Миранда Джеймс - Fixing To Die

After a moment Mary Turner nodded. “Okay, then, I guess you can stay for a few days. The rooms in the annex are clean, so you can all stay there.”

“No, I want to stay in the house,” Nathan said. “I want to stay in my great-grandmother’s room. The contents belong to me by right, no matter what you say.”

“Miss An’gel has the French room,” Mary Turner said, “so you will have to stay in another room.”

An’gel foresaw a prolonged argument over the room, and she decided that, peeved as she was over Gamble’s behavior, the simplest thing to do would be to let him have the room. There was another bedroom upstairs unoccupied that she could take.

When Nathan started to object, An’gel interrupted him. “Mary Turner, it’s quite all right with me. I haven’t unpacked, so it’s easy for me to move to another room. I did, however, take a short rest in the bed, so it will need to be remade with fresh linen.”

Mary Turner looked as if she wanted to override An’gel’s offer, but a stern glance from An’gel quelled her. Instead she said, “Very well, Miss An’gel. If you’ll come up with me now, I’ll help you move your things to the room on the other side of Miss Dickce.”

An’gel rose to go with Mary Turner, and Dickce rose also. “I’m coming with you,” she said with a bright smile to the others. “I’m sure y’all will excuse us while we take care of this.”

Gamble said, “Sure thing,” and Wilbanks and Serenity nodded.

Mary Turner shut the door to the parlor behind them once An’gel and Dickce had followed her into the hallway. She leaned against the door for a moment. “I’m so sorry about this, Miss An’gel,” she said. “It’s very kind of you to give up your room this way. Nathan is always determined to get his way, and he’s got an obsession with that room. He’s convinced the will is somewhere in the room, despite the fact that it’s been gone over many times and nothing has ever turned up.”

“The problem with an obsession,” An’gel said, “is that the person obsessed tends to lose his sense of proportion and his ability to see things objectively. Nathan apparently is desperate to believe the will still exists, so therefore he is sure it will be found.”

“Sounds a bit like Heinrich Schliemann,” Dickce said.

“I’d hardly equate this with the discovery of Troy or Mycenae,” An’gel said.

“Of course not,” Dickce retorted. “It was simply an observation.”

Mary Turner smiled. “The French room contains some valuable antiques, though. Maybe we ought to sell them and redo the room to match the others. Get rid of the reason for the obsession once and for all.” She headed to the stairs and began to climb.

An’gel said, “Now that would be a shame, though you’re correct about the value of pieces in that room. There’s a small fortune in there, and if you ever really needed the money, I don’t think anyone could blame you for selling the things.”

“Nathan would blame me,” Mary Turner said, “but he has no legal claim on anything in this house, no matter what he thinks.”

“Do you think he wants the contents of the room in order to sell them?” Dickce asked as they stepped onto the upstairs landing. “Or does he want them because he thinks they’re rightfully his?”

“Nathan loves money more than anything,” Mary Turner replied. “I’m sure you saw the clothes he’s wearing. He can afford new clothes, but he wears things until they’re practically in tatters because he can’t bear to part with the money.”

“You mean he would probably put the things from the French room in his home so he could sit there and gloat over them?” An’gel asked.

“Yes,” Mary Turner said. “Silas Marner, but without many of the redeeming qualities.” She opened the door to the French room but stood aside to let the sisters enter first.

An’gel had been apprehensive over what they might see, but a quick survey assured her that everything was as she had left it.

“Everything looks fine to me,” Dickce said.

“Yes, thank goodness,” An’gel replied.

“What made you think it might not be?” Mary Turner asked.

An’gel told her young hostess about the items that seemed to have moved on their own, and Mary Turner grimaced.

“I hope you weren’t frightened by this,” she said. “Frankly, though, I’m almost glad it happened, so you don’t think I’ve been imagining things. It’s a relief to know that someone besides me has seen it.”

“What about Henry Howard?” An’gel asked. “Surely he has witnessed this, too.”

Mary Turner shook her head. “Not in this room. He never—well, almost never—comes in here. I’m the one who has been treated to the moving objects show.”

“And this only started recently?” Dickce asked.

“Well, no,” Mary Turner said, then seemed reluctant to continue.

“My dear, both Sister and I suspect that you haven’t told us quite everything yet,” An’gel said kindly. “We do want to help you, but you have to tell us the whole story if we’re going to accomplish anything.”

Mary Turner sank into the armchair near the window. She threw up her hands in a gesture that was half surrender, half apology. She let her hands fall into her lap.

“Okay, then, the whole story is that weird things have been happening in this room for years. I didn’t become aware of it, though, until about a year after Henry Howard and I got married and came here to take over running the bed-and-breakfast after my parents died.”

“Did your parents ever say anything about strange activities in here?” Dickce asked.

“Not that I can recall,” Mary Turner said. “But Daddy and Mother were always the kind of parents who thought their little girl shouldn’t know about anything bad that was going on.” Her eyes suddenly pooled with tears. “Like Mother’s cancer or Daddy’s heart problems. By the time I found out how sick they both were, it was too late for me to do anything but come home to make the funeral arrangements.”

“Oh, my dear,” An’gel said, “I had no idea. I’m so sorry.”

“Thank you,” Mary Turner said. She wiped away her tears with the back of one hand. “I’m sorry to go on like this, but sometimes it just hits me all over again.”

“We understand,” Dickce said.

“You were telling us that you didn’t notice anything odd in this room until after you had been back here a year,” An’gel said gently.

Mary Turner nodded. “That’s right. At first I thought I was just imagining it, and I put it down to one of the maids doing it while she dusted. It didn’t happen that often at first, and I didn’t come in here every day either. But the maids didn’t like dusting or cleaning in here, and I could never get a clear answer as to why. They simply told me they didn’t feel comfortable.

“It turned out that they had noticed things being moved around but were afraid to tell me,” Mary Turner said. “I decided to take over cleaning and dusting in here myself rather than make a fuss about it. And of course, with me being in here more often, I began to notice things more.”

“Were you ever truly frightened by it?” An’gel asked. She herself had not really felt afraid for her life, but she had been a bit spooked by what had happened to her.

“No, and that’s the strange thing,” Mary Turner said slowly. “It’s spooky, of course, but I’ve never felt it was intended to scare me or warn me. Whoever or whatever is doing it doesn’t seem to mind me being in the room. We never let guests stay in here, you see, because of the value of the contents. It’s just safer in the long run to keep them off-limits to guests.”

“But you were going to let An’gel sleep here,” Dickce said.