Must the Maiden Die (23 page)

"He sure as hell threatened to!" Cullen
responded. "If he believed Brant was to blame for his father's
death, I'd say he had a damn good motive, wouldn't you? And motive
is what we've been looking for."

"But why now? Andre Gagnon died months ago.
Why would the son—what
was
his name? Gerard! Why would
Gerard wait until now to kill Brant?"

"The need for revenge can drive a man for a long
time, Glynis. Maybe he had no opportunity before now. Or maybe he
needed time to work out a plan. Who knows? But I think it needs
investigating."

"Where does Gerard Gagnon live?"

"Don't know. Although somebody said he was
out in the Montezuma—"

"The
swamp?
Cullen, that's the
direction the girl was heading! But it could be just
happenstance."

"And it could not be!" Cullen had slapped
the reins over the horse's back. "I'd better call in that search
party, and regroup it fast," he'd said. "But they can't go into
the swamp at night, so the earliest we can concentrate the search
there will be tomorrow morning. Maybe there's an outside chance
that if we find Gagnon, we'll find the girl."

The girl again, Glynis now thought, as she
carried the cup of tea up the stairs to her bedroom. After putting
the cup down on her night table, and realizing that the room was as
yet uncomfortably warm, she took off the undress and pulled a white
cotton lawn nightgown from a bureau drawer. She couldn't remember
ever before wearing something as lightweight as the lawn this early
in the year. Since there seemed to be no air at all coming through
the window that overlooked Harriet's garden, she opened the one on
Cayuga Street, hoping to catch a cross breeze. But the night was
still, as quiet and calm as death. Not a pleasant simile tonight,
Glynis thought as she climbed into bed and reached for her cup. Her
mind churned with questions, and without the chamomile she would
never get to sleep. She drank some of the tea, then set the cup
back on the table.

The moon was nearly full and climbing, its
light streaming like cool white sunshine through the garden
window. She turned down the wick of her lamp and sat back against
the pillows, twisting her hair into its nighttime braid.

There were so many odd details that
accompanied Roland Brant's death. How many of them were important
to the murder, and how many were extraneous?

For instance, Roland Brant's library. Before
she and Cullen had left the house that day, Glynis had gone back
inside to see if the Millville Rose paperweight was still on
Brant's desk. It was obvious the earlier clutter of papers had been
hastily straightened, and the rose paperweight was gone. In its
place sat the beautiful Baccarat crystal, its facets making it
gleam under the desk lamp like an immense cut diamond. But where
was the garish wax rose? And why had it been there in Brant's room
to begin with?

And then there was the library's French
door. She had looked at it again, and could not find a way—other
than breaking one of the glass panes—for the bolted door to be
opened from the outside.

She had sought out Clements to inquire about
it, although she was rather intimidated by the large, heavy man. He
had been in the parlor, admonishing Phoebe about ashes left in the
marble fireplace.

Glynis had stood waiting while Phoebe
protested.

"It's not my job!" she'd complained. "It's
that witch's job to clean the fireplace."

"She's not here, so it's your
responsibility," Clements said in a voice that carried cool
authority. "Don't squabble about it. Just do it!"

Phoebe's face was flushed and angry-looking,
but she got down on her knees and began to sweep out the ashes.

Glynis then stepped forward. "Clements, you
told Constable Stuart that when you found Mr. Brant's body, the
library's glass door was closed and bolted, is that right?"

"I have been giving that some thought, Miss
Tryon, and I really cannot say with certainty that the door was
bolted."

"You don't remember?"

"No; I don't. It ordinarily is kept bolted,
but I may have done it myself after I found Mr. Brant... Mr.
Brant's body. It had been a shock, naturally. I always check that
the door is closed and bolted before I leave the room—as I did
Sunday night—but it might have been that yesterday I did so
without thinking."

Glynis could imagine doing something like
that herself under duress, yet she'd had the distinct sense that
Clements was lying to her. She thought it best, however, to abandon
that tack for the time being, as the man was becoming
irritated.

