CHAPTER 15

A FULL REPORT

AS WE DID NOT know how long it would be until Detective Inspector Willard arrived, our first telling of the tale to Grannie Jane may have been a bit rushed, but we did our best to please her.

“It began with the treasure hunt,” I said. “James and Marjorie devised a hunt for us to find our stockings from Father Christmas.”

“We never did get them,” said Lucy. “Which is not fair, as we’re certainly deserving. It was not our fault we tripped over a body while in pursuit.”

“The library is gloomy,” explained Hector. “We cannot see.”

“Only one lamp was on,” I said, “on the little table, where the magnifier lay.”

Grannie’s gaze shifted to each of us in turn as we added to the story, rather as if she were watching a game of shuttlecock. Her ability to knit without looking at her hands was one of her great skills, in my opinion. We explained how Lucy had screamed and how everyone came running. No one knew, at first, who it was on the floor, because he was dressed as a pirate, and there’d been five of those, though Annabelle hardly counted, being so womanly.

“Mrs. Sivam thought it was her husband until he appeared, alive and well,” I said. “Though he was quite distraught to see the corpse.”

“The body is wearing no boots,” said Hector.

“His boots were beside the chair,” said Lucy.

“His socks needed a good darning,” I said. “Bumps of bare skin were poking through.”

“His pockets, they are…what you say, turn outside?” said Hector.

“Turned out,” I said. “As if someone were searching for something.”

“And what might an actor wearing a pirate costume be carrying in his pocket?” said Grannie Jane.

“The Echo Emerald!” said Lucy.

“Oh, Grannie!” I said. “Have you not heard that the jewel is gone as well?”

She gave us the satisfaction of a hefty gasp. “This I did not know,” she said. “A murder and a robbery! How engrossing. But such an odd cast of characters. The connections are baffling.” She held up her knitting to inspect her progress. It seemed to be the back of a very small sweater, creamy white like nougat. “Do go on.”

“A murder, a robbery and, possibly, a disappearance,” I said. “Kitty Sivam has been looking for her husband all morning, but he is nowhere to be found. Frederick is acting as Mr. Sivam’s valet, and he hasn’t seen him either.”

“Now that is interesting.” Grannie Jane started a new row.

“I think Mr. Sivam is the killer,” said Lucy. “He found Mr. Corker stealing his gem and stabbed him. And then ran away.”

Hector walked over to the windows. The draperies were pulled back to reveal the snowy woods of Owl Park.

“Why does he kill a man and flee through a blizzard,” he said. “Simply to reclaim his own property? Why does he not speak to his host? It is not logical.”

“An intelligent observation,” said Grannie. I grinned at Hector and he pretended to look modest.

The door opened and Frederick came in with another footman, each carrying a chair.

“Begging your pardon, ma’am,” Frederick said to Grannie Jane. “We’ve been asked to set up a headquarters for the police. We’ll be right back with a table.”

“Tell me, young man,” said my grandmother. “Have you been informed as to the removal of Mr. Corker?”

“No, ma’am,” said Frederick. He and the other footman shared a sideways glance.

“Is there some mystery?” Grannie’s voice sharpened.

The second footman flushed, a smile slipping onto and then quickly off his face.

Frederick tried again. “Her ladyship, the dowager, has requested that the bod—the deceased gentleman be out of her library before dinnertime, it being Christmas and all.”

Grannie Jane nodded. “A natural wish, I would say.”

“Yes, ma’am. Only the police haven’t given the say-so yet, and there’s no medics or anyone to move him, like.”

“Ah.”

“So, John and me, we’re doing the chairs and table first, and then it’ll be us who’ve got to, er, shift the gent.”

“You have conveyed the situation splendidly. Thank you, Frederick.”

“You’re Dot’s brother,” said Lucy. “And one of the pirates.”

“Yes, miss,” said Frederick.

“May I inquire…?” said Hector. “Where is the place to which Mr. Corker will be, er, shifted?”

The footmen again exchanged question and answer in a brief look.

“He’ll be in the stables for now. Out of the house, but not too far. Cold enough to keep him from…” Frederick paused, with a glance at Lucy and me.

“Yes, you have supplied enough information,” said Grannie Jane. “We appreciate your candor. You’d best get on with your tasks.”

“Yes, ma’am.” And they were gone.

“Fancy having ‘move dead body’ on one’s list of tasks,” I said.

Hector made a croaking sound, which turned out to be how he smothered a laugh.

“I am reminded,” said Grannie Jane, “of a maid in the church hall, long ago when I sang in the choir. Hattie Granger spoke in a whining tone of voice, poor girl, some blockage in her nose. She was accused of stealing money from the alms box. But they found her washing dishes in the church pantry well after the time she might have gone home. The pieces did not quite fit. If she were the thief, why hadn’t she disappeared while she had the chance. Do you see?”

“Perfectly, madame,” said Hector.

I was still a step behind in thinking this through.

“I believe you have a most logical mind, Mrs. Morton,” said Hector, “even if it is occasionally disguised as storytelling. This gives me hope for Aggie. She has the tendency to imagine things, without always inserting the logic.”

“Do you mean,” I said, “that if Mr. Corker stole the Echo Emerald, it seems odd that he took off his boots and lingered in the library?”

Grannie Jane, nodding, patted me fondly on the arm. “Why was he in the library at all?” she said.

“He was drinking,” said Lucy. “There’s a cabinet full of bottles in there, next to the globe of the world.”

“Do you remember what Stephen said at lunch?” I asked. “Stephen is the boot boy,” I told Grannie, as it was unlikely that she’d had reason to meet him.

“And what did Stephen say?”

“He said, ‘The wrong boots in odd places,’ ” said Hector.

“And dunderhead!” said Lucy. “Someone shouted ‘dunderhead’ when he went past the library.”

“When did he go past the library?” said Grannie Jane.

“Late,” I said. “When he collected people’s boots for cleaning, so the party was over and everyone was in bed. I suppose we can ask him precisely when. The person wasn’t calling Stephen a dunderhead. No one knew Stephen was there. And he did not go into the room to see who was shouting,” I added. “Naturally.”

“What did he mean by the wrong boots?” Grannie asked Hector.

“We do not know, madame.”

Grannie Jane thought for a moment, before making an intriguing point. “Unless Mr. Corker was rehearsing his part in an upcoming play that features the line ‘dunderhead!’ it seems almost certain that he was not alone in the library.”

“Is it imagination,” I asked, “or a logical deduction? To say that the murderer was with him?”