Murder at the Museum

by Lena Jones

  Liam walks out of the school gates with me. ‘Good luck getting the mud off,’ he calls as he heads towards his bus stop.

  Dad is still at work when I get back, and I take a warm shower, letting the water wash over my scratches and scrapes. Who would have thought a game of lacrosse could be so savage? Probably anyone who’s ever played it, I decide. I try not to think about what might be coming later this evening – an announcement from Dad to say he’s been offered the job.

  I dry myself and go up to my room, where I pull on a navy stripe slash-neck top and capri-length dark-blue jeans. I tie a red silk scarf round my neck and take a seat at my desk. I need a distraction, so I’ve decided to go through everything I know so far – all my observations and discoveries on the museum murder, the disused station and the Waterloo and City line. I open my laptop and keep Googling for additional information – anything Liam or I might have missed.

  When all my research draws a blank, I turn to the Guild Trial. So far, I have the letters A and B. Not a lot to go on. Apart from being the start of the alphabet, the two letters don’t immediately bring anything substantial to mind. I grab the dictionary and read through words that start with Ab – there’s ‘absolute’, ‘abysmal’, ‘abracadabra’, but nothing that leaps out at me.

  I’m so engrossed, I haven’t even noticed that more than three hours have gone by. I jump when Dad calls up to me at around half past eight.

  ‘Agatha, I’m back. Can you come down here, please?’

  I guess this is where I find out if we’re leaving London.

  I walk down the two flights of stairs super slowly, putting off the knowledge for as long as possible.

  It reminds me of a thought experiment called Schrödinger’s cat. A scientist (Schrödinger) said you can put a cat in a box with a flask of poison. As long as you don’t open the box, you have no way of knowing for sure if the cat has been poisoned. So, in a way, the cat is both alive and dead at the same time. In the same way, as long as I don’t ‘open the box’, I’m both moving to Cornwall and staying in London.

  At the bottom of the stairs, I find Dad waiting.

  ‘You’re back late,’ I say.

  ‘I had a lot to do. It’s peak season for weeds, and I had to catch up after taking time off for the interviews.’ He points to the living room. ‘Let’s go in here,’ he says.

  I walk ahead of him and sit on the edge of the sofa, where I start biting my nails, before I remember about the painted stars. Dad takes a seat on the armchair, which is at right angles to the sofa.

  ‘Dad, before you say anything …’ I start, just as he says, ‘Look, Aggie, the last thing I want is for you to be unhappy …’

  I wave my hand to stop him. ‘Look, I’m sorry, Dad. I just got a shock when you suddenly started talking about the new job, and moving to Cornwall and everything. I reacted badly.’

  He looks down at the floor and says, ‘So, now you’re over the shock, how do you feel about it?’

  I feel as though I’ve received a painful electric shock to my chest. ‘Is it definite? Did you take the job?’

  He looks up in surprise. ‘Of course not! I’d never do that without checking with you.’

  ‘But you’ve been offered it?’ I prompt.

  He nods.

  ‘That’s great, Dad.’

  ‘Thanks, love. So … would you be OK with it? With moving to Cornwall?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I mean, I’m really pleased for you and everything. It’s just … I’m sorry – it’s still a lot to process. It’s just leaving Brianna and Liam, and this house and everything …’

  ‘I get it,’ he says. ‘Let’s take a while to think it through, shall we?’ He gets up. ‘You must be starving. Omelettes all right?’

  ‘Sounds great. Isn’t it my turn?’

  ‘No, you’re all right. I’ve got this.’

  I stay in the living room, trying to work out if I could be happy somewhere else – if I could settle into a new home in a place that didn’t have Liam or Brianna or Mum’s grave. My list still has only two points in favour of moving to Cornwall: more sunshine, less pollution. I’ll have to find the time to come up with more pros. After a while, Oliver pushes his way into the room and rubs against my legs. I scoop him up and he settles in my lap, purring loudly.

  ‘Ugh, Oliver! You stink of sardines!’ He butts his head against my hand in ecstasy, oblivious to my reproof. ‘What am I going to do, boy?’ I ask him. ‘I have to finish the Guild Trial – there’s still one test to come. And there’s the museum investigation as well – something’s definitely going on with that disused station.’ Oliver mews in agreement, which feels oddly comforting.

