by HANNA, H. Y.
Caitlyn held the front door open for the maid, who thanked her and then carefully carried the flower display down the front steps and across the lawn to the tables set up for the Garden Party. As she watched Jenny go, Caitlyn thought about what the girl had just told her. Matt O’Brien again… Matt’s name seemed to be coming up a lot, all of a sudden.
Then something else floated to the edge of her memory. Something about the greenhouse… She frowned, straining to remember. Someone else had been talking about the greenhouse recently… someone here at the Manor… but who was it?
Then it came to her in a rush: Viktor!
Yes, that was it. She remembered the old vampire grumbling in the library earlier about being interrupted while trying to have his breakfast. What was it he had said? Something like: “…how is one expected to get a decent meal when you’ve got fools scurrying about like leprechauns hiding their pot of gold…?”
At the time, she hadn’t paid him much attention, but now she wondered at the old vampire’s choice of words. Why had he mentioned leprechauns—a creature from Irish folk legend…? Caitlyn took a sharp intake of breath. Perhaps Viktor had been referring to Matt O’Brien! It would make sense of the Irish association. And perhaps he had observed Matt hiding something—which is why he made the comment about “scurrying about like leprechauns hiding their pot of gold”. If Viktor had been spending a lot of time in the greenhouse in his bat form, enjoying the fruits being grown in there, he would have had ample opportunity to observe Matt’s behaviour, without the gardener knowing that he was being watched.
She had to speak to Viktor again. But where could she find him? He could have been skulking anywhere in the Manor… Then the answer came to her: of course, the greenhouse! And in fact, that would kill two birds with one stone. She could ask Viktor about what he had seen—and check out the greenhouse herself. If Matt had got the ring, it would be the perfect hiding place. After all, with it being on Lord Fitzroy’s estate, the greenhouse was less likely to draw suspicion than his own living quarters. And what better place to hide a stolen ring than a cluttered greenhouse filled with plants, vegetable patches, and flowers?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Caitlyn wandered casually across the front lawn and approached one of the garden boys who was busy pulling up weeds in a flowerbed.
“Hi…” She gave him a friendly smile. “Can you tell me where the greenhouse is, please?”
“Sure, you just go through the walled garden on the west side of the Manor and then take a right when you get to the gazebo. Follow the path down to the rear of the grounds. The greenhouse is on the south side.”
“Thank you. Er… I don’t suppose you know where Matt is?”
“He had to pop down to the village to get a few things.”
“Ah, right… and is he going to be back soon?” she asked casually.
“Probably not for another half an hour. Old Palmer’s in the potting shed, if you want anything—or maybe I can help you?”
“Oh no, it’s nothing important,” said Caitlyn quickly. She saw the garden boy grin and realised that he must have thought she was another of Matt’s romantic conquests. She decided to let the assumption rest—at least that way she avoided any awkward questions about why she was interested in where Matt was.
Caitlyn followed the directions and soon found herself standing outside a beautiful traditional Victorian greenhouse. She looked furtively around: this side of the grounds was deserted at the moment, with all the staff busy on the front lawns, preparing for the party. That was good. Although she knew she wasn’t really trespassing and that James would be more than happy for her to explore the Manor grounds, she still didn’t want people to notice her snooping around.
She stepped inside and entered a humid space, filled with a riot of lush green. There were fruit trees—peaches and nectarines and figs and lemons—interspersed among beds of strawberries, cucumbers, and melons; a large vine of grapes climbing up one wall and arching overhead; glossy purple eggplants and cube-like red peppers showing off their bright colours, next to a bed of leafy lettuces and cabbages.
Caitlyn wandered slowly down one aisle, past elegant olive trees and fragrant bay bushes growing in pots, and rows of staked tomato plants. It was all gorgeous and she would have loved to spend more time exploring the different plant varieties in here, but she felt a nagging sense of urgency. Matt could be back from the village any moment now and she didn’t want to waste this opportunity to search the greenhouse.
