Part Six
He Said
The simple course of a telephone call to the paper had secured the Bob-Whites an appointment with the reporter who wrote the story on the Englefield curse. Without much debate, the group had decided it would be easier if Trixie, Jim and Brian met the man, rather than all seven of them. They arrived at the newspaper’s headquarters in plenty of time and were soon shown into a small, cluttered office.
“What can I do for you?” the reporter, a man named Grant Metcalfe, asked, after they had introduced themselves.
Trixie passed a photocopy of the article across the desk. “We wanted to talk to you about this,” she explained. “Mr. Englefield sent me some things and told me I was subject to the curse, so I’ve started an investigation. We wondered whether you might have more information you could give us – especially anything that would support the claims you made in your article.”
“We’re not a free information service,” the man countered with a growl.
“We understand that,” Brian answered, while his sister was still working up an indignant reply. “We also understand that if Mr. Englefield is stirring up trouble, you might be interested in any information we can give you. Trixie and I are descended from Dulcie’s husband and, as such, we have access to things in which you may be interested. Such as this wedding photograph,” he added, pulling a copy of it out of Trixie’s file.
The man gave it a cursory glance. “It’s not news.”
“It might be,” Trixie told him, “if things keep developing as they are. Something fishy is happening and I’m pretty sure it’s connected with Mr. Englefield. He’s got people spying on us, we know, and one of them dropped a note with an address, something about the curse and a date in this week.”
“Still not news,” he shrugged. “That’ll be the old man’s doing. He just likes people to remember his sister, and be afraid of the hokey curse he cooked up. He doesn’t do any harm.”
“Trixie has an instinct for the mysterious,” her brother added. “If she thinks there’s something wrong here, it’s very likely that she’s right. It might pay for you to keep an eye on the situation.”
“Okay, then,” the man agreed. “I’ll give you copies of what I’ve got on the understanding that you’ll do the same if needed. And thanks for the tip; I’ll keep an eye out.”
“Thank you, Mr. Metcalfe,” Brian replied.
Thirty minutes later, the three had bought themselves lunch and settled at a table in a small but clean diner to study the documents he had given them as they ate. For some time, the only sounds in the room were the rustle of pages and the occasional sigh. The first to speak was Brian, who had chosen to read the coroner’s reports.
“I have a theory,” he admitted slowly, “concerning Dulcie’s death.”
“Well?” his sister prompted.
He frowned. “You need to understand that the diagnosis and treatment of many conditions has been radically improved in the last sixty years.”
“Of course it has,” his sister replied, with exasperation. “Get on with it.”
“You also need to consider that Mr. Englefield is averse to anyone speaking ill of his sister – or of contradicting his version of events. I’m sure he would be very displeased with this theory.”
Trixie huffed a sigh. “What can it matter? She’s dead. It can’t hurt her now.”
“You wouldn’t want me to defend you after your death?” he asked, with a glimmer of humour.
“Don’t waste your time!” she countered. “Now, theory, please.”
Brian rearranged the papers. “It seems to me,” he finally began, “that most of the purpose of the wording here is to hide the fact that they didn’t really understand what had happened to her. I would suggest that, taking the circumstances of Dulcie’s death in conjunction with those of her younger sister and also the drowning death of their cousin, it’s probable that each had a pre-existing, but undiagnosed, heart problem – and my understanding is that these were not always evident post mortem, especially back in those days – and that certain circumstances in each one’s health and physical state caused that problem to be exacerbated, in short, leading to her premature death.”
“Meaning?” Trixie tapped a foot impatiently.
“This is just a guess, you understand?” he stalled.
“Yes, I get it! Just spill, okay?”
He shook his head and rearranged the papers once more before continuing. “You need to remember that this was a different time. Attitudes were different then.” As his sister threatened to explode with impatience, he quickly came to the point. “It could have been an otherwise minor ailment, such as a common cold, but I think it’s more likely in Dulcie’s case that it was caused by a pregnancy – but,” he quickly clarified, “this is still just a guess. I have no way of proving, one way or the other, that this was the case and certainly there are several other plausible explanations, not least of which is that she had a pre-existing heart complaint without a pregnancy. On the other hand, it is mentioned here that she was, in fact, pregnant.”
