John Manning - The Killing Room

“Yes,” Howard said. “I’ll search the basement.”

His father nodded, then, with Noons, headed outside.

Once he was alone in the basement, Howard walked over to his father’s workshop. Opening the door, he saw Clem cowering inside.

Howard took a deep breath. “How could you do such a thing, Clem?” he asked quietly, shaking his head.

“Do what, Mr. Howard?”

“Come with me.”

The handyman followed him back to Beatrice’s room, where Howard showed him the carnage. Beatrice’s body hung limply from the wall. An enormous glistening puddle of blood had collected on the floor.

“Beatrice!” Clem cried.

“You killed her,” Howard said calmly.

“No!”

“Yes, you did.” He looked Clem fiercely in the eyes. “I found you, remember? I threatened to fire you!”

“Yes, but…”

“She slapped you, didn’t she?”

“Yes, but I didn’t-”

“You got angry! Very angry!”

Clem’s face went white.

“Didn’t you, Clem? She slapped you, and you got very angry!”

“Yes,” he admitted.

“And then you killed her! With your pitchfork! Look! Look at it sticking out of her!”

“No…”

Howard moved in, his eyes wild. “I saw you do it, Clem! I saw you!”

“You…you did?”

“Indeed. I saw you drive that pitchfork right through her body.”

“I…didn’t mean to kill her… I don’t remember…”

“You’re a simpleton. Aren’t you, Clem? A simpleton!”

Clem had begun to cry. He nodded his head.

“Your puny brain can’t remember what you did,” Howard told him. “You’ve blocked the horror of it from your mind.”

“I…killed Beatrice?”

“Yes,” Howard told him. “And now I must call the sheriff!” He began walking toward the stairs.

“Mr. Howard, they’ll put me in jail. They’ll hang me!”

Howard stopped walking, turning around to glare at Clem. “Yes, Clem, they will.”

“But my ma…who would support her then? I take care of my ma, you know. I’m all she’s got. What will happen to my ma?”

Howard did indeed know that Clem took care of his sick, elderly mother. He cocked his head to one side and raised his eyebrows at Clem. “They’ll put her in the poorhouse, I suppose. Pity, really. The poorhouse is a sickly den of thieves and degenerates. Pity how your poor mother will have to suffer for what you did.”

“Please, Mr. Howard, you gotta help me!”

Howard seemed to consider his request. “Well, I don’t know… I should just go upstairs and call the sheriff.”

“No, please don’t!”

“Well, if I’m going to help you, Clem, then you will need to help me.”

The poor simple man was nodding absurdly. “Yes, yes, sure, anything!”

“I want you to break the baby’s neck.”

Clem’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head.

“You want me to…?”

“You heard me.” Howard was surprised at how easy it was to ask such a thing. But in truth, it was that baby that had caused his terrible dilemma. That baby who stood between him and the kind of life he deserved. To ask for its removal was not so difficult. “I want you to kill Beatrice’s baby.”

“But…”

“Don’t argue with me, Clem,” Howard said. “I’ll just turn around and go call the sheriff. You’ll be hanged, and your mother will die a terrible death in the poorhouse.”

Clem was crying again. “But why?”

“Really, Clem, you ask the most inane questions. Do you want that child to grow up motherless? We’d have to put it in the poorhouse, too. And babies fare even worse in the poorhouse than do old ladies.”

“Oh…” Clem said, hanging his head.

“You would be doing the child a great service, Clem. Snapping its neck means its death will be quick and painless. It’s the least you can do for killing its mother.”

“Really?” Clem asked, his simple eyes wide.

“Yes, Clem. It’s quite easy. Just go over to the crib and snap its little neck.”

The dumb brute took a step toward the crib.

“Then remain here once it’s done,” Howard instructed him. “Remain standing there with the child in your arms. I’ll be right back to take care of everything.”

“Yes, Mr. Howard.”

Howard hurried out of the room. His heart had hardened considerably in the last hour, and yet still he could not bear to see what Clem was about to do. The child was his own flesh and blood, after all. He contented himself that death would be quick. Whether it was painless or not as he’d assured Clem, he wasn’t so sure. But there was logic in what he had told the simpleton. The bastard child was indeed better off dead.

Whether Clem would actually do the deed or not, Howard wasn’t so sure. He was simple, easily swayed, but he had a conscience. In the end, it didn’t really matter, Howard thought. Yes, it would be better to have the child out of the way. But if it lived, he’d deal with that. They’d find a home for it somewhere far away, where its resemblance to Howard would never be noticed. In the end, all that really mattered was Clem. And for this part of the plot, Howard needed a witness.

Upstairs in the foyer, he found one. His sister Margaret.

“The rest of them haven’t come back yet,” she reported, wringing her hands. “They haven’t found Clem.”

“Well, I have,” Howard said. “I just saw him sneak into the basement.”

“Oh!” Margaret held a lace handkerchief up to her face. “He’s returning to the scene of the crime! All the mystery magazines say murderers always do that.”

“Did Papa take his gun?” Howard asked.

“He and Douglas took the rifles from the parlor,” Margaret replied.

Howard nodded. “So his revolver is still in his desk in the study.”

“Oh, yes, it must be, Howard! Get it! Or Clem could come up here and kill us all!”

It was all working perfectly. Fetching his father’s revolver, Howard returned to the basement. Margaret tagged along, terrified but also feverishly excited. She followed a few feet behind, uttering little sounds every few feet. Howard was glad she was with him. He wanted her to witness the little scene he was about to act out.

There, in Beatrice’s doorway, stood Clem with little Malcolm in his arms. Margaret screamed.

“Put the child down!” Howard shouted. “Do not harm him!”

“But I did as you-”

Howard pulled the trigger of the revolver. The bullet ripped through Clem’s chest. Blood spurted from the bullet hole, and the big, lumbering man staggered once, then fell backward like a great oak. Beatrice’s blood on the floor splashed as he made contact.

Margaret screamed again.

Howard stood over Clem’s dead body. “I was too late,” he announced. “He had already broken the baby’s neck.”

“Oh,” Margaret cried. “We must call the sheriff.”

“No,” came a voice.

They looked up. Their father had come in from the servants’ entrance. He looked down at the three dead bodies on the floor.

“I have never allowed scandal to touch this family, and I am not about to begin now.” He looked over at Howard with cold, hard eyes. “The sheriff will not be called until this room is cleaned up, and Clem and the baby are buried on the estate.”

The other sons came back into the house at that point, each of them gasping in new horror when they saw the latest atrocities.

“Douglas, Samuel,” Desmond Young commanded, “you take the bodies out for burial. Make sure there is no evidence of your work. Leave Beatrice’s body here. Remove her from the wall.” Again his eyes found Howard. “She should be brought to the barn and placed there with the pitchfork. She fell from the loft and impaled herself. The sheriff will be told it was a terrible accident.”