1
Corpus Delicti
A true Investigator is a master of the art of Observation, paying keen attention to his surroundings. Even the least significant piece of evidence may prove the key to unraveling the truth.
—H. M. Hardcastle, Principles of Detection: A Manual for the Amateur and Professional Investigator, 1893
“Correct me if I’m wrong.” My governess, Miss Judson, strolled into the schoolroom, her sharp bootheels clicking like a telegraph. “When I persuaded your father to order that telescope, it was with the express understanding it would be used for studying the night sky.” She gave an altogether too cheery yank on the curtains, flooding the room with sun.
Adjusting the focus, I was rewarded with a clearer view of my target. Morning, very fine, I wrote beside my earlier notes. Light rain overnight. “I am Observing objects at a distance,” I said. “Which is the purpose of this device.” Subjects: The residence (and residents) of 16 Gravesend Close, Swinburne. Commonly called Redgraves.
Miss Judson bent over the casement beside me, chin nestled in her light brown hand. “Well. How foolish of me. Because it looks like you’re spying on the neighbors.”
“That, too. Look!” I pointed across the lane (with my own rather sallow hand), where a delicate blue butterfly had alit on the hedge. “Celastrina argiolus.”
“Don’t try to distract me. Wait—” She straightened, a crease forming between her eyebrows. “Is that the police wagon?” The crease turned to a genuine scowl. “Myrtle?”
I covered the telescope with its special cloth. “Why do you always look at me like that? I didn’t do anything!” I bit my lip. “Well, I may have summoned the police.”
“To Miss Wodehouse’s? What on earth for?” Miss Judson hurried to the schoolroom door, grabbing her cape on the way out.
“Are we going over there?” I scrambled off the window seat and gathered up my things: my notebook and bag, my magnifying lens, my gloves, and the little specimen collection kit with the tweezers, pins, and tiny sample jars.
“I think we’d better. Get your coat. And you can explain to me—so I can explain to your father—whatever could have compelled you to call the police on the gentlewoman next door!” Pausing in the doorway, she gave me a dubious look. “It’s not the bit about her cat again.”
“Of course not!” I scurried to catch up. Miss Judson in a hurry was a force to be reckoned with. “Well, mostly not. She started it.”
She whirled on the stairs, hand on the polished banister. “Explain.”
I had a lot of practice at this. “I didn’t see her this morning,” I began.
“Miss Wodehouse?”
“No, Peony—well, not Miss Wodehouse, either. And then Mr. Hamm didn’t show up for his rounds.” Mr. Hamm was the groundskeeper at Redgraves, and his 6:15 check of the fountains and birdbaths, Peony the cat at his heels, was his first order of business every morning. He tended the south lawn by 6:40 at the latest. Often he was supervised by Miss Wodehouse, earning nothing but scorn and criticism from the spry old lady. Clean up those leaves. I don’t want the delphiniums touching the daisies. And keep that cursed cat out of my sight!
I may have Observed them once or twice.
“And then I saw something strange.”
Miss Judson watched me expectantly, arms folded, fingers tapping the elbow of her neat tweed suit. This was the tricky bit to explain. I had aimed the telescope somewhere that was Strictly Off-Limits that morning, and I knew as much. But it was the cat’s fault. When I didn’t see Mr. Hamm, I did what any good Investigator would do. I looked for clues—and I found some.
“The pot on Miss Wodehouse’s balcony was overturned—that great heavy planter thing—and Peony was digging in it. You know how Miss Wodehouse hates it when the cat disturbs anything, especially her flowers, so I tried to shoo her away.”
“Please tell me your attempt involved smoke signals, or perhaps telepathy.”
“Now you’re being ridiculous. I used my slingshot.”
Miss Judson closed her eyes. “This tale gets better and better.”
“I hit the French doors, and a pane broke—only a little one! I’ll pay for it with my allowance. Mr. Hamm always keeps spares. But nobody came out.”
She leaned against the banister, looking ever so slightly relieved. And intrigued. “That is strange. Not even her maid?”
“Not for ages. And then she just poked her head round the door, and made sure it was closed and the curtains drawn. She looked nervous.” The word I’d used in my notes was furtive, but Miss Judson occasionally accused me of getting carried away.
“And that’s when you called the police.”
I turned my toe against the rose on the carpet. “Not exactly. I thought they might all be sick—you remember the Holyrood arsenic poisoning last year—so I went over to check on them.”
“Oh, dear Lord.”
“That maid killed six people.”
Miss Judson crouched beside me on the stairs. “Myrtle. This is really going too far. I’m starting to worry about you. You can’t honestly think little Trudy—or anyone at Redgraves—did something so”—she groped for a word—“incredible.”
“No.” Although arsenic murders had been on the rise again lately. “But something was wrong over there. I knocked and knocked, and no one answered. Mr. Hamm wasn’t home, either.”
Miss Judson pursed her lips and gazed past my head. I could tell she was sorting through possible responses. “And it didn’t occur to you to tell anyone?” she finally said, somewhat faintly.
She remembered as well as I did what had happened the other times I’d mentioned my concerns to adults, so I didn’t bother answering.
“Very well.” She rose briskly. “Let’s go. Your father will be up soon, and we’d best be back for breakfast by then, so he can ship me straight back to French Guiana.”
Redgraves was next door, but we had to cross our lawn and the lane, and then go down the street to reach the front of the great house, where the police carriage was parked. The constable with the coach tipped his helmet to us as he patted the horse’s neck, but I didn’t recognize him. Otherwise, Redgraves was eerily quiet.
“Where’s the cat?” I hissed, and Miss Judson shushed me. Straightening her smart little hat, she marched up the massive stone front steps and rang the bell, which clanged through the quiet morning, disturbing a roost of pigeons in the portico. When no one answered the door, I wandered away, looking for Peony or any other evidence of last night’s occurrences. A brick footpath flanked by bare earth twined through the flowers. Firmly impressed into the dirt were footprints leading around to the back of the house.