“Oi, girl!” My head shot up, and Mr. Fibbley’s did the same next to me—something I would not have remarked two minutes ago.
Constable Rushton waved from behind the desk. “Miss Morton, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir?”
A second voice interrupted. “How did you get in here?”
Another policeman, older and even rounder than his colleague, had come into the lobby through one of the paneled doors that lined the back wall. His boot heels clicked as he strode across the tiles to confront Mr. Fibbley.
Miss Fibbley!
How would I remember what name to call her, without making trouble? It was best, I thought, if I did not try. She was dressed as a he and wanted to be known as a he. If I allowed myself to think of him…her…as a woman, I might reveal the truth in error. Until I knew a reason to expose him, he would continue as Mister Fibbley as far as I cared.
“I’ve spoken to you once already today, young man. No journalists inside the police station.”
The reporter looked over at the fellow behind the desk, who had been quite chummy earlier, but now pretended not to see him.
“We don’t want your kind in here,” said the new one. “Off with you!” He pointed at the door, his arm as rigid as a signpost.
Mr. Fibbley pushed up his glasses and tried to smile. “Guilty as charged,” he said. “A journalist inside your station. Who knows what I might write about that?” He stuffed his notebook into the pocket of his jacket and slunk toward the door, pausing to grin at me.
“I’m not going far,” he said. “Just a turn or two around the block for some fresh air. There is plenty more to this story, and I intend to dig out every dark little secret.”
The senior officer closed the door behind him.
“Miss Morton?” said Constable Rushton.
Hector touched my arm and tipped his head toward the policeman who was calling my name.
“I am going off duty now,” said Constable Rushton. “Sergeant Cornell is taking over. But I’ve been tending this for your friend, Miss Eversham.” He opened a cupboard behind the desk. “She left it in my care,” he said. “Too heavy for a lass to be lugging about in the rain.”
He was holding Mr. Standfast’s valise.
“Where did she go?”
He shrugged. “Will you take it or not?”
The man was pulling on his overcoat.
“Yes, yes,” I said. “Did she leave a message for me? It’s just that…we’re meant to be…do you know when she’ll be back?”
“No,” he said. “She asked could she leave it for a bit and off she went. Not to fret. A girl that age, head in the clouds. Went to meet a boy, I’ll wager.”
“She did not,” I said. I did not like his smirk.
“She went to find the lawyer,” I said to Hector, as we sat with the case on the bench between us. “They missed each other in the dark. We’ll go look in a moment, but…” The temptation to pry buzzed loudly in my ears.
Hector patted the lid. “Is it locked?”
“Dare we?” I whispered.
“How can we not?” said Hector.
“Keep watch,” I said. “Mr. Standfast is talking with Miss Marianne in the dungeon. We should probably take it to him…But what harm could a few more minutes cause? You whistle if that door opens.” I lifted one latch and then the other. Ever so gently, I raised the lid of the case half an inch.
Not locked.
“Mummy will faint dead away if I’m arrested for rifling private documents.”
“Do so rapidement,” said Hector. “I will divert the guard.” He strolled across the marble floor.
“I am begging pardon,” I heard him ask. “I am having the question for how to being a policeman?” His accent had suddenly become thicker, part of his disguise. Most people imagined that a boy who could not speak English was likely short of brain friction.
Well, ha! Brave and clever Hector!
And here was I, afraid to open a box. I took a deep breath, imagining the satisfaction of finding another clue ahead of Augustus-the-trickster-Fibbley!
Up went the lid.
Right on top were two thick envelopes, each labeled with a curving black script: Last Will and Testament of Captain Giles Eversham and Last Will and Testament of Irma Millicent Eversham.
As curious as I was to know the contents, it felt that opening a lady’s will would be like cracking open her coffin. I shuffled those envelopes aside. The next document was a list, a record of pounds sterling lined up with particular dates, but without names or other details. Below that was a collection of letters, held together at the top with a pin.
