He ducked us into a two-handed flip turn, and as we settled into the closed position, he held the phone screen so I could see. Stoke Moran was not the British manor house I’d somehow imagined, but a rambling white painted wood farmhouse with an expanse of front porch and winding cobblestone front walkway, flanked by rows of slimly elegant poplars. The lines of the house were not quite architecturally perfect, as if someone had built new additions in haste or frugality, but the patchwork quality of the exterior had a certain charm.
A car was parked in the driveway. Attempting to dance and look simultaneously, I could just make out the license plate. Not that I could run it, since the local police were only begrudgingly helpful to us. Though first-year Officer Jake Lester could be a reliable connection, his veteran colleague, Lieutenant R.T. Moore, was downright obstructionist. But that may be another tale.
“I texted, and emailed, and called,” Daley went on as we danced, and he tucked his phone away. “I pretended I was here at the studio, but she didn’t answer. I finally texted ‘see you in class,’ hoping, you know, she’d show up.”
But Penelope Moran did not appear.
By the time the class ended, my brain was on overload, my powers of deduction exhausted, and my throbbing feet would never be the same.
Daley left. Watson and I, by previous arrangement in case we had to calculate some action before our departure, met in the bathroom, a tiny white-walled cubicle meant for one. Far as I could tell, no one noticed her going in and me following quickly after.
“Anything?” she asked.
“Possibly,” I said. I described how the car salesman had urged me, possibly double entendre, to come ‘see a car.’ The bride-to-be, who’d been the last person to use the loo following the previous class, had dropped a crumpled wad of mascara-streaked tissues as she hurried away. And I wondered if ‘Ginger Rogers’ had clung a bit too closely to her suave instructor. There was much afoot at Harrison’s, but none of it instantly shed any light on Ms. Moran.
“So we know nothing more than when we started.” Watson frowned, tilting her beret in the bathroom’s lighted mirror. “Arthur Daley is freaking out, and couldn’t even make it through our whole dance without texting and emailing. But Penelope didn’t answer.”
I twisted my dress into place at the hips, wishing I could trade this unforgiving fabric for the comfort of my usual black trousers.
“So a once social and enthusiastic woman decides to forgo her beloved dance class,” I said. I leaned against the white wall, slick tile chilling my bare shoulders. “A once-gregarious heiress decides to keep secrets from her sweetheart.”
“Bum bum,” Watson intoned.
“Beg pardon?” I said.
“Law and order,” Watson said.
“Not much of either, I fear.” Watson is the only person in the world who baffles me.
My phone buzzed, again. A text. I read the tiny screen.
“It’s Daley,” I said, my mind fairly racing with possibilities. “We must drive to Stoke Moran at once.”
The local firefighters had doused what must have been an infernal conflagration in record time, for by the time Watson and I arrived, some of the smoke that curled from the once-shingled roof of Stoke Moran and puffed into the darkening sky was white. Steam, I knew, not the angry black smoke that signaled the irreparable consumption of whatever the flames touched.
We’d first glimpsed only clouds of black as my Jeep crunched over the last half mile of narrow gravel road leading toward Stoke Moran, the global positioning voice bleating directions that clarified the frantic and misspelled ones Arthur Daley had hastily texted to my cell. The choke of acrid smoke had seeped into our car even before we cleared the final bend, red lights from the local fire department sweeping that now-recognizable stand of poplars bracketing Penelope Moran’s two-century-old family estate.
Apple, smiley-face, I thought. Police officer, police officer, police officer. The email emoticons referred to nothing about fire. No houses, no flames, no candles or matches. The moon was out, though, and stars, cobwebbed by the last of the smoke.
Stoke Moran was now a study in chiaroscuro—one half, a stout white wood structure, carefully shuttered and landscaped with gracefully healthy bushes and evergreens. The other half, as dark as its counterpart was white, a charred and blackened crumble that I knew from Arthur Daley’s photos had once been the columned front porch, the main entry door, and a pair of slender triple-tall windows.
