Cold-Blooded Myrtle Read online

  The tram clanged past, churning the snow to bloomer-splattering slush.¶ It had a garland of evergreen swagged across its roof, and an advert of Father Christmas selling Pears’ Soap on the side.

  Truly, even I couldn’t say why I didn’t want to tell Miss Judson about finding Mum’s photograph at the shop. It might very well mean nothing—it could be a wild coincidence.

  Just like the Socrates note and the olives in the Display.

  “Very well.” The tram had passed, and Miss Judson kicked her bicycle back into motion. “If you won’t speculate about the case, then I shall have to do it myself. Assuming Mr. Leighton died from hemlock poisoning—”

  “Which is not proved.” Her usual lines popped out of my mouth, entirely unbidden. With a wordless growl, I bit my tongue.

  “Fair enough. If it was hemlock poisoning, did he poison himself, or was he poisoned by someone else? Mr. Leighton hardly seemed the sort of man to stage his own death right where all the children of the village would have a front-row seat.”

  “Miss!”

  “Secondly. The matter of the Display. Why choose to depict Olive Blackwell’s disappearance at all? That’s a mystery of its own, and it’s not very likely that he’d make that diorama and then happen to die on the very same night.”

  “It took him months to build it. He didn’t know he was going to be murdered,” I reminded her. Reluctantly. Every point she raised brought us closer to Mum. “Besides,” I argued, “I don’t think he was re-creating Olive’s disappearance. He just wanted to build the college. Before Olive and everything, Mr. Leighton did have a distinguished career there.” I took a breath. “It was the killer who moved all the people to the belltower, and then put the olives there so everyone would know.”

  “Exactly. Which tells us that someone must have known he was planning to build that display, and chose the most dramatic moment possible to poison him,” Miss Judson said. “Our killer—”

  “If there is a killer—”

  “—obviously has a sense of showmanship.”

  “A gruesome one,” I agreed, nose wrinkling.

  We had come in sight of Leighton’s Mercantile, and for a moment I felt a stab of—what? Not excitement. Not exactly. “I thought we were going to her house.”

  “Don’t be silly. Nobody was murdered at her house.”

  Miss Judson swung down High Street, hopped her bicycle over the curb, and coasted to an easy stop before the very same incriminating window we’d waited so eagerly for yesterday. The green baize curtains were drawn again, and the shop door had a handwritten placard, proclaiming, closed for business until further notice. I recognized Miss Judson’s precise handwriting.

  “Come on,” she urged—since I hadn’t even dismounted yet. “Don’t you want to know what happened?”

  And that, Dear Reader, was one question I definitely could not answer.

  Miss Judson rapped heartily on the door before pulling it open herself. “Good morning, Emily.” Her voice was crisp and bright, though not overly cheerful. She glided through the shop and turned up three lamps, filling the space with warm light.

  The shop seemed even lonelier than yesterday, too still and cold and quiet. Someone had put away the chair and barrel where Mr. Leighton had died, but the very emptiness of the spot felt ominous. I kept looking that way, unable to help myself.

  Mrs. Leighton sat in the shadows, hands limp on her knees. She was so motionless that for a moment my heart jolted into my throat in panic. Not again—!

  “Oh,” she said, as if that one word took all the effort she could summon. Her crinkly blue eyes looked blank and glassy.

  “Tea,” Miss Judson said. “Hot. Strong.” With her nudge, I scurried to the back rooms where we’d seen Mrs. Leighton make tea before. I lit the hob and set the kettle on, rummaged about and produced a tin of tea—not their best, I Observed with a sad little pang; if ever there was a time for Really Good Tea, this was it—and found clean cups and saucers. What else? If Cook were here, she and Miss Judson would also find something sweet and bolstering—of course. The gingersnaps. And in the Billy Garrett stories, people were always handing around flasks of brandy in times of crisis.

  I decided that was outside my purview. I checked the progress of the kettle (nil), then peeked back into the store to see that Miss Judson had coaxed Mrs. Leighton out of the draft, found her shawl, and steered her into the warmer, less gloomy, less-recently-occupied-by-dead-husbands kitchen space.

