“We have not yet had the pleasure of Master Perot’s company this morning,” said Grannie Jane. “Inspector Willard and I have been considering the most recent offering from your friend, Mr. Fibbley.”
The policeman’s genial expression became instantly inquisitive. “Your friend, Miss Morton? You have friends among the press?”
A flush crept up my neck. Grannie had put me on the spot. “Mr. Fibbley is, um, the gentleman who wrote about certain events in Torquay during the autumn.” Why not tell the whole truth? I might rise in his esteem.
“I was able to assist in the solving of a murder, you see. Mr. Fibbley’s account acknowledged my endeavors.”
“Is that so?” The inspector eyed me with what I liked to imagine was admiration. “You are one up on me, Miss Morton. This is my first murder case.”
“And you are doing just fine, Detective Inspector,” said Grannie Jane, kindly. “But I am curious…” She tapped the newspaper. “When precisely did Mr. Fibbley have the opportunity to interview Miss Truitt? Did he waylay her as she fled from Mr. Mooney?”
“Astutely noted, Mrs. Morton,” said Inspector Willard. “I was puzzled by the same question. We did not encounter the reporter during our hunt for the young woman.”
“May I please read the article, Grannie Jane? In order that I might follow your conversation?”
She passed me the newspaper. They both waited in silence while my eyes galloped down the page.
Miss Truitt, I read, demented with sorrow, agreed to speak with this reporter in the hope that…Agreed to speak with this reporter?? She was this reporter! My goodness, but Mr. Augustus Fibbley had more twists than a skein of wool.
“Perhaps I may ask you a few questions, Miss Morton?” said Inspector Willard. “To confirm yesterday’s timeline? You and Constable Gillie accompanied Miss Truitt during her visit to Mr. Corker yesterday, did you not?”
His brown eyes were as sharp as I imagined those of a fox might be, if presented with the open door of a chicken coop. How much more brightly they would burn when presented with the knife now hiding beneath my quilt!
“We neither of us went into the stable with her, sir.” That was a safe chunk of fact. “She wanted privacy for her, uh, farewell.”
“Was this reporter in the vicinity at the same time?”
How to answer that in a truthful manner?
“I did not see Mr. Fibbley anywhere about, sir.”
“But you and Miss Truitt met the actor, Mr. Mooney, when the woman had finished in the stable?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And what was your impression of their exchange?”
Had Mr. Mooney already expressed his view to the inspector? Or was Mr. Fibbley’s article the only version of the story?
“I would say…prickly, sir. But, sir?”
“Miss Morton?”
“My friend, Hector. This disappearance is most unlike him.”
“Perhaps he’s having a little lie-in,” said Inspector Willard. “Have you thought of that?”
“He is not in his bed,” I said. “He may have been missing all night.”
“Hush, pet.” Grannie Jane reached out a hand to soothe me. “He could be off exploring.”
“Without me?” I said. “That’s an absurd idea.”
Constable Gillie poked his head around the door of the breakfast room.
“Miss Day is expecting you upstairs, sir, when you’re ready for that interview. We’ve got Mr. Mooney coming into the Avon Room after that. And three servants to fit in, between their duties.”
“Thank you, Constable.” Inspector Willard took a last gulp of his coffee. The white shock of hair over his forehead blazed in the light of the chandelier.
“It may have been a miscalculation on my part,” he said, “to put the servants on alert for small oddities or alterations within the household. I have received all manner of unrelated reports, most to do with petty grievances against one another. I now must sort through who saw what, where and when.” He chuckled at his own tangle of words.
“Like the magnifying glass?” I said.
The inspector’s look sharpened. “Precisely,” he said. “We have only the word of you children that it was on the table near the corpse, and your word is not to be disregarded. As of this morning, however, the magnifying glass has been discovered in its regular place among the accessories on the desk. It appears your concern about its whereabouts was exaggerated by circumstance. Quite a simple thing to happen.”
In its regular place? But it had not been there yesterday when I’d examined the…the accessories on the desk! Who had replaced it? This was all too confusing!