In the front yard, almost exactly on the line demarking the black and white, a figure I recognized as Arthur Daley. Alone. Firefighters wearing heavy tan turnout gear snaked their hoses into position, one man on his knees aiming his spray of water toward where the front door used to be. Two others stood, stalwart in a wide stance, dowsing the remaining licks of orange flame on the side of the house. The fingers of soot already marked the white walls, like the murky signature of the danger that had come calling.
Water covered us instantly, spray and blowback, and we stood, for a brief moment transfixed, amidst the hiss of the steam and the roar of the pumper, determined voices calling directions to each other as they struggled to beat back the last of the blaze.
The firefighters had won, it appeared. But at what cost? Where was Ms. Moran? How had the fire started? And why?
Was this blaze the threat the emails had so mysteriously contained?
My mother had taught me to prepare for emergency by identifying, in advance, my most precious item, so I could be assured of saving it. Had our Ms. Moran escaped? And if so, had she chosen something to save?
Watson and I ran across the water-soaked grass toward Arthur Daley. I was relieved I’d thrown a sweater over my dress, and allowed one fleeting thought for the delicate patent pumps I still wore. Then I focused on our client.
“Ms. Moran?” I asked him without preface. Watson caught up, a step behind me, and grabbed my arm, almost slipping on the drenched lawn.
“No cars here,” Watson said.
Perhaps what Miss Moran saved was herself.
“Not a word,” Mr. Daley replied. “And yeah. Her car is gone.” His face was lined with soot and rivered with water, or tears. He held his cell phone in one hand, and his attention alternated between its tiny screen and the tragic real-life image in front of us. “We’ll never dance again, I’m sure of it.”
“You will, of course you will.” Watson put a hand on Daley’s back, comforting. “Things are never as bad as they seem. Look, there’s no ambulance, so the firefighters must not think anyone is inside. And they’ll be able to save the house, I bet.”
I nodded, agreeing. “Unless they have—” I hesitated, not wishing to add another layer of fear. “Unless they have already transported her?”
Arthur Daley shook his head and waved a hand toward the drenched firefighters, some now coiling their hoses in the fire’s endgame. His dinner jacket, the one he’d worn in dance class, glistened with water droplets. “The one in the white hat told me they’d checked inside. No one home, and no trace of anyone,” he said. “So where is she?”
A voice broke in. “Annabelle Holmes, of course you’re here.” Officer Jake Lester stomped up to us, in full uniform, soaked and scowling. “Why is it you’re always on the scene of disaster?”
“I might say the same for you, Jake,” I replied. We have a somewhat contentious relationship, me the only private eye in town, and him the town’s newest cop.
“You know anything? About this Penelope Moran?” He pretended to poke me in the arm. “You better tell me, Holmes.”
“Never met her,” I said, telling the truth. “No, indeed.”
As he tramped off to do his policely duties, an ugly thought crossed my mind. What if Ms. Moran had set the fire herself, then disappeared to let it burn? But for what reason? Why would the last surviving member of a venerated family attempt to destroy the last vestiges of her beloved childhood home?
Another ugly thought: had Arthur Daley set it? He’d admitted he was here ear
lier, although he had texted Ms. Moran that he wasn’t—a lie. I tried casting him as the villain of the piece, but only briefly. If he had unsavory designs on Ms. Moran, or her family manse, he would not have reported the cryptic emails to Watson and me.
Which meant either the fire was an accident, or someone capable of sending intimidating emails had made good on their threats.
I thought of the second enigmatic message: Police officer police officer police officer. If you don’t do whatever it is, I shall tell the police, that pictogram seemed to warn. Tell the police what?
Someone was blackmailing Ms. Moran; I’d thought that from the beginning. Why else send a message that only the receiver can understand? Because if caught, the sender can easily deny the purpose, and no court of law could prove otherwise.
“There is nothing to do but wait,” I instructed Arthur Daley over the grumble of a fire truck’s throbbing engine. “Go home, Arthur. Let the firefighters finish. If you hear from Ms. Moran, notify me instantly. If not . . . well, sir, let me think. It is what I do best.”
