The Body under the Piano Read online

  ALSO BY MARTHE JOCELYN

  Viminy Crowe’s Comic Book (with Richard Scrimger)

  What We Hide

  Would You

  Folly

  How It Happened in Peach Hill

  A Home for Foundlings

  Mable Riley

  Earthly Astonishments

  The Invisible Enemy

  The Invisible Harry

  The Invisible Day

  Text copyright © 2020 by Marthe Jocelyn

  Illustrations copyright © 2020 by Isabelle Follath

  Tundra Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House Canada Young Readers, a Penguin Random House Company

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher—or, in case of photo­copying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency—is an infringement of the copyright law.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Title: The body under the piano / Marthe Jocelyn.

  Names: Jocelyn, Marthe, author.

  Description: Series statement: Aggie Morton, mystery queen ; 1

  Identifiers:Canadiana (print) 20190099070 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190099291 | ISBN 9780735265462 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780735265479 (EPUB)

  Classification: LCC PS8569.O254 B63 2020 | DDC jC813/.54—dc23

  Published simultaneously in the United States of America by Tundra Books of Northern New York, an imprint of Penguin Random House Canada Young Readers, a Penguin Random House Company

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2019907433

  Edited by Tara Walker with assistance from Margot Blankier

  Ebook design adapted from printed book design by John Martz

  Cover art © 2020 by Isabelle Follath

  Cover design by John Martz

  www.penguinrandomhouse.ca

  v5.4

  a

  FOR TARA

  Contents

  Cover

  Also by Marthe Jocelyn

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1: An Unusual Friend

  Chapter 2: A Flurry of Preparations

  Chapter 3: A Delightful Evening

  Chapter 4: A Ghastly Discovery

  Chapter 5: A Hullabaloo

  Chapter 6: A Probing Interview

  Chapter 7: A Sleight of Hand

  Chapter 8: An Awkward Moment

  Chapter 9: A Brief Instruction

  Chapter 10: A Glum Visitation

  Chapter 11: A Few Questions

  Chapter 12: A Sentimental Outing

  Chapter 13: A Letter and Another

  Chapter 14: A Scheme Is Devised

  Chapter 15: A Weary Messenger

  Chapter 16: A Profitable Exchange

  Chapter 17: An Unsettling Notoriety

  Chapter 18: A Clandestine Endeavor

  Chapter 19: A New Motive

  Chapter 20: A Furtive Encounter

  Chapter 21: A Matter of the Utmost Importance

  Chapter 22: An Alarming Arrest

  Chapter 23: A Bumpy Ride

  Chapter 24: A Painful Confession

  Chapter 25: A Bold Accusation

  Chapter 26: A Surreptitious Unmasking

  Chapter 27: A Troublesome Disagreement

  Chapter 28: A Lonely Scream

  Chapter 29: A Morbid Flotsam

  Chapter 30: A Red Herring

  Chapter 31: An Ugly Moment

  Chapter 32: A Final Explanation

  Author’s Note

  Sources

  Acknowledgments

  CHAPTER 1

  AN UNUSUAL FRIEND

  I WILL TELL FIRST about making a new friend and save the dead body for later. This follows the traditional rules of storytelling—lull the reader with pleasant scenery and lively dialogue, introduce a few appealing characters, and then—aha!—discover a corpse!

  The friend I found was not a nice young lady introduced by Mummy or Grannie Jane. He was a boy! A foreign boy. He was, to be truthful, a bit peculiar. But I determined to be open-minded, as potential friends did not often come my way. Except of the made-up sort. I had a whole schoolroom full of imagined girls and their fictional endeavors to occupy my solitary hours. I named them and clothed them, worried about their spats, and rejoiced in their reunions. But they did not ever think of me.

  A real person my own age was quite out of the ordinary.

