CHAPTER 19

A GOOD MANY QUESTIONS

WE HEARD QUITE A ruckus as we came down for breakfast on the morning of Boxing Day. The sort of ruckus caused by heavy boots pretending to be discreet but not managing very well. Hector and I watched from the mezzanine, while Lucy marched boldly down the stairs to get some answers.

How many officers had come? she asked. Four, said one of the constables (so young his mustache was barely fluff above his lip). Only four!? scoffed Lucy. Did they not think a murder at Owl Park was worthy of more than four constables? The Tiverton constabulary had only six constables, and two of them must remain at the station house to direct the hunt for the runaway guest. What hunt? Looking in the wood, checking inns and coaches along the carriageway, and combing through trains. What were the constables going to do here at Owl Park, exactly? The house was to be searched. It would take a long time with only four. And for that reason, miss had best run back to her nanny and let them get on with it. No, they would not be requiring her guidance.

“Detective Inspector Willard!” The imperious voice of Lucy’s grandmother rang through the Great Hall.

Lucy scampered up the stairs. “What is she doing up and about?” she muttered to us. “It’s not even half past eight.”

“I simply will not have it,” said the Dowager Lady Greyson.

Lucy tugged my sleeve and I tugged Hector’s. We slid quietly away and did not hear what Lady Greyson would not have, though it was bound to be something the police considered an urgent matter to accomplish.

In the breakfast room we were informed as to what none of us could have, on account of the snow preventing deliveries. There were no kidneys or sausages, but we were welcome to bacon or smoked kippers from Owl Park’s own smokehouse.

Grannie Jane was alone at the table, poking at a dish of porridge with little interest.

“Do you miss your newspaper, Grannie?” I said.

“How astute of you to notice, my pet. The local news”—she nudged a copy of the Tiverton Bugle, only four pages thick—“does not satisfy. I feel quite cut off from the world.”

She asked the footman—it was Norman—to bring buttered toast. And then, “Did my granddaughter, Lady Greyson, mention that the Torquay Voice is delivered each day?”

“Yes, Mrs. Morton,” said Norman. “She likes to keep up with the news from home. But it arrives later in the day. We have the Voice from Christmas Eve, if you’d like it, ma’am.”

Grannie Jane waved him away. That issue was useless, having been printed before the murder.

Norman returned to his place by the sideboard, where Lucy was sprinkling cinnamon sugar over a bowl of stewed pears.

“Norman?” asked Lucy. “Do you think Frederick stole the jewel?”

“I do not think that, Miss Lucy,” said Norman, rather stiffly. “As I share a room with him, I prefer not to consider him a thief or a murderer.”

“Hmm,” said Lucy. “To that I say, sweet dreams.”

“You may take this away,” said Grannie Jane, nudging the Tiverton Bugle toward the footman. “This fellow has filled his article on the murder with puffs of thin air, no substance whatsoever.”

“If no one will speak to the reporters,” I said, “how can they find substantial news to write about?”

“One of the conundrums of the modern age,” said Grannie.

“Co-nun—what is this word?” said Hector.

“Conundrum,” said Grannie Jane. “A difficult or puzzling matter to resolve. In this case, we do not like to have people interfering with our privacy, and yet we prefer our newspapers to tell us the truth.”

“Beg pardon for interrupting, madam,” said Norman, refilling her coffee cup. “But if it’s news you want, there’s a pack of fellas around the kitchen door won’t leave us alone. They were at the front door before the sun was up, but Mr. Pressman threatened them off with a horsewhip. Imagine if her ladyship had come downstairs to find that! Now we’ve got reporters camping in the kitchen courtyard like a band of tinkers.”

He offered the coffee pot to the rest of us and we said no thank you.

“Have you any cocoa?” said Lucy.

Yes, he’d fetch it.

“My goodness, but reporters move quickly,” said Grannie Jane. “Like flies to the jam pot.”

“They have to be quick,” I said. “First, they hear that something has happened and hurry along to where the news is. They interview people and gather whatever facts they’re given. And then they write the whole story, hundreds of words, with a few made-up bits, so that you may enjoy it over breakfast.”

Grannie Jane gave me a lengthy look over the top of her reading spectacles. “I believe your infelicitous choice to speak with the reporter in Torquay has put you in favor of these men being allowed to perform their jobs.”

“They must be terribly cold, that’s all,” I said. “Standing about on the flagstones hoping for crumbs of news like seagulls on the wharf.”

Grannie Jane was not to be diverted. “Agatha, may we agree on a particular kindness to your sister? We mustn’t add to her troubles by mingling with or encouraging members of the press. Are we in harmony on this?”

“We are,” I said. “And Hector is too, are you not?”

“In fact, I am,” said Hector, pleasantly ignoring my speaking for him.

Lucy chewed her pears and said nothing at all, giving us a rare moment of silence.

Breakfast done, we three wandered into the conservatory, which we’d only seen through its glass doors during our house tour on the first day. We stepped into a summer garden, warm and humid with an abundance of blossoms and greenery. Above our heads, the domed ceiling was also glass, letting us glimpse a sky mottled with snow-filled clouds.

