The World's Finest Mystery Part 65

The night before Samuel was to arrive, Frank Ames paid Luther a visit.

Ames hadn't aged well. He was bent at the waist, walking with the aid of a walnut cane, and his face was deeply lined. His mustache had become gray and scraggly above bloodless lips. As he limped into the bedroom, Luther thought Ames probably wouldn't live much longer than he would.

"Some whiskey in the kitchen," Luther offered.

"Can't drink the stuff anymore," Ames said. His voice had become older than he was, hoa.r.s.e and so soft you had to listen hard to whatever he was saying.

Luther weakly waved an arm toward the easy chair alongside the bed, and Ames settled into it with a long sigh, his wooden leg extended straight out in front of him.

"Sharleen was buried well," he told Luther. "She was a good woman."

"Always," Luther said. "I hope I did right by her."

Ames drew a briar pipe from his pocket and gave his wooden leg a sharp rap with it. "We came a long ways from Gettysburg," he said, and began packing the pipe's bowl with tobacco from a leather pouch.

"War's a long time ago now," Luther agreed.

"To some it is." Ames struck a wooden match to flame with his thumbnail and held fire to tobacco. He puffed until he got the pipe burning well, then he shook out the match and put the blackened remains of it in the vest pocket of his banker's suit. The room filled with the acrid-sweet scent of the smoldering tobacco leaf.

"Long time ago for everyone," Luther told him. "Time buries everything."

"Sometimes it takes a while, though," Frank Ames said. He reached into the pocket where he'd slipped the burnt match, withdrew an object and laid it on the nightstand alongside the bed where Luther could see it.

Luther raised his head and peered to the side at the glittering object.

"I shined it up for you," Ames said.

"What is it?"

"A locket. Silver. Pretty old now. There's a lock of Sharleen's hair in it."

Something dark and immortal stirred in Luther.

"Your brother Will wore it for good luck in the war: Had it on him when he died."

"Did they send his personal effects to Sharleen?"

"Nope." Ames settled back in his chair and spoke around the pipe stem clamped in his teeth. "I was with Longstreet's troops at Gettysburg, camped near Cemetery Ridge and waiting for morning and the h.e.l.l it'd bring, when we spotted a couple of Yanks headed for picket duty. The moonlight made them good targets, and some artillery pieces opened fire on them. Killed one of them. The other made it to cover in a peach orchard. I was one of three men sent to capture that lone picket so he wouldn't give information to the Yanks. We didn't know another patrol was sent from Heth's First Corps to capture him. You were in that patrol." The burning pipe tobacco made a soft whispering sound in the quiet room. "I was in the peach orchard and saw what happened that night, Luther. I saw you shoot your brother."

Luther's heart seemed to shrivel. He was having even more difficulty than usual breathing. Possession of the locket was proof of Ames's story. Proof that he was in the peach orchard that night and proof enough of murder. Luther knew that he'd come close to being hanged long ago.

"Why didn't you tell someone?" he heard his own rasping voice ask. "Why didn't you tell Sharleen what happened?"

"I never told her nor anyone else because I knew she needed you," Ames said. "And Samuel needed a father. Me with my missing leg, there was no way in h.e.l.l I could help her enough, no way I could farm crops and build and be a father to a son not my own. But I loved Sharleen and wanted to do something for her. I couldn't bear to sit and watch her live such a hard life and fall ill and die, or bend beneath her load and become an old woman before her time. You were the answer, Luther. The solution to the problem you created."

"I killed Will so I could have Sharleen," Luther said feebly. There were tears in his eyes. He hadn't cried in decades, not even when Sharleen died.

"That was easy to figure," Ames said. "You always loved her, and you were always jealous of your brother."

"I was a good husband to Sharleen," Luther said. "A good provider, and a good father to her son. Maybe I made it up to her, in a way. Maybe I made amends for what I did."

Ames drew on his pipe and exhaled a cloud of smoke. "I don't think so. I don't think that was enough."

"At least she never found out."

"I didn't say that, Luther."

Luther couldn't lift his head, but he craned his neck painfully so he could see Ames. He didn't like what he saw in Ames's face.

