The Body under the Piano Read online

  “This is much skill,” said Hector.

  “Do another!” I cried.

  “I believe,” said Hector, “that your policemen are departing.”

  Indeed, the horses were tossing their heads and clopping away from the house.

  “Good-bye, Leonard!” I set off across the spiky yellowing grass at nearly a gallop, with Hector stumbling along behind.

  “Can we not travel along the path?” he called. “The dirt on my shoes is…”

  I kept running.

  “…Dirty,” he finished.

  “I’ve thought of something,” I said over my shoulder. “I must tell the inspector.”

  But the police horses had picked up speed. They were around the curve and gone before we’d reached the drive. My stockings drooped after running. I pulled them straight.

  “Why are you panting like an old dog?” I asked Hector.

  “I have no practice in scampering through the nature.” He plucked stray blades of grass from his trousers. “I wonder if your thought is similar to my thought?”

  “Here it is,” I said. “I do not believe Miss Marianne to be a murderess. I love her. I will vouch for her goodness, though I suppose that even heinous villains have friends who would swear to their innocence. But, also, she lives in the same house with the victim. If she were going to kill her sister-in-law, would it not be simpler to do so at home?”

  “Most certainly,” said Hector.

  “She could have mixed poison with cocoa and brought it to her in bed…Or she might have left a bucket on the cellar steps and let her tumble to the bottom to break her neck. Or stabbed her with a paring knife and said it was a cooking accident. Or tampered with her medicine, if she takes…if she took…” I trailed off. Hector’s eyebrows had lifted up to his hairline.

  “So many resourceful suggestions. I shall hope not to displease you.” He grinned. “But is it Miss Marianne who brews the tea?”

  “I expect so. It is her pantry.” Not an answer in her favor. “Was the poison in the teapot or in the sugar bowl, do you suppose?”

  “A question we must strive to answer,” said Hector. “Either way, at first glance, Miss Marianne is the most suspicious character.”

  “Then we’ve got to look deeper!” I said. “We must activate the friction in our brains to a frenzy. The inspector does not know Miss Marianne as I do and will not try so hard.”

  “For a moment, let us say that she is not the killer we are seeking,” said Hector. “She does not make a perfect accident happen in her home. She does not imagine that vanquishing her nasty relative will make life better.”

  “Well, she did do that,” I said. “But everyone else did too. Especially Rose. And even…” A smirking face came to mind. “Even Mr. Roddy Fusswell.”

  “If it is not Miss Marianne who performs the murder,” said Hector, “it means that someone else arranges for Mrs. Irma Eversham to drink the poison, yes?”

  “The poison must have been in the sugar bowl,” I said. “That’s why the inspector was so interested when I told him about the crest! The sugar bowl was only in the Mermaid Room because of Mr. Roddy Fusswell! That makes him awfully suspicious, don’t you think? More suspicious even than Miss Marianne?”

  “However the poison is administered,” said Hector gravely, “there is the important matter of why does it happen in the Mermaid Room? Why not at home with the cocoa? Does somebody know that Mrs. Eversham will be present to drink the tea on this particular Saturday?”

  My heart turned upside down inside my chest. “Mrs. Eversham had never visited before. Mr. Dillon said so, remember? No one could have known ahead of time. That means that either the killer saw her arrive, or…”

  Tony whined at my feet. A gust of wind brought a spatter of rain. Hector and I had come up with the same idea. This was precisely what I had wished to suggest to Inspector Locke.

  “Miss Marianne was the one who was always there. Alone, except during lessons,” I said. “Was it Miss Marianne who was meant to drink the poison?”

  CHAPTER 8

  AN AWKWARD MOMENT

  CHURCH ON SUNDAY MORNINGS was often a pleasant diversion, but on this day, Mr. Teasdale did not deliver one of his better sermons. He usually thumped and rumbled, which was much more elevating. He’d had to write this one quickly, I realized. If a person were murdered on a Saturday, the vicar was obliged to soothe his flock the very next morning, which must put dreadful pressure on his pious creativity.

