by B G Denvil
“At least we’re getting a little further,” Peg sighed.
“Not really.” Rosie stared up at the twilight glimmering through the black silhouetted branches. Little ruffled bird heads were now all snuggled down. “Could it have been an animal, do you think? Crows can be a bit pecky and rough.”
Peg frowned. “Rubbish, dear. And there aren’t any wolves left in the country anymore.”
“No single wizard at supper showed any scratches.”
“But who didn’t show up?” asked Peg suddenly. “Such a special meal wouldn’t normally be missed. So who missed it?”
“Interesting.” Rosie bit her lip. “Not counting witches, though I think some might be capable – just counting wizards, I don’t think I saw Dandy. Now, I’ve never liked him. He’s fairly strong, a seventy-nine, I think. And it wouldn’t surprise me if that sort of man had a dark side.”
“Anything’s possible. I don’t believe Boris came either.”
“He often doesn’t.” Rosie nodded. “And the same with Harry Flash. Only a forty or something, so he likes to keep himself to himself.”
The buttercup sprigged grass, attracting dew as the day’s warmth ebbed, was now damp, and Peg stood, wishing Rosie a good night. Murder was not something that made her want to stretch out the day.
As Rosie wished her sweet dreams, the bats whirled high in great black sweeps from the thatched roof and the attic beneath, filling the sky with dark clouds before they moved on. Rosie waved goodnight to them too, although it was highly unlikely they would notice her small hand below.
She had rather hoped to see Montague at supper with two nice bright red scratches down his face, but he had come to the table with eager, unblemished smiles. So had Mandrake. Rosie would not have been surprised to discover that Mandrake had a dark side, whereas she had long adored the handsome Montague from a silent distance. He had ignored her, of course, and she doubted if he had even remembered her name. But she had not blamed a wise and powerful wizard for ignoring a pathetic fifty.
That afternoon, however, had changed her mind. He had spoken of her, and then to her, with condescending and patronising insolence and even dislike. Not something to cry about. Something to make her want to punch him in the stomach. Now Rosie even wondered if she had a dark side herself. So she stumbled off to bed and cried herself to sleep.
Having first undressed, Rosie had deposited Oswald on the table beside her and wished him a goodnight. But she had left the retrieved papers, the silver toadstool and silver spoon, and the wrapped handful of her mother’s money all hidden within or under the bed.
And as she slept on, dreaming of a miserable future, of dark monsters hiding in the shadows, and of bats flitting down to bite at her neck, she heard nothing of the chatter starting around her bed. Rosie did not, therefore, have any idea that the spoon, toadstool, papers and coins carried on a prolonged conversation in her sleeping absence.
Fourteen
“Come on then,” Oswald said as the sun rose on the following morning. “Wake up, sleepy head. Time to get up, time to face the questions.”
The urgency of his call startled Rosie awake. She regarded the hat pin with surprise. She now always wore Oswald on the neck of her smock, but he rarely spoke to her and generally seemed uninterested in everything going on around them. Now, however, he waited only until she had yawned and stretched, and he then began to relate what had been discussed while she had slept that night.
“Reckon you’d better listen to me,” he told her. “We don’t know nothing about the new murder. Not our business. But Whistle was my master. He made me. Made the spoon and the cup and the toadstool too. Not to mention all them papers. He liked parchment best, I reckon. Personally, I think paper is better. They’re building a paper mill somewhere or another, I think. It’ll start getting easier to get hold of soon. Cheaper too. But I reckon ‘tis irrelevant. What matters is my master was mighty clever at making magical things.”
“Goodness me,” mumbled Rosie. “Are you telling me I should buy paper? I still haven’t found the cup.” She dashed into her clothes with a click of her finger and thumb, brushed her hair with another click and pinned the hatpin on the neckline. “Now I’m supposed to go down and do some work.”
“We need to talk first,” Oswald insisted. “Have you ever seen a kitten?”
