The Spirits of South Drive

By Caroline Kaiser

When antiques appraiser Virginia Blythe finds a murdered woman in the art studio of a gloomy mansion, she's stunned to realize that she recognizes the victim. Who would have strangled eccentric but harmless Alice Aberfoyle, and why? Virginia's boss, George Schlegel, and Detective Joe Hanratty are determined to find the killer, but the investigat

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lavaliere Press
• Release date: May 24, 2023
• ISBN: 9780993813740

Caroline Kaiser

Caroline Kaiser worked for nearly fourteen years as an antiques cataloguer and appraiser at a busy auction house, where she headed the glass, ceramics, silver, and toy departments. She has enjoyed a lifelong love affair with both old things and old Hollywood movies. She now earns her living as a freelance fiction editor. A native of Toronto, she hasn’t yet decided to live somewhere else. Virginia’s Ghost is her first novel.

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CHAPTER 1

Old houses are alike in many fundamental ways. They carry themselves with a stiff, dignified air—much as their original owners did, constrained as they were by tight clothing and rigid social norms. And without exception, these homes hold hints of their previous occupants; every stick of furniture, every painting, every last bauble and knick-knack provides a clue. If you happen to be listening, these objects will tell you stories about who lived there, and sometimes it feels as if the walls themselves whisper the history of the inhabitants.

When you’ve visited enough old houses, they start to blur together. Still, there are some that hold the most extraordinary surprises—surprises that become seared into memory. As an antiques specialist for Gable & Co. Auctioneers in Toronto for two decades, I’d poked around and rummaged through my fair share of gloomy Victorians and Edwardians, but no house surprised me more than the 1880s Gothic Revival mansion on South Drive in Rosedale.

When I woke up the day I was to begin appraising its contents with Taylor Hurst, my twenty-something assistant in the glass, porcelain, and silver departments, I was niggled by a vague sense of unease. I arrived to find Taylor standing on the sidewalk and squinting through the driving snow at the intimidating behemoth of a home. It was of beige brick with contrasting red-brick stripes accenting the door and windows, and gingerbread fretwork highlighting the roof. Heavy mahogany double doors sat beneath a trio of round stained glass windows framed by an arch. A low rustic stone wall enclosed the front yard. The wind was whipping Taylor’s dark hair around in all directions, and she pulled out a black toque from her bag and yanked it down over her ears so that only her purple bangs were visible.

Hey, Virginia. Think it’ll take long? she said. The snow clung to her lashes as she looked at me archly.

I can’t even imagine how long. I’d been unfazed at the prospect of huge appraisals before, but today I felt deflated. Maybe the late November blizzard—winter had set in prematurely—was dragging me down, or maybe that niggling uneasiness was to blame, but it wouldn’t do to give in to the blues. It’ll be fun. You’ll see.

Taylor tried to smile, but it wasn’t convincing.

There was no question in my mind that we were in for a long haul. As appraisers, our task was to sift through the contents of the house and determine the auction value of everything—absolutely everything—within it. And as it was such an enormous house containing a diverse array of items, different appraisers would be dispatched each day to the site until the job was done. I’d been told by Judith Wiggington, the daughter of the woman who’d owned the house, that it was a veritable treasure trove of valuable antiques, and the photos she’d shown us of glass, porcelain, and silver packed to the rafters had born out her claim. Surely my spirits and Taylor’s would lift once we’d dived into the work.

Taylor was a delicate little person, and her energy appeared to be flagging even though we hadn’t set foot in the place yet.

You’re looking a bit peaked again, I said as we walked up the path to the front door.

She looked at me, perplexed. Hmm?

You know—tired. All used up. Is everything all right?

She shrugged but wore a pained expression. I just haven’t been sleeping very well, you know? After everything that happened. And I could use a cup of coffee. Her brown eyes brightened with hope. Maybe Ms. Wiggington will offer us some.

