Thorfinn Grimm's Holiday — Part 6
"Everybody gets what’s comin’ to ‘em."
As it says in the title, this is the sixth (and final) part of Thorfinn Grimm’s Holiday. Here’s a link to the index so you can catch up on previous parts and older stories, and don’t forget to subscribe!
The Story So Far:
Pippin invited Thorfinn to his family estate for Christmas. Then, on Christmas Day, someone set fire to the house, killing Pippin’s rather malevolent grandfather. A week later, Pippin’s mother disappeared, and Thorfinn tracked her to Thailand, where he met a group of Interpol officers who informed him that the victim, Mr Walter Darby, was in possession of a secret document, the publication of which would have dire consequences for the world as we know it. On the flight home, Alice and Thorfinn got to know each other better, and she told him all about her childhood, incidentally revealing that Darby House had a number of disused secret passages that they mostly used to store old junk.
Meanwhile, Pippin discovered a sordid detail from his grandfather’s past that led him to believe that the killer might be the blind priest, Father Matthew Moore. Also, the maid, Abigail Sinclair, may have given Mr Darby a large dose of morphine, which is neither here nor there. After returning to the country and confirming a few details with the other household members, Finn informed the authorities that there was no “secret document” among Mr Darby’s papers. At the same time, Pippin has decided to confront Father Moore alone, which is sure to work out great for everyone. Right?
Chapter 6
I didn’t see Pippin again until breakfast. I was honestly a little worried, but he seemed fine — a little sleep-deprived maybe, but otherwise alright.
“It wasn’t Father Moore,” he said despondently as he buttered his toast. “His parents didn’t die in a fire, it was a car accident, which had nothing to do with Grandpa Walter.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I consoled him. “These things happen to everyone.”
Pippin blushed. “It gets worse,” he said. “See, I figured there was no way a blind person could have killed Grandpa Walter, set fire to the house, and made it out alive.”
“Oh no,” I said, a sinking feeling in my gut. “What did you do, Pip?”
His face reddened more and he set his food down.
“I… uh… may have made faces at him for twenty minutes trying to see if he would react.”
“That’s… not nice, but it’s not that bad.”
“And then I dropped my pants.”
“What?”
This was a bit much, even for me. However, I suppose I have done worse things.
“Well, at least we know he really is blind,” Pippin said in a pleading tone, then buried his face in his hands. “Who am I kidding? I’m going to Hell.”
“I wouldn’t know about that,” I said, taking a bite out of his uneaten toast. “Maybe you should ask Father Moore.”
I met Father Moore later and he was blissfully unaware of what Pippin had done. In fact, the priest looked much better now, almost back to his normal self. He had his bags with him and was in the process of checking out of the guesthouse.
“I’ve been going through a little crisis,” he told me. “When the fire happened, I was sure that would be the end of me. But God’s hand led me through the valley of the shadow of death, and it was like a second birth for me. I’ve felt His presence more in these last few days than I ever did in my life.”
I asked him what he planned on doing next. Father Moore said he was heading to Spain, where he had requested to join a cloistered monastery.
“Some peace, that’s what I need,” he said. “That’s all any of us need, I think.”
“True,” I replied. “But what we want is money.”
Later that day, a stranger arrived at the guesthouse dressed in a pinstripe suit and carrying an official-looking briefcase. Pippin introduced him as Mr William McGill, the family lawyer, and he was there to deliver the one thing the family had been waiting for all their lives: their inheritance.
All the players promptly assembled in the parlour; Frank and Cora, Frank Jr. and Elizabeth, Alice, Pippin, Mrs Bunting, and Abigail. Mr McGill cleared his throat and began the proceedings.
“Normally, it can take up to a year for the estate to be settled,” he said. “But, in this case, I think we should be able to wrap everything up quite quickly.”
“What does that mean?” asked Cora. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
Instead of a response, Mr McGill cleared his throat again and glanced over his papers.
“A few months ago,” he continued. “Mr Darby made a new will. Apart from the money for his funeral and some debts, the rest of his assets, including what remains of Darby House, he left to his grandson and sole heir, Mr Pippin Morstan.”
“That’s outrageous,” yelled Frank Jr., shooting to his feet. “Why does the boy get all the money? They didn’t even like each other. It should have been me!”
“I don’t think it matters all that much, Mr Darby,” said Mr McGill. “Because there isn’t any money.”
“Come again, Bill?” asked Frank Sr. “Did you say there isn’t any money?”
“I’ve been speaking to Mr Darby’s accountants,” Mr McGill explained. “Around the same time he made the new will, Mr Darby started spending exorbitant amounts of money on a website called OnlyFans. He also bought a huge stockpile of cat food, which he had sent to a homeless shelter.”
“Do you mean a rescue shelter?” asked Alice. “But he hated animals.”
“No, I do mean a homeless shelter. I don’t think he was trying to be charitable.”
At that point, I could no longer contain my laughter. “Isn’t it obvious?” I said. “He was just being a $@£#. Honestly, what did you expect? Well, seeing as I have you all here, I think it’s the perfect opportunity to tell you I solved the case. I know how Mr Darby died.”
“From the very beginning, it was clear that practically everyone at Darby House had a motive to kill Mr Walter Darby,” I explained. “Then a lot of things happened that muddied the waters, but last night, it all suddenly became clear to me.”
“Quit the preamble, Finn,” said Pippin. “Who killed Grandpa Walter?”
