The Doctor Makes a Dollhouse Call by Robin Hathaway

don’t think she wants to be disturbed.” Mrs. Doyle was emphatic.
    â€œOh, of course. I forgot she was working.”
    â€œNot all women were stay-at-homes in the old days.” Judith returned to their former topic. “We had one ancestor who went to sea with her husband, remember, Emily?”
    â€œOh yes. Rebecca. She kept a journal. We have it in the attic somewhere. She tells tales of pirates and mutiny. She’s the one who brought back the ruby—”
    But Judith’s tale of the ruby was interrupted by the return of Dr. Fenimore. He apologized for his long absence. As soon as Mrs. Doyle could get his attention, she drew him aside and told him about the scene in the dollhouse.
    â€œWhere is Marie now?” He scanned the room.
    â€œIn her studio.”

    He gave her a sharp look.
    â€œNo, it’s all right. I checked. She’s very much alive.” Mrs. Doyle reddened at the memory of her reception.
    â€œNevertheless, I think I’ll have a look,” Fenimore hurried out.
    â€œGood luck,” Mrs. Doyle called after him.
    Fenimore paused in the hall to examine the carefully contrived scene in the dollhouse studio. Then he bounded up the stairs, taking them two at a time.
    On the third floor, he went through the same routine as Mrs. Doyle had done. But unlike his nurse, his knocks went unanswered. He tried the knob. The door opened. The room was brilliant. Not with electric light, but with moonlight—pouring through the skylight. It turned everything black and white, like an old film.
    â€œMrs. Pancoast?” His eyes slid nervously around the room. Perhaps she had gone home. He stepped inside and spotted her—spread—eagled beside her workbench. Near her head lay a white bust. The bust was split in half and spattered with a black substance. He fumbled for the light switch. When he found it, the black substance became red.

    â€¦ and hit it with the tongs and with the shovel—bang, bang, smash, smash!
    â€” The Tale of Two Bad Mice by Beatrix Potter

CHAPTER 18
    F enimore stood blinking in the sudden glare. He had no right to do anything more. This was strictly a police matter. In his role as “family detective” he had no authority to touch or examine anything. He hovered in the doorway. As “family physician” he did have the authority to determine if Marie was alive or dead. Although he already knew the answer, he bent and felt for her pulse. None. He turned and noticed the shelf from which the bust had fallen. It hung loose, attached at only one end. The nails at the other end, tired of the weight of Hercules’ bust (or whoever he was), had simply let go of the wall. The shelf, warped and stained, looked as if it had been with the house since it was built. But the nails, instead of bent and rusty—were straight and shiny, as if just brought home from the hardware store. (If he had been on the police force, he would have carefully removed one nail and pocketed it.) Instead he stared hard at the nail, committing its shape, size, and color to memory.

    Turning back to the body, he fixed its angle permanently in his mind. He circled the room once looking for any obvious traces the murderer might have left behind. Finally his eyes came to rest on the piece of sculpture Marie had been working on. A male figure. The top half of the man emerged from bluegray stone. He looked like a sailor, about to hoist a sail. His arms stretched upward as if hauling on some ropes and he wore the suggestion of a yachting cap.
    He reminded Fenimore of someone.
    â€œDoctor?” Mrs. Doyle called up the stairs. “Is everything all right?”
    He flicked off the light, closed the door, and went to answer her.
    Â 
    When the police had left, the rest of the family members had been notified, and sedatives were administered to the two aunts, Fenimore took Mrs. Doyle into the library for a private word. She had almost required a sedative