Chapter 12 #2
“Not as such. More specifically, the wounds were inflicted by a dagger.” His eyes shuttered then, which gave Waverly no consolation as to whether he was still of the mindset to assist her or if he had shifted loyalties and was now acting like a witness in court against her.
Against her for what reason, she didn’t yet know, but Waverly could sense an accusation coming as strongly as one could sense an approaching thunderstorm.
“But isn’t a dagger also a knife?” Constable Morgan smacked his lips as if tasting his inevitable conclusion.
“Technically, yes. But most knives are not daggers.”
“For pity’s sake, you’re speaking in riddles.” Waverly didn’t bother to suppress her exasperation but released an unladylike sigh.
“It’s hardly a riddle,” said Preston with a pompous tone of assumed expertise.
“A knife is a tool created for cutting or slicing things, hence one might loosely call it a dagger. But an actual dagger is created for one purpose only—stabbing. It is double-edged, symmetrical, and made with the intent to drive its sharp point into something by using a thrusting or a stabbing motion.”
“Yes, thank you.” Titus’s mouth thinned. He appeared a little annoyed by Preston’s interruption. “It is also the tool of a gentleman in many cases,” he added.
“A gentleman,” Constable Morgan reiterated. “Much like the unidentified man, Miss Pembrooke, with whom you met the day of the murders, the same man who was seen leaving in a fine carriage and wearing a well-tailored suit—this according to the waitress at the Fairfield Inn.”
Waverly straightened in her seat. “What are you implying, Constable Morgan?”
The constable folded his hands in his lap, breathing in and releasing a great sigh. “One wonders why, on the night your guardians were so brutally attacked by someone wielding a dagger, you would be in town having coffee with a stranger who, since that day, has not been seen again.”
“I still do not understand what it is you’re implying.” Waverly preferred to make the constable state his case clearly.
“Do you or do you not share an acquaintance with a gentleman who may have wished your uncle dead and who may have carried a dagger?”
“Shall we create more stories!” Waverly erupted. She glared at all three men, lingering for a few seconds on Titus before swinging her attention back to the constable. “Do you think I conspired to have someone assassinate my family?”
“Is that your answer, Miss Pembrooke?” Constable Morgan’s eyebrow lifted.
“I did not conspire with anyone! If you have a witness who places me with said unidentified gentleman, then you will note it was during the very time the murders were being committed. How could he have been your culprit? How could I?” Waverly prayed this would resolve the matter.
Logic would serve its purpose, and no more questions need be asked.
Because those questions were ones she could not answer.
“Miss Pembrooke?” The constable demanded her attention.
“Yes?” Waverly weighed her words, her expression. She couldn’t tell them everything. The consequences of honesty would be catastrophic. She bit her tongue, squeezing her folded hands together until her knuckles turned white.
“Going forward, I would recommend that you be very cautious regarding those with whom you associate.” Constable Morgan took on the tone of a father. A father who didn’t believe the claim of innocence he’d just heard. “As to your relationship with this gentleman—”
“I don’t have a relationship with any gentleman,” Waverly interrupted.
“For now, Miss Pembrooke, I leave you in the care and oversight of Mr. Scofield.”
Waverly drew back and eyed the constable. “I don’t need Preston’s oversight.”
Constable Morgan shrugged. “Be that as it may, with your being a grown woman, there are moral parameters. You, Miss Pembrooke, have stepped a toe outside those lines, which is raising questions on multiple levels. If you are, as you claim, innocent of any deviousness of late, then you will only benefit from the reputation of a man of business such as Mr. Scofield and his endorsement on behalf of your uncle.”
It was revolting to Waverly. The very idea that they would consider her as having anything to do with the brutal slayings of her uncle and aunt.
But what she would never admit aloud was that she wasn’t innocent when it came to the unidentified gentleman.
She wasn’t. That was the worst part of it all.
Yet to free herself from speculation, which was misplaced and yet founded in some truth, meant that she would have to endanger someone else.
And that was completely out of the question.
Waverly
In an interview shortly before her death in 1950; memories from twelve days prior to the murders:
Now that I am old and have lived through two world wars, one might question my recollections.
But I’ll never forget an evening almost two weeks prior to the murders.
This particular evening, Uncle Leopold was in fine form for dinner.
While he wasn’t engaging in any sort of conversation with Aunt Cornelia or me, he was congenial nonetheless.
Pleasant would be too far of a stretch. But to eat in silence without thick tension or the impending threat of a verbal explosion?
Well, that was practically a gift! Aunt Cornelia and I gladly received it.
A fire crackled in the fireplace at the end of the dining room.
The sconces with gas lamps created a warm glow that bounced off the wood-paneled walls.
Four narrow arched windows were opposite me and looked over the back gardens of Traeger Hall.