Everything that happened had been a lot to cope with for all of us at Gable & Co. It had been only a few days since Chloe O’Rourke, the woman I’d thought of as my best friend and the head of the toy department, had confessed to extorting large sums of money from Taylor. Chloe had snapped photos of Taylor with Brian Gable III, our oafish, doughnut-gobbling former boss—meaningless photos, it turned out, but intended to be compromising—and threatened to show them to Taylor’s fiancé (who’d since dumped her) if she didn’t pay up. But even more shocking was Chloe’s confession that she’d murdered Gable by spiking his Tim Hortons double-double with antifreeze. Frustrated by Gable’s refusal to give her a raise, she had coldly plotted his demise. The shock of the murder was still raw, and everyone at work was reeling. But Taylor had suffered financial losses too.

Promise me you’ll take some time off soon, I said as we stood at the door.

You know how hard it is to do that. I detected a note of frustration, and I wasn’t sure if it had more to do with Taylor’s fatigue or my nagging.

I do. But look after yourself, okay? You can’t keep dragging yourself into work in this state. I’m not about to let you. I smiled encouragingly at her and was rewarded with a slight smile.

We knocked on the door, which was opened by a scrawny woman in a beige cashmere tunic and trendy chocolate-brown velvet leggings. She wore her chestnut hair in a neat ballerina bun and had smooth skin that resolutely defied any attempts to pinpoint her age. The dark circles beneath her eyes told of a recent strain as she smiled at me and said, Virginia Blythe?

Yes, I said, extending my hand. And this is my assistant, Taylor Hurst.

Judith Wiggington, she said, glancing from Taylor to me. Please come in out of this nasty weather.

We stamped our boots, removed them, and brushed the snow from our coats. Impatiently, Judith took the latter and hung them on the coat tree, the water dripping off them. It was a relief to get out of the bitter cold and the fierce wind, and already my mood had shifted. Instead of trepidation, I felt an eagerness to discover what the house had in store for us. The place had the usual musty, mouldering smell of old homes, as if no one had cracked open a window in years. We stood in the foyer and peeked into the living room. An inviting fire crackled beneath a marble mantelpiece packed with Victorian Staffordshire figurines and spill vases, so named because they were used to hold long matches called spills. A painting of a woman who resembled Judith—she had the same hard glint in her brown eyes—hung above the mantel. The difference was that the woman in the portrait had neatly sculpted hair with finger waves and wore a dashing charcoal fedora and a royal-blue suit with padded shoulders.

Judith gestured for us to come in and nodded curtly toward the painting. Meet my mother, Dorothea Wiggington, who died a couple of months ago. Everyone called her Wiggy. She made it to a hundred and two—not a big surprise, since she was one tough old bird. Coffee?

Yes, please, Taylor and I said in unison.

Take a look around. I know it’s your job.

While Judith bustled around in the next room, Taylor and I glanced at the built-in shelves that lined the room and were full to bursting with stacked-up ironstone platters, bone china dinnerware, and silverplate tea trays. A dining room table was laden with figurines, jugs, vases, and sets of flatware, and tchotchkes of all descriptions lay willy-nilly beneath the table. And this was only one room. No wonder Judith had insisted the appraisal would take days.

Taylor’s mouth hung open. Holy—

Ha! exclaimed Judith as she brought in two mugs of steaming coffee. "This is nothing. I’ve actually cleaned up a bit down here. Your jaw will be trailing on the floor once you get upstairs—and not just from the antiques. It’s a disaster up there. Absolutely filthy. You should have worn hazmat suits."

Taylor glanced at me worriedly.

I’m sure we’ll cope, I said with more confidence than I felt. If things are really bad, we’ll leave certain parts of the house for tomorrow, when we can bring protective gear. There are three floors?

Plus the basement, said Judith. That’s where you’ll find Wiggy’s best things—or so she told me. This place is packed solid. Frankly, she had a screw loose and was a real hoarder, though they didn’t call it that back when she was accumulating all this stuff—she was a ‘collector.’ It wasn’t yet considered pathological. Oh, and don’t neglect the top floor, her studio.

Studio? Taylor’s eyes opened wide.

"My mother was a painter. Judith cast a sidelong look of disapproval at Taylor, whose expression became blank. You mean you’ve never heard of Dorothea Wiggington, the portrait painter to Toronto’s elite?"

Can’t say I have, said Taylor. A small circle of red punctuated each of her cheeks.