"I told her 'bout a year ago," Ames said. "Showed her the locket."

Luther felt himself go cold from the inside. "She never said anything to me."

"She decided to poison you instead."

Now Luther did manage to raise his head. "Wha...?" The back of his head sank back into his sweat-soaked pillow.

"She's been feeding you a.r.s.enic, Luther. Exacting her revenge little by little for what you did to her young husband. Exacting justice. Nothing you can do about it now. It's too late to fix the damage that's been done to you or reverse the process. The poison'll soon have its way."

Luther struggled to speak but could only croak weakly and gasp.

"I thought you oughta know," Ames said, bracing himself with his cane and standing up from his chair with difficulty. "Maybe because I'm a banker and I believe there needs to be an accounting. It's only right. You haven't got much longer and things oughta be settled."

Ames made to leave, then paused and turned. "We were on the losing side, Luther, but you thought you won your own personal war. It took a long time, but you lost just like the rest of us."

Ames limped toward the door. His cane clattered like dry bones as he clumped down the stairs.

Then there was complete silence.

Luther lay with ghosts in the darkening room.

Jan Burke.

The Abbey Ghosts.

JAN BURKE'S second story in this year's collection is every bit as good as her first, "The Man in the Civil Suit," but in a very different vein. "The Abbey Ghosts" is more in line with her historical novels, and equally gripping. It was first published in the January 2001 issue of Alfred Hitchc.o.c.k's Mystery Magazine, which bore a 2000 copyright. We're glad to have it, regardless of which year they call it.

The Abbey Ghosts.

Jan Burke.

I did not meet the Eighth Earl of Rolingbroke until he was twelve years old. I was in some measure compensated for the lack of our acquaintance during those first dozen years of his life, not only by the deep friendship my stepbrother and I formed over the years we did have together, but also by occasionally being allowed to spend time with him after his death.

His death had come unexpectedly and before he attained his thirtieth year. That first evening after his funeral I sat before the fire in The Abbey library, weary and yet certain that my grief for him would not allow me to sleep. Not many hours earlier my late stepbrother had been laid to rest in the family crypt. Lucien's body was placed next to that of his wife- who had died five years before, shortly after giving birth to Charles, their only child.

Lucien's orphaned son was much on my mind. Candle in hand, I had looked in on Charles just before ten o'clock that night. The day's events had been exhausting for him as well, and he slept, though his young face seemed sad even in repose. He stirred, perhaps because of the light, so I extinguished it. I waited, but he did not waken, and I crept silently away in the darkness, softly shutting his door before relighting the candle. I returned to the library.

I poured another gla.s.s of port as the mantel clock struck eleven. I had dismissed the servants for the evening, not able to bear their solicitude or their misery. They had loved Lucien as much as I, and the strain of this terrible day was telling on us all. I chose to spend the last few hours of it alone, thinking of Lucien and the years we had shared as brothers. How I would miss him!

When Lucien's father married my widowed mother, my mother and I went to live at The Abbey. I'd met the Seventh Earl of Rolingbroke, my new stepfather, on only two previous occasions- brief interviews that had put me quite in awe of that forceful man. I entered his home knowing I was without a champion- my mother, for all her beauty and good-heartedness, was a timid soul, more likely to suffer a fit of the vapors than to defend me.

The Abbey itself was daunting- a rambling structure larger by far than the small estate where I had been reared, and very much older. I sincerely believed that a boy of my size might be lost within it, and even if his newly remarried mother should take the trouble to look for him, she might never discover which winding staircase or long gallery held his remains.

Not the least of my anxieties concerned my new stepbrother. I expected resentment from Lucien, then twelve and two years my senior. My first impression of him led me to believe that he was a cool and distant fellow. As we entered The Abbey, he stood back from the others, regarding me lazily from his greater height. I was afraid and trying not to show it- but I must have failed, for his father muttered something about "Master Quake-boots."

Lucien's expression changed then, and he welcomed me by bowing and murmuring for my ears only, "Lord Shivershanks, at your service." I choked back a laugh, received his rare but charming smile in return, and, like any recipient of that smile, knew all would be right with the world.