But how was she going to find anything in this profusion of fruit and vegetables and greenery? She looked around helplessly. She didn’t even know where to begin. The ring could have been hidden anywhere—buried in the soil under a melon somewhere, tucked into the side of a pot, hidden behind the leaves of a vine… not to mention stashed somewhere amongst the gardening equipment lining the corners of the greenhouse. She didn’t see how she was ever going to find it without a guide of where to look.
Then she noticed something white on the other side of the greenhouse—it showed clearly amongst all the colourful greens. Curious, she went over to check it out. As she approached, she saw that it was a white plaster statue—a classic cherub standing in a coy pose, looking over a small pool. It was an ornamental water feature, Caitlyn realised; a jet of water shot out of the cherub’s pursed lips and fell smoothly into the pool below, where goldfish darted between the water lily leaves.
Caitlyn circled the water feature speculatively. She reached out and tapped the head of the cherub. It sounded hollow. She peered around the back of the statue, wondering if there would be any cavities or crevices for hiding things…
A hand gripped her shoulder.
“Aaah!” cried Caitlyn, stifling a scream as she whirled around.
A stooped old man in a dusty black suit stood in front of her.
“Viktor!” Caitlyn yelled. “You’ve got to stop scaring me like that!”
He looked so taken aback that Caitlyn felt bad for shouting at him. “I’m sorry,” she said in a more normal voice. “I’m just a bit on edge right now…” She gave him a contrite smile. “I was hoping to see you here actually.”
“I was just about to have a late morning meal—what I believe is called brunch, in this century,” he said pompously. He smacked his sunken lips. “The nectarines are particularly nice at the moment. But what are you doing here, young lady?”
“I’m… uh… searching for something. Listen, Viktor—you know earlier in the Library you were talking about being disturbed while you’re trying to eat in here—you mentioned something about leprechauns and pots of gold… Who were you talking about?”
“That handsome chap with the blue eyes,” said Viktor irritably. “One of the gardeners, I believe. Very good with the fruits… I must say, the man knows his way around a nectarine tree—but he really should spend more of his time tending the fruit trees instead of messing about with his other crops.”
“And… did you ever see him hide something?” she asked eagerly. “Like a ring, perhaps?”
“A ring?” Viktor looked at her like she was crazy. “Why would he hide a ring in here?”
“Because—oh, never mind, Viktor. Just tell me if you saw him hiding a ring?”
The old man frowned. “No, I never saw him hiding anything like a ring.”
“Oh.” Caitlyn was crestfallen. She had been so sure that she had been on the right track. “Well, then why did you say he was ‘scurrying around like a leprechaun hiding a pot of gold’? You made it sound like he was doing something underhanded.”
“He is always scurrying around,” said Viktor. He pointed. “Over there, by the tomato plants. Furtive as a ferret.”
Caitlyn followed the direction of his finger. “Do you mean… Matt is hiding something over there?” Not waiting for him to reply, she walked back to the far end of the greenhouse where a large patch of soil was devoted to rows of tomato plants. She peered amongst the tall staked green stems. She couldn’t see anything unusual.<
br />
“Do you mean here?” she called.
There was no reply. She glanced over her shoulder. Viktor had disappeared. Probably gone off in search of his beloved nectarines. Sighing, she turned back to the tomatoes and stared at them again. She could just dismiss it—after all, Viktor’s vision wasn’t the best (to put it politely!) and he could have been wrong in what he saw. But something—some instinct—told her that Viktor was right to be suspicious. Matt O’Brien was hiding something here in the greenhouse. She just had to figure out what it was.
She gave another sigh of frustration. So much for being a witch! If only she knew how to work magic better, she could probably just conjure up a spell to show her what Matt had hidden here—
Wait.
She did know a spell.
Caitlyn thought excitedly back to the previous night when she and Evie were in the Widow Mags’s bedroom, trying to see the photos in the enchanted album. Evie had made the hidden photos show themselves, hadn’t she? Couldn’t she, Caitlyn, do the same here?