Taylor’s not an art specialist, I was quick to say. She’s my assistant in the glass, porcelain, and silver departments. And she was recently promoted to head of the toy department. Chloe had been relieved of the latter position, of course, the instant she was arrested for Gable’s murder.

Oh, well, isn’t that just grand, said Judith tartly. She surveyed Taylor from head to toe and cleared her throat.

Taylor glanced at me nervously, and I smiled at her before I turned to Judith. Sally Lynch, our art specialist, is familiar with your mother’s work and will appraise it another day.

Satisfied with this, Judith nodded. The one over the mantelpiece is her self-portrait.

Impressive, said Taylor. And indeed the painting was. A vigorous, free quality enlivened the brushstrokes, and Wiggy herself possessed such vitality that I expected her to leap off the canvas at any moment. Anyone would have been honoured to be painted by such a talented artist, who no doubt made the affluent citizens of Rosedale appear more attractive, robust, and spirited than they’d been in real life.

Well, ladies, said Judith abruptly, I have places to be. I’ll leave you to your appraising for the next few hours. There’s more coffee if you feel like it. And feel free to take advantage of the cookies in the cupboard if you need something sweet. She pulled on her puffy down parka, of a shimmering gold fabric, and grasped the doorknob.

Wait! I called out.

Judith turned around. What is it? The hood of her parka cast her face in shadow, but I could still see her dark eyes, squinting in irritation.

When are you coming back? We can’t leave until you return—there’s no way of locking up. I was miffed she’d overlooked this obvious point.

Oh, of course. I hadn’t thought of that.

It was tempting to roll my eyes, but I didn’t. Judith was either absent-minded by nature or so distraught by her mother’s death that she wasn’t thinking clearly. Somehow I didn’t think it was the latter. She didn’t exactly seem broken up at losing Wiggy. Quite the contrary.

I’ll be back around three. That’ll give you a good five hours in this hell hole—if you can stand it that long.

Thanks, I said with a tight smile.

Without another word, she flung open the door and slammed it behind her. I was relieved she was gone. She had an unpleasant edge that made me not want to spend another second in her presence if I could possibly help it.

Wow. Isn’t she lovely? said Taylor, as if she’d tapped into my thoughts. I like to think that when either one of my parents dies, I’ll actually feel bad about it.

I’m sure you will, Taylor. Her words sparked a sudden sorrow; they propelled me back to little more than a year ago, when my parents had perished in a fiery car crash the very night they were celebrating their forty-fifth anniversary. The grief still struck hard at unexpected moments.

Taylor looked into my eyes. Oh, sorry, she said, covering her mouth with her hand.

Really, it’s all right. I patted her on the arm. Every now and then it just hits me all over again. I took a moment to swallow the lump in my throat and collect myself. Let’s get to work now, shall we?

Excellent plan. Taylor had a gleam in her eye. How about starting with the studio? I’m dying to see it.

Sure. I wasn’t sure why she was so excited about this when she didn’t even know Dorothea Wiggington’s work. Maybe she just found artists’ studios intriguing.

We headed up the winding staircase, carrying our mugs of coffee, cameras, and notebooks. It was a long way up on creaky narrow wooden stairs, and we paused to look out a small window on the second-floor landing. The snow fluttered down in immense fluffy flakes and was rapidly piling up on the window ledge. Although the effect was worthy of a Christmas card, I was already dreading the commute home on public transit; it was bound to be long and arduous. I released a sigh. We ascended the second flight, the staircase darker, narrower, and pokier than before, and caught our breath on the third-floor landing. Taylor especially was huffing and puffing. In the dim light, I glimpsed a pair of blue eyes in a pale oval face framed by a wavy blonde bob. Startled, I realized it was my reflection; a cracked, cloudy mirror hung on the closed door ahead of us.

This must be the place, said Taylor, grasping the doorknob and jiggling it. The door opened to a bright room, light pouring in from the skylights.

We wandered inside. Sturdy wooden easels decorated with robust carving, works of art in themselves, were scattered throughout the room. They held thick pads of newsprint upon which were sketches of nude figures. I could only conclude that Wiggy’s most recent activity in the studio had been teaching a life drawing class. Everything was coated in a thick layer of dust, however, blurring the details of the drawings, so it must have been months, perhaps even years, since that last class. The floor was littered with more newsprint pads and drawing materials.

