Cold-Blooded Myrtle Page 7

  I stroked the sleek stitches of the dove’s wing. Mum’s portrait had the name of the photography studio stamped on it. Miss Judson’s sketches all said Ada J~ in a neat swoop in the corner. Even Mr. Leighton had signed his own Displays, after a fashion, always including a figurine of himself, somewhere, in the village—bespectacled and be-aproned and holding a paintbrush. But I hadn’t seen his miniature there this year, because another artist had signed it instead.

  Artwork. That’s what had been troubling me about the way Mr. Leighton had been found. He had been killed like Socrates, then artfully (if gruesomely) arranged, posed and placed in a tableau mort—a display of the dead.

  And the killer had signed her work. Like Mum with her little dove, she’d left her name right there for all the world to see.

  Olive Blackwell.

  *roughly the population of Northern England and some of the Netherlands, depending on wind conditions

  †Pinus sylvestris, the Scots pine, which had been transplanted as a seedling from its native Yorkshire. I had been helping Mr. Hamm, the gardener at Redgraves, tend it all fall—pruning, watering, and training the branches—in anticipation of its debut. After the festivities, it would move back outside once more, as it did not do well in the stuffy heat of an English parlor.

  8

  Window Dressing

  Although we have Her Majesty and Prince Albert to thank for the popularity of the Christmas tree, the first English tree was the inspiration of an earlier monarch. In 1800, Queen Charlotte, deciding that bedecking her castle with various disparate boughs of greenery was inefficient, opted to have an entire yew tree brought inside instead. —H. M. Hardcastle, A Modern Yuletide

  It turned out I was not alone in that insane deduction.

  The post-mortem report had been published in the Police Gazette, and Tuesday morning, the papers were saturated with rumors and headlines like missing girl back from dead to murder local shopkeeper. Or simply, olive blackwell lives!

  “It’s that Miss Shelley again,” Father said. “Peddling her sensationalist rubbish.”

  Imogen Shelley was the Swinburne Tribune’s newest reporter—and their first woman. She’d begun by writing advice and fashion columns, but her diverting and energetic prose had swiftly garnered the admiration of readers, and the respect of her editor. She was now covering the crime beat, and had, on occasion, been sharply critical of the police and the Magistrate’s Office. Which included Father.

  You could say, Dear Reader, that my father was not among Imogen Shelley’s most devoted fans. He flung the paper aside and (un)fairly attacked his soft-boiled egg.

  Overruling Father’s objections, Miss Judson slid the paper closer and read the article aloud.

  shopkeeper’s murder linked to mysterious disappearance: revenge from beyond the grave?

  The shocking murder of former professor Basil Leighton in his High Street shop last weekend appears to be the handiwork of a dead woman, if clues are to be believed. Inspector Hardy of the Swinburne Detective Bureau refuses to offer comment, but sources close to the investigation reveal that evidence recovered from the scene points to one Olive Blackwell as the culprit—the Schofield College student whose baffling disappearance nineteen years ago led to Leighton’s retiring in disgrace.

  We remind our Readers that Miss Blackwell’s case was never closed. Will Inspector Hardy be so careless this time?

  “Careless!” I cried. “Disgrace! How can she say those things about the professor and the Inspector?”

  “I don’t recall you being so outraged when she criticized me,” Father noted.

  Accompanying the text was a halftone portrait of Olive Blackwell herself, a small, round-faced, fair-haired girl with mischief in her eyes. I had to take a quick gulp of my tea to keep from exclaiming in surprise. She was in the Cornwall photograph with Mum! The look on Miss Judson’s face, watching me slobber all over myself, indicated that she had made the same realization.

  “It is intriguing,” she said. “Olive Blackwell, back from the dead? It might be possible.”

  Father grunted.

  “They never found a body,” I reminded everyone unnecessarily. “Or any trace of her. And that carillonist thought she just ran away.”

  “That’s entirely different than being ‘back from the dead.’ That sort of hyperbole serves no purpose.”

  “It sells newspapers,” I pointed out, to a high clear laugh—abruptly cut short—from Miss Judson.