Honestly, he has no sense of showmanship. Let’s take it from the top, shall we? It all kicked off after Christmas Eve dinner when Mr Darby pissed off everyone present with the announcement that he would soon be changing his will, cutting them all out. This made everyone quite angry, and they all dealt with it in their own way.
Frank Darby ran away and sulked while his wife Cora took a more hands-on approach, directly confronting her father-in-law. Alice chose to vent her frustrations by talking it out with her son. Father Moore placed his faith in the Lord, and Abigail placed her faith in a syringe of morphine, which she hoped would knock Mr Darby out until at least a few hours into Christmas Day. Frank Jr. dealt with his issues by fighting with his wife and storming off to hit on Abigail.
“What about you, Elizabeth?” I asked. “What did you do?”
Everyone turned to Elizabeth Darby, who suddenly looked quite pale. She looked at her husband and then at me, a desperate light in her eyes.
“I didn’t do anything,” she said. “Why are you all looking at me?”
“There’s no point lying about it,” I told her. “You see, after a bad day, Elizabeth likes to unwind with a relaxing bath, complete with bubbles, wine… and candles. She was just about to do that when she and Frank Jr. had another argument. After he left the room, she returned to the bath and found that she’d accidentally set the curtains on fire.”
“That was the scream!” Abigail exclaimed. “The scream we heard in the corridor. It was her!”
“Exactly.” I nodded appreciatively. “She screamed, then shouted fire. And once one person shouts fire, everyone else does too, which makes it really hard to pinpoint who did it first, especially when you’re running out of a burning building.”
“But what about the accelerant the fire brigade found?” asked Pippin. “And the explosion?”
“Mr Darby probably had an emergency oxygen tank in the room, which would account for the accelerant and the explosion.”
“He did have one,” Abigail confirmed. “It was under the bed.”
At that moment, Elizabeth Darby finally hit her breaking point.
“It was him!” she yelled, pointing at her husband. “He lit the candles.”
“I was trying to cheer you up,” Frank Jr. protested.
“With store-bought candles. Even though you know I only use candles from my own line.”
“Oh, shut up, you shrew,” he snapped. “Your ‘line’ is horrible and you’re going to jail, I’ll make sure of it.”
“She’s not going to jail,” I said. “Well, the judge might charge a fine or something but I think the courts would be more concerned with the murder.”
“I thought there was no murder,” said Pippin. “If the fire was an accident…”
“The fire was indeed an accident,” I reiterated. “But Mr Darby was already dead when it started. I’m sure you all know about Darby House’s secret passages.”
“But I told you, they were completely unusable,” Alice argued. “We just used them to store old junk. There’s no way someone could have sneaked in through them.”
“True, they wouldn’t have been much use as secret passages. But the killer didn’t need a passage, just a place to hide until Abigail left. The second she was gone, they just stepped into the room and smothered the old man where he slept. Tell me, Mrs Bunting, where were you when the fire broke out?”
“Me?” The old housekeeper looked surprised. “I must have been in the kitchen, getting everything ready for the next day.”
“No, that doesn’t work,” I said. “If you were downstairs in the kitchen, you would have been among the first to come out of the house. But you only made it out after almost everyone else.”
“Finn, she’s an old woman,” Pippin argued defensively. “It can’t have been her.”
But Mrs Bunting didn’t protest any more. She didn’t defend herself, or point the finger at someone else. All she did was shrug, smile, and say, “Everybody gets what’s comin’ to ‘em, even if it takes a little push. I suppose it’s my turn now.”
Several weeks passed before Pip and I could return to our flat.
Mrs Bunting pleaded guilty at the trial, but considering her age, the judge gave her a relatively light sentence, with the option of early release for good behaviour.
The same day, Elizabeth Darby filed for divorce, finally ending things with Frank Jr. Later, she devoted herself full-time to her aromatherapy business. It’s not going well, but she seems happy.
Cora Darby got a job, just as she said she would, and found a nice little cottage for herself and her husband. She did not ask her son to move in with them.
Pippin found a buyer for the estate, and he told me he would give the money to his mother so she could travel the world as she had always wanted to.
As for what happened to Abigail, that’s a story for another time, involving sharks, a koi pond, and a reclusive artist.
After that ordeal, it felt good to return home to our familiar haunts and Mrs. Kruger’s delicious cooking. But some questions remained unanswered.
“Why do you think she did it?” Pippin asked me sometime after our return. “Mrs Bunting lived in that house for decades. Why kill the old man now?”
“I don’t know for sure, but I have some ideas,” I told him. “You know she started out as the au pair, right? I think she always saw herself as a second mother to Alice and Frank. She stuck around all these years, endured all his abuse, just so she could take care of them. So, that night, when everything came to a head and she realised her children were about to be cheated out of their inheritance, she finally reached her limit and took matters into her own hands.”
“That makes sense. But what about the document you were looking for? For a minute there, I thought maybe he was killed by spies or something. There were a bunch of papers I didn’t get to go through. Are you sure it wasn’t there with them?”
“Quite sure,” I assured him. “Maybe there was no document and the old man was just bluffing all these years.”
“Just as well I suppose,” Pippin said with a shrug. “A secret like that? I don’t think anyone should have it.”
I couldn’t have agreed more…
…which is why I lied. I did find the document and destroyed it myself. As for the secret it contained, that’s one mystery I’m keeping just to myself — a little Christmas gift, from me to me. You won’t tell anyone, will you?
The End.
If you’d like to read more of our eccentric detective’s adventures, you can now buy Thorfinn Grimm: Year One in paperback and e-book formats on Amazon. Here’s the link:
Nicely wrapped up! I would never have guessed the culprit!