Fic: Mousetrap 101 (Complete) (5/5)
Part 4
Sergeant Anderson had asked them to join him in the play-room. As soon as Kurt Hummel entered, Finn glared at him. Rachel threw him a disapproving glance and smiled tightly at Kurt.
Major Tanner was sitting alongside St. James, looking rather sullen. The sergeant on the other hand, was looking unexpectedly eager and enthusiastic.
“Everyone’s here. Good.” He smiled appreciatively. “I wish to make an experiment. Therefore, I wanted you all together. I will need your cooperation-”
“I hope it won’t take long.” Rachel cut him off, “I left my pie unattended. I need to go back to the kitchen soon.”
“Mrs. Hudson,” Anderson barely managed to steady his voice. “I do not care about the pie. If you’ll excuse me, there are things far more important than meals. I doubt Ms. Fabray will need another meal soon.”
“That’s harsh.” Finn commented, placing an arm on Rachel’s shoulders.
“It’s alright, Finn.” Rachel hissed, smiling tightly at the sergeant as she grabbed Finn’s arm and removed it from her shoulders. Kurt stared at the exchange with interest.
“Have you found your skis yet, Officer?” he asked the sergeant politely.
Anderson turned to face him, his face reddening. “No, I haven’t, Mr. Hummel. But I do have a feeling who took them. Not that I’ll say anything more at the moment.”
“You shouldn’t.” St. James cut in, “It takes the fun out of it-I do believe it’s more exciting when things are kept secret.”
“This is not a game.”
“It’s definitely a game.” Major Tanner expressed, “At least to somebody.”
Anderson cleared his throat. “I took statements from all of you related to your positions at the time of the murder.” He motioned towards each of them respectively. “Mr. Hudson and Mr. Hummel were in their separate bedrooms, correct?”
They both nodded.
“Now, Mrs. Hudson was in the kitchen and Major Tanner was in the cellar.” He paused briefly, his gaze falling on St. James. “Mr. James was here, in the play-room, isn’t that right?”
“Of course.” St James huffed, his voice heavily laced with annoyance.
Anderson continued gravely. “Those are the statements you gave me. I have no means to check their validity, therefore-to put it rather simply-I have no way of knowing who’s lying. And someone is lying.” He stared at each of their faces. “Four of the statements are true-one is false. Which one?” he demanded harshly. Nobody spoke.
Finn coughed lightly, looking uncomfortable. “Maybe someone lied for some other reason and he’s not the murderer. Like, the killer doesn’t have to be someone who lied, right? They could have done it for a different rea-”
“I doubt that, Mr. Hudson.” Anderson cut him off.
“Then what are you going to do, man? How are you going to check the statements?”
“I have a plan.” Anderson offered simply. “Reconstruction of the crime. In short, everyone goes through the movements a second time though this time, it’s a repeat performance but not an identical one.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means, Mr. Hudson, that you won’t be doing what you did before. Each of you will take someone else’s part. For example, Mr. St. James, I believe you told us that you sat in the piano and played a … certain tune. Is that correct?”
“Certainly, it is true, Sergeant.”
Anderson nodded. “Would you mind showing exactly what you did?”
“Of course, right away.” James smiled sordidly and sat on the piano stool. He grinned as he started playing the tune of ‘Three Blind Mice’ with one finger.
Once he was done, Anderson said sternly: “Thank you, Mr. St. James.” He turned to Kurt. “Do you play the piano, Mr. Hummel?”
Kurt nodded quickly. “Yes, sergeant.”
“Could you possibly play the tune Mr. St. James did before in the exact same manner?”
“I guess I could.” Kurt replied, raising his shoulders and looking somewhat uncomfortable.
“Then will you please go and sit at the piano? I’ll signal you when to start playing.”
Kurt nodded, looking rather bewildered. He slowly crossed the room and sat on the piano stool.
“Great.” Anderson smiled, rubbing his hands in obvious excitement. “Now, then. Mr Hummel will be here at the play-room-Mr. Hudson, will you go to the kitchen? Just … keep an eye on your wife’s dinner. Mr. James, will you go to Mr. Hummel’s bedroom and whistle the tune of ‘Three Blind Mice’ just like he did? And Major Tanner, will you go up to Mr. Hudson’s room and check the telephone there? And lastly, Mrs. Hudson, could you possibly go down the cellar?”
There was a moment of absolute silence before each of them nodded carefully and walked towards the door except from Kurt who sat on the piano stool obediently.
Anderson followed them, turning to face Kurt over his shoulder.
“Count up to fifty and then start playing the tune, Mr. Hummel.” He instructed.
Forty-seven, forty-eight, forty-nine … fifty.
Kurt began to play, his sole finger trembling slightly as the soft-yet cruel, tune echoed in the room.
