King of Murder (9 page)

A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

Herculeah stepped back. The only other hidden staircase she had been involved with had been at Dead Oaks. And there hadn't been any special knob to turn there. She had been hiding in an old dressing room, and she had pressed back against the wall and fallen into the staircase. These things were not made of steel.

She pulled back her leg. And like someone from a kung fu exhibition, she gave a mighty kick.

The wood splintered, and then, with a sigh, as if in surrender, the door revolved and opened.

Herculeah took in her first breath of decent air. It smelled faintly of dampness and mold, but it was better than what she had been breathing. She felt revived.

She lifted her candle into the opening. She saw a narrow flight of stairs leading down into the darkness.

Herculeah didn't hesitate. If Mathias King had not heard the draperies being ripped from the wall, he had certainly heard his precious door being kicked open.

Herculeah started down the stairs.

She had no idea where she was going, or what she would find at the bottom of the stairs, but anything was better than being at the mercy of the Murder King.

The stairs were steep, but Herculeah had always been sure-footed. Still, she resisted the impulse to take them two or three at a time. This was not the time to fall.

At the bottom of the stairs there was a small landing. A barred door blocked her way.

Curtains, doors, bars. Nothing was going to stop her.

She lifted the first bar and tossed it on the stairs. She threw the second bar after it.

She could smell fresh air, and she knew that this door led to the outside. She pushed. The door resisted. She pushed again, and this time the door yielded a few inches.

She could see two inches of daylight. She inhaled the sweet air of afternoon.

She could see now that this door had not been used in a long time—years, perhaps. Leaves and dirt had built up against it. She put her shoulder to it, and the door creaked open a few more inches.

One more shove, and she was out.

She paused. Now she was clearheaded, and she had her first thought worthy of a girl named Herculeah. She thought, Why didn't I think to bring the knife? It has the murderer's fingerprints on it. Now Mathias King has time to get rid of it.

From the top of the stairs came a faraway but plaintive cry. “Come back. Oh, my dear, please come back.”

“Yeah, right, come back and let you make a sacrifice out of me.”

Going back for the knife was not an option. Getting out of here as fast as possible was.

She ran around the house. She knew she could get to her bicycle before Mathias King could get down the stairs and out the front door.

She grabbed her bike on the run, kicked up the stand, and took off down the drive.

“Wait! Wait!” Mathias King called after her, but she was already on the street.

At the head of the stairs, Mathias King turned and went back into the Den of Iniquity. He took in the damage.

The velvet curtains had been pulled down with such force that there were tears from the hooks. The door, which had stood undamaged for a hundred and fifty years, was ruined. The mark of Herculeah's boot was indented deeply in the wood.

“Oh, my dear,” he said to the empty stairway. “The candles of tranquility didn't make you very tranquil, did they?”

And he went around the Den of Iniquity, blowing out the candles one by one.

Herculeah took the bike trail through the park on the way home. She took it because it was quicker, but also because she feared that Mathias King might try to follow her in the hearse.

When she got home, she put her bike in the garage and started up the steps.

The phone began to ring. She knew it would be Meat calling to find out how the afternoon had gone. She knew he would be watching from the front window, so she took her time opening the door and going inside.

When she picked up the phone, she was surprised to hear Gilda's voice.

“Oh, I'm so glad I got you,” Gilda said. “I just went by Rebecca's house and there was a SOLD sign in the yard. I called the realtor on my cell phone and guess what?”

“Gilda—”

“It's been bought by someone who's going to turn it into a bed-and-breakfast! Isn't that wonderful? Now it will be a happy house again with—”

“Gilda!” This time her voice was so forceful that Gilda stopped.

“Is anything wrong?”

“Yes, I'm just back from Mathias King's house.”

“You went there?”

Somehow Herculeah got the feeling Gilda wasn't that surprised.

“Yes. He's got a room called the Den of Iniquity, and in that room is the very knife that killed your friend.”

There was a silence that continued so long Herculeah said, “Are you still there?”

“Yes.”

“I was locked in the room with the knife and I had to break my way out. I was all the way outside before I realized that I should have brought the knife with me. Why did I leave it? Now Mathias King can get rid of it, and we have no proof he was the murderer.”

“We have to go back and get it.”

“No, he's in the house.”

“I'll call him on my cell phone and see if he's there.”

“I know the number,” Herculeah said. “I remember it from the invitation.”

She gave Gilda the number and waited while the phone rang on and on at One Kings Row.

“He's not there. This is our chance.”

“I don't know about this.”

“Can you get us inside the—what was it? Den of Iniquity.”

“If that outside door's still open.”

“Let's find out. I'm not far from your house. I'll pick you up.”

“I just need to leave a note for my mom.”

Herculeah wasn't sure this was a good idea, but she didn't have a better one. So when Gilda honked her horn, she ran out and got in the car.

They drove quickly to Mathias King's street with Herculeah pointing the way.

“You can't see the house from here,” Herculeah said at the entrance to Kings Row. “Park here and let's slip through the trees.”

They went through the trees together, keeping out of sight.

“The hearse is gone,” Herculeah said. “It was parked right there.”

“Then let's go.”

“But what if he moved the hearse, put it in a garage or something, and is in the house waiting for us?” Herculeah said.

“We'll take that chance.”

Herculeah had pretty much taken all the chances she wanted to for one day, but she led Gilda around the side of the house.

