Crime is Murder Read Free Page B

know.”
    “Or even a form of madness. You know how he died, I suppose?”
    Lisa didn’t answer.
    “It was a fire in his studio. The studio was quite close to the house you’ve taken, by the way. I’m sure the ruins must still be there.”
    “Yes, I know,” Lisa murmured.
    “I beg your pardon?”
    Lisa raised her head. She’d been talking to her teacup.
    “I’ve read about the fire. It was a tragic thing. He was so young.”
    “Yes, only thirty-six. Young, handsome, and at the height of his productivity and success. I’m not a native of Bellville, Miss Bancroft, but when I came here from the university a few years ago I acquired a natural curiosity about the town’s only illustrious son—unless, of course, you include old Walden Bell, who founded our community, or his son, Walden II. And you do have to include them in the Cornish story, because it was Walden the younger who discovered Cornish’s talent when Martin was just a lad working in the lumber mill. Bell must have thought quite a lot of his protégé for he sent him off to Paris to study—”
    “I know that part of the story,” Lisa said.
    “I’m sure you do, but there’s more than you can get out of those little biographical pamphlets at the museum. Martin Cornish became almost one of the family—a son, you might say. I rather imagine Walden Bell wanted a son. He had only one child, Nydia, and from what I’ve seen of her she wouldn’t have done much to delight a paternal heart.”
    Now Lisa was interested. “Nydia’s still alive, then?”
    “Oh yes, very much so. As you just heard Marta say, you’re neighbors now. But, to make the story as brief as possible, Martin Cornish married Nydia Bell in her father’s bedroom the day of the old man’s death. That was twenty-seven years ago. Martin Cornish was twenty-six, handsome, and beginning to gain recognition. His wife was twenty-eight, unhandsome, and the sole heir to the Bell fortune.”
    “Music is an expensive career,” Lisa observed.
    The professor smiled briefly. “You
have
heard the story. Certainly, from Martin Cornish’s work during the ensuing ten years one can conclude this was no love match. Although, oddly enough, he had written some very haunting love themes prior to this event, and one does find an occasional lyric from his more somber years. Then, too, there’s the manner of his untimely death.”
    Outside, the rain had stopped. The crowd began to break up at the soda fountain, taking with it the noise. Only a few glasses were clinking in the washbasin, and Curran Dawes’s voice sounded strangely hollow against the quiet.
    “Martin Cornish became a father in the seventh year of his marriage,” he continued. “Perhaps the cries of little Marta disturbed the genius at work because, I’ve been told, that’s when he built the studio as far as possible from Bell Mansion without leaving the property. There, one night when he was working late and apparently fell asleep while smoking, occurred the tragic fire that snuffed out his life. But he didn’t die alone, Miss Bancroft. This is what you won’t read in those pamphlets, but it’s all here in Bellville just waiting for someone to ask.” The professor paused to let his disclosure sink home. “In the smoldering ruins of the studio two bodies were found. One was that of a woman, later identified as Stella Larkin, a maid in the employ of the neighboring Mastersons.”
    Lisa knew she was meant to make some comment. “My house,” she said.
    “Your house, Miss Bancroft. So, you see, you’ve moved in on an unwritten romance—and an unfinished one. To this day no one really knows how that fire was started.”
    The professor had put a lot into the telling of this tale. He was waiting for more comment.
    “I’ve always heard that it was an accident,” Lisa said.
    “Of course you have,” he responded, “and you’ve probably heard, too, that the Mastersons had merely sent their maid to the studio to deliver a dinner