Chapter Twelve

 

Following the midday meal, after Ben and Graham went off to meet with the two new guards Graham had hired, Serena produced a thin and much worn metal disc from her pocket.

“That’s the coin?” Diana regarded the object with skepticism. It was so smooth that she could barely make out the design.

“A silver groat, issued no later than 1399. Apparently, the experts can tell from the letter punches used to make the dies. And there is a mint signature. It’s English. That crowned head is supposed to be King Richard II. But coins from England were frequently found on the Scottish side of the border, so that doesn’t mean anything.”

Neither did finding the coin on Keep Island, Diana thought. It could have been lost here at any time before Min Somener found it. Perhaps it had been some coin collector’s lucky piece and that coin collector had been visiting Jedediah Somener. As proof of Serena’s colony, it seemed slim indeed. “Did Winthrop know about this?”

“I’m not certain. Min must have told him something, enough to convince him he’d been cheated when he found out that he wasn’t in her will. I didn’t know about that until you told me,” she added.

“Where, exactly, did Min Somener find the coin?”

“In the area where I am excavating, of course.”

“No luck finding more?”

“Not yet, and I should get back. I left George Amity working alone. He’s willing enough, but he’s had no training. I do not like to leave him there unsupervised.”

It occurred to Diana that no one had questioned George Amity about Paul Carstairs. The oversight was understandable. Amity kept to himself and didn’t say much. He was easy to overlook.

While Serena inspected the work her remaining crew member had done, Diana nodded to that cheerful little man. “Excavation going well?” she asked.

“Well enough. This archaeology stuff is some interestin’ once you get started. I like pokin’ around, lookin’ for things.” He rubbed his knobby knuckles to ease the swelling in the joints, perfectly willing to answer her questions.

Sadly, Amity had no new information to offer. He didn’t know Professor Winthrop. He hadn’t seen anyone tampering with the food, the Moxie bottles, or the diving suit. And he’d played cards with Paul Carstairs but had not been privy to the other man’s confidences.

“Don’t talk much,” was his laconic assessment of Carstairs.

“Do you know if he left the island the day Mr. Somener and Miss Dunbar went to Islesborough for their marriage license?”

“Might have done. He made himself scarce soon as they was gone.”

“What about the day before their wedding? After everyone returned from the funeral?”

“I can tell you that,” Serena cut in. “He wasn’t feeling well enough to work. He went straight to bed when we got back.”

“In fact,” Diana corrected her, “he went to Islesborough to buy a net.”

“Whatever for?”

“You didn’t order one?”

“I can’t think of any use we’d have at the excavation for a net.”

Another mystery, Diana thought. There were entirely too many of them! She’d have to ask Mrs. Monroe about that trip to Islesborough, since Carstairs had said he’d tagged along with her when she’d taken the sailboat and gone to visit a sick friend. She was about to return to the house and so when Serena caught her arm in a vise-like grip. She was staring at something out on the waters of Penobscot Bay.

“That’s Graham’s sailboat! The one Paul stole.”

“Where?” Diana caught only a glimpse of a boat passing out of sight beyond the point. She did not get a good look at it. “Was Carstairs aboard? Was Winthrop?”

“Two men. I couldn’t tell who they were, but I’m sure it was Graham’s boat. I’ve seen it often enough.”

“Is there anywhere to land on that side of the island?” Diana had a vague recollection of seeing it from the deck of the steamer from Bar Harbor to Islesborough. In her memory the shoreline did not look inviting.

“It’s mostly swamp backed up against more cliffs.”

“Is anyone guarding that part of the shoreline?”

“I doubt it. It would be all but impossible to get to the house from that direction. There’s no path.”

         Diana’s gaze skimmed across the high ground. The point of land jutted out into Penobscot Bay to form one side of the little cove. Just now the tide was high. The mouth of the cave Ben had shown her on the day of the dive was no longer visible. “Did you know there was a cave up there?” she asked Serena.

“No. Where?”

Diana pointed. “Ben and Graham played there as boys. It seems to me that if someone could climb that far, then they’d be able to reach the top of the ridge without much difficulty. It looks like it would be a scramble, but—”

Alarm flared in Serena’s eyes. “They could come over the ridge at low tide and reach the excavation site.”

