Must the Maiden Die (10 page)

She forced herself to move from the desk to
stand at the feet of the corpse. Whenever she had seen Roland
Brant, he had been without exception well-dressed. Yet here there
was no frock coat, and the collar had been detached from the
cotton—not linen—shirt, its four buttons at the top undone. Meaning
he had not been dressed to go out. Not on business, at least. His
shirt was tucked into trousers held by a belt with a monogrammed
gold buckle, and there was no sign of slashed fabric around the
embedded knife. Whatever blood there had been was difficult to make
out against the arabesque pattern and dark color of the rug.

As she began to bend down to look at the rug
more closely, an odd blotch of red caught her eye. At first she
thought it was blood. But when she moved her head to one side, it
flashed light. She went down on her knees and reached under some
strewed papers beneath the desk.

When she rose to her feet, she held the
clear glass dome of a paperweight, so smooth and slippery that she
had nearly dropped it. Enclosed in the glass was a single, waxy red
rose that looked as if it had been dipped in paraffin. A picture
jumped to her mind, one that had accompanied an article on
glassmaking she had read some time ago in a library copy of the
respected journal
Scientific American;
the picture of a
paperweight called the Millville Rose. While it had not appealed to
Glynis either then or now, the paperweight was becoming a popular,
relatively inexpensive collectors' item.

The Millville Rose had been featured in the
same article where she had learned of the French Baccarat factory.
The manufacturer of costly, crystal paperweights.

She stood looking down at the desk surface
on which she had already noted an overturned brass library lamp,
and a pen-and-ink stand. When she moved aside the scattered
papers, she could find no other paperweight there. Surely at such
a time as this, the two she had all but accidentally found must
have some significance, though, since he had been stabbed, she
couldn't think what their link might be to Roland Brant's
murder?

She shook her head in bewilderment, then
stepped back from the desk and knelt to study the carpet again.
Roland Brant's face was turned slightly away from her, and it was
only then she noticed a bruise on the left temple, nearly covered
by graying blond hair. Glynis glanced at the rose paperweight,
wondering if it was heavy enough to have made the bruise. She
picked it up and hefted it, deciding that it weighed more than
enough, but if the paperweight had been used as a weapon, surely it
would not have been left there in the room. Not when it could
easily have been taken away. Before she placed it on the desk, she
turned it slowly in her hands, looking the smooth glass over
carefully. There were no scratches, nothing she could find to
indicate that it had been used violently.

The corner of the desk, which she thought
Brant might have fallen against in a struggle, likewise seemed to
bear no evidence of violent contact that she could see, even with
her close inspection.

Before she left the room, she took one last look at
Roland Brant's face. The bluish pallor and the absence of
expression distressed Glynis more than anything else. It was a face
she remembered as being ruddy with health and strong of feature.
There remained little hint of either.

When she stepped back out into the hall
where Cullen and Neva waited, Cullen looked at her and asked
quietly, "Are you all right?"

Glynis nodded, relieved that he didn't ask
for her impressions. But he wouldn't yet, not with the family
right down the hall. She felt, though, that she should say
something about Roland Brant.

"It's an elegant room, and it looks like
him," she offered, unable to conceal the note of sadness she heard
in her voice. "If I had ever thought about it, that room of his is
just what I would have expected."

Neva exhaled a long-suffering sigh. "That
room, Glynis," she said, fatigue registering in every syllable,
"is not what we're concerned with here—"

She stopped as Erich emerged from the parlor
to come toward them. "Seen enough?" he said curtly. "Now can we
have some privacy?"

"You can as soon as my deputy comes back,"
answered Cullen evenly. "You do know, Mr. Brant, that there will
have to be an autopsy?"

"Autopsy! Why, for God's sake? My father was
stabbed to death. That's certainly obvious. The library's been
ransacked, and the property deeds and bank notes kept in the safe
are missing as I told you. Instead of wasting time on an autopsy,
why don't you spend it finding his thieving killer?"

In spite of Cullen's bland expression,
Glynis watched the muscles along his jaw tighten. But he would not
lose control; that knowledge in the past had often been reassuring
to her, and few times more so than now.