“Si belle,” said Hector.

“Like an enchanted castle,” I said. “It smells delicious.”

Lucy threw her arms wide. “I love it in here,” she said. “But the only place to sit are those awful iron benches.” She made a circuit of the perimeter, sniffing every flower she came to.

Hector whispered, “I am thinking very much in the night. My brain cell friction is overly agitated.”

“Mine too,” I said. “Did you come up with anything clever?”

“I have many questions and not, as yet, the logical answers. Most important is the location of Mr. Lakshay Sivam—and the reason for his departure. Also, where is the cursed Echo Emerald? With its owner? Or in someone else’s pocket?”

“Do you suppose,” I said, “that Mr. Corker is the latest victim of the evil curse upon the stone? When Kitty pulled the jewel from its case on Christmas Eve, its gleaming allure overcame his common sense and forced him to perform a bold and wicked act of thievery—”

Hector shot me a look of grave disappointment. When it came to sleuthing, he did not like my imagination getting in the way of perfectly good logic.

“What are you two whispering about?” said Lucy, done with her blossom-sniffing.

“The murder, of course,” I said.

“I dreamt about it,” said Lucy. “I woke up screaming.”

“You did not,” I said. “I was sleeping in the same room.”

“It felt as though I woke up screaming,” said Lucy. “I can’t believe I stepped in his blood, up to my ankles almost. And then Mr. Sivam, the wicked murderer, was kneeling at the side of his victim with an evil leer across his face!”

“Lucy,” I said. “We don’t know that Mr. Sivam is the murderer. You’re making things up.”

Hector laughed. “It is most amusing,” he said, “to hear Miss Aggie Morton accuse someone else of the odious crime of telling fictions.”

I scowled at him. “I tell stories, not lies.”

“And even policemen must have theories,” he agreed.

“What if…” I began. “What if Mr. Sivam was followed from the bank vault after he collected the emerald? The robber drove a second motorcar, all the way to Owl Park. He crept into the house during the festivities, disguised as a servant especially hired for the holidays…He watched the tableaux right there in the room with the rest of us! And afterward, with so many pirates running around—”

“He became confused!” cried Lucy. “And killed the wrong man!”

“Mr. Sivam saw the body in the library, and fell to his knees,” I said. “Devastated that his emerald had caused such bloodshed, but also filled with dread. He took the gem and ran for his life.”

“Do you not think,” said Hector, “that someone would have noticed a stranger in the room? A stranger with a motorcar?”

He was right, of course.

“But still,” I said. “Just because Mr. Sivam is missing doesn’t mean that he’s the killer.”

“This is true,” said Hector.

“Also, the real weapon has not been identified,” I said. “We would have heard some sort of fuss if the police knew what actually killed him.”

“All the kitchen knives are where they should be,” said Lucy. “I heard Mrs. Hornby say so to Aunt Marjorie. We needn’t worry that the murder weapon is now being used to chop onions.”

“We can look for the weapon,” I said, “and keep an eye open for the magnifying glass. And we must ask Stephen what he meant when he said the boots were wrong. Weren’t all the pirate boots the same for everyone? Also, there’s a pirate shirt missing.”

Where was my notebook when I needed it? We should be writing down all our clues and questions.

“Oh!” A tiny idea had just popped into my head. A bit of spatter, one might say, from a bigger idea.

Hector waited. Lucy said, “Oh? What’s oh? Why did you say oh that way?”

“It’s morbid,” I said. “But, the pirate shirt…I suppose it may have been swept up by a maid and be sitting in a laundry hamper right this moment. Or mistaken for someone’s regular shirt and put away in a wardrobe. But…What if—as I suspect that stabbing is not a tidy task—what if Mr. Corker’s shirt was not the only one covered in blood!”

Hector’s eyes lit up like those of a cat in lantern light, like beacons in a storm, like fireflies on a summer night.

“Aha!” he said. “A logical breakthrough! If the murderer is also a pirate…this will allow us to logically consider the six pirates who perform Treasure Island on Christmas Eve.”

“Five, really,” I said, “because I don’t like to include James.”

“Lord Greyson is not a likely killer,” agreed Hector. “But he should remain on the list until we can dismiss him logically.”

“Uncle James?” cried Lucy. “No!”

“Already we know the shirt of Mr. Corker is covered in blood,” said Hector. “Leaving us four shirts to consider, with the outside possibility of a fifth, belonging to your uncle James.”

I ticked off on my fingers. “Miss Annabelle Day, Mr. Sebastian Mooney, Mr. Lakshay Sivam and Frederick the footman.”

“Blood on the missing shirt is a guess only,” Hector said. “But a good one. And these names become suspects as the outcome of this guess.”

“A deduction,” I said, “with further discussion required.”

I was graced with Hector’s beautiful smile.

“But first,” I said, “since we were so hurried yesterday…and didn’t even know who he was at first…” I dropped my voice to a whisper, though we were alone in the conservatory. “I think we should have another look at the corpse.”