A chill ran through Diana. “If they can get this far, they can also go up the path to the promontory and gain access to the house. If I were you, I’d be much more worried about that!”

* * * *

Ben had planned to be on board the Miss Min with Diana when the little steamer left Keep Island following her second daily stop. Graham had already agreed to alter Captain Cobb’s schedule once more, so that they’d reach Bucksport in time to catch the train back to Bangor. Everything changed when Diana and Serena came running up to the house with word that Lucien Winthrop and Paul Carstairs might have landed on the island.

The search for the intruders began at once and continued throughout the day. They located Graham’s sailboat easily enough, spotting it from the cliff top where it had been abandoned in the swamp. But of the men who’d come ashore, there was no sign.

They split up to search, each party armed. Ben, accompanied by MacDougall and his rifle, carried a pistol in his coat pocket, an old Army sidearm issued during the Civil War. Awkward and heavy as it was, Ben doubted it would be of much use, but it was better than nothing. He reached for it when he heard the crunch of boots on gravel. Someone was coming towards them along the path.

Signaling MacDougall to keep still, Ben pressed himself flat against a boulder. It jutted out far enough to conceal him. Quietly drawing in a breath, he steadied himself. To judge by the slow, uneven steps, it was Winthrop approaching, but old man or not, it would not do to underestimate him. If nothing else, he’d be armed with the cane he used as a walking stick.

It looked as if Serena had been right about Winthrop’s ability to move over rough terrain. To elude them this long, the fellow had to be half mountain goat. But he was slowing down now. Only to be expected. He’d been roaming Keep Island for more than five hours.

To Ben’s surprise, it was not Winthrop but Paul Carstairs who stepped out into the fading light, his thin frame picked out by the last rays of the sun as that golden orb disappeared behind the promontory above. Carstairs movements were awkward, as if he’d used up his last reserves of strength. He might well have done so. Carstairs had almost died of morphine poisoning only a fortnight ago, and that on top of a serious injury less than a year earlier.

Ben stepped out of concealment, pistol held steady in both hands. “Stop right there,” he ordered.

Carstairs gave a start, his eyes going wide. “What the—”

“Where’s Winthrop?”

“I—I don’t know.”

“You brought him here?”

“Well, yes, but—”

“Then we need to keep searching. MacDougall, tie Mr. Carstairs’s hands behind his back. Then go find Mr. Somener and tell him I’m taking our prisoner to the house to question him.”

“You’re making a mistake. Winthrop did it all. Everything.”

“Then why are you here?”

“He insisted I bring him. He ... did me a favor. I ... I didn’t know how to refuse.”

“You brought a man you know is a murderer back to the scene of the crime?”

“No! That is, he didn’t mean to kill anyone. I don’t think he did. And he’s not trying to hurt anyone now. He just wants the treasure.”

And then he fainted.

“MacDougall!” Ben bellowed.

Between the two of them, they got Carstairs’s limp form back to the house. Ben did a cursory examination while he was still unconscious, decided there was nothing seriously wrong with him, and made sure he was roped securely to a chair before he shoved a bottle of smelling salts under his nose. By then, Graham had arrived. Diana, who had remained indoors with Serena and Mrs. Monroe during the search, had already joined Ben in the library.

“Alright, Carstairs,” Ben said when the prisoner came around. “What’s this treasure you say Winthrop is after?”

Although he still looked dazed and sick, Carstairs seemed willing to cooperate. “That’s what he called it. I swear it. He doesn’t care about archaeological discoveries anymore. He thinks there’s something of great value buried on this island and he wants to find it so he can live comfortably in retirement for the rest of his life.”

“And does he know precisely where this treasure is?” Graham’s temper was barely leashed. He was almost as protective of his island, Ben thought, as he was of his wife.

“He has to find the map first. That’ll tell him. Min Somener’s map. She was supposed to leave her papers to him when she died but she willed them to Serena instead. That’s what he’s after. He thinks one of those papers is a map that will lead him to the treasure. To great riches.”

“He’s incoherent,” Graham said in disgust. “Babbling.”

“And he’s mistaken,” Diana said. “Or rather, Winthrop is. Serena has some diaries and an old coin, but no treasure map.”