I glanced up. Hector was still deep in conversation with the officer. How long would his silly questions keep the man occupied?
Hurry, Aggie.
The door to the cellar was still shut. I ducked my head back down and began to read the first page, a letter dated four months earlier.
Dear Mr. Standfast,
Thank you for your letter of Friday last. Also your note when my wife passed on to her Heavenly Rest in February. I am sorry to hear of the Captain’s passing. He was good to my boy. The allowance was a big help here on the farm. Our son is grown up strong and handsome, but he’s a young man of his own mind now, wants to be away from home. I thank you on his behalf for the Captain’s bequest.
Most sincerely,
My heart just about stopped when I came to the signature:
William F. Cable
Cable!
“What do you have?”
I jumped, pinching my fingers as I slammed down the lid.
“Oww!”
Only Hector, thank goodness!
I snapped shut the latches and stood up to whisper, as closely to his ear as I could get.
“I know who wrote the anonymous letter. I horribly, awfully, dreadfully, believe that he is also the killer. I haven’t told you Miss Marianne’s whole story, because of Mr. Fibbley being nosy, and now…well, I looked…I spied…just a glimpse really, but all of it has collided, and—”
“I do not follow,” said Hector. “We jump from Mr. Roddy Fusswell to Mr. Augustus Fibbley and now…somewhere else?”
“Roddy could never have been the killer because he has two parents of his own, you see? And he grew up in Torquay, so he couldn’t be the baby, and the baby is the killer!”
“The killer does not have a family?” said Hector. “It is a baby cast out without attachment?”
“He was adopted,” I said. “There’s no time to explain everything. But it’s not Roddy, and it’s not Mr. Fibbley either, because he’s not a mister at all!”
Hector tapped the valise. “You find something that tells you—”
“I’m worried about Rose,” I said. “She left the case—”
“The case into which your nose is poking?” said Hector.
“She went to find Mr. Standfast, but he came back without seeing her. So where is she?”
“Rose is gone.”
“What do you mean gone?”
“I am running here from watching Roddy Fusswell,” said Hector. “Your horse Belle is trotting on the harbor road toward the Royal Victoria Hotel. I am, for a moment, elated. A ride, perhaps! But the fog churns like steam from a kettle. I jump to one side, unnoticed as a small beetle. Rose Eversham is sitting behind Mr. Leonard, asleep maybe, with eyes shut.”
Hector slumped his shoulders and let his head drop crookedly to one side. “I think to myself, she is woeful from seeing her aunt in this dismal location.”
“But that was ages ago!” I cried. “We must find her at once!”
“What is the worry?” said Hector. “She is in a cozy bed by now, is she not? Just as I would like to be.”
“No!” I cried. “She is not at home in a cozy bed. She is with Leonard. And Le
onard Cable is the killer.”
CHAPTER 27
A TROUBLESOME DISAGREEMENT
LEONARD.
Leonard was Miss Marianne’s baby.
“Leonard wrote the letter to Rose. He used letters cut from the newspapers heaped in his shed. He rolls them up and burns them in a bucket to keep warm.”
“He is not the only person to have newspapers,” said Hector.
“He is the only person whose father…or guardian…or whatever he is…A man with the same last name wrote a letter to the lawyer!” I rattled the handle on Mr. Standfast’s case. “He is the only person to have received an allowance from Rose’s father every month for all of his life!”
Hector looked as gobsmacked as I felt.
“I don’t know exactly what turned him into a murderer,” I said. “Or why he wrote the letter, or where Rose has gone, but I think I know what happened on Saturday morning.”
Hector blinked. “On Saturday he visits the Mermaid Room to collect the flower vases, yes?”
