Peril at Owl Park

by Marthe Jocelyn

  Lucy nodded vigorously, and it seemed our presence would be allowed a while longer.

  “Let me through!” came the doctor’s voice, more harshly than we’d heard it the day before. “Medic’s here.”

  Mr. Mooney and Mrs. Frost moved over to let Dr. Musselman shuffle in. He wore an old wine-colored dressing gown, tightly knotted about his round tummy. Archer must have called him from his bed, for his sparse hair stuck up like blades of grass and his spectacles sat crookedly on his blobby nose. He clutched his black bag, taking in the scene with a single look.

  “I’ll be jiggered,” he said. He put the bag aside—no use now!—and leaned over the body, careful not to step where blood was darkening the pattern on the carpet. His fingers went to the man’s wrist and then fumbled under the wig to his neck. I suspect I was not alone in holding my breath while we watched. A small shake of the head confirmed that he hadn’t felt a pulse, though we’d already known that he would not.

  Dr. Musselman leaned farther over, gently lifting the pirate’s curls, as if parting a curtain. The light caught a ring of gold in his earlobe. Oh, poor man. Every one of us sighed when the face was revealed. Mr. Roger Corker.

  The doctor creakily straightened, and patted the spot on his chest where usually he would find his watch in its pocket, except that he was in pajamas and robe.

  “Does anyone know the time?” he said, looking about.

  James pulled out his watch and told him, “Eight forty-nine, old chap.”

  Marjorie came back in just then, shaking her head. “The line is down,” she murmured. “Too much snow.”

  Dr. Musselman cleared his throat, rubbed his mustache and spoke in a low, even tone. “A male person is pronounced dead at eight forty-nine, Christmas morning, 1902, apparently by violent means.”

  Apparently? Whatever else might a dagger in the back indicate?

  The doctor took a giant step backward, off the carpet and away from the corpse. Now, officially, a corpse.

  “Mrs. Frost, I would like a cup of coffee,” he said, in his normal voice.

  “At once, sir.” As she turned one way, her departure was blocked by Mr. Mooney, the other, she nearly tripped on the doctor’s bag. She tucked it under the dictionary lectern before bustling away. One moment later, Kitty Sivam appeared in the doorway, gold hair streaming down her back. She, too, wore a dressing gown instead of proper clothes, though no one cared, of course. Her eyes widened in ghastly fright when she saw what lay on the floor.

  “Is it Lakshay?” Kitty Sivam inched toward the body and let out a cry. “Stabbed in the back?”

  Marjorie put a hand out to prevent her guest from going any closer.

  “No, dear,” said Marjorie. “It’s poor Mr. Corker. You must stay clear. The doctor…” Her voice trailed off as Kitty took in a ragged gulp of air and began to shudder in my sister’s arms.

  The door at the other side of the library opened with a bang. Mr. Sivam strode in.

  “Lakshay!” cried Kitty. “Where were you?” She stepped toward him, her arms lifting and then dropping in a slow flap. She’d meant to embrace him, I saw, but stopped herself. Her husband had gone rigid, gaping at Mr. Corker.

  “Noo…” Mr. Sivam’s anguish in one little word. He fell to his knees and covered his face with his hands.

  And now the actress, Annabelle, appeared at the door. She stared at the men on the carpet, one so still with a dagger in his back, the other moaning in dismay. A hand crept up to cover her mouth, wide in distress. Her gaze jumped from the corpse to the faces of those watching her, from Mr. Mooney to James and Mrs. Sivam, to us children and the old doctor. Then, in a sudden terrible moment, her eyes rolled back—they truly did! I saw them!—and she slumped to the floor in a melting swoon.

  CHAPTER 12

  AN ALARMING SITUATION

  DR. MUSSELMAN GRUNTED as he knelt beside the actress, wincing when his knees met floor instead of carpet. I was examining the bloodstain pooled around the head of the corpse, only a few feet away. How much blood did a human hold?

  A red tide rushed from its vessel, soaking into the deep pile and splashing the floor beyond. Splashes soon turned to puddles and puddles joined to become a flood. Minutes later, the library was ankle-deep in blood, books on the lower shelves in peril, as the scarlet torrent swelled like an angry river after a rainstorm…

  “Where’s my bag?” said the doctor, holding Annabelle’s wrist and looking awkwardly about. “My bag? My bag?”