As our footsteps stirred up more and more dust, I began coughing. Although we were accustomed to dust at the auction house, the level of it here far surpassed anything we’d had to contend with before.

Remind me to pack masks tomorrow, said Taylor.

Absolutely.

Taylor gently dusted off and examined some oil paintings that were piled on the floor—a voluptuous but shy nude with her face turned away, an arrogant-looking man with a moustache and a monocle, and a sad-eyed little girl with blonde pigtails. I was astonished by how much personality the painter—I assumed it was Wiggy—had captured in each of these people.

Then I noticed a path someone had cut through the fuzzy grey blanket of dust. It wasn’t anywhere Taylor and I had walked but ahead of us, leading to a door, probably a closet.

Look, Taylor, someone’s been here.

It wasn’t footprints we saw but a wide erratic path—as if someone had dragged something heavy across the floor. I looked at Taylor uneasily.

Probably just what’s her face poking around. She wrinkled her nose in disgust. You know—Judith.

It amused me that Taylor wasn’t exactly taken with her either, and I chuckled. Of course. Judith. Well, this room is mostly Sally’s territory given all the artwork, but the bookcases are stuffed full of knick-knacks, as well as some teddy bears for you. And I suppose we should scour that closet. Who knows what treasures it might hold?

I’ll take the closet, if you don’t mind, said Taylor. I was pleased by the spark in her eyes—something I hadn’t seen often in recent months. I could only suppose that the coffee was doing its work and she was raring to go. We set down our mugs on a sideboard.

Great, Taylor. I’ll cover the other things. I turned to a bookcase and snapped a photo of its contents. I picked up a mid-twentieth-century cut glass scent bottle in a lovely shade of coral and looked for markings on its base that might help me identify the manufacturer. But there was only Made in Czechoslovakia. I jotted down a description and evaluated the piece at forty dollars, auction value.

Taylor opened the closet door, and a peculiar smell wafted into the studio. Ugh. What a stink! she said.

I tried not to inhale. It was a sickly floral fragrance with undertones of … I couldn’t be sure. Mould? Decay? These Victorian homes often emanated the foulest smells imaginable.

Glancing over my shoulder, I noticed that the closet was stuffed full of beaded and sequined evening gowns from the twenties and thirties. At the sight, Taylor gasped and said, Ooh! She’d studied fashion at a local community college—something she first mentioned to me only the other day, even though she’d been working at Gable & Co. for a couple of years—so she was a natural for appraising the gowns.

Turning toward her, I said, Looks like you’ve hit the couture jackpot.

But she was staring into the closet and wouldn’t turn around. She seemed transfixed, but by what I couldn’t tell. Was it the gowns?

Taylor?

A moment of unearthly silence passed, and the temperature in the room seemed to drop a few degrees. Taylor screamed at the top of her lungs several times, the deafening sound reverberating throughout the studio. Her body trembled violently as she backed away, and she wouldn’t turn around. Her clipboard clattered as it hit the floor. I walked up behind her and caught her, and she collapsed into my arms in a faint. Gently, I lowered her to the ground and kneeled beside her.

Taylor! What happened? The sound of my voice was enough to bring her back to consciousness. She moaned, and her eyes fluttered open. Dazed, she looked at me, then straight ahead, and let out a wispy gasp of alarm. She went completely limp as she lost consciousness again.

The door to the studio slammed shut and a key turned in the lock. A man’s deep, raucous laughter rang outside the door.

I sprang to my feet, rushed to the door, and twisted the knob, but to no avail. Frantically, I pounded on the door. Let me out!

CHAPTER 2

Ihad to calm myself, for Taylor’s sake and my own. I was no good to her if I disintegrated into a hysterical mess. Staring at the door, I couldn’t think what to do next.

I turned my gaze to Taylor, who was still lying on the floor. She opened one eye lazily and looked at me. Sorry, she murmured. Gotta get up.

Sh, I whispered. Just rest for a while. I placed my hand softly on her shoulder to soothe her.

She nodded and, heaving a great sigh, closed the eye, her head lolling over to one side.

