Last Puzzle & Testament (37 page)

“Okay, let’s find the stairs to the attic.”

“I don’t get it,” Sherry said, as they went up the circular front stairs.

“Don’t get what?”

“If the heirs were doing this, it would be a stampede. They’d all be finding the clues at the same time.”

“That’s the purpose of the crossword puzzle,” Cora said. “It sends them off on a false scent. Only the smartest ones figure it out and come back.”

“That’s your theory?”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“A lot of things.” Sherry stopped in the second-floor hallway, shone her light. “Okay, the staircase does not continue, and the stairs to the third floor are not readily apparent, so they must be down here.”

Sherry set off down the hallway, with Cora trailing behind.

“Wha">ȁt’s wrong with my idea?” Cora persisted.

“Ah, here we are,” Sherry said. Her light illuminated a narrow staircase at the end of the hall. “The problem with your idea is if the crossword puzzle was just to throw the heirs off the scent, why four sections? One section is enough. If all she wants to do is send ’em away so the smart ones come back, why send ’em all over creation? Why go to the trouble of planting the other three quadrants, which couldn’t have been easy for a woman in her condition?”

“Someone did it for her.”

“Even so, why do it at all? Okay,” Sherry said, shining the light around the hallway. “This is not the attic, this is the third floor. Probably for servants. Now, unless the attic is an adjunct on one end, we’re looking for another set of stairs.”

“Or a ladder,” Cora said.

“True,” Sherry said. “Though this is not the type of house where you’d expect to find a pull-down ladder.”

Sherry shone the light down the hallway, began pulling open doors. “You see my point,” she said. “If all she wants to do is get ’em out of here, why bother to plant the other puzzle pieces?”

“Because Alan Alda’s in the third one.”

“What?”

“Alan Alda doesn’t show up until the third quadrant, and that’s the one that tells you it’s a fake.”

“Oh, yeah? What about the Woody Allen quote in the second quadrant? That tells you it’s a fake too.”

Cora shook her head. “No, it doesn’t. You only know it’s Woody Allen because I told you. His name’s not in the clue or the answer. You can solve the puzzle just fine without knowing that. The tipoff is Alan Alda. That’s what sends ’em back.”

“Big deal. If there’s no second quadrant, they’ll come back anyway.”

“Yeah,” Cora said, “but they’ll come back
grousing.
Telling ’em the puzzle’s wrong makes ’em come back
looking
.”

“It’s a theory. I’m not sure I like it.” Sherry pulled open a door. “Ah, here we go.”

A narrow staircase led up into more darkness.

“Light switch on the wall,” Cora told her. “You wanna risk it?”

“Let me check it out first.”

“I’ll do it,” Cora said.

“You did the cellar. This one’s mine.”

Sherry went up the narnt up throw stairs, darting her light ahead of her. At the top she emerged through a rectangular hole in the attic floor. Before stepping off the stairs, Sherry shone the light and discovered the floor was unfinished. Some of it was covered with planks and sheets of plywood, but at least half of it was just two-by-four studs holding the insulation and Sheetrock from the ceiling below.

Negotiating the attic would be even trickier than the basement.

Sherry waved the light around the walls, which were sharply pitched from the slant of the roof. The attic was very long, apparently running the length of the house, and relatively wide. Sherry’s flashlight couldn’t begin to reach into the recesses of it without her stepping on the boards, which she was reluctant to do. She scanned the walls for windows, saw none.

The musty odor Sherry had noticed on entering the attic seemed stronger on not finding a window. Sherry shuddered. Told herself she was being foolish.

She turned, called down to Cora, “It looks okay. Try the light.”

Cora threw the switch.

The lights blazed. Half a dozen naked bulbs hanging on cords running the length of the attic.

The lights lit up what the flashlight had not revealed. The attic was clearly a storage area. Off to the sides, on planks and plywood sheets, were piles of boxes covered with drop cloths. An occasional item poked out or stood off to one side. A baby carriage. A croquet set. A gramophone.