  “There.” I pointed to where the housekeeper had placed it.

  Mr. Mooney picked it up. “What shall I look for?” he asked, already searching the contents. There came a clinking of glass as he looked through bottles and vials.

  “Smelling salts,” said Dr. Musselman.

  “Shouldn’t we get her off the floor?” said Marjorie.

  “Can’t see anything in here,” said Mr. Mooney. He held out the bag to Marjorie, his cuff catching on the buckle for a moment. “Maybe you’ll do better.”

  Marjorie took the bag but was looking at James. “Can we lift her onto the divan?”

  “Not in here,” murmured Hector.

  “Too many people in here,” I whispered to James. “It’s a crime scene.”

  James shot me a look and nodded abruptly. He clapped his hands to command attention. “We need to clear the room,” he said, putting on his Lord Greyson voice. “Will everyone please step outside.”

  Dr. Musselman pulled himself to his feet. “Peace and quiet is all the girl needs,” he said. “Carry her up to wherever she’s sleeping. She’ll be right as rain when the shock wears off. No doubt this fellow can do it.” He indicated Mr. Mooney.

  “Certainly,” said the actor. “I’ve had plenty of practice on stage.” He scooped Annabelle into his arms before anyone had time to object, and carried her out the door. Lucy followed, watching her new hero play a hero.

  Kitty, at her husband’s shoulder, urged him to rise, but turned her face away from the sight of Mr. Corker.

  I shuffled ever so slowly, wanting James to think that I was obeying his command to leave, but not wishing to miss a moment of the drama. Hector waited politely behind me, keen to hear everything too. Marjorie, on the threshold, soothed those gathered in the passage, while beckoning to Hector and me.

  “Mrs. Sivam?” said James. “I understand your relief at the safety of your husband, but would you please be so kind as to accompany Miss Annabelle. It does not seem quite right that a man is taking her to her room without…”

  Kitty Sivam was alert at once and stepped toward the door. Naturally it was unthinkable that the actress be placed upon her bed without another woman present.

  “I will send a maid along,” said James, “to assist.”

  “You needn’t do that, Lord Greyson,” said Mrs. Sivam. “I’ll sit by her as she rests. If you are quite recovered, Lakshay?”

  Mr. Sivam was on his feet again, had smoothed his hair and adjusted his jacket, which was cut differently to our English ones, longer and with curious silk toggles instead of buttons.

  “Terribly sorry to add to your troubles, James. This heinous murder is not the only crime at Owl Park this day.” Mr. Sivam looked at his wife, as if afraid to say the words. “The Echo Emerald is no longer in its box. I fear this time it has indeed been stolen.”

  “No!” cried Marjorie, at the door.

  “No, no!” cried Kitty.

  James looked from his friend’s sorrowful face to the body on the floor and back to Mr. Sivam. His cheeks paled as he saw how the calamity had doubled in size. But he rose to the occasion—as a lord must—and began to issue orders.

  “Mrs. Sivam, if you please, attend to the patient. Aggie, Hector, it is time to leave this room. Pressman, please wait.”

  We scurried out, but stayed by the door near Marjorie to hear the rest.

  “Lakshay�
�” James paused. “I shall ride out for the police directly, as the telephone line is down. Will you—”

  “This man’s death is upon my head,” said Mr. Sivam, in a shaking voice. “Some cruel prank to suggest that the curse of the Echo Emerald is real?”

  “Lakshay,” said James. “We are all in shock.” He extended a hand. “You know that the jewel is merely a jewel.”

  “An immensely valuable jewel,” said Mr. Sivam. “One that should have remained my secret and not become part of a story told for thrills.”

  “You are not responsible for a man lying murdered on my library carpet,” said James. “Go to your room, old chap, and we’ll have tea sent up.”

  “Where is Kitty?”

  His wife was assisting Miss Day, James explained, and would join him before too long. Mr. Sivam moved slowly from the room as if under a spell.

  A spell? Or a curse?

