“But quick,” said Morgan.
The two women chatted for a while, sitting at the Arborite table, nursing their coffees. Morgan, standing, leaned against a counter, grinding his soles on the floor. He sat down. The women tried to open their conversation, to make it inclusive, but he only listened, and periodically glanced at the ceiling, trying to envision the macabre scenario overhead.
Miranda looked at her partner over the rim of her cup. She felt almost sorry for him. Delay somehow relieved his guilt for wanting to subvert professional disinterest and plunge into the Gothic depths of what promised to be a really good story.
“I’m going up,” he finally announced, rising to his feet again.
The muted groan of his chair against the battered linoleum startled them. A faint moaning echo reprised as the other two slid out their chairs and joined him shuffling through rubble as they made for the stairs.
CHAPTER TWO
Demolition had been arrested in its earliest phase, although the place must have been deteriorating through seasons of freezing and thawing for years. Thick layers of wallpaper had peeled off in great patchwork swathes, revealing plaster that looked pulpy or had crumbled away. Horizontal strips of hand-split cedar showed through gaps where a salvaging contractor had retrieved old fixtures and woodwork. The stair railing was gone, but the wood trim hadn’t been touched yet.
As they spread out on the dilapidated stairs to distribute their weight, Officer Naismith explained how salvagers had discovered the hidden closet. In prying a hanging cabinet from one of the bedroom walls, a crowbar smashed through the pulpy plaster and revealed an unaccountable cavity. It wasn’t so odd in a larger house for an awkward space to be covered over — Morgan knew that — but it was unusual in a cottage like this. They didn’t build in closets; they would have used armoires and dressers, or pegs on the wall. There might be the occasional odd architectural nook. Covered over, it would be forgotten in a generation or two.
“Here we are,” said Officer Naismith as if conducting a tour. “The largest bedroom, no less.”
“It’s still pretty small,” Miranda observed. Then, moving forward, she gazed downward. “Oh, my goodness, they look so in love!”
The room filled with a hushed silence.
Officer Naismith was quietly jubilant. Morgan smiled enigmatically. Miranda’s lack of professional propriety or affected indifference seemed a genuine relief. Candour from Miranda was not always forthcoming, especially in front of colleagues.
Miranda stifled what might have been laughter or a sneeze, the officer started to giggle, Morgan scowled. But the grisly scene, while eerie, was not oppressive. Death seemed so long in the past, solemnity was no more obligatory than grieving over displays at a waxworks museum.
Morgan kneeled to scrutinize the skin on the back of the male’s hand. Leaning forward, he nudged the body and jumped when the hand seemed to flinch.
“My goodness,” he said defensively. Not swearing was a modest perversity in a world where obscenities vied with profanities to displace more thoughtful expletives. “They’re light as a feather. I hardly touched him.” He fingered the man’s sleeve. “This material is incredibly well-preserved. It’s stood up better than its occupant.”
Miranda squatted down opposite, examining the woman’s clothing.
“What a lovely dress,” she noted, glancing up at the officer then back at her partner. “Satin and lace, and there’s no sign of a struggle, no bloodstains. It’s a bit odd, Morgan. There’s no blood on either of them.”
She eased around to look at their severed necks.
“Clean cuts, by someone who knew basic anatomy,” she observed. “Even if they were dead, there should have been residual blood. They must have been dressed like this after they were decapitated.”
“They don’t seem to have shrunk very much,” Morgan said. “The frock coat seems a little big, maybe. Her dress is right on.”
“How come there’s no collateral degradation? You’d think their flesh would meld with the materials, that the cloth would show signs of decay.”
“They must have been sealed up virtually airtight in the heat of the summer,” Morgan observed. “I suppose the flesh would dry out before rot had a chance to set in. I don’t know; it seems a bit strange.”
Morgan took a pen from his pocket and probed into the dark folds of the frock coat, retrieving a signet ring that had slipped from the man’s wizened finger. He held it up to the light.
“Masonic. It has the same pyramid capped with an all-seeing eye that’s on the American one-dollar bill.”
“Is it really?”
“Yeah. Take a look the next time you have one.”
“I know what’s on their dollar bill, Morgan. It’s the ring: I’m surprised it’s a Mason’s ring.”
“How so?”
“Because. Look what’s in her hand,” Miranda unclasped the fingers carefully so as not to break them off and revealed a small, gleaming crucifix on a length of fine gold chain.
“She’d have trouble wearing anything around her neck.”
“It’s an unlikely combination,” Miranda said, ignoring his quip. “A Roman Catholic and a Mason. I wonder if that’s why they’re like this.”
“Dead?”
“In the romantic posture. Doomed by love — destroyed by a righteous father?” “What do you think, Officer Naismith?” Morgan asked. “You haven’t said anything.”
“I was just watching the masters at work,” she responded.
Morgan suspected she was being ironic.
Miranda smiled, rising to her feet.
“I’m Miranda,” she said, holding out her hand awkwardly. They had already passed the level of intimacy where exchanging first names seemed inane. They shook hands with whimsical formality.
“Morgan is Morgan. He has another name but keeps it a secret.”
“I’m Naismith.”
“Naismith Naismith,” said Morgan.
The woman laughed. “Well, you’re Morgan Morgan.”
“David.”
“Rachel.”
“And I’m still Miranda. So what do you think, Rachel? What’s happening here?”
“I really have no idea.”
“Yes you do.”
“Do I? Well, I doubt it’s her father who did it. I think they’ve been set up as a sentimental paradox.”
“A paradox?” said Morgan.
“Intimate lovers; but headless, their identities erased.”
“Subversive,” said Miranda.
“Do either of you know ‘The Kiss’ by Auguste Rodin?”
“Yes,” said Miranda.
She summoned to mind the enduring embrace of bronze lovers. One of the most famous portrayals of romantic passion ever conceived, bigger than life, highly erotic, the caught moment of absolute love.
“Yeah,” said Morgan. “The plasters were at the ROM exhibition last year.”
“Did you read the fine print?” Rachel Naismith asked. “Beside the display?”
They felt a little truant; both looked inquisitive.
“The story behind ‘The Kiss’ is intriguing,” she continued. “Once you know it, the sculpture changes. It literally turns from dream into nightmare, a diabolical vision of sensual entropy — ”
“Sensual entropy! I like that,” Morgan exclaimed.