  I found myself wishing for Peony. This would be a moment in which she would excel, being a superlative source of comfort. Miss Judson could briskly take charge, Peony could purr and knead and cuddle—and I? I stood here like a ninny, wondering what to do.

  Except I knew what to do. Or what I should be doing, at any rate. I should tear the little shop apart, tea-tin and coffee barrel, leaving no sugar loaf or butter crock unturned, searching for any clues the police had missed. I should dig into Mr. Leighton’s—Professor Leighton’s—books and papers, to find any notes about Olive Blackwell or Mum.

  I should be Investigating.

  The teakettle fluted at me, and I wrapped a towel round the handle and toted it to the table. Mrs. Leighton rose to her feet to gently wrest the vessel from my grip and supervise the production of the tea.

  I glanced around, still feeling useless, but caught Miss Judson’s eye again.

  “Emily, have you fed the boiler?”

  “I can do it,” I volunteered. I didn’t hear the rattle-clank of the radiators kicking in, so Miss Judson was right and it was probably out of coal.

  Mrs. Leighton started, again. “Oh, Basil always does that—” And then she remembered, and sat back down abruptly, gripping the teapot with white knuckles. “You’ll burn yourself, child.” The words sounded forced, and I took a halting step toward her, meaning to—what? Tell her everything would be all right?

  Miss Judson came to our rescue. “Myrtle is very sensible. We need not worry that she’ll get burned.” A Significant Tone to her voice suggested other possibilities were likely, but that she was releasing me all the same, and woe betide whatever mischief I might bring upon myself.

  “I’ll be careful.” I was looking at Mrs. Leighton, but she wasn’t the one I said that to.

  We were getting rather a lot of practice at this—Miss Judson comforting while I Investigated. (I filed that consideration away for later, unsure precisely what to make of it.) She might just be shuffling me out of the way, but sending me into the secret-infested cellar of a murder victim with a deep dark past seemed a curious way of accomplishing that. Still, I had questions about Mum, questions there was no way to ask Mrs. Leighton, and answers to be found, perhaps, among Professor Leighton’s past. I could only hope he’d stored them neatly in his basement.

  The door stuck, and a dry musty smell crept up from the gloom when I yanked hard, revealing a deep cavern of black.

  “Take a lamp, Myrtle. There’s no gas down there.” Mrs. Leighton was on her feet—tea and Miss Judson were a particularly revivifying combination, as I had cause to know well. She lit a small oil lamp, which I balanced precariously in one hand, trying not to topple its glass globe, while hanging on to the railing for dear life.

  The stairs were tight, narrow, shallow, backless, and seemed ready to propel me into the black depths of the Leightons’ cellar. I edged my way down, steeling myself not to jump and fling the lamp away should a massive shadow abruptly loom before me—a cast-iron boiler or the coal hod.

  Or a murderer.

  Peony. I should always bring Peony. She would be utterly fearless in such a scenario.

  Her ability to see in the dark would not go amiss, either.

  Shadows loomed, leaping away from the light, but revealed themselves to be no more alarming than old crates and empty flour barrels. The cellar was as pin-neat as the rest of Leighton’s Mercantile, not a speck of dust or cobweb to be seen. The space was lined with shelves and dominated by a massive, im
provised worktable, a huge sheet of wood laid across trestles. And on that table, the remains—or the origins—of Mr. Leighton’s grand Displays.

  I crept closer, mission to the boiler momentarily abandoned. Pots of paint, crocks of tools, and every manner of miniature building, conveyance, and Swinburnian (including a flock of crows whose slick black paint job had been permanently interrupted) littered the tabletop. The figures were cast from lead in tiny clay molds, then carefully sanded and painted. Buildings were constructed from wood or clay or tiny building-bricks glued together. It even appeared as though he’d been experimenting with miniature electrified streetlamps (an amenity the real Swinburne did not enjoy).