  “Pressman,” said James. “You’ll man the front door. No one is to leave or enter until my return. No one.”

  Lucy wriggled back into the room. “Mr. Mooney carried her all the way to the top of the house,” she reported. “She’s staying in the servants’ passage. He didn’t even pause for breath.”

  James sighed and continued his instructions. “Put footmen anywhere you need to, Pressman. We’ve got to secure this place until we know what’s what. Have my horse saddled, will you?”

  “But James,” I said. “What if he’s already gone? Wouldn’t you be gone if you’d stolen an emerald and murdered a man?”

  “If he’s gone, he’s gone,” said James. “If he’s here, then here he stays.”

  “Lucy,” said my sister. “Take the others and…” She looked as if her brain cells had entirely stopped moving. “I don’t know what you might do…Just do it elsewhere.”

  “Children,” said James. “You must obey all orders without question. Do you understand?”

  Yes, yes, of course, we agreed.

  James cupped Marjorie’s face with his palms. “I think it’s best if I ride for the police myself,” he told her.

  “Yes, darling, go at once,” she said. “You’ll be faster in the snow than anyone else.”

  “I’m afraid the running of the house is yours for now. I will go up to tell my mother the dreadful news before I ride out. Pray that she is upset enough to remain inside East House. I’m so sorry to leave you with all of this, but…”

  “Of course.”

  James leaned down to kiss Marjorie’s cheek. Then he locked the library door and handed her the key.

  “Do not fail to lock the other door,” he reminded her. “No one may enter until the police arrive.”

  Only poor Mr. Corker remained within, cooling on the carpet.

  “Right, then, Pressman. Onward.” James strode away with the butler following.

  “I wonder how Grandmamma will like waking up to such news on Christmas,” said Lucy.

  “Goodness,” said Marjorie. “It’s Christmas.” She looked down, seeming surprised to find Dr. Musselman’s medical bag in her hands. “Lucy, will you please keep your grandmother company once she’s had the news from James? I’ll have a tray brought up with breakfast. Cinnamon buns. And bacon.”

  Lucy blew out a huff of breath but agreed to follow orders. “I’ll find you later!” she said to Hector and me. “Don’t let anything else happen until I get back.”

  “That child would do anything for a cinnamon bun!” murmured Marjorie. She knelt in the passage, pulling one vial after another out of the doctor’s bag, squinting at the labels. “He doesn’t seem to know his alphabet,” she complained. “They’re all—silver nitrate, catgut ligatures, laudanum, Aspirin, peppermint oil…You see? All out of order. Ah! Here it is!” She held one up. “Aggie, be a dear, will you? Run and give these smelling salts to Kitty in case the poor actress still needs to be revived.”

  I took the little bottle, just like the one I’d seen a hundred times in Grannie Jane’s knitting basket at home. The label read Jeever’s Lavender Pocket Salts and, in tiny letters: Refuse Worthless Imitations.

  “Hector, come with me. If we’re not permitted to watch over a dead body, we may as well see a living one reawakened from a swoon!”

  CHAPTER 13

  A HEAP OF CONFUSION

  I HELD ON TIGHTLY to the bottle of lavender salts, my single aim for the moment being to revive the ailing Miss Day. Hector and I raced up the gracious stairway to the open mezzanine that overlooked the Great Hall we’d just come from. The stairs stopped here, and we were already lost. Under Lucy’s leadership, we had mostly used the servants’ back stairs and wily ways through corridors that did not seem to adjoin this elegant gallery.

  “What now?” I said.

  “We want the East House,” said Hector. “Across the landing from where we are staying, yes? One of these doors must lead us there.”

  “Which way is east?” I cried. “Are you carrying a compass?”

  Hector leaned on the ornate railing and gazed at the leaded panes above the enormous front door below us. Pale morning light shone through, no doubt made brighter by the snow reflecting it, casting gentle shadows upon one wall.

  “Voilà!” said Hector. “The sun, as always, is the best compass. It rises in the east and tells us now, from the direction of the shadows, which way to go.” He marched confidently to his chosen door at one end of the mezzanine, watched by the stone statue of a maiden holding a basket full of flowers.

