The Body under the Piano

by Marthe Jocelyn

  Grannie Jane examined the row on her knitting needle. She had slipped a stitch. “Inspector Locke,” she said, “reminds me of Mrs. Winkey, the greengrocer’s wife. She’d insist on selling you cucumbers—because she’d got so many that week—even though you’d come into the shop for a cauliflower.” She sighed and pulled the wool to release the errant stitch. “What happened next, Rose dear?”

  Rose sank back into Papa’s chair. “That’s everything,” she said. “Norah wept at the sink, while my blood turned as cold as January.”

  As cold as January. That exactly described the dread that overtook me now. But also the prickling heat of shame. This was a terrible lesson in the curse of vanity. I’d thought myself to be so clever, telling Constable Beck about dancers and their aversion to sweets. I’d been so entranced with my own cleverness that it seemed I’d knotted the noose for Miss Marianne!

  “And then!” Rose sat up straight. “Not five minutes later—he must have been watching the house and waiting for his chance—there came another knock, a reporter from the Torquay Voice!”

  Tony barked, startled by the sudden rise in volume.

  “Mr. Fibbley?” Another chill followed the first. Was there something even colder than January? Mr. Fibbley had an unnerving ability to appear without any warning, precisely where he wasn’t wanted.

  “He said to call him Gus,” said Rose. “As if I’d call him anything beyond an interfering scribbler!”

  “What did he want?” said Grannie Jane.

  “He got as far as mentioning the word sugar, when I slammed the door so hard I believe I cracked the glass.”

  “It is nearly six o’clock,” said Grannie Jane. “What have you been doing all afternoon?”

  Rose’s eyes were rimmed with red and looked smudged beneath with ashes. “I am ashamed to tell you,” she said. “I wept like a brokenhearted child. Mother is dead! The police believe that Auntie M. killed her! I’m not sure which is worse! I wandered through the house, asking my father’s spirit to come and guide me. I really did that. Out loud.”

  Grannie Jane leaned over to pat Rose on the hand. “And what did he tell you, my dear?”

  Rose exhaled, a small, sad sound pretending to be a laugh. “He did not answer, of course. He never was much good at having a conversation. I crashed about the house in a rage, pounding cushions and kicking chair legs. Behaving, my mother would say, like a creature untamed.”

  “That is not so surprising, dearie.” Grannie Jane kept patting Rose’s hand. “Sorrow does not lie easily on anyone’s shoulders, least of all the young, who have not yet learned how to carry such weight.”

  “Eventually,” said Rose, “the fog in my head began to lift. I went over the scene in the kitchen and recalled Auntie M.’s last-minute directions, which I should have been acting upon far sooner.”

  Her eyes again filled with tears, but she brushed them fiercely away.

  “She told me, in the most urgent voice. She said—” Rose broke off and looked directly at me, making my stomach whoosh with trepidation. Did she know that I was to blame for the afternoon’s calamity?

  “I had one task to fulfill!” Rose cried. “I’ve let my aunt rot all afternoon when she most particularly wanted me to—”

  What did she want you to do? The question rang inside my head.

  Before Rose could finish her sentence, Mummy came backward into the room, having pushed the door open with her bottom. She held a steaming mug in one hand and the evening edition of the Torquay Voice in the other.

  “Lamb broth for you, Rose dear. Mrs. Corner’s best.” She nudged a doily into place on the occasional table by Rose’s chair and put the mug down. She drew a rolled serviette from her cardigan pocket and laid it across Rose’s lap. How nice to see Mummy as nurse instead of patient.

  “Mr. Standfast has gone off with Leonard in the cart, though it threatens to rain at any moment and he hasn’t had his supper.”

  Grannie held out a hand to receive the newspaper, but Mummy shook her head, no. Grannie Jane raised an eyebrow, and Mummy raised an eyebrow back. Did Rose notice? She sipped her lamb broth and said, “Mmmmm.”

  My eyes were now riveted on the newspaper tucked under Mummy’s arm, evidently being kept from Rose. News of Miss Marianne’s arrest was festering in those pages, and I ached to know details.

  Rose put her mug carefully back on the lace doily.

  “I’d like to freshen up, if I may? I must look frightful.”

  As if Rose Eversham could ever look frightful.

  “I’ll show you where.” I hopped up, surprising Tony, who sneezed. “There’s a mahogany seat on our loo!”

  “Agatha, really!” Mummy scolded. “Not a subject to be mentioned in the drawing room.”

  I led Rose along the hall. “Just in here,” I said.

  But Rose did not go in. She looked both ways, took my hands in her own, and began to whisper. The weepy-eyed maiden of a few moments before had disappeared. A more familiar Rose, intrepid and determined, was suddenly talking to me as if it were a matter of life and death.

  “I don’t want anyone poking their noses in,” said Rose. “Even if your family means well, I’m not trusting anyone. My aunt said that you received something in error and that she needs it right away. It’s a matter of the utmost importance. To save her from being kept in jail for the rest of her life. Or hanged.”

  CHAPTER 22

  AN ALARMING ARREST

  HECTOR AND I HAD BEEN RIGHT! Miss Marianne had been the one to hide the letter in my notebook.

