Peril at Owl Park

by Marthe Jocelyn

  The man from Ceylon crept into the library and took up the silver-handled magnifying glass from where it lay next to the pens and inkwell on the desk. Mr. Corker, in a fog of rum, watched as the owner of the infamous Echo Emerald carefully examined his own precious jewel under the light cast by the green-shaded lamp…

  But, how would that lead to murder?

  Mr. Corker, in a fog of rum, crept into the library and took up the silver-handled magnifying glass from where it lay next to the inkwell on the desk. With a trembling hand, he withdrew from his pocket his newly stolen prize, the beautiful Echo Emerald. The door swung open with a bang, and in strode Mr. Sivam, his hair tousled and the cord of his dressing gown trailing. “You dunderhead!” he thundered. “How dare you! Return my gem at once!”

  And then a tussle, where Mr. Corker tried to frighten Mr. Sivam by drawing his dagger, but dropped it, perhaps…and Mr. Sivam, seized with fury, stabbed the actor, and…sat calmly down to examine his jewel?

  I could hear Hector’s voice inside my head: This is not logical.

  None of my storylines made sense all the way through. It was most disheartening. I sat on the chair at the library desk and looked in the drawer for paper, but found none. I should not go anywhere without my notebook. I needed to have a Detection Consultation with Hector. We might scavenge some biscuits and cocoa at the same time. I rolled one of the pens back and forth, my fingertips tracing the delicate owl embossed in silver.

  Surely Mr. Mooney had given up his chase by now.

  And Miss Beatrice Truitt safely gone away?

  Miss Truitt.

  I had put her out of my mind for a few minutes, but now she waltzed back in. Not Miss Truitt herself, really, but the reporter who had used her as a disguise to gain entry to Owl Park. The reporter longing to uncover the true story of Mr. Corker’s demise, to tell it from a unique vantage point. That’s what she’d said while we were squished together in the lavatory. Not one of those men out there could do what I have done. And was that not what real writers looked for, to write about? A part of the story that had so far gone unseen.

  I laid my hand across the row of pens and tools, the silver owls cool beneath my palm. My fingers rested on the paper knife. The sharp, narrow blade was meant to cut the edges of new book pages, as common in a library as books themselves. A shiver ran down and up my arms.

  “You dunderhead!”

  The actor pulled his dagger from its sheath at his waist, fumbling slightly as he wished away the rum that fogged his head. His foe looked about for a weapon and seized the silver-handled paper knife from the desk. One urgent swipe and the deed was done, the artery severed, the man’s blood spilling to the ground…

  I went to the window and held the knife under the light. This was not a time for fancy, I told myself. I must see only what was there to see. And so I did. The merest smear of black near the hilt could perhaps be ink, but…might also be something far more ominous.

  I turned with a jolt to the door that masqueraded as a bookcase. I must take the knife to Inspector Willard right away. I untied the ribbon from one of my braids and wrapped it several times around the sharp edges of the paper knife. I slid the blade down the side of my boot, where it bulged uncomfortably. No matter. It would not be there for long.

  Certainty surged through me like fresh air through a newly opened window. I had uncovered the missing murder weapon! I stood before the complete works of William Shakespeare, patting and shifting the volumes with ever more frantic fingers. Where was the latch to open the door?

  Where was the latch??? I recalled the handle on the inside, digging into my stomach, but search as I might, I could find no handle or knob on this side, nothing to aid my departure. Only one person, I supposed, knew the secret to opening this secret door, and that person was James. But for now, I had a knife to deliver and an urgent wish to speak with Hector.

  Only one person, I thought, knew how to enter and exit the library without being seen. I felt a rush of cold so harsh it brought tears to my eyes. Was I truly considering James as a killer?

  CHAPTER 29

  A DETERMINED DUET

  RIDICULOUS! IMPOSSIBLE! Absurd and out of the question.