“Where is Serena?” Ben asked. “I’d have thought she’d want to be here.” Even Mrs. Monroe had poked her head in when they first showed up with the unconscious Paul Carstairs.

“She had a headache and went to lie down. Shall I fetch her?”

“No, let her rest.” From the look Graham gave Carstairs, Ben suspected he did not want his new wife to witness what he might do to the miscreant. The guess was confirmed when Graham seized Carstairs by the throat and gave him a vicious shake. “Who did you plan to kill this time?” 

“I never killed anyone,” Carstairs gasped after Graham loosened his grip enough to allow him to answer.

“You had to have been the one who interfered with Frank Ennis’s equipment,” Ben said. “How much did Winthrop pay you to disrupt the excavation?”

“Are you mad? I didn’t even know Professor Winthrop was in the area until last week—the same day I saw you in Belfast.”

“Then you did it on your own?”

“No! No, that’s not what I meant.”

“Was the morphine in the Moxie?” Diana asked.

The startled look in Carstairs’s eyes could have been because the suggestion was so unexpected ... or because he was surprised Diana had figured it out.

“Look, you’ve got it all wrong.” Suddenly Carstairs sounded much more lucid. “You didn’t find morphine in my possessions, did you?”

Ben conceded the point. They had no proof he’d doctored the Moxie and poisoned himself and his colleagues, or that he’d tampered with the air hose. Neither did they have any proof that he had not. “How much did Winthrop pay you?”

“I wasn’t working for him!”

“Why did you steal Graham’s boat? Why did you leave?”

“I was afraid of just what’s happened—that you’d suspect me. I went to Winthrop because he was the only one who could help me find another job. And the old buzzard came through. I leave for Mexico in a week to excavate some newly-discovered pre-Columbian ruins on the Yucatan Peninsula.”

For a moment Ben almost believed him, but Graham wasn’t buying his story. He seized Carstairs by the hair and jerked his head back. “The truth, this time.”

“That is the truth!” Carstairs wasn’t faking his fear. Sweat beaded his forehead. He rolled his eyes in Ben’s direction in mute appeal.

“Let’s say we believe you.” Ben moved close enough to prevent Graham from taking any drastic action. “That doesn’t explain your presence here, now, with Winthrop.”

“I told you. I felt obliged to do him that one favor. I brought him over and I promised to wait and take him back, but he didn’t return. I was looking for him when I ran into you.”

“You’ve no idea where he is now?”

“None. Look, I know I shouldn’t have brought him. And I should have come straight here to warn you once I had. I wasn’t thinking. I ... I’m sorry.” There were tears in his eyes.

Disgusted, Graham released him. Carstairs sagged, bound though he was. In a barely audible voice he whispered, “Winthrop would have come here to the house, looking for the map. Are you sure Serena’s only sleeping?”

* * * *

Diana rapped lightly on the bedroom door but there was no answer. Louder knocking also went unheeded, so she turned the knob. Serena was not there. She was nowhere in the house.

The sun had been down for two hours by the time they had new search parties organized. With only the full moon and the light of lanterns to guide them, no one was optimistic about finding Serena before morning.

Graham was frantic. “Why would he do this? If he was after Min Somener’s map, why kidnap Serena?”

“Maybe she caught him searching for it,” Diana suggested, “and he took her with him as a hostage.”

“Why?” Ben asked. “Far easier to knock her out, or even kill her.”

“We’re missing something.” Diana glanced at Carstairs, still trussed up like a Christmas goose. He’d stopped cooperating and settled into a sullen silence after Graham punched him in the face in an effort to convince him to provide more information.

The searchers went out in short forays, reporting back to the house in between. George Amity stayed behind, armed with a rifle, to guard Diana and Mrs. Monroe and the prisoner. Diana would have liked to have a gun herself, but there were not enough to go around. She had to be satisfied with tucking a sharp little penknife into her pocket. It would be useless against a more serious weapon, but she nonetheless found its presence on her person a comfort.

It was after one in the morning when Landrigan spotted the body caught on the pilings of the steamboat wharf. Diana wanted to go with the men, but Ben forbade it. “Stay here where it’s safe,” he ordered. “Keep all the doors and windows locked. If Winthrop has murdered Serena, he won’t hesitate to kill again.”

