CHAPTER 36
A SERIES OF CONCLUSIONS
MARJORIE CAME INTO the breakfast room fresh from a bath and smelling like chamomile.
Sturdy horses had just pulled the police wagon slowly into sight from behind the manor, trundling sedately over the shoveled drive.
“Here you all are,” Marjorie said. “As if you’re in a theater box, watching a melodrama.”
“Have a seat,” said Grannie Jane, patting the chair next to her.
“James and his mother are here as well,” said Marjorie, gently warning us before they appeared.
“I have come to witness the end of this miserable episode for myself,” said Lady Greyson.
We fussed and quickly rearranged chairs in front of the wide windows, so as not to miss the farewell.
Swaths of black crape had been draped from the corners of the wagon’s roof, to alert onlookers to the solemnity of the vehicle’s contents. Dr. Musselman sat up front with the driver, wearing a top hat. He had offered to accompany the deceased on his final ride, as Miss Truitt was nowhere to be found. Old Lady Greyson and Hector stood up out of respect, so the rest of us did too. It was not a funeral cortege, but it was the best poor Mr. Corker would get—especially as his fraudulent sweetheart, in her reporter’s guise, was striding behind the moving wagon, scribbling notes.
“Has anyone noticed,” said Lucy, when the sad parade had disappeared from sight down the long drive, “that four days have gone by and we have yet to open our socks from Father Christmas?”
“Goodness,” cried Marjorie. “Do you suppose the stockings are still sitting where they were stashed a week ago?”
“The mice will have eaten all the sweets,” James said.
“I wish you wouldn’t tease, Uncle James,” said Lucy. “Where were they stashed?”
“I believe the rule is,” said old Lady Greyson, in an almost-kindly voice, “that you need to find the next clue.”
“Will you please just tell us?” said Lucy.
“Certainly not,” said her grandmother. “The stocking hunt is a treasured tradition at Owl Park and must not be disregarded.”
“Who do you suppose made the hunt for your mother and me when we were little?” James asked Lucy.
Lucy cocked her head to inspect her grandmother with closer interest.
“Where did you leave off?” said old Lady Greyson.
Beside a pirate lying in a pool of blood, I thought, catching Hector’s eye.
“In the library,” said Lucy.
“We are about to look at the letter C in the dictionary,” said Hector.
Lucy’s eyes lit up. “Please excuse our rapid departure, Grandmamma, Aunt Marjorie?”
A rapid departure ensued.
The dictionary waited on its stand as if nothing unusual had ever occurred nearby. Lucy flipped through the pages so eagerly there was a risk of tearing. Between celebrate and ceremony was a paper the size of a visiting card with a new poetic clue.
Perhaps you are thirsty
And want a hot drink.
Will you fill a small trunk,
While you have a good think?
“A small trunk?” said Hector. “I am having enough of small trunks, no thank you.”
“Not that kind of trunk, silly,” Lucy said. “It has to do with hot drinks.”
“Follow me!” I cried. I led them straight to the morning room, and across the carpet to the cabinet where the teapots were kept.
“Perhaps you are thirsty?” I said. “And want a hot drink?”
“Aggie, you’re brilliant!” said Lucy.
“Very clever,” said Hector.
Inside the elephant teapot to the left—rolled into his small trunk—was the next clue.
In here it is gloomy.
Spiders frolic and spin.
When chilled from the Avon,
Let the fire begin.
“There is only one Avon in Owl Park,” said Lucy, leading the way.
“Spiders?” Hector’s brow crinkled in distaste.
“It can’t mean real spiders,” I said. “Can it?”
Inspector Willard’s table and chairs sat waiting to be moved away by the footmen. There had been no fire in the grate since yesterday’s arrest of Mr. Mooney, but a tower of firewood sat on the tiled hearth.
“When chilled from the Avon,” repeated Lucy.
“Let the fire begin!” I cried. “We should have known at once, with all the logs heaped outside the cupboard.” I stepped over to my old hiding place and pulled open the door. “Voilà!”
Barricaded from the passage side by a carefully laid camouflage of kindling—I’d been lucky not to tread on them!—were our wonderful, lumpy, knitted stockings.
We had just rejoined the others, exclaiming at the cleverness of their clues, when Pressman appeared to alert my sister that Miss Day would be departing shortly and wished to have a word. She was waiting in the morning room.
“Come with me, Aggie,” Marjorie said. We left the others and went along for another goodbye.
“Thank you for seeing me, your ladyship,” said Annabelle. She looked at me with the glimmer of a smile. “Good morning, Miss Morton.”
Her face was scrubbed clean, her hair swept back in a low knot. She wore a plain gray dress as if she were playing the part of a nurse or a nun.
“I understand that Mr. Sivam is regaining his health more quickly than the doctor expected. That is good news, and perhaps due to the good care you seem to offer all your guests,” said Annabelle. “I want to thank you for your kindness to me, and your patience with all of this, Lady Greyson. And for making arrangements with the school in Tiverton to accept our caravan full of props and costumes in the new year. And for feeding me! Even when you all thought I was crooked, and—”
“Oh, Miss Day,” said Marjorie. The injustice of Annabelle’s situation was like a fishbone in her throat, I knew. “You were wrongfully accused and kept confined. I would not be so gracious in the same circumstance.”
“I have a confession to make,” said Annabelle. She wrung her hands and looked at the fire and took an age to continue. “I had a horrible suspicion about Sebastian from the first moment I saw Roger lying there in a pool of blood. I pretended to faint, so that I could talk to him before I said or did anything in public that might lead to more trouble.”
“Goodness,” said Marjorie.
“That was acting?” I said. “You were very convincing.”
