Toby’s mind was racing. He thought of Uncle Gabriel, covered in pancake batter and shouting about that puffed-up, self-serving old ostrich. If Toby had been Uncle Gabriel, he would have thought of something a lot worse to call Mr. Abernathy. How could Uncle Gabriel live on Detectives’ Row all those years, watching half the city of Colebridge stream to Hugh Abernathy’s door while his own door was practically falling off its hinges? Why hadn’t anyone seen the truth? Even Toby had missed it. He’d scurried off to Mr. Abernathy’s office as soon as he could. He’d even hired Mr. Abernathy!
“I think I’m glad,” said Toby, “that my uncle punched Hugh Abernathy in the nose.”
Miss March burst out laughing. “I’m afraid your uncle has a number of regrets,” she said, “but I’m absolutely sure he never regretted that.”
CHAPTER 23
THE END OF THE ROPE
“I’ll bet he was planning to blackmail them all!” said Ivy. “Julia Hartshorn, and Mr. Rackham, and maybe your uncle, too, and— Oh, I hate this maze!” Two of her scarves had gotten snagged on its branches, and she thrashed around like a hooked fish until Toby was able to untangle her. Miss March and Miss Price had vanished into the greenery far ahead of them, and it didn’t seem likely that they’d waited to lead Toby and Ivy to the exit. “That’s why Mr. Abernathy had all those papers with him,” Ivy continued. “He didn’t invite the detectives here to reward them; he invited them here so he could threaten them! Wring them dry! Squeeze them like a sack of lemons!”
“Lemons?” asked Toby.
“It’s something I heard Father say once.” Ivy shrugged. “Anyway, it’s pretty clear one of the lemons didn’t like being squeezed.” She frowned at Toby. “Why do you look so happy, Detective Montrose?”
Toby grinned at her. Ivy was making deductions so rapidly she was practically glowing, but even she hadn’t managed to spot everything. “Look over there,” he said. He pointed to his left. “I found the exit.”
“Thank goodness!” Ivy flew out of the maze with her scarves streaming behind her, and Toby stayed at her heels. “The next time I see one of the gardeners, I’ll ask him to chop the whole thing down. Though now that Mother and Father don’t have any money, we might not have any more gardeners, either.”
“Do you think Mr. Peartree knew?” Toby asked as they hurried across the lawn. “About the blackmail, I mean?”
“Maybe he was a victim, too!” said Ivy. “Maybe he was forced to write all those nice things about Mr. Abernathy in the Sphinx, week after week, until he simply couldn’t take it anymore, and snap!” She pantomimed wringing someone’s neck.
Toby wasn’t sure about this. “Mr. Peartree and I found the body together,” he said. “He was really upset, Ivy.”
“Then he’s a good actor.”
“Mr. Abernathy was the actor, not Mr. Peartree. Besides,” Toby said, thinking of how miserable Mr. Peartree had looked on that awful night in the Orchid Room, “that’s the kind of sadness I don’t think you can fake.”
Ivy nodded. “All right; I believe you. Anyway, I still think Julia Hartshorn should be at the top of our list of suspects. You know how dangerous those escaped convicts can be. Father once told me—”
Before she could explain exactly what Mr. Webster knew about convicts, Percival ran out the manor door and down the steps toward them, barking as noisily as a dog twice his size and refusing to let Ivy get a word in edgewise. She had to shout over him instead. “Yes, Percival,” she bellowed, “I know. We left you behind again, and I’m very sorry. If you’ll only stop making a ruckus, Detective Montrose and I will be happy to tell you everything we’ve learned.”
But Percival didn’t stop barking. If anything, he grew louder. Toby had to cover his ears. “Does he do this a lot?” he shouted at Ivy.
“Never! I don’t understand it.” Ivy put her hands on her hips and glared at her assistant. “Percival Webster, if you can’t behave yourself, I’m going to have to remove you from this case.”
In the next moment, several things happened almost at once. On an upper floor of Coleford Manor, a hand reached out from a window. A shadow passed overhead—the trouble, Toby thought; he was sure of it. And an enormous stone bird plummeted from the sky, shattering into pieces on the pavement in front of them.