  Some poor soul had taken a wrong turn, he said. Veered off the road to Heaven and tumbled into a pit of vipers. It fell upon the rest of us to show compassion to the lost, to those in darkness, to our brethren in need. The notion of our brethren in need allowed the vicar to move smoothly to his urgent invitation. Would we please adjourn to the church basement after the service to aid his effort for indigent strangers from foreign parts? He skipped right over the likelihood that the murderous lost soul in question was very possibly among these very parishioners. I cast an eye along the pews staring at each upturned face. Which of them might have wished Miss Marianne dead? Many in town thought she was a bit of a nut. She wanted corsets banned. She thought women ought to be allowed to vote. She thought all adults, whether they owned property or not, ought to be allowed to vote. She had never been married, which caused great suspicion among the other ladies, I’d noticed. Suspicion or pity. But how might any of that be reason to kill? Which member of our parish could be so disturbed by a spinster’s oddities? Everyone stood for a final hymn—“Behold! A Stranger’s at the Door!”

  My question had borne only further questions. Who? Why? How?

  * * *

  The basement of All Saints Church had been transformed into a street market, tables dragged into long rows. Ever-growing piles of useful offerings came not only from the Mermaid Room concert but from all over the parish, carried to All Saints in crates and baskets, boxes and bags, which now covered the floor. Women sorted and folded and stacked. Children scurried back and forth, carrying books or trinkets or teapots from one spot to another, helping to organize the offerings.

  “Thank you, Mr. Teasdale, for a heartening sermon,” said Charlotte. “And how gratifying to have received so many donations! You must be proud!”

  “Not proud, my dear, but humble in the face of such generosity.” Mr. Teasdale beamed, and then, remembering, looked grim instead. “And sorely tested by the evil we have so recently met,” he said. “I pray that no unknown foreigner has performed this despicable act.”

  Charlotte dodged that idea by proffering our services. “Let us help as we may today,” she said.

  I had already found a task, unpacking books and setting them up in rows. Mr. Teasdale’s prayer felt like a wasted one, in my opinion.

  “How and why would an unknown foreigner sneak into the Mermaid Room carrying poison?” I whispered to Charlotte, once the vicar had moved on.

  “Shush!” said Charlotte. “Do not think upon such things!”

  “All these boring books!” I said a moment later. “Why would a foreigner want to read one?”

  “To learn the English language, naturally,” said Charlotte.

  “But…” I held up a book to show gold lettering on the cover: The World as Will and Idea by Arthur Schopenhauer. “Surely a child’s primer would be more useful than this? Something with pictures, perhaps?”

  “Just dust them,” said Charlotte. “We are not here to question.”

  “But—”

  “Oh, good morning, Mrs. Teasdale,” said Charlotte.

  The vicar’s wife hovered like a seagull, waiting to pounce on any scrap she might spear with her beak.

  “Good morning, Miss Graves.” Her smile was always hard to discern because her lips were so very thin. “Good morning, Agatha.”

  “Mrs. Teasdale.” I bobbed my head.

  “You’ve had a shock
ing time,” she said to me.

  I bobbed my head again, it being easier to agree than to explain that finding a corpse was a stimulating sort of shock, rather than one of the unpleasant variety.

  “I was with Rose Eversham, you know,” said Mrs. Teasdale. “When she got word of her mother’s death. She was here helping to set up the tables and such.”

  Rose Eversham was in the church basement while her mother was being murdered?

  “That was good of her,” said Charlotte.

  That was lucky, I thought. She could not have done the dreadful deed. Not alone, anyway.

  “She did not help us with goodness in her heart,” said Mrs. Teasdale, “but as penance for using the Lord’s name in vain during choir practice. My husband is cunning when it comes to gathering volunteers for church functions.”

  I noticed then that the vicar’s wife seemed to be holding someone’s arm. A smallish someone out of sight behind her.

  “I’m sure Rose Eversham was grateful to be in a place of refuge when the news came,” said Charlotte.