Resigned, Diana obeyed. Leaving Amity on guard in the hallway, she returned to the library.

“You could let me go now,” Carstairs said. “It ought to be pretty clear I had nothing to do with this.”

“I think we’ll just hold on to you for a bit longer. There’s something about this whole affair that doesn’t make sense.”

In fact, there was quite a lot that seemed inexplicable. And there was one thing in particular that bothered her about Paul Carstairs. He kept glancing at the mantel clock. His eyes had darted in that direction at least a half dozen times in the short while she’d been in the room.

Diana prowled. She stopped at the shelf where Serena kept her books and was staring at it when she remembered something. The day she had left Ben and Graham to settle their differences with their fists, she’d found Serena reading in the library. She hadn’t put that book away on a shelf. She’d tucked it into one of the drawers in Graham’s desk.

A quick search revealed a leather-bound diary and a small metal box. Diana’s hands shook slightly as she pulled both out of the drawer. The bookmark in the diary took her to the page on which Min described finding the coin. There was no sketch of the location, but it was clearly near where Serena had been digging. Next she pried open the box. The silver groat nestled safely in a bed of soft blue velvet. So much for the theory that Serena had surprised Winthrop in the act of stealing her inheritance from Min Somener.

 Diana sent a suspicious glare in Carstairs’s direction. “Is it Serena’s body they’ve found or the professor’s?”

“I imagine it’s Winthrop’s. The tide would have washed him up about there.” Carstairs sounded so matter-of-fact that it took a moment for his words to sink in. When they did, shock held Diana both motionless and speechless ... until he began to laugh.

“Why did you kill him?” Although her question was barely audible, Carstairs heard her.

“He was slowing me down. Damned old fool. As if Min Somener had anything worth stealing! I threw him off a cliff.”

“Then Winthrop wasn’t behind this. It was you all along.” A stray connection came together. “You sent the telegram, the one telling me not to meddle.”

“That was a wasted effort,” Carstairs said in disgust.

“When you were in Belfast that day, did you meet with Winthrop?”

He sighed, as if in resignation. “You may as well know the whole story. I met him several times, starting weeks ago, before we came to Keep Island. He thought he was using me to get to the treasure. He was a fool! I was the one using him.”

“I think he suspected that. Why else would he have hired Justus Palmer?”

“I’m beholden to you for that information, Mrs. Spaulding. I’d never have known about the detective if you hadn’t told us he was on the case. The same day I sent that telegram to you, hoping to discourage you and Dr. Northcote from meddling further, I did pay a visit to Winthrop. I told him to call off Mr. Palmer.” He gave a rueful chuckle. “If I’d known Winthrop was planning to meet with you the very next day, I’d have put a stop to that, too. Unfortunately, he didn’t think the interview worth mentioning. He hadn’t made the connection, you see. He knew Benjamin Northcote was Somener’s oldest friend, and I told him Northcote had been on the island, but he didn’t realize that D. Spaulding was Dr. Northcote’s fiancée.”

“Where’s Serena?” Diana asked. Other explanations could wait. The more Carstairs confessed to, the more certain Diana became that Serena was in danger.

“I’ll tell you. Soon. Ask me another question first. I’m sure you must have dozens of them.”

Diana knew he was toying with her, but she couldn’t think of any way to force him to give her the one answer she really wanted. For the moment, she played along. “Whose idea was it for Winthrop to get Mrs. Monroe to intercept letters?”

“Mine. I wanted the island cut off. Somener thwarted my first plan by sailing to Belfast and sending a telegram to Dr. Northcote. We’d have recovered on our own. I didn’t use that much morphine.”

“Was it in the Moxie?”

“Why, yes, the last and largest dose. How clever of you to figure that out.”

“But I’m not the first to come to that conclusion, am I? Ennis must have guessed. That’s why he had to die.”

“My, you are putting the pieces together.” Carstairs grinned at her with what looked like approval. She found his attitude odious. He was basking in a sense of his own cleverness, the villain! “Frank was suspicious. I couldn’t risk having him interfere with my plans, so I got rid of him. Pity. I liked Frank.”

“What plans?” More than stopping the excavation, and nothing, she’d warrant, to do with Min Somener and some imagined treasure. “Why poison yourself and the others? You could all have died.”

