Nobody's Secret (17 page)

“Maybe, but the point is that the codicil was filed in Father’s office!” Vinnie’s voice was trembling, as though she were on the brink of deducing something awful. “Could he be blamed?”

“We could lose everything,” Emily whispered. Their grandfather’s improvidence had driven the Dickinsons perilously close to bankruptcy. The specter of poverty always hovered over the household. Emily sometimes had terrifying dreams where she and her mother were forced to earn a backbreaking living growing rye in the fields.

“It would kill Mother,” Vinnie said.

Emily thought it through. “Father wrote Jeremiah’s first will years ago. The codicil was added only last November when Father was in Washington. Mr. Ripley wrote and witnessed that codicil.” She smothered a cough. “I think the Langstons took advantage of Father’s absence to bribe Mr. Ripley. He wrote the codicil that guaranteed the Langstons a fortune, and now Mr. Ripley is suspiciously well off.”

“You think so?” asked Vinnie, worry still in her voice.

“Stop fretting.” Emily embraced her sister. “Father isn’t in any danger, but I do think a conversation with Mr. Ripley might be useful.”

“There’s another way to find out what Mr. Ripley knows.” Vinnie jumped up and ran out of the room, returning a moment later. She handed her sister a folded square of paper.

“What’s this?” Emily said, unfolding it.

“Do you steal so much used blotting paper that you can’t remember this one?”

“I thought I lost this!” Emily said. “I took it from Mr. Rip-ley’s desk while someone was accusing me of being a lunatic.”

“I found it in your skirt pocket when I was tidying up.” Vinnie stared at the ceiling with a cherubic air. “You see the value to housework? You should try it yourself.”

“Shall we see what it says?” Emily flattened the paper. A scattering of words in reverse was spread across it. “We’ll need a mirror.”

They went into the hall and held up the blotting paper to the reflection. “Here are the words ‘Wentworth’ and ‘Langston.’ And what is that word?” Vinnie asked.

Emily tried to decipher the cramped handwriting. “I think it says ‘confession’ and ‘fraud.’ And ‘sworn affidavit.’”

“How suspicious is it that Mr. Ripley was writing such words about the Wentworths?” Vinnie asked.

“Maybe James Wentworth forced Mr. Ripley to write a confession of what he had done?” Emily suggested. “Maybe Mr. Ripley killed him to get it back? Or perhaps James confronted the Langstons with the proof?”

Vinnie leaned against the wall and sighed. “What a club to use against them all.” Her face twisted. “Emily, what happens to the Langstons now? Will they lose all the money? What will become of Ursula?”

“I don’t know,” Emily admitted. “If James had been dead all along as they claimed, then the Langstons would inherit anyway. But if they killed him, the law doesn’t permit them to profit from their crime.”

A glimpse of Mr. Nobody waving cheerfully as he disappeared into the rain filled her thoughts. Within the privacy of her mind, he would always be Mr. Nobody. “If they killed James, they should be punished.”

“You sound so determined, Emily,” Vinnie said. “You are quite frightening.”

A loud knock at the door made them both flinch. Emily and Vinnie exchanged glances, uncomfortably aware that they were alone in the house.

“Who is it?” Vinnie asked in a whisper.

“Can I see through doors?” Emily retorted. She tiptoed to the door and peeked through the side window. “It’s all right,” she said in relief and swung open the door.

Reverend Colton filled the doorframe. He beamed when he saw them. “Good afternoon, girls. Is your mother at home?”

Emily invited him in. “She’s visiting with friends today. May I give her a message?”

The reverend looked thoughtful. “I just came to tell her that the funeral for young Wentworth, the gentleman found in your pond, will be tomorrow.”

“But he was only identified the day before yesterday.” Emily’s voice squawked.

He nodded. “The family wants a quick burial—and as you know, there are reasons that will be desirable.”

Emily and Vinnie, veterans of many vigils for the dead in warm weather, nodded ruefully.

“But what about Dr. Gridley?” Emily asked.

The reverend raised his eyebrows, a pair of gray tufted question marks above his brown eyes.

“Doesn’t the doctor have to decide on a cause of death?” Emily asked. Unable to stay seated, she began to pace about the room.

“Emily, he drowned.” Reverend Colton’s eyes followed her progress back and forth. “My sexton pulled him out of your pond.”

“But . . .” Emily stopped, realizing that to go further would involve her in far too many explanations. How could she tell Reverend Colton that if James’s body were six feet under, it would be too late to test for poison.

“The family wants the utmost discretion.” He looked uncomfortable.

Emily stopped and faced him. “Then why are you telling us?” she asked. Vinnie shot her a scandalized look.

The reverend’s face reflected a battle between tact and curiosity. “I thought it was the least I could do for your mother.” He paused. “I’m not well acquainted with the Langstons. Do you know them well?” he asked almost too casually. Emily had the distinct impression that his burning curiosity about the family was the true reason for his visit.

“I went to school with Ursula for one term, and of course we’ve met them at social functions in town,” Emily explained.

“But they don’t have anything to do with the College, so our circles don’t mix very often,” Vinnie added.

“Well, the funeral is the family’s responsibility and the arrangements are for them to decide.” He glanced at Vinnie. “Lavinia, I’m quite thirsty. May I trouble you for a glass of water?”

“Of course, reverend.” Her face flushed scarlet. “I am so sorry that I didn’t offer before.” She almost ran to the kitchen.

Reverend Colton turned to Emily and said, “How are you feeling, my dear?

