Mark Dunn - American Decameron

“Granted, she has written the letter,” continued Tad, “but one must not discount the possibility that it may have been penned under duress.”

“You believe there could be that possibility?” asked Elizabeth, whose general wearying indulgence of her son had suddenly become supplanted by a genuine interest in his theory.

Tad nodded eagerly. “Because I have deduced the following: Ethel wasn’t happy with Longnecker. And Clara has confirmed it.”

Thomas sat down next to his wife. “Which Clara?”

Tad swung around in his chair. The deerstalker hat, which was two sizes too big for his small head, flew off and onto the rug. “Ethel’s friend Clara Puckett, of course. Clara said that Ethel knew Longnecker was a ne’er-do-well but she didn’t know how to get away from him.”

“Oh dear,” said Elizabeth.

Tad went on: “That’s why I think he might have forced her to leave with him.”

Elizabeth stretched out her arms for her son to come to her. Reluctantly he got up and allowed his worried mother to embrace him. “You’re too young to have such mature theories about things. You should run and play with children your own age and leave such complicated matters to your elders.”

Tad shook his head. “The time for childhood games is behind me. There are more important things for me to be doing with my life.”

“Like solving crimes?” asked Thomas.

Tad nodded. “Now, if you would be so good as to excuse me,” he said, retrieving the letter and magnifying glass from the writing desk and snatching up his hat from the floor, “I will be in my room trying to make some sense out of my sister’s alleged elopement, which flies in the face of all reason. Have Albertha bring my breakfast to my room on a tray.”

Not waiting for a response from his parents, Tad departed the room, the seriousness in his carriage evincing a sense of grand purpose.

After a silent moment, Thomas turned to his wife and said, “It does seem strange, if indeed it be true, that Ethel should run away to marry a man she no longer loves.”

“ Or trusts,” added Elizabeth. “Oh, that seems frightening even to contemplate — that he may have gotten her to leave against her will. And yet the letter offers no clues as to possible coercion. I refuse to believe it. I choose to believe, instead, that she took careful stock of her feelings for the young man and decided that the good clearly outweighed the bad. If you recall, Tommy, I did the very same thing prior to our wedding.”

“What do you mean, ‘if you recall’? What did you do, Lizzie — put it all down in a ledger?”

“As a matter of fact, I did. Happily, the good did win out, my love. Else I wouldn’t be sitting here today.” Elizabeth’s nascent smile suddenly evaporated. “Oh, Tommy. Where do you think the two of them could have gone?”

Thomas looked upon his wife with compassionate eyes. “We can’t go after her, Lizzie. Marrying Longnecker and moving away with him is her decision to make. Perhaps she’ll write to us shortly.”

*

Seated at the desk in his room, Tad read and reread the letter his sister had left behind. It was most assuredly in her hand, but there wasn’t the ease of expression that he was used to. Ethel’s trip to Europe with their aunt the previous summer had generated a number of letters to him, and these he now drew from a drawer in his desk to compare to this far more consequential missive.

Ethel was a good writer, and though her letters usually had a frothy, whimsical feel to them, they were remarkably well-crafted. This farewell letter was well-crafted, to be sure, but the voice was without variance in tone, and the meringue was entirely absent. This aberration of character was the first clue that Tad took from it.

After twenty minutes or so there came a knock at the door. Albertha, the cook, entered with a breakfast tray. “Set it there upon the bed, Mrs. Hudson.”

“My name ain’t Hudson, and you know it.” Then in susurrant appendix: “You snot-nosed little mischieviant.”

“‘Mischieviant’ isn’t a word, Mrs. Hudson. And don’t think that I don’t appreciate you. Your cuisine may be a little limited but you have as good an idea of breakfast as a Scotchwoman.”

Albertha set the tray upon the bed. “You’ve said that before, Master Tad. Is it be something your Mr. Holmes says?”

“Perhaps it is. Come over here. I want to show you something.”

Albertha went to Tad. She peered over his shoulder. “Is that the letter — the one from poor Miss Ethel?”

Tad nodded. “Why do you call her ‘ poor Miss Ethel’?”

“Because I don’t reckon she wanted to go with that young man.”

Tad turned around. “Why do you say this?”

“One night I overheard them two fussing on the back porch — fussing like cats in a bag, but with their mouths half-closed-like, so as to keep their voices low, I suppose.”

“What was it that my sister and Mr. Longnecker were quarreling about?”

“Why, that very thing, Mr. Tad! He wanted her to marry him and she didn’t want no part of it. But he lays the law down on her — says she’s his and no other man gonna have her.”

“Did you tell this to my parents?”

Albertha shook her head. “Young people in love — they get all het up sometimes. They say things that no person in his right mind gonna say. What was it you wanted to show me?”

“It’s quite curious, Mrs. Hudson. Look closely. What is the first thing to strike you about this letter?” Albertha took her reading glasses from her apron pocket and hooked the end pieces behind her ears.

“The stationery’s got a nice, pretty look to it. And it smells like roses, don’t it?”

Tad got up from his chair. “Sit here, Mrs. Hudson. Examine the letter as closely as you wish.”

Albertha sat down.

“With what instrument do you think my sister has penned this letter?”

“It don’t seem to have been penned by a pen at all, but by a pencil.”

“Precisely. Now why do you think that she chose to write the letter in pencil?”

“Well, can’t rightly say.”

“ I have a theory. Would you like to hear it?”

“Please. And hurry yourself up, child. I have to fix your father’s sack lunch before he leaves for work.”

“Look at the words, Mrs. Hudson. See how some seem to have been made darker than the others?”

“Yes, I do.”

“And what could be the reason?”

Albertha shook her head and gave a little shrug.

“Oh, but certainly you must see, Mrs. Hudson!” Tad exclaimed, rocking upon his heels with a kind of boyish exuberance not at all replicative of the severe and intellectually gelid Mr. Holmes. “She’s written the letter in code. It is absolute brilliance! And it is our job now to decipher it.”

“And just how is it we do that?”

“By taking each of those words she has made slightly darker than the others through pressing the pencil harder upon the page — by taking those words and assembling them into a form of sentence anagram to give us the true, hidden meaning of her letter.”

“That sounds rather farfetched to me, sport,” said Mr. Ellsworth, who was now standing in the doorway of his son’s bedroom. “Albertha, do I pay you to cook our meals or to duck off and play Watson to my son’s Sherlock?”

“To cook the meals, Mr. Ellsworth.” Albertha rose quickly, her head bowed in humble subservience. But even in the midst of her haste to return to her duties in the kitchen, the Ellsworth cook allowed a little sauce to bubble from her pot: “Excuse me, Mr. Ellsworth, but I ain’t Watson when I’m in this here room. I’m Mrs. Hudson, and you best be remembering that.”