Lucien soon became both friend and brother, offering wise-beyond-his-years guidance and his seldom bestowed affection. He taught me how to get on well with my stepfather, protected me against a bully or two, and allowed me to accompany him in every lark imaginable. He taught me the ways and traditions of The Abbey. He also taught me how to find several secret pa.s.sages within it and told me stories of its past, thrilling me with tales of ghostly, headless monks haunting the north (and only remaining) tower, of hidden treasures and ancient curses.

"And we must not forget the Christmas Curse," he whispered to me one chilly evening in late November- when as usual he had made use of a priest's hole to come into my room and visit long after the servants believed him abed.

"Can there be such a thing?" I asked.

"Oh yes," he said with one of his mischievous smiles. "You, my dear Edward, have not had the felicity of meeting my Aunt and Uncle Bane and their pack of h.e.l.lborn brats- Henry, William, and f.a.n.n.y. Utter thatchgallows."

"Thatchgallows!" I laughed.

"Shhh! Yes. Born to be hanged, every man Jack of them- and f.a.n.n.y, too. We shall have to prepare for their arrival. They'll try to hara.s.s you, of course, but don't worry. Every time one of them behaves odiously, you are to remind yourself that soon we will be handing them a reckoning."

He was not mistaken. Lord and Lady Bane brought their three interesting offspring to The Abbey not two weeks later. The servants had prepared for their visit by carefully removing the most treasured and fragile objects of the household from sight. From the moment the Banes pa.s.sed through the imposing entrance of The Abbey, our home was turned upside down. Henry and William, true to Lucien's prediction, made it their business to make me suffer. Henry was my own age, William a year younger, but they were both taller and stronger than I. All three children favored their father, Lord Alfred Bane, who was both brother-in-law and cousin to the earl- though I could perceive no family resemblance. Lord Bane was a redhaired man whose countenance could easily be brought to match it in color. His softest whisper was nothing less than a shout- and he seldom whispered.

His sons were equally loud and seemed never to stand still for a moment. They contrived to poke, pinch, trip, and jostle me at every opportunity. By the end of their second day among us, I was quite bruised but did not doubt for a moment that Lucien would come to my aid. In his quiet way he often did so, surprisingly able to control them as no one else could- giving a quelling look to Henry or William that always made them desist until they chanced to find me apart from him.

When those opportunities arose, any feeble attempt on my part to defend myself caused them to set up a caterwauling that served as a siren call to Lady Sophia Bane. This fond mother relished coming to their aid and invariably boxed my ears as she rang a peal over my head. On these occasions my own mother, who knew better than any general how to retreat in good order, always announced that she felt a spasm coming on, and- clutching her vinaigrette to her bosom- excused herself from the battlefield.

Lady Bane complained constantly, perceiving faults everywhere. The food was not to her liking. The servants were never to be found when needed. The room in which she sat was too chilly. When the fires were made larger, she was too warm and protested that the chimneys smoked. The rooms where they had been installed were uncomfortable for this reason or that. "Not what we are accustomed to at Bane House!" was a refrain we soon wearied of hearing.

When she declared that their rooms were inconveniently located, my stepfather raised his brows.

"But my dear Sophia!" he said. "They are the very rooms you insisted upon after refusing the ones you had last year, claiming I was trying to banish you to a far wing of The Abbey."

It made no difference.

Lucien later told me that his father and aunt had been reared separately- the earl had spent most of his childhood at The Abbey with Lucien's grandfather. Lucien's grandmother, who disliked life in the country nearly as much as she disliked her husband, lived in Town with her daughter, Sophia.

I was grateful for these insights. We had little opportunity for private speech such as this, however, for f.a.n.n.y constantly spied on Lucien and me. Since I had been almost constantly in his company during the previous months, suddenly being unable to share confidences with Lucien gave me a sense of loneliness the depth of which surprised me, as I had often been alone before we came to live at The Abbey.

Then one evening, just as I was feeling quite sure this would be my most miserable Christmas ever, Lucien winked and smiled at me. I immediately understood this to mean that he had devised a remedy for our troubles. I was not mistaken.

