The Transcendental Murder

me. Why doesn't everybody just dress up like Mickey Mouse?'

'Hello, Tom? Harold Quested here. Say, you know that kid in my bunch of Cubs, Julius Spooner? Well, he came to the last pack meeting with spots all over him and guess what? Yup, I'm afraid so. Every last one of 'em. Chicken pox. Except Julius, of course. He's radiant with good health.'

'Well, let Julius carry the flag,' said Tom.

'Mr. Hand? This is Mrs. Shuttle, you know, the little boy that's going to play the piccolo's mother, in the Spirit of '76? With the bandages? Well, Howie's sick. No, not chicken pox. He fell on the ice and skinned his face, and his embouchure is all swoll up. But Jimmy, that's his little brother, he'd just love to help out. What? No, not the piccolo, the bongos. You know, like a drum? Would that do?'

'No,' said Tom. 'But the drummer boy is sick, too. Maybe we can work something out.' Gwen, her mouth bristling with pins, came up behind him with his old Navy jacket, and struggled him into it. She hummed with horror when she saw how far the buttons would have to be moved over, and stuck a pin viciously in the right place.

'Ow!' yelled Tom. He put his hand over the phone and told Gwen to go ahead, he'd come along later. Besides, he had the pickup to fix because somebody had decided they needed it for a float. 'I'll see you at the ball,' he said.

It was a fine night, so Mary and Gwen walked up the road and down the driveway that led to the big house by the Assabet River. Mrs. Bewley met them at the kitchen door and set up a cheerful shout. Mis. Bewley was the maid of all work, a large, gaunt woman so nearly stone-deaf that one had to really holler to make her hear. She always hollered right back. She pulled Mary across the doorstep. 'NOW, DON'T YOU LOOK PRETTY? I ALWAYS DID GO FOR PINK CHEEKS.'

Mrs. Goss came hurrying into the kitchen to greet them. When she said, 'How charming to see you,' it didn't necessarily mean it was charming at all. It was just what she always said. Her command of any social situation was so stylized and flawless she might have been carrying it on in her sleep. Mary found it paralyzing. It wasn't too different from the effect of her daughter Rowena's bushel baskets. Mary sometimes wondered if that unshakable gentility could be jarred loose. What if she were to burst into tears and fall on Mrs. Goss's shoulder, and cry 'Help me, Mrs. Goss, help me'? Nothing would happen, probably, except veils and swathes of formulae, wrapping themselves swiftly over the harsh real nature of the event. No tears, anywhere, no true laughter. Emily had said something about it—

I like a look of Agony,

Because I know it's true—

Men do not sham Convulsion,

Nor simulate, a Throe—

'Won't you take your things to my bedroom at the head of the stairs?' said Mrs. Goss. Mary agreeably started up the backstairs that led off the kitchen. 'No, no,' said Mrs. Goss sharply, 'please don't go that way. I meant the front stairs.'

But Mary was halfway up. 'That's all right,' she said. 'I don't mind not being grand.' Gwen hesitated, then went along with Mrs. Goss, who looked disgruntled.

At the top of the backstairs Mary discovered why she had not been wanted in that part of the house, and she felt a little ashamed of herself. There was an argument going on behind a closed door. She tiptoed past, trying not to listen. But she couldn't help hearing Ernest Goss's angry voice, talking rapidly. 'I can take just so many of your threats, and no more. I'm not ashamed of my decision, I'm damned glad.' There were sounds of a scuffle, and the heavy crash of overturning furniture. 'Now, now, you get away from me. You lay one finger on me and I'll call the police. Get away from me, you hear?' Ernie's loud voice rose in a high frenzy. Mary paused and looked back at the door. Should she knock? Call for help? But then Ernest Goss started talking again in a normal tone, so low that she couldn't hear what he was saying. She didn't want to. Mary walked down the corridor and found Mrs. Goss's bedroom. Gwen was still downstairs, talking to new arrivals.

