CHAPTER 16

A YOUNG INSPECTOR

THE DOOR FLEW OPEN with such force that it thudded into the wall. First came a stout, red-faced sergeant, one we’d heard through the spy-hole, straining to turn over the corpse. Behind him was Inspector Willard, a tall man, even a bit gangly, as his bony wrists hung extra inches below his jacket cuffs.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Morton,” said the inspector. “And children. Sergeant Fellowes here will be taking notes while we talk, and he himself will not say a word.” It sounded like a warning, as if Sergeant Fellowes had been naughty and was being told to remain in his corner. His red face got redder as he opened his notebook.

We were asked to sit across from the inspector. His eyes were brown and his hair quite black, except for a shock of white like a feather near the front. Aside from that oddity, he seemed to be near James in age, which is twenty-four.

“I will begin by informing you that the actor Mr. Roger Corker died last night at about midnight from an assault on his person in the shape of a knife wound to his neck.”

He paused and looked at us. Too late, I realized he’d expected a gasp of surprise. We who had found the body should know only about a dagger in the back.

“To his neck?” I said.

The inspector nodded, seeming a bit miffed that his news had not caused more excitement. “The blade,” he continued, “severed an artery and caused the victim rapid and catastrophic loss of blood.”

“Really, Inspector, is this necessary?” said Grannie Jane.

“Better to hear the whole truth from me than uninformed gossip from every which way,” he said.

Grannie agreed that this was likely so, though I happened to know that she was very fond of gossip from any source at all—as long as “one sifts it as carefully as cake flour,” she liked to say.

“To proceed,” said the inspector. “You three have been ruled out as suspects. None of you is tall enough to have done the deed, considering the angle of entry. If Mr. Corker had been stabbed in the heart, instead of the neck, you would still be on the list,” he said. “Within easy reach for any of you.”

“Sir,” protested Grannie Jane.

“You, Mrs. Morton, are tall enough to have performed the reprehensible deed, but are perhaps lacking the strength. He was, however, somewhat intoxicated, going by the reek of rum coming from the body, so you might have managed.”

“There was a stink of spirits,” I said. “We noticed that.”

“What else did you notice, Miss Morton?”

“I stepped in the blood,” said Lucy.

“Yes, you did,” he said. “As did Miss Morton, according to our study of the floor. We will need your slippers to confirm which marks are yours, and which may belong to the killer.”

We both nodded. I’d put mine in the empty bathtub on the top floor. They were likely stiff and dry by now, just like Mr. Corker.

Sergeant Fellowes scratched away at his notes. Had he washed his hands since flipping the body of the deceased, or only wiped them on his dark trousers?

“We noted evidence that the victim—or someone else—had spent time in the room during the minutes—or likely longer—leading up to the murder,” said Inspector Willard. “A chair pillow appeared crushed, as if sat upon. A glass on a table had—”

“Ah, yes,” said Hector, interrupting. “The magnifying glass!”

The inspector’s expression did not change but he looked at Hector with a new light in his eyes. “I was not referring to a magnifying glass,” he said. “What we found was a drinking glass with a slosh of rum in the bottom, on a table next to the fireplace, where someone had removed his boots and enjoyed a drink.”

Hector’s chin dropped to his chest.

“But please,” said the inspector. “Tell me where you saw the magnifier. I am most interested.”

I remembered Inspector Willard’s careful survey of the library, his monotone inventory of the scene. I closed my eyes, summoning my own view from the secret passage. The upper half of Mr. Corker on the floor, part of a window with green velvet drapery, the dictionary stand with the huge book open, the small table aglow from the reading lamp…and no magnifying glass.

I turned abruptly to Hector and shook my head. During our visit this morning to the library, the magnifying glass had most certainly been present. But when we were spying from the secret passage, it was nowhere to be seen!

“It was gone,” I said.

“I notice this also,” said Hector, voice low and worried.

“First you see it and then you do not?” said Inspector Willard.

We dared not say. What we had seen, or rather not seen, had been not seen from a hidey-hole behind the wall. We had sworn an oath to Lucy—and through Lucy to James—that we would not tell of the secret passage. We could not admit that we had spied on the police during their private examination of a crime scene! Hector and I looked at Lucy. Would she confess our transgression to the inspector? But no, she had missed her turn! She did not know what we had noticed. An object not sitting on a table wasn’t something a person could eavesdrop on.

The silence was becoming more awkward with every passing moment.

“The magnifying glass,” said Lucy, “belongs on the desk with the silver pens and penknife, all those things with matching owl-y handles. It sits in a box made especially for it and lined with satin so it won’t get scratched.”

“Oh,” I said. “That’s nice.”

That’s nice? My mind was scrabbling to think of how to change the subject. Inspector Willard and Grannie Jane both were watching me. My cheeks got warmer by the second.

“What I want to know,” said Lucy, “is whether the pirate dagger is the one that belonged to Mr. Corker’s costume? And why was he stabbed in the back if he’d already been killed in the neck?”

“Lucy,” I said.

“What makes you presume the cut to his neck was made before the other?” said the inspector. “Are you an infant genius in the matter of criminally induced blood flow?”

Lucy saw her mistake, and flushed. “He was on his tummy,” she muttered. She glanced at me but then stared at the floor in what I assumed was deserved misery.

“Why do I have the feeling that I have missed a bar of music?” said Inspector Willard.

Hector sneezed. A trumpeting sort of sneeze. And then again, Aaa-choo!

“Goodness,” said Grannie. “The boy is quite unwell. If that is all for now, Inspector? I believe we need to make a lemon-ginger toddy for young Hector.”

“I am certain he will survive a few more minutes, Mrs. Morton,” said Inspector Willard. “I’d like to—”

A sharp rap and the door opened. Sergeant Shaw poked his head around, though of course we weren’t meant to know his name.

“Pardon the intrusion, Detective Inspector. Mr. Sivam does indeed seem to have left the premises. The box that held this famous emerald is empty. There is also some dispute about moving the deceased. Her ladyship wishes it gone, but the footmen are inexperienced with the stretcher—”

I giggled. “So, there it remains,” I said.

Grannie Jane clucked her tongue at me, though I knew that secretly she appreciated a good pun.

“Her ladyship,” said Sergeant Shaw, “is, er, not delighted.”

Lucy huffed out a laugh. “Grandmamma! ‘Not delighted’!”

“Thank you, Sergeant,” said Inspector Willard. He turned back to us. “My attention is momentarily required elsewhere, but I believe we have more to discuss. I shall be calling upon you again.”

He stood and nodded curtly to Grannie Jane. Sergeant Fellowes pulled his superior’s chair out of the way.

“Appearances would indicate that Mr. Sivam has perpetrated a misguided form of personal justice,” said Inspector Willard. “If he caught this fellow in the act of attempting to steal a valuable jewel, he may have felt justified in fighting for it.”

He turned a stony gaze to each of us in turn. The skin around my eyes tingled, as if he were casting a spell by staring into them with such intent. “I have learned, however, to mistrust appearances,” he said. “Anyone watching right now would mistakenly see three innocent-looking children. But you are not deceiving me.”