  Just because a person knew something that no one else knew, did not mean that he used his secret to kill people! A killer must have a reason to kill—or to steal a valuable gemstone. James did not have reason to do either of those things. And yes, he had access to the paper knife with the silver owl on its handle, but so did everybody else in the house! It was sitting right there on the desk!

  “Aggie.”

  My name, quite clearly spoken, made me clutch my chest in fright. I looked to the door, but no one was there.

  “Aggie, here.” Accompanied by tapping. From the bookcase right in front of me. “Are you alone?”

  I peered carefully, and yes! I could distinguish a bright green eye peering back at me from the spy-hole above the novel by Wilkie Collins!

  “Hector! Let me in!”

  Obeying my instructions, he found the handle on the other side and opened the door. I did not let him exclaim or enjoy the new find, but dragged him quickly through the secret passage to the morning room.

  Back in the light, he laughed. “You have the smudge,” he said.

  I rubbed at the spot.

  “Now it is worse.” He led me to a gilt-framed mirror mounted on the wall.

  I had a grimy smear under my eye, from all my spying. Hector offered his pocket handkerchief which I used with vigor. Despite its grubbiness, he folded it neatly and returned it to his pocket.

  “And your hair,” he said. “It is…loose.”

  Half of it, anyway, because I’d used the ribbon elsewhere.

  “I have so much to tell you,” I said, the paper knife digging into my calf.

  “Miss Truitt is gone,” said Hector, at the same moment. “She leaves before the police can speak with her. This makes the good detective inspector most disconsolate. I am puzzled where you might be. Mr. Mooney is looking in every room. From a window, I see the bereaved lady hurrying toward the woods. A most irregular enterprise, but I say nothing, as you are not here to share counsel. But where, I ask myself, is Aggie most likely to be hiding that no one finds her?”

  “Good,” I said. “You found me!”

  “The inspector and his constables go chasing down the drive and have not yet returned.”

  The knife would have to wait a while longer.

  “What was Miss Truitt wearing?” I said.

  “There is a logical reason to ask such a question? She is wearing the same dark and cumbersome ensemble as when last we met.”

  He went to the window and pulled aside the drape. Outside, the afternoon met dusk with snowy yellow light that dimpled the blanketed gardens. Plump flakes quite sedately continued to fall.

  “Where the low wall divides the garden, you see?” Hector said. “That is where Miss Truitt is running. In such ugly weather! She will be cold.”

  “I expect she has hidden her other clothes,” I said, “under a rock or behind a tree, though I suppose they’ll be heavily dusted with snow.”

  Up went his eyebrow. I told him as much as I knew. Miss Truitt was Mr. Fibbley in disguise. Or, Mr. Fibbley was Miss Fibbley in disguise (not believing for a moment that Fibbley was her real name), who was briefly pretending to be Miss Truitt. In any version, she had no intention of speaking with Inspector Willard, nor could she provide any insight or information about the murder. She was merely a sly reporter, fulfilling what she believed to be her duty to report the news. She had failed the test of Mr. Mooney’s scrutiny and made her getaway as speedily as she was able.

  “She borrowed clothing from the trunks already packed in the coach house,” I said. “That’s how Mr. Mooney knew she was a fraud. She’ll be a man again by now. And we have pledged to keep her secret, remember?”


  “I am—how do you say in English? Étonné?”

  “Astonished,” I said.

  “Also, I am an idiot,” said Hector.

  “Not at all,” I said. “I only realized because she looked me straight in the eye and dared me to realize.”

  “But, as you say, this escapade does not tell us what happened to Mr. Corker, or why.”

  “I think I know more about that than I did an hour ago.” I pulled the paper knife from its odd sheath and put it into his hands. “What do you think of this as a murder weapon?”

  “Ooh la la,” he said.

  “You see, there?” I pointed at what I’d swear to be blood.

  “I wonder,” said Hector, “if we might find a room with a fire?”