“But why should it be to her discredit to be pregnant?” asked Trixie indignantly. “She was married.”
Brian paused, shuffling the papers. “This is just a guess, you understand?”
“You’ve said that about twelve times,” Trixie ground out between clenched teeth. “Of course I understand.”
He continued, quietly, “Dad mentioned to me once that someone in his family had knowingly married a pregnant woman whose child was not his own. I would guess that he was talking about his grandfather and Dulcie. The risks increase as the pregnancy progresses, you see? The further advanced it was, the greater pressure was put on her heart and the greater the risk to her life.”
Trixie frowned. “But what does that mean for the whole Englefield curse thing?”
“There is no curse,” Brian insisted. “It’s all the warped imaginings of a lonely old man who didn’t want to believe that his family carried some bad genes. His sister died and, yes, it was tragic, but there’s no mystery here. The dates given in the newspaper article tally exactly with those in the documentation we have here. Dulcie Englefield did not, in any way, cause those other deaths and she did not, as far as I can see, die of a broken heart.”
“But there must be more to the story than that,” Trixie reasoned. “Why does the story go that she did die of a broken heart?”
“Romance?” he suggested. “A more acceptable ending to the story for a sensitive man? He loved his sister, I would guess, and he wanted to blame someone for taking her away from him. That’s understandable, at least.”
His own sister was unconvinced. “I’m sure there must be more to it than that.”
“That’s your own business,” Brian told her in exasperation. “For me, the matter is at an end. There is no mystery here.”
Trixie seemed unconvinced. “Even if there’s no mystery connected with the curse,” she added, slowly, “there’s still a mystery connected to other things that have been happening around here. You don’t deny that, do you?”
He looked away. “You heard what I said to the reporter,” he told her softly. “I’ll trust your judgement on that one.”
She Said
Late that evening, as the rest of the group were getting ready for bed, Trixie prepared herself for a trip to the abandoned house. She dressed comfortably, in the darkest clothes she had brought, and was about to walk out of the room in a nonchalant manner when she was accosted by Honey.
“And where do you think you’re going?” she demanded in an indignant whisper. Di was occupied in the adjoining bathroom with her night-time beauty regime, but the door between was open. “Don’t tell me you’re going off somewhere with Jim. I can tell when you’re working on a case!”
Trixie grinned. “I can’t put anything past you, can I, Hon? You’ve got to promise not to tell, though.” As her friend nodded, she continued, “You remember when Jim and I had to come back for the cooler while you were playing tennis? We noticed that someone had been trying to get in while we were out. They must have seen us coming and made a run for it, but they dropped the keys to the derelict house.”
“And you’re going there now?” Honey squeaked. “Alone?”
“Of course not,” Trixie replied. “I’m going there now with Jim.”
Her friend frowned and put her hands on her hips. “That’s supposed to make a difference?”
Trixie grinned once more. “Promise you won’t tell?”
Honey nodded and Trixie slipped away.
Half an hour later, the pair left the car a block from the house and finished their journey on foot. The waning moon cast plenty of light as they walked toward their destination. Nearing the house, they slipped quietly into the shadow of a large and bushy shrub and waited for the coast to be clear. In a minute or two, they had their opportunity. The padlock on the gate opened noiselessly when Jim inserted the key and they entered with hardly a sound.
“Do we lock it behind ourselves?” Jim whispered, as Trixie started across the yard. At her nod, he did so and followed her.
They made their way to the back door, as the label directed, and let themselves inside. Jim pulled it closed with a soft click, shutting out most of the light from outside. For the first time in their adventure, Trixie switched on her flashlight, shading the beam with her hand. They were in the kitchen, its fittings outdated and covered in a thick layer of dust.
“This way,” she whispered, leading the way to a nearby doorway.
The next room they encountered was a once-elegant formal dining room. Faded wallpaper peeled at its corners. Spider webs festooned the chains which held a clumsily-shrouded chandelier. To the right, a large table and chairs were swathed in dust cloths. To the left, an enormous sideboard stood bare.
