“You still can, surely?” Miss Judson said. “Even posthumously, in her honor?” There was prize money in a flower show, and Mr. Hamm might have been eligible for it if Miss Wodehouse’s lilies did well.
Mr. Hamm shrugged. He wore a loose-fitting brown coat and oilcloth coveralls. I recognized his boots—the same ones with the horseshoe-shaped plates on the heels for walking through slick, muddy earth. “Doesn’t seem right, somehow, without her.” He raked mournfully at the fire, stirring up bitter embers.
“What are you burning?” I asked, trying to see through the smoke. August wasn’t the usual season for bonfires.
Mr. Hamm was accustomed to my questions about his work, but he wasn’t as forthcoming as usual this morning. “Debris,” was all he said.
“From the storm last night?” I suggested, although there had only been the mildest of rain.
He gave another shrug and fanned the smoke with his hat.
I concealed my frown by shielding my eyes with my hand and squinting up at Miss Judson. “Do you know what happened to Miss Wodehouse?” I finally asked, after what seemed a respectful interval.
“Sommat about the bath, they say. Heard the news when I come down for work this morning.”
“This morning? But I didn’t see you.”
“I was working on the beds north of the house.”
I could see those beds from the schoolroom, and Mr. Hamm hadn’t been there. Not this morning. “What about last night?”
“Myrtle.” Miss Judson’s voice was firm. “Mr. Hamm, Myrtle was concerned about the cat.”
His expression softened. “I’ve not seen her this morn,” he said. “Poor little kit. She’s bound to be missing the Mistress, eh?”
I chewed on my finger to keep from saying something rude. “Can I look for her?”
Here he crinkled his face in an almost-smile. “Try the laburnum—you know how she likes the butterflies there. But watch out for that young fellow, the Mistress’s nephew. If he gives you any guff, you tell him who you are, who your da’ is, and that you’ve my permission to be here. End of.” He gave the rake an emphatic shove, and a burst of sparks flurried into the air.
“Certainly, we’ll do so. Thank you for the warning, Mr. Hamm.” Before I could ask anything else, Miss Judson shuttled me off toward the gardens, past the bonfire and through the hedge.
“Ow! What’s the hurry?” I said.
“The smoke smelled foul,” she said. “Like it might be toxic.”
“Smoke is toxic.” I glanced back with a frown. “Do you think he’s burning something poisonous?”
Miss Judson shooed me forward with her hand. “No, Myrtle Hardcastle, I’ll not have you cooking up suspicions about that poor man.”
“He lied about where he was this morning,” I said.
She frowned. “I noticed that.”
“But,” I admitted, “that doesn’t make it suspicious, necessarily. He could have been planning to burn that debris all along.”
“It wasn’t storm damage, though. He lied about that, too.”
I scrunched my nose. “No, he didn’t. I’m the one who mentioned storm damage. He just didn’t correct me.” Adults often didn’t bother trying to correct me, since I was apt to argue with them. But only when I knew they were wrong! It wasn’t for argument’s own sake.
Miss Judson smoothed her skirts and straightened her gloves. She always looked composed, neat and smart and ready, as if she were expecting action at any moment, bicycling or lawn tennis or saving a runaway pram.
Or cat wrangling!
“There she is!” I cried, spotting the telltale slink of black-and-white fur sneaking through the tall grass by the western hedge.
“Are you sure?” Miss Judson was swift on my heels, boots dashing over the lawn like they were designed for racing, not merely conveying authority in the schoolroom. My own boots squelched, not unpleasantly, as I landed in a low spot still wet from the rain. Round the hedge we flew, straight into Forbidden Territory. Miss Judson grabbed my arm even as I skidded to a halt. There was no gate, no grand archway or signage announcing the entry into Hallowed Ground, but I felt Miss Judson’s fingernails dig through my layers of sleeve, holding me back. This was a place I’d only seen from a respectful distance, and would scarcely even dare point my telescope toward, so trained were we to behold it with awe.
This was Miss Wodehouse’s lily garden.
Or it had been. Something had gone terribly wrong. Knowing full well I was trespassing, I shook off Miss Judson’s hand and took a step inside, and another, where the world-famous lilies were supposed to be. But all around me, the beds were empty, barren as winter.
The lilies were gone.
3
Trial by Jury
An Investigator’s life will not be an easy one. Be prepared to deal with Obstructive Fellow Detectives, Reluctant Witnesses, all manner of the Criminal Classes, and Family Members with No Imagination.
—H. M. Hardcastle, Principles of Detection
“What happened here?” Miss Judson sounded breathless as she caught up to me. “Wait, I don’t think we should be in here.”
“What does it matter now?” Miss Wodehouse was dead, and her beloved lilies with her. Miss Judson made a good point, though. This might be a crime scene, and we should take care not to disturb it. I readied my tools (magnifying glass, notebook, sample kit) and crept through the lily garden, or erstwhile lily garden, anyway. It looked like the whole Napoleonic army had been through, razed the beds to the ground, burned anything they hadn’t mown over, and buried the rest.
I approached one of the workaday, wood-edged beds. Unlike the main gardens with their ornamental urns and pretty, twisted-willow fencing, the lily gardens were plain and serviceable—an experimental space, not a decorative one. I spotted a disturbance in the gravel. “Look,” I called to Miss Judson, who was still standing in the verge, looking stupefied. “There are tracks here, like from someone rolling a cart through.”
“A wheelbarrow, maybe?” She roused herself and crossed the garden, taking a path on the other side.
“And footprints.” A scuff in the path revealed several smudged prints, and I could just make out the familiar impression of Mr. Hamm’s boots—and as clear as a bloodstain, a single muddy print where someone else had stepped onto the wooden edging of the flower bed. “It’s that other shoe print again,” I said. “Just like the one near the terrace.”
“Cigarillos?” she asked, flipping open her sketchbook to record the evidence.