  After my dance lesson late on a Saturday morning in October, I went into Mr. Dillon’s sweet shop downstairs from the Mermaid Dance Room on Union Street. Just as always, I took a moment to scratch the ears of Frostypaws, the shop cat. Just as always, Charlotte was with me. When would Mummy understand that a person of already-turned-twelve can get through an hour of life without a nursemaid?

  Charlotte and I lingered as the other girls from my dance class paid for their violet pastilles and buttermints and went home with their own unwanted nursemaids to their lunches. I preferred to make my selection in a considered manner, without needing to speak in front of anyone listening. An audience caused in me a dizzying panic. Mummy said that being shy was temporary, that someday I’d speak as easily to unfamiliar grown-ups as I did to Tony, my dog. But each time the words caught in my throat, someday felt further away.

  Because Charlotte was the one who carried the tuppence that Mummy allowed for sweets, she waited patiently for my decision—as she must, since it was her job to do so, and sometimes to wait on me, to keep me safe and to explain things that needed explaining.

  My sister, Marjorie, had gone to proper schools, but by the time it was my turn, seven years later, Mummy had developed certain notions about the education of children not like those of other parents. Children should roam free, she felt, though always close to home and under the steadily watchful eye of a nursemaid. Free-roaming bodies and brains would result in greater wisdom and well-being. This meant no school, no governess and no friends.

  I learned history and literature from Mummy and from books in Papa’s library. For natural science, I explored the garden. Going to All Saints Church every Sunday was for Bible stories and religious studies. I practiced dance with Miss Marianne, in the Mermaid Room, and played the piano and the mandolin with other lady teachers. Papa had been the one to teach me mathematics, but my skills in that area had faltered since last November when he died. I did not miss arithmetic, but I missed Papa with every breath. The Morton family, with all of England, had mourned Queen Victoria’s demise nearly two years earlier, but since then we’d learned the truth in our own house. Grief was a story with endless forlorn endings.

  None of my lessons, nor any of the books I’d read, had yet explained how the smallest occurrence might cause a tremendous impact on the universe. If I had chosen chocolate buds on that Saturday, as I usually did, instead of strawberry drops (in the jar on a higher shelf, reached only by using a stool)…And if Frostypaws had picked a different moment to pounce on her master’s bootlaces (dangling so temptingly from atop the stool)…And if the bell on the shop door did not announce customers with such a strident jangle (causing Mr. Dillon to twist around in surprise)…Hector Perot would not have walked through the door into the mayhem of shattered glass and scattered sweets, and we would have had no reason to speak to each other.

  At t
he time, I did not see that a sequence was unfolding. One never does. Afterward, it was clear how the moments piled up, each leading naturally to the next, quietly altering the course of things. At the time, however, in Dillon’s Sweets & Sundries shortly after noon, poor Frostypaws squawked like a chicken and fled behind the barrel of demerara sugar. Mr. Dillon had landed on his large behind, but waved us off as he struggled without success to regain a vertical position. Charlotte and I crept closer, using the toes of our boots to push shards of broken glass and cracked strawberry drops into a pile. The bell-jangling newcomer stood just inside the door.

  “May I be of assistance?” he asked.

  He had an accent that chopped his words with precision. His skin was near as pale as milk. Black hair was slicked flat on a head that seemed a bit large for his skinny body. He was tidily dressed in a navy blue sailor suit with an impeccably clean white collar.

  He was not as handsome as Leonard, the boy who worked in our garden and looked like a matinee hero on stage at the Royal Arms Theatre. But this boy’s eyes were very green and very bright, bringing to mind a glass of lime cordial.

  Eyes like lime cordial? Agatha Caroline Morton, can you not do better than that? Glittering emeralds? A new spring leaf? The tail feather of a peacock?

  “Give me a hand, will you, boy?” Mr. Dillon’s bottom was still planted on the floor amidst the glass splinters.

  The boy hurried over. I approached more slowly, worried that Mr. Dillon mightn’t like being seen this way. I should be mortified if it were I, stuck like a fat beetle not able to clamber up onto my own two feet. Though if I were a beetle, I’d have six feet and perhaps better balance.

