s.s clinked against crystal as Aaron refilled his snifter with brandy. "Go ahead, Mrs. Spaulding," he urged her. "Look around."

Against the darkness of the day, the gas in the studio had been turned up, filling the room with a curious blend of light and shadow. Diana moved slowly from canvas to canvas. There were stacks of them, some freshly stretched and blank, others completely covered in Aaron's own brand of art. Most contained scantily-clad females. More than one was represented as a mermaid.

"Be my guest," he invited when she stopped in front of the largest of the oils. "Review it."

"I do not presume to judge painters. Only writers and actors."

"I've been accused of being obscene."

"Obscenity, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. I saw one of your paintings in New York."

"I know."

"Did Ben tell you?"

When she got no answer, she turned to look at her host. Aaron was slouched in his chair, staring bleakly at the amber liquid in his snifter. No one seeing Aaron and Ben together would ever doubt they were related, but there was a certain vitality to Ben that was missing in the younger man.

"You have an ... unusual style." She glanced at the huge canvas again, searching her mind for a more positive word to use. "It has an unearthly beauty." It was also strangely disturbing.

"My paintings sold well in New York."

"I'm glad."

"Still, I could have handled my own business. There was no need for Ben to collect the bank draft."

So that was what he'd been doing in the gallery. "Since he was going to be there on other business, he could save you the long trip."

"Oh, I went anyway. That put big brother's nose out of joint." Aaron laughed and downed the rest of his brandy in one gulp.

Diana faced him fully, wondering when he had been in New York. And where else had he been?

"We have something in common, Mrs. Spaulding," Aaron said. "Mother doesn't like either of us."

"Why do you say that, Mr. Northcote?"

"She hovered after Ben left." He sounded petulant, like a small boy. "Gave me no peace. I couldn't stand it. Sometimes I felt she was bearing down on me like a hound in pursuit of a fox and I'd have to burrow into the ground to get away from her."

He poured more brandy and downed half of it without coming up for air.

Diana began to edge towards the door, uncomfortably aware that Aaron might well be as "eccentric" as Maggie. Being alone with him suddenly made her very nervous.

With an abrupt movement and a grunt, he sat up straight, staring gla.s.sy-eyed into the middle distance. "Yes," he whispered. "Yes, of course."

"Aaron? Are you all right?"

"I will be." His gaze fixed on her, sharp and intense. "You must be my model, Diana. I don't know why I didn't realize before."

"I don't think so, Aaron." She was poised for a rapid retreat when he spoke again but his words froze her in place.

"I misunderstood when I saw you in New York."

The lump in her throat made it difficult for Diana to speak. He'd seen her? In New York? She managed only one word. "Where?"

"At the hall where Ben spoke. I followed you home." A wicked grin flashed across Aaron's features at her start of surprise. "You never even noticed me. I thought you were a threat, but I was wrong. I see that now."

Appalled, Diana tried to sift through all the unexpected revelations he'd thrown at her. "Were you the man Ben accosted in Union Square Park?"

"Heard about that, did you? Big brother read me the riot act for being there. Then he gave me train fare home."

As fast as one mystery was solved, more questions cropped up. Retreat forgotten, Diana approached the overstuffed chair. "Aaron, did you leave New York after Ben gave you money?"

Before he could answer, even supposing he intended to, the door of the studio opened and Ben strode through it. In one glance, he absorbed Diana's presence, the nearly empty bottle, and the equally empty gla.s.s in his brother's lax hand.

"You know brandy aggravates your gout," he said.

"Always the physician, Leave me be, Brother. I am attempting to commune with my muse."

"Go back to the house, Diana."

"No. You can't have her. I understand now. She's perfect."

Diana resisted Ben's effort to take her arm, wrinkling her nose at the smell of the carbolic he'd washed with after seeing his last patient.

"She must pose for me, Brother." Aaron sounded buoyantly cheerful.

"Over my dead body," Ben declared, and tried again to tow Diana away. She resisted.

In spite of the fact that she'd longed to be rescued only moments earlier, it galled her to be treated like some recalcitrant child. Ben Northcote had no right to dictate to her. Besides, the fact that he hadn't bothered to mention his brother's presence in Manhattan left her out of charity with him.

Diana's tone was just as forceful as the one he'd used to his brother. "I am capable of making my own decisions."

"Take a good look at these paintings, Diana."

"They are extraordinary."

"Are you saying you're willing to take your clothes off for him?"

"I never -- "

"What did you think you'd be wearing? He doesn't make a habit of painting women in more than their skin."

"You're making a great deal of fuss over nothing." She glared at him but in spite of her irritation, she found this show of temper enlightening. He would never make such a fuss if he didn't care about her.

"Shall we discuss this in private?" He indicated Aaron, grinning at them from his chair. "I did intend that we talk."

"There are a number of things I have to say to you, too, Ben Northcote." She didn't budge. "To start with, I want to know why you lied to me."

"About what?"

"You didn't tell me Aaron was in New York. You never mentioned that Maggie is -- " She broke off, uncertain how to tell a man she thought his mother was mad. If she was wrong.... She drew in a deep breath and started again, her words clipped. "Aaron rescued me after Maggie locked me in your family vault."

"Mother is a tad eccentric." He sounded more amused than apologetic and not at all surprised.

Eccentric? Diana was beginning to dislike that word. Where, she wondered, did Ben draw the line between eccentric and insane?

"I believe," she said aloud, "that I deserve a better explanation than that for what she did."

"All right." His tension was less obvious now but he kept glancing at his brother, obviously wishing Diana would agree to leave Aaron's studio.

She gave Ben's hand, still clamped around her upper arm, a pointed look. After a long, fulminating stare of his own, he released her. Ostentatiously rubbing what she expected was going to be a spectacular bruise, she turned away from Ben to address his brother.

"I'm flattered, Aaron. No one's ever wanted to paint me before. But surely a professional would be better."

"Oh, yes. Plenty of them around. They're all wh.o.r.es, unfortunately. But there's something special about you, Diana.... "Under the intensity of his brother's scowl, Aaron's voice trailed off. His mouth shaped itself into a pout.

Diana had never before seen a grown man sulk, but there was no other word for Aaron's att.i.tude.

"Oh, go away," he muttered. "Both of you."

Before his brother could change his mind, Ben whisked Diana out of the studio.

"Where are we going?" Digging her heels into the mud didn't slow him down in the least.

"Back to the house."

"I'd rather go back to the hotel. I don't feel ... safe here." And she was heartily sick of being dragged hither and yon by members of the Northcote family.

Ben came to an abrupt halt in the shade of the porte-cochere. "There are perfectly logical explanations for everything," he said.

"For keeping the gate locked? Am I a prisoner here?"

"You can leave any time you want, but I'd hoped you'd want to stay."

It was difficult to resist that look, that tone of voice, but Diana made the effort. "Ben, your mother locked me in a crypt." she couldn't help wondering if Maggie was mad, and Aaron, too. And if they were insane, then what about Ben? A Dr. Jekyll, after all?