“Exactly. And for that reason I would not be suspected when someone did die later.” Carstairs glanced at the clock again and Diana felt a pulse of fear. He was stalling for a reason. That couldn’t be good. She had the uneasy feeling Carstairs hadn’t been talking about Frank Ennis when he spoke of someone dying “later.”

“Where’s Serena?”

“Safe. For the moment.”

“What do you want?”

“Untie me and I’ll tell you.”

“Not a chance.”

“Time’s running out for Serena.”

“What do you have against her?”

“Not a thing. Graham Somener is the one I want to see suffer. The loss of his beloved new bride is a very just punishment for what he took from me.”

Diana stared at him. Finally, her sluggish brain produced the tidbit of information she needed to put the rest of the pieces of the puzzle together. “You had a twin sister who died,” she said slowly. “Her name was Edith Carstairs Alleyn. She was in the building when it collapsed. The building constructed by the firm of Somener and Law. And since she was a married woman, your name wouldn’t have been listed as next of kin.”

She could tell by the expression on Carstairs’s face that she’d got it right.

“There’s more. You were at Casa Grande early this year. That’s in Arizona, I believe. Did you go there to excavate, or to kill Vernon Law?”

“If my hands were free I would applaud you, Mrs. Spaulding. I did kill Vernon Law, and soon, very soon, my revenge will be complete.”

She followed his gaze to the clock.

“How can you justify hurting Serena? She has been your friend for years.” Just like Frank Ennis.

A sly expression came over Carstairs’s face. “I’ll strike a bargain with you, Mrs. Spaulding. If you untie me, I’ll tell you where Serena is. You might still be able to reach her in time. If you hurry.”

It was just past two o’clock in the morning. What—?

And then she had it. High tide that afternoon had occurred shortly after two. It would be coming in again now, covering the entrance to Ben’s “pirate cave,” drowning anyone who might be inside.

Diana felt her face blanch. The cave had been searched early in the hunt for Winthrop and Carstairs, but Carstairs knew this island well. He’d have been able to dispose of Winthrop, then creep into the house to steal away with Serena when she went upstairs to rest, all without being seen. He’d taken her to the cave after the searchers went elsewhere. He’d probably just left her there and been heading back to the sailboat when Ben had caught him.

“You’ve guessed, haven’t you?” Carstairs’s voice was low and taunting. Evil. “It won’t do you any good. You can’t possibly fetch the men back from the wharf in time to rescue her.”

“Then I guess it is up to me.”

“You’ll never succeed on your own. Untie me and I’ll help you.” He glanced at the clock again. “High water is at 2:43 A.M.”

If she released him, he’d be more likely to knock her on the head and take off than he would be to help her rescue Serena. Diana left him without a backward glance, stopping only long enough to warn Amity to keep an eye on the prisoner and to collect a lantern from the kitchen. With its light and that of the full moon to guide her, she raced through the gardens and across the meadow to the promontory.

Descending the narrow trail, she was in an agony of suspense, convinced that at any moment she would lose her footing and fall to her death. It was no solace being unable to see the jagged rocks below. Her imagination conjured them up as great stone spikes waiting to impale her.

Every turn in the twisting path was a new challenge and it did not help that Diana was perspiring heavily in the damp night air. Her bare hands—she’d been in too great a hurry to remember to don gloves—kept slipping off what few handholds she found.

Eons later, she arrived safely at the bottom.

She tried to run across the rock and pebble strewn beach, but the way was too treacherous. Stumbling and sliding, praying all the while that she could locate that other path, the one leading to the cave, she lurched onward until she reached the place where she thought the trail began.

At first she feared she would not be able to find her way without Ben’s help. Crashing waves drowned out her little sounds of distress as she flashed the lantern this way and that, seeking any sign of route to the cave. The spot had been shielded by a boulder. She remembered that much. But there were so many rocks, and all of them seemed huge.

And then she saw it—a faint ribbon picked out by moonlight. Unable to guess how much time she had left, Diana flung herself onto the narrow path.