Annabelle shot me a half-smile. “Sebastian carried me upstairs, where I meant to learn the truth. But then Mrs. Sivam was there too, so I had to keep pretending that I was conked out.”
She sighed. “None of it seems real. We came as a merry band of troubadours, playing make-believe for our livelihood. I’m leaving with one friend dead and the other suspected of his murder. How can I…” Her poise faltered as her eyes welled. She shook her head so hard that tears flew, one landing on my hand. Marjorie and I both put our arms around her to make a warm and awkward embrace.
“The thing is…” Annabelle pulled away. “I’ve been thinking about Mrs. Sivam pacing about my room while I lay on my bed, pretending to be in a dead faint—”
A tap at the door and the butler spoke. “Sergeant Shaw is here to accompany Miss Day to the rail station, my lady. She’s catching the four fifty to Paddington and the snowy road will make the going slow.”
“Thank you, Pressman,” said Marjorie.
Annabelle used a hankie to dry her eyes. “I wish I’d met Miss Truitt,” she said. “It’s dreadful that Sebastian chased her off, while she has no one to share her anguish.”
“Goodness, I feel the same way,” said Marjorie. “Please let us know if you locate her! We’ll provide a stone for the poor man, but I’d like to give her—”
“I expect Miss Truitt has gone away,” I said. And will not be seen again.
“My lady,” said Pressman. “The train.”
Annabelle left. Marjorie stoked the fire and settled down to think about tomorrow’s menus.
I went to find Hector and Lucy, who were playing Schoolmaster in the conservatory. Lucy was keeping score using the pencil and notebook from her stocking. Hector wore a stupendous false mustache, which I knew Marjorie had ordered for him especially from a theatrical costumer, at my suggestion.
Grannie sat knitting on a bench, apparently ignoring them.
“Who was Henry the Eighth’s third wife?” said Lucy.
“Jane Seymour,” said Hector. “In what country is invented the saxophone?”
“How would I know that?” said Lucy. “Awful, squawky thing. Hello, Aggie. How did it go, saying goodbye to Miss Day?”
“It was sad,” I said.
Hector tugged off his mustache. “It tickles,” he said. “I will trim for better comfort.”
“Where was the saxophone invented?” I asked.
“In Belgium, naturellement,” said Hector. “Also, roller skates and cricket—though the English, they argue with this claim.”
“I should think so!” said Lucy, hands on hips. “It is our national sport!”
“Hector knows everything,” I reminded her. “Not wise to play Schoolmaster with someone who has all the answers.”
“Alas,” said Hector, “I am occasionally confounded by certain matters, such as the mystery of the Echo Emerald.”
“Stop worrying,” said Lucy. “Mr. Mooney has practically confessed to stealing it!”
“And yet,” said Hector, “we do not know where it is. How does he steal a jewel and still not possess it?”
Grannie’s needles stopped moving for an instant before continuing without quite the same racket.
“I agree,” I said to Hector. “We have too many wrong-shaped pieces in this puzzle.”
“Mr. Mooney is eating soup when Stephen is pushed,” said Hector. “Who does the pushing?”
“Mr. Corker’s boots fly magically away from his body,” I said, “and land upstairs. He is killed with one knife and stabbed with another.”
“Mr. Mooney is not arrived at Owl Park when a thief in the night attempts to steal the emerald,” said Hector. “Who is this thief?”
“Frederick?” said Lucy. “But didn’t the police decide he couldn’t have?”
“Maaaybe,” I said, “Mr. Sivam woke up in a strange house and decided—just the way Mr. Mooney guessed—to put the fake emerald in the fancy box and keep the real one in his pocket. Only he accidentally disturbed his wife while he was creeping around and she began to scream. He was too embarrassed to tell the truth. What do you think of that idea?”
“There was a boy in my church choir,” said Grannie Jane, “whose name was Arnold Hollow.” She peered at the row she was knitting. “Quite an apt name, if you had known him.”
She pushed stitches along her needle and got distracted counting them.
“Grannie?” I nudged. “You were telling us about Arnold?”
“Yes,” she said. “I was going to mention the imaginary bully.”
We waited.
“It suited Arnold very well to be the victim of an aggressor who had always just departed or who was waiting by the bridge out of our sight, you see? The bully often took the paper sack containing his sandwich, or threatened to make off with his cap after lessons.”
“But he wasn’t real?” I said.
“It took a long while for us to realize,” said Grannie Jane. “We would share our lunches, or walk him across the bridge all the way to his lane, and he would go his merry way until the next time.”
“He was hungry,” said Lucy.
“It is the boy’s method of having an extra portion of food?” said Hector.
“It was the boy’s method of having more than his share of attention,” said Grannie Jane. “Though why he elected to cringe for the sake of momentary pity, I do not understand.”
“Maybe he was lonely,” I said.
Grannie smiled and nodded. “Yes. A lonely boy who wanted so badly to have people care about him that he invented a threat.”
“Madame Morton,” said Hector. “This is a most useful observation.”
“I’m not certain I…” I said.
“If we think back…” He rubbed his temples with his fingertips. “If we look at only the facts, I believe there is no attempt to steal the jewel on the first night of our visit.”
“But that’s—” I caught myself before using the word impossible. Hector waited for me to catch up.
“If there was no attempt to steal the emerald…” I said, “that means Kitty Sivam was mistaken. She awoke from a nightmare and fancied there was an intruder lurking in the shadows of an unfamiliar room…”
“Or…” said Hector.
“Oh dear,” said Grannie Jane. The clicking of her needles had slowed down considerably. “Arnold Hollow.”
I closed my eyes, remembering what Marjorie had told me about a girl named Oinks who squealed and squalled about an intruder in the greenhouse who no one else had seen—so that she might feel the warm glow of attention.
“Or,” I said, “Kitty Sivam is a liar.”