“But what about the blade that dealt the deadly blow, sir? I, uh, wondered…um, since there were two wounds, were there perhaps two weapons?”
Inspector Willard stood up. “I realize, Miss Morton, that you may feel you are practiced in the business of detection, but we are concerned here with a violent act of murder. I would ask, for your own safety, that you and your chums refrain from snooping and sleuthing. Ours is a serious business and not an entertainment.”
“Thank you, Inspector,” said Grannie Jane. “I believe Agatha understands your suggestion perfectly clearly.”
My cheeks burned as I ducked my head.
The inspector made a courteous bow to Grannie and then paused before leaving. “Do let me know if your friend has not turned up in time for luncheon,” he said.
Lucy came in just then, hair beautifully braided, and sang out cheery good mornings without being reminded. The inspector repeated his stern look at me and left us.
“Where’s Hector?” said Lucy, putting pancakes on her plate.
“Not here,” I said. “Grannie, I’m really worried. His bed is made as if he never slept in it.”
“But what harm could come to a boy in a nursery bedroom?”
Lucy stopped chewing and looked at me. Hector had not been in a nursery bedroom last evening. We had been doing precisely what we’d just been forbidden from doing—snooping and sleuthing.
A sound at the door made me turn in hope.
Not Hector. Marjorie collected a slice of toast at the sideboard and slid into the seat next to me. “Good morning, dear ones.” She poured herself coffee from the silver pot on the table.
“Have you seen Hector?” I asked her. She shook her head no, cup to her lips.
“Don’t be offended, Marjorie,” I said, “that I am leaving the moment you come to breakfast. I must go up to the nursery.”
“Today is Sunday,” said Marjorie. “We’re to be in the chapel at nine o’clock. All of us. Absolutely no choice, you understand?”
“Grandmamma,” said Lucy, with a sigh.
“I understand.” I folded my napkin and put it beside my plate. “Though it might be all of us minus one boy from Belgium. I am hoping that Hector left a note in his room, or some other clue as to his whereabouts.”
“I’ll come with you.” Lucy’s chair squeaked as she pushed it back.
It took Lucy and me under five minutes to search Hector’s room. His sailor suit and two shirts hung on hooks. His dress-up trousers and jacket were on a hanger. The drawers held socks and underthings. His nightshirt was folded under the pillow. The book on his nightstand was Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson, the same author who wrote Treasure Island. That made me feel sick. First Mr. Sivam, and now Hector. Unexplained absences in the middle of a blizzard.
“Nothing here,” said Lucy. “It’s the barest room in the house.”
No note. No clever instructive clue. I let my eyes roam, certain I had missed something. Put to work the friction of the brain cells! Hector said in my head. Use the logic!
I did not believe for a moment that he was strolling through the rooms and passages of Owl Park with complete disregard for the time. Nor that he’d been thunderstru
ck with a theory so urgent that he would not wait to have me dissect it with him. However early he’d come down from the nursery, he would have wanted breakfast. Hector Perot was the most eager eater I had ever met. He would certainly have encountered a servant—or two or three or nine—because Owl Park had nearly as many servants as a centipede had legs. But, according to Dot’s quick ask-around, no one had seen him.
Because he wasn’t here.
Something was terribly wrong. Had he encountered one of the two men on our list of suspects? We had assumed, in the quiet kitchen last evening, that Frederick had gone to bed with all the other servants. We had assumed that Mr. Mooney would be in his room, giving Hector a chance to poke about the coach house in search of clues. We had assumed that Hector’s knitted pullover and woolly socks under his button-up boots would be snug enough for crossing the courtyard.
“Lucy,” I said. “The clothes he was wearing yesterday are not hanging tidily or folded away. His woolly jumper isn’t here. Hector never came back last night.”
Lucy’s hand flew to her mouth. “Mr. Sivam has got him!” she said. “It’s the curse of the Echo Emerald!”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I think Mr. Sivam might be in trouble too.”
In trouble meaning “dead,” which seemed far more likely.