Rosie stared down at her feet, wondering if the hat pin was even more stupid than she had originally supposed. “Lots of kittens,” she said patiently. “I love kittens. I always sort of feel I can talk to them. But I only see them in the village. We can’t keep cats here because of all the bats and the birds. Most of the cats I see are strays, poor little things, but a lot of the villagers keep them as pets, and the farmers keep them to get rid of mice and rats. But when they have babies, some of the farmers put them in a sack with stones and throw them in a river. I was so upset when I heard that, I cried for three days. Once I rescued one of those sacks and spent all weekend marching around Piddleton finding old ladies who would adopt one of them. I wanted one to keep in my bedchamber, but Mother wouldn’t let me. So now,” she shook her head, “what on earth are you trying to tell me?”
“Oh, nothing,” sighed Oswald. “’Tis clear you ain’t ready yet.”
“No, not for cats, rats, murder or mayhem,” Rosie replied, and hurried down the stairs to collect water, make beds and serve breakfast.
Everyone had now heard of the second horrible murder, and there was no other subject discussed over the breakfast table. They all agreed this had been a shocking act of deliberate cruelty. She was only a maid, after all, and a sad little twelve at that.
“Lowest I ever met,” Mandrake said, shaking his head at such a number. “Twelve! Hardly counts as a number at all.”
“And the gardener is only a seventeen.”
“But he works hard,” said Percy. “Slogs away every day, he does. Just needs a bit of seventeen to keep him going.”
“Boris isn’t much more,” whispered Montague, but everyone waved their hands at him and turned away.
“I wasn’t much concerned when Whistle went,” said Ethelred, quickly changing the subject in case anyone pointed out he was only a thirty-seven. “He was about three hundred years old and the most powerful among us. He could look after himself.”
“Obviously not,” added Peg.
Vernon Pike, a reasonably healthy sixty-one and therefore just scraping above the important average of sixty, said loudly, “Whistle was an arrogant old codger. Selfish too. Never offered to help anyone.”
“Untrue,” roared Toby. “He may not have liked you, boob-boy, but he liked me, and we used to play chess together. He always won of course but I didn’t mind losing to a ninety-one.”
And Rosie, who was busy serving more tiny platters of butter after it had run out, said quickly, “He was lovely to me. And he wasn’t rude or condescending just because I’m only a fifty.” She glared across at Montague.
But it was the amazing new Edna Edith Enid Ethel Oppolox who quickly answered. “I knew Whistle many years ago,” she said as she piled the butter onto another slice of cheese and popped it into her mouth. “A delightful and extremely clever man. We did some work together and were excessively pleased with the result. He usually cheated at chess, because he found just winning too easy. But he never cheated with the magic. Dear Whistle was a pure talent, you know, and a master at creation.”
“Still a show-off,” muttered Mandrake.
“Perhaps surprisingly,” Edna continued, “very high numbers are often embarrassed to speak of it, just as very low numbers are. But I have sincerely enjoyed the company of many low numbers, whereas high numbers – well, I have only known four higher than myself.”
Peg was interested. “But not Whistle, since he was only a ninety-one.”
“I doubt that,” Edna raised a finger. “I imagine his number had grown over the years, but it was pointless wanting a new test, of course. But I count him as one of those higher than myself. There were
also sisters I once knew. Delightful both of them, one a ninety-four, and the other poor little thing was just a forty-two. But they were happy together, and I liked both equally. And oh – yes – a man I did not like. He went to the shadows behind the light.”
“And the last one?”
“Oh,” Edna brushed it aside. “Female, many years ago. I met her only for a moment. But dear Whistle was a great friend before I went to Scotland.”
“To live in a cave?” sniggered Vernon.
“It was a very cosy cave.” Edna looked down her nose at him. “Or I wouldn’t have stayed there.”
“But back to Kate,” said Peg. “Why would anyone kill a sweet little twelve who helped all of us when we wanted her.”
“A bit of a lazy badger,” decided Inky. “Not that I’m suggesting that was a reason to bludgeon her to death.”
Peg looked up. “How did you know she was bludgeoned?”
“Because you told me half an hour ago,” Inky reminded her.