Only a few yards along, she splashed through a pool of salt water. The puddle was deep enough to soak through her boots and dampen the hem of her skirt. She stepped into another and another as she raced along, for although the path wound upward, it also extended farther out towards the bay. The higher she went, the more shallow the encroaching water became, but that would not be the case for long. The tide was rising. She would not be able to retreat in this direction. She’d have to continue upward towards the ridgeline above.

Diana was panting by the time she reached the entrance to the cave. Water lapped at the face of the cliff only a few inches below her feet. Diana almost dropped the lantern in her rush to get inside. She was trembling uncontrollably. How fast did the tide come in? How long would it take to flood the interior of the cave?

“Serena?” Her voice came out as a hoarse croak. She called again more loudly.

No one answered. Had she been wrong? Straightening, since the interior of the sea cave was both higher and wider than its mouth, Diana held her lantern aloft. The fissure extended deep into the cliff, disappearing around a curve.

Moving as rapidly as she could, Diana followed one bend, then another, grateful there were no side passages to confuse matters. And then she saw it—the faint glow of lamplight.

The illumination silhouetted a fall of rock, revealing a narrow secondary passage beyond. Diana wondered if that section of the cave had been accessible when Ben was a boy. She suspected it had not. Even to her inexperienced eyes, there seemed to be signs of recent excavation.

Certain that this was where she would find Serena, Diana hurried towards the opening. She had to turn sideways to slip through and was glad she was wearing a divided shirt sans bustle. It was still a tight squeeze. She stumbled as she popped out on the other side, almost knocking over the lantern that had been left burning on the cave floor.

A series of muffled grunts greeted her arrival. Diana’s eyes widened in astonishment. The interior of the cavern had widened out again and extended upward to nearly double her height. At the far end a huge net had been attached to the rock formation that jutted out from the roof of the cave. Inside this suspended prison, bound and gagged but very obviously alive, lay Serena Dunbar.

With a cry of mingled relief and distress, Diana put her lantern down next to the one Carstairs must have left behind and pulled the penknife from her pocket. So this was what he had purchased from Pyram Hatch, netmaker! She thanked God when she saw that it was made of fine silk rather than heavy rope. Her knife, small as it was, was sharp enough to slice through it.

Once she’d sufficiently enlarged an opening, Diana reached inside and cut the bonds that bound Serena’s wrists. Carstairs had left her ankles free.

“We must hurry,” she said as Serena pulled the gag from her mouth. “The tide is coming in.”

To add to the urgency, one of the lanterns began to flicker, a sure indication that it was about to run out of fuel. But Serena, regaining her feet, did not follow Diana.

“There’s something here.” Seizing the lantern that still shone steady and bright, she crossed the cavern with long, determined strides.

To Diana’s horror, she was moving away from the entrance, stopping only when she reached a narrow ledge at shoulder level.

“Serena, there is no time for this!”

`”Only a moment. I must get a closer look.” Placing the lantern on the ledge, she began to dig with her bare hands at the section of the cave wall just above it. It was an awkward position from which to work. She had to reach above her head to get at the spot. “There’s been an earthquake, I think. It opened up passages that had been sealed off for decades, perhaps even centuries. Something manmade is here. An inscription, I think. I can’t quite—”

“We haven’t time for this, Serena!”

“I’ve almost uncovered it.” Serena’s excitement made her voice shrill and she was bouncing as much as balancing on her toes. “It’s a figure of some sort. My God, Diana! It may have been left by my settlers!”

“If it has been here that long, it can wait another day. We can’t. Come on!”

Diana seized Serena’s arm, hauling her bodily away from the ledge. She didn’t bother collecting Serena’s lantern. She had the other in her free hand. Her sense of imminent danger, and the prospect of certain death if they didn’t get a move on, gave her the strength to drag the other woman towards the mouth of the cave.

“Carstairs said high tide is at 2:43 AM. It’s almost that now.”

Finally perceiving the danger, Serena stopped struggling and began to cooperate.

They turned the last corner and the mouth of the cave came in sight.

Diana stared at it in horror. It was lower than the point where they stood. The slope was so gradual that she hadn’t realized on the way in that she’d been moving steadily upward.

“Oh, my God,” Serena whispered.

Water filled the entrance halfway to the top. A veritable lake separated the high ground on which they stood from the only exit. There was no way to escape, even if they reached the mouth of the cave. On the other side of that opening, the path no longer existed.