  At last, Dad calls me into the kitchen for dinner. I gently lift the cat from my lap, and place him in the warm spot I’m vacating. He lets out a plaintive ‘Meow’, but turns round twice and falls asleep almost immediately.

  My omelette is cheese and baked beans – a special combination I came up with a few years ago. I don’t feel much like eating, though. I stare at the food on my plate, while Dad makes small talk about the park, and how two of the gardeners are getting married. I really like both of them, but I can’t feel much pleasure for them just now.

  Dad is looking at me expectantly, so I say, ‘That’s nice.’

  He nods enthusiastically. ‘They’re going to have the photos in the park – won’t that be lovely?’

  ‘That’s nice,’ I say again.

  There’s a long pause, then he says, ‘I only want what’s best for you, Agatha – you do know that, don’t you?’

  I nod and try to smile, but a tear plops on to my plate instead. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘Do you mind if I eat this later?’

  ‘Of course not, Aggie.’

  ‘Thanks, Dad.’

  I almost run from the room. I hate feeling so miserable over something that should be a wonderful opportunity for Dad. Why can’t I just feel happy for him?

  When I get to the second floor, I push open my door and freeze on the threshold. My room is full of snakes. On instinct, I step back and shut the door again. I stand in front of it at the top of the stairs, my heart pounding. Snakes! How on earth did they get there? Obviously, someone’s been in my room. What if he or she is still in there?

  I should get Dad. But curiosity overtakes me. I take a few deep breaths and push the door open, slowly. I can’t see anyone inside. My heart calms as I run through the possibilities.

  Of course, this might be a threat – but it could be the Gatekeepers’ Guild, setting the third and final test of the Trial. I stand very still and squint at the nearest reptile. It has something painted in white on its back.

  So this is almost certainly a test. The Guild wouldn’t put dangerous animals in my bedroom – I’m sure of that. To be on the safe side, I try to work out what sort of snakes they are. With my eyes closed, I Change Channel, conjuring up images of British serpents – grass and viper. The grass snake, although it can be very large – reaching up to 1.3 metres in length – is harmless. The viper, also known as the adder, is smaller (75cm maximum) and venomous, with a warning zigzag along its back.

  I open my eyes to stare more closely, and see – with more than a little relief, if I’m honest – that there are no such markings. These are not poisonous creatures. In fact, with their compact size and golden skin, they’re not snakes at all. No – despite their flicking tongues and snake-shape bodies, these are a type of legless lizard, called a slow-worm, and therefore completely harmless.

  Reassured and relieved, I step inside and close the door, careful where I put my feet. I put on gloves – I’ve heard that the touch of a warm-blooded body can burn reptiles, though I don’t know if this is actually true – and pick up one of the lizards. It has a letter and a smaller number painted on its back.

  All thoughts of Cornwall vanish at the thrill of receiving the final part of the Trial. I empty the owl pellets from the Perspex box and place the lizards inside, one at a time, noting each letter in my notebo
ok. Then I check there are none behind the bookcase or beneath my bed. As I’m lying on my stomach on the floor, Dad knocks on the door.

  ‘Agatha, are you all right?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I call back.

  ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘Now’s not a great time,’ I say, gently taking hold of a slow-worm that’s making rapid progress towards the space beneath my bed.

  ‘I’ll give you a bit more alone time, but let me know if you want to chat later.’

  ‘OK. Thanks.’

  I hear him going back downstairs. I place the final slow-worm in the box, and then I sit at my desk and stare at the letters and numbers on their backs. At first, I assume it’s just a straightforward anagram, in which I have to rearrange the letters according to the sequence indicated by the numbers. Some of the lizards have only a number without a letter, so these must represent spaces. This gives me:

  1G 2Y 3M 4J 5— 6Y 7— 8F 9C 10Y 11G 12— 13G 14C 15— 16G 17X 18J 19— 20Q 21W 22P 23Y 24R 25Z

  GYMJ Y FCYG GC GXJ QWPYRZ? That clearly isn’t right. That’s when I realise there’s another layer to the clue – it’s a cipher, and I need to work out what form of encryption has been used before I can crack it.