Three Blind Mice, see how they run…
He felt his heart beat faster and faster as the seconds tickled by. He could here-rather faintly-James whistling the same tune upstairs. Re-enacting his part.
They all run after the farmer’s wife!
Suddenly, he could hear someone turning on the radio on the next room. The sergeant seemed to have chosen to play Ms. Fabray’s part.
“Why?” Kurt whispered, the word almost inaudible as it escaped his lips. Where was the catch? The trap?
A draft of cold air blew across the back of his neck, making him shiver involuntarily.
Someone had opened the door.
His head turned around sharply but the room was empty. His trembling hands slid off the piano keys as he closed his eyes and breathed out. No one’s here. You’re just imagining things.
-of course Mr. James could easily leave his bedroom and enter the room-
“Nonsense.” Kurt breathed out shakily, shaking his head. Don’t be stupid. You can hear him whistling over your head.
Perhaps that was the trap. Nobody had heard the man playing the piano-was it possible that he hadn’t been playing at all? And if he hadn’t been here, he could have easily been somewhere else, maybe even strangling Ms. Fabray?
He could remember James’ insistence on how softly he had played, how the sound might not even be loud enough to be heard outside the room-was that it? Was that the reason the sergeant wanted them to re-enact the scene? Only to see that everyone could hear the tune now while they couldn’t before-and then he would be able to find who lied, he’d find-
“The killer.” Kurt murmured softly as realization dawned on him.
The door of the play-room opened. Kurt jumped, expecting to see James, but it was only the sergeant who had entered.
“Thank you, Mr. Hummel.” He smiled politely though there was a certain gleam in his eyes and his posture seemed brisk and confident.
Kurt willed himself to calm down. “Have you gotten what you needed?” he asked, his voice cracking a little.
“Yes, I got exactly what I needed.” Anderson replied, sounding overjoyed.
“W-Who is the murderer then?”
Anderson laughed softly. “Come on, Mr. Hummel-or should I call you Kurt? I wasn’t expecting you to be so stupid.”
“-excuse me?”
“What you did was very … foolish, Kurt. You’ve let me hunting about for the third victim, endangering yourself in the process.”
“Me? I don’t understand-”
“Stop lying to me!” the sergeant cut him off, his voice losing the previous calming quality-now laced with barely obscured anger. “You haven’t been honest with me, Kurt. You held out on me-just like Ms. Fabray did.”
“What-no!”
“Oh, yes.” Anderson seethed, taking a step forward. “See, when I first mentioned the Emerald Road case, you knew all about it.”
“I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did, Kurt. No reason to deny it.” Anderson chuckled darkly. “Six years ago, your family moved from London to this small town where you enrolled in the local high school in an attempt to have a normal senior year-is that correct?” he asked, though he didn’t wait for a reply-carrying on, instead. “Your step-mother, recently married to your father, was working at the post-office at the time. You helped her, I imagine?”
“Yes.” Kurt answered in a small voice.
“So, when the older brother of the child who died sent a letter to you-begging for someone to help him and his siblings-for their guardians were neglecting them, you ignored him. You and your step-mother, the only people who could have actually helped, did nothing! And then his brother died, because there was no one to stop him from swimming when he didn’t know how-drowning in the process.”
“This is unfair.” Kurt chocked, shaking his head. “It wasn’t our fault. My step-mother-she had to take care of my dad, he was still recovering from the heart attack and I-I … I didn’t find out about it until after the child was dead! She was devastated. She never thought this would have happened!”
“It wasn’t you then. It was your step-mother’s fault.” Anderson said softly. “Well, I guess it doesn’t matter now, does it? Your mother-my brother-” he took something out of his pocket.
Kurt’s breath hitched. “I thought the police didn’t carry revolvers.”
“The police don’t.” Anderson smiled happily. “But you see, Kurt, I’m not a policeman.”
Kurt stopped breathing. “Y-You-”
“I’m Tim’s brother. You thought I was a policeman because I cut the telephone wires and then told you I was sent by the police.” He giggled. “You had to believe-I mean, you wouldn’t be able to ring back to the police station anyway!”
Kurt stared at him in horror. The revolver was now pointing at him.
“Don’t move.” Anderson hissed, his face now sober. “And don’t scream either-or else, I’ll put the trigger at once.”
“See, I sent you a letter but you didn’t help us. And now Tim is dead and it’s all your fault. You and Ms Fabray’s who sent us there. I said I’d kill you all when I grew up, I’ve been thinking about it ever since. And now I can finally do it!”
Kurt tried to avert his eyes from the gun pointing at him, gulping down against the bile that rose on his throat. “Even if you k-kill me, how will you escape?” he chose to ask instead.
