The Hand on the Wall(73)
“Dolores, sit there.”
The thin, high voice of a young girl responded. She had a pronounced New York accent.
“Sit here?”
“Just there. And lean into the microphone a bit. Good. Now all you have to do is speak normally. I want to ask you about your experiences at Ellingham. I’m making some recordings—”
Mackenzie snapped the machine off and the voices fell silent. There was a whir as he rewound the wire and put it back into the box.
“Dolores,” he said. “He must have been listening to this recording of her voice. He felt so bad about that girl. Apparently she was exceptional.”
Leo had no reply, so the room fell silent but for the ticking of the marble clock on the mantel. Mackenzie cleared his throat and took the package with the wire recording and packed it into the box.
“It seems he was looking at the book she was reading as well,” Mackenzie added. He laid a finger on a copy of The Collected Stories of Sherlock Holmes, which sat on the desk. “This was with her when she died. I suppose I should put it back in the library. That’s what he would want. Books in their proper places . . .”
He let the thought trail and remained as he was, one finger on the cover of the book, staring at nothing in particular. Again, the ticking clock took over the conversation. Leo began to shift in his chair uncomfortably. Perhaps it was time to seek out a cup of tea.
“Something has been bothering me,” Mackenzie said. “I need to speak to someone about it. But I need your confidence. This can go no further than this room.”
Leo lowered himself back into the seat and looked around as an automatic gesture, but of course, they were alone.
“Something was off that morning before he went on the boat,” Mackenzie said. “I don’t know what it was. He wrote a riddle, which seemed like a good thing. Then he made me promise to enjoy myself. He was saying things like—”
Mackenzie cut himself off.
“Like?” Leo prompted.
“Like he knew he wouldn’t be coming back,” Mackenzie answered, as if this thought was occurring to him for the first time. And then, there was the codicil.”
He shuffled around in the desk for a moment and produced a long piece of legal paper. This he walked over and handed to Leo.
“Just read the top bit,” he said.
“‘In addition to all other bequests,’” Leo read aloud, “‘the amount of ten million dollars shall be held in trust for my daughter, Alice Madeline Ellingham. Should my daughter no longer be among the living, any person, persons, or organization that locates her earthly remains—provided it is established that they were in no way connected to her disappearance—shall receive this sum. If she is not located by her ninetieth birthday, these funds shall be released to be used for the Ellingham Academy in any way the board sees fit.’”
“His mind was sound,” Mackenzie said, “but his heart was broken—that’s what made him do this. I have no idea where Alice is, but if she is out there . . .”
“This won’t help,” Leo said, finishing the sentiment. He set the paper down, crossed over to the window, and pulled back the curtain, revealing the pit in the ground behind the house where the lake had been. It was swampy and raw, the dome looking like an exposed sore.
He could tell Mackenzie now—tell him that Alice was there, buried in the tunnel. This terrible secret could be over. But what good would it do? She would be exhumed. There would be a frenzy. Her body would be photographed and poked and prodded. She had gone through enough. Leo had never known himself to have a single paternal instinct, but he felt one now. Alice was home.
“I can’t destroy it,” Mackenzie went on, “as much as I would like to. It’s a legal document. But I can’t let it get into the world either. It would be chaos. It would make it harder to find Alice, not easier. I don’t know what to do with it.”
“Here,” Leo said, turning from the window and reaching out his hand.
“I can’t let you destroy it either.”
“I’m not going to,” Leo said.
Mackenzie paused, then handed it over once more. Leo went over to the mantel, to the green clock. He turned it over carefully, as he had seen Albert do. It took a moment to find the button that popped out the drawer in the base. He folded the paper several times on the mantel until it was a small square, then he put it in the clock and snapped it shut.
“It is secured with Albert Ellingham’s belongings,” he said.
Mackenzie nodded.
“Thank you,” he said. “I’m going to move these upstairs, I think.”
When Mackenzie was gone, Leo found himself rippling with nervous energy. He left the study and strode across the massive main hall to the morning room. He went right to the easel and tore the sheet from the canvas. There was his work—Iris, captured one afternoon not that long ago, lounging in the cold, begging for more cocaine. Albert and Alice had been captured at different times, all stuck together in this creation of his, with the backdrop of the house. The figures were fine. The backdrop had to go.
He pulled the easel and canvas out onto the flagstone patio outside, pointed in the direction of the empty lake and the dome. Pointed toward Alice herself. He worked with swift, big strokes, covering the Great House. He painted in the dome instead, and the rising moon as the day wore on. He slashed apart the sky. Now it was every color, his grief and anger coming out, the knowledge that sat in his stomach. Over the spot where Alice was buried, he directed Iris’s hand. And the moonbeam that shone down upon the spot, he crafted it into a gentle tombstone. He could do that at least. This small gesture. He worked all night, not pausing to eat, taking the canvas inside and working by the fire.