Still kneeling on the floor, I steeled myself to look at whatever it was that had frightened her into unconsciousness. Beneath the hemlines of the dresses, propped up against the wall, her hands clasped in her lap, was a woman wearing a buttercup-yellow lace dress and opaque royal-blue tights—a woman who, even though I couldn’t yet see her face, somehow seemed familiar. Chills rippled like waves through me from head to toe.

I was as transfixed by the sight as Taylor had been. Now I had to find the nerve to get even closer. I stood up and crept forward, every nerve in my body a-tingle and my stomach roiling. Closing my eyes tightly, I swept the dresses aside in one swift motion. I peered down to see Alice Aberfoyle, a client of Gable & Co., and noticed a royal-blue paisley scarf tied tightly around her neck. Her dark hair, styled in a stiff beehive whenever I’d seen her, had tumbled down and fell well past her shoulders. Alice’s glassy, lifeless brown eyes stared up at me from a waxen face. Gone was the pinched, mean expression I associated with the woman; instead her features were remarkably relaxed, and had her eyes been closed, I might have thought she was enjoying a pleasant nap. I wanted to close them but couldn’t bear the thought of touching her.

It hadn’t been more than a few days since feisty, perfumed Alice had marched into the cataloguing room of Gable & Co., toting a dust-impregnated, smelly old Aquascutum raincoat and making grandiose claims of its provenance. It had belonged to Queen Elizabeth II, she’d claimed, and was thus valuable. Her insistence that the raincoat was a royal heirloom was based on its Royal Warrant label, which read, By appointment to Her Majesty The Queen. It was the same label you’d see on various brands of jam, cookies, and other goods. My colleague Mark DuBarry, who examined the raincoat, was both amused and annoyed. He put Alice firmly in her place by declaring it had no value and abruptly terminating the appointment. I recalled her shrill anger and the resolute click of her heels as she stormed out of our office that day.

But none of that could possibly explain why her corpse was in Dorothea Wiggington’s house on the floor of a closet full of vintage evening wear.

I couldn’t just sit there any longer; I had to do something. I had a dead body and a collapsed assistant on my hands, and when Taylor woke up she’d start screaming again, perhaps even more than before once she realized we were trapped in the studio. She’d been nothing if not emotionally overwrought lately, and even if she hadn’t been, knowing you were locked in a room with a corpse was enough to unhinge anyone. I only kept calm because somebody had to.

Having watched all manner of police procedurals on television, I knew I should have immediately called 911, but somehow I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Not yet. First, I needed to talk to George Schlegel, the company accountant who, since Gable’s murder, had been acting as our firm’s president. George was divorced and we had just started dating, though we’d been too busy to have the properly romantic dinner date he’d promised me; as wonderful as they were, our Thai takeout evenings, during which we snuggled together and watched old movies, didn’t count. George’s steadfast support through the chaos of Gable’s murder had sustained me, helping me keep my head screwed on right. During that tumultuous time, we’d become close. I pulled out my cell phone from my pocket and called him.

Yes? he answered.

George? I said, my voice much higher than it normally was.

He hesitated, and I knew he’d already picked up my alarm in the single word I’d uttered. Yes? Is everything all right?

The words tumbled out of my mouth at breakneck speed, and I took enormous gulps of air, worried I’d suffocate otherwise. Taylor and I are at the Wiggington house, third-floor studio, and we were just starting the appraisal when she saw something in the closet that made her scream and faint and I caught her. And then someone locked us in here—even though I could have sworn the place was empty—and I heard a man laughing. And just now I looked into the closet and there she was, lying there. You remember Alice Aberfoyle, the one who—

Wait, sweetheart. Can you slow down a little? Why’s Taylor lying in the closet?

I stopped and took a slow, deep breath, and as I did so, my mind cleared and I felt able to express my thoughts more coherently. No, George, she’s not. It’s Alice Aberfoyle, that kooky client I’ve told you about before. She’s lying in the closet, dead.

A long pause ensued as George digested the news. And Taylor? Is she all right?

Taylor fainted. She woke up a little, but I told her to go back to sleep so I could see what’s in the closet. I’m worried about what she’ll do when she wakes up again. You know how panicky she can get.

"See if you can move her to another room, maybe, so she won’t wake up and see … it. Did