  “I shall find a gentleman to help us,” said Charlotte. She set the bell a-jingle as she scurried into the street.

  But the boy was already gripping Mr. Dillon’s left wrist and elbow, attempting to heave him upright. I quickly seized the right arm and anchored my foot against the confectioner’s.

  “One. Two. Three!” I cried. “Pull!”

  “Un. Deux. Trois!” said the boy. “Tirez!”

  And up came Mr. Dillon, red-faced, whiskers quivering, his shop apron twisted and sweets crunching beneath his boots.

  “Well, now, I thank you.” Mr. Dillon straightened his apron and withdrew a handkerchief from its pocket. He patted his forehead and removed his spectacles to wipe moist eyes.

  Charlotte burst back through the door, leading a tall young man in uniform.

  “Oh!” she said. “We’ve come too late.” Flushed and breathless, she hastened to apologize to her recruit. “Mr. Dillon was on the ground when I went out to seek assistance, and I…It was the stool, you see. And the cat. I’m afraid I have bothered you for nothing, constable.”

  “It’s never nothing, miss.” Apart from a pink tinge to his cheeks, the constable was unruffled, and very kindly with Mr. Dillon. He made certain there were no broken bones and gave us his hearty congratulations for successfully rescuing the old fellow from the floor.

  “My name”—he appeared to be speaking to a jar of barley sugar on the counter—“is Constable Morris Beck. Should you require my services in the future.”

  Charlotte blushed and made a slight curtsy. “Thank you, sir. I am Miss Charlotte Graves, and this is my charge, Miss Agatha Morton.”

  I nodded hello.

  Constable Beck touched his helmet. “Pleased, I’m sure.” His face and Charlotte’s both were now the color of raspberry pudding. Poached salmon. Crousse peonies. Flamingo feathers.

  I glanced over at the strange boy. He raised one finely shaped black eyebrow. We were agreed! Never before had I been present during an interlude of Love at First Sight, but with that eyebrow, the boy appeared to indicate that we were witnessing exactly that.

  “Allow me also to introduce myself,” he said. “I am Hector Perot.” He bent stiffly forward from the waist in a little bow. I managed not to giggle. Certainly foreign! But likeable nonetheless.

  “Aggie Morton,” I said, and curtsied.

  The policeman muttered something about returning to his beat and bumbled his way backward to the door, making the bell ring yet again. Charlotte pretended not to watch his departure.

  “Well, now,” said Mr. Dillon. “I believe my rescuers deserve a reward.” He handed each of us an empty cone of paper. “Go on, fill them up,” he urged. “Choose whatever you like.”

  Strawberry drops, crushed to smithereens and swept into the bin, were no longer of interest. I picked caramels and chocolate buds and a small lump of fudge. Hector filled his paper to the top with black licorice pastilles.

  “Might I have a small box instead of the cone, monsieur?” he said.

  When Mr. Dillon produced one, Hector carefully placed his sweets in straight rows along the bottom.

  “You win now a loyal new customer,” he assured Mr. Dillon. “I am being here again, this I promise.”

  I was reluctant that another encounter with this boy be left to chance alone.

  “I am always here on Saturdays,” I said, with unusual vigor. I did not look at Charlotte. “At this same time.”

  “We shall meet then, upon another Saturday.”

  “We shall,” I said. “And perhaps we can devise a new method of attracting the police. What do you think, Charlotte? Without having anyone topple over?”

  CHAPTER 2

  A FLURRY OF PREPARATIONS

  I MIGHT HAVE SPENT the week yearning for Saturday to come again, hoping for renewed acquaintance with Hector Perot, but first there was Friday to fret about. Miss Marianne was hosting a concert in the Mermaid Dance Room. The name of the evening, and its intention, was Befriend the Foreigners. I had written a poetical tribute that I was meant to read aloud. All week I wished that Friday evening should never arrive, or else should be over and done. And yet here I was, with an hour to go, spinning around and around on the piano stool.

