Monty slid the crystal stopper out of the decanter, poured himself three fingers of scotch, and downed it in one go. Smoke and angry honey—the Macallan 1919 was the best.
He’d been sober at the funeral. His sister had come with her goons to make sure he didn’t touch a drop, even made him promise like they were ten years old. Once Mom’s in the ground, have what you like. She didn’t bother taking his gun out of the desk drawer. Probably hoped he’d use it on himself. At least her guys had returned every ounce of the malt. Ellie knew how to pick her boys.
The study door closed behind him. Monty turned, a second tumbler-full at his lips.
Three women stood in front of the door dressed in black, wearing gloves, hats and thick veils that covered their faces. For all he could see they looked exactly alike. Slender, but round where it counted, long legs, dark, curling hair, each of them in the same tailored ankle-length coat. Funeral goers.
“I’m sorry ladies, you’ve wandered into the family quarters. Reception’s downstairs.”
In the dim light of a table lamp they seemed to float, gliding in unison, and coming to rest in front of the desk, each taking a seat in one of the leather guest chairs.
Monty straightened his tie, sat in his own desk chair, and set down the tumbler. “Ladies, I’m sure you understand how difficult today has been, for myself and my family.” He picked up the house phone receiver and began dialing. “I can have your cars brought around or cabs called if you require them.”
“Montague Mycena, you are guilty of the murder of Cleo Mycena, your mother.”
It had been said in a whisper, behind a veil. He didn’t know which. Monty hung up the phone.
He saw now the one difference between the three women. Brooches. Pinned at each neck. On his left, a snake made of amber and emerald. Right was a whip with a lash made of gold chain. In the center, a torch with a silver handle and ruby flames.
Monty addressed the woman with the torch. “For the last time, be good enough to leave this residence, or you and your friends will be escorted off the premises.”
The one with the snake turned her face an inch towards the others. “He doesn’t think he’s done anything wrong.”
Monty laughed and rubbed at a scab on his palm. “I see. Alright. You’re thinking, he’s grieving, he’s had a few, maybe we can get some sort of post-funerary confession or at least a hint of scandal from New Athens’ most eligible bachelor and heir to the Mycena family empire. Thing like that would sell a lot of papers. Well, I don’t care if you’re the press or the police, you want a statement, you can talk to my lawyer.”
The woman wearing the whip cocked her head. “So ungrateful. She brought him out of darkness, and he’s put her in the cold ground.”
“Alright, that’s fine, sit there, it’ll make it easier for the cops.” Monty dialed the house phone. The butler answered. “Paris, call the police and send them to my study. You and Hector bring them up as soon as they get here.”
The one wearing the torch folded her hands in her lap. “She looked into your eyes when you plunged the knife in. In spite of your disgust for her, you hoped she’d sleep through it, but she saw you. You’ve dreamed those eyes every night since.”
The room was hot. Monty wanted to remove his jacket, but his father had always said don’t let your enemy see you sweat.
“Did my sister send you? What does she want, more of the inheritance?”
The woman with the snake gripped the arms of her chair. “Your sister will pay for her part.”
Even if Ellie had told them everything, it was all hearsay. He’d been drinking when he’d said those things. It was grief. That’s what a shrink would say, grief over the loss of his last parent, her violent death, their strained and distant relationship, of course he felt responsible, so he’d made up some wild fantasy of himself as the killer, it was perfectly reasonable, guilt did things like that.
And there was no proof.
Adjusting his ever-tightening collar, Monty smiled. “I don’t know where you’re from, but in this town, a man is innocent of any crime until he’s proven guilty, and to do that you need evidence.”
The woman in the torch brooch stared at him. “The evidence in this matter is more cloud than glass. In your father Amon’s murder, the evidence made it look like an accident, but you and your sister knew, in spite of the smoke and mirrors, that it was the work of your mother and her lover, Alan Cartwright, and so you watched and waited until the time was right.
“You knew they had a love nest in a village thirty miles south of here and that both were fond of spirits. On the night of your mother’s death, you pretended to go to bed and crept out unseen by the staff. You prowled the grounds of the cabin and waited until she and her lover had drunk themselves into a stupor, at which time you popped open the window and entered the house.
“You wrapped the handle of a kitchen knife in your handkerchief, and when the deed was done, you placed the weapon in Alan’s hand and burned the cloth in the fireplace. You returned home unseen, called the police, feigning concern at not having heard from your mother, the police discovered the scene, and your sister and her two handsomely-paid assistants corroborated your alibi.