With no one else to do the dishes, Rosie had started cleaning wiping and washing when Edna burst into the kitchen with a sniff, waved one hand so that everything floated around the room cleaning itself in less than a blink and then put itself away. “Come on, my dear,” Edna said. “No time to fiddle.”
Peg was waiting outside, and they hurried immediately over to the stables. “We must bury the poor child,” Edna said. “We have a second attempt at understanding what and why, and then we eliminate the need for that wretched sheriff to visit and interfere.”
“The sheriff’s assistant isn’t too bad,” Rosie said.
“Too much of a fool,” Peg dismissed him. “After all, my dear, he’s a human. Have you ever met an intelligent human? No, well, that’s obvious.”
Dipper had gone off on his varied trips around the grounds to do the gardening, and Kate’s room was unwatched, still containing Kate’s lonely body surrounded by the mess of her old life.
With no seeming disgust, Edna bent to pick up the child’s corpse and carried it outside and into the sunshine, where she laid it near Whistle’s grave. She then hurried back into join Rosie and Peg again. But searching Kate’s room brought no surprises and no treasures. When Dipper returned, trudging up to the courtyard with his spade over his shoulder, Peg asked him if he would kindly dig them another grave.
When he heard this was for his neighbour Kate, and marched over to see her remains, he was horrified and exploded into gravelly tears. “It ain’t proper,” he said, and blew his nose on a piece of rag. “She were a sweet little lass and never did no harm to nobody.”
“Murder is rarely proper,” Edna told him. “This happened sometime early yesterday, possibly during the night before. Did you hear anything at all?”
“’Fraid not.” He looked a little ashamed. “Two nights ago, I were wot you might call a bit tipsy.”
“Drunk?”
“Firstly, I were out at the Juggler and Goat, and when I come back home, I just sort of felled into bed. The next day, I felt right poorly and slept again. I doesn’t remember much. Reckon I were out like a snuffed candle.”
“Shame,” Peg sighed. A little upset herself that morning, she had tried to dress herself in calm dark grey, but, as she often did, had got her spell muddled. Now she wore a red and green striped gown with blue ruffles on the neck and cuffs, while her shoes were bright purple slippers with white pom poms. The Rookery, however, was accustomed to Peg’s problems and said nothing.
“Did you know?” Rosie asked tentatively, “that Kate stole a few things from time to time?”
“Oh yeh,” Dipper replied without shame. “Well, why not? Poor as a primrose, she were. Gotta get a bit together in case she were sent away or got sick or whatnot.”
Very pleased with this revelation, Rosie smiled. “And do you know where she hid anything she’d stolen?”
Somewhat reluctant, Dipper eventually nodded. “Well, I reckon you can’t call the sheriff on the poor lass now,” he said. “So yeh, I reckons I knows. But I’ll bury the poor lass first.”
Standing in the heat of the sun, Peg, Edna and Rosie watched the sad tumbling of the body into its long narrow hole, and each of them said their own private goodbyes.
“I shall find who did this,” Edna promised, “whether that will help you now or not.”
Rosie whispered, “Sleep well, Kate.”
And Peg, with a fixed scowl, mumbled, “I’m sorry. Very sorry. And so will the vile killer be, once I catch him.”
Dipper leaned down and patted the top of his carefully smoothed earth, and snuffled. “’Tis a right shame,” he said. “And don’t you worry, lass. You doesn’t need to steal fer yer old age no more.”
There had been the usual faces peering from every window, and Alice had marched out to know what was going on. When told by her own daughter, she pointed out that all orders should be coming from her alone, but since Edna was there, she said no more and marched back indoors.
Back at Kate’s room, Dipper opened the shed at the end of the stables and pulled out a small ladder. He tucked this under one arm and burst back into the little room. He leaned it against the wall to one side, which attached to his own room, and climbed the several rungs until his head hit the ceiling. He stretched up one arm and pushed up the ceiling panel behind a thick wooden beam. It seemed to be cracked and wasn’t easy to lift, but once Dipper had half crawled into the enclosed shadows beneath the thatch, only his legs visible at the top of the ladder, there was a considerable scuffle heard, and he then reappeared holding a hessian sack. Dipper brought this down and dumped it on the ground, avoiding the rug which remained black with dried blood.
