The sorry day did indeed end, but only in the inevitable sense. As Jon hurried through the castle, all the clocks struck twelve. All except the grandfather clock between the drawing room and Jon’s makeshift study. It had stopped again. It was a new day – the 26th of December. Boxing Day.
Jon got to his destination, out of breath. He didn’t even feel the pain in his gut anymore. His body was nothing but pain, exhaustion, and sweat. It was better not to think about it. He was too busy thinking about whether he would run into Miss Darcy on his journey.
Jon stopped for a second, allowing himself a few blissful breaths, and then pushed open the door to the pantry.
Jon remembered the panic in Martin’s eyes when he had seen him earlier in the day. It was almost as if Martin had been caught doing something he shouldn’t. Or maybe hiding something.
Inside, he turned on the lights. The pantry was much as it always was – a small cupboard room lined with shelves packed with dry foods and nonperishables. Through a small conjoining passageway, a bizarre piece of connective tissue in the room, was a small wine cellar, where the fateful whiskey had once sat ready to play its part. The light in the wine cellar portion of the room flickered and refused to come on. It was always temperamental.
Jon searched the food store more meticulously than he usually would in such an unremarkable room. Once again, he found the room entirely in line with how he had always known it to be. There was no evidence that anyone had been in here who shouldn’t have been, or that anyone had engaged in any kind of suspicious activity. His eyes scanned the shelves – the tins, the boxes of cereals, the miscellaneous foodstuffs, the . . .
Jon inspected the cereal shelf. Something was poking out between two boxes of shredded wheat. He reached up and slid the boxes apart, slipping out the intrusive object. It was not the folder. It was a small book – 101 Fun Facts for Dinner Parties. Martin had definitely been here.
Jon quickly emptied the shelf, starting to prop up the cereal boxes on the floor and then simply pushing them off the shelf. He did not stop until it was empty. Nothing. No folder.
‘It’s gone, isn’t it?’ Jon jumped, and whirled around. Prince Martin stood in the doorway, still fully dressed, his hands in his pockets dejectedly. He started to cry. ‘I can’t even keep my promise to my grandfather.’
‘The folder?’
‘Yes,’ Prince Martin said, coming into the pantry and kicking one of the cereal boxes in desperation. ‘Grandfather caught me just as I was walking past his office this morning. Really, I was hanging around. I thought maybe I’d get a private audience too. No, though. He just wanted me to take the folder and hide it somewhere. I didn’t ask what it was, I just did it. I wanted to impress him – I know I’m not the favourite. Not for any of them. Not even my mum.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me you knew where the folder was?’
‘My grandfather said it was top secret. He made me promise. He told me not to tell anyone as long as I lived. When he died, that almost seemed even more important.’
Jon smiled. ‘You did a good job. I didn’t even notice you had a secret.’
Martin snorted back tears and smiled too. ‘I know. I’m good.’
‘Are you sure you didn’t look in the folder?’
Martin shook his head. ‘It wasn’t part of my job. I just put it there. Behind the cereals. It’s gone, isn’t it? Someone took it?’
Jon looked at the bare shelf, standing back and crunching some shredded wheat beneath his shoes as he did. ‘Yes. It’s gone.’ Which of them took it? And where could it currently be? The answer was almost disgusting to him – any of them could have taken it, and it could be anywhere in the castle.
‘I’m sorry, Jon. For lying to you. For being a dick.’ Martin absentmindedly picked his 101 Fun Facts book off the shelf and tried to put in in his pocket, as if for something to do. When it wouldn’t fit, he simply shoved it into his waistband.
‘It’s alright,’ Jon said. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the wine cellar light flicker again, attempting and failing to turn on. If he was to search the whole castle, he thought he might as well start there. He fished his torch out of his pocket and angled it into the surprisingly dark wine cellar. ‘Can you do me a favour, Martin? Could you go and turn the lights off and on a few times? The wine cellar light is temperamental.’
Martin went over to the lights, while Jon moved through the small connecting alcove into the wine cellar. There was something in the air – an odd metallic smell. Maybe a bottle had been spilled?
The torch was dying too. He wouldn’t be able to see much until Martin got the lights on. He was turning the lights on and off with abandon, but the wine cellar bulb was refusing to cooperate. Jon shone the torch around and caught on something on the floor in front of him.
In the pocket of light, the thing was beyond his comprehension. A beige colour in the circle of brightness – whatever it was, it was textured. Jon would think it was merely the floor, if not for a crease that ran the length of the circle and beyond.
An item of clothing, then?
He inched closer and closer, and as he did the picture became clearer. His shoe slipped on something, a viscous liquid, but he hardly noticed. He was too busy peering at the light. The beige fabric was part of a mass that was on the floor, it seemed. What was it? He moved the torchlight along the mass.
And almost dropped the torch, as he fell upon a face.
The light snapped on, but now he wished more than anything that it would turn back off.
Jon started backwards from the horror in front of him and collided into Martin, who had followed him into the alcove in triumph. Jon turned to him, blocking the scene that would stay with him forever. ‘Your Royal Highness, don’t look. Do not look.’
But it was too late. Martin sidestepped him and saw. He went white. ‘Dad?’
On the floor of the wine cellar, propped against the back wall of wine racks, clutching an empty vial and bleeding from his open mouth, lay the body of Thomas Crockley.