Beak House

by Stephen Ross

About the Author: Stephen Ross's short stories and novelettes have appeared in the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, the Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, several Mystery Writers of America anthologies, and many other magazines, anthologies, and publications. He has been nominated for an Edgar Award, a Derringer Award, a Thriller Award, and was a 2010 Ellery Queen Readers Award finalist.

Excerpt

Eventually, dinner was served, and Edmund shut up about our childhood visits to Aunt Augusta in Whitby and the dead Roman soldier and sat down at the dining table. On a good night, the ancient oblong would seat forty-two, but Beak House hadn’t seen one of those gay soirees since the mid-thirties. Tonight, winter, 1969, there sat the two of us. Two brothers who hadn’t sat opposite each other for a quarter of a century, in a cavernous room of dust and discolored cutlery, lit by four candles and dim memories.

And Creases.

Creases wheeled the service trolley around the end of the table. Heaven only knew how old the man was. The Scotsman had been elderly when Edmund and I had been boys. We were both now 59, dangling in the abyss of decrepitude, and Creases was even crustier. Dressed in butler-black, he moved like a figure from antiquity, resurrected from his grave to slowly buttle the food cart. He placed a bowl of soup in front of me, then my brother, and then wheeled the trolley out of the room.

“What happened to Polly?” Edmund asked, spoon in one hand, wine glass in the other.

“Polly who?”

“Polly. The housemaid.”

I could never remember names, least of all those of the staff. I stared blankly at my brother.

He elaborated. “She had red hair, like it was on fire, and spoke with a slight lisp.”

“Oh, that Polly. She was an attractive slip of a thing, if I remember rightly.”

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