  But he’d never had the chance to finish it all. Because someone had finished it for him. Glumly, I pulled out his cracked and stained stool and settled myself on its spinning seat. I set the lamp on the table between a lumberyard of matchstick planks and a woolen snowdrift and, shoulders hunched, studied the scene. Mounted to the table was a sturdy magnifier, through which Mr. Leighton would have done the fine detail work on his miniatures. For some reason, this year, Mr. Leighton had sat here, months on end, deciding to re-create the darkest incident from his own past.

  I did not see any clues among the figures and building materials left behind. I picked up a discarded figurine, a Roman soldier in his red cape and brushed helmet (individual strands of horsehair painstakingly affixed). I wondered how he was meant to fit in among the local English villagers dressed up for Christmas.

  A rattle from upstairs stirred me from my reverie, and reminded me of my errand. With a sigh, I abandoned Mr. Leighton’s workshop, shoveled a scoopful of coal into the furnace, and headed back to the others.

  Upstairs, Mrs. Leighton fiddled with the tea service, straightening napkins and spoons, while Miss Judson examined the Display. She had her sketchbook out, recording the scene. The police hadn’t made any special efforts to preserve or collect the evidence, and the well and the olives were still in place. I leaned in, trying to make the snowy landscape and brick tower give up some answers. A smudge of black marred the snow beneath the wishing well and wisps of the woolen snow stuck to its brick surface. The killer must have placed it there while the paint was still wet.

  “Your husband’s workmanship truly was extraordinary,” Miss Judson said. “I think he outdid himself this year.”

  A small, hopeful sniff arose from Mrs. Leighton.

  “What made him decide to do the college?” It was remarkable, how Miss Judson managed to ask that tactfully.

  “The anniversary,” Mrs. Leighton said, a hint of pride in her voice.

  I spun round. “Of—?”

  “Of Schofield College,” she said. “Fifty years since the founding, you know. Oh, he was so proud, even now.” The sniff was less hopeful this time.

  Miss Judson slipped back to her. “Had anything been troubling Mr. Leighton recently?” she asked, voice gentle.

  “Do—do they think it was suicide?” She’d asked that same question yesterday.

  “What would make you think that?” Miss Judson inquired. “Had he been despondent or melancholy?”

  Mrs. Leighton shook her head. “No, in fact he was busy with plans for the expansion of the shop. Talked about installing electricity, maybe even a telephone. Bring us into the modern age!” She attempted a choked, experimental chuckle that ended in a sob. “But, that note, and the Display—” Her hand waved vaguely toward the window. “What else can I think?”

  I stepped forward, and gingerly suggested, “Perhaps someone wanted to hurt him?”

  Mrs. Leighton’s gaze wheeled slowly to mine, eyes narrow and considering.

  “Did he have any enemies?”

  Miss Judson did not forestall me. Mrs. Leighton stirred her tea, stirred and stirred and stirred, like she was never going to answer. Finally, not looking at either of us, she whispered, “I didn’t think so. Not anymore. But then the letters started coming.”

  Miss Judson wheedled the tea from her grasp. “Letters?”

  “He burnt them all before I could read them. Not that I could—they were in Latin.” She touched a stray springy pale red curl that had escaped her neat cap. She reminded me of an automaton winding down, and I felt I ought to give her key a few solid twists to keep her going. “You’ll think it strange, an uneducated woman, married to a man like that.”

  “Not at all.” Miss Judson’s voice was soothing. “You’re full of common sense and more clever than you let on. You might not have read the letters—but you suspected what they said.”

  “Yes.” Her voice was flat, firm, not lost at all. “They were dragging it all back up again—everything. Olive Blackwell, the society, everything.”

  “Why didn’t you take them to the police?” I couldn’t help myself, Dear Reader.

  Now she was scornful. “Them? You think they’d help us? Probably reveling in our misfortune even now. I begged him to leave, when it all happened—I have people in Lincoln, they need shops there, too—but Basil refused. Said he was Swinburne born and bred, and he’d die here.” With yet another sniff, the tears started again.

  Miss Judson patted her on the shoulder. I tapped my fingers on the table, pondering these letters.

  “Who do you think might have sent them?” I asked. “Could they have had—erm—ill intent?”

  “Ill intent?” Mrs. Leighton scoffed. “I know exactly who sent them. Not that I can prove it, mind. Of course not. Too clever for that, they were.”

