A Masked Murderer by Beth Byers

Author:Beth Byers [Byers, Beth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-09-29T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

They entered the passageway and Vi realized it wasn’t exactly a secret passageway. “Is this the servants’ stair?”

“No,” Ham said, “those are a shade larger and just as hidden. Whoever built this place wanted the servants to be like ghosts who appeared, cleaned, and left.”

Vi muttered darkly as they made their way down. Jack paused as they found the stairs continued down, but there was another small hallway that led off of their passageway.

“The servants’ staircase must be on the other side of this one,” Jack said, frowning. “We aren’t going back to the others until we are sure we can get out of this place. If the person who is manipulating this situation is correct—and I think they are—there’s a killer among us.”

“So we need an exit,” Ham agreed. “Too many people we love are here.”

“Oh, I agree,” Rita muttered. “Lila crying over the baby is enough to make me throw myself through the wall to get her out.”

It was their experience with mansions that helped them to discover the library. The house was off, and too many doors locked from both the inside and the outside, but it wasn’t so odd that the library was in the attics. There were only so many options that led to the first floor of the house with a door off of the side, like Tom and the others had described, so it didn’t take long to reach the library.

It was found on the first floor near the dining room. The library was through the duo of locked doors Violet had noticed earlier.

It wasn’t even surprising; she’d had half-recognized what the room was earlier, she just hadn’t cared. Jack pushed the door to the library open and then paused.

“Bloody hell,” he said, and Vi nudged at his back until he moved out of the way.

She stepped into the room in shock. “Do you think the servants didn’t see this? Or do you think that they believe it’s…something like…the set of a play?”

Jack just shook his head and then Violet stepped around him and approached a wall. Whoever had taken this house must have been living here for months and months. The room held drawing after drawing of Marjorie.

“Jack!” Violet said when she realized she was seeing a whole series. There was a picture of a well first. It was followed by Marjorie in a ray of light shining down on her, highlighting her face. That picture was followed by another one. In it, Marjorie was exactly the same, but the scene had expanded.

The larger vision was Marjorie in the light, the well just next to her, and behind her—where she couldn’t see it—an approaching figure. The figure was hazy. It wasn’t clear who it was, but what was clear: the knife.

The next scene was a body falling through a shaft of darkness. Violet shuddered. The narrowness, the darkness, all of it. It was too similar to the dumbwaiter shaft that Violet had just crawled up. Hers hadn’t been slimy. The bottom of the shaft for Violet had been Jack.

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