  “I had my smelling salts ready,” said Mrs. Teasdale. “But they were not needed. The girl barely flinched. Her spirit is a briar patch, that one. If I were not a Christian, I would say she’d smiled when my husband spoke with her.”

  “A man of great insight,” said Charlotte. “No doubt he coaxed a smile of bravery with words of comfort.”

  “Have you met our visitor?” Mrs. Teasdale pulled on the arm, trying to bring its owner into view. “He has come to stay with us at the vicarage for a few months, so that we may set an example of charity to our parishioners. Our own little immigrant.”

  Hector!

  “Aren’t you, dear?” Her voice got louder when she spoke to him. I saw that Hector wished the stones of the floor would split open and swallow him into the earth below.

  “We’re waiting to hear whether the rest of his family will be joining him.” Mrs. Teasdale spoke extra slowly. “Belgium is quite civilized on the surface of things, but their wretched king has behaved so badly. I’m not surprised that Hector’s father has sent his son away for a time.”

  “Mrs. Teasdale,” I began. “I know Hec—”

  “Madame,” said Hector. “I have already the pleasure of—”

  “The schools in England are better, of course,” said Mrs. Teasdale. “Think what they might be teaching in a country where everyone speaks French!”

  “French or Flemish, madame,” said Hector.

  “Goodness, what have you got there?” She poked at the collection of things that Hector held in his arms. “Are those for your father, dear?” Her voice was loud to the point of being shrill. She tried to tug free a shiny black shoe from Hector’s collection. “These are quite impractical,” she said. “Shall I help you find something else?”

  “Non, madame. These are for me.”

  I’d seen those shoes dropped into one of the bins at the Mermaid Dance Room, the night before the murder. Hector might be the only person in Torquay who would consider them a treasure worth fighting for. They had found a good home! He also held a woolly green hat and a book.

  “A Study in Scarlet!” I said. “Sherlock Holmes is my favorite!”

  Hector smiled. “I am now to read in English,” he said.

  Mrs. Teasdale sighed and relinquished her grip on the patent leather shoe. She asked Charlotte to assist in moving a stack of table linens. I stayed by the books, immobilized by revelation.

  Hector’s jacket was neat and fit him well, with no visible patches. An English boy might be seen wearing the very same item. His hair was clean, his teeth bright and his manners good enough to have impressed Grannie Jane. His accent was odd but he did not smell of any exotic spice. Admittedly, my experience of boys was limited to those I saw in the street, or roller-skating on the Princess Pier. Hector was not especially different from any of those, aside from being clever and unusually polite.

  He liked sweets.

  He liked mysteries and read Sherlock Holmes.

  And yet, he was also a charity boy.

  His eyes held an urgent question. I guessed that he was wondering what I would wonder if we were to change places. Will you still be my friend?

  I nodded yes. Yes, yes, yes.

  His smile was wide, but lasted only a moment.

  He held up a folded piece of paper, pale blue and wrinkled. He beckoned me to watch closely as he carefully revealed its inner folds. It was dusted with white powder like a fine fruit sugar, gathered more heavily in the creases. Hector displayed it open on his palm like a jewel of great value.

  “I find this inside my new left shoe,” he whispered.

  “What is it?” I licked my finger to dab a sample.

  “Do not taste it!”

  My finger froze.

  “It is possible that I am mistaken,” said Hector. “But to me it looks very much like poison.”

  Charlotte, so good at appearing where unwanted, snorted out a small laugh. She plucked the paper from Hector’s hand.

  “You children are getting entirely too fanciful. Poison, indeed! Your mother is already concerned about your Morbid Preoccupation, Miss Aggie, without a new chum to encourage it further. This will be the end of it.”

  She crumpled Hector’s discovery and dropped it into a box of rubbish under a nearby table. “No more foolish chatter about murder. Do you hear me? I believe your friendship will benefit from a hiatus. Master Perot, we shall now take our leave. Good afternoon.”