  Miss Judson and I waited, but evidently Mrs. Leighton was expecting us to know as well.

  “Those Blackwells, of course!” The words were like a burst of steam from a pressure cooker. “Blamed my Basil for the disappearance of their girl. Weren’t enough to ruin his life back when it happened. Now they have to do it all over again.”

  Miss Judson and I both looked to the Display. We couldn’t help it.

  “They’re the ones who forced him out of Schofield, destroyed his fine career. But there was no proof he’d done anything to that girl.” She jabbed the table with her pointed finger. “No. Proof.”

  Miss Judson waited a few heartbeats before asking, “What did happen? What was Miss Blackwell doing in the belltower that night?”

  Mrs. Leighton shook her head. “No one knows! Basil wasn’t even there.”

  I reached into my bag and withdrew the photograph of Mum, and slid it slowly across the table. “This—I found this, yesterday. I didn’t have a chance to give it back, before.”

  Miss Judson’s habitual equanimity faltered, and she turned to me, wordless questions flooding her face, but Mrs. Leighton almost smiled. “That’s Jemima, isn’t it? Your own mum? She was a nice girl,” she affirmed fondly. “Not like the other one, Miss High-and-Mighty Blackwell. Not to speak ill of the dead.”

  “She’s dead, then?” That popped out automatically, like bubbles in boiling water.

  Her gaze was lost in the distance. “Disappeared, dead—what does it matter? She’s still taking her revenge on us, all these years later.”

  I studied the upside-down picture. “Is that the Mayor?” I pointed to a youthful fellow in a campaign jacket, wielding a shovel.

  “Think themselves so grand, the way they put on airs. As if they don’t owe my Basil anything for where they’ve got to in life. Came by here the other day, lording his new chain of office over us—I wouldn’t let him in, I wouldn’t. Good riddance to the lot of them, I say.”

  She rose and bustled about, gathering up the tea, indicating that this conversation was finished. As she lifted the photograph from the table, she gave it one last thoughtful look, then held it out to me.

  “You keep that,” she said. “He’d want you to have it. Your mum was one of his favorites.”

  Clutching the picture as we made our way back out to our bicycles, I realized I’d missed a prime opportunity to Observe Miss Judson’s potential holiday gift preferences. We’d been surrounded by the Wonders of the
Empire, but all our attention had been on the case. At this rate I’d never come up with anything!

  “Poor woman,” Miss Judson said.

  I whispered fiercely, “We have to help her.”

  Miss Judson was all agreement, but, “Kindly detail your plans for said assistance.”

  “Solving the professor’s murder, of course.”

  “Ah.”

  “What does that mean?” Really, these Socratic arguments, every time we encountered a case, were getting tiresome.

  She fixed her hat more firmly upon her head, wrapping her muffler tighter. “She’s already been through scandal once. Does she deserve to have that pain dredged up again, along with the grief of losing her husband and the trauma of his murder?”

  “The murderer already dredged it up! Wouldn’t she find comfort in knowing who killed her husband? And why?”

  She glanced back at the shop window, where the Display still showed villagers clustered about the Campanile, forever frozen in that anxious tableau behind the curtains. If the professor’s murder wasn’t solved, wouldn’t that scene continue, again, with a new generation of Swinburnians affected? But I could tell Miss Judson’s thoughts had moved beyond the Display, inside, to where Mrs. Leighton sat, worrying her tea.

  “It’s clear that her husband’s past is something Mrs. Leighton has put behind her, and wants no part of anymore.”

  I scowled, a mix of feelings stewing inside me. “What are we supposed to do, then? Don’t say go home and forget about it. Mum’s involved!”

  “You don’t know that.” Miss Judson’s voice was gentle, but firm. “The professor had hundreds of students. One picture—while curious and a bit thrilling, I’ll grant you!” Her eyes glittered with excitement, which warmed me a bit. “One picture of your mother does not constitute evidence of any connection between your mother’s collegiate past, Miss Blackwell’s disappearance, and Professor Leighton’s murder. That’s like saying you were involved because you bought your bootlaces there.”