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

“Drake? He’s a clever man, but he forgets his proper place. He is sometimes, as I said, impertinent.”

“Impertinence is a mild word for what was practically an accusation of murder.”

“Oh, he didn’t actually accuse you of murder, my boy. His suspicions have been aroused by a seeming incongruity in conjunction with what appears to be a powerful motive and ample opportunity. That’s all there is to it.”

“All! Isn’t that enough?”

“Don’t worry about it, my boy. I shall see that no harm comes to you. I shall care for you and keep you secure, just as I have always cared for the members of my family.”

Grandfather had pulled a chair near the bed, and now he sat down in the chair and sipped his nightcap. I sat on the edge of the bed and took a long drink of my own. It was, as its color indicated, very strong.

“I must say that you’ve made me feel better, Grandfather,” I said.

“Trust me, my boy. Trust your old Grandfather, just as all the others trusted me. Haven’t I brought them all home? Haven’t I given them all peace and lasting security? They were charming children, all charming children, but not one who was not helpless. Not one who didn’t need my constant loving care. The tragic end of your Uncle Wish convinced me finally of that. Could I leave the others to comparable ends or worse? Could I trust life to those who couldn’t even be trusted with a dollar? Could I go away, when my time comes to go, and leave them all behind to their own frail and futile devices? Well, they are all secure now. All secure in the hollow beyond the crest. All at rest beneath the flowering crab apple tree.”

Grandfather leaned forward and patted me on the knee, watching me closely with his inexhaustible loving kindness. I started to say something, but it was so much easier to say nothing at all.

“How do you feel, my boy? It will be over quickly, I promise you, as it was with dear little Connie, and soon you will be safe forever. Let Captain Drake think what he pleases. If he thinks, as he surely will, that in fear you took the easy way to evade him, what matter? He will quietly close his case on all the wrong assumptions, and we shall just as quietly have the last laugh. Leave it to me, my boy. Leave it all to your old Grandfather.”

He patted my knee again, tenderly, and I was dimly aware that my hands were empty and that I must have carelessly dropped my glass. I started to rise, but it was so much easier simply to lie down.

It’s April again. The frail pink blossoms of the crab apple tree shower to earth in the slightest stirring of the languid air, to lie like pastel snow among the clustered headstones of the Canning dead. Already the fruit is forming where the blossoms hung, and in a little while, after the swift passing of spring, toward the end of summer’s indolent amble, the small red apples will fall in turn, to lie where the blossoms lie.

The seasons come, and the seasons go...

But Grandfather, it seems, goes on forever.