Chapter 50

“I can never bring you to realize the importance of sleeves, the suggestiveness of thumb-nails, or the great issues that may hang from a boot-lace.”

-Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, A Case of Identity

Grace Dunbar smiled at Dodd. I saw her eyes squint. This time it was a true smile, the kind Morgan had described. I knew we were done for.

Dodd’s left arm circled her waist. Their hips and shoulders touched. It was them-against-us, and they exuded triumph. And why not? They were holding all the cards.

The big timbered room was lit only with the golden glow from the kerosene lamp Grace Dunbar had carried in. At the edges of the soft light, deep shadows morphed into complete blackness. My heart sank and my hope circled the drain behind it. Morgan was dead. Impossible yet true. And no one else knew we were here. They were going to kill us too. And when those dark shadows engulfed Tom and Philip and me, no one would know we were gone. Would they kill Wolfie too?

“It’s a good thing you called me,” Dodd told Grace Dunbar. “It’ll take both of us to clean up this mess. What the hell happened?”

“Wouldn’t you know that’s the same Chicago cop from the Dowager’s case? I couldn’t believe it. He recognized me, so I had to shoot him.”

I gently lowered Morgan’s head to the floor and at the same time palmed the little video camcorder. It was still recording. I stood up. My legs were shaky, but I wanted to be on my feet. I felt sick. I turned to Tom and sunk my head on his chest as I dropped the camcorder into his shirt pocket. I whispered in his ear, “camera.”

“Why did you have to kill Mrs. Toller?” Tom asked them as I backed away.

Grace Dunbar didn’t look at all like a nurse now. She looked more like a medieval Italian Borgia, intent on destroying anyone in her path. She ignored Tom and stepped out of Dodd’s embrace. “What are we going to do with them now?”

Dodd laughed. “There’s so many abandoned wells on this property, nobody will ever find them.”

“Keep an eye on that dog, James. He keeps growling at me. He’s the biggest threat here.”

Dodd pointed his 9 MM at Tom. “If the dog makes a move toward me or her, I’ll shoot you right between the eyes, and she’ll shoot the dog.”

Tom took a step forward, comprehension dawning on his face. “It was you. You’re the one who pushed me down the stairs and took the diary.”

“Get back there with the others,” Dodd ordered.

Tom and Wolfie, who was sticking to Tom like glue, moved back a few paces.

“It had to be you,” I accused Dodd.

“Of course it was. I don’t mind telling you, now that you won’t be able to do any more damage. Who else could it have been? Green here? Never. He’s an academic -all scholar and no action. James Turner, the pretender? It’s not in his nature to take any initiative. He waits and lets things happen. Ivy? Never. She’s too concerned with whatever society dinner she’s attending. I was never even a suspect. I counted on that.”

“But why did you take it?” Tom asked him. “I was going to give it to you.”

“I couldn’t take any chances. That diary might have revealed something more about the assets of the estate than I wanted known.”

Ah, follow the money! “So you’ve been systematically pillaging the assets of the estate,” I accused him.

“So the famous investigator finally sees the light! And having Nurse here as Foundation Director was a bonus. It meant we could work things from both ends.”

“Both ends? What do you mean?”

“We’ve already sold some of the acreage here and cashed in on some of the estate treasures that I conveniently didn’t include in the inventory,” Dodd boasted.

“Did you murder the Dowager?” I asked Grace Dunbar.

Grace Dunbar - also known as Nurse Holder - pursed her lips. “I had to,” she said. “We got tired of waiting for her to die of natural causes. She kept hanging on. A little push, and whoosh, down she went.”

“And then too, she was getting suspicious,” Dodd added. “She might have asked for an independent audit of the estate. I couldn’t allow that to happen.”

I realized they both were greedy, cruel and back -stabbing, like the Borgias, murdering their benefactor.

I pointed at Dodd. “And you were the one who murdered Mrs. Toller.”

“The light dawns again. Who else but me? I told you I’m above suspicion. It was so easy, too.”

This must be what Auntie meant about evil doers. “But why?”

“She was a threat. She saw too much and she loved to talk. I couldn’t be sure how much she knew, but when I saw her cozying up to you, she had to go.”

“Do you know what you’ve got with that diary?” Tom asked.

“All I’m interested in is the cash,” Dodd answered. “I don’t give a damn about Grange’s diary or his books - except insofar as that diary could mention things no longer in the collection - stuff I’ve already sold. That would have triggered an investigation which could be a problem.”

Grace Dunbar stared at Dodd. Her face was florid. “James, I think maybe they’re right. You don’t know what you actually have. Did you closely examine everything you took from the library safe?”

“Of course I did.”

“Didn’t you see this manuscript they’re after?”

“I saw it. So what? All we were interested in were the bonds. And we have them. Who cares about a manuscript? What’s the big deal? We can’t sell it on the open market.”

Grace Dunbar shook her head at Dodd. “I suppose you didn’t actually read through that diary either?” she asked.

“What for? As long as we have it, it can’t present a problem.”

“Honestly James, you have college degrees, but only time will tell whether you ever get real smarts,” Grace Dunbar shot back. “That diary led these people to a valuable Conan Doyle manuscript that wasn’t on the inventory. If you’d have read the damn diary or took the trouble to inspect the manuscript, we could have handled this another way. Tell me,” she asked Tom and Philip Green, “what is that manuscript worth?”

I hoped Tom and Philip would answer and distract our two captors. Maybe they’d relax their vigil so I could try something - anything - to get us out of this. Statistically speaking, I realized we were in a negative hole. Normal odds of us getting murdered were 1 in 18,000. But we were trapped in a remote log cabin with three guns turned on us by proven killers. I estimated the odds were now 2 to 1 against us.

Tom cocked his head. “I’d say anywhere from $200,000 to $300,000.”

“Higher,” Philip argued. “True, it’s not a Sherlock Holmes story, but it was Doyle’s favorite book. This is indeed a rare find.”

“I concede that it might be somewhat higher because fewer major Doyle manuscripts are available these days outside of institutions,” Tom agreed. “You also have to take into account that even with the sagging economy, there are more billionaires on the planet than ever before, so I’ll up my estimate to $300 to $500 thousand. That would not be outrageous,” he estimated.

“And he didn’t even know he had the manuscript,” Philip Green slapped the side of his head and wailed, looking downcast and showing a pang of collector’s envy.

“Or the Doyle Notes,” Tom said under his breath, evincing the same pangs.

“Shut up,” Dodd ordered. “And keep that dog quiet! Now Grace, let’s clean up your mess here.”

“It’s not my mess, James. It’s yours. That’s what I’ve been trying to say. If you’d taken a real look at what you found with those bonds, you could have put the damn thing back in the safe, and we’d have avoided all this.”

Dodd smiled thinly. “Well then it’s a good thing I hired you so you were here to handle things like this. I’m indeed a lucky man. Now let’s stop quarreling. Once we get rid of these three, no one else knows anything.”