“Well, look at that,” Cora said, pointing. “An old Victrola. I bet there’s a fortune here in antiques.”

“You wanna stop and look?” Sherry said sarcastically.

“Another time. Right now I wanna see where the light comes from the sky.”

“You can’t see it from here. I think we’re going to have to negotiate walking on these boards.”

“No problem,” Cora said.

“Oh?”

“Whoever planted the clues did it just fine.”

Cora stepped out on the boards near the stairs. They creaked a little, but were steady underfoot. Cora set off down the attic.

Sherry looked where her aunt had just walked. The boards were covered with dust, and Cora’s footprints left a trail across the attic. There was clearly nothing else that fresh. But was that a faint trail next to Cora’s prints? Sherry couldn’t tell. She grimaced, hurried after her aunt.

Cora went by a pile of boxes, said, “Aha!”

Sherry crept up beside her and looked.

There was a gable in the wall of the attic with a window in it. Planks nailed across the two-by-fours formed a three-foot-wide path to the window.

“Careful, don’t push me off,” Cora said as they made their way across.

“As if I could even keep up,” Sherry grumbled.

They reached the window. It was a small wood-framed, sliding window, with two panes on the bottom and two on the top.

“Okay,” Cora said. “This has to be where the light meets the sky or whatever that was, so where’s the clue?”

On top of the window was a small roller blind. Sherry reached up, jerked it down.

There written on the blind was:

#4.

Where, oh, where
Is the secret stair?
You might
Ask the knight

Cora Felton grabbed Sherry’s arm.

“Sherry! Look!”

“I see.”

“Secret
stair!
”

“You’re squeezing my arm.”

“Oh. Sorry. But we might ask the knight. That’s gotta be the guy in the foyer, doesn’t it?”

“Guy?”

“Sherry, don’t be a nudge. It’s the armor! The suit of armor! Come on! Come on!
Secret stair!
”

Cora Felton practically dragged Sherry back down to the foyer.

“Okay,” Cora said, breathing hard. “So where’s the stair? I might ask the knight, but he’s not talking, is he?”

Cora went up to the suit of armor. The helmet had a visor. Cora reached up, and lifted the visor.

Nothing happened.

Cora refused to believe this, waited several seconds for a result.

“What’s supporting the battle-ax?” Sherry asked.

Cora looked. The knight’s right arm was bent, the chain mail glove holding up the frightening ax.

Sherry pointed. “I mean, it’s not like the ax had a long handle resting on the floor. That arm’s holding it up. If the armor’s hollow, how can that be?”

“Let’s find out,” Cora said. She reached up, pulled down on the hand with the ax.

The right arm of the suit of armor swung slowly down.

There came the metallic clang of a bolt releasing.

A wood panel in the wall next to the knight swung open.

“
Sherry!
”

“I see it. I see it.”

“Come on! Come on!”

Cora Felton had already pushed through the opening. Sherry followed, found herself in a narrow passageway running along the wall toward the back of the house.

“Slow down, you’ll miss something,” Sherry said.

“Slow, hell!” Cora said. “Where’s the stair?”

Cora forged ahead, reached a wall where the passageway turned left. Cora squeezed around the turn, plunged ahead.

Sherry followed at a more conservative pace. There were spiderwebs overhead, and there was dust on the floor. Shining the light, Sherry could see Cora’s footprints in the dust. As in the attic, theirs were the only recent footprints.

Sherry tried to let that thought calm her.

“Look!”

Cora Felton had reached a small spiral staircase. The metal treads twisted around up into the dark.

“Okay,” Sherry said. “You found your secret stair. Now, is there anything at the bottom?”

There wasn’t. Not that Cora was willing to search long, but a swift perusal with the flashlights showed there was nothing there.

“Let’s go,” Cora said, and flung herself onto the spiral staircase.

The metal swayed under her weight, but the stairs held. Cora grabbed the center pole, and clomped on up.