“We’re completely cut off,” Diana whispered.

Serena’s voice was equally hushed and fearful. “If we try to get out that way, we’ll end up in Penobscot Bay.”

“Can you swim?”

“It wouldn’t matter if I could. Even an expert swimmer wouldn’t survive. Anyone foolish enough to enter the water from here would be dashed against the cliffs by incoming waves.”

“I have no desire to be battered to death,” Diana said, “but neither do I relish the thought of drowning.”

Serena looked back the way they’d come, her expression thoughtful. “The cavern I was imprisoned in is higher ground.”

“You don’t think it will flood?” Diana scarcely dared hope that they still had a chance of survival.

“I think Carstairs believed it would.” Serena’s smile was sour. “What I believe is that we will probably be quite cold and possibly very wet before the night is over. But I do not think we will drown.”

With the ominous sound of crashing waves at their backs and the incoming tide lapping at their heels, they retreated. As they moved ever upward, Diana strove for optimism. She was not going to die in this cave. She had too much to live for.

“See there?” Serena pointed to the faint marks that indicated the water line.

Diana’s stomach lurched when she saw how high they were.

“I’d have drowned in that net,” Serena said, “but now we have a good chance of surviving. If we can climb up onto that little ledge, we will be above the level of the tide.”

Diana eyed the perch. The lantern Serena had left there revealed a narrow strip barely wide enough for them to stand side by side, assuming they could hoist themselves up there in the first place. The ledge was even with Serena’s shoulders and at eye level for Diana.

“We’ll manage,” Serena said cheerfully. “I’ll boost you up, then cut off a section of the netting and hand it to you. See there, where that rock sticks out? Anchor the silk around that and toss the end down to me. I can use it to climb up beside you.”

Grimly determined to live, Diana followed orders. It was a scramble. She acquired numerous scrapes, bruises, broken fingernails, and tears in her clothing but in the end they were both safely ensconced on the ledge before the incoming tide had climbed even halfway up the wall below. The net gave Diana something to hang onto, for which she was profoundly grateful. Her knees were so wobbly that she worried they might not be able to keep her upright.

“Excellent!” Serena, exhilarated by the success of her plan, grinned happily.

Diana couldn’t help but smile in return. They were going to survive. In just a few hours, the water would recede. They’d be cold and wet, but still alive.

A wave lapped at the wall inches below her toes and she shuddered. It was too close for comfort. “How long before the tide ebbs?”

“Long enough,” Serena informed her in a cheerful voice, “to finish uncovering what is on this wall.” 

* * * *

The Hammond Street Congregational Church was a red brick edifice with a single square tower that contained both a clock and a bell. Its steeple was painted white, its spire light gray. On Saturday, June 30, 1888, with family and friends filling the two straight blocks of pews cushioned with crimson plush, Diana Torrence Spaulding married Benjamin Northcote.

The sun shone through tall windows, making the rosewood pulpit gleam. It glinted off the gold ring studded with Maine tourmalines that Ben placed on Diana’s finger, sliding it easily into place in spite of her glove because she’d taken the precaution of splitting the seam on her ring finger.

She was determined that everything about this day should run smoothly.

When they turned to walk down the aisle as husband and wife, Diana’s happiness knew no bounds. To be married was wonderful, a joy increased by sharing it with the assembled well-wishers. So many of them had traveled great distances to be with them on this special day. All her mother’s family had come. Elmira, after a stern lecture from her daughter—and a few threats—had been persuaded to be civil to them. Elmira and Ed Leeves sat with Elmira’s two brothers and with Isaac and Janette Torrence. Horatio Foxe was beside Maggie Northcote, resplendent in one of her more outrageous gowns. Justus Palmer had sent word that he was unable to attend the wedding but would arrive before the end of the reception. Maggie, of course, insisted that this was because he was a vampire and couldn’t come out until after sunset.

Diana’s theatrical friends were in the congregation, too, along with her former landlady. So were Serena and Graham. Serena’s smile was almost as wide as Diana’s. In fact, Diana didn’t think the other woman had stopped grinning since they’d emerged from the cave.

What they’d uncovered on the rock face had turned out to be a primitive version of a memorial brass. Some sort of punch, Serena claimed, had been used to create it, and by drawing chalk lines between the indentations, one could clearly see the figure of a woman dressed in medieval garb.

