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7:40 a.m. Saturday, August 29th, 1992
BAILEY jerked to attention as a horrendous crash suddenly resounded through the quiet morning, reverberating across the kitchen. He even felt it in his feet, a vibration from the floor. Fortunately, he had just set the armload of items Mrs. Trimble had sent him to the pantry for down on the counter. She was standing at the stove stirring something in a pot and paused only a moment.
“It’s Mr. Keener’s troubled spirit again, making mischief.” Having made the remark, she went back to preparing breakfast.
Padget and Talia had been sitting at the kitchen table, getting a bite to eat, and now they were fighting to keep their food from going down wrong. First Bailey made sure that neither of them was actually choking, then he raced out through the dining room where Barbara Keener and Stephanie sat having an early breakfast themselves. Out and down the short hall to the foyer, he found the source of that smashing sound which had startled them all.
The giant, heavy chandelier that had hung high above their heads now sat in the middle of the floor. Its brass limbs had been bent by the force of the fall, and glittering glass from both ornaments and lights had splintered and flown across the foyer. Mr. Quill stood frozen halfway down the stairs.
Bailey surveyed the damage quickly. The wood flooring underneath the chandelier’s carcass looked as if had been horribly scarred, but that could be repaired. Thankfully, Quill must’ve been the only one anywhere around, and he hadn’t been close enough to be hurt. He was also the only witness to what had happened.
“Did you see what caused it, Mr. Quill?” Behind Bailey, Barbara and her daughter emerged from the dining room to gape at the scene.
At the same time, Padget and Talia came out of the staff section through the back door into the foyer, having gone the long way around. The butler, at least, didn’t waste time asking questions. He beckoned Bailey to meet him in the center of the room to deal with the situation. “Together we should be able to lift it. It won’t fit out through the back, but it can go out the main entrance, and we can carry it round the house.”
Quill chose that moment to answer. “I swear it just suddenly snapped and came crashing down for no reason other than to try to kill me. I was headed out for my morning constitutional, and if someone had waited another moment before they brought it down, they’d have succeeded.”
Bailey looked for a good place to get a handhold and spoke to the man without looking at him. “The mooring must’ve been loose, and it could’ve crashed at any time. I’m sure your coming down the stairs at that moment was just a coincidence.” By bending at the knee, he was able to squat and get a good grip on two different parts of the frame. “A lucky one, since you weren’t even hurt.”
He could feel Quill glaring at him, but he didn’t care. Nodding at Padget, who’d managed to grapple with the other side of the chandelier frame, he lifted at the same time as the butler. Bailey shuffled back a step at a time, bearing most of the weight. But he wouldn’t have been able to carry it at all by himself, so he was grateful for Padget’s help.
As they shifted the wreckage out the front door, Bailey hoped the rest of them wouldn’t tramp across all that broken glass in the foyer. Then he needed to focus on taking the broad stone steps backward and not stumbling while doing it. If he fell, the chandelier would drop on top of him, and that wouldn’t be pleasant.
Once on the ground, they carried it around the house and dumped the thing behind a storage shed separated from the mansion by an unfortunate distance. They did this with a lot of groaning and sighing, since no one was watching.
Massaging their backs along the way, the two of them walked to the back door in companionable silence. Until they were inside. There Padget turned to Bailey and jerked his head toward the front of the house. “There’s still a lot of glass to clean up.”
Bailey nodded and went to the cupboard under the back stairs where they kept cleaning equipment. But what he wanted wasn’t there. Taking a moment to consider, he went through the door to the back of the foyer and found Talia there with a broom, dustpan, and a large cardboard box. And not doing anything with them.
The maid saw him coming and sighed dramatically. “Finally. We want to get this taken care of the best we can before that lawyer, Mr. Dobson, arrives. So hop to it.” So saying she handed him the broom and dustpan, nodded at the empty box, and left.
He had swept a wide, clear path from the dining room door to the bottom of the staircase by the time Barbara and Stephanie re-emerged from their interrupted breakfast. Mrs. Keener ignored him, but the daughter paused as she passed, giving him a haughty look. “Apparently some of you believe my father’s ghost was responsible for this. That’s silly superstition—there are no such things as ghosts. I dare say you don’t know any better, but that kind of talk will not be tolerated.” Then with a toss of her head, she followed her mother in the direction of the parlor.
A little later, Elaine Keener and son Stanley descended and took care crossing the foyer to the dining room. They too ignored Bailey, but both seemed quite anxious as they headed to their morning meal. Clearly their nerves had been rattled. Whether that was from a guilty conscience, as Sam had hoped, or simple fright, there was no way to tell.
By the time Mr. Quill returned from his exercise of strolling around the grounds, Bailey had cleared a path from the main entrance to the staircase as well as one from there to the hall leading back to the parlor and the study. The surly CFO stopped and stood in the middle of the foyer to glare at him. “And just where were you yesterday evening? While we were in the dining room?”
Bailey knew what the abrupt question had to be about. “Before and during dinner, I was with Mrs. Trimble in the kitchen helping her prepare, and afterward too, for the washing up. Why?”
Quill snorted. “It seems everybody has an alibi. But somebody got into my room and my things.”
Affecting a look of concern, Bailey inquired further. “Was something missing, Mr. Quill?”
