THE NEXT DAY, I DECIDED TO GO BACK TO THE MANSION. I wanted to look at the paintings as Lord Hurlingthon had suggested. It would give me an opportunity to snoop around the house and maybe find something else. Something they were not telling me was right there in front of my nose, and I couldn’t pin it down.
Now that I had Annie on my side, I knew I’d get to the bottom of this. She is relentless in the pursuit of knowledge. But I was not going to tell Lord Hurlingthon about my plans of taking Annie to examine him. I didn’t want him or Marlon having any time to get ready and set something up. At this point, that piece of human rock that Lord Hurlingthon had for a valet was also a suspect. Was it possible Marlon had planned all of it? Maybe he had gotten the old man confused intentionally? But…was he getting something out of that? If Marlon was in line to receive money from the family, wouldn’t that kick in when Lord Hurlingthon died? What could Marlon possibly get from his master staying alive?
More questions than answers. I didn’t like that.
I also wanted to have a little friendly chat with the servants. Maybe some of them had heard something or knew some stories. I was not sure I could make Marlon talk. The man did not like me. And yet, his family was the one who could hand over a substantial piece of information leading me to a clue. I was getting the feeling this was a puzzle and I had no idea what the big picture looked like. For now, I had to stay focused on the small details to be able to glue them back together.
I walked out of my car with the intention of ringing the doorbell, but I decided to take a walk around the house first to check it out. There was no vegetation in sight, just bare soil like the first time I had set foot there. It took me a while to get to the back of the house. The towers were...broad, I guess is the right word. They had those narrow windows you see in books and movies. I counted four floors and then the stone walls on the sides had three windows up and twelve long.
At the back, I found another house. This one wasn’t so big, and it had a swimming pool. The latter was half-filled with dirty water, and the only green stuff one could find on that land was growing in there. I went to the smaller building. The door was closed and so were all the windows. I pressed my face against a glass and peeked inside. It was clean but unused. There was a living room with a sofa, some armchairs, a desk, and a large bookcase behind it. Heavy curtains, expensive chandeliers, and some paintings hanging from the walls completed the decoration.
It was there I had the first look at Lady Adora. She was a breathtaking brunette of dark eyes and translucent skin. There was one painting of her in a long white gown, sitting on the same sofa stored in that house. A baby was at her feet and a distinguished-looking blond man with a thin mustache was standing behind the sofa, completing the composition. That’s how Lord Frederick looked when he was young. The baby was obviously Lord Hugh; his features were basically the same. What had happened to this family for their son to end up in such sad situation?
There were a few landscapes in the bedrooms. And in the last room I looked in, there was another painting of Lady Adora on a swing. There, she was pregnant and surrounded by a beautiful garden of white flowers. Gardenias, I believed them to be. She was radiant, as every woman should be when she is carrying her first child.
Farther ahead into the land, there was a house with an enormous tree coming out through the top. It was a construction entirely made out of glass and I realized it used to be a garden, but now the only living thing left was that moribund tree. From one of the dried branches hung the swing I had just seen in Lady Adora’s picture.
I tried the door. This one was open. There was also a small artificial pond I had not seen from the outside. No water or life in it, of course. Not a trace left from the blooming gardenias. I tiptoed to the swing. I felt as if I was crossing a line, somehow invading her. The seat had been carved out of marble with bulky chains holding it. I touched it, and a shiver ran through me. Lady Adora had sat right there posing for a painter so many years ago, dreaming of a life full of love, beauty and adventures. Dreaming of a house filled with children’s laughter. She had no idea her life was about to be cut short arbitrarily, without being asked.
“Can I help you, sir?”
The question startled me and removed me from my dreamy and overly personal conjectures. The immature mouth that had unleashed the inquisition belonged to the young body of a petite maid with curly black hair, small eyes, and freckles all over her face. Her front teeth came out beaver-like, preventing her from ever closing her mouth completely. Even if she pressed her lips together, you could still see a few millimeters of her incisors.
“Sir?”
“My name is Richard Saussure. Lord Hurlingthon hir–”
“Oh, yes! You’re the new detective.”
“News travels fast in here,” I thought to myself. I could use that. A loose tongue always means information.
“You’re a long way from the main house, sir. Are you lost?”
“No, no. I was inspecting the place. Trying to get a feel for the people living here.”
“Rich, huh?” she said with a silly giggle. She was sharp as a marble.
“Loaded,” I responded, lifting my eyebrows and pretending to be as surprised as she was. Maybe she hadn’t been working at the mansion for long. “Say...oh, sorry, I didn’t get your name.”
“Lucy.”
The shaman girl, my day could not get any better.
“Say, Lucy, have you been working here for long?”
“Two years. My aunt is the cook. That’s how I got the job. The master doesn’t like strange people near him.”
“You like it here? How does Marlon treat you?”
Lucy backed down a few steps. She wasn’t sure she should answer me. Marlon wasn’t nice to her. Good. The lower lip dropped a bit more, trying to come up with an answer.
“The master is a very decent man. A really decent man.” As she repeated the last sentence, she looked at her feet. Lucy probably hadn’t even seen Lord Hurlingthon once. I didn’t think her aunt would let her. Obviously, she wasn’t the brightest fish in the pond.