  It seemed a small request in a house so grand but each firelit room we peeped into seemed also to contain a person. When we passed the footman, Norman, I asked him to tell Marjorie I’d gone upstairs to wash my hands—to keep her from worrying that I’d not reappeared after escorting Miss Truitt to see the corpse. That gave us the idea of going to the nursery, where we found a fire burning and some shortbread biscuits in a tin.

  I pulled my notebook out from under my pillow—at the same time sliding the paper knife beneath my quilt, halfway down the bed.

  I wrote the heading: Things That Seem Odd . And below that I made a list:

  disappearance of Mr. Sivam

  “wrong boots”

  missing pirate shirt

  false Echo Emerald

  genuine Echo Emerald?

  disappearance of the magnifying glass

  false murder weapon

  probably true murder weapon

  chloroform missing from Dr. Musselman’s bag

  “Ready?” I said. “It’s a terribly long list. And we must speak with Stephen to discover anything more about boots.”

  “I believe we may also dismiss for now the pirate shirt and the magnifying glass,” said Hector. “These items we must locate, but what is there to say?”

  “Well, I’ve had a thought about the magnifier,” I said. “What if someone used it that night, not to look in the dictionary, but to examine the Echo Emerald? Or to examine two Echo Emeralds? Identifying the true one and leaving the copy behind? Would knowing a jewel was true or false be a reason to kill someone?”

  Hector’s eyebrows did a small dance while he considered. “There may be a circumstance where this is so,” he said, after a while. “As we continue, such a reason may become clear.”

  “The more I think about it,” I said, “the more certain I am that both stones were brought to Owl Park. Mrs. Sivam knew that. Her only surprise was that the one stolen from the box was the copy. If Mr. Sivam made the switch without telling her, he probably still has it with him.”

  “Why does Mr. Sivam leave without writing a note for his wife,” said Hector, “or asking a servant to deliver a message? Or alerting his old friend, Lord Greyson? It is a puzzling lapse in manners for so genteel a man.”

  “It does seem very strange,” I added, “that he left by some means other than his own motorcar. Especially as he so dislikes the cold. But how could a person be missing inside a house? On the other side, if he has not departed from Owl Park, he must either be dead—or he is the villain! He’s hiding in the wine cellar, wearing a bloody shirt. Or lurking on the servants’ stairs, ready to push innocent boys to their doom.”

  “We know he is not wearing a bloody shirt,” said Hector. “He is perfectly clean and well-attired on Christmas morning.”

  “Unless he’d already had a bath to wash off Mr. Corker’s blood,” I said. I looked at my notebook, and wrote: the matter of Mr. Sivam, to be pursued.

  “Chloroform is on the list because it is missing from Dr. Musselman’s bag, one more item that is not where it should be, causing great misery for old Lady Greyson.”

  “Possibly the doctor, he is forgetful, does not bring the bottle he imagines?”

  “He gave her a dose when he first got here, so he did bring it. But his bag was in a terrible jumble,” I said. “It took three of us to find the smelling salts. Perhaps the chloroform has been there all along. I don’t see how toothache medicine is connected anyway, do you?”

  “Chloroform is not only for the aching tooth,” said Hector. “It is used to remove pain by permitting the patient to go to sleep. But let us worry another time about that. We have still the mystery of killing a man with two blades.”

  “Do you suppose Mr. Corker was the object of such loathing that two different killers crept in and stabbed him?”

  “The second killer is awfully foolish not to notice that he is plunging his dagger into a dead man,” said Hector.

  “I’m afraid none of our suspects can be described as foolish,” I said, “though Frederick, I suppose, is a teeny bit thick. Wouldn’t it make a deliciously morbid story, though? If there were a despicable millionaire with lots of enemies, and they all took turns killing him in different ways, not realizing?”

  “This plot is not believable,” said Hector. “And meanwhile, we have no solution to the puzzle before us.”

  “The one puzzle we do have a solution for,” I said, “we can never tell the police or anyone else. The identity of Miss Beatrice Truitt.”

