Must the Maiden Die (17 page)

"I suppose so," Glynis said, "but Roland
Brant was a strapping man, certainly more than able to defend
himself against what we've been told is a slender girl."

"Don't worry about the dogs," he said.
"They're all hounds—most of them bloodhounds—so they won't harm
her."

"But how could she know that?"

"Couldn't. Not unless she knows dogs."

They rode in silence for a time, Glynis
watching the freshly plowed fields and the awakened woodlands,
their shades of green brilliant against a sky grown increasingly
gray. The metallic smell of the air was still faint, but before
long she heard scattered drops of rain start pinging against the
roof of the buggy.

Brants' hemlock appeared, and then Cullen
guided the horse onto the curving, gravel drive. Today the distance
to the house seemed to Glynis to be half that of the night before,
the forest more untamed than ominously primeval. The only sound was
the rattle of the wheels and the spring rain spattering against the
roof of the buggy. And the occasional, distinctive call of a bird
seeking a mate.

When the house came into view, Glynis
decided that daylight had not improved its character. It still had
about it a dark brooding look.

Calamities came to them too, and their
earlier errors carried hard consequences; perhaps the love of some
sweet maiden; the image of purity, order, and calm had opened their
eyes to the vision of a life in which the days would not seem too
long . .. but the maiden was lost.

—George Eliot,
Silas Marner,
1861

Cullen brought the buggy to the hitching
post by the porch steps, reining in the horse beside a dun-colored
mare harnessed to a carriage. By now his face had lost its relaxed
look. Glynis had seen this change in him before, distancing
himself from all else to concentrate solely on the problem at hand.
It required discipline of a kind that to her did not come readily.
Moreover, she had observed that the mind of many a woman seemed to
run on more than one track, invariably changing course to
accommodate the needs of those in her path.

The misty gray drizzle continued, and
Cullen, rooting around under the buggy seat, at last unearthed an
umbrella. He handed it to Glynis, saying, "At least with this rain
everyone we need to see will probably be indoors and accessible.
Before we left last night I told them all to be here this
afternoon. Let's see which ones choose to make themselves
absent—other than the missing servant girl, who's looking more
guilty every minute."

She couldn't necessarily agree with him yet.
The young Tamar, who had been indentured without any say in the
matter, and without her mother's consent, might have had other
reasons for running away. That she was mute would make it difficult
to get at the truth, and while there might be a number of
explanations for a girl's mysterious disappearance, nearly all
those that Glynis could think of were troublesome.

"I expect you want me to talk to the women?"
she asked Cullen.

"Yes, but last night the manservant Clements
sought you out, so maybe you should deal with him, too."

She waited while Cullen climbed from the
buggy and tethered the livery horse to the hitching post beside the
dun mare. As he rounded the buggy to help her down, she said to
him, "I think Clements came to me because it was what Helga Brant
wanted."

"Even so, if he's going to jabber on about
curses and evil eyes you'll have more patience with him than I
will. The main thing is to try to find inconsistencies in these
people's stories ... but you know that, Glynis. If we had some
idea of when Brant died it would be easier—but without an autopsy
we're walking into this blindfolded." His hands caught her waist
and he lifted her from the buggy.

"Back again so soon?" said Konrad Brant from
the porch. "You must lead a singularly uneventful life, Constable
Stuart."

"Yes, I'm back and it probably won't be the
last time," Cullen said. "Is everybody in the household here?"

Konrad nodded and motioned toward the other
carriage. "Not only that," he said, "but we've even got an extra
body for you."

Glynis thought he sounded remarkably
cheerful, and she looked for a glass in his hand. It was there, and
it was full. Did this young man exert himself in any way other than
self-indulgence? Glynis recalled the words of Konrad's brother
Erich the day before. They had been something to the effect of
Konrad's having been allowed to live there only through his
father's forbearance, and now being subject to his, Erich's. It
made her again wonder if Roland Brant had made a will, and if both
sons had known its terms. Though Konrad had not objected when Erich
seemed to say the house was now his. Still, there were too many ifs
to hazard speculation.

