The Isle of Devils (24 page)

“It seems to me that the coins are a clear sign to one of the guests. Is this not a payment to enter the underworld? And is not one of the guests a Greek? Mr. Delopolous, I believe is his name?”

I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Constable, but that is a false conclusion. Charon’s obol was a coin that the Greeks placed into the mouths of their deceased relatives and friends so that they could pay the ferryman to take them across the rivers Styx and Acheron, and thence hopefully to the fields of Elysium. The Greeks did not place the coin on the eyes, nor would they have done it for a bitter enemy, which presumably Dumas was, or he would not have been murdered in the first place.”

Dunkley pursed his lips as he considered this information. Finally, he nodded slowly. “That is fine reasoning, Doctor. So Mr. Delopolous is not our suspect. But perhaps our murderer does not possess as fine a Classical education as yourself? Perhaps he was trying to throw suspicion towards the Greek, expecting that I would think this was a Greek custom?”

I agreed that this was a plausible hypothesis. “One thing that bothers me is that Dumas’ pistol was clear across the room, as was his sword cane. He seemed too paranoid to make such a mistake.”

“But he was drugged, Doctor,” pointed out the constable.

“True, but I think Dumas would have things arranged in advance. Aha!” exclaimed I, carefully reaching under the pillow beneath his head and extracting a unique jack-knife. The blade was about six inches long, and the black
ebony
handle was inscribed with yet another set of mysterious initials: “L.E.” and a well-worn symbol that looked like a flame arising from a ring.     

“What is it?” exclaimed Dunkley.

I shook my head in confusion. “I do not know.”

“Very interesting, Doctor. To what society did our Mr. Dumas belong, I wonder? And then there is this.” He pointed to a red stain on the far side of the bed. The sheets had become saturated with blood and a few spots had clearly dripped onto the floor. But the spots had been smeared by someone stepping upon them. “Look at that bloodstain. The pattern is most unusual. I am at a loss to explain what type of shoe has a sole that leaves such a featureless print.”

I stared at the smudge of blood for a moment before responding. “What if it’s not a shoe? A soft-soled bed-slipper might make such a mark.”

Dunkley laughed. “That’s brilliant, Doctor! Of course you are right, but that only muddles things further,” said he, shaking his head in despair. “Think of the picture that we are compiling: Mr. B drugs at least two innocents to get at his mark, and then climbs up a ladder to Dumas’ room in his bed-slippers during a terrible storm. ‘Mr. B’ then proceeds to don a pair of giant gloves, shoot the mark seven times – which required a re-load of the pistol! – all the time trusting his great fortune that the two men whose rooms were close enough to hear the gunshots just so happened to be the ones that were bystanders in his drugging scheme. ‘Mr. B’ then places two coins on Dumas’ eyes, writes two letters on his forehead in paint, neglects to steal any gold sovereigns or bank-notes, and departs again via the window in his blood-stained slippers. Who would believe such a tale? It’s outlandish!”  

I could not argue with his assessment of the situation, and only shook my head in bewildered commiseration. I finally corrected him on one part of his narrative. “It’s not absolutely certain that the murderer came in via the window. Only that he left that way. It’s still possible that he came in through the main door, with some sort of lock-picking tool, and then bolted it behind him in order to have time to initiate his escape in the event that the gunshots awoke the hotel.”

Dunkley finally shook off his dark musings. “That is a good point, Doctor,” he nodded. “Well, there is little else to glean here, I think. Let’s repair downstairs and examine the ladder in the garden. After that we can begin to question the other guests.”

We closed the door behind us as best we could
given
the damage done to it by Mr. Sims’ giant frame and
I led the way as we twisted through the corridor back to the staircase. When we reached the landing, I was about to descend, when Dunkley stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. “Hold a minute, Doctor. What do you make of this?”

I looked over at a small side table nestled against the
cedar
railing that separated the open staircase from the landing. On it rested a copy of the prior day’s
Royal Gazette
and a handful of small glass shards of varied colors. I failed to see what had attracted his attention. “What is it?”

“The glass. I did not notice it in my haste to reach the dead man’s room. Was it there when you passed through this morning?”

I stared at the pieces of glass, which summed to a total nine and were a mixture of mostly deep green shards
,
with two that were a lighter blue color. I wracked my brain to try to remember. “I’m sorry, Constable, but I cannot recall. On my way down, I was still rather befuddled by the drug, and on our way up, we were in a rush to confront Mr. Dumas. But I don’t understand the significance of the shards. Was something broken here?”

He shook his head. “No, Doctor. Look at those worn edges. This glass was not recently broken. This is sea-glass.”

“Sea-glass?” I inquired.