  “What could you possibly have that matters so much?” said Rose. “If you’ll give it to me, I’ll take it on to her.”

  I found myself shaking my head. I would not pass along the letter to anyone, not even Rose Eversham. Perhaps Rose was only pretending not to know what she was asking for? She had not been ruled out entirely as a conspirator to the murder. Look how she’d transformed from a mournful damsel into a clear-eyed fighter in a matter of seconds!

  “I feel,” I said, “as if…I’m the guardian. Of the…thing that I have. I’ll come with you to the police station. I’ll give it to her myself.”

  “I suppose…” Rose looked uncertain. “But we must go at once.”

  She made the announcement as she swung open the drawing room door. “Aggie is coming with me to visit my aunt. Now, before poor Auntie M. believes that she has been abandoned.”

  Mummy and Grannie Jane were on the settee, their heads bent close, reading together from the evening Torquay Voice. As we came in, they startled and shuffled the newspaper untidily shut. Their expressions were remarkably like those of children with fists full of purloined sugar lumps.

  “You have the evening news,” said Rose.

  Mummy and Grannie Jane coughed at precisely the same moment.

  “Come, dearie, sit down,” said Grannie. “This will be a bit of a shock.”

  I could read the words in bold print from across the room:

  MERMAID ROOM MURDER

  DANCING MISTRESS IN CUSTODY

  FOR HEINOUS CRIME

  by Augustus C. Fibbley

  “In custody?” said Rose. “Does that mean arrested?”

  “It does,” said Grannie Jane.

  Rose sat with a bump in Papa’s chair. “Will you read it to me please?”

  She sounded bossy enough that Mummy raised her eyebrows, but nevertheless straightened the pages and cleared her throat. Grannie Jane picked up her knitting and began a new row, the needles click-clicking an accompaniment.

  “The investigation into the death-by-poison of Mrs. Irma Eversham Saturday last has reached a possible conclusion with the arrest this afternoon of the victim’s spinster sister-in-law, Miss Marianne Eversham. She was dragged from the kitchen—”

  “Dragged?” said Rose. “She wasn’t dragged, except perhaps in spirit. She
walked quite sedately, considering the circumstances.”

  “Yes, dear, you were there. She walked sedately from the kitchen,” said Mummy.

  “…of the EverMore Villa, the home she inherited from her brother, the late Captain Giles Eversham, husband of the victim. The culprit’s removal was witnessed by her niece, Miss Rose Eversham, who was too distressed to comment.”

  “I never stopped commenting to the police,” said Rose. “But when that sneaking newshound showed up, I refused to say a word!”

  “The gruesome crime scene on Union Street,” Mummy continued to read,

  “was interrupted by the arrival of a number of Miss Marianne Eversham’s dance students a short time after the victim’s brutal demise in the Mermaid Room dance studio. Miss Agatha Caroline Morton, a twelve-year-old neighbor of the Eversham villa on Barton Road, was first on the scene.”

  Shame draped itself around me like a cloak. Every moment was further proof that I should never have spoken to Mr. Augustus Fibbley.

  “She described the body in accurate detail, matching the report released by the police. Miss Morton is a familiar of the heir to the victim’s fortune, Miss Rose Eversham, seventeen. As previously reported, Miss Morton attempted to lay blame for the murder elsewhere than on her dance instructress. When interviewed at her home, Miss Morton suggested that the police were not following the correct path. Will this be a case where an innocent can see what—”

  Mummy broke off reading to stare at me. “When were you interviewed in your home? How is it possible that a journalist is permitted to speak to a child without a chaperone?”

  I flinched. “I’m not a child,” I muttered, but it was no defense in the face of three pairs of glaring eyes.

  “Where was Charlotte?”

  “It was only a moment,” I said. “Mr. Fibbley appeared at the garden gate. He was very polite. Leonard spoke to him as well.” Here I was bending the truth in another direction. “Naturally Mr. Fibbley wished to hear the observations of an eyewitness.”

  “Agatha,” said Mummy. “This is most incorrect.”

  “I’m sorry, Rose,” I said.

  Mr. Fibbley had made me feel observant and important. But then he’d twisted the words around to suit himself.

  “Even Tony liked him.” I tugged on Tony’s silky ears. “And eventually stopped baying like a wolf.”

  “Don’t apologize,” said Rose. “You’re the only person who has said that you believe Auntie M. to be innocent, and there it is in the Torquay Voice! I appreciate your faith.”

  “Do go on,” she said to Mummy. “I must leave to see my aunt, but please keep reading while I find my hat.”

  The whole room seemed to sigh with relief after that. I’d done grievous harm to Rose, but here she was rescuing me once more, this time from the trembling upset I could hear in Mummy’s voice as she kept reading.

  “…a case where an innocent can see what is not visible to her elders? Miss Rose Eversham has been romantically linked to Mr. Roderick Fusswell, son of the Royal Victoria Hotel manager, Mr. Curtis Fusswell.”

  “You weren’t wearing a hat,” I said. “No hat, no gloves, no handbag. You were too upset to think about such things, I expect.”