“The door's still open.”

“We're going to get that knife,” Gilda said.

As they walked toward the door, Herculeah said, “I don't understand why a house would have stairs leading outside.”

“Oh, it's not strange at all. Victorian gentlemen were very secretive—didn't want their wives to know their comings and goings. They'd go into the room, ask not to be disturbed, and go out carousing. You lead the way up the stairs.”

“The stairs are steep. Be careful.”

Herculeah wasn't as afraid with Gilda on her side. That woman was very strong. She had seen that in Tai Chi class.

The door at the head of the stairs was as Herculeah had left it. She slipped through and stepped over the fallen curtain. Gilda followed.

“Now, where's the knife? Where's the knife?” Gilda said.

“On the middle table.”

They walked to the table, and Gilda froze.

“That is the knife, isn't it?” Herculeah asked.

“It's the knife.”

She looked closely at Gilda. Gilda was very pale. It was as if all the blood had drained from her head.

“Are you all right? You look like you're going to faint. Don't faint, because I could never get you and the knife back down those stairs.”

Gilda didn't answer.

“We shouldn't have come. It's too much for you to see the actual knife—”

As if in a trance, Gilda stretched out her hand toward the knife.

“Don't pick it up,” Herculeah said.

But Gilda paid no attention to Herculeah's warning. Her hand hovered over the knife.

Herculeah said, “No! No! You'll mess up the fingerprints. You'll ruin everything.”

“Don't worry about that, Herculeah.”

Herculeah glanced around the tabletops, looking for something. She said, “We need to get something firm—this manuscript cover ought to do it. I'll slide this under the knife and the scarf. We won't even fold the scarf over the knife. We don't want to do anything that would erase Mathias King's print.”

“You don't have to worry about his prints.” “But that's the whole reason we're here—to get Mathias King's fingerprints on the knife.”

“You won't find Mathias King's prints on the knife.”

“Why?”

“Because the prints on the handle of the knife are not his.”

“Then whose?”

Gilda turned and looked at Herculeah. Her face was still pale, but in the vague light that filtered through the open doorway, her eyes burned with the intensity Herculeah had last seen in the library of the murder house.

It was as if a mask had slipped from her face, and Herculeah's blood froze at what was revealed.

“The fingerprints on the knife,” she said, “are mine.”

“Could you tell me what a hearse is doing in front of the Jones's house?”

“A hearse?”

Meat went to the window. You could count on this happening. You stood at the window staring at nothing for an hour, then you went to the refrigerator for ten or fifteen minutes and a hearse drove up.

“It was here the other day, too,” Meat's mother said as he joined her at the window. “A man got out—a very suspicious-looking man, I might add. He was all in black.”

“Mathias King,” Meat whispered.

“He went up the steps, dropped something in the mail slot, and left.”

“Has he gotten out of the hearse today?”

“He went up the steps, rang the bell, got no answer, and got back in the hearse. He's still there.”

Now Meat could see Mathias King's profile in the front seat of the hearse. He was staring straight ahead.

“I don't like it,” Meat's mother said. “It gives the street a bad name. It's as if the man's waiting for someone to die.”

“I'll find out what's going on,” Meat said.

“I'll go with you.”

“I'll do this myself.”

He spoke so manfully that his mother nodded. Meat went out the door alone, crossed the street, and rapped on the window.

Mathias King rolled down the window and stared up at Meat with his black eyes.

“What are you doing here?” Meat asked bluntly.

“I'm waiting for Herculeah.”

“Why?”

“Oh, dear. She was at my house for tea and I scared the girl. I didn't mean to. It was the last thing in the world I wanted to do. ”

Meat waited. He knew there was more.

“I get carried away. First I showed her the sacrificial altar. And I indicated—I didn't insist—I just indicated that I wanted her to get on it. I felt it would inspire me.”

“And that scared her, so she left.”

“There's more. Then we went in the Den of Iniquity, and I was explaining that she would be in my next mystery—she would be the next victim.”

“And that scared her, and she left.”

“There's more. Then I locked her in the Den of Iniquity.”

“And that scared her and she left.”

“Hurriedly,” Mathias King said. He sighed. “I have to apologize to the girl. I really carried the whole thing too far.”

“I agree.”

“I thought she might be home by now. Maybe she is and she just won't come to the door. Could you go up and try? She might open the door for you.”

“She's not home.”

“Where is she?”

“I don't know. A woman picked her up in her car about a half hour ago. They haven't come back.”

“A woman?”

“Yes.”

Mathias King's eyes sharpened. “What did she look like?”

“Well, I couldn't see much—she didn't get out of the car—but she had white hair, and it was cut sort of like a monk's.”

“Herculeah's in danger. Get in.”

“In the hearse?”

“Get in! You want to save your friend's life, don't you?”

“That would make up for a lot,” Meat admitted.

“Then get in!”

“Your fingerprints?” Herculeah asked. She didn't want to believe it, but the crazed look on Gilda's face made it true.

“Yes, my fingerprints.”

“Wait a minute. Are you saying your fingerprints are on the knife because ... because”—she could hardly get out the words—“because you killed her?”

“Yes.”

“You killed your friend.”

“Yes.”

“But why?”

“Do you remember when we were in Rebecca's house? When we were leaving, I said that only a person who was insane could kill someone like Rebecca.”

“I remember.”