We had been engaged in playing jackstraws, but f.a.n.n.y's governess, who had been overseeing our activities that evening, called the proceedings to a halt- perceiving, I suppose, that this was not the sort of game the Banes could play without violence. As she moved across the room to put the game away, Lucien turned to me and said, "Edward, do you suppose the ghost will walk tonight?"

"What ghost?" the Banes said loudly and in unison.

"The Headless Abbot, of course," he replied.

f.a.n.n.y's eyes grew round.

"What nonsense is this?" asked the governess, but with an air of interest.

"Long, long ago," Lucien said, casting his spell over us, "a castle was built here- its ruins form part of the north tower. But the castle itself was built over ruins- ruins of an even older abbey, which is how our home came to be named.

"In the days when The Abbey was truly an abbey, a war broke out between two powerful lords. One winter's night, not long before Christmas, the abbey came under attack, which was a shocking thing because this was then considered a holy place, with relics and the like. Knights in armor rode their horses into the chapel, where the abbot was leading the evening prayer. The captain of these rogues took out his broadsword and- swoosh!" He made a slicing motion with his hand.

All three Banes and the governess gasped- and I believe I did, too, for though I had heard this tale before, never had Lucien related it in such a dramatic manner.

"Yes," Lucien said darkly, "he beheaded the holy man where he stood, and his knights murdered all the other monks- defenseless men at their prayers."

This earned another gasp.

"But why did they do such a thing?" the horrified governess asked.

Lucien seemed to hesitate, his manner that of one who was deciding whether he should impart a great secret. "The attackers," he finally said, "had heard a legend, a tale of a treasure kept in the abbey. It probably wasn't true, for although they examined every cupboard and cabinet and pulled at loose stones and tiles and looked in every room and hall for its hiding place, they could not find the treasure." He paused. "The powerful lord to whom the knight had sworn his loyalty sent a messenger to the captain, saying that he needed his warriors and so they must make all haste to the battlefield. The greedy captain did not want to abandon his treasure hunt, so he pretended to have an illness. He sent all but a small number of the knights to join their lord in battle while he remained with a small band- the most black-hearted of the lot- to continue his search."

He lowered his voice. "But during the night on the very first evening this small company stayed in the abbey, the men who stood guard were startled to see a strange sight- a man wearing a monk's robes, his face hidden by its cowl, seemed to appear out of nowhere. Unlike the brown-robed monks they had slaughtered so mercilessly, this one was dressed all in white save for a splash of red on his chest. 'Who goes there?' cried one of the knights. The figure in white halted and lowered his cowl. With horror the knights saw that the apparition had no head."

"The abbot!" William said breathlessly.

"Yes," Lucien said. "The guards screamed in terror, awakening the others. The knights were frightened, but their captain tried to brazen it out. 'Show us your treasure!' he shouted. And the abbot began to lead the way. The captain called to his five bravest men, and they followed the monk into a secret pa.s.sage. The others were too frightened to go near him and waited."

Again Lucien paused.

"Yes, yes! Then what happened?" Henry insisted.

Lucien smiled. "They were never seen again!"

There was a suitably awed silence.

"But the treasure!" William said. "What happened to the treasure?"

"It was never found. Accidents befell any who tried to discover it- especially those who ventured near the old sanctuary. Eventually this land was given to one of our ancestors. He had the portion of the abbey that had been the sanctuary sealed off and built his castle over it. But the local people will tell you that the Headless Abbot still walks on winter nights. Some say they've heard the sound of hoofbeats coming from the part of the abbey that lies nearest the sanctuary- the ghostly horses of the accursed knights."

"Which part of this old pile is that?" Henry asked, trying for nonchalance.

Lucien appeared to reflect. "Why, I believe it is very near your rooms."

All Henry's bravado disappeared. "Mother!" he screamed, running from the room. f.a.n.n.y burst into tears and soon followed him. William hurriedly escaped on her heels.

"My word!" the governess said, rather pale, although perhaps she feared her employer's displeasure more than headless monks, for she hastened after her charges.