  “Well, there is that,” she agreed, meticulously buttering her toast while she continued to read.

  “You’re meeting with the Inspector this morning, right, Father?”

  He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “He’s not going to love this.”

  I kicked the legs of my chair. I wished I had something to offer him, that Miss Judson and I had found some evidence that pointed firmly to Mr. Leighton’s killer (someone less impossibly dead than Olive). But so far, we knew no more than the police.

  Father and I glumly returned to our toast and jam, while Miss Judson crisply turned the newspaper pages. “I don’t know why you’re still reading that,” he grumbled. “She has nothing new to say.”

  “Hmm,” she replied. “Then I suppose you won’t be interested in the dedication of the Basil Leighton Gallery at the museum this weekend.” With a perfunctory cough, she read:

  The tragedy has thrown a shadow over what was to be a great triumph in Professor Leighton’s legacy, but a spokesman for the Antiquities Museum tells the Tribune that the upcoming dedication of the new wing devoted to artifacts from Roman Britain, named in Professor Leighton’s honor, will continue as planned. The event, held in conjunction with Schofield College’s 50th Anniversary celebrations, will be Saturday evening, by invitation only, featuring Notable Speakers and local dignitaries.

  “A ceremony honoring Mr. Leighton? Why wouldn’t Mrs. Leighton mention that?” I said.

  “I got the feeling that her husband’s career brought back painful memories. Perhaps she has no interest in revisiting any part of it. My question,” Miss Judson continued, “is why your father hasn’t men­tioned it.”

  He froze, toast halfway between his plate and his mouth. “Well, er, I’m not—why would you think I knew anything about it?”

  “Come now, Mr. Hardcastle. This is the sort of event the best of Swinburne society will be invited to.”

  “Sadly, the Prosecuting Solicitor is not exactly one of Swinburne’s most estimable offices,” he said.

  “Yes, it is,” I objected. Father worked alongside magistrates and police detectives—the highest echelon of criminal justice in the village!

  “Be that as it may,” Miss Judson interposed, “I was in fact speaking of Aunt Helena. I imagine she has received an invitation.”

  Miss Judson was right. If this was an Exclusive Society Event, Aunt Helena was certain to have wrangled her way onto the guest list, no doubt trampling worthy Local Dignitaries along her way. I bit my lip, silently thought several Inappropriate Words, then said, “Do you think she would take us?”

  I sent Father off to work, still wishing I’d been brave enough to ask him more about the case. I had nagging questions I longed to pose to him—not that he’d answer any of them—yet could not bring myself to voice. What would I ask? How would I explain my interest, or my urgency?

  Instead, I mulled over my thoughts in the steamy kitchen with Cook, who was attempting to initiate me into the arcanum of English Christmas Cookery. Today’s lesson was the all-critical mincemeat, and I was stoning raisins. I am sorry to say, Dear Reader, this was not some Biblical torture, but simply the removal of their tiny pear-shaped seeds by rubbing them between my fingers, after soaking them (the raisins, not my fingers) in boiling water.

  “Raisins are a terrible thing to do to perfectly innocent grapes,” I grumbled, as the sticky heap before me grew.

  “Hush you, Young Miss. Mincemeat is Himself’s favorite, as you well know.” Sh
e brushed a strand of grey hair from her ruddy forehead with the back of her hand. “But your mum weren’t partial to them, neither,” she admitted.

  I rubbed another raisin nearly to death. “I don’t remember that.”

  Cook was overseeing the boiling syrup in which these raisins would be drowned. “Your mum, rest her soul, was the finickiest eater I ever did meet. Tested even my skills in the kitchen, let me tell you. No onion—”

  “I hate onion!” I exclaimed.

  “No,” Cook said with flat disbelief, and went right on with the catalogue of Mum’s preferences. “But she did love this mincemeat. Even give the receipt a tweak or two of her own, didn’t she?”

  “Really?” I tried to peer past Cook to the stained and faded card on which the recipe was recorded—but she artfully blocked my view with her stout shoulder. I was not adept enough to learn all her secrets yet.