“No, I’m quite sure nothing was taken, but some of my stuff had been moved, and I’m sure somebody was looking through my papers.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Mr. Quill. It certainly wasn’t me. Maybe it was Mr. Keener’s ghost.”
The man pursed his lips and snorted again and continued to the stairs and went up. Then Talia returned. She watched him sweep up another load of glass fragments and heave them into the cardboard box with her toe tapping all the while.
When he started steadily sweeping up what still remained, she complained. “Can’t you get this done any faster?”
He grunted. “I could if I had some help.”
She sniffed. “I don’t do heavy work. You’re the one who was hired to do this kind of thing. I’ve got my own duties to attend to.”
“Then why aren’t you?”
She flounced off, and Bailey wondered where to and to do what. All he’d seen her do so far was take tea trays back and forth from the kitchen, help Mrs. Keener and the other Mrs. Keener unpack, and talk to Mrs. Trimble while she cooked. She had to occupy the rest of her time doing something.
Not long after, Mr. Oak came down, drowsy but in good cheer. He also paused to speak. “Morning, Bailey. I hope they’ve left some food for me.”
“I’m sure Mrs. Trimble has provided an impressive breakfast and enough for everybody, sir. By the way, Mr. Quill complained that his things had been disturbed during dinner. I hope you aren’t missing anything, sir.”
Oak shook his head. “No, no. I did notice some things had gotten shifted around, but that was likely the maid being nosy. I’ll take that up with her. Any idea when Mr. Dobson is to arrive?”
Bailey checked the time. “He called Padget just before the ferry left. It shouldn’t be long now.” He had hoped to get down to the boathouse to welcome the lawyer, but cleaning up the mess from the chandelier came first, so it didn’t look as if he would get the chance.
Having been hired by a proxy, Bailey had yet to meet the intriguing and elusive Mr. Dobson. But he should get a good look at the lawyer soon. According to the news reports, the authorities had found it difficult to track down Brandt Keener’s attorney in the days immediately following his client’s demise. And when they finally had gotten in touch with the man, he had apparently refused to divulge the contents of Keener’s will in a timely fashion. Anybody and everybody would have to wait.
Supposedly it was one of the stipulations of the will that the heirs would have to wait three weeks to learn what was in it. And it seemed as if the police would have to be even more patient. Without probable cause to get a warrant, they might have to wait until the will had entered probate to discover what it said. So, in this one instance, Bailey should find something out first, ahead of the contemporary authorities.
Before Oak could continue to the dining room, a shadow of a man was cast across the foyer. Then the man himself stepped in through the open front door. With the morning light behind the man, Bailey could make out no more than a figure carrying a garment bag, a small duffel, and a briefcase. But it had to be the lawyer.
Bailey stopped his sweeping and straightened. “Mr. Dobson, I presume.”
The man walked forward and became clearer to the eye. “I am Charles Dobson, esquire, yes.”
Getting a good look at the lawyer was a bit disappointing. His physical appearance was average, and he wore a modest brown suit that was respectable in a clean, middle-class way. He looked much more like a salesman than Bailey’s idea of an attorney. Not what Bailey had expected.
But then he saw those cold, calculating eyes appraising him, and he knew why many people of this time called lawyers sharks. Thankfully that chilling gaze moved past him to Mr. Oak, who had frozen in his tracks. “I’ll require your presence in the parlor, for the reading of the will.”
Mr. Dobson shifted his blank stare back to Bailey. “Tell Mr. Quill and Mr. Hope and the family to come as well. Padget, Talia, and Mrs. Trimble must be there too. Your presence is not required.”
And not desired, was the clear message. Bailey had expected that he wouldn’t be allowed in the parlor for the reading of the will. But Sam should have gotten herself set up by now, to get around that little problem.
Then he saw poor Oak give a swift, longing look toward the dining room and the breakfast he’d been headed toward, and he decided to help the man out. “Mr. Oak, I think Elaine Keener and her son are still in the dining room, eating their morning meal. Perhaps you should be the one to tell them Mr. Dobson has arrived, and that he’ll be waiting for them in the parlor? And Mrs. Trimble will be in the kitchen.”
The stout Oak nodded enthusiastically and trotted on with only a hesitant glance at the lawyer first. No doubt the man would take the opportunity to get a quick bite to eat. Or two or three, before he made his appearance in the parlor.
Bailey dumped the current contents of the dustpan into the box, then set pan and broom down beside it before returning his attention to the lawyer. “Mrs. Barbara and her daughter are already waiting in the parlor, sir. And I believe Mr. Quill and Hope are in their respective rooms upstairs. Why don’t I first go and let them know you’re here, then I’ll find Padget and Talia to tell them they’re wanted in the parlor. If that suits. Or should I show you the way to the parlor first?”
“No, you should not. I’m familiar with the way. What would suit me is if you stopped talking about what you need to do and hurry up and do it.”
Nodding and starting for the stairs, Bailey was thinking rapidly. It seemed that there would be bequests for the butler, the maid, and the cook. Even though Padget and Talia had only been in Brandt’s employ a short time. And Oak and Quill could possibly be needed to help handle the financial details, but they might also be beneficiaries.
As much as Bailey wanted to know what was going to be revealed in the parlor, he had no choice but to wait. And pray that Sam stayed undetected.