Anderson’s features darkened. “Someone’s hidden my skis and I can’t find them. But I’m sure it’ll be alright. See, this is Mr. Hudson’s revolver. I took it out of his room when he wasn’t watching. They’ll think he shot you-you didn’t seem to get along anyway. They’ll probably think it was a misguided attempt to protect his wife. It’s not like I care.” He laughed, though the sound was abruptly cut off when a whistle came.
Someone was whistling the tune of ‘Three Blind Mice’.
Anderson started, his hold on the revolver wavering.
Then, a male voice shouted. “Get down.”
Kurt immediately dropped to the floor just as Major Tanner rose from behind the sofa and threw himself on Anderson.
The gun went off-the bullet hitting the wooden table with a loud, staggering noise.
Seconds later, the door opened and Finn rushed inside, followed by Rachel and Mr. St. James.
Rachel ran towards Kurt the moment he saw him, falling on her knees and placing small-erratically moving-hands on his back and torso.
“Are you alright? Are you hurt?” she asked frantically, searching his face for any signs of pain.
Kurt shook his head, feeling entirely too overwhelmed to speak.
Meanwhile, Major Tanner-holding onto Anderson tightly-panted: “Came here while you were playing and hid behind the sofa-I knew he wasn’t a police officer-I’m a police officer, Inspector Karofsky. I arranged with Mr. Tanner that I should take his place. The police thought it’d be sensible to have someone on the spot.”
Kurt nodded numbly; staring at the man he once thought was a policeman, as the Major-or actually, Inspector Karofsky-took him outside, cuffs on his hands.
Finn walked towards him slowly, extending one of his hands and smiling apologetically. “I’m sorry for thinking you were the killer.” he shrugged helplessly. “I guess I was just jealous.”
Kurt smiled, albeit a bit shakily, and grabbed his hand, standing up on shaky feet. “It’s alright.”
“So, you guys … didn’t know each other after all?” Finn began hesitantly.
Rachel gave him a cold look. “Of course we didn’t, Finn. You still don’t trust me after all of this?”
“But then,” Finn’s voice trailed off as he glanced between Kurt and Rachel confusedly, “how did you know I was in London that day? I thought you saw me because you were there as well.”
Rachel started. “Wait, you were actually in London? What were you doing there?”
Finn ducked his head, staring at his feet. “I wanted to buy you a present.” He mumbled, “As a surprise.”
“Oh, Finn, that is so sweet of you.” Rachel swooned, smiling appreciatively. “What did you get me?”
Finn looked up; gaping at Rachel’s excited features in obvious relief. “Well, you know how you always wanted something from Tiffany’s, right? Well, there was this guy that brought stuff from the United States and sold them here in London and I asked him for a um, a star-like a necklace with a star-from Tiffany’s and he brought it there for me so I had to go and … you know, take it.” Finn finished lamely, looking at Rachel hopefully.
“Oh Finn, thank you so much! You’re the best husband ever.” She jumped into his arms, squeezing around his shoulders in delight.
Finn hugged her back, his whole body sagging as he breathed out shakily. “I’m so glad you like it, I wasn’t sure you would.”
Rachel nodded fervently against his torso. “It’s perfect.” She took a step back. “When will you give it to me? Is it here, in the house?”
“Um, I thought it’d be a nice idea for a Christmas present?” Finn offered.
Rachel looked thoughtful for a second before nodding appreciatively. “Excellent idea, Finn. It would be a great Christmas present but of course, I have to buy you one myself now.”
Finn looked briefly hurt. “You didn’t buy me anything?”
“Of course I did, you silly.” Rachel laughed. “But now that you bought me something from Tiffany’s, I have to buy you something equally … dazzling.” She turned to face Kurt. “Kurt here will be a great assistance for my gift hunting, won’t you Kurt? I’m sure you’ll help me choose something for Finn-especially now that you two are sort of friends-right?”
Kurt nodded slowly. “Yeah, why not?”
“Great. Now, let’s get out of here! I suggest tea in the living room. This room is making me anxious after all that happened.” Rachel clasped her hands together, smiling widely.
“I agree.” Kurt smiled thinly. “I think I’ll be traumatized for life if I stay here for any longer.”
Inspector Karofsky walked in the room. “I have sedated him and moved him to my bedroom. The roads are already clearing and I’ve fixed the telephone wires. The police will be here at any minute to take him to the station. I’m actually leaving right now, so have a nice Christmas y’all.” He ducked his head slightly, exiting the room swiftly.
Rachel shook her head as the inspector left the play-room. “This whole thing was so strange though.” She commented thoughtfully, “I’d never expect that the Sergeant would be behind all of this.”
“Well, he wasn’t a sergeant.” Kurt chuckled weakly. “Guess I found it out the hard way.”
“Yeah,” Rachel nodded. “Isn’t that a pity though?”
“It is,” Kurt agreed. “He was very handsome.”
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