“Yes, and he finds Mrs. Irma Eversham is in a tizzy, waving the letter that he wrote to Rose! She is furious at Miss Marianne for having a baby eighteen years ago without being married. For having him! But Leonard didn’t realize…” Threads of the puzzle flew in from several directions at once, tangling themselves together, too knotted to make sense of in this moment. Leonard didn’t know that Miss Marianne was his mother. He must have believed that he belonged to Irma and Captain Eversham, and that he might inherit some of the Captain’s wealth. That’s why he wrote the letter, to appeal to Rose directly, brother to sister.
I explained that to Hector. “But then he arrived at the dance studio and there was Mrs. Eversham in a furious snit about his very private letter.”
“He fears that he will suffer from the wrath of this woman,” said Hector.
“Miss Marianne offered her sister-in-law a cup of tea,” I guessed. “To calm her down. Maybe Leonard was in the pantry, getting water? Pouring it out from the flowers? Mrs. Eversham is alarming him. He thinks any minute she will call for the police and tell them lies as she has threatened.”
“He wishes to stop her.”
“The pantry has VerminRid,” I said. “Washing-up powder, cocoa, lemon biscuits, all together on a little shelf.”
“He makes a mixture,” said Hector. “Perhaps he is intending sickness only. Just that she stops shouting.”
“The hotel sugar bowl is there from the night before,” I said. “Roddy has rinsed the teacups and put them away. The kettle is on the hob…”
“Leonard is a conjurer,” said Hector. “Mixing poison into a bowl of sugar is no trouble to someone who extracts the sixpence from behind my ear!”
“But it all went terribly wrong,” I said. “Mrs. Eversham died. Danger is closing in. He feels trapped. Rose knows he argued with her mother, but not the reason. Maybe he just wanted to talk to Rose, but what if…” I hurried toward the door, feeling for my gloves in the pockets of my coat. “What if she needs help? We’ve got to save her!”
“No, no,” said Hector, shaking his head. “It is not for us to face a murderer,” he said. “We are perhaps more clever than the police but we are not as strong. Let us speak with the inspector or with Constable Beck. Or summon Mr. Standfast from the jail cell. We will tell them of your suspicions and—”
“NO!” I wrenched the door open. “They think we’re children! Rose could die before they believe us. Are you coming or not?”
Hector shook his head and turned toward the sergeant, who now was dozing behind the desk. Too much time had already blown by! I barreled out into the foggy night.
Outside the police station, I hurried downhill toward the harbor. Two minutes later, I stopped running, already persuaded that Hector may have been right. I could see nothing at all before me. A dank, drizzly fog obscured every familiar building along the road. My long curls drooped, my coat was gilded with silvery drops, my skirt and stockings clung to my legs like damp compresses.
I trailed my hand along the rain-slick walls of the buildings, meeting window frames and door gaps, trusting that I would eventually edge my way to the waterfront. My breath caught when I heard the clip-clop of a horse’s hooves and the ring of wheels on cobbles. But Belle’s harness had no jingling bells, so it was not the cart that I hoped to meet.
Though I was moving slowly, my mind began to race. How had Leonard persuaded Rose to leave without me? Where did she think she was being driven? Had he played a trick to purchase her cooperation? When did she realize that she was alone with the man who had killed her mother?
I’d thought Leonard to be my friend but had not seen beyond his disguise, those genial brown eyes. He’d hidden so much hurt, and this disguise I understood. I hid my grief for Papa and my shyness every day, pretending to be braver and more eloquent than I knew myself to be. And Hector, whether he liked it or not, was forced to become a new person in a whole different language! Everyone, I supposed, had pieces to hide or to offer as we dared, or did not dare, to face other people.
And as for people in disguise—I stumbled off the curb, and stumbled again stepping back onto it—Mr. Fibbley! A woman!
I should have known when I noticed those eyelashes. No, I should have known the moment Tony began to bark. Dear, clever Tony, trying to protect his mistress from mysterious strangers. Mysterious women. How bold to chop off her hair! What would she look like with long hair, properly up, the way my sister wore hers? Did she wear a dress when she visited her mother, with a lace collar and a cameo brooch at her throat? I supposed that Hector and I would never see her that way. Her revelation must be our well-kept secret.
