Murder in the Haunted Castle
Missed the story so far? Catch up here: Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-one Chapter Twenty-two Chapter Twenty-three Chapter Twenty-four Chapter Twenty-five Chapter Twenty-six Chapter Twenty-seven Chapter Twenty-eight Chapter Twenty-nine Chapter Thirty Chapter Thirty-one Chapter Thirty-two Chapter Thirty-three Chapter Thirty-four Chapter Thirty-five Chapter Thirty-six
They gathered in the vast dining hall again. Brad and Brooklyn had checked on Doris in her room and decided to stay and keep her company and give her comfort. After all, they were distant relatives.
Kim wondered if the events of the last day or two might change things between the two sides of the family
Agnes sat at the head of the table, a large mug of tea clutched between her hands.
Kim couldn’t help but be struck by the light of intelligence and awareness in her eyes. This was nothing like the confused old lady of the last day or two.
Walter sat at the other end of the table flanked by two knights in armour.
Outside the castle the wind was dying down and the snow had stopped falling.
James had discovered they now had a mobile signal again and made a call to the police.
“They’re going to clear a path along the road and get to us as soon as they can,” he said, when he had finished on his mobile. “They should be here within the next couple of hours.”
“Well,” Kim said. “That gives us plenty of time to find out what’s been going on.”
“I think I might know,” Agnes said. “Or at least some of it, anyway.”
She stared at Walter the whole time she spoke, but Walter refused to lift his gaze and meet her stare.
“Go on,” Kim said.
Cat and Lynx both leaned forward, expectant looks on their faces.
“This isn’t our first visit to the castle,” Agnes said. “We came her many years ago, back when the castle was still opulent, and they used to have the best parties, renowned across all of Austria and beyond. We were here for a celebration, New Year's Eve, nineteen seventy-nine. We were going to see in a new decade, the nineteen eighties.”
Agnes paused, took a sip of her hot tea.
“What happened?” James said.
Agnes sighed, a wistful look on her face. “It was wonderful, we had food, champagne, fireworks, everything.”
“And you had an affair,” Walter said, lifting his head and speaking for the first time.
“Yes, I did,” Agnes replied. “I had an affair with Boris, one that started with a single night of passion that New Years Eve, but then continued, on and off, for the next few years.”
Kim looked at Walter. “Did you…did you murder Boris?”
Walter balled his hands up into fists on the table. “Yes, I did, and I have no regrets, none at all.”
“It seems my darling husband has been plotting his revenge for a few years now, ever since he found out about our affair,” Agnes said.
“Found out!” Walter snarled. “You’ve been taunting me with it for years now, rubbing it in my face.”
Ignoring him, Agnes continued. “Walter has been administering a psychotropic drug to me, one that mimics the effects of dementia, but kept me reasonably aware of what was going on around me. He kept me informed every step of the way of his plans to murder Boris, so that he could torment me with it, and rub it in my face.”
“But didn’t Boris recognise you both when you arrived at the castle the other day?” Kim said.
“Of course, but Walter had prepared him for our visit, giving him the news of my so called dementia. Boris had no idea that our long finished affair had been discovered.”
Kim could hardly believe what she was hearing. And Agnes seemed so matter of fact about it all, so cold.
“But what about the butler?” James said. “How does he fit into all of this?”
“The butler had been stealing from the Von Trautskiens for years,” Walter said. “He’s collected quite a fortune in valuable trinkets in the dungeon, packing them all up in crates, which he had been intending to sell at auction. His only problem was he couldn’t work out how to get them out of the castle without being discovered.”
“And let me guess,” Kim said. “He discovered you murdering Boris.”
Walter nodded. “That’s right, and in return for his silence I was to help him dispose of all the valuables in the dungeon. He had already poisoned that officious little man, Malcolm Warner to delay the sale of the castle and give him time to dispose of everything. He hadn’t meant to kill him, though, just make him ill enough to have to stop his valuation of the castle and its contents.”
“No, wait,” Kim said. “Brad and Brooklyn, they poisoned Malcolm Warner, not the butler.”
Walter shrugged.
“I think that explains something,” James said. “Brad was convinced he hadn’t given Malcolm a fatal dose of poison, and now I believe him. But with two people slipping poison into his food, the effect was too much and Malcolm died.”
Kim turned back to Agnes. “But why were you locked up in that room downstairs?”
Agnes chuckled humorlessly. “Because Walter had miscalculated how much of the drug he needed to keep me under a cloud of confusion and he ran out. As I began to grow more alert I started kicking up a fuss, and so Walter and that infernal butler locked me up out of the way at the back of the castle where no-one could hear me shouting or banging on the door.”
“And then seeing me being chased by that suit of armour, he decided to check on you to make sure you hadn’t been discovered, but found me instead,” Kim said.
James turned to Walter. “That’s why you were leaving so suddenly, right? You were scared that Agnes would give you away. Wait a minute, did you send the butler to go and get Agnes so you could drive her away from the castle and all of us? Take her somewhere maybe where you could get rid of her too. Permanently?”
Walter folded his arms. “I’m not saying anything else until I have a lawyer.”
Kim leaned back in her chair. “This is more complicated than one of your novels! Even Detective Frank Caravaggio would have had trouble sorting this one out.”
“Now I suppose we just have to wait for the police,” Maddie said.
The ghost of Horace Von Trautskien stepped forward. “We will guard the murderer. It is the least we can do.”
“Thank you,” Kim said.
See you on Monday for Chapter Thirty-eight, and the end of the story.
Cheers,
Ken
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