"Apparently Mr. Brant had been dead for some
time when you found him, Clements. And yet it was early evening
before anyone went looking for him?"

Clements gave her a curt nod.

"Isn't it odd that no one entered that room
during the day?"

"Not at all odd," he answered briskly. "The
hallway door to the library was closed, and I can assure you that
no one would interrupt Mr. Brant at his work. It was not unusual
for him to spend the entire day in there."

"Would that mean he was also accustomed to
skipping breakfast and the noon meal?"

"Mr. Brant was accustomed to doing as he
pleased. And, as you may have noticed, Miss Tryon, this is a large
house."

In which to lose one's self was his
implication, Glynis thought, and countered with, "But there are any
number of people in this house, staff as well as the family."

"The staff does not roam the entire house at
will."

He was clearly going to resist saying more,
no matter how many ways she asked the same question. "Very well,
Clements. But again, it's not possible for you to say with
certainty whether or not that glass door was bolted when you found
Mr. Brant's body?"

"That is correct." Clements gave Phoebe a
quick glance, then turned his back to her and said in a slightly
lowered voice, "In fact, I can recall several times when the door
was left unbolted. Servants can be careless, Miss Tryon."

Glynis jumped at the sudden clatter of metal
against mar
ble, and looked past Clements to see Phoebe
retrieving a short-handled shovel that she apparently dropped,
spilling ashes over the hearth. She turned to glare at Clements's
back, and then shook her head at Glynis.

"Perhaps while the maid is working, you might step
into the hall," Clements said, taking her arm and propelling her
out of the room before Glynis could resist. Once in the corridor,
the man said, "I have things I must attend to, Miss Tryon. Will
that be all?"

"Not quite," Glynis answered. She saw that
the dark rings under his eyes were more pronounced than they had
been the night before, and she wondered if Clements was losing
sleep because he had felt genuine affection for Roland Brant, or
because the disaster had occurred on his watch, so to speak. Or
perhaps there was a less benign explanation.

"I have another question," she said to him.
"It's about the paperweight, the Baccarat crystal one I just saw in
Mr. Brant's library. It wasn't there last night." She wondered if
Clements had been the one to find it on the hall table where she
had left it.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Tryon, but it was
there. That paperweight has been on Mr. Brant's desk for years,
and I can assure you it has never left that room."

With some heat Glynis said, "And I can
assure you it was
not
there in his library last night. I am
absolutely certain of it."

Clements's eyebrows raised slightly as if he was
peering down his nose at her. In addition, his voice took on the
tone of someone talking to a young and not very bright child when
he said, "With all due respect, Miss Tryon, I have been employed in
this house for many years, and that crystal paperweight has always
been on Mr. Brant's desk."

Glynis doubted this was the time to accuse
Clements of lying either to protect himself or someone else. Or of
being so distraught over the discovery of Roland Brant's body that
he truly hadn't noticed the crystal's absence. In which case, who
placed it back on the desk?

"Will that be all, ma'am?" Clements replied,
not bothering to hide a note of disdain.

Glynis sighed, feeling a sudden, unexpected
sympathy for Phoebe. "Yes, Clements, that will be all."

He gave her a meager, very meager, bow and
went off down the hall.

"Pssst!"

Glynis turned at the sound.

"Pssst!" hissed Phoebe again, standing in
the parlor doorway. "C'mere!"

"What is it?" asked Glynis, not often being
summoned this way.

"That old buzzard," Phoebe stated, looking
down the hall. "He's full of himself, he is. But that door you
asked about? The one in Mr. Brant's library?" Here Phoebe began to
reach for her handkerchief and Glynis feared a repeat performance
of her sobs.

"Yes, Phoebe," she had said quickly, "what about the
door?"

"It was always bolted.
Always.
Even
during the daytime. Mr. Brant, he gave strict orders—said if he
ever catched anyone leaving it unbolted he'd fire 'em on the
spot!"