  Hector grinned. “I predict,” he said, “that when the actors next create a tableau that includes a mourning widow, the meticulous Miss Day will find that her gown and veil are not folded to her liking.”

  “Or she won’t find the costume at all, if Fibbley leaves it in the wood,” I said. “Buried under snow until spring! And perhaps Miss Day will be in prison for theft and murder, and a rumpled weeping veil won’t matter at all.”

  “Another gong!” said Hector. “What now?”

  “It’s the dressing bell, for dinner. Aren’t we lucky not to be dining down tonight?”

  Lucy arrived one minute later. James had allowed, in gratitude for her hours of attending to her grandmother, that Lucy could have dinner with the grown-ups. Hector went to his room while Lucy changed into a peacock blue velvet frock—and filled my ears with gossip.

  The blizzard had prevented Detective Inspector Willard, his team of sergeants, and Constables Gillie and Worth from driving or riding back to the village. There were not enough snowshoes to go around.

  “Poor Aunt Marjorie has to sort out where they’ll all sleep. Uncle James came to warn Grandmamma so she’d have time to adjust her mood, he said, because the detective inspector will be at table with us. Grandmamma is even more vexed than usual. What a surprise. Uncle James said the police are performing a noble service and the least we can do is to feed them and find them beds. Grandmamma said they were only here because Aunt Marjorie thinks that theater was a suitable entertainment, and that actors always mean trouble, especially ones who ended up being murdered. Uncle James was furious that his mother was being narky about his wife, and that’s when Grandmamma sent me to find her barley water so I wouldn’t hear more. Will you do my ribbons?”

  I did her ribbons, which were lovely and wide and matched the dress, but very fiddly to keep tied properly. Especially as my mind was fiddling with a different puzzle. If the police were remaining in Owl Park all night, might I have an opportunity to speak with Detective Inspector Willard about the paper knife?

  Lucy went off downstairs and Hector came back just as Dot delivered our suppers. Hector was transported with happiness at the taste of macaroni with cheese sauce. I composed a couplet while we ate:

  You never feel groany

  When you eat macaroni.

  Then we had chocolate cake for pudding and were utterly sated.

  When Dot came back to clear our supper things, she brought the news we’d been longing to hear. Stephen was awake! He looked like a mushroom, Dot
said, with his head still swaddled in layers of brown paper. Cheeky as ever.

  Hector and I must visit right away. We had two important questions to ask.

  CHAPTER 30

  A HAPPY AWAKENING

  IT WAS LONG PAST the time when adults were accustomed to seeing children upright, but Dot led us down through the kitchen, where Effie and another girl were tackling a heap of washing up.

  “A visit will cheer Stephen’s spirits, that’s what matters,” said Dot. “If he’s not working in the morning, I’ll twist his nose.”

  “You won’t be the only one,” said her brother, appearing with more dishes from the dining room. “I’ve been stuck doing all the shoe polishing tonight, in his place, the little dunderhead.”

  I froze. Hector froze beside me. Of all the words in the English language…

  * * *

  —

  “I’ve got a bump the size of a turnip!” Stephen was still on a mat in the butler’s pantry. He pushed away his head-wrapping to reveal matted hair on the back of his skull. “Go on, touch it!”

  Hector allowed Stephen to guide his fingers to the afflicted spot. I imagined what it must feel like and shivered, finding it spongy and horrible.

  “Did they catch her?” said Stephen.

  “Catch whom?” said Hector.

  “The woman, what pushed me down the stairs.” Stephen’s earnest eyes darted back and forth between Hector and me.

  “Who?” I said.

  “I been puzzling why she were after me.”

  “A woman?” said Hector. “What woman?”

  “I didn’t see her, did I?” said Stephen. “She got me from behind, just where the landing takes a turn. I hears a footstep, I hears her murmuring sounds, then hands on my back and whoomph!”

  “Ouch!” I tried to bat away the memory of Stephen at the bottom of the stairs, lying as still as a scrubbing brush.