Caitlyn closed her eyes, trying to remember the spell… what were the words? Something “clandestine”… no, “clandestina”… yes, “manifesto clandestina”… that was it!
She stepped closer to the tomato plants, held her hand out and concentrated hard, whispering, “Manifesto clandestina!”
There was a crackling sound and Caitlyn jumped as something sparked from her fingers. It felt a bit like the kind of static that jumped off your clothes sometimes. Then she forgot everything else as she suddenly realised that parts of the tomato patch were glowing.
She leaned closer to look. No, it wasn’t the tomato plants that were glowing—it was individual smaller green plants amongst the tomatoes. If she had just been standing there, she would never have even have noticed them, and even now, as the glow around them faded, they were becoming harder to see again. They were well camouflaged amongst the feathery green tomato stalks and didn’t have any particularly attractive distinguishing features—in fact, they looked like giant weeds, with leaves that had several palm-like fronds. As she leaned even closer to look, Caitlyn was suddenly aware of a sickly-sweet smell arising from the plants. She wrinkled her nose and drew back.
These strange green plants were obviously what Matt was hiding, carefully camouflaged here amongst the tomato plants—but what were they? Frowning, Caitlyn pulled her phone out of her pocket and quickly snapped a couple of shots of them. She was just pushing the phone back in her pocket when she heard a step behind her—Viktor back from his fruity “brunch”, no doubt. She turned around eagerly.
“Look! I think I found—” She broke off, staring at the man in front of her.
“Hello, Caitlyn,” said Matt O’Brien, his beautiful blue eyes cold and suspicious. “What are you doing here?”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Matt!” Caitlyn, faltered, taking an involuntary step back. She forced a breezy smile. “Hi! I… uh… just came to check out the greenhouse. I’d heard so much about the fruits and vegetables you were growing here…”
“Really?” He took a step towards her. “Didn’t realise you were so interested in horticulture.”
“Yes, um… well… I wouldn’t say I’m a huge botanist or anything… haha…” Caitlyn laughed nervously. “But I’d been hearing everyone talk about the greenhouse and… um… I saw one of the flower arrangements for the Garden Party which included the most luscious-looking grapes…” She shifted farther back from him.
She was horribly aware again of how deserted this side of the Manor grounds was and how far away the rest of the staff were. Would anyone hear her if she screamed and called for help from inside the greenhouse? And even though the walls of the greenhouse were glass, the profusion of plants inside meant that it was hard for those on the outside to see in clearly.
“You were saying you found something just now…” Matt said in a silky voice. “What were you referring to?”
Caitlyn forced herself not to glance involuntarily at the tomato patch. “Oh… um… just… just the tomato patch. I love tomatoes. I… er… I suppose I’m pronouncing that wrong for England, aren’t I? It’s funny how I say some things the British way and some things the American way… I suppose it’s because I had a British nanny so I grew up learning the British pronunciation of things and then we travelled around so much and hardly ever lived in the States, so I didn’t really pick up much of an American accent… although I have to say, I’ve always preferred saying ‘to-may-to’, rather than ‘to-mah-to’, as you would say it… haha… Or I suppose… would the Irish say it any differently…?”
She was babbling now and she knew it, but she couldn’t help herself. Matt was watching her with narrowed eyes and something in his expression chilled her.
He took another step forwards and made as if to grab her arm but a flurry of movement behind him made him jerk around.
A large fruit bat came flapping towards them, emitting a series of high-pitched squeaks that made Caitlyn wince and want to plug her ears. It hovered around Matt’s head, dive-bombing him and spitting at him.
“Feck! It’s that bloody bat again! GET OFF ME!” cried Matt angrily, trying to dodge the bits of nectarine pulp being spat in his face. He danced around, waving his arms, staggering down the aisle as he tried to chase the bat away.