Somebody shrieked. Toby didn’t think it was him, but it was hard to be certain. He’d been knocked off his feet by the collision; now he sat up gingerly and looked around at the wreckage. The whole world seemed to him to be covered in dust. Chunks of stone the size of his fists were strewn across the lawn, and Percival was growling at the badly damaged remains of a carved griffin that had, from the looks of it, taken its first and final flight from the side of the manor. Next to one of the griffin’s broken talons, Ivy was sprawled on the grass. Her scarves had flown in every direction when she fell, and Toby couldn’t see whether her eyes were open behind the cracked lenses of her motoring goggles.
“Ivy?” He sat up and shook her. “Ivy, are you all right?” He tried to remember how to check for a heartbeat—Cousin Celeste had taught him that once, at the hospital—but his own heart was beating so loudly in his ears that he wasn’t sure he could find anyone else’s. “You’re all right, Ivy, aren’t you? Oh, please say something!”
The dust was starting to clear, and Toby could make out Miss March and Miss Price running toward them. “Good gracious!” Miss Price cried. “Are you hurt, dears? We’d just stepped inside when we heard the most awful crash! Anthea let out a shriek that could curdle your blood.”
“I think it was a perfectly reasonable reaction under the circumstances.” Miss March knelt down by Toby and pressed a cool hand to his forehead, as if being narrowly missed by a falling statue might have given him a fever. “Hello there, Toby. Can you stand up?”
“I think so.” Toby scrambled to his feet. “But Ivy’s not talking. I don’t think she’s moving, either.” It wasn’t right the way she was lying there, perfectly still. Ivy was always running into rooms or out of them, bursting with so much energy that Toby wondered how the whole manor hadn’t fallen down around her sooner. “Maybe she wants us to call her Madame Ermintrude?”
“Madame Ermintrude,” said Ivy, “is dead.”
Her lips barely moved, and her voice sounded more like a croak, but it was hers, and it was glorious. Slowly, she lifted her head and pulled the cracked motoring goggles from her eyes. “I’m going to need a new disguise, Detective Montrose. What do you think of Mitzi, the world-famous trapeze artist and spy? There’s no need to hug me so hard, Detective; you’re going to break my ribs. And could you please ask my assistant to stop licking my face?”
The other detectives came running as Miss March and Miss Price helped Toby and Ivy toward the house. “What in heaven’s name is that?” said Mr. Rackham, staring at the remains of the griffin. “It looks like some sort of monster. Where did it come from?”
“It fell from the manor wall.” Toby pointed at the bare spot below a third-floor window where pieces of stone and mortar were still crumbling away. “It almost squashed us.”
Julia squinted up at the wall. “You’re both lucky to be alive,” she said. “What a horrible accident.”
“Oh,” said Ivy, “it wasn’t an accident. It was the murderer.”
The others stared at her.
“He tried to kill us,” Ivy explained. “Or she did,” she added, glancing at Julia.
“Now, Ivy,” Miss Price said soothingly, “you’ve had a frightening experience, but you mustn’t let your imagination run away with you.”
“It’s not running anywhere!” said Ivy. “Tell them, Toby. That griffin didn’t fly off the wall by itself.”
Toby nodded. “It didn’t seem like an accident to me, either,” he said. “Percival knew something awful was going to happen, and he ran outside to warn us. He saved our lives!”
Mr. Rackham dismissed this with a wave of his hand. “Nonsensical!” he said. “Why would a murderer want to kill two children? It seems
like such a waste of time.”
“Isn’t it obvious?” said Toby. “We’re close to finding out the truth!”
“Closer than you, at least,” Ivy snapped at Mr. Rackham.
“Ivy! Toby! My dears!” Mrs. Webster ran out of the house, followed by her husband and Mr. Peartree. After that, there was an enormous amount of hugging and weeping, and Toby found himself being carried up to his bedroom in Mr. Webster’s arms, no matter how loudly he tried to explain that he was perfectly capable of walking.
“You both need rest after a fright like that,” Mr. Webster said, setting Toby down in front of the door to the Marigold Room. “I can’t think how that griffin managed to fall from its perch. Not a brick has shifted out of place in all the years we’ve lived here. Still, I’d better have some harsh words with the mason.” He opened the bedroom door and blinked. “Er, Toby,” he said, “it’s none of my business, I suppose, but did our furniture do something to offend you?”