Trixie took a few steps forward, with Jim close behind her. The next instant, she let out a shriek as the floor seemed to disappear beneath her. The pair tumbled down into darkness, landing uncomfortably on a hard surface. An ominous creaking above them was followed closely by a loud crash. Finding her flashlight by the fortuitous circumstance that it was still shining after the fall, Trixie shone the light upwards and gasped in surprise. The hole they had fallen through was now completely blocked by a large and heavy piece of furniture.
“The sideboard,” she whispered, watching it carefully for signs of movement. “The floorboards under it must have given way when I walked past.”
Jim let out a groan and rubbed at the shoulder on which he had landed. “I don’t think so,” he contradicted. “If the boards had given way, there should have been a noise as they cracked. I didn’t hear anything like that.”
By now, Trixie was searching for another way out. Her light was playing around them, illuminating an assortment of boxes and broken pieces of furniture, fragments of the wooden floorboards that had caved in and every conceivable variety of old junk. Jim’s words stopped her short. “What do you mean?” she demanded, in a low voice. “You think it was a trap?”
Jim nodded. “I think we were meant to find the keys – and the piece of paper with the address of this house. We were meant to notice something going on here. Someone led us here deliberately.”
“Well, we’ll just have to get out, now,” she decided, starting to scramble away from the site of their fall through the debris.
“Wait.” Jim’s voice held a note of tension, which sent chills up her spine. “Let’s think for a minute. Take it for granted that someone meant us to be here and fall through this hole. What did they want to achieve? Was the sideboard supposed to fall right through and kill one or both of us, or is there another trap here somewhere?”
Fear gripped Trixie and she froze. “What do we do?” she whispered. “We can’t just sit here. The sideboard might not be stuck where it is; it might fall.” She shook her head. “We’ve got to move a little, at least. Is there any reason why we can’t just get clear of the sideboard?”
“I guess not,” Jim decided, after giving it a long, hard stare. “But move slowly. We don’t know whether some of this stuff is helping it stay in place.”
Slowly, carefully, the pair edged away from the site of their fall. They stopped as soon as they could, on a cold, rough and dusty patch of concrete floor. Trixie peered around them, looking for any signs of danger. The luggage tag of an ancient suitcase caught her eye and she let out a groan.
“I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid!” she cried, in as low a voice as she could manage. “Lucius Englefield doesn’t live in the cursed house. This is the cursed house – and now someone is trying to make me a victim of the curse!” She thumped a fist against her thigh in frustration. “His house is somewhere near here, isn’t it?”
“On the other side of the same block,” Jim agreed. “I don’t think it’s directly behind here, but it’s only one or two houses to one side.”
“So, he’s close,” she mused. “He can’t forget. He can’t live in this house, but he lives so close to it.” She turned an agonised gaze at Jim. “So, is he behind this, or is it someone else?”
He Said
Brian looked at his watch with a frown. “Where is Jim?” he muttered, his frown deepening as no one took the slightest notice. “And, for that matter, where is Trixie?” He looked around the group and noted the worried look on Honey’s face as she, too, looked at her watch. Contemplating his next course of action, Brian felt as if the breath was being squeezed from his chest. He wanted – no, needed – to speak to Honey, but his brother was right there.
Across the room, Honey and Mart exchanged a few words before the latter slipped away. Brian grabbed the opportunity and approached his ex-girlfriend with trepidation.
“You’re worried,” he observed, attempting to sound natural and feeling that he had failed utterly. “Something’s going on, isn’t it?”
“No!” she cried softly. “No, it’s not what you think. Nothing’s going on at all. I’m just – well, tired, I guess. It’s nothing.”
Brian shook his head. “Where’s Trixie?” he asked in a low voice. “Is she in trouble?”
Mutely, Honey shook her head.
“She’s up to something, isn’t she?” he asked. “Is she investigating something? Is she with Jim?”
“It’s nothing,” Honey whispered. “There’s nothing to worry about.”