“My cough is almost completely gone,” Emily said warily.

“I don’t mean physically.” After a silence Emily was reluctant to break, he went on. “The last time I saw you, you were upset. Are you calmer now that the investigation is done?”

Emily nearly choked. “My investigation?”

“Emily, your activities have been noticed and commented upon. Since I originally encouraged you, I’ve done my best to choke off any gossip. But you know that’s like trying to hold back the tide in this town. ”

So that was how Emily’s mother knew of her interest in the dead body. Emily traced the intricate pattern in her mother’s brocade with her finger. “I would so much rather be anonymous. It’s dreary to be somebody. One doesn’t have any privacy at all.”

The reverend’s smile appeared and disappeared so rapidly that Emily thought she might have imagined it. “Without you,” he said, “James Wentworth might never have been identified. Well done. But your part is finished.”

“But no one knows what happened to him . . . ”

“That’s a question for the authorities. Be content that tomorrow he’s being buried under his own proper name. I am in deadly earnest, young lady. You must stop.” He looked at Emily and sighed at her obstinacy. “Your mother . . . ”

“My mother wants me to waste my life baking and preserving. Her house is too tidy to allow for justice.”

Reverend Colton laid his hand on Emily’s. “Justice?” he asked gently. “Is that your only concern here?

Emily squirmed under his penetrating gaze. “What other concern could I have?” she asked. Did he know that the law offices of Edward Dickinson might be involved in a fraud?

“He was a very handsome young man,” he said. “Not much older than you are.”

Emily felt the heat spreading across her face. “Reverend Colton, that’s not it at all!” She shook her head violently. “Tell me, what should I do if suspect that something terrible has been done? A mortal sin?”

“Let the authorities do their duty, my dear.”

“The authorities don’t care!”

The reverend looked thoughtful. “If you persist, your reputation may suffer.”

“What is my reputation compared to finding the truth for James Wentworth?” Emily cried.

He glanced toward the kitchen. “Emily, may I be blunt?”

“Please!”

His hint of a smile was replaced by a somberness that frightened her. “You are suggesting that James Wentworth was murdered?”

“Perhaps,” Emily said warily.

“And yet you plan to keep investigating? Despite the danger to yourself?”

“How could I be in any danger?” Emily said.

“Don’t you think a killer is dangerous?”

“I don’t have anything a killer would want,” Emily said uncertainly.

“You represent a threat to his safety. If someone has once seen a solution to his problem in murder, he may kill again to protect himself.” He shook his head sadly. “It gets easier.”

Emily felt a chill in her chest that had nothing to do with her cough. “What a terrible thought.”

Before the reverend could respond, Vinnie returned with a glass of water and a plate of gingerbread. He enjoyed the piece of cake and then drained his glass.

Reverend Colton stood up to take his leave. “What time is the funeral tomorrow?” Emily asked. “We don’t want to be late.”

He raised his eyebrows in an exasperated movement. “I beg your pardon?”

“Of course my family must be represented,” Emily said. “The body was found here.”

“The Langston family has particularly asked for a private ceremony.”

“Oh,” said Emily.

The reverend patted her shoulder. “Remember what I said. Good afternoon.” The door closed behind him. Vinnie shot her sister a concerned look and sighed at the rebellion she saw on Emily’s face.

“You can’t go to the funeral,” Vinnie warned. “Mother would have a fit.”

“Perhaps not,” Emily said. “But I can watch. What’s the point of living next to the cemetery if we can’t enjoy the funerals?”

If nature will not tell the tale
Jehovah told to her,
Can human nature not survive
Without a listener?

Later that day, Emily clambered on top of the field-stone wall that marked the far end of their garden. She glanced back, just able to make out Vinnie in a pale yellow dress picking herbs in the garden. Vinnie, with an instinct that Emily found exasperating, looked toward Emily’s perch. Emily froze until her sister’s attention returned to the sage and rosemary.

“I’m sorry, but if Reverend Colton is right, I must investigate on my own,” she murmured. It wasn’t fair to put Vinnie in danger.

Reviewing the clues, she had realized that she had neglected to visit Amethyst Brook, where the Indian pipes grew. Somehow the unusual plant had found its way into James’s collar; he must have been there. That morning Emily had looked up her father’s map of Amherst to find the spot.

At a brisk pace, she cut through to Triangle Street, going down one side of the geometrical street and then the other. Within minutes she had emerged on the road to Pelham. Today the crows were missing, which she saw as a good omen. She passed Sam Wentworth’s house, behind its orchards roiling with bees. She hurried by and found the path to the brook between two fields on the left side of the dirt road. She hadn’t realized that his house was so close to her destination.

A farmer had cultivated corn in the twin fields; the stalks towered above her head. This farmer had a taste of whimsy, for he had planted sunflowers at the end of the field. She imagined their faces were turned toward her, bobbing with gentle courtesy.

Suddenly the open fields were gone and she was in the woods. She heard the rippling of water over rocks before she saw the brook. It was about twenty-five feet across, and the water had worn away the ground underneath the trees on the banks so they seemed to levitate above the water. The forest on either side was a thousand shades of green and allowed dappled sunlight to reach the pine needles thick on the ground. She inhaled deeply, reveling in a tranquility disturbed only by the chirping of small birds. She would wager that no matter what happened here, joy or despair, this river would always look the same.

She pulled out her notebook and licked the end of her silver pencil.

After a hundred years
Nobody knows the place,—
Agony, that enacted there,
Motionless as peace.