AN EPILOGUE
“CAN YOU EVER forgive me?” said Marjorie to James, on the first day of the new year, 1903.
“What have you done that must be forgiven?” James embraced her as she pressed her cheek against his chest.
“For allowing the wicked Kitty Cartland to manipulate me into inviting the nearly as wicked Sebastian Mooney to Owl Park! Our first Christmas together! What a dreadful way to start.” When she lifted her face, it displayed the indent of one of his jacket buttons.
“I should have seen it!” cried Marjorie. “She tricked me.”
“You wanted to think the best of her,” said James. “How could you have known? Didn’t you say ‘Poor Kitty,’ and ‘Who could ever imagine that awful Oinks would grow up to be so lovely’?”
“She made me almost think that she’d changed,” said Marjorie. “But frankly, Kitty was always pretty awful. I expect I was a bit of a pill myself. I suppose I thought if I’d grown up and become nicer, she likely had as well.”
“You became very nice indeed,” said James, kissing her on the button spot.
“But will your mother ever say out loud that she forgives me?”
James laughed. “My mother has much higher standards than I do,” he said. “As all mothers seem to have.” He kissed her again. “As you must now remember.”
Marjorie hugged him and turned sly eyes to me. “We meant to tell you on Christmas morning, Aggie, but our plans went awry. We have wonderful news. You are to be an aunt! And Hector an honorary uncle, naturellement!”
An aunt! A baby! Could anything be better than this?
“Does Mummy know? And Grannie Jane?” I said. “Oh! But Grannie was knitting something very small and white!” Of course she knew!
“Grannie knows and so does Mummy,” said Marjorie. “She is the happiest mummy in England.”
“Or possibly the second happiest,” said James. “We told my mother this morning, and she smiled so widely I was afraid her ears might pop off the sides of her face. That smile is quite out of practice, you may have noticed.”
“You’ll be happy to hear, Aggie,” said Marjorie, “that I told Lady Greyson I hoped I could turn to her for help. I said that her own record of motherhood is stellar, what with James being the loveliest man on earth…” She stopped there because he kissed her again.
“My sister’s all right too,” said James.
“I think she was tickled,” said Marjorie, “that she might be useful, instead of simply old Lady Greyson.”
“We will have a nanny too, of course,” said James.
“And an aunt,” I said. “A supremely, divinely, ecstatically happiest aunt.”
“Perhaps you don’t want to talk about this,” I said to Hector, later, “but I have a question…”
I’d been fiddling with a poem in my notebook. He was using the new pencils from his stocking to draw the new torch from my stocking.
“Oui?” said Hector.
“Our guess was that Mr. Mooney put you into that terrible packing case because you appeared unexpectedly, and he was afraid you’d notice Mr. Sivam imprisoned in the motorcar.”
Hector was nodding. “This is true.”
“So…logically speaking…what do you think he was going to do next?”
Hector colored in a beam of yellow light coming from the torch in his drawing.
“Why does he not kill me?” said Hector. “I spend much time considering this question. I believe that he is merely a thief, not a killer. When all this begins, he loves Kitty and he loves jewels. He hopes to take both these loves and find a new life far away. Perhaps he plans for the packing case to fall from the caravan in a distant town. Inside is a confused foreign boy who will not say anything sensible to the person who finds him.”
“That might have worked,” I said. “Keeping two prisoners must have been a wearying enterprise…But killing you would have been so much harder. What to do with the bodies?”
“Indeed, bodies are troublesome,” said Hector. “This is likely the reason it does not occur so often, to have multiple corpses in the same house.”
“Not in an ordinary house…” I said. “But it nearly happened here. First Mr. Corker, and then Stephen so badly hurt, even though he is himself again. And you, and Mr. Sivam…I can’t bear to think of it.” I shivered.
“It would make a good story, though,” I said, after a few minutes’ consideration. “A houseful of people trapped together with a murderer because of a snowstorm, or on an island, maybe. The guests are all invited to a weekend party because the host carries a grudge against each of them. And one by one they die horrible deaths, not knowing who to blame…”
“This host you describe is demented,” said Hector. “Not, I think, a good description of Lord Greyson.”
I laughed. “The only person James gets cross with is his mother. But only cross, not actually murderous.”
We were quiet for a moment. Perhaps Hector was thinking of his own maman. I certainly was thinking about Mummy and had a surge of longing to see her.
Luckily, we would travel home tomorrow.
I turned back to my notebook. “I am trying to think of a rhyme for sanguinary,” I told him. “For bloody, there’s muddy or ruddy. For knife, there’s life. For blood, there’s thud or flood…or cud, but how to fit a cow into a bloodthirsty poem?”