* * *
—
As Marjorie had reminded us, it was Sunday. We were obliged to attend service in the private chapel nestled on the far side of East House. Lucy and I joined our grandmothers in the front pew. Boughs of beribboned greenery were laced to the railings, emitting the rich scent of a pine forest after a rainfall. Marjorie and James sat behind us, with Mrs. Frost, Frederick, Dot and a couple of others in the third and last pew. James’s grandfather had overseen the construction of this little place, especially for his wife, one hundred years ago. He had commissioned the stained-glass windows from a solitary woman who’d lived in the hills a few miles away. Rather than scenes from the Bible, her panels depicted the wildflowers and birds that she saw during her daily rambles across the downs. Bluebells, buttercups, teasel and tansy. Sparrow, goldfinch, dunnock and robin.
The curate arrived on snowshoes. Reverend Barrell was a chubby fellow with a lovely voice who made the readings sound like poems, quite unlike the bellowing Reverend Mr. Teasdale at All Saints church in Torquay. Had it been any other Sunday, I might have perched in the pew to pass a pleasant hour. As it was, a corpse lay in the stable, a boy with a bandaged head insisted that a woman had pushed him down the stairs, a villain lurked somewhere close by, and my dearest friend was nowhere to be found.
After the chapel service, I sneaked away, unkindly but deftly, from Lucy, and hurried toward the main part of the house. I had half a plan, or, rather, two plans. Which to pursue first?
I opened the door to Hector’s room with a tiny flame of hope that he’d be calmly sitting on his bed, reading a book. But no. So, I went to collect the paper knife, as well as my notebook, from under the quilt on my bed. It wouldn’t do, I realized, to be seen with a six-inch blade in my fist. Yet how to carry it about without stabbing my own ankle? I slid the knife into the foot of a stocking and tied it snugly to the sash about my waist. It made an odd-looking accessory, but not obviously a murder weapon. Marjorie and Kitty Sivam were just back from the chapel and settling themselves in the morning room as I passed. I opened my mouth to say Hector’s still missing, but stopped to consider. Kitty Sivam’s husband was also missing. Not just overnight, but for nearly three whole days! I felt a rush of empathy with her. She must be every bit as frightened for her husband as I was for Hector. To be fair, possibly more so.
I gave my sister a deceitful, cheery wave and returned to my quest.
And what exactly was my quest? Should I be looking for Hector? Or presenting my discovery to Inspector Willard? Did I have the nerve to interrupt the inspector during an interview? He’d likely finished with Annabelle while we’d been listening to Reverend Barrell, and had moved on to speak with the servants. Might one of them have uncovered a reason to show Frederick or Mr. Mooney as even more suspicious? Oddly enough, Hector’s disappearance had pushed Annabelle off the suspect list for me, making her shaky alibi more solid. It seemed much likelier that one of the two men had waylaid my friend. If the pirate boots next to Mr. Corker’s body had belonged to either of them, Hector’s exploration had put his life at risk. Why had I let him go off by himself?
What if Hector had crossed paths with a thieving, murderous footman when he crept through the kitchen? Or, even more probably, what if Mr. Mooney had not been safely in his room on the third floor as we had guessed? He had admitted that he’d argued with Mr. Corker in the library. What if he’d been inside the coach house when a curious boy appeared to poke through his belongings? Hector not returning after a mission to sleuth on Mr. Mooney’s territory put the actor on top of my list. Number One Most Suspicious Character. My lungs seemed filled with wet mud, so drenched was I in dread. My suspicion grew and festered, like mold on cheese. Like a stench in hot sunshine. Like maggots on a dead badger.
While I’d been pursuing my own endeavors last evening, chatting with Annabelle and Sergeant Shaw, hearing the news from Lucy and writing to Mummy…all that time, Hector must have faced a crisis that swallowed him up and not released him. My breakfast egg rose in my throat, threatening to reappear. I tapped on my forehead, trying to banish my vigorous imagination. It could carry me too swiftly to dark and dreadful places.
Be logical, I said to myself.
But what if he’s dead?? myself screamed back.