My breath came raggedly as I paused to wipe my face, my gloves no better than wet flannels. The fingertips were blackened from trailing through grime on the walls that led me here. I peeled them off and flung them into the gutter.
Tony must be pining for me, waiting for an ear-scratch before bed. Mummy would be worried too, at how long we were. Grannie perhaps would soothe her, but be wondering also. They believed me to be with Rose, after all. What harm could come? If they knew the truth! That I was stumbling along a darkened street, trying to find Rose in time to save her life…
Hector was right. I should never have set out alone.
But here I finally was, arrived on The Strand. I could smell fish and the briny tang of the sea itself. Boats creaked as they strained against wet ropes, water slapped against pilings. The fog was thicker by the water. I made myself stand still for a moment. Long enough to hear my own breath, and then the lonely cry of a seagull. Questions swarmed in a frightening cluster, blowing away all logic. If only Hector were here! But panic would not help. Hector would ask one question at a time and answer it sensibly before moving to the next. I preferred to invent stories, to make up what people might say to each other, to try out more than one path toward an ending.
Perhaps if I used both methods at once? I could be the inspector asking questions, and then I’d answer as myself.
“Thank you for assisting us, Miss Morton.” I aimed for a gruff detecting voice, but it came out breathless with my hurrying. “Where are you going?”
“To the Royal Victoria Hotel.”
“And why do you suppooose…”—the inspector’s voice lingered on the word—“that was their destination?”
I saw a faint yellow glow nearby, and then another a few yards farther on. The lamps along the harborside promenade! I found the railing and moved forward, watching for the next pale light.
“Miss Morton?”
The hateful answer to why Leonard was taking Rose toward the hotel crawled out from the cobwebbiest corner of my mind.
“Because,” I whispered, “Leonard wants people to think that Roddy Fusswell is the killer. If Rose is hurt near the hotel, Roddy will be blamed.”
“Hurt?”
Or killed. I could not bring m
yself to say it aloud, even in a fictional conversation. But I knew that I was right.
CHAPTER 28
A LONELY SCREAM
HECTOR AND I HAD TOLD Leonard on Saturday afternoon about the murder. We’d told him about the murder he had committed! We’d asked him to bury the rabbit, and told him about Mrs. Eversham, while already he was scheming! Leonard told us, bold as brass, that Roddy was being particular about packing up the teacups. He diverted our attention from the very first minute—just like a conjurer!
Why had I not seen this before? Logical answer: because I liked Leonard and never imagined deceit. Or evil.
Oof! I tripped over what turned out to be a whopping great coil of rope. Then, bump! The railing took a sharp left turn and I’d hit the corner full on. Here the street turned from running around the harbor to climbing the hill toward the hotel.
Please let me find Rose!
“But why? Why does kind and handsome Leonard dislike Mrs. Eversham so much that he wanted to kill her?”
I did not know for certain. Hector and I had guessed that he was afraid of the harm her fury might cause. But now I wondered…If he believed she was his mother and had cast him away—first as an infant and again this week—must he not hold fury too? And hurt beyond bearing? Only Leonard could tell us that.
I was stilled by a thought, hand to my lips. Perhaps it should be Leonard’s voice I summoned instead of the inspector’s, to learn his truth, from behind his eyes. Could I do that? The villains trounced by Sherlock Holmes were not given much to say for themselves. No book I’d ever read was narrated by a murderer. But killers, I imagined, carried more than their share of sorrow. Why else would they be so reckless with the hearts of others?
A noise, very nearby. I stopped, dead still. An odd, snuffling noise, then a creak and a scrape—as if something heavy were shifting over cobbles…
“Rose?”
Might she be muffled by a gag?
The Body under the Piano Page 18