He gave her a long look. “You promised her something, didn’t you? Well, I think you’ll know when it’s time for you to tell what you know. I’ll be waiting.”
She Said
“If it’s not Mr. Englefield, it must be someone close to him,” Jim decided with a frown. “Otherwise, how did they get the key to the house?”
Trixie only nodded. Her thoughts were fixed on trying to find a reason for her situation. “So, someone wants a victim for the curse,” she muttered. “But why did they do it by making me fall through the floor? That doesn’t fit with the other victims. They could have drowned me, or hit me in their car, or suffocated me…”
“Please, don’t talk that way, Trixie,” Jim begged, his voice raw with pain.
She hardly noticed. “Suffocate!” she whispered, in a hoarse voice. “I bet that’s it. They didn’t want to crush us to death – the sideboard was only so we couldn’t escape and to keep the space down here sealed. Somehow, they’re going to gas us, or something. I thought I could smell something strange. Quick! Look for some way we can get fresh air into here!”
Jim’s look of distress turned to alarm. “I don’t see how we can,” he told her. “We must be right in the middle of the house – there’s nowhere near us that would open to the outside world. Maybe we should look for how the gas would get in and block it up.”
“Why didn’t I think of that?” she asked herself, starting a slow and careful search with the light. In a few minutes, they had found what they were looking for: a pair of small PVC pipes jammed into an existing hole and packed in with rags. The smell was stronger there.
“What do we have to block this up?” Jim asked, looking around in despair and poking into every box in reach. “None of this junk will do the job. They must have taken everything out that might help us.”
“How about my shirt?” Trixie asked, stripping it off and stuffing it into one of the openings. “Will that do?”
Jim shrugged. “I guess it’ll have to. I just hope it’s enough.” He did the same with his own shirt and the second pipe. “Turn off the light now,” he advised. “We need to save the battery.”
He drew her into his arms and they settled with his back against a wooden packing case as far away from the pipes as practical. Trixie let out a sigh of mingled frustration and relief. “Now, I guess, we just have to figure out why.” She entwined her fingers with his as they rested against her stomach. “Mr. Englefield really believes the curse, so why would he do this?”
“Revenge?” Jim suggested. “Because he’s cracked up with the pressure of believing this all these years?”
She sighed. “But if it’s someone else, why would they do this? I mean, whoever it is means to murder me and blame it on the curse. It must be something pretty serious for them to take this step.” In the darkness, she frowned. “What sort of motive would be enough for someone to want to murder a complete stranger?”
“Money?” Jim wondered. “And who says they would actually murder someone. Maybe they just want it to look like Mr. Englefield tried to murder… uh, someone.”
“So… someone close to Mr. Englefield, who knew that he was sending the package to me… knew why he chose to send it to me… someone who has something to gain from his being blamed for this. There can’t be that many suspects, can there? I guess he has some family who will inherit from him?”
She felt Jim shrug. “He has employees, as well,” he pointed out. “He must be quite well-off.”
“I wonder…” She let her head drop back against Jim’s shoulder. “Would his family share in the grudge? Though, I guess it would be easier for employees to get at the keys…”
“When we get out of here,” Jim told her, “we’ll have to hand the case over to the police. This is too serious not to involve them.”
“I know,” she admitted with a sigh. “I still might solve it yet, though. If we ever get out of here, that is.”
He Said
“So, are we clear on what we’re doing, then?” Brian asked the assembled group. “Any questions?” His four worried friends each shook their head. “Then, let’s go.”
They each went to their appointed tasks, meeting a few minutes later at the one remaining vehicle. It would be a squeeze for the five of them, but none had been willing to stay behind. They tossed their various belongings into the trunk and had soon each found a seat.
“What do we do if they’re not there?” Honey asked in a small voice. Her slender frame was squeezed into the middle of the back seat, between Mart and Diana. “What if we can’t find them?”
Brian gripped the steering wheel harder and checked for traffic before pulling out. “We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it,” he muttered, eyes firmly on the road. “For now, let’s just concentrate on getting there.”
Continue to part 7.