“Sanguinary,” said Hector. “Must it be used at the end of the line?”
TORQUAY VOICE
DECEMBER 30, 1902
LATE EDITION BREAKING NEWS!!!!
CHRISTMAS CORPSE UPDATE!!!!
A SECOND ARREST!!!!
KITTY SHOWS HER CLAWS
by Augustus C. Fibbley
Further to the Case of the Christmas Corpse, a second vile person has been arrested. Yesterday this newspaper reported the violent yet successful apprehension of the actor Mr. Sebastian Mooney at the manor house of Owl Park, accused of murdering his former friend and colleague Mr. Roger Corker. A further confession has made clear that it was not he who performed the assassination. Mr. Mooney’s troupe, recommended by a friend of the family, was hired by Lady Greyson, formerly Miss Marjorie Morton, to perform tableaux for the household on Christmas Eve. This friend is now revealed to have been no friend at all, but a partner-in-crime with the notorious Mr. Mooney.
Mrs. Lakshay Sivam, née Katherine Cartland, known to her intimates as Kitty, used her claws to lacerate the fabric of the Owl Park family holiday celebrations. She appears to have masterminded the theft of the legendary Echo Emerald, and when her plan went awry, viciously attacked Mr. Corker with a paper knife and left him to bleed on the carpet. The bronze-handled dagger, discovered in the victim’s back, was placed there merely to confuse the police—morbidly symbolic of the villains’ betrayal?
Mrs. Sivam’s estranged husband, Mr. Lakshay Sivam, was also a victim in this mendacious game, being drugged, bound and robbed. His rescue was devised by the enterprising children, Miss Aggie Morton, Master Hector Perot and Miss Lucy Chatsworth, guests of Lord and Lady Greyson. Mr. Sivam is once more, though temporarily, in possession of the stolen gem.
The temple from whence the jewel was removed, early in the last century, has gratefully acknowledged Mr. Sivam’s mission of restoring the statue of the goddess Aditi to her original glory. The monks have no intention of prosecuting Mr. Lakshay Sivam, as he is acting immediately and honorably to return the missing property upon learning of its existence. A copy of the emerald will remain in Mr. Sivam’s private collection.
This woeful episode has been brought to a close by the dogged resolve of Detective Inspector Thaddeus Willard and his team. D.I. Willard has proven to his detractors that creative thinking as well as tenacity and reason are essential elements to the successful outwitting of crime.
A happy footnote to the central story is that Miss Annabelle Day [third member of the beleaguered acting troupe so blighted by its time at Owl Park] has announced her retirement from the stage as a result of this harrowing episode. She is to be married in April to Sergeant Charles Shaw of the Tiverton constabulary and will remain in the vicinity.
TELEGRAM
GREAT THANKS FOR KINDNESS IN TIME OF TREMENDOUS UPSET STOP RECOVERY OF EMERALD HIGHLY VALUED BY MYSELF AND ALL MY COUNTRYMEN STOP WILL SAIL FOR CEYLON ON 21ST JANUARY STOP MAY YOU BE REWARDED WITH SERENITY FOR TREATMENT OF YOURS TRULY COMMA LAKSHAY SIVAM
January 1, 1903
Dear Miss Morton,
I am writing to thank you for your understanding on my recent visit to your sister’s home. Although the circumstance—the murder of Mr. Roger Corker—was unspeakably distressing, your kindness and discretion turned a difficult time into a rewarding one. I do not know what my future holds, but I will hope our paths may cross again.
With affection,
B. Truitt
January 3, 1903
Dear Marjorie,
This is to tell you that we arrived home safely. Mummy and Tony are both delirious to see us. Tony wagged his tail for an hour, and Mummy would have too, if she had a tail.
Thank you for inviting us, including Hector, to your lovely home at Owl Park. I had a marvelously stimulating holiday. I am very, very, very happy to become an aunt. I hope your baby will grow up to like teapots and owls and macaroni in cheese sauce and good stories.
I have written for her (or, I suppose—2nd choice—for him) a poem to tell about our week.
ODE TO CHRISTMAS, 1902
Outside, the snow fell soft and white
Near magical in pale moonlight
Within the walls, another mood
An actor slept, his feet un-shoed
A villain lurked with vengeful heart
And soon did play her wicked part
Vicious wielding of a knife
Robbed the actor of his life
He fell a-bleeding with no sound
Lay ’neath the bookshelves, on the ground
The sanguinary scene was fraught
A peaceful Christmas it was not
But when the evil crime was solved
A sweeter tale of love evolved
Owl Park’s now home to splendid news
This aunt shall have a darling muse!
With love,
Your Best sister,
Aggie C. Morton