Death in Detail: Felix Green Mysteries

Chapter 1

The maids are stealing, the old woman announced. I’m sure of it.

Oh, Aunt Agatha, Stephanie sighed. She fluffed one of Agatha’s pillows absent-mindedly and carefully placed it on the sofa. Her aunt peered at it with one suspicious eye. It seemed to pass her scrutiny, and after a small nod, Agatha lowered herself onto the cushion with the help of her cane.

Agatha was a formidable woman by any standard. Though she stood no more than five feet tall, her hair was a hardened steel-gray that spoke to a lifetime of confrontation and belligerence. Her mouth was eternally twisted into an inscrutable thin-lipped expression that could have made a regiment of soldiers turn and run the other way. She wore thin spectacles with little magnification, and her eyes, gray as her hair, were forever narrow and shrewd, darting this way and that. A thick oak cane with a heavy brass foot on one end could almost always be found between her gnarled, aged hands, tapping impatiently against the floor as she peered around the room for potential targets. The intimidating first impression she gave was totally true to her character, unfortunately for those who had to tolerate her presence on a day to day basis.

Stephanie, on the other hand, was a rather unassuming girl. Her sleek, black hair fell styleless behind her, and she had a soft and reassuring voice that moved her aunt to prefer her company.

I am sure they are stealing, Agatha repeated, peering around at the mantlepiece opposite from the sofa. Where is my antique clock? You know, it was a gift to my Great Uncle Horace from the Duke of Baden. These silly girls can’t appreciate it for its history. They’re probably down to the pawn shop to sell it to some foreigner for the price of a loaf of bread.

It was, perhaps, a lesser miracle that Stephanie knew exactly which clock her aunt was referring to. There were a dozen clocks in this room alone that might have been a gift to her Great Uncle Horace from the Duke of Baden. In fact, if Stephanie had to guess, she’d say there were very few antiques that the room did not hold. Aunt Agatha’s living room was decorated in a style that would not have been out of place in a French Palace, shortly before the revolutionaries arrived to carry the aristos who dwelled within off to the cold embrace of the guillotine. Archaic trinkets littered the room, from the spattering of antique clocks on the mantlepiece to the heraldic crest above the fire to the sets of gold-rimmed china stacked high in a handcarved cabinet. The room didn’t have television or even a radio. The only modern convenience that marked it as having existed in a century later than the nineteenth was electric lighting, and this Agatha regarded with great mistrust and suspicion.

Stephanie reached up and began to sift through the small, hand-sized clocks on the mantlepiece, finally locating one with silver detailing and a jade base.

Do you mean this one, Aunt Agatha? Stephanie asked. It’s right here.

She surrendered the clock to her Aunt, who unnecessarily whipped out her thin spectacles, fiddling briefly with the golden chain before placing them firmly on her wrinkled nose. The effect did not make her look any less intimidating. On the contrary, she now looked as if she were ready to pass sentence on the worst of criminals. Her cane tapped impatiently against the Persian rug as she gestured for Stephanie to hold it out for her to see. Agatha examined the small clock from several angles before nodding slowly.

That is Great-Uncle Horace’s clock, she declared at long last. But it is not in its proper place. These silly girls must have mislaid it. Agatha replaced her spectacles. I still know that they steal. I counted the forks in the dining room, yesterday. They’re sterling silver, you know, presents to your Great-Uncle Horace from the Emperor of Mexico.

Stephanie sighed. She was reasonably certain that there was no Emperor of Mexico, but she was wise enough to her Aunt’s nature not to try to argue the point. Moreover, she had no desire to spend the remainder of her day counting forks and plates to square them against her aunt’s vague recollection of how many she’d had in the past.

Don’t you sneer at me, girl, Agatha snapped. I can see what you’re thinking! With surprising speed for a woman of her age, Agatha rose from the couch on her cane. Standing tall at a full height of about four feet, eleven inches, she hobbled slowly towards her niece. You think I’ve gone mad, don’t you? You think I’m making up stories for attention. You don’t think the maids are stealing, and you don’t think your Great-Great-Uncle Horace ever met the Emperor of Mexico, do you? Well, he did. Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian - an Austrian Hapsburg - gave that set of silver to Horace - including those forks, to try to make friends with the United States when he was Emperor of Mexico. Well, Horace didn’t fall for any of those tricks. He’d come there to do a job, and he told those rotten French they’d better get out of Mexico-

Yes, yes, alright, Aunt Agatha, Stephanie said soothingly. Why don’t you sit back down and I’ll get you something nice to drink?

