House of Many Shadows by Barbara Michaels

Author:Barbara Michaels [Michaels, Barbara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

“Let me see!”

Meg made a grab for the book, which Andy was holding with his finger marking his place. He pulled it away.

“You don’t believe me?”

“I hope you’re wrong.” Meg slumped against the doorframe and looked disconsolately at Andy. “But I guess you couldn’t be, could you? I—I don’t know what to say. What a horrible thing! I never thought of anything like that. No wonder…”

“The house is haunted,” Andy finished. “It’s a classic motive, all right. You might as well see for yourself. Come on in.”

“Not here, the place is a mess. Come on back to the library.”

“Honey bun, I don’t want to sit in that room tonight. Don’t you understand what I’m saying? This is the anniversary of the murder!”

They stared at one another, appalled and wide-eyed. Then Meg got a grip on herself.

“What do you expect to happen?” she demanded. “You think we’ll see the murder or something? So far we haven’t seen anything happen; only still pictures. Oh, I agree, I wouldn’t want to see them lying there in their blood, but what if we did? It wouldn’t kill us.”

“Are you trying to shame me into showing some guts? Okay. But if you flip and run screaming out of the house, don’t blame me.”

Giving Andy a contemptuous stare, Meg turned her back on him and started downstairs. She heard him follow, but did not speak. When they reached the library she switched on every available light and then held out her hand.

“There. It’s nice and bright, and I won’t let anything get you. Give me the book, please.”

Andy threw it at her. In a way, Meg didn’t blame him. In silence she bent and picked up the book; still in silence, she sat down in her favorite chair by the fire and began to turn the pages.

She found the reference at once. The name—Huber— seemed to jump up out of the page at her. But the actual text was so brief as to be frustrating. The case was not discussed in detail, only referred to among a group of other crimes the writer considered related—unsolved, apparently senseless murders in remote rural districts.

Andy had been right about the date. October 11, 1740. The coincidence disturbed Meg as much as it did Andy, but she was determined not to show it. The other details, cursory as they were, were equally disturbing; it was like reading of the horrible death of people she knew personally. The victims—the elderly man, Christian Huber, and an aged family servant—had been found late on the night of the eleventh by a visitor. Although the house was a shambles, nothing seemed to be missing—except the third member of the family, the man’s granddaughter. She had never been found, although neighbors searched the woods for days. This fact, as the author unemotionally remarked, “suggested a possible motive for the crime.” The impromptu gathering which was the frontier equivalent of a coroner’s jury had rendered a verdict of “murder by persons unknown.”

“So she was his granddaughter,” Meg said.

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