Phalen searched the boathouse. He found nothing that would indicate who might have killed the maid. He decided to move to the victim’s room. He would have to hurry. The storm clouds were gathering, and the skies were darkening.
He raced across the lawn to the main house. He was directed to the third floor. Down a dark, narrow hall, he found the correct door. Little tin numbers were nailed to the top of each door frame. The victim’s room was 27. It was a cramped space squeezed in at the end of the hallway near the large bathroom that all of the women servants used.
The room had a musty, closed scent. There was one small window on the far wall. The furniture was sparse: a bed, a chair, and a small table with a book on it. Everything about the room looked tired. The furniture did not match. The whole room looked like it had been furnished with odds and ends no longer used in the main house – an old straight-back chair from the kitchen, thin curtains that did not block the light, a small, plain, scarred wooden table from a work shed.
The wallpaper was peeling, and the whole room looked dreary. It was neat, but the neatness lent no cheeriness.
Spartan, Phalen would have called it.
He picked up the book on the table. It was an old Bible, tattered and falling apart. He peered inside. The pages allotted for family lineage were blank. Written in pencil, barely legible, was one line: Property of South End Orphanage, 1898.
A parting gift is given when an orphan leaves the only home she’s known, Phalen guessed.
Just as he was about to decide there was nothing of importance in the room, he saw something out of the corner of his eye.
He jumped.
A mouse skittered across the floor and disappeared under the bed.
He laughed, shook his head, and closed the door. He would order this bedroom and the boathouse off limits until further notice. He would insist that both places be left untouched until his investigation was completed.
As he walked down the dark hallway, his footsteps echoed hollow and lonely.
A clap of thunder sounded in the distance.
This was going to be quite a storm.