Glynis thought about it, and then had asked,
"Phoebe, did you by chance find that crystal paperweight on the
hall table last night? And put it back in Mr. Brant's library?"

The woman had given her a cunning look. "I ain't
telling."

Glynis, having taken a last, long swallow of
tea, now placed the cup on her night table and lay back against the
pillows. Phoebe was an unreliable source, and was probably
vindictive enough to contradict Clements no matter what he said.
Even so, he might have deliberately lied about the door being
occasionally unbolted, thinking he would protect members of the
Brant family by making it look as if an intruder had been the
killer. As he perhaps lied about the paperweight.

If the outside door
had
been bolted,
then whoever killed Roland Brant might have been someone with whom
he was familiar, thought he had no reason to fear, and readily
admitted to his library. He could have seen a stranger through the
glass and refused him or her admittance.

Glynis now agreed with Cullen; it was hard
to imagine a thief risking discovery in that long hallway in order
to rob the safe, providing the thief even knew where the safe was
located. Erich had said, however, that property deeds and banknotes
were missing. But had they been stolen? Or was their disappearance
intended to make it look as if murder was incidental to theft; that
Roland Brant had caught a thief in the act and been overpowered?
And had it been meant to cover a crime that had sprung from a more
sinister motive?

Glynis, by now tossing fitfully in her bed,
recalled the curiously small amount of blood that had been present
when the body was removed and the Persian rug lifted. Neva had said
she couldn't give any reason for that until she'd done the autopsy.
There could be a logical explanation: a single thrust of the knife
would have caused a large amount of blood only if the knife had
been withdrawn. And it hadn't.

Glynis lay staring up at the intricate
shadows of tree branches playing over the moonlit ceiling. She
wondered if she was focusing too much on the details entangled in
Roland Brant's murder. Thus missing the forest for the trees. But
there were other seemingly peripheral things that still nagged at
her.

Erich's wife, Tirzah, had indicated that she
wanted the house sold. This would seem to suggest that she knew
Roland Brant had made a will, and that her husband would inherit
the bulk of what must be a considerable estate. It might or might
not have been common knowledge among the other family members.
Neither Glynis nor Cullen had asked about that, but they should
have. The estate, or the knowledge of who would inherit it, could
be a motive for murder. For instance, if the house was sold, how
would Helga Brant fare? The law of dower provided that a widow was
entitled—with or without a will—to one-third of her husband's real
estate, but didn't specify which one-third. So Mrs. Brant might
possibly stand to lose her home.

And why had Derek Jager been there the
previous Sunday? Cullen had said that when he questioned Jager and
Erich further, both said that Jager had stayed for only an hour.
But he could have returned later that night, been admitted through
the outside door, and then killed Roland Brant.

Glynis suddenly thought of the question that
Bronwen had put to Elise Jager:
Is Mr. Jager in town?
While
in retrospect it was an interesting question, what had Bronwen in
mind when she asked it?

Derek Jager had been a business associate of
Brant's, but he was probably not the only one, so why did Erich
allow the man free access to his father's private papers? Or did
Jager just steal secretly into the library and begin a search for
the mysterious names? If indeed it was names for which he had
really been searching. Jager had lied when saying he had learned of
Roland Brant's death in the Syracuse newspaper. As Cullen had later
pointed out, the Syracuse paper had not received the story in time
to carry it in that morning's edition.

Then there was the girl Tamar. The unknowns
surrounding her became darker and murkier with every step: her
inability or refusal to speak; her relations with a father who had
sold her into servitude, and with a mother who had taken so long—or
so it seemed to Glynis—to find and free her; and, of course, her
untimely disappearance. If the girl hadn't murdered Roland Brant,
why had she run away? Unless she had witnessed his murder, seen
his killer, and thus feared for her own life.

And what about Gerard Gagnon's threat?....
Glynis moaned, and rolled onto her side; she would never sleep if
she continued this speculation. She closed her eyes, determined to
also close her mind.

And heard an eerie sound outside the garden
window.