There would be no sleep for me. Or Watson either, who insisted on accompanying me back to our offices. We sat side by side, staring out our front window into the glow of the streetlights. Watson poured a brandy, a stout Haut Armagnac given to us by a grateful client, and this night, I joined her. The heady liquor did nothing to salve my fears.
“I’m exhausted,” Watson said. “From dancing. And the rest of it. Where’s Penelope Moran, do you think?”
I felt, though I would never say it, that we had failed. Failed Mr. Daley, who came to us for answers. And failed Ms. Moran, a graceful young woman we had seen only in a romantic dance, who now had disappeared, her family home in shambles.
“Watson, what are our tangible facts?” I asked. Sometimes it is beneficial to speak a conundrum out loud. I have discovered the subconscious somehow provides answers when the questions become real.
“The emails. Whatever they mean. And Stoke Moran,” she added. “I Googled it, by the way. ‘Stoke’ means ‘estate,’ did you know that? Built around 1810. I looked up the Morans, too. Seems like they both died twenty-some years ago. I couldn’t find a will, though. Penelope Moran would have been—”
“A child,” I said. The night seemed especially dark, and our puzzle—along with Ms. Moran’s fate—increasingly bleak.
“A series of cryptic emails,” I went on, hoping to dispel my melancholy with cogitation. “For which we can endlessly conjure meaning, none of which we can ever prove. A woman in distress, who, though there is no sign of foul play or abduction, now seems to have disappeared. A suspicious fire that almost destroys her family home.”
Who what where, I often say to myself. In this case, the “where” was the secluded home of the Morans, left to the only remaining heir, little Penelope. If she were no longer alive, what would happen to the estate?
“He calls her Penny.” Watson swirled the dark liquid in her snifter.
Making something out of nothing is a pitfall of our business. When answers are urgently needed, sometimes the range of the search produces incorrect ones. Sometimes our initial responses are wrong.
Apple, smiley-face, heart, I thought. Sun, moon, wind.
“Police officer” was the only pictogram to be repeated. The obstructionist police Lieutenant R.T. Moore? His hand is in all that is unpleasant here in Norraton.
I had tossed my soggy shoes under my desk, and now feared for their restoration. Taking the morning Times from my desk, still folded and unread, I ripped away the front page and crumpled it, preparing to stuff the toe of my pumps. Page three of the Wednesday paper was now visible, showing a grainy photo of a group of people. I started, for one of them was Mr. Brett, my “Stardust” partner. TOWN FATHERS SEEK ECONOMIC SOLUTION the headline read. I skimmed it, curious, remembering Mr. Brett’s wandering paws. “Just under ten percent of soil in Norraton is potentially . . .” I paused, reading the rest.
Police officer, police officer, police officer, I thought.
Watson’s chin had sagged to her chest, her eyes closed, her feet still propped on the low sill of our front window. Peacefully asleep. And let her be so.
Careful not to disturb my colleague, I turned to the bookcase behind me, crouching to face the second shelf from the bottom, the place I kept my geology volumes, as well as the ones I’d inherited. Far less valuable than a rural estate, but all my own modest family could afford to bequeath. I selected one of Father’s personal favorites, and opened it. We’d looked at it, together, when Father was still alive and my life had not yet unfolded.
We’d traveled many a rocky pathway together, walking the rolling hills of Norraton, filling our pockets with rocks and our heads with dreams that would never be fulfilled: father and daughter, traveling the world and studying its treasures. One evening, after we’d organized our discoveries on the kitchen table, Father offered me a tattered leather-bound volume, Final Report on the Geology of Massachusetts, published in 1841. He’d pointed out the author’s name. Hitchcock, just like the master of suspense.
“The earth itself is a mystery, and offers constant surprises,” Father had told me. “It is our job to discover the solutions.”
I hadn’t thought of that in years. Ironic, now, that my current vocation also dealt with mystery. And solutions.
I scanned Hitchcock’s table of contents, but it was frustratingly long and, for my purposes, illogical. I flipped to the appendix, which, reliably, was in alphabetical order. Ran one searching finger past the list of A—agate, alabaster, amber, apatite; and past the list of B—basalt, beryl, bloodstone.