As she and Cullen went up the steps to the
porch, a voice from inside grumbled, "Oh, hell, it's that constable
again." The speaker had not attempted to keep his voice down, and
almost immediately Erich appeared on the other side of the open
door.

Glynis couldn't have said what made her
glance aside at that moment. It might have been a quick movement
where she expected none, or the flash of a gold belt buckle; but
glance she did, in time to see Konrad pitch the contents of his
glass into a clay planter. Cullen was looking toward the doorway
and couldn't have seen it, because Konrad's curious deed was done
so adroitly that he had only to shift a foot for it to appear that
he turned to gaze out at the rain.

Erich stood aside for Glynis and Cullen to
enter, saying, "Does your lady friend usually accompany you on
official calls?"

When Cullen said nothing, Erich went on,
"I'd appreciate it, Stuart, as would the rest of my family, if
you'd make this fast. We've already suffered the inconvenience of
your men and their hounds tromping over the property. And for no
good reason, because that girl's been gone too long for dogs to
pick up her scent."

"I was told last night that no one knew when
she disappeared," Cullen said. "So how do you know how long the
girl's been gone, Brant?"

While Erich scowled, Cullen waited for the
implication of his question to sink in. He followed it with, "I
expect Miss Tryon and I will be here as long as it takes to get the
job done. The more cooperative you are, the faster it will go."

"My mother's not at all well, so I trust
you'll leave her in peace," came Konrad's voice from behind
Glynis. "And if I were you, Erich, I'd watch my step with this
guileless appearing librarian. Word has it that she's a regular
Madame Dupin. Which is undoubtedly the reason she's here."

Glynis did not turn and acknowledge his
gibe—it could hardly have been a compliment—and so caught the frown
of confusion on Erich's face and the twitch at the corner of
Cullen's mouth. Konrad's comment, however, made her wonder if he
knew that she'd caught his covert disposal of the bourbon.

She followed a light, metallic tinkling and
found Erich's wife, Tirzah, in a music room off the parlor. Glynis
had not noticed the room the previous night. The woman was seated
at a harpsichord, dressed in flounce-skirted black silk with white
lace at the throat and wrists, her fingers moving expertly over
the keyboard. She looked up as Glynis entered the room, and
brought the baroque piece to a premature end.

"Handel?" Glynis asked as she walked to the
mahogany harpsichord, admiring the rich warm glow of its finish.
She looked for sheets of music, but there were none in view.

"Yes, Handel," Tirzah said, seeming somewhat
surprised. "Are you a musician yourself, Miss Tryon, or an educated
listener?"

"A little of both," Glynis answered.
"
I play the flute on occasion."

Tirzah rose from the bench on which she'd
been seated, saying in a lethargic voice, "I play often, because
there's little else in this house to do. But yours is not a social
call, is it?" Without waiting for an answer, the woman went to a
window that faced the carriage house and stable, and stood staring
out.

Glynis looked past Tirzah to see through the
rain-spattered glass a stableboy on a grassy track, slowly leading
a gray horse with a white wrapping round one of its forelegs. Again
she felt something nudge her memory, as had happened in the buggy
with Cullen, but could not bring it forth.

"A dreary day for a dreary business," Tirzah
commented, absently brushing her skirt. She looked down at it,
saying, "The worst thing about a relative dying is the obligation
to wear black. It's dreadfully unflattering. I suppose it would
create scandal of monstrous proportions if I were to show up in red
satin at my father-in-law's funeral, don't you think?" she asked,
turning to Glynis with a bland expression.

"I expect it would create some talk," she
answered. She couldn't read Tirzah well enough to grasp her motive
in voicing what most would consider disrespect, or at least poor
taste. She could be just trying to shock, which seemed in keeping
with what Glynis had observed about the woman the day before.
Tirzah's provocative behavior with Konrad could have been merely a
game to offset boredom, a flirtatiousness rather than the more
unsavory pursuit it suggested at the time. Whichever it had been
clearly offended her mother-in-law, Helga Brant. But that could
have been Tirzah's intention.