“The only evidence of the kind you’re referring to is an unburned bit of handkerchief under the ash in your mother’s fireplace stained with both her blood type and yours. In a stabbing, the hand slips easily onto the blade. It wouldn’t be enough alone, but it would be enough for the police to investigate, especially once they’d seen the small cut on your palm. Of course, someone might have spied your car. Village people notice cars like yours. And it’s only a matter of time before one of your sister’s assistants starts to blackmail you.”
Monty trembled a gulp of scotch and laughed, tapping his fingers on the desk. “Is that what this is? Blackmail?”
The woman wearing the whip spread her hands. “This is the record of your crime, unaltered and in memory enduring.”
His voice broke and he had to start again. “What do you want, money, or do you speak for someone?”
“In your understanding, you would say that we represent your mother.”
Monty went for another drink, but the glass was empty. “What the hell does that mean?”
The woman in the snake brooch leaned towards him. “It means that unless you choose to pay for your crime, you will be punished.”
“Let’s get one thing straight. I haven’t admitted to any crime. All you’ve got is a lot of guesswork and bluffing. Alan Cartwright killed my mother, and he’s being held on that charge, though I can promise you she deserved everything she got.”
The light began to fade.
“A murdering drunken whore, that was my mother. My dad wasn’t much better, he had his good-time girls, but you always knew where you stood with him, all the cards were on the table. But not her. He gave her everything. She could’ve been one of the great ladies of this city. She didn’t want to love him, and she didn’t give a shit about us. Murder for murder sounds fair to me.”
The lamp was growing further and further away, the space between expanding as he floated beyond the confines of his room.
The woman in the torch inclined her head. “You misunderstand us. It’s for your own sake you’re advised to accept punishment under human law. Otherwise, the matter will be in our hands, and we do not require your confession. We already know.”
By the time she had finished speaking, they were in darkness. All beyond was silent and black.
Monty could see nothing but his desk and the outlines of the three figures, raised high above him. Like statues on thrones they sat, primordial, serving a law as old as birth and death, love and hate, parents and children.
He wanted to weep. To tear the skin off his own face.
He was so sick of hating her.
But he was also his father’s son, and he had to be a man the way his father would want him to be. Take nothin from no one, and give it back to ‘em double. Amon Mycena’s enemies were known to disappear like rabbits at a shooting arcade, and Monty had seen to the last of them. He knew in his bones he’d done the old man proud.
“Human law. There’s a law between father and son, too, but it’s not pretty, no, it’s not neat. It’s a lead pipe to the gut. And a boy needs it, more than he needs breath in his lungs, or a mother’s love. I’m no one if I’m not Amon Mycena’s boy.”
The women turned to look at one another and back at him. “For the last time, will you repent and confess your guilt?”
Monty didn’t know who had said it, and he didn’t care.
“Not in a million years.”
Six flaming eyes sparked and ignited in the black. Flying up from their thrones, the women hovered in the darkness and floated down, facing him. Heat washed over his body. By the light of their eyes, Monty could see through the veils. Faces of ash-white leather stretched over bone frames, hollow cheeked, with thin cracked lips. The curled hair writhed, slithered, hissed. Each right hand held a whip. Rising above him beyond view were three pairs of feathered black wings.
Their voices came alone, two, and three from all sides. “When you see her in your dreams. When her eyes meet yours as you plunge the knife into her breast, it isn’t blood you see wetting your hands. It’s mother’s milk.”
Jumping up and ripping open the drawer, Monty shot one, two, three. Bulk struck and thudded on the floor.
He was back in his study. Gunfire was still ringing in the air. The bright main light was switched on, and the room swarmed with unknown faces and bodies, lunging, shouting, and running.
Police. His earlier call to Paris had brought them charging in.
Monty saw his own hand raised, still pointing the pistol. An officer stood in the doorway mirroring his movements, aiming a weapon. The man squeezed the trigger.
Pain cracked Monty in half, knocking him off his legs and onto his back. The taste of metal filled his mouth. He gurgled, fighting the blood for air, feeling for the pain in his chest and finding the wet warmth running from the wound.
From under the desk, he saw Paris and Hector the household manager stagger into the room. The old butler cried out and slumped to the ground. “I shouldn’t have let her—gods it would have been me—she insisted on coming up when she heard the police—she—”
Cops swarmed the room, running every which way.
They were coming towards him, shouting for him to stay down. He could see their feet, and three more pairs lying in front of the desk. Three bodies. Three pools of blood.
Ellie.
Ellie and her two goons.
Tears burned Monty’s darkening eyes, and a smile spread his lips. He really was Amon Mycena’s boy.
Photograph is of actress Jean Harlow
Thrilling! You've captured the time period nicely too.
I really like this. Stories like this have a particular style that just intrigue the reader and keeps them reading. I want to write more stuff like this when I get the time. Well done.