“Could you make a little more noise?” Sherry said.

“Hey, give me a break. There’s no one here, and we’re in the wall. Come on.”

Cora spiraled around to the second floor, stepped off the stairs, and found herself in a room not much bigger than a phone booth. She scrunched her shoulders, shone the flashlight.

Her eyes widened.

“Sherry! Look!”

Sherry Carter came up the stairs and squeezed in next to her aunt.

Cora’s flashlight lit up an eight-by-ten photograph taped to the wall. It was a head shot of an emaciated old lady with stringy white hair, dressed in a nightgown and propped up in bed. She looked like a creature from hell. Her eyes were sunk in their sockets, and yet they seemed to glow. And her smile was positively wicked. It was a devilish smile, crinkling the wizened remains of what had undoubtedly bendoubteden at one time a solid, bulldog jaw.

It was also a knowing smile.

The smile of someone enjoying a private joke.

“Emma Hurley,” Sherry murmured.

“Gotta be,” Cora agreed. “But what’s she laughing at?”

“And what’s she looking at?” Sherry countered.

“What do you mean?”

Sherry turned, shone her light at the opposite wall. There, directly in line with Emma Hurley’s photo, was written:

#5.

See your buddy
In the study

“Who’s our buddy?” Sherry asked.

“Who cares?” Cora replied. “Let’s get out of here.”

Cora shone her light, found a metal lever in the wall. She pulled it, and the wall swung out. Immediately ahead was another door. Cora pushed, and it swung open.

Cora and Sherry came out into the upstairs hallway.

“Where are we?” Cora said. “No, more to the point, where
were
we?”

Cora looked back, saw that they had just emerged from a linen closet. She reached in, pushed the wall with the shelves of sheets and towels until it clicked back into place.

Cora closed the closet door, then flashed her light on the door across the hall. “Is that the master bedroom?”

“I think so. I’m a little disoriented from being in the wall. Come on, let’s find the study.”

“Wouldn’t that be on the ground floor?”

“I should think so.”

“Wanna go down the secret stair?”

“Not on your life.”

They located the study just off the dining room. Their flashlights lit up a massive oak desk, a leather chair, and bookcases built into the walls.

“This must be the study,” Cora said.

“Unless it’s the library,” Sherry pointed out.

“Maybe it is,” Cora said. “But it’s really the same thing.”

“Then why call it the study?it the s”

“She probably couldn’t rhyme library,” Cora said promptly. “Okay, that’s the front window, so we don’t dare risk a light. Gimme a hand. Let’s check out the desk drawers.”

“You really think she used the drawers again? I mean, there’s a lot of places to hide something here.”

“I think she’ll stick to the tried and true. Give me a hand, and—” Cora stopped, put her finger to her lips.

“What is it?” Sherry whispered.

“Kill the light.”

Sherry clicked the flashlight off. Her aunt had already extinguished hers.

Cora grabbed her by the arm, squeezed. Hard.

Sherry tensed, cocked her head, listened.

A board creaked.

Then another.

Sherry grabbed her aunt’s arm, squeezed back. As she did, she realized Cora was fumbling in her purse. In the dim moonlight filtering through the window Sherry could see Cora’s hand clear the purse with something in it.

A gun.

Her aunt had a gun.

Sherry felt a sudden pang of guilt.

Because she was glad.

Because the footsteps in the hallway were either an heir, or a killer, or both.

Probably both.

Sherry held her breath, stayed still, flattened against the wall, heart thumping wildly.

The footsteps drew nearer to the study door, which they had left ajar.

The door creaked open.

A flashlight beam played around the room.

A figure stepped through the doorway.

“Hold it right there!” Cora thundered.

With a cry, the intruder dropped the light. It fell to the floor and went out, plunging the room into darkness.

“Oh, no you don’t!” Cora Felton bellowed.

Sherry Carter clicked on her flashlight … to find her aunt jamming her gun into the intruder’s stomach.

Becky Baldwin.