A Crossworder's Gift (7 page)

“In 1642,” Belle echoed. “Imagine journeying all the way from France back then …” She let her eyes roam up toward the center of the old city and a wide and handsome square rimmed with stately eighteenth-century buildings. “Imagine when this was nothing but forest, nothing but endless trees, wild animals, and native peoples who didn't want you to stay … I couldn't have braved it, that's for sure. I like my creature comforts too much.”

“Are you insinuating it might be time for a cup of cocoa and a chocolate-filled pastry?”

“We did eat all of two hours ago.” Belle chuckled as she linked her arm through Rosco's, then her expression grew pensive. “Perhaps the Europeans who first settled in this place needed to be so tough and hard that they were almost inhuman … Marguerite, Jeanne, Cartier, Champlain: they must have had iron constitutions and wills to match. And perhaps that emotional legacy is what Helene and Pamela and their mothers are dealing with right now.”

Rosco nodded his head, then answered with a gentle: “Are you ready to eat?”

“When am I not ready?”

T
HE
day was so full of sightseeing, so full of
food
and the invigorating air of winter, that Belle and Rosco were sound asleep long before the celebratory city rolled up its sidewalks. But again, Belle was awakened by their noisy neighbors' late return as they banged into furniture, gabbing loudly enough for the sound to penetrate the walls but not enough to be understood. Belle almost wished she could listen in. Eavesdropping on a private conversation would have given her a malicious pleasure that she felt was wholly justified under the circumstances. Instead, she decided to take action and protest the thoughtless behavior. She slipped out of bed without disturbing Rosco—who again lay unmoving and unconcerned—pulled on her robe, marched into the hall, and was about to knock on the adjoining door when the noise suddenly subsided.

“Hummmph,” she groused, then returned to bed, but her sleeping thoughts were bombarded by an odd assortment of folk: the rough-and-ready fur traders who had originally established Montreal's wealth, the teachers, the statesmen, the priests and nuns who had struggled to create a cosmopolitan city on the banks of a vast and dangerous river, the Huron and Iroquois who had called this earth their home. All these people, flitting in and out of her dreams, existed not against the backdrop of a vibrant, modern metropolis but against a landscape of black-hearted forest and bone-breaking cold.

B
ELLE
complained to Helene the next morning about their neighbors' heedlessness. This time the hostess of Wordsworth House put down the coffeepot, responding with a decisive: “We will talk after breakfast, yes?”

True to her word, Helene conducted them into her office an hour later. Pamela was already there standing beside a small window that faced the rear alley. The cousins exchanged glances, then Pamela waved a dismissive hand:

“A ghost isn't a problem unless you make it one, Helene.”

“But disturbing people—”

“Hold on,” interrupted Rosco. “Something must have gotten lost in translation. We're talking about noisy
guests
, not ghosts.”

“One and the same around here,” Pamela replied airily. Helene glowered at her, but Pamela paid no heed. “The room next to yours isn't occupied.”

“But—” Belle began to say.

Pamela stopped her with: “And you're not the first visitor to complain of hearing noises in the night—or to infer that late-night revelers are the cause. Helene and I have discussed the situation before. Obviously, we're of two different minds. I say: Use the fact; enjoy it; capitalize on it. But Helene feels that acknowledging our supernatural chum might scare away potential customers: i.e., her guests like discovering Montreal's history, but don't want to delve into the messier details.” Pamela shrugged her shoulders. “Personally, I envy you. In all the times I've visited, I've never heard a thing. If it happens again tonight, I'd love it if you'd wake me.”

“This is serious, Pamela,” her cousin argued.

“No, it's not, Helene. Old houses are
supposed
to be haunted. You should advertise the fact, not try to hide it … the true
vieux Montréal
… After all,
Place des Armes
was where one of the bloodiest battles was fought between the settlers and Iroquois, and nearby Saint Paul Street was no more than a dirt track leading off into some exceedingly inhospitable woods. Who knows what good or ill occurred in this vicinity—”

“The Saint Paul's that fronts the Bonsecours market?” Belle interrupted.

“And Marguerite Bourgeoys's church,” was Pamela's easy reply.

“Oh!” Belle's eyes were wide. Rosco could see the wheels spinning inside her brain; for someone as amiable as she, Belle had a fascination with the lugubrious and grim. “When we were visiting the archaeology museum yesterday, we learned that Iroquois had attacked and raided the original fortifications near there.”

“That's correct. The city didn't have a peaceable birth. Not by a long shot … And as if it weren't difficult enough carving a town out of wilderness, there were the French and Indian Wars in the 1750s when England attempted to capture the wealthy colony of New France, and the two forces' generals—the British Wolfe and French Montcalm—were mortally wounded … then the American Revolution with Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys imprisoned in the fort here … Your apparition could be from any era: a soldier, a fur trader, an Iroquois chief—”

“Or a nun from the seventeenth century,” Belle interjected.

Pamela nodded in agreement, but Helene remained staunch in her insistence that the purported ghost had the potential of being a serious detriment to business. “You wouldn't be so free and easy discussing metaphysical doings if it was affecting
your
work.”

This accusation had a peculiar effect. Pamela's mouth tightened into a meditative and not altogether happy line. “Something
is
playing poltergeist with it,” she admitted at length, and her expression grew so grave no one interrupted. “Belle said she and Rosco saw
MELANCOLIE
change into MELANCHOLY,
COUPABLE
morph into CULPABLE … none of which were in the original
mots croisés
, and Jean-Claude maintains he had nothing to do with it.”

“Mots croisés?”
Belle asked.