"A scandal would be a godsend!" Tirzah said.
"It is utterly tedious living way out here, isolated from
everything. And now being forced to wear black..."

Glynis thought there was more to the woman
than vanity. "I've heard the custom in China," she told Tirzah, "is
to wear white for mourning. The red satin you would wear at your
wedding."

"What an extraordinary piece of
information," Tirzah said, and Glynis heard amusement in her voice
when she continued, "Do you suppose I might take up residence
there—in China, that is—until this ghastly thing is over?"

"But wouldn't you have to come back here at
some point?" Glynis asked lightly to encourage comment.

"Oh, by then it wouldn't matter, because
this depressing place would have been sold—" Tirzah stopped and
gave Glynis a sideways glance, as if suspecting she might have been
led to say more than she should. Then she turned back to the
window. "I'm sure you didn't seek me out, Miss Tryon, to talk of
foreign customs. What is it you want to know?"

Having already learned more than she had
expected, Glynis merely said, "Constable Stuart is trying to
account for everyone's whereabouts before your father-in-law's body
was found."

"Do we know when he died?" Tirzah responded
with the satisfied smile of having played a trump card.

"No, we don't."

"Well then, all I can tell you is that I
retired early Sunday night," Tirzah said, walking back to the music
bench and seating herself. "In fact, I recall that it was barely
dark when I went upstairs. My husband joined me shortly afterwards
" Her fingers moved to the keys, and with her back to Glynis she
said in obvious dismissal, "Is that all, Miss Tryon?"

"Yes, thank you. But it may be that the
constable will want to speak with you further himself, " she
added.

Several jarring chords followed her into the
parlor and on through to the corridor.

As she turned toward the kitchen, which she
guessed was at the rear of the house, Glynis saw Clements. He had
just opened the door of a dumbwaiter between the dining room and
Roland Brant's library, and was placing on it a tray. The smells of
tea and chicken broth made her guess the tray was for Helga Brant,
since Konrad had said she was unwell. Glynis waited until Clements
raised the contrivance by pulley, closed the door, and went back
down the hall, all the while studiously ignoring her.

When approaching Roland Brant's library, she
heard muffled voices coming from the room. Assuming one of them was
Cullen's, she paused in front of the closed door.

"So where the hell are they?" The voice was
unfamiliar. "I must have those names!"

The harsh reply sounded like Erich's. "Why
didn't you get them from Father when you were here last Sunday—you
argued with him long enough! And how should I know where they are?
They might even be at the warehouse. But it wasn't my practice to
pry in my father's desk, and I suggest it shouldn't be yours
either, Jager!"

Jager? Did Erich say
Jager?
Glynis
was so stunned, she didn't move fast enough when the door handle
clicked. It was too late to rush away, lest she look like the
eavesdropper she was. Thus, as the door swung open, she stood her
ground.

When Erich saw her, his expression underwent
several changes, finally settling into the one which seemed to
reflect his most consistent emotion: anger. Before that, though,
Glynis thought she had glimpsed apprehension. Had he forgotten
there were strangers in the house? But then, anger could often
override caution. She reminded herself not to underestimate
Erich.

"You appear to spend a great deal of time
standing in this hallway, Miss Tryon," he said. "Is the time well
spent?"

"It will be," Glynis replied, "if you can
direct me to the kitchen."

Erich remained in the doorway, blocking her
view into the library. As he gestured down the hall to his right
there was a noisy rustle of papers behind him. He started to turn,
but stopped himself, saying to Glynis, "Did you want something
else?"

She tried to think how she could confirm the
man behind Erich was Elise Jager's husband and the girl Tamar's
father. Erich obviously had no intention of introducing him. She
knew if it were Bronwen standing there, she would just ask, not in
the least concerned with how it might be received.

Glynis swallowed to ease a throat gone dry,
and hoped her voice would carry when she said rather loudly, "Mr.
Brant, is that gentleman behind you the missing girl's father?
Tamar Jager's father, that is?"