“Right, right. Of course, I understand. Well, the master talked about you.”
“He did?!” Her small eyes lit up.
“Yes, Lord Hurlingthon told me you recommended a shaman to him. I would like to talk to this person if it is possible. I assume you have a way to contact him. He must be very respectable and intelligent if you brought him here to help the master.”
“Sure he is, sir. Sure he is. He helped me when I was possessed by the spirit of the swamp, you know? I couldn’t eat for three weeks, you know?”
Why didn’t you go to the doctor that believes in God? was all I wanted to ask her. I bit my tongue and nodded in a grave manner.
“But he’s not a shaman. He’s a druid.” Even better. Bring on the voodoo dolls, and we can all go to Stonehenge for a quick naked dance under the moon. “If you come to the kitchen, I can give you directions to get to the woods where he lives.”
“By all means, then.” I stretched out my arm over her head, marking the way to the door. She turned around and walked out. I tailed her until we left the garden.
As we were making our way to the kitchen, I thought it was best to use my time wisely. I sensed that if Marlon found out about my interrogations behind his back, or that I had been sticking my nose around without his vigilant eye over me, I would get the girl in trouble, closing down for good that stream of information.
It had occurred to me that if I could get into the guesthouse and look at the painting of Lord Hurlingthon as a baby, an important piece of information would be revealed. Painters usually sign their work and they date it, too. All I needed was a close peek at the painting to get a name and a year. This way, I could set all this I’m over two hundred years old to rest. I could even find the artist alive, or a descendant.
“That garden is the one from the painting of Lady Adora, with the gardenias, right?”
“The one in the guesthouse? Yes, sir. She was so pr
etty, wasn’t she? Too bad she died so young.” I doubted Lucy knew how insane the situation really was.
“Yes, a very sad situation.”
“You know? They say the day Lady Adora died, the entire garden died. All the gardenias. All the nature on this land. Nothing grows here, you know? I’ve tried and so did my aunt. Everything is wet and dry at the same time. That’s why the druid wouldn’t come into the property.”
“Because nature doesn’t grow in here?”
“They have a close relation with Mother Earth, the druids, you know?”
No, I didn’t. But if at that point a zombie walked up to me and handed out a piece of information, I wouldn’t be surprised.
“I understand. I tried to see the pictures up close, but the door is locked. You wouldn’t happen to have the key, would you?”
“No, sir,” Lucy answered. “Only Marlon holds the keys to the guesthouse. Every Thursday he opens the place and me and two other maids clean the entire house. But he never leaves us alone, sir. I’m sure he thinks we’re going to steal something, you know?”
That meant I needed to break into the house if I wanted that information.
I could’ve asked Lord Hurlingthon, but there was something about disturbing that poor old man. I know I didn’t completely believe his story, but I didn’t think he wasn’t telling the truth either. He was confused, that was all. I had to un-confuse him. And even by placing an official request for the key, it did not mean I would get it. Or even worse, Marlon would’ve stood there the entire time, preventing me from actually doing what I wanted to do.
We entered the kitchen. It was busy but quiet. The cook and a woman in her thirties were working over the stove. Another young girl like Lucy was laboriously chopping pork. They all stopped at once when they saw me. The young girl froze with the kitchen blade up in the air. Obviously, they were not used to having visitors. Of course not. Everyone the master knew was dead.
“It’s the new detective,” Lucy said, giving herself airs of importance. “Wait here, please. I’ll go get a piece of paper.”
Another woman, middle-aged, tall and robust, came in from an adjacent room. She was wet with soapy water and her own perspiration dripping from her dirty forehead.
“Lucy! Lucy! Where is the water?!!”
“Oh, I forgot!”
“Goddamn, child!! Can’t you do something right?!”
“The new detective the master hired needed my help. I got distracted. Sorry, Miss Harriet. I’ll get it in a minute.”
It was then Harriet noticed me. She dried her hands with a white apron that had seen better days, and then proceeded to stroke her sweat with the back of her hand. I decided to step in to give my pal Lucy a hand.
“It’s entirely my fault, Miss Harriet. I won’t keep Lucy any longer.”
“No, it’s fine, sir. Don’t mind me, sir,” Harriet replied, showing me a grin in desperate need of teeth.
It was unbelievable how the backside of the mansion was so different from the front, from the people to the manners. Worlds apart.
Lucy finally returned with a drawing of the road leading to the druid’s home. She was explaining her doodles to me when Marlon walked into the kitchen. Everyone straightened up as if the teacher had stepped in.
“Mr. Saussure, I saw your car outside. What are you doing back here?”
“My job, Marlon. Please announce me to Lord Hurlingthon. I need to speak to him.”
Marlon looked startled. He expected an explanation I was not about to give. The valet glowered at the women in the kitchen. Then, after unleashing some silent anger through the eyes, he led the way to the dining-room.
“Please follow me, Mr. Saussure.”
I thanked the ladies for their help and did as I was told. I could actually see sparks of rage coming out through the top of Marlon’s head.
“Say, Marlon, are you going to let me ride in that fancy cage of yours?”
VII