"Mr. Brant," he said, "I'm sorry for what
your family is going through. And I'd like to spare you any more
aggravation, but in a case of suspected murder, a postmortem exam
is—"

"I refuse to allow it," Erich said, cutting
off Cullen in an uncompromising tone. "An autopsy cannot be
performed without my permission."

"Then I'll get a court order. It will be
done, Brant, whether you agree to it or not."

At this, Neva gave a soft groan. A request
for a court-ordered autopsy meant the doctor would need to prepare
an affidavit of merit. She backed up against the wall as if she
needed support, and sent Cullen a black look.

Then a distant rumble, coming from beyond
the house, turned everyone toward the entrance door. Glynis hoped
it was Zeph returning, as by this time she'd guessed where Cullen
had earlier sent him. She followed the others out to the porch and
watched a team of gray horses drawing a black, silver-trimmed
hearse emerge from the woods. Even Erich was silent while Zeph
brought the hearse to the front entrance, reined in the team, and
jumped down from the driver's seat.

"I will contest an autopsy," Erich said to
Cullen, and Glynis wondered if the man could be trying to maintain
the upper hand rather than expressing some deeply held conviction.
He did not impress her as unintelligent, therefore she wondered
just how far he would carry his opposition. But Cullen would not
back down, she knew that. Not if it took until dawn, or a midnight
ride to the home of a judge for the court order.

"Listen, Brant," said Cullen, his voice
still steady, "we can do this the simple way, or you can make it
unpleasant. Have you asked how the rest of your family want to
proceed? Your mother may have a different opinion."

"My mother need have nothing to do with
this," Erich answered. "I will not permit some brazen female
calling herself a doctor to violate my father's body."

Neva said nothing in response to this, but
simply gazed upward at the hazy stars of a warm, moonlit night. No
one spoke for an uncomfortable length of time, during which Zeph
climbed the porch steps and went to stand beside Cullen, obviously
waiting for instructions.

Cullen said, finally, "O.K., Brant, if
that's the way you want it. I'm impounding your father's body until
I have a court order for the autopsy."

"You can't do that!"

"I'm doing it. Zeph, ask some of the
servants to help bring Mr. Brant's remains to the hearse."

Erich moved swiftly to block the young
deputy's path. When Glynis saw Zeph's hand go to his holster, and
although she trusted his judgment, she grasped Neva's arm to
remove them both from a possible confrontation.

Neva, however, stood firm. "I understand
that you're upset Mr. Brant," she said. "In your place I would be,
too
.
And I wouldn't necessarily want a male doctor—if the
cir
cumstances were similar—doing, say, my mother's autopsy.
So if that's your objection, then as you certainly know, there's
another doctor in town. And Quentin Ives is a good man. But there's
no sense in—"

"I don't need to be patronized by you," Erich
snapped. "And I'll fight any desecration of my father's body."

The entrance door suddenly swung open, and
Erich's brother stepped out onto the porch.

"What the devil's going on?" Konrad asked.
His words were more distinct than Glynis would have expected,
since the glass tumbler he held looked to be empty again.

"Nothing that concerns you," Erich told
him.

"It concerns me that you're behaving like an
ass, Erich." Konrad pointed toward an open parlor window. "Mother's
heard this whole sorry thing from in there, and you might give some
thought to her sensibilities. In any case, you can't stop Stuart
from taking Father's body."

"Keep out of this, Konrad! You gave up any
right to talk about sensibilities long ago. Remember, you were in
this house at Father's indulgence—and you are now here at mine. But
I warn you, my patience is not unlimited."

Glynis saw a shadow move behind him.

"Erich, please stop!" Helga Brant, leaning
on a cane, stood just inside the doorway with her eyes fixed on her
older son. "Enough has been said," she added, "and Constable Stuart
is clearly determined to do as he feels necessary. Neither you nor
I will likely dissuade him."

Konrad started to speak, but his mother
ignored him, saying, "No, let us have no more airing of our
differences." She turned again to Erich. "I have instructed the
servants to assist the deputy."