  Hector had listened with his eyes cast down, his pallor a shade whiter. I yearned to exchange a grimace, but alas, Charlotte’s hand on my elbow led me firmly away. I looked back once, to see Hector swiftly extracting his precious clue from where it had been tossed—and flashing me a grin of fervent conspiracy.

  CHAPTER 9

  A BRIEF INSTRUCTION

  HOME FROM CHURCH and following a lunch of turbot in cream sauce, I now prepared for the afternoon’s excursion, admiring my reflection in the hallway mirror. The black felt mourning hat was quite becoming atop my ringlets. One of the small consolations when Papa died last year had been a new wardrobe of vividly doleful clothes. This adorable little hat was one of my favorites. I would not say that I was happy for an excuse to wear it again, but I was not precisely unhappy either.

  “Bereavement,” said Grannie Jane. “As you well know…‘To have lost a close relation or friend because of death.’ ” She tugged on her second purple glove, finger by finger. Only the color purple, with black or gray, was considered acceptable when visiting the bereaved. I suspected that Grannie was as attached to her purple gloves as I was to my hat. My pleasure was diminished at having to wear a dove-gray Sunday coat handed down from my sister, despite its wide shoulders.

  “I suppose it is good fortune that our own loss allows us to be correctly costumed to express bereavement…” My grandmother paused in the glove-tugging battle. “Thanks to your own dear Papa.”

  Grannie Jane’s own dear son, I thought.

  “Naturally, a year ago, you were in no state of mind to consider the etiquette that surrounds the departure of every soul to Heaven.”

  The funeral for Irma Eversham had not yet occurred, and would wait until the police permitted. The family, however—Miss Rose and her aunt, Miss Marianne—would be “at home” this afternoon to receive condolences.

  “Where do you suppose her soul might be?” I wondered. “Since her body is detained at the Torquay Hospital morgue?”

  “Most distressing,” said Grannie Jane, “to have one’s earthly remains loitering about. The soul no doubt must linger with it. All the more important that we appear for the visitation today.”

  But how exactly did one express polite sorrow when a person had been murdered? A person for whom there was no great affection? Especially when one had so many questions! How, for instance, had the large and unwieldy
corpse been moved down that steep and narrow stairway into the bustle of Union Street before riding to the morgue? She looked heavy. And awkward! Did they carry her at a vertical angle, with that oddly arched spine and those crookedly flung limbs?

  I shook my head vigorously, banishing the vision. Did Grannie and Mummy ever have these dreadful sorts of thoughts about Papa? Mummy would not be joining this afternoon’s excursion because her own bereavement for Papa had been refreshed by Irma Eversham’s demise. She had not risen from her bed since the inspector’s visit yesterday.

  I forced my thoughts along a more poetic path. Bereavement made me feel…like a jar full of freshly collected garden worms. My innards were wriggling in the most unsettled way. But I had no interest in lying about beneath the bedcovers in a darkened room. I was ferociously curious to know who in Torquay was a wicked assassin.

  “Grannie Jane?” Just to be clear. “Is bereavement necessarily only for a loved one? The whole town knows that Rose’s mother was a crosspatch. She and Miss Marianne fought like cats over a fish’s head.”

  Squabbled like seagulls over a sandwich crust.

  Battled like God and the devil over a dying soul.

  Grannie Jane made a harrumphing noise. “You’ve been listening to gossip, have you?”

  “No, Grannie, I’ve been gathering evidence.”

  She was taking a turn in front of the mirror to adjust her hat. She laughed her rare, dear, horsey laugh. One of my greatest pleasures was to inspire that laugh.

  “I am gratified that you understand the tremendous value of listening to the conversation of your elders,” said Grannie Jane. “Please remember, however, that gossip is like river silt. One must sift it carefully to discover gold amongst the pebbles. Do you understand?”

  “Mmm,” I said. Not really.

  “Only what you see with your own eyes can truly be trusted,” she said. “Or that which you hear with your own ears.”

  “No one can see God,” I said. “Are we not meant to trust Him?”