There was only one way to find out, and it was the last thing I wanted to do.
Hector being missing made Annabelle’s bath seem…like only a bath.
Hector being missing let awful, scary thoughts creep into my mind.
Hector being missing meant that I could not tell my best friend about what scared me.
Hector being missing was the only reason on earth that could propel me out to the coach house, knowing that Mr. Mooney might be waiting…and not in a friendly mood.
CHAPTER 32
A CAUSE FOR ALARM
I CROSSED THE BUSY kitchen as if I hadn’t a care in the world, dodging the staff carrying platters for the upstairs luncheon. I pulled one of the servants’ shawls from a hook by the door, to use for the same reason they all did—an extra layer around neck and shoulders when going out to collect coal or eggs or bread or whatever next was needed from one of the outbuildings. I hoped to be collecting Hector.
Sergeant Fellowes, on guard duty for the corpse inside the stable, was chatting with three reporters who clustered at the doorway of the bakehouse.
Mr. Blake Cramshot from the Tiverton Bugle, Mr. Pockmark Dented Hat and…Mr. Augustus Fibbley of the Torquay Voice. Well, hello. Back so soon? Mr. Fibbley wore his dark peacoat and cap. His spectacles shone like twin mirrors in the glare of light from the snow.
“Have you seen my friend Hector, by any chance?” I asked them.
They shook their heads and shuffled their feet. I couldn’t bear to think how cold their feet must be. I hoped that Marjorie had given the baker permission to feed them warm bread. Should I pause to speak with Mr. Fibbley? Tell him how frantic I was about Hector? Should I say, Please help?
I thought back to what happened in October when I’d chased a villain by myself, and the frightful night that came as a result. A wave of icy recollection washed over me, sweeping away the notion that I might stand toe-to-toe with an angry man. Lucy was right. This was a task for the police. Hector would surely agree with Lucy. He wanted to be a policeman when he got older, so they could do no wrong in his opinion.
I glanced over at Sergeant Fellowes. I did not wonder that guarding a dead man might be boring, but he was now singing a duet with Mr. Cramshot, and was not the policeman in whom I wanted to confide. Inspector Willard had said I might inform him if Hector had not appeared
by lunchtime. I’d sat next to him at breakfast and not mentioned that the murder weapon was in my bed. My fingers strayed to the bundle at my waist. I’d found the paper knife yesterday, and not yet told anyone.
The time had come.
I marched back inside and straight to the Avon Room. Constable Gillie stood at attention beside the door.
“One of the maids is in there just now,” he said.
Did that mean Mr. Mooney was in the coach house where I’d just been headed? Luck was on my side.
I’d found something the inspector would want to see, I told the constable. He followed me through the door and parked himself, straight and tall. I waited next to him. Our own Dot, under-parlormaid, was in the chair opposite Inspector Willard. On the table in front of him sat a plate from the kitchen holding a heap of gray muck. From where I stood, it looked like a macaroon gone terribly wrong.
Dot was in the middle of her story.
“Well, I says to her,” she said, “ ‘Scoff you might, Mrs. Frost,’ I says, ‘but of the forty-one grates I cleans each day, this be the only one with ashes what’ve got threads and bits of fabric and not just paper scraps and coal ash.’ ”
“I hope you did not sass the housekeeper so much as that,” said Inspector Willard, “but do go on, Miss Bolt. I’m listening.”
Dot’s shoulders rode up to her ears. “Well, anyway,” she said, after a moment’s sulk, “I showed her what I found, and she said that after all the police might want a gander. We put a sampling on this plate, what’s usually used for scones, and up I come to see you.”
Dot used the hem of her apron to wipe her face. “I’ve gone all perspiring.”
“Take your time,” said Inspector Willard. “We are keenly interested in what you have to say.”
Dot blinked two or three times, the freckles standing out on her cheeks.
“Whose grate were you cleaning, Miss Bolt,” said the inspector, gently, “when these threads and bits of blood-stained fabric emerged from the ashes?”
Peril at Owl Park Page 19