Her eyes held those of her son, a long look
that did not waver, and then, after motioning for Zeph to enter,
she went back inside.

Erich brushed past the others and strode
down the porch steps. At the edge of the brick drive, he turned
back to those on the porch. "There will be no autopsy. You may be
sure of it!"

He then walked rapidly toward what looked to
be a carriage house and stable.

Glynis, as she turned to Cullen, caught from
the corner of her eye a glimpse of Erich's wife standing just
inside the doorway. Tirzah's face seemed to hold the same bitter
anger as that of her husband. But anger, Glynis had learned,
sometimes looked much the same as grief.

Konrad followed Zeph inside, and Neva went
down the steps and walked toward the hearse. Cullen said in an
undertone to Glynis, "Wait for me out here, and I'll see you
home."

"Cullen, I don't want to ride in that
hearse."

"You don't need to. Zeph and Neva can take
Brant's body back to town and you'll come with me." He motioned
toward the back of the hearse, where Glynis now saw the Morgan
tied. "You're not walking home alone, Glynis."

"I'll not argue with that."

"Can't think why I let you come here by
yourself to begin with," he said, shaking his head as if he had
just realized this.

"Your mind was on other things, Cullen." And
he couldn't have known, she thought as he went back inside, that
she would be imprudent enough not to wait for him.

She went down the steps, intending to talk
to Neva, and had just reached the drive when she heard someone call
to her.

"Miss Tryon? A moment if you please?"

She turned to see the servant Clements, with
whom she earlier had nearly collided, coming toward her. He was a
heavy man, balding, and he bore what appeared to be a perpetually
sour expression. Clements had sworn, so Cullen said, that the last
time he'd seen Roland Brant alive was a few minutes before nine
o'clock the previous evening when he took to the library a bottle
of whiskey. He did this every night, the man had said.

"Yes, Clements, what is it?" Glynis asked
him.

"Mrs. Brant—that is, Mrs.
Roland
Brant—has retired to her room. She cannot be further disturbed
tonight. But she requested that I inform you of something.
Constable Stuart inquired earlier if all the servants were here and
accounted for. We thought they were. But we've learned that one has
gone missing."

"Missing?
And you've only now
discovered it?"

"She's just a kitchen maid, madam.
Indentured to the Brant household." He gave Glynis a less
disdainful look when he added, presumably in earnest, "It is said
that she is cursed."

"What on earth do you mean, she's
cursed?"
said Glynis, and then instantly regretted her
incredulous tone of voice, which would achieve nothing with someone
who believed in evil spells. And Clements was hardly alone in his
belief.

Since the man was now eyeing her with distaste, she
tried again more cautiously. "Please tell me how this girl is
cursed."

"They say she has been struck dumb."

"By that, do you mean the girl is witless?
Or is she mute?"

"She never speaks. Not for a year now."

Did that mean the girl could not talk—or
would not?

"I see," Glynis replied, hoping the man
would be encouraged if she seemed to understand him. "Clements, why
didn't anyone know until now that she was gone?"

"What with Mr. Brant being ..." He paused,
swallowed, and continued, "That is, it seems no one noticed her
absence today. But now that we've had time to reflect, it appears
that she hasn't been seen since early last evening."

He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but
not into light. He hath set me in dark places as they that be dead
of old. He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out.

—Book of Lamentations

The girl had been awake for some time, lying
as still on a marsh-grass pallet as the dead lie in the dark of
their graves. The pallet was thin and spread on a dirt floor. When
she had woken once before this, she had found herself wrapped
tightly in a coarse wool blanket, and when she had twisted the
injured arm, the pain made her gasp. It must have been loud, the
gasp, because the sudden light of a torch was thrust in her face,
blinding her, and she had heard the anxious whine of a dog. A
liquid that smelled like the thick, biting odor of spirits was
poured into her mouth, and she choked and gagged, but was made to
swallow it. And as she lay there now, a picture came into her mind
of a man with hair hanging over fierce dark eyes. His lips moved as
if he were saying something to her, but she was too afraid to
listen. He made her swallow something else, thin and watery with a
bitter taste like that of chicory.