Don’t you start patronizing me, girl, Agatha barked, tapping her cane between Stephanie’s feet. You think I’ve gone batty. You don’t think the maids are stealing at all. Well, what about the portrait of my father? The maids have taken that as well.

They didn’t take the portrait of grandpa, Aunt Agatha. It’s still hanging in the hallway.

I want to go see it, Agatha demanded. She hooked her hand around Stephanie’s arm, and, wielding her cane in her other hand, trotted out into the hallway. They paused before a large picture of a handsome man with Stephanie’s straight, dark hair and a large mustache that would have been considered distinguished about a hundred years ago. In the portrait, the man was standing unnaturally straight, holding a cane very similar to Agatha’s, his chin tilted slightly up. The combined effect was that the man in the portrait looked as though he thought he was better than the viewer, whoever that might be, staring down his nose and mustache at the plebeians lurking just beyond the reaches of the frame. The caption, written into a gold plate beneath the frame, read, Sebastian Virgil Bellinger.

Agatha again placed her spectacles over the bridge of her nose and peered, shrew-like, at the portrait, examining every detail with her omniscient gray eyes.

Good, it’s still here, she observed at last. They haven’t taken it.

Of course they haven’t taken it, Aunt Agatha, Stephanie said with a long-suffering sigh. It’s much too large to steal.

Much too large to steal? Don’t be silly girl. It’s just a matter of taking it off the wall and walking out the door with it. Who’s going to stop them? Me?

Stephanie eyed Agatha’s cane and thought her aunt quite capable of stopping a potential thief with will alone, though her hard-won wisdom prevented her from saying so.

And the picture of your grandfather and Teddy Roosevelt is still here too, Agatha commented, staring at a nearby gold-framed black-and-white photograph. Good.

Despite herself, Stephanie could not stop a small, frustrated noise rising from her throat.

Don’t you scoff at me, girl, Agatha said, waving her cane at her niece. That’s a very valuable picture. Besides, your grandfather thought very highly of Teddy Roosevelt. He was a Harvard man, you know.

He was also President of the United States, Aunt Agatha.

That as well, of course, said Agatha with a wave of her free hand. But one must take these things in perspective. He was only President because of the Czechoslovakians.

Stephanie mutely followed her aunt out of the hallway and back into the living room. Agatha apparently now able to move around quite unaided (in fact, Stephanie was beginning to suspect she was perfectly mobile, but enjoyed leaning on others), tramped back to her sofa and sat down on her couch. She peered at the clock that had been given to Great Uncle Horace by the Duke of Baden and announced, Its time for my pills.

With some relief that she was able to get away from the old woman, Stephanie hurried to the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, where she found Agatha’s box of pills and retrieved it. As she turned to leave, she bumped headfirst into another young girl and struggled not to drop the box. The other girl fell to the floor under the force of the impact, dropping the brown paper sack that she’d been carrying.

Oh, I’m terribly sorry, Lisa, Stephanie mumbled as an apology as she set the box aside and helped the other girl to her feet.

No, no, it was my fault, Lisa said, brushing herself off. Lisa was a girl no older than nineteen or twenty wearing an apron over a dress, short blond hair falling behind her. Are you to give her her pills? Here. Lisa handed over the brown paper sack. I just finished refilling the old bat’s prescriptions.

Don’t let her hear you say that, Stephanie said sympathetically.

Remind her that she’s got company coming over tonight, Lisa yelled as Stephanie retreated from the medicine cabinet.

Stephanie quickly took out the plastic bottles inside the brown bag and carefully arranged them into their proper places inside the box - Aunt Agatha wanted everything to be arranged just so. Then she hurried to the living room and presented the box to her Aunt. She found the elderly woman standing before the antique chess set that eternally rested in the far corner of the room, slowly slotting the pieces into a starting configuration for a usual game. Stephanie knew, because Agatha had told her so many times before, that this chess set was among the family’s most prized possessions, and had been presented to their Great Uncle Horace by some ruler long since forgotten. The white pieces were carved from African ivory and the black from ebony heartwood of some exotic tree.

You took too long, Agatha barked as she pushed a white pawn experimentally forward. Stephanie could not see why she had done this, as she was obviously not playing with anyone, but knew better than to ask.

I know why you took so long, the old woman continued, snatching the box of pills from Stephanie’s hands and removing the necessary bottles. She began to carefully count the relevant pills and then swallowed them with a gulp of water from the crystal glass that always sat on a stand next to the sofa. You think your old auntie has lost her mind, Agatha continued. "You think I’ve gone soft in the head. I see how you look at me, how you cringe when