Archive of Our Own

“Who was your client, again?”

Benoit Blanc stood in front of a rundown house; Marta Cabrera, who had voiced the question, to his left, and Helen to his right. The house was huge, but truly looked a fright, thought Helen. Rotting wooden planks boarding up the windows, peeling paint that was once probably white, a rusty lock that looked like it’d sooner open with a kick than with a key.

“My client has requested that he remain anonymous, so I’m afraid I cannot say.” Marta looked skeptical. Helen liked her for that.

“And what does your anonymous client want us to do in this house?” Asked Helen.

“We are investigating some unexplained noises. Creaks, glass breaking, screams of terror, all that sort of thing.”

“All nonsense, you mean,” scoffed Helen, although she noticed how Marta took half a step back after hearing the words ‘screams of terror’.

Blanc didn’t notice or didn’t care. He produced a key out of an inner pocket, and with more fumbling than looked natural, opened the door to let them in.

The inside didn’t look better than the outside. There were no working lights; the glass from lightbulbs long ago fallen to the floor crunched under their shoes, and the boarded windows let in only the faintest of rays from the dying day. They made a sweep of the ground floor, following Blanc’s unexplained intuitions, clues only he noticed. They went from a kitchen with a sink so rusty you almost wanted a tetanus shot just from looking at it, to a grand living room where all the furniture was covered in dusty white sheets that looked like crappy DIY ghost costumes.

Marta stopped in front of the fireplace and stared at the yellowing family pictures on the mantelpiece. Helen pocketed a letter opener.

“Did you hear that?” All three went stock still, Blanc looking towards the ceiling. Helen hadn’t heard anything.

Blanc started creeping towards the staircase, tiptoeing comically, wincing at every shard of glass that clinked where he stepped. Helen and Marta followed him more silently and less theatrically.

“Shh!” Once again, Helen didn’t hear a thing. “Quick, in here!” Blanc pushed her and Marta through a door…to the cupboard under the stairs. They heard the lock click.

“Oh, no.” Marta tried the handle, but they were stuck. She turned around and bumped straight into Helen, then stepped back apologizing only to knock her head on a low shelf.

“I am going to kill him,” said Helen, while Marta looked for a bump in her head.

“Do you know what’s going on?”

“Well, did you hear any of those ‘unexplained noises’?”

Just then, they heard a tinny laugh, one that wouldn’t be out of place as a villain’s laugh in an old time-y cartoon. One very obviously recorded laugh. “That’s Blanc,” asserted Marta.

“Yes, yes it is.” Helen looked at Marta in the dim light that filtered through the door slit. “That’s Blanc staging a haunted house themed set up.”

“A what?”

“He’s playing matchmaker, he thinks being locked in a cupboard together will cause us to fall into each other’s arms, confess our love, passionately make out and come out and thank him for his services!” Helen knocked on the door with her fist. “Open up, asshole!” There was no response, not even a cartoonish evil laugh.

“But why- but I d-d-don- oh, God-” Marta covered her mouth with her hand.

“Oh, no, no, no, either shut up or don’t lie! Please don’t yak on me, or we’re stuck with the stink in this stupid closet who knows how long!”

“Okay! Yes! He’s right, he’s an asshole, and he’s right and you’re exactly my type and I will help you hide the body when we get out of here, and I’m so sorry!” Helen hadn’t had a confession and an apology shouted at her in the same sentence before, but there was something about it. It was certainly original.

“No need to apologize,” said Helen, awkwardly patting Marta on her back. Marta wouldn’t look at her. “I hate that he’s right… but I guess I only know what he’s doing because it’s obvious I’d like to know you better…”

Marta threw her arms around her, and almost before Helen had time to react and hug her back, the closet door flew open and they jumped back from each other. Each knocking into a different shelf.

“And the curtain closes on another satisfactory ending!” Blanc smiled widely at them, and welcomed them out into the – still falling apart – house as a theater owner welcomes his favorite guests to an opening night.

“Were you actually listening right outside the door?” Marta asked, eyebrows raised in disbelief while she shook the dust off her shoulders.

Blanc produced a drinking glass from one of his jacket’s numerous pockets. “It’s a simple trick, but effective. You see, you place the rim of the glass t–”

Helen pushed him inside the cupboard and closed the door. Before she could do it herself, Marta locked it closed.

“Oh, hell. There is no need for this, c’mon! It worked out!”

“We’ll be back when you’ve realized how much you like yourself!” Helen shouted through the door.

“A bit too much,” added Marta. And without her earlier reluctance, she reached for Helen’s hand. “Coffee?”

“Coffee,” agreed Helen. And hand in hand, they left the house in the hunt for a cozy coffee shop.

Blanc was making himself comfortable, estimating just under an hour until they came back for him, when he heard it loud and clear. Somewhere above him, someone or something screamed.