The Marigold Room looked as though it had been through a hurricane. Pillows and blankets were everywhere, and Toby’s few belongings were scattered around the room. The orange drapes lay in heaps on the floor, the water pitcher was shattered, and even the armchair was overturned. It lay on the carpet like a toppled giant.
“I didn’t do this, sir!” said Toby. “I swear I didn’t! Someone’s been in my room!” It was the most enormous mess Toby had ever seen, but for once in his life, he didn’t even think of trying to clean it up. Instead, he squeezed past Mr. Webster and ran back down the hall, hollering for Ivy.
She was standing in her own bedroom doorway, and she didn’t look surprised to see him. “Did they search through your things, too?” she asked. “They turned mine entirely inside out, but I don’t think they found anything. It helps that there wasn’t anything to find.” Her room was twice as disastrous as Toby’s, and Toby couldn’t help feeling bad for Mrs. Webster, who stood aghast over the wreckage of Ivy’s closet. “It’s just party dresses and dolls and things,” Ivy said with a shrug. “If the murderer wanted to find out what we were up to, those wouldn’t have helped at all. All my really good stuff isn’t in here, anyway; it’s in—”
“The Investigatorium!” said Toby. “We left Mr. Abernathy’s papers inside!”
They took the stairs two at a time, wheeling around corners and leaping over the tripwire at the end of the third floor hallway. In front of them, the Investigatorium door gaped open. “I locked it behind me,” Ivy said. “I know I did. I never forget to lock the door.”
The storm that had passed through each of their bedrooms had been here, too. Books and disguises littered the carpet. The ceiling trap had crashed down to the floor, but it hadn’t caught anything except Ivy’s binoculars and a few of Egbert’s ribs. The rest of Egbert was scattered in all directions; his fingers had rolled under a bookcase, and his skull rested on the velvet sofa. The window near the desk had been pushed wide open. Toby couldn’t see Mr. Abernathy’s files anywhere. Only Ivy’s collection of Sphinxes remained untouched.
Ivy ran to the window and leaned halfway out of it. When she pulled her head in again, she looked grave. “The griffin statue fell from right below this window,” she said. “The spot where it used to be is all crumbling away. Do you realize what that means?” She didn’t even wait for Toby to answer. “The murderer must have been standing in this room.”
“And they’ve got Mr. Abernathy’s files.” Toby sat down on the sofa next to what remained of Egbert. The skull grinned eerily up at him. “I can’t believe it.”
But Ivy was grinning, too. Toby couldn’t imagine what she possibly had to grin about, or why she was lying down and wriggling into the small space under her desk. There was a soft click and a rustle of papers. Then Ivy crawled back out into the open, waving Mr. Abernathy’s files in one hand.
“Secret compartment,” she said as she got to her feet. “Every good detective has one. The murderer might be clever, but that won’t keep Webster and Montrose from cracking this case!”
“No,” said Toby, staring over her shoulder, “but your parents might.”
Mr. and Mrs. Webster stood in the Investigatorium doorway. They wore identical expressions that made Toby think no one would be cracking anything for a very long time. “I don’t know exactly what you children have been doing,” said Mr. Webster, “but whatever it is, it ends now.”
“Your father and I have reached the end of our rope,” Mrs. Webster agreed. “You both could have been killed today, and it’s obvious that not a single detective in this house was able to do anything to prevent it. Yes, Ivy, I know you’re a detective, too, but you are also my daughter. I won’t allow you to put yourself in danger.”
Mr. Webster nodded. “Enough is enough,” he said. “We’re calling in the police.”
CHAPTER 24
CONSTABLE TROUT
George P. Trout, chief constable of the Colebridge City Police, did not like to be kept waiting. Toby knew this—in fact, everyone within shouting distance knew this—because Constable Trout had bellowed several hundred words to this effect as Mr. Webster escorted him through the manor gates, as Mrs. Webster led him into the parlor, and as Cook prepared his tea. “Thirty hours I stood in that road!” he said, pulling off his boots and holding his damp socks to the fire. “Thirty hours surrounded by fools with harmonicas, and the last fifteen minutes in the rain. Do you know how I feel about rain, child?”
“You don’t like it?” Toby guessed. The air began to fill with the odor of well-warmed feet, and Toby wished he could hold his nose without seeming impolite. Could you be arrested for offending a police officer? He didn’t want to risk it.
