Fletcher Flora - The First Golden Age of Mystery & Crime MEGAPACK™ - 26 Stories by Fletcher Flora

“All right. I’m sure I’ll be back with her shortly, if she doesn’t get back ahead of me.”

“Meanwhile, I’ll go in and change my shoes. Soaking wet. Hurry back, my boy.”

He turned toward the house, and I walked up the slope and over the crest and down into the hollow and past the cemetery and on through grass among the trees toward the creek. The sky had cleared, and the sun was out, and the light of the sun lanced through the trees. The earth was scrubbed and rinsed and sparkling clean. I could hear ahead of me the rushing sound of the swollen creek. My canvas shoes were soon soaked. At the creek’s bank I turned toward the rapids...

That was the last day of the thunderstorms. The next morning broke clear, and the clouds never formed, and every day thereafter for a long time was bright and dry.

It was like that over in the hollow, bright and dry and still in sunshine and shade, the day we buried Connie.

The funeral service was private. Only a handful of people were there. Grandfather and I were the only mourners, and after the sad and definitive ceremony was finished beside the grave, we walked back alone to the house. The house without Connie seemed vast and empty and filled with whispered echoes. I had not yet got used to her being gone, and I truly missed her, although I knew my loneliness wouldn’t last. Add to $35,000,000 an equal amount, and you have what may be called an antidote to lasting sorrow.

In the house I went upstairs to my room and lay down on the bed and tried to think of certain things in order to avoid thinking of certain others. This was not very successful, and I began to wish that Connie were there to distract me, which was no more at most than half an ambivalence.

So I got up and went downstairs again after an hour or so, and there was Grandfather in the library with a visitor. The visitor was a short thin man with pale limp hair, a furrowed face, and a vaguely deferential manner. I had met him once before, which was once too often, and I knew him already as well as I ever wanted to. His name was Drake, and he was a captain of county detectives.

“There you are, my boy,” Grandfather said. “Come in, come in.”

“I don’t want to intrude,” I said.

“No intrusion. None at all. I was just about to send for you. In fact, Captain Drake wants to talk with you.”

“I don’t know why,” I said. “I’ve already told Captain Drake all I know.”

“I know you have, my boy. I know that well enough. He merely wants to clarify some points and get his report in order. Isn’t that so, Captain?”

“That’s so,” Drake said. “I’m sorry to intrude again on a day so sad as this one. Won’t you please come in and sit down, Mr. Canning? This will take only a few minutes.”

I went in and sat down on the edge of a chair.

“What do you want to know?” I said.

“I’d appreciate it if you’d go over your account again. Just one more time.”

“Why? I’ve already gone over it and over it.”

“I know. I’m sorry. If you will just indulge me, please.”

“Well, as I’ve said, it was the day of the last thunderstorm. When the storm was over, Connie went out for a walk. I offered to go along, but she didn’t want me to. I guess she just wanted to be alone. Anyhow, I went upstairs and took a nap. When I woke up, it was late, and Connie wasn’t back, and Grandfather was worried. So I went out to look for her.

“I walked to the creek and along the creek to the place we’ve always called the riffles. There the water spreads out and becomes shallow and flows through a lot of rocks. Stepping stones have been placed across the bed, and Connie was there in the water, face down, and her body had lodged between two of the stepping stones. She was barefooted, wearing shorts, and I suppose she’d tried to wade the creek. It wasn’t very deep there, even after all the rains, but the current was very swift, and it must have swept her feet out from under her. She struck her head on a boulder and drowned, that’s all. I can’t tell you any more.”

He was leaning forward in his chair in a posture of intent listening, but his eyes were abstracted, remote, and he seemed to be hearing, if he heard anything, some private voice subliminal to all but him. Aware after a moment that I had finished, he sighed and stirred.

“Quite so. The story as before. Well, it’s reasonable. It’s even possible. There’s only one thing that disturbs me.”

“What’s that?”

“She struck her head, you say, and she must have done so. But still it’s puzzling. There was only one contusion on her head, and it was high up, near the crown. It could have caused unconsciousness, certainly, but it’s difficult, all factors considered, to see how it could have been acquired in falling. It looks very much, in fact, as if she’d been struck deliberately by a rock in someone’s hand.”

He fell silent and seemed to be listening again to his private subliminal voice. Then he added, almost casually, “It would help if the blow had killed her — if she had been dead when she entered the water, I mean. But that’s no good. There was water in her lungs.”

“You’re distorting things,” I said. “You’ve got too much imagination.”

“I suppose you’re right. I’ve been told that it’s a fault of mine.” He turned abruptly to Grandfather. “The young lady who drowned was not your natural granddaughter, I understand. Would you mind telling me if she was one of your heirs?”

“She was. She was to share equally with my other heir.”

“And the other heir is young Mr. Canning here?”

“Naturally.”

“And now he will become your sole heir. Is that correct?”

Grandfather rose from his chair, and the white fuzz seemed to bristle on his head. The old boy, when he chose, could be as hard as diamond and as cold as ice.

“Captain,” he said, “I consider that question an intrusion on my personal affairs. It requires me to commit myself, and is therefore unwarranted. Moreover, sir, it is impertinent and offensive.”

Captain Drake sighed again and stood up. His vaguely deferential manner was suddenly more pronounced, but his voice remained, somehow, impersonal and invulnerable.

“Yes. Yes, of course. Sorry.” He crossed to the library door, his wilted cord suit hanging limply on his thin frame, and paused with his hand on the knob to look back at us. “I hope that young Mr. Canning is not planning to leave this house in the immediate future.”

“Buster will be my guest until September at least,” Grandfather said coldly.

“Let us hope so,” Drake said. “Let us earnestly hope so.”

There was a knock on my door, and immediately afterward, before I could answer, the door was pushed open and Grandfather entered the room carrying a tray with two glasses on it. The glasses were filled with dark amber liquid, and a small ice cube floated in each. I had been negligent, clearly, of what I thought of lightly as my $35,000,000 duty. Now, with luck, $70,000,000.

“Grandfather,” I said, “I’ve forgotten your nightcap. I’m sorry.”

“Think nothing of it, my boy. It has been a trying day for you, what with Drake’s impertinence on top of poor Connie’s funeral, and I’m more than happy to serve you for a change.”

“It’s very thoughtful of you.”

“Not at all, my boy, not at all. As you see, I’ve brought along my own nightcap. We shall have our drinks together tonight.”

“Thank you, Grandfather. I’ll enjoy that.”

I cleared a place on my bedside table, and Grandfather set the tray there. He picked up one of the glasses and handed it to me, keeping the other for himself.

“Grandfather,” I said, “I don’t like that detective. He worries me.”