Night had already settled, and we were all wandering in our thoughts over a dinner of roast chicken, sweet potatoes, and the last remaining green beans from the garden.
“I saw Margaret Fultch this afternoon,” Aunt Cornelia offered by way of introducing a new conversation, one that was interesting enough to be shared at the table but not controversial enough to cause an argument. “She said that her daughter is getting married next spring to a man from Cambridge.”
“Cambridge?” That snagged Uncle Leopold’s attention, and he looked up from his plate.
“Wisconsin,” Aunt Cornelia clarified. “Cambridge, Wisconsin.”
“Oh.” Uncle Leopold returned his focus to his plate of food.
I stifled a smile. On evenings such as this, a sort of peace came over Traeger Hall.
It was tentative and teased of what could be if only its inhabitants could get along.
If it took Margaret Fultch’s daughter getting married to accomplish that, then I would personally see fit that every eligible young woman in Newton Creek followed suit and gave us all something to muse upon.
“Margaret stated that the young man has quite the mind for business.” Aunt Cornelia gave Uncle Leopold a side-eye. “Perhaps you could . . .”
Uncle Leopold set his fork down with a clank against the plate. His brow furrowed. Peace winged its way from the room. “Ah! I see what this is about. Are you attempting to insert yourself in my business? I never asked you to suggest a replacement for Preston.”
“I never suggested such a thing!” Aunt Cornelia clutched at her throat in an overblown show of mortification. That was exactly what her intent had been.
“Bah!” Uncle Leopold swiped the linen napkin from his lap and threw it on his plate. “Now my appetite is ruined.” He glowered at her. “I don’t know why you have a predilection to dislike Preston.”
“I don’t trust him.” Aunt Cornelia dabbed the corners of her mouth with her napkin.
“Poppycock! I—”
At that moment, everything at Traeger Hall shifted and not for the better.
I’m not certain which I heard first, or if both sounds came simultaneously but were also distinct enough to be different.
One was a gunshot. Not a large gun like a rifle.
I had heard plenty of those in the past during the seasons when the locals hunted.
No, this gunshot was sharp and not far from the mansion.
The second sound was the shattering of window glass.
It scared all three of us who were sitting around the dinner table.
Glass exploded into the room, the bullet having pierced the window and hitting the wall behind me.
Its trajectory, we would soon discover, had been a mere one inch away from traveling through Uncle Leopold’s head.
Aunt Cornelia screamed and then landed face-first on her plate, the sweet potatoes pillowing her head as she fainted. I flung myself to the floor because that seemed the wisest thing to do—although far too late had the bullet been meant for me.
Uncle Leopold pushed back from the table, surging to his feet. “It’s happening!” he bellowed. “Get my gun! It’s in my study.” He delivered the order to a white-faced servant, who rushed from the room to retrieve Uncle Leopold’s pistol.
“Aha!” Uncle Leopold’s cry encouraged me to raise my head. I saw what he had spotted: the silhouette of a man in the darkness, darting off into the night.
Uncle Leopold charged forward, rounding the table and knocking into it with his leg. The chinaware clanked, and shards of glass crunched under his shoes as he raced for the front door.
`An hour later, once Uncle Leopold returned, and with Aunt Cornelia having disappeared into her bedroom to recover and to wipe sweet potatoes from her décolletage, it had become apparent that my uncle had been right.
Someone wanted him dead. They had attempted to kill him tonight during dinner.
What caused them to miss their target, we would never know.
But in the chaos of the moment, no one had thought to ring the bell in the tower and alert the townspeople for help.
This fact had incensed Uncle Leopold, so much so that for the next three days he’d ranted about it to his staff, had lectured Aunt Cornelia to the point of exhaustion, and had made it clear to me that he’d had the bell tower built for just this purpose.
But no. No one had bothered to race to the tower to ring the bell, to summon assistance from the town.
While Uncle Leopold ruminated and obsessed over this life-threatening dereliction of duty, the rest of us were consumed by a much different question.
Who? Who wanted Uncle Leopold dead, so badly that they would risk exposure by standing outside the dining room window to administer their failed kill shot?
And who had Uncle Leopold chased through the gardens that night, but to no avail?
One might argue it could have been any number of persons.
Preston, at this point in time, had not made my personal list of suspicious characters.
I also knew that there were others who harbored grievances against Uncle Leopold.
But to murder him? Either way, it fit precisely into Uncle Leopold’s prediction of his demise and was as potentially broad as to include anyone from a farmer whose loan Uncle’s bank had foreclosed on, to a disgruntled sawmill worker, to a businessman Uncle had bested in some way.
The list could be lengthy if one truly wanted to examine it.
I was worried, yet I didn’t say anything. Sometimes knowing and knowing were two entirely different things with horribly different consequences. And silence was often the best recipe because speaking out could cause so much more trouble.