“That’s right!” said Constable Trout. “I don’t like rain, I don’t like harmonicas, and I don’t like to be kept waiting.” He glowered at the empty room. “Where are my suspects?”
“They’re on their way, sir.” Mrs. Webster carried a steaming teapot into the parlor and poured out a cup for the constable. “I did ask them not to dawdle.”
“Detectives!” said Constable Trout. “First-class dawdlers, every one of them. If you don’t mind my saying so, ma’am, you should have called me in as soon as this whole murder business began. Those swindlers haven’t done anything but waste your time.”
Mrs. Webster grimaced. Toby guessed she was also trying hard to be polite. “Speaking of swindlers,” she said, “here they are now.”
The residents of Coleford Manor filed into the parlor. Julia Hartshorn shot the constable a scathing look and chose the chair farthest away from his. Mr. Rackham, looking no less disdainful, sat next to her. Miss March and Miss Price took up their positions on the love seat, and Mr. Peartree bowed slightly to Constable Trout as he settled himself by the window. Ivy squeezed into the chair next to Toby, and Percival jumped up onto her lap. “He still thinks he’s protecting us,” she whispered. “I’m hoping he’ll be inspired to bite the officer’s ankles.”
The servants filed in next and stood straight-backed and silent along the parlor walls. If they were frightened, Toby thought, they’d done a good job of hiding it. Mr. Webster had been given the unpleasant task of dragging Peter Jacobson into the room, planting him at one end of it, and keeping Lillie safely at the other. Peter didn’t look any happier to see Constable Trout than Julia Hartshorn had. “I wonder how many people the constable will take to prison,” Toby whispered to Ivy. “I hope he’s brought a big enough carriage.”
“Is this everyone?” Constable Trout put his boots back on and surveyed the crowd. “You all look like criminals to me. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t put the pack of you in handcuffs and send you off to Chokevine.”
“Excuse me, Constable,” said Mrs. Webster. “Several of our guests have spent the weekend investigating Mr. Abernathy’s murder. Before you arrest anyone, wouldn’t you like to be informed about the evidence they’ve collected?”
Constable Trout grunted. “I suppose that might be useful,” he said. “All right, detectives. Let’s have it.
I want to hear each of your theories about who killed Hugh Abernathy, and I don’t want any cheek. You, in the back.” He pointed a thick finger at Julia Hartshorn, who shrank back slightly in her chair. “You’ll go first. What have you got to say about this case?”
Julia got to her feet. She wore a long, thick sweater over her dress, and Toby noticed that she’d tugged the sleeves down past her wrists. Was Ivy right? Could she be the Colebridge Cutthroat? Whatever crimes she’d committed, she’d escaped from prison and lived on a street full of detectives for years without getting caught. What else could she get away with?
“You arrived several hours earlier than we’d been told to expect you, sir,” Julia said, staring at the wallpaper over Constable Trout’s head. “I didn’t have time to run most of the tests I’d planned—”
“Excuses!” huffed the constable.
“—but I do have some preliminary results,” Julia said firmly. “Mr. Abernathy was poisoned with Brandelburg acid, which was added to a bottle of his favorite digestive tonic at some point on Friday afternoon. I found at least two different sets of fingerprints on the bottle—possibly three, though the prints are so smudged that it’s hard to make them out. One set is mine, and the second is most likely Mr. Abernathy’s.”
“Then the third set belongs to the murderer?” Trout asked.
“Not necessarily,” said Julia. “As I told you, I’m not sure there is a third set. Our murderer might have taken care not to touch the bottle as he poured in the poison. And any number of other people must have held the bottle at some point—a pharmacist, for example, or Doctor Piper, or a housemaid. Anyway, the prints aren’t clear enough to be useful.”
“In that case,” said Trout, “you’ve wasted my time.”
Julia pulled her sweater sleeves down over her knuckles. “I also searched the house for common sources of Brandelburg acid,” she said. She was talking more quickly now, and Toby could understand why: the sooner she finished, the sooner the constable would focus his glare in someone else’s direction. All Toby could do was hope that direction wouldn’t be his own. “In the waste bin near Mrs. Webster’s desk, I found an empty canister of metal polish. I also found a half-empty canister in one of the desk drawers. As I’m sure you’re aware, constable, metal polish contains more than a small amount of Brandelburg acid.”
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