  We arrived in familiar territory only a few minutes later: the back stairs to the upper levels. Swinging around the final corner, thwack! I crashed headlong into a man! Hector ran smack into me, and for a moment, we made a jammed-up bundle of limbs.

  “Whoa, there!” Mr. Mooney put his hands on my shoulders to steady me. Hector reeled against the wall.

  “We’ve got the—” I showed him the bottle rather than finishing the sentence, as breath was difficult to find just then.

  The actor pointed down the passage. “Third door,” he said. “Be quick.”

  Kitty Sivam responded to our knock with a face of consternation. She took the bottle of salts and said her thanks, but closed the door quickly, without us having a chance to see anything beyond a glimpse of the actress lying on the bed with half-closed eyes.

  “Well, that was disappointing,” I said, and Hector agreed.

  When we made our way down to the Great Hall, Lucy was waiting, manipulating one arm of a suit of armor forward and backward in a creaking salute.

  “Finally!” she said. “Grandmamma didn’t want my company. She is beside herself, so vexed with the murderer for upending Christmas. Aunt Marjorie says we’re to have our Christmas luncheon early, in the kitchen with the servants before the guests eat upstairs. And we’ll have the actors too, though I suppose they mightn’t be too jolly. Aunt Marjorie doesn’t want children anywhere about when the police arrive. Strictly forbids us to be underfoot, is what she said.”

  “Did you see Grannie Jane?” I said. “I’d like to go up—”

  “Archer was just going in to help your grandmother dress, so you needn’t go up now. She waved at me, and said to tell you she’ll find you. Grandmamma is snarling about the police and her poor maid, Evelyn, has to listen. Pity us all when she comes down.”

  * * *

  —

  The servants’ hall had been done up gaily, with red bunting looped above the doors and bits of evergreen tied with bows to the back of every chair.

  “It’s a nuisance,” said Mrs. Hornby, when Lucy cooed about how pretty it looked. “But it raises up the spirits and that’s something. It’ll all be gone by tomorrow.”

  A kitchen maid edged past with a tureen full of something that smelled rich and delicious, moving it from stove top to warming oven. She tried to bob a curtsy but her load made her off-balance.

  “Don’t fret about us being
Upstairs,” said Lucy, a bit grandly, I thought. “We’ll all muck in to help, since it’s not a proper Christmas.”

  “ ‘Not a proper Christmas,’ she says!” cried Cook. “With a pirate lying dead in the library from what I hears.” But she told Dot to show us where to find the cutlery and told us how she liked the table laid. And she gave us paper crowns to give around and a butterscotch wrapped in foil for beside each place.

  “I can’t find my gentleman.” Frederick came in with a tea tray. “I took this up in case he needed a cuppa, but he’s not there. Every drawer in the room is turned upside down.”

  “Whatever next?” said Mrs. Frost. “I hope you tidied?”

  “I did not,” said Frederick. “What if it was the robber and not Mr. Sivam who made the mess? The police might be interested.”

  “You’ll get up there straightaway after you’ve eaten,” said Mrs. Frost. “I’m not having the Tiverton constabulary thinking we don’t keep things neat at Owl Park.”

  And then a scullery girl named Effie nicked her finger on a knife and got Cook worried about blood in the creamed onions.

  “They’re not meant to be pink!” she scolded.

  Mr. Sebastian Mooney appeared with a smile and a wave to all. Hector and I traded a look. Wasn’t he a bit cheerful for a man whose friend was lying dead upstairs? And didn’t the cheeks of every maid in the servants’ hall turn as pink as berry cake at the sight of him?

  Not Cook’s, though. “Humph,” she muttered. “Well, come in, Mr. Mooney. Word came down we’d have the actors joining us. Oh! Miss Day, up and about so soon? Feeling better?”

  For someone who spent every waking hour in the kitchen, Cook seemed well informed as to any whisper of activity in all of Owl Park. Miss Day had followed Mr. Mooney through the baize door, looking a bit peaky but bright-eyed and upright, considering she’d been stricken on a bed only half an hour ago.

  “I’m much better, thank you, Cook,” she said. “A bit of your marvelous food will restore me in no time. Oh, look!” She put on her gilt paper crown, and so did most of the rest of us.