Caitlyn used the opportunity to dart quickly past him and make for the greenhouse door. Once outside, she lost no time running back towards the front of the house. She could still hear Matt’s angry cries fading away behind her and she smiled to herself. Good ol’ Uncle Viktor to the rescue again. She had to admit that although she’d often scoffed at him when he proclaimed himself to be her “guardian protector”, the old vampire really had saved her skin in several sticky situations and she was very grateful.
She arrived back at the front of the Manor, flushed and out of breath, and was delighted to see Pomona standing at the edge of the lawn, watching the preparations for the party.
“Pomie!” she hissed, running over and grabbing her cousin by the elbow. She dragged her around the other side of the house and found a secluded garden bench tucked behind a bush.
“What’s the matter?” Pomona looked at her curiously. “Why were you running?”
Caitlyn ignored her and pulled out her phone, scrolling quickly to a picture of the strange plants and shoving it under her cousin’s nose.
“Look… do you have any idea what these plants are?”
Pomona peered at the screen, sliding her fingers across the surface to zoom in on the image. “It looks like… hey, it’s a cannabis plant!”
“A cannabis plant? You mean, like marijuana? How do you know?”
Pomona laughed and rolled her eyes. “Everyone knows what a cannabis leaf looks like!”
“I don’t,” said Caitlyn.
Pomona gave her a dry look. “That’s ’cos you spent your teenage years with your nose buried in books, instead of going out to parties. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about. Those are cannabis plants. That’s, like, a nice little crop of marijuana that someone is growing there… Where did you find it?”
“In the greenhouse.” Caitlyn watched her cousin closely. “The one that’s looked after by Matt.”
Pomona protested, “That doesn’t mean that he—”
“It’s him, Pomie. In fact, he found me in the greenhouse and I thought he was going to do something to me…” Caitlyn shuddered at the memory. “I managed to get away but he really scared me. That’s why I was running.”
Pomona still looked unwilling to accept Matt’s guilt. “Well… a lot of people probably grow a bit of marijuana… you know, as a recreational thing…”
“It’s still a class B drug! You can get arrested for having it. And it’s worse if you’re found growing it because then you could be a supplier…” Caitlyn paused and thought for a moment, then said, “Remember the police saying that other staff had overheard Matt and Mrs Brixton having a fight? And he had threatened her to keep her mouth shut
? I think it was about this. I thought Matt might have been involved in the theft of the bloodstone ring but I was wrong—that’s something else. I don’t know if Mrs Brixton was murdered for the ring… but she could have been murdered because of this! She must have found out that Matt was growing cannabis in the Manor greenhouse and she was trying to blackmail him to pay her, so that she wouldn’t report him.” Caitlyn paused again and added softly, “You have to agree that it gives him a very good motive for wanting Mrs Brixton dead…”
“Matt wouldn’t do that,” said Pomona, shaking her head vehemently. “Okay, so he might have been growing some pot—but that doesn’t mean that he would commit murder!”
“He might if he felt that he was backed into a corner. He’s a proud guy—he wouldn’t be happy to be controlled by Mrs Brixton. And blackmail is never-ending. People feel trapped by it. They get desperate—”
“Not Matt,” insisted Pomona stubbornly. “I know him—he wouldn’t murder anyone.”
“We have to at least let the police know,” said Caitlyn. “They can investigate and if Matt is really innocent—”
“NO!” cried Pomona. “No, you can’t tell them! They’re already prejudiced against Matt ’cos of his criminal record. They’ll just jump on him immediately and stop looking anywhere else. He’s, like, the perfect scapegoat. And that means that the real murderer will get away!” She grabbed Caitlyn’s arm urgently. “You can’t say anything—promise me! Please, Caitlyn,” she begged.
Caitlyn stared at her cousin, torn over what to do. A part of her wanted to insist on telling the police. She didn’t trust Matt O’Brien at all and, in spite of what Pomona had said, she was sure that the handsome Irishman was capable of committing a murder. But on the other hand, Pomona did have a point—what if Matt wasn’t the murderer? It was true that just having a secret marijuana crop didn’t automatically make him a killer. He might have simply threatened Mrs Brixton and left it at that.