Peg and Edna both insisted Rosie should open the sack, so she turned it upside down and tipped the contents onto the floor of dried earth. She expected scuttling yellow spiders, bad tempered beetles and families of ants, but only one tiny caterpillar made a dash for freedom, while Peg, Edna and Rosie bent down and studied what had been hidden there.
Dipper, uninterested, strode home with a snort of anger at whoever had murdered his neighbour.
Rosie held up a silver bladed knife with a bright blue painted handle. Peg saw and remembered the two embroidered kerchiefs which had once belonged to Emmeline. “All very well stealing from Alice,” she said, “but not one of us.” She then glanced at Rosie and blushed scarlet. “Sorry, my dear. I didn’t mean you. After all, you’re nothing like your mother.”
Instead, Edna was intrigued by a terra cotta bowl, with a large fish painted on one side, and a lamb on the other. “I do hope your mother doesn’t cook real lambs or fish,” she said. “This will make a perfect swimming pool for my darling Twizzle.”
“No, no real animal gets killed here,” Rosie sighed. “And there’s no silver cup either. Which is what I wanted. There is a silver platter, but I think it’s only plated. There’s some money but not much. And there’s a few feathers, two pieces of rice paper with nothing written on them, probably Whistle’s, and a very pretty silk scarf. Poor Kate, she wouldn’t have got enough for a year at most if she’d left The Rookery for any reason.”
“So she’s left and needs none of it,” Edna said with a complete lack of sympathy. “Help yourselves, ladies, or leave it here. Give it to Dipper perhaps. He deserves payment for a very well dug grave.”
Pushing everything including the money back into the sack, Rosie dragged it next door, and then the three women walked around to the back of the house where they sat and contemplated the grave.
Fifteen
That night Rosie was awakened by a loud tapping on her window. It was still dark, and she guessed it was around midnight or one in the morning. Since she had previously been visited by crows, she assumed the same, although it might be Peg with muddled spells again. Rosie cuddled down under her eiderdown. But the tapping continued, loud and fast. Reluctantly, she peeped from the covers.
Amazed to see her father’s face outside the mullions, Rosie grabbed a blanket around her and rushed to open the
window. Alfred Scaramouch was barely hanging on to the window ledge, and thankfully climbed into the room, although with difficulty since it was small and he was large.
“I couldn’t do the stairs,” he whispered, “too noticeable. But I can’t fly very well, you see, At least you’re only on the first floor.”
Fear dripped down her back like icicles, and Rosie shivered. “What’s wrong?” Clearly something was terribly wrong, and her father’s expression was one of frantic dread.
“My dear,” he said, keeping to the whisper, “I believe you may be next.”
Rosie stared, face white and mouth open. His meaning could hardly be mistaken. “Me? How do you know?”
Sitting with a bump of relief on the carpeted floor by the bed, Alfred dropped his head in his hands. “I can’t tell you everything,” he groaned. “But it could be you. I’m not positive, but the risk is too great. You have to leave.”
Rosie felt something in her head spinning around and around, and she couldn’t think.
“Do you know the killer?”
He shook his head. “But the one obeying orders isn’t important,” he returned to the whisper.
“So who gives those orders?”
“I can’t say.” There were large tears rolling down both of his cheeks. “But I care for you too much. You were such a gorgeous baby. So chubby with big brown eyes. No fur.”
“Papa, I was a little girl. Not a mouse.”
“Yes, yes, my dear, but I adored your little round face and big blue eyes.”
Nothing yet made any sense. “That – that’s sweet. Thank you. But after all, Papa, I was your daughter.”
He looked up. “Oh no,” he said, wiping his eyes on his sleeve. “No, I’m not your father, my dearest. No, not at all. But that doesn’t matter. I looked after you like a father, and I still love you, my dear. So you have to get out of here and hide somewhere special until all this is over.”