CHAPTER 20

A PACK OF NEWSHOUNDS

WE BUNDLED UP WITH hats and mittens, but a sharp wind blew careless gusts of snow into our faces as soon as we stepped from the shelter of the warm kitchen. Just outside, the service courtyard was a village of industry. The coalhouse, the bakehouse, the woodshed, the stable, the smithy, the coach house, the laundry, the icehouse—all the essentials for running Owl Park were nestled within a few steps of the back door. Servants traipsed back and forth through the snow, carrying logs or bricks of ice or loaves of bread.

Two men, not wearing livery and clearly not servants, were hunched and smoking cigarettes beside the door to the bakehouse.

“Reporters,” said Hector.

They nodded to us, puffing streams of smoke into the frosty air.

“Oi,” called one. “Anything you can tell us about the murder? Did you see anything?”

With a friend on each side, I was not shy. “No,” I called back. “We’re children.”

Lucy giggled, and dragged us toward the stable.

“Whoa, there,” said the constable standing guard. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“I want to introduce my friends to Buttermilk,” said Lucy. “She’s the pony in stall number seven. I always ride her when I’m visiting my uncle James.”

“Not right now you’re not,” said the constable. “No one’s to go in here today. There’s a dead body inside. No place for little girls.”

“Really?” Lucy feigned surprise.

“Aye,” said the constable. “And you’ll leave him be. My gran told me that the ghost of a murdered man is fearsome vengeful.” He stamped his boots in the snow.

My own toes were noticing the cold, so I stamped too.

“Have you heard anything?” I said. “Phantom howling, for instance?”

“I did hear some moaning,” the constable whispered, “but the actor fellow told me it was only the wind.” He nodded up at the roof and shivered. “There’s holes up there, where the wind goes through.”

Lucy led us to the next building along, the roomiest one in the yard and nearest the gate to the drive. “Coach house,” she said.

James and Marjorie have a small carriage, one that needs only two horses, so there is plenty of space leftover in the coach house. Here is where Mr. Sivam had parked his motorcar and the actors their caravan.

“When a coach drives up, it goes through the big doors on the other side,” Lucy explained in a whisper. “But you’ll see, there’s an archway that lets you pass into the stable from the coach house. James keeps six horses, plus Buttermilk, but there are ten stalls, so he could have more.” She pulled on the door handle, but there stood Mr. Mooney blocking our way.

“Hullo,” he said. Behind him were painted flats leaning against the side of the Sivams’ motorcar, Mr. Holmes’s dining room and the rolling waves of Treasure Island. A stack of packing cases stood between us and the actors’ caravan.

“Things are a bit tight in here,” said Mr. Mooney. “What can I do for you?”

“We were going to say hello to Buttermilk,” said Lucy. “Next door. She’s a pony.”

Mr. Mooney glanced over our heads at the constable guarding the entrance to the stable. “Ah, well. I can’t help you there, missy. We’ve all got our orders. Leave old Roger to rest in peace.”

“I suppose,” said Lucy. She shrugged at us.

“Oh, well,” I said. “We can try again later. Oh, look, there’s Stephen.”

The boy was running from the bakehouse to the kitchen, a large loaf of bread tucked under each arm. He slipped this way and that on snowy ridges made by foot traffic in the courtyard. “Inspector’s making a statement,” he shouted to us. “Follow the reporters ’round front!”

Three or four men stumbled out of the bakehouse, along with a wonderful smell of hot bread. Grumbling about wind, they buttoned bulky coats and pulled caps low over their eyes and ears. The smokers ground their cigarettes into the snow and joined the others.

“Let’s go,” I said. “We want to hear this!” We trotted out of the courtyard and along the drive, the long way around to the front door.

Mr. Pressman held open the door, allowing Inspector Willard and his two sergeants to pass onto the top step. The inspector held a piece of paper with both hands to prevent it from flapping in the wind.

“During the night of the twenty-fourth December,” he read, “a guest of Lord and Lady Greyson met an untimely end on the premises of Owl Park. The body was discovered at approximately half past eight on Christmas morning, and the police were summoned to the scene. The deceased is not related to his lordship. All efforts are being made to secure a satisfactory conclusion to the matter.”

“Can you tell us the victim’s name?” called a reporter with carroty eyebrows under a dark cap.

“And how he died?” asked another.

“How old was he?”

Questions were hurled at the inspector like a barrage of snowballs.

“Where on the premises?” shouted a pockmarked fellow at the back.

“Do you have enough experience to do this job properly?” asked a man with white hair poking out around the edges of his hat.

“Was it an intruder?”

“Have you got a suspect?”

“Is Lord Greyson a suspect?”

“His lordship is not a suspect,” said the inspector. “At this time.”

Hector’s hand caught my wrist and squeezed, silently sharing my surprise.

At this time? Did that mean James might be a suspect at a later time?

“We heard the body was discovered by children,” said a slim fellow at the front of the horde. “Is this true?”

Inspector Willard put up a hand. “The victim’s name is being withheld until the family can be informed of the tragedy. Other details cannot be released. That’s all for now, gentlemen. Please respect the privacy of a household in mourning and be on your way.”

This was met with noisy grousing, but the inspector gave a curt wave and stepped back into the house. The reporters pocketed their notebooks and conferred with each other. Two of them waved to their colleagues and began the long march down the drive.

“They go to find a telephone,” said Hector. “Or a telegraph office. The newspapers await their reports.”

“Brr,” said Lucy. “It’s a mile to the village.”

“He gave them nothing useful,” I said. “How could they make a story out of that? Not even so much as a bucket of vinegar and a pound of salt. Poor fellows, they must be freezing.”

“I’m freezing,” said Lucy. “Let’s go in.”

Hector’s trousers were sodden, up to the knees. He could not bear the discomfort and headed up all those stairs to the nursery to change into his second pair. Lucy and I preferred to dry out before the dancing flames in the drawing room grate. James and Marjorie sat together on the sofa. I had a notion that their conversation had stopped one instant before. Lucy filled them in on the inspector’s statement. My damp stockings steamed as the fire warmed my legs. We had barely shrugged off the chill of our expedition outdoors when the butler appeared.

“Who is it, Pressman?” asked Marjorie. The sole purpose of the silver tray in his hand, I had learned from Lucy, was to carry the calling card of any visitor to the master or mistress of the house.

“A journalist, my lady.” He bent slightly, though it could not be called a bow.

“We are not receiving journalists, as you know, Pressman. Send him away.”

The butler hesitated.

“Was there something else?” asked Marjorie.

Mr. Pressman turned to me and proffered the card upon the tray. “The gentleman is asking most particularly to speak with you, Miss Morton, or with Master Perot. He tells me that you are well acquainted.”