  At first I try a simple Caesar cipher, in which the entire alphabet moves one or more spaces forward or backward – so A becomes C, B becomes D, C becomes E, for instance. I attempt to decode it in this fashion for about half an hour, but this gets me nowhere. At last, I accept that what I have is a random cipher, in which each letter has been randomly allocated a counterpart, with no pattern to the coding. The only way to decode a cipher like this is by trial, error and logic.

  I study the message. I know that the only two single-letter words in the English language are ‘I’ and ‘a’ (unless you count ‘o’, which is old-fashioned and only used in poetry). I assume the Y on its own in the cipher must equal ‘a’, because it’s unlikely that ‘I’ will appear in a formal message. Then I figure that the three-letter word, ‘GXJ’, is most likely to be either ‘the’, ‘and’ or ‘you’. I try ‘the’ first, which would mean G stands for T. This gives me four letter Ts, all of which look likely. It also gives me two letter Es, which again seem correctly placed. I carry on in this way, partly through trial and error, and partly through my knowledge of frequently occurring letters, and where they are most likely to appear in words. At last, I have the following code frame:

  Y = A M = K

  F = B P = L

  Z = D R = N

  J = E C = O

  X = H W = S

  Q = I G = T

  The end result is the following message:

  TAKE A BOAT TO THE ISLAND.

  Picking up the box of slow-worms, I head back down the first flight of stairs to where Dad keeps his keys. I grab the set I’ll need if my instincts are correct, then I go down to the ground floor. Dad has the telly turned up, watching some thriller about plants taking over the world. It figures – he’d probably prefer a world in which plants were in charge.

  ‘Just popping out into the park for a short time,’ I call to Dad.

  ‘What?’ he shouts back.

  ‘Just going out. Back soon!’ I leave at once, before Dad can spot me with the box of reptiles. Outside, I empty the box into some thick undergrowth in the park. I don’t remember Dad ever mentioning slow-worms in Hyde Park, but hopefully they’ll survive. Then I begin to run.

  Within moments, I’m at the boathouse beside the Serpentine, where the boats for hire are stored. Manny, who runs the place, has gone for the day, but Dad’s keys gain me access to the boats. I throw open one of the shed doors and examine the array of painted wooden rowing boats inside. I pick a small one and drag it out of the shed by its rope.

  It’s past ten o’clock and getting dark, but I pull the boat down to the edge of the lake and climb inside. Then I start to row. I’m quite a good rower: Manny often lets me take a boat for free in the holidays when there aren’t too many customers, so I’ve had a lot of practice. As I get near to the island that sits in the middle of the Serpentine, I see a strange glow, like the lamp of a giant glow-worm – a glow-worm being a type of beetle. (Why do so many things have ‘worm’ as part of their name when they are really no such thing?)

  On closer inspection, there’s a single lantern hanging from a bush. Its light feels like a friend in the now slightly eerie darkness. It also confirms that I interpreted the latest instruction correctly – the lamp must have been placed here to guide me. Despite this reassurance, it’s very quiet here on the island, and there is a chill in the air. I could be miles from humanity, and I shiver at my sudden sense of isolation and vulnerability. Then I push away thoughts of things that go bump in the night, and instead throw the boat-rope over the mooring post and climb out.

  Walking towards the lantern, I see that it illuminates a single envelope fixed by a pin to a bamboo cane. As I unstick it from its post, I inspect the paper. It’s of the same high-quality paper as before, so it definitely is the Gatekeepers who’ve brought me here. I place it in my pocket and row back, being sure to return the boat to its original position, and locking the boathouse carefully behind me.

  Back at Groundskeeper’s Cottage, the TV has been turned off. I find Dad in the kitchen, tapping his fingers on the table. He jumps up as I enter.

  ‘Where have you been? Have you seen the time?’

  ‘Just into the park. I thought that would be all right. I found a slow-worm in my room and I wanted to release it safely. I’m sorry – I didn’t mean to scare you.’