  Miss Marianne had given firm instructions as to how we should arrange the studio. I had already placed six sturdy crates along one side of the room, with Charlotte trailing close behind in case I stubbed a thumb or some other calamity. Our audience members this evening were to fill these containers with cast-off clothes and other useful items, later to be sorted and distributed to needy refugees and immigrants who had recently arrived here in Torquay.

  There seemed to be many reasons for people to travel far from home, some with only a small bundle of belongings. Several families had fled religious persecution or starvation in Russia, caused by the cruel neglect of their Tsar. A number of Belgians were here to avoid brewing turmoil under the dastardly King Leopold, and a few destitute lascar seaman awaited berths on ships back home to India.

  I had never yet seen a refugee, but the town simmered with talk, if a person stood about in the right places to hear it. Shops were ideal for eavesdropping, or the church vestibule, and certainly our own kitchen at Groveland, where Cook and Sally gathered endless tidbits from tradesmen and the servants from other households. It was generally discussed that visitors from other lands were frequently remiss in their bathing habits, and that they wore clothing incompatible with our English sense of fashion. Some liked spicy food and considered bread pudding and haddock to be inedible. As I, myself, was not enthralled by haddock, we perhaps shared a place to begin.

  “Miss Aggie?” Charlotte beckoned me over to assist in arranging chairs for the audience. When those were set, Miss Marianne provided festive cloths to drape over the piano and the piano stool. We put a plainer covering on the table where refreshments would be laid upon arrival from the Royal Victoria Hotel. The hotel had generously donated all the treats to be served, thanks to Florence Fusswell’s father being the general manager. This was only one of the reasons that Florence Fusswell thought she was queen of the evening. Another was her abundant yellow hair and pink skin and what she herself referred to as her rosebud lips. She busied herself straighteni
ng the chairs that Charlotte and I had already set out in perfectly tidy rows. Lavinia Paine, best friend and loyal follower of Florence Fusswell, stood next to the mirror, counting as she touched her fingertips to her toes fifteen times. Her dark plaits dangled and swayed like two scrawny cow’s tails switching away flies.

  I returned to the piano stool and began again to swivel.

  A large ladleful of my confidence drained away in the presence of girls so certain of themselves. I was perfectly able to utter my own opinion at home with my family or any of the servants. Or with intriguing foreign boys in sweet shops. But these prattling girls my own age made my words dry up. It was not the same as being shy with adults. I simply did not have a knack for silly chatter. I wished to know what people chose not to say aloud, what dark secrets simmered, and what might happen next. I sometimes took a certain pleasure in imagining misfortunes that might rain down upon Lavinia Paine or Florence Fusswell.

  I stopped spinning.

  What if the chair Florence was lifting at this moment were to fall and crush her toe? Would there be a gush of blood? Or might it be better that she suffer a clean fracture? The story possibilities flowered before me…

  Yes, to begin a tale of horror, I’d use a broken bone.

  The injured girl howled as her foot swelled and throbbed. She was driven in a rickety and bouncing cart to the Torquay Hospital where the surgeon declared that the toe—no, the whole foot—must be cut off! Incoherent with distress, Florence begged for mercy. As the surgeon lifted his knife, a nurse helped the trembling girl to escape. (The unnecessary amputation of an extremity seemed a bit cruel, even in a fiction created for revenge.) But the nurse, whose name was Ethelwin Smirke, concealed a dark intent. After forcing Florence to hobble, despite her injury, down two flights of crumbling stairs, Nurse Smirke imprisoned the sobbing girl in a cellar inhabited by a great number of hairy gray spiders, more than thirty, who had grown rather bigger than usual, due to their consumption of the rank and oily substance dripping from the rusted pipe that runs along the ceiling…