  “Now chop those fine,” she commanded, handing me a wicked-looking knife whose heft and size explained the heft and size of Cook’s strong arms. I worked in obedient silence while Cook obliged me with more of her memories of Mum at Christmastime. When I judged the moment right, I gently steered the conversation.

  “What would Mum have thought of this ‘Olive Blackwell lives’ stuff?”

  Cook paused only briefly, then resumed her brisk stirring. “Now. What has you asking a thing like that?”

  “You have the newspaper in your apron pocket.”

  Cook’s florid face got even redder, and she yanked out the paper and swatted me with it. “It’s to wrap chips in for Himself’s tea.” She gave the boiling fruit a judicious glare, and, evidently satisfied, left it to its own devices and joined me at the table. “But seeing how it’s handy, it would be a shame for it to go unread.”

  Since Cook was responsible for ironing the ink dry on the newsprint, so Father wouldn’t accidentally wipe it on his shirt or waistcoat, I knew perfectly well she’d already read every column inch of every story on the subject.

  “Now, mind you, your mum never did talk much about her college days. Not to me, anyway. It wouldn’t have been proper. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t pick up a thing or two. She had a couple of school chums she used to get letters from, and Christmas cards, too.”

  “School chums—like who? Was there anyone in particular? Do you remember their names?” Was there someone she would trust enough to let blindfold her at the top of a tower?

  “It’s been years, Young Miss. Who could remember all that?”

  “You never forget anything,” I said boldly. “That recipe card’s a sham, and we both know it.”

  “None of your pertness, now.” But I could tell she was pleased. “Well, let me think on’t. There might be something. I might even still have her correspondence book about somewhere. One of those friends of ’ers was quite the world traveler. Always sending outlandish recipes for cactus leaf tea, or some such nonsense.”

  “Cook! Thank you!” I surprised her by flinging my arms around her. “I’ll even eat the raisins.”

  Cook was not my only Witness to interview that week. I was due to check in with Caroline Munjal about how her own Investigation was proceeding. Mrs. Munjal had recovered somewhat from her shock, and was more than happy to release us for an outing to town to go Christmas shopping. The Munjals were Hindu, but they bedecked their home like a scene from a Christmas card, and because of their position in Swinburne Society, exchanged gifts and tokens with nearly everyone in town. Therefore, Caroline and elder sister Nanette arrived at my house in the family carriage, toting a shopping list as long as Santa Claus’s.

  I was eager to discuss the case, but Nanette would instantly report back to their parents on any Unladylike Behavior Caroline and I committed. I needn’t have worried. The murder was all anybody was talking about. I had scarcely clambered aboard the open carriage and said hello to Hobbes, the coachman, before they drew me into their discussion.

  “Myrtle’s clever, let’s see what she thinks.” Nanette plunged me right in. She was a plump, pretty girl with glossy black hair caught up in a fashionable winter hat. “Do you think it’s true? Olive Blackwell has come back and killed Professor Leighton?”

  “Don’t be a goose, Poorvi.” Caroline’s voice was sharp on her sister’s nickname. “You heard what Father said at breakfast.”

  “Yes, but you saw the newspapers,” Nanette insisted. “They’re saying that Olive Blackwell has been in hiding all these years, and she came back to murder Mr. Leighton. It’s right out of Otranto* or Udolpho!”† Nanette shared our taste in sensational fiction, with an extra emphasis on the supernatural and gothic. “Her ghost has returned to seek her revenge! What if she’s back to kill off everyone who had a hand in her murder?”

  “Maybe you’re right.” I turned her theory over in my mind as we jangled along the streets. “Well, not about the ghosts, but about the motive. Caroline, were you able to find out—why your mum was so upset?” I stopped myself before asking if she’d charged into her father’s private office to search for secret files. “Or what the Mayor wanted the other night?”

  Caroline chanced a quick glance at her sister. “Not really,” she said carefully. “I thought maybe it had . . . something to do with when they were at college?”

  Since that was self-evident, she, too, must’ve been hedging for Nanette’s sake. So I contributed what Miss Judson and I had discovered from our visit to the Campanile, filling them both in on the secret society.

