“No, I just—I didn’t know. That’s all I meant. I was completely cut off from everyone else down there. So I didn’t get to see what happened to him. And before that I was kind of engrossed in my swordfight, so… I’m sorry.” He sounded almost meek.
I turned to the rest of the room. “What’s going on here? Why are all of you in Hubert’s house?”
“My partner and I have been here since shortly after our meeting with you this afternoon. As we informed you at that time, we believe the librarian to possess some knowledge regarding—”
“I discovered them tethered by ropes to bedposts in an upstairs room,” Blaise clarified, taking a seat beside my father.
I noticed then that Garm was licking my hands, so I set him down on the floor. He ran over to curl up at my father’s feet. “And the rest of you?” I asked.
“Your hands,” Blaise replied. “The blood. Are you all right?”
“We’ll talk about my hands later.” I found my gloves still stuffed into my jacket pocket and pulled them quickly on. “But perhaps we should start a fire, first.”
“It is certainly cold in this room,” Pacheco said, “however—”
“Well, if someone has some matches we can remedy that,” I interrupted. I rubbed a sleeve across my bloodshot eyes. I could feel the swollen veins within them.
Nathan followed me over to the fireplace, and he poked through the ashes before throwing on a couple of logs and some kindling from the pile beside. Wible came over, too, and offered up his box of matches; within a few minutes we had the beginnings of a good fire going.
“So how much do you all know? What brought you here?” I asked.
“I came to find Hubert Jorgen,” Blaise answered. “I believe—”
“Wait a second; hold on.” I was confused, and I shook my head rapidly to communicate the point. “I thought Hubert was dead. Is it not true that Hubert is dead? Did you not find his body?”
“I did, in the Two-Story House, but it disappeared again before I could verify its lack of life. He had no pulse, and yet… That is why I came here, perhaps to find him.”
I put my left hand to my forehead to steady myself but then quickly removed it, fearful that blood would seep through the glove. “Let me get this perfectly straight,” I said. “You’re telling me that Hubert might be alive after all?”
“I do not know. I felt certain that his body was lifeless, and yet… I do not know. But I believe that his possible murderer and the murderer of my wife may both be the same man, and this is also why I have come here. You mentioned Jorgen to me earlier in connection with her. Furthermore, the Two-Story House describes a murder, and… I believe that Shirley, when she was in Denmark a few years ago—I believe that Hubert Jorgen may have been the one who—”
“Oh,” I said, his meaning becoming abruptly clear, albeit only to me and my drug-addled mind. “Oh… No, Blaise. He wasn’t.”
“You do not know what I mean; I am not making myself clear.”
“No, you’re not, but I think I do know what you mean. And you’re wrong.”
“I think I’m a little lost here,” Nathan said, grabbing the poker and stoking the fire. It was already blazing quite nicely, although I still felt rather cold. “Who’s this Hubert guy? I thought this whole thing was about whoever murdered that Shirley girl, and Prescott trying to kill your father, and burning down his library, and stealing your dog.”
“Do you know the name of he who killed my wife?” Blaise asked Nathan, raising his voice almost to a shout. “If so, we must find him immediately.”
“Actually Blaise, I think I know his name,” I said.
He almost leapt out of his seat at this. “Why did you not tell me this before?”
“Well, when I saw you earlier I still didn’t know,” I said. I looked down then, avoiding his gaze, and began toying with my empty glove finger. “Though I suppose I should admit that I did have a vague idea about why Shirley might have been killed. And I didn’t tell you. It was the last thing Shirley asked of me, though—specifically not to tell you—and since I wasn’t sure at the time that it definitely had anything to do with her death… I mean, it was just a vague idea…”
Blaise was just staring at me white-faced when I looked back up. “But now—” he began.
“Just wait a second,” I interrupted. “I want to clarify something up front. You seem to be under the impression that Shirley was cheating on you. I want to assure you that she wasn’t.”
“But just what was this vague idea you had, then?” Connie blurted before Blaise could say anything.
“Well,” I said, keeping an eye on him as I spoke. “I’d known for a long time that something horrible happened while Shirley was in Denmark a few years ago. Something involving… another person. But Shirley only ever hinted at it. She never told me exactly what it was until a few nights ago. And even then she still didn’t reveal the identity of the other person involved. But she did tell me that she was planning on confronting this other person. And I thought that that sounded like a good idea, based on what she had told me—like it would help her get over the whole thing. So I didn’t stop her… And that was the last time I saw her.”
“Well, that certainly is vague.”
“I’m sorry, but she made me promise that I wouldn’t tell anyone,” I said, rubbing my temples and trying to ignore Connie. “And I think I have to respect her last wish. And you know, earlier, like I said, I didn’t know for a fact that what happened in Denmark had anything to do with her murder—she might not have confronted the person yet, for all I knew. And—even if she had—that didn’t necessarily mean that the person she confronted was the murderer. And so I figured that if the police could solve the case without any of this coming out… I mean, how could I tell the police if I couldn’t tell Blaise? I just couldn’t betray Shirley’s final trust.”
“I appreciate your loyalty,” Blaise said, settling back into his seat, his face unnaturally pale and devoid of expression. “But of necessity that loyalty must now be superseded.”
“What does all of this have to do with Prescott and Vanaheim and all of that?” Nathan asked, grabbing my arm to hold me up as I leaned perhaps too far to one side.
“Ah,” I said, raising the gloved index finger of my right hand. I put my left hand behind my back; it felt almost as if it had been dipped in syrup. “That’s where things get interesting. You see, Wible and Pacheco, here, were actually hired by Shirley herself.”
“How—” Wible began.
“Because Shirley herself told me that she planned to hire you guys. She thought somebody was trying to stop her from writing the Thomas Kyd version of Hamlet, because someone had broken into her house and stolen a bunch of her research. But actually it was her draft of the Vanaheimic Hamlet that they had been after. And that’s safe and sound in my house. You see, Gerd—”
“Enough of this,” Blaise bellowed, to which Garm offered a bark of critique. “You must just tell me how this is related to the death of my wife.”
“I—” I suddenly lost my breath, then, and I felt as if I could cry. All over again. I realized that I’d been so busy trying to explain everything that I’d almost forgotten Shirley was really dead.
“Well, the murderer was working with Gerd,” I said, clenching my eyes and trying to remain calm. “I was just getting to that. But the Hamlet thing—admittedly, that’s not why he did it. It was just a sick old man and his wounded pride… He was the one who—” But then I looked at Connie.
“No, I’m sorry, but I’m just going to have to explain all of this to you later, Blaise,” I said. “In private. Because you’re the only one who needs to know about this part. Some things need to remain personal.”[49] I squinted my eyes at Connie then and waved an admonishing finger at her.
49
This is the third of the aforementioned semi-significant absences. Though Our Heroine claims, here, that she knows what this secret is and that she will “explain [it] later,” I can find no place in the text where she exhibits the slightest knowledge of said secret. One must conclude that she is a liar. Does she know what happened in Denmark? Doubtful. I would contend, rather, that her assertion to the contrary is included for the sole purpose of tormenting me with the possibility that she knows something that I do not.