Hush Now, Don't You Cry(110)

“You were in love with Irene Hannan,” I blurted out as he paused outside a bright red door to take out his key.

He spun to face me, his eyes blazing. “Who the devil told you that? Did she?”

“Nobody told me. I figured it out for myself.”

He turned the key and kicked the door open. Then he went inside ahead of me, throwing down his things on a scrubbed pine table. He didn’t invite me in but I followed anyway.

“I loved her since we were kids,” he said. “They used to come here before her father had the house built. They’d rent an ordinary place and she’d come to watch the boats. We’d play together. Then she was sent off to finishing school in Europe. And then I heard that she’d married a snooty Dutchman, one of the Four Hundred. But when I saw her again, I knew right away that she still loved me.”

“She slipped out to visit you,” he said.

“She was always so careful,” he said. “How did you find that out?”

“She wasn’t careful enough. She was seen. But don’t worry. None of the family knows.”

“I always thought that those girls were mine,” he said. “Twins run in my family, you know, and Colleen … she had a look about her, when she was puzzling something out … well, I could see myself in her.” As he spoke he took out his brushes and mechanically cleaned them in a jar of turpentine that stood on the table. “You don’t know what a torture it was, knowing she was so close and yet only being able to see her once in a while. Hoping to catch a glimpse of the little girls … It was like a dream come true when Old Hannan commissioned the portraits. He was going to have one painted of Kathleen too, but of course Colleen came first. She always did. I had to come to the house every day. It was like being in heaven. And then that awful thing happened.”

“She was with you at the time, wasn’t she?”

“How do you know that? What are you, some kind of witch?”

“No, I’m a detective, actually, and if you want to know, it was a guess. Someone told me that Irene wasn’t with them at tea. She came running up when she heard Kathleen’s scream.”

“I haven’t seen her since,” he said. He picked up a filthy rag and dried one of the brushes on it, his back still toward me. “She wrote me a note saying that she could never see me again. She felt so guilty, you see. If only she’d been there, she could have saved Colleen. And her father added insult to injury by bringing back the painting. They no longer wanted to be reminded of her. I didn’t want to be reminded either. It was locked away for years. Then I needed money and decided I might as well sell it. But I couldn’t. Wait there.”

He went into a backroom and returned with the painting. “Here,” he said. “Take it. You say you want to help the other twin? Isn’t she in a mental home? That’s what Irene told me.”

“She’s at the castle,” I said, “and she’s accused of killing her nurse. She’s blocked out all memory of her sister and I thought if she saw the portrait, it might reawaken her memory.”

“So she’s not mad?”

“I don’t know. But I don’t think she killed her sister, and I want to help her.”

“Here you are, then.” He handed me the portrait. “Anything to help her.” And as I took the painting from him he added, “How does she look now? Anything like Colleen?”

“Very much like Colleen, I would say.” I could read his expression—wary, not daring to hope for something he couldn’t have.





Thirty-eight

The heat of the day and the weight of the painting started to grow on me as I walked back from town. I was delighted then when I heard the honk of a horn behind me and an automobile drew up, enveloping me in a cloud of dust. As I brushed the dust away, coughing, I saw Police Chief Prescott sitting behind the driver.

“Mrs. Sullivan. Do allow me to give you a ride,” he said. “I’m on my way to the house now.”

The driver jumped out and opened the rear door for me, taking the painting and helping me up the step.

“Have you been purchasing art?” Chief Prescott asked. “I understand we have some fine painters in the area.”

“No, I’ve just borrowed it,” I said. “I’m hoping to conduct a little experiment.”

“Really, what kind of experiment?”

I lifted the painting for him to see.

“Good heavens,” he said. “It’s the child in the tower.”

“It was her dead twin.”

“The resemblance is striking,” he agreed. “What do you plan to do with it? Surely not show it to the family at this time. Wouldn’t it only cause more grief?”