“Crossword …” Pamela's shoulders hunched in guilty confession. “It was a puzzle I used as inspiration—”

Helene gasped. “Not Verbeux! What if our mothers learned you were paying him homage with your
Letters From Our Past?
”

“But I'm not honoring him … I just liked the notion of black words against a snow white ground. The puzzle inspired me. I only borrowed a few of his—”

Helene's eyes narrowed; her nose grew pinched and angry. “Well, it serves you right if the machinery goes on the fritz, and spoils your fun!”

“You're being silly, Helene—”

“No, I'm not! The man didn't care two
centimes
for his children! He doesn't deserve even this much consideration—”

“But I haven't—”

“Could I interrupt for a moment?” Belle asked. The two warring parties spun toward her: Pamela in defensive sorrow, Helene in self-righteous indignation. “Your grandfather constructed crossword puzzles?”

“Heaps,” was Pamela's ready reply.

“And we threw away every one of them as soon as we found them,” Helene spat out.

“But I take it one was saved?” Rosco interjected.

Pamela nodded slowly. “Despite everything Maxim Verbeux did—or failed to do—the utter extinction of his memory seemed so terribly sad. There was nothing left to connect us with the old man … no letters or photographs … just a boxful of
mots croisés
hidden in a closet upstairs. I had to rescue one.”

“And you're certain it was your grandfather's creation?” Belle asked.

“He signed it, and also entitled it
Poetic Justice
… Given the name of the house, I simply couldn't consign it to the trash.”

Helene snorted in wrathful exasperation, but Belle ignored their hostess. “I'd like to see it if I might.”

“It's in my room.”

Helene sighed afresh, then affixed a tight smile for her guests' behalf. “If you will excuse me, I have
work
to attend to.”

L
EADING
the way to her room, Pamela gave a brief, embarrassed laugh as she attempted to dismiss her cousin's censure. “Helene doesn't view what I do as
work
, I'm afraid.”

Belle smiled in sympathy. “I hear the same type of criticism all the time.” Then she changed the subject. “Tell me about this poltergeist notion again.”

“Yesterday, when you shared your reaction to my installation piece, I realized you'd seen four words I hadn't built into the design. You also mentioned how hectic and hurried the changes became. So I looked at the video … a tape is automatically made of each performance, and I was amazed at the alterations—and the speed. My technical assistant swore the device was working perfectly, so the only explanation is—”

“Ghostly intervention,” Belle interjected.

“I know it seems far-fetched.”

“Not if you believe
this
house is haunted, Pamela. And quite truthfully, I've experienced the phenomenon before.”

Pamela blinked. “You're kidding.”

“It was in an ancient home,” Rosco added. “In England. Belle discovered a segment from a crossword, and assumed our hosts were playing a practical joke.”

“But they weren't.” Pamela's response was statement rather than query. “And when you look at Verbeux's puzzle, you'll know why I have my suspicions; it's odd to the point of seeming like poetic smoke and mirrors.”

Poetic Justice

ACROSS

1.  Ottawa dealmaker

4.  Hoover; slang

7.  Ghostly sound

10.  Smoked meat

13.  Gorilla; e.g.

14.  Here in Montréal

15.  Newt

16.  Mr. Yale

17.  enfin …

21.  Metal bar

22.  35-Down quaff

23.  Goofed

24.  “___was in the beginning …”

25.  A day in Dorado

26.  Columbus' ship

27.  Layer

28.  Does without

30.  Com. giant

31.  enfin …

36.  Perfect mark

37.  Turncoat

38.  enfin …

46.  Tear

47.  Illuminators

48.  Pester

50.  Mine entrance

52.  Celtics' org.

53.  Spy in France

54.  Southern nut

56.  Sumerian world of the dead

57.  Phi Beta___

58.  enfin …

61.  Continent of Fr.

62.  Female sheep

63.  Shaker founder, Lee

64.  Wee one

65.  Postal abbr.

66.  Min. neighbor

67.  Fishing gear

68.  Switch positions

DOWN

1.  Outcast

2.  Liner bailiwick

3.  Warm outerwear

4.  Hanoi native

5.  Perform

6.  Provence pipers?

7.  Down under

8.  Switch position

9.  Siouan

10.  Ruler of France, 1589–1610

11.  Pasta request

12.  Accounting error

18.  Decay

19.  Pindar; e.g.

20.  Café pot

28.  Last

29.  Slaves

32.  List ender

33.  N.J. neighbor

34.  Malay gibbon

35.  Montréal summer

38.  Furrier

39.  Go on the lam

40.  Connoisseur

41.  1863 Unions?

42.  Inspire

43.  Disciplined

44.  Sits upright

45.  Whaler's lance

49. “___in the Earth,” Rölvaag novel

51.  Salt

53.  Owns

55.  Compass pts.

57.  ___Peninsula, N.W.T

59.  The Great War; abbr.

60.  Heading for 26-Across

To download a PDF of this puzzle, please visit
openroadmedia.com/nero-blanc-crosswords

O
H
, I see!” Belle said as she perched on Pamela's bed, her concentration wholly on Maxime Verbeux's crossword. She looked up at the artist after several long and studious moments. “But what on earth does the message mean? I assume it is a message … a sort of Haiku … here, beginning at 17-Across?”

“You mean the four
enfin
clues?”

“Yes … How do you translate
enfin?
”

“‘Finally,'” Pamela said. “It can also mean, ‘At last!'” Then she recited her grandfather's peculiar poem. “REGRET CONFOUNDS / AGED IS THE LEVEE / THE CLAY IS FRESH / POUR SWEETNESS ON.”

Rosco winced. Pamela looked at him and shook her head.