Pulling a comb through her hair, Mary waited for her and glanced around the room. Over Elizabeth Goss's bedroom fireplace hung a copy of the old Doolittle print of the Concord fight. There was another just like it in the Concord Library, with the same rows of little British soldiers, their backs straight as red-coated grasshoppers, and the same pretty patterns of smoke puffing out of the muskets. Then she turned to the bookcase and ran her eyes over the shelves. Except for a dutiful shelf devoted to Concord authors it contained a dull miscellany. Why, hello, wasn't that Volume I of Johnson's edition of Emily Dickinson's poetry? It couldn't be the Volume I that was missing from the library? Mary pulled out the grey book and looked inside the front cover. It must be the missing volume. The card pocket was mostly scraped off, but she could still see where the edge had been pasted. Mary riffled the pages. Why would anyone steal one volume from a set of three? Then she found the answer. The book had been defaced. One page appeared to have been roughly torn out. It was page 123. Why, Mrs. Goss, you old so-and- so.

Gwen came in then and left her coat, and together they walked down the front stairs and into the living room. It was a large handsome room with the meaningless perfection that was the mark of the interior decorator. Mr. Goss hurried in behind them. He was almost aggressively hearty, the gay host. Charley wasn't there, but Philip was, with his sisters Edith and Rowena, and Howard Swan and Homer Kelly.

'Mary, dear,' said Mrs. Goss, 'have you met Mr. Kelly? Oh, Mr. Kelly, I must tell you a secret about Mary Morgan. Both my sons are simply mad about her. Did you know? I just wish there were two of her.'

Oh, damn. This again. Mary's autonomic nervous system sent up a huge hot blush. Homer Kelly looked baleful and mumbled something. Then he asked her if she had read any of the works of Mr. Flotsam A. Jetsom lately. Rowena laughed dazzlingly, distributing bushel baskets, and Mary couldn't think of anything to say.

'Oh, Homer,' said Rowena, 'I forgot to introduce my sister Edith.' Edith seemed accustomed to being forgotten. Mary thought once more how extraordinary it was that two sisters so similar in feature could be so different in total effect. Edith had Rowena's broad high forehead, her strong Goss eyebrows and narrow nose. But Rowena's strong brows were a charming accent, while Edith's were heavy and ugly. Rowena's narrow nose was aristocratic, Edith's was skimpy and queer. Rowena's red hair was Titian, Edith's was carrot. Both were as tall as their brothers, but Rowena's carriage was statuesque (present-bosom!), Edith's was stoop-shouldered and flat-chested. Already an old maid, Edith liked cats and romantic novels. Everyone was sorry for Edith, including Edith. It was hard to be fond of her. She was cloddish, tactless and dull.

Apologetic for thinking so, Mary sat down beside her with her martini. But Ernest Goss was not one for letting corner conversations get started. He had a new toy. 'I thought you'd all want to see the new addition to my collection,' he said. Mary winced. It wasn't those letters again? No, no, it was his gun collection he was talking about this time. Thank goodness. He might be in the dark about Margaret Fuller, but he seemed to know what he was talking about when it came to Indian artifacts and antique firearms. He flourished a little gun.

'Here you are, girls. Something to carry around with you on a dark night. A lady's pistol, 1750. Isn't it a cutie?' He passed it around. 'See? It has a box lock. The barrel unscrews for loading. You use this special little wrench to undo it.'

Homer Kelly professed interest. Ernest Goss was flattered. Nothing would do but Homer should be shown the entire collection. It was kept in a highboy built by Joseph Hosmer, one of Concord's original Minutemen. Ernest pulled open drawer after drawer. 'Here's a pocket pistol of around the same time. See that pineapple design underneath? That means it's English. This flintlock here is a duelling pistol, one of a pair. Oh, HELLO THERE, MRS. BEWLEY. HOW ABOUT BRINGING SOME MORE MARTINIS? Now, Homer, I know what you want to see, you don't need to tell me. You want to see the gun the Minutemen used at the North Bridge. Well, I've got one. They don't grow on trees, but I've got one. Had this cupboard built into the wall specially. Nothing too good for my prize piece. You should see what Philip can do with this to a tin can at 50 yards.' Homer took the long gun in his hands with awe. 'It's a musket. Five feet two inches long, that one. The farmers around here had 'em for getting small game, grouse, waterfowl, and so on. So it's called a fowling piece. See, it's English, too. There's the pineapple finial on the trigger guard. Here's the flint, with the little piece of leather around it to hold it in. Say, Philip, let's show Homer how it works. Make me up five or six balls.'