  Dad is distracted by this information. ‘A slow-worm? Up in the attic?’

  I nod. ‘I was going to ask you how you think it got up there, but you were watching telly.’

  He thinks for a moment. ‘It must have been inside something you were carrying.’

  ‘That makes sense,’ I say, happy not to have to lie to him.

  His face softens. ‘You should have asked me. I don’t like you going into the park late at night.’

  ‘Sorry. I’ll ask next time.’

  He kisses me on the top of my head. ‘I’ll say goodnight, love. We’ve both had quite a long day. You need to get to bed.’

  ‘OK. Night, Dad.’

  I go upstairs, slip his keys back on to their rack, then head up to my room, where I sit down at my desk and tear open the envelope. It contains a sheet of paper with some things written on it.

  First, there is a circle. I place the paper beside the sheet bearing the letter A and close my eyes for a moment to bring up the image of the figure 13 from the noodle bowl that represented B … Maybe this isn’t a circle, but a letter – O. So then I have A, B and O.

  Beneath the O are some words: Give and take.

  At the very bottom of the page, a line of text reads: You have until midnight.

  I check my watch – five past eleven. I feel the pulse in my temple speed up. I don’t have much time.

  ABO could stand for almost anything … It could just mean ‘boa’ – and I could visit London Zoo to see the boa constrictors … But the letters were delivered in the order ABO, so I continue to reflect. There’s an Association of British Orchestras, but I can’t see how that helps. There’s a mountain pass in New Mexico called Abo Canyon – but surely the Guild wouldn’t expect me to travel there during term time …?

  Give and take. Give and take. What do you give and take? Presents? Compromises? ABO … Give and take …

  Suddenly I understand.

  I grab my backpack in case I need any of my gadgets and put my beret on my head. Then I climb out through the skylight and down the tree. It’s now quarter past eleven – I hope I’m in time.

  The West End Donor Centre on Margaret Street is the biggest blood donation clinic in all of London. I take a bus, which is empty – bar a drunk man right at the back, who mumbles to himself the whole way and ignores me, thank goodness, and a stressed-looking mother clutching a whimpering baby. I hop off at the closest stop to Margaret Street. The donor centre
looks very closed when I get there. However, there’s a light shining out from one small window, so I knock gently on the pane. A moment later, a uniformed nurse appears at the front door.

  ‘We’re closed,’ she says.

  ‘Yes, but … I have an appointment.’

  She narrows her eyes. ‘What is the name?’

  ‘Oddlow. Agatha Oddlow.’

  She consults a sheet and shakes her head.

  ‘Felicity Lemon?’ I try.

  She nods. ‘Come in.’

  I follow her into the clinic. She leads me down empty white corridors and through double doors into identical empty white corridors. There’s something disconcerting about a hospital environment out of hours. Too many thrillers have been set in just such a place, where an evil doctor attempts some illegal operation to incapacitate the hero or heroine.

  What if I’ve got it all wrong? What if I’ve walked straight into a trap?

  ‘Where are we going?’ I ask the nurse’s back as she strides ahead, but she doesn’t respond. Too late now …

  Finally, we reach the end of a corridor, and the nurse raps on the door of a doctor’s office. She opens the door and nods for me to enter. My palms are sweating by the time I step inside, unsure whether I’ll encounter a friend or a foe.

  And then I’m looking straight into the smiling face of Professor D’Oliveira.

  I’m breathless with the realisation of what has happened, so I stand there for a long moment. Did you know that a ‘moment’ used to be equivalent to ninety seconds? This would mean a moment can’t really be long or short. It feels as though a fizzy bottle of Coke has been opened somewhere in my chest, and the bubbles are effervescing through my veins, fizzing and popping and foaming up into my brain. I’ve done it, I’ve succeeded, and, like my mother, I’m about to become a member of the Gatekeepers’ Guild.

  And, perhaps, I will finally find out what happened to her.

  The professor stands up and walks over, smiling. She holds out something to me and I extend my hand to accept it. The object is very small. It’s a badge made of gold, and – carefully wrought in the metal – is the symbol of the Guild: a tiny key.