  “Hadrian’s Guard,” Nanette supplied unexpectedly. “That’s what it was called—that college club Father was in. Well, it was in Latin, um—” She struggled to produce the words, but they were right on the tip of my tongue.

  “Cohortis Hadriani. My mum had a lead soldier—a Roman soldier—with that on it.”

  Caroline was nodding fervently. “Our father has one, too.”

  “Does it say 1874 on it?” I asked.

  “In Roman numerals?” Nanette clarified. “I don’t know what they say, though.”‡

  I sat back, trying to put these pieces together. Were those little soldiers some sort of grim trophy of whatever had befallen Olive Blackwell during a Hadrian’s Guard ritual at the Campanile in 1874? “Mr. Leighton had one, too. It was with all his miniatures for the Display.”

  “We need to find out more about this club! They must be the ones who killed Olive. Mayor Spence-Hastings was in it, too—”

  “How do you know that?” Caroline demanded.

  “They talk about it all the time whenever they’re over for dinner, all that reminiscing about the Good Old Days at Schofield College. Like the other night when he came over.”

  Caroline and I turned to stare at her.

  “What?” she said. “I heard everything. Well, almost everything. I got there late.”

  Caroline looked shocked. “Listening at doorways? That’s not very ladylike.”

  “Of course it is. How else are women supposed to learn anything about the foolish things men get up to?” Privately, I thought Nanette had a point.

  “Are you going to tell us or not?”

  Nanette smiled conspiratorially. “Well. I didn’t exactly catch everything they said, but the Mayor mentioned Olive. He said that Father owes him for something back then, and that he knows Father won’t let them down now.”

  “Who’s ‘them’?” I asked.

  “It must be Hadrian’s Guard. Those secret societies are for life. You know they make you take blood oaths.”

  “Poorvi!” Caroline said with exasperation. “What does Father owe the Mayor for?”

  “I didn’t hear that bit.”

  Caroline and I uttered matching groans. “Maybe LaRue knows something,” Caroline said. “You know how she is—it’s always ‘my father this,’ and ‘my father that.’ ”

  “My father killed Olive Blackwell?” I said it as a joke—but Caroline and Nanette stared at me in shock, followed by a grim, cool acceptance as the idea slipped in, settl
ed down, and stuck.

  When we finally arrived on High Street, Nanette headed straight for Leighton’s Mercantile, Caroline and me trailing behind. “Maybe she’s opened back up again. Mother likes that orange chutney she’s been carrying, and she asked us to bring back some candied dates for another fruitcake,” she said—fooling nobody. Although I gave myself a moment to consider how Miss Judson might like orange chutney.

  But at the shop, the doors were locked and the lights off, Miss Judson’s neatly lettered sign still in place.

  “That’s odd, though,” Caroline said. “The curtain’s open. You can see the Display.”

  An edge to her voice filled me with alarm, and I hurried to the frost-tinged window. The green baize curtains were spread wide. One oil lamp burned brightly above the model Swinburne—and someone had been rearranging the figures. The miniature crowd had moved on from the scene of Olive Blackwell’s tragic fall; indeed, the snowy streets were deserted.

  “What’s that?” Nanette’s voice was shrill, and she pointed one plump brown finger at the window.

  A lead figure was posed in the middle of the Display—a scantily clad woman in exotic, drapey clothes that exposed more skin than they covered. Nanette, properly equipped with fully operational Delicate Sensibilities, pressed a hand to her lips as blood flooded her cheeks. But she could not seem to look away.

  “Let me see.” I squeezed in and took in the scene, and instantly identified the miniature personage: her black hair and elaborate diadem, the gold bracelets stacked upon her arms, the jeweled collar at her neck, the dramatic green paint outlining her eyes. The tiny, richly patterned carpet she was half-wrapped in.

  “Wait, isn’t that—?” Caroline began—then we all spoke at once.

  “It’s Cleopatra.”

  And beside her, bold and striking against the artificial snow, the well and the olives. Olive Blackwell’s signature.