  But Rose was staring at Mummy. “What was that?” she said. “The bit about Roddy Fusswell?”

  Grannie Jane’s needles paused in their clicking, as Mummy went on.

  “Mr. Fusswell identified himself as fiancé to the—”

  “Fiancé!” said Rose. “Conceited pig! I would never!”

  This was good news. If she wouldn’t marry him, she would not seek his help in killing her mother. One of those alliances of love that I was learning to understand.

  “…fiancé to the young heiress, and announced his intention of protecting her from further anguish.

  “The victim ‘was an unpleasant old carp,’ he said. ‘I’m surprised it took so long for someone to top her. She was asking for something like this to happen.’ Before today’s arrest of Miss Marianne Eversham, Mr. Fusswell expressed surprise that her guilt was not obvious to the police. ‘A female without the guidance of a man is not to be trusted,’ he said in an interview. ‘She already owns the house, which is too heavy a responsibility for any woman. I can’t help but wonder, what is she after now? If it’s Rose’s inheritance, she’ll have to go through me!’ ”

  Rose’s hands were clamped over her mouth, as if she might be sick. “How dare he?” she cried. “Is there anything more?”

  Mummy carried on.

  “Miss Rose Eversham has not made a statement. No trial date has yet been set, but according to an anonymous source in the constabulary, Miss Rose may be required to testify against her aunt.”

  A series of loud knocks on the front door made us all jump.

  “Heavens!” cried Mummy. “Has word gone out that we’re as deaf as stones at Groveland?”

  “I’ll answer it.” I hurried to the hallway.

  A man’s silhouette shadowed the narrow window next to the front door.

  Would a killer knock? I thought not, and opened the door.

  Mr. Roddy Fusswell stood on the step, his hat sitting crookedly and his face shiny with damp in the lamplight. I peered around him, into the night. Had Hector remained stoically on his quarry’s tail, and was he now lurking nearby? Outside it was fully dark, slivers of rain flashing in the light cast by our hallway chandelier.

  “I’m looking for Rose Eversham.” Roddy Fusswell nudged the door further open, assuming an invitation that I had not made. “The maid over there”—he tipped his head in the direction of the EverMore villa—“said I might find her here.”

  I tried again to look past him, without being too conspicuous. No visible pale face or green eyes.

  “Hello?” Roddy Fusswell rapped his knuckles on the open door. His yellow leather gloves barely softened the sharp raps next to my ear. “Tell Rose I want to speak with her, will you?”

  Inside, with more light, Roddy Fusswell looked at me more closely. “Oh,” he said. “It’s you. This is where you live?”

  I scowled at him and he scowled back.

  “You’ve stirred up a cauldron full of trouble today, you and your insufferable grandmother, telling lies to that reporter, making me look bad in front of Rose.”

  I was insulted enough that I forgot to be shy. “You seem perfectly able to make yourself look bad, Mr. Fusswell. And my grandmother is not—”

  “Is Rose here? It’s very important.” He had removed his coat and held it, dripping, at arm’s length, as if I were going to take it and hang it up. I did not. He grunted softly and tossed it over the newel post at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Where will I find her?” He plonked his hat on the hat stand.

  Did Rose want to be found by a possible murderer? After what he’d said in the newspaper?

  “Wait here,” I said. “I’ll ask whether she cares for a visitor.”

  Mr. Fusswell narrowed his eyes at me. “You cheeky little—”

  I turned my back, feeling taller with every step. Before slipping into the drawing room, I saw him pause at the hallway mirror to smooth his caterpillian mustache.

  CHAPTER 23

  A BUMPY RIDE

  “NO,” SAID ROSE. “Send him away. I would rather meet an unwashed ogre in an underground cavern.”

  Goodness, was I to say that to his face?

  And then Sally burst into the drawing room, flustered and pink-cheeked. “Sorry, ma’am. But Leonard has come back, ma’am. Mr. Standfast left his case behind, here in the drawing room, and Leonard’s to fetch it. It’s needed at the…at the jail, ma’am.”

  Leonard stood behind her, mopping his face with his cap. And then Mr. Roddy Fusswell pushed him aside, and pushed Sally too, striding into the room as if he were king of the world.

 
“Rose,” he said.

  “What are you doing here?” cried Rose. “Go away!”

  “Listen to me,” he said.

  “I will not,” said Rose.

  “That smirking shrimp of a reporter made a mash of my words.” Rose tried to duck around him.

  “We can take Mr. Standfast’s case,” I said. “We’re going to see Miss Marianne now.”

  “The innocent Miss Marianne,” said Rose, glaring at Roddy Fusswell. “Would that be the case in question?” She pointed to a sturdy leather box with a worn handle sitting beside the chair that Mr. Standfast had used.

  “That’s it,” said Grannie Jane. “The poor man—I expect it holds all the documents pertaining to your family’s history, Rose dear. Not something to be mislaid.” Being nearest, she stooped to pick it up.

  “Let me help,” said Leonard, from the doorway.

  “I’ll take that.” Roddy Fusswell’s long arm reached in front of Grannie Jane and clutched the handle.