Sóley’s aunt had driven her to the dance; it was too far to walk, especially as she was all dressed up for the occasion. One could see a glimpse of the white dress under her winter coat. She made sure that she arrived on time. They were to meet at nine-thirty and she was there at just past nine. Time passed so slowly. Guests gathered outside and when the doors were opened at half-past nine everyone hurried inside, carefree students, friends, acquaintances, boyfriends, girlfriends. Outside were those students who hadn’t managed to get tickets to the dance, but also some older men who were using the opportunity to try to meet young girls. Sóley noticed that two such men had been looking her way now and then, she had looked away and pretended not to notice anything. Then, suddenly, they were gone.
He was late. That was unlike him, but still... Hopefully he wasn’t drinking. He was always so reliable, except when he was drinking. Then he lost all sense of time and place, only thought of the next drink.
She heard the music from the dance, the noise was carried out into the street. She kept looking at her watch.
He has to be on his way.
She said nine-thirty, didn’t she? It was already eleven o’clock now. She didn’t want to betray him, didn’t want to go inside as she also had his ticket. She decided to wait a little bit longer. He had to be on his way. She started walking to keep warm, walked past the corner of the building. She didn’t notice the two men right away, not until one of them put his hand over her mouth and the other one helped drag her away, to a dark alley where no one could see them. They forced themselves upon her, one after the other, kicked her, beat her, until she gave up.
She was unable to call for help, knew she was dying, right there, in a dark alley. Her life slipping away, coming to an end just like the year 1958.
He had booked the tower suite.
He had decided to treat himself, even if he didn’t deserve it, but after all, this would be his last day on this earth. Soon a new year would begin in a new place where he would possibly meet Sóley again. Or perhaps not. It didn’t really matter all that much.
His last memory of her: her body covered in blood in a dark alley. The men who had done this to her had already disappeared. He had finally made it to their rendezvous at half-past eleven; he had been far too late due to his drinking. He couldn’t find her anywhere, asked around but was unable to get access to the dance without a ticket. He wandered around, looking for her — and then, finally, he saw her body. But he was too late. She was already dead.
Tonight he would finally find peace.
His conscience, bloody persistent, would finally let him rest.
The noise from the fireworks was the last thing he heard.
Or maybe rather, the noise from the fireworks and Sóley’s sweet voice.
Murder and the Spiderbrusher
by Amy Myers
In March 2013 Severn House released (in print) the fourth book in Amy Myers’s Jack Colby classic-car mystery series, Classic Mistake. And readers who are fans of the protagonist of this short story, Victorian chef Auguste Didier, will be glad to know that nine of the Didier novels will soon he reissued as e-books from Headline. But the Colby and Didier series form only a portion of Amy Myers’s large and consistently satisfying output in both our genre and that of historical fiction.
“There’s been murder done at Hathertree Hall, Mr. Auguste.”
Auguste Didier gulped. He had unwisely agreed to visit the Hall with his mother’s old friend Mary Bacon, who had been in service as a housemaid there for well over half a century. She was now living in this small cottage on the estate with the help of a pension from her former employers, Lord and Lady Catsfield.
Auguste had been looking forward to experiencing the delights of the Hall’s kitchen, which Mary informed him was renowned throughout the county for its cuisine, and as a master chef himself he was naturally eager to try it. He had not expected to be plunged into another murder scene, and today an investigation of a soufflé de perdreau aux truffes was as far as he wished to stretch his powers of detection.
He could see Mary’s hopeful eyes fixed on him, however, waiting for some response. Sitting opposite him at the cottage fireside, she looked merely a very elderly lady asking no more of life than the occasional visitor, and yet in this small room, dominated by the photograph of a stern Queen Victoria on the mantelpiece, he was feeling increasingly uncomfortable about the forthcoming visit.
“Terrible thing, murder,” Mary added conversationally.
“Whose murder?” he asked cautiously.
She thought this over. “The sixth earl, that would be. It was the countess did it. Spun her web and drew him in and ate him for his money. Like a spider,” she explained, perhaps noticing Auguste’s aghast reaction.
“You’re quite sure this story is correct?” he asked. He considered making a dash for sanity and the railway station, but refrained. After all, Mary might need his protection if Hathertree Hall was infested with violent aristocracy who preferred eating each other to the pleasures of its kitchens.
Mary looked offended. “My granny told me.”
Confused, Auguste replied without thinking. “Your grandmother is still alive?” That would make her roughly a hundred and fifty years old.
A frown. “Passed away three score years ago.”
Auguste relaxed and sipped some more of the undoubtedly good cowslip wine she had pressed upon him. This murder was safely in the past. There was nothing to concern him — save a faint recollection that his mother had warned him that Mary was considered to be a witch.
“Granny said she put a curse on the place, the countess did, as she was being taken,” Mary continued.
“Taken by the police?” A quick calculation, however, suggested that Mary’s granny must have lived in the days of the Bow Street Runners.
“By the Devil himself. I can see,” Mary said heavily, “you don’t believe me, but it’s true. As true as I’m spiderbrusher to Her Ladyship.”
It took a moment or two for Auguste to recall that ‘spiderbrusher’ used to be the colloquial word for a housemaid. “You’re still in service to the countess?” he asked incredulously. “Surely scrubbing and cleaning are too hard for you.” He was appalled. What kind of people were running Hathertree Hall?
He had said the wrong thing again, as Mary looked very grim. “I’m a real spiderbrusher, Mr. Auguste. I could show them housemaids up there a thing or two about blacking hearths, but it’s special spider duties that Her Ladyship calls on me for nowadays. Terrified of the little brutes, she is. If she so much as catches sight of one of the little critters, she puts a light in her window and I goes up to remove it for her. Won’t trust anyone else to get rid of spiders, she says. I know their cunning ways. I know where the little varmints like to hide. I make ’em run and then I have ’em, sure as my name’s Mary...” She fished around in her mind and came up with a triumphant “Pork.”
Auguste’s heart sank. The sooner this visit to the Hall was over the better, he thought, as he helped Mary to her feet.
“It’s best we go together when there’s murder done. I have the sight,” she added complacently.
Hathertree Hall looked more like the eerie castle from Mr. Bram Stoker’s Dracula than the stately gracious mansion that Auguste had been led to expect. A bleak stone building, it was adorned with forbidding crenellations and towers that gave it the air of a fortress, and its windows looked like mournful eyes gazing out to a world of what might have been. They had approached it along an avenue over which tall trees arched to form a dark tunnel and Auguste could have sworn that bats were swooping overhead. Maybe vampires stalked these grounds at night. After that, arriving at Count Dracula’s Transylvanian residence itself was almost a relief, despite its offputting appearance. Nevertheless, it still felt as if he were leaving the modem world of 1890s England far behind him.