Beneath the figure was an inscription in Latin. Translated it read: “Cursed be he who disturbs my bones.”

    The piece Diana had written for the Independent Intelligencer, her last as an employee of that newspaper, had carried the headline LETHAL LEGEND OF KEEP ISLAND EXPOSED. In fact the inscription was not all that unusual for the times. William Shakespeare had put something similar on his tomb. It was pure speculation that something had happened after the lady’s death to make it seem that the curse had power. The details were lost in the mists of time, but Diana was convinced that Serena and Ben had been right. The woman had died of some European illness unknown in America and it had spread among the native peoples, creating the legend that Keep Island was cursed.

Whatever had happened, it had been a long time ago. The island had not brought ill luck to Serena or to Diana. The only one who was not happy on her wedding day was Paul Carstairs. He was in jail awaiting trial for the murders of Vernon Law, Frank Ennis, and Lucien Winthrop.

When Diana and Ben left the church, they were transported in a hired brougham to the Northcote mansion for the reception. The next hours passed with incredible swiftness. Diana renewed old acquaintances and met new ones,  and through it all gave thanks that there were no explosions between members of her family. For once, everyone genuinely seemed to get along. She doubted the truce would last, but she was grateful for the respite.

“Where are you going on your wedding journey?” Horatio Foxe asked, red-faced and jovial after a liberal sampling of a bowl of punch to which “medicinal” brandy had been added.

“To England first,” Diana told him, “and then on to the Continent. Ben has research to do and so do I.”

“You’re really leaving me?”

“There is no shortage of journalists, and I have made my decision. I am going to write biographies of women, beginning with a distant family connection.” She reached out to Ben as he came up beside her, squeezing his hand. “Wish me luck, Horatio. I am going in search of an ancestor named Rosamond and the Elizabethan gentlewoman who raised her.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Note from the Author

 

Rosamond and the Elizabethan gentlewoman who raised her are, of course, Rosamond and Susanna Appleton from my sixteenth-century Face Down Mystery Series. This family connection, introduced in Deadlier than the Pen, seemed logical to me. My two sleuths have a great deal in common for all that they lived in very different centuries.

Many people were generous in helping me research this book. In particular I’d like to acknowledge Dana Cameron, archaeologist and mystery writer, Michele L. Brann of Reference Services at the Maine State Library, Linda Graf at the Islesboro Public Library, and Rowland (Bunny) Logan of the Islesboro Historical Society. 

There is no real Keep Island, but all the other towns, cities, and islands are real. Similarly, the names of town, city, and county officials and local business people are taken from history wherever possible. If photographs or portraits were available, I’ve attempted to describe these individuals accurately. For those whose descriptions have not survived, I used a gentle application of poetic license. Any errors in presenting people or places on Islesborough (now spelled Islesboro), or in Bangor, Belfast, Bucksport, or Ellsworth, are mine.

The story of Henry Sinclair’s discovery of America is speculative history. It could have happened. The books and authors mentioned in the text are real, as are their arguments about whether or not the expedition really took place. The theory that Sinclair later sent colonists to the New World and that they ended up shipwrecked on Keep Island is my own invention.

The phases of the moon and times of high tide are as accurate as I could make them, thanks to the 1888 Farmer’s Almanac. I have also tried to adhere to extant steamboat and railroad timetables, but in order to avoid stranding my characters halfway to their destination for hours, even days, I made up the Miss Min.

More information about the Diana Spaulding Mysteries, including a bibliography of all my sources, can be found at www.kathylynnemerson.com

 

 

Books in the Diana Spaulding 1888 Quartet

 

Deadlier than the Pen

Fatal as a Fallen Woman

No Mortal Reason

Lethal Legend

 

 

 

Copyright 2008 by Kathy Lynn Emerson

Originally published by Pemberley Press [978-0977191352]

Electronically published by Belgrave House in 2012

 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

 

No portion of this ebook may be reprinted in whole or in part, by printing, faxing, E-mail, copying electronically or by any other means without permission of the publisher. For more information, contact Belgrave House, 190 Belgrave Avenue, San

Francisco, CA 94117-4228

 

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This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.