“As I am certain that you know by now, Bermuda is ringed by treacherous reefs which have spelled the end of many a ship. When those ships go down, so does their cargo, including many glass bottles. Over time, most of those bottles break apart. Then the sand etches the pieces and the waves tumble them about until they obtain this uniquely smooth shape and color.”

“But what do they have to do with anything?” I protested.

“Perhaps nothing,” shrugged Dunkley. “But why are they here? Nothing about this murder makes any sense, and I don’t like things that are out of place. We will need to ascertain if anyone knows how this sea-glass appeared here. As you said, the murderer could have entered Dumas’ room via the corridor. Did the mysterious Mr. B leave this sea-glass behind? And if so, why?”

I shook my head again in confusion and began to descend the creaking staircase, a thought entered my mind. “One thing is for certain, Constable, whoever killed Dumas was not staying in the downstairs bedchamber.”

“Why do you say that, Doctor?”

“Climbing these stairs would be nigh impossible without awakening all of the inhabitants of the closest rooms.”

Dunkley appeared to consider this. “That is an interesting observation, Doctor. I must ponder that one. As far as I can tell, no one in this hotel could have killed Dumas. And yet the man is indisputably dead, and not by his own hand. It is our job to find out who the person is that could – and had a reason to – kill the man, creating such a bizarre spectacle in his wake.”

§

With a befogged mind, I finished descending the stairs, only to find Mrs. Foster waiting for us in the entryway with a look upon her face that indicated either extreme agitation or excitement.

“I have discovered something, Harry!” exclaimed the lady, and addressing Constable Dunkley by his given name, clearly forgetting in her eagerness that he was present on official business.

“What is it, Elizabeth?” he responded in kind.

Rather than immediately answering him, she led us into the dining room and indicated the dark iron fireplace. “I found it in there, when I was cleaning out the ashes from last night’s fire,” she explained. I recalled that during the prior evening a splendid log fire had blazed behind the iron screen throughout the long night in order to help ward off the chill from the great storm. “It must have slipped through the dog-grate, and therefore was not fully consumed.” She pointed to a small object lying before the fireplace that I had originally assumed was a large un-burnt wooden cinder. 

Dunkley bent down to examine it. “What is it?” I finally exclaimed.

“It is badly burned, so it is impossible to tell for certain, but I believe that it is the remnants of a Turkish slipper,” said he, looking at me meaningfully.

I immediately realized that this could have been what the murderer wore when he stepped in the drops of blood. “Is there a bloodstain?” I inquired.

He shook his head. “If there was, it’s gone now. But Doctor, there is only
one
slipper.”

The implications of his words finally dawned on me. “If he only burned one slipper, we can find the match. And if we find the match, we will have found the murderer,” said I excitedly. “Unless the other one was completely consumed, of course,” I concluded, trying to tamp down my enthusiasm for the hunt.

“Indeed, Doctor,” the constable nodded. “But there are more difficulties. Remember our scenario. In the hypothesis that we have constructed, the murderer fled via the window, not through this room. If he did not flee via the window, then how was the door barred? If he did flee through the window, why in the world would he come all the way down here to burn a slipper after he had already killed Dumas? He could have disposed of the slipper anywhere in St. George’s. He could have tied it to a rock and sunk it in the ocean!” He shook his head again. “It’s damn odd!”

I silently agreed. In fact, between the drugging of my wine the prior night and the
muddle
of the investigation, my brain felt like it was swimming in treacle.

“Well, if he did flee via the window, he must have stepped in the garden,” continued Dunkley. “Let us see what we can make out.” He stood up while adding the burnt slipper to his bag of evidence.

I followed Dunkley and Mrs. Foster through the billiard-room and into the corridor that led to the rear entrance. Three doors led off the corridor, and two were closed, but they were plainly marked with signs. The one closest to the billiard-room door was simply labeled: “Private.” I assumed it led to Mrs. Foster’s chambers, and I calculated that it likely lay directly below Dumas’ room. The next door was propped open by a lead weight and I could see that the kitchen lay beyond. The far door in the corridor was labeled: “To Garret.” We stepped out the rear door and entered the garden, which was divided from Duke of York Street by a low wall. The garden was shaded by a large tree that I thought might be some American variety of sycamore, and a pleasant wooden bench completely encircled it. Snug against the building to our left lay a raised square with a black lid, which I realized must lead to an underground rainwater cistern. Immediately outside the door and beneath the bench, the ground was paved with bricks, but the rest of the garden grounds were simple dirt paths winding between the vegetable beds, now saturated by the recent rain. The ladder leading to Dumas’ window was set in the middle of one of those beds. Upon further inspection, the ladder itself appeared to be quite ancient, and I thought that it was a miracle that anyone could descend it without breaking at least one rung. Clearly the man who used it was not heavy. Before we moved any further out into the garden, Dunkley held out his arm to block the way. “No further, please. Now, Elizabeth, have you been out here today?”