Police officer, police officer, police officer. Again, I thought, sometimes our initial responses are wrong.
As the appendix directed me, I turned to page 193.
“Are you ready?” I whispered. It was now almost four A.M. We’d entered the studio using Daley’s key. “I hear footsteps coming up the stairs.”
“Ready!” Watson whispered back, having taken up her position in the left wall’s coat closet.
“Are you ready, Arthur? Careful of the mirrors.”
“Ready!” He’d hidden himself behind the armoire housing the record player and collection of vinyl.
“Officer Lester?”
“Yup.” Jake was concealed behind the door of the right wall’s closet.
If all went as planned, we would soon know whether my deductions were correct. I had the proof we needed close at hand. In Father’s bequeathed Hitchcock, on page 193, I’d found “Copper, in Massachusetts.”
And on page 194: “Copper, maps of.”
The maps revealed the treasure: one seemingly worth arson, and deception, and deadly threats.
Underneath the groomed lawns of Stoke Moran lay a forgotten bonanza—the fabled copper lode of western Massachusetts.
The pictograms had not meant “police officer police officer police officer”—but copper copper copper.
I sent a silent thank you to my departed father, who had once again been my partner.
The footsteps drew closer.
Into the reception area.
Down the corridor.
I ducked into the shadows.
The door to the studio swung open.
“So you have finally come to your senses!” Anthony Selwyn Harrison slammed the door behind him as he entered, and with a dramatic flourish, flipped on the reliably dim overhead lights. “Now that your precious house is gone, you’ll have no need for the property. Shall we sign the sales paperwork right now?”
“That’s good enough for me!” Lester cried. He sprang from his hiding place and clapped handcuffs on the thunderstruck dance master.
My one reliable ally in law enforcement had agreed, reluctantly, to participate in my trap. I had offered him an arsonist, after all, revealing several convincing bits of evidence, including that Harrison had left the dance studio before the fire started. If I’d called it wrong, Lester would have sneering rights forever. A cop—I smiled at my abbre
viation—cannot resist that. Now Officer Lester owed me a drink, which I much looked forward to. I might even wear the black dress. If it ever dried.
“What? What the hell is this? Who are you?” Even in handcuffs, Harrison demanded answers. He pointed his chin at me, narrowed his eyes. “Wait a minute—you! In the glasses. You’re that Irene Irvine! But where’s Penny Moran? Only she could know—”
Then he stopped.
“Precisely,” I said, pointing at him for punctuation. “Officer Lester, do you have enough?”
“Gotcha, Sherlock,” he answered. “And got you, too, buddy.”
“You’re fired, Irvine!” Harrison, red-faced and fuming, was no longer so handsome.
“It has been my pleasure.” I curtsied, briefly, impossible to resist.
“You have the right to remain silent . . .” Officer Lester began.
My initial reaction had been wrong, I thought again as I listened to Jake give the Miranda warning. The messages were not in substitution code. The three cops were shorthand. And the other message? Initials.
Not apple smiley-face heart, but their first letters. A-S-H. Anthony Selwyn Harrison.
Not Sun Moon Wind. But, as events now confirmed, Stoke Moran, Wednesday.
And then the death’s head. Unmistakable shorthand. No wonder Ms. Moran had fled in fear.
“Hang on, you morons.” Harrison, blustering even after the Miranda, apparently could not fathom the collapse of his scheme. “If Penelope Moran isn’t here, then who sent me that email?”
“I did, of course,” I said. “My colleague set up our own anonymous email account, and when you saw the pictograms, you assumed, as I intended, they must be from the only other person who understood them. And that Ms. Moran had—after your reprehensible arson of the home she would not sell to you—finally capitulated to your demands.”
Orange and kangaroo, the emoticons on my message to Harrison had depicted. Meaning, I hoped, “Okay.” I had signed it Pear Moon. Penelope Moran. And then, not in code, the place, time, and date.
Echoes of Sherlock Holmes Page 15