by B G Denvil
Vernon Pike, a reasonably healthy sixty-one and therefore just scraping above the important average of sixty, said loudly, “Whistle was an arrogant old codger. Selfish too. Never offered to help anyone.”
“Untrue,” roared Toby. “He may not have liked you, boob-boy, but he liked me, and we used to play chess together. He always won of course but I didn’t mind losing to a ninety-one.”
And Rosie, who was busy serving more tiny platters of butter after it had run out, said quickly, “He was lovely to me. And he wasn’t rude or condescending just because I’m only a fifty.” She glared across at Montague.
But it was the amazing new Edna Edith Enid Ethel Oppolox who quickly answered. “I knew Whistle many years ago,” she said as she piled the butter onto another slice of cheese and popped it into her mouth. “A delightful and extremely clever man. We did some work together and were excessively pleased with the result. He usually cheated at chess, because he found just winning too easy. But he never cheated with the magic. Dear Whistle was a pure talent, you know, and a master at creation.”
“Still a show-off,” muttered Mandrake.
“Perhaps surprisingly,” Edna continued, “very high numbers are often embarrassed to speak of it, just as very low numbers are. But I have sincerely enjoyed the company of many low numbers, whereas high numbers – well, I have only known four higher than myself.”
Peg was interested. “But not Whistle, since he was only a ninety-one.”
“I doubt that,” Edna raised a finger. “I imagine his number had grown over the years, but it was pointless wanting a new test, of course. But I count him as one of those higher than myself. There were also sisters I once knew. Delightful both of them, one a ninety-four, and the other poor little thing was just a forty-two. But they were happy together, and I liked both equally. And oh – yes – a man I did not like. He went to the shadows behind the light.”
“And the last one?”
“Oh,” Edna brushed it aside. “Female, many years ago. I met her only for a moment. But dear Whistle was a great friend before I went to Scotland.”
“To live in a cave?” sniggered Vernon.
“It was a very cosy cave.” Edna looked down her nose at him. “Or I wouldn’t have stayed there.”
“But back to Kate,” said Peg. “Why would anyone kill a sweet little twelve who helped all of us when we wanted her.”
“A bit of a lazy badger,” decided Inky. “Not that I’m suggesting that was a reason to bludgeon her to death.”
Peg looked up. “How did you know she was bludgeoned?”
“Because you told me half an hour ago,” Inky reminded her.
With no one else to do the dishes, Rosie had started cleaning wiping and washing when Edna burst into the kitchen with a sniff, waved one hand so that everything floated around the room cleaning itself in less than a blink and then put itself away. “Come on, my dear,” Edna said. “No time to fiddle.”
Peg was waiting outside, and they hurried immediately over to the stables. “We must bury the poor child,” Edna said. “We have a second attempt at understanding what and why, and then we eliminate the need for that wretched sheriff to visit and interfere.”
“The sheriff’s assistant isn’t too bad,” Rosie said.
“Too much of a fool,” Peg dismissed him. “After all, my dear, he’s a human. Have you ever met an intelligent human? No, well, that’s obvious.”
Dipper had gone off on his varied trips around the grounds to do the gardening, and Kate’s room was unwatched, still containing Kate’s lonely body surrounded by the mess of her old life.
With no seeming disgust, Edna bent to pick up the child’s corpse and carried it outside and into the sunshine, where she laid it near Whistle’s grave. She then hurried back into join Rosie and Peg again. But searching Kate’s room brought no surprises and no treasures. When Dipper returned, trudging up to the courtyard with his spade over his shoulder, Peg asked him if he would kindly dig them another grave.
When he heard this was for his neighbour Kate, and marched over to see her remains, he was horrified and exploded into gravelly tears. “It ain’t proper,” he said, and blew his nose on a piece of rag. “She were a sweet little lass and never did no harm to nobody.”
“Murder is rarely proper,” Edna told him. “This happened sometime early yesterday, possibly during the night before. Did you hear anything at all?”
“’Fraid not.” He looked a little ashamed. “Two nights ago, I were wot you might call a bit tipsy.”
“Drunk?”
“Firstly, I were out at the Juggler and Goat, and when I come back home, I just sort of felled into bed. The next day, I felt right poorly and slept again. I doesn’t remember much. Reckon I were out like a snuffed candle.”
“Shame,” Peg sighed. A little upset herself that morning, she had tried to dress herself in calm dark grey, but, as she often did, had got her spell muddled. Now she wore a red and green striped gown with blue ruffles on the neck and cuffs, while her shoes were bright purple slippers with white pom poms. The Rookery, however, was accustomed to Peg’s problems and said nothing.
“Did you know?” Rosie asked tentatively, “that Kate stole a few things from time to time?”
“Oh yeh,” Dipper replied without shame. “Well, why not? Poor as a primrose, she were. Gotta get a bit together in case she were sent away or got sick or whatnot.”
Very pleased with this revelation, Rosie smiled. “And do you know where she hid anything she’d stolen?”
Somewhat reluctant, Dipper eventually nodded. “Well, I reckon you can’t call the sheriff on the poor lass now,” he said. “So yeh, I reckons I knows. But I’ll bury the poor lass first.”
Standing in the heat of the sun, Peg, Edna and Rosie watched the sad tumbling of the body into its long narrow hole, and each of them said their own private goodbyes.
“I shall find who did this,” Edna promised, “whether that will help you now or not.”
Rosie whispered, “Sleep well, Kate.”
And Peg, with a fixed scowl, mumbled, “I’m sorry. Very sorry. And so will the vile killer be, once I catch him.”
Dipper leaned down and patted the top of his carefully smoothed earth, and snuffled. “’Tis a right shame,” he said. “And don’t you worry, lass. You doesn’t need to steal fer yer old age no more.”
There had been the usual faces peering from every window, and Alice had marched out to know what was going on. When told by her own daughter, she pointed out that all orders should be coming from her alone, but since Edna was there, she said no more and marched back indoors.
Back at Kate’s room, Dipper opened the shed at the end of the stables and pulled out a small ladder. He tucked this under one arm and burst back into the little room. He leaned it against the wall to one side, which attached to his own room, and climbed the several rungs until his head hit the ceiling. He stretched up one arm and pushed up the ceiling panel behind a thick wooden beam. It seemed to be cracked and wasn’t easy to lift, but once Dipper had half crawled into the enclosed shadows beneath the thatch, only his legs visible at the top of the ladder, there was a considerable scuffle heard, and he then reappeared holding a hessian sack. Dipper brought this down and dumped it on the ground, avoiding the rug which remained black with dried blood.
Peg and Edna both insisted Rosie should open the sack, so she turned it upside down and tipped the contents onto the floor of dried earth. She expected scuttling yellow spiders, bad tempered beetles and families of ants, but only one tiny caterpillar made a dash for freedom, while Peg, Edna and Rosie bent down and studied what had been hidden there.
Dipper, uninterested, strode home with a snort of anger at whoever had murdered his neighbour.
Rosie held up a silver bladed knife with a bright blue painted handle. Peg saw and remembered the two embroidered kerchiefs which had once belonged to Emmeline. “All very well stealing from Alice,” she said, “but not one of us.” She then glanced at Rosie
and blushed scarlet. “Sorry, my dear. I didn’t mean you. After all, you’re nothing like your mother.”
Instead, Edna was intrigued by a terra cotta bowl, with a large fish painted on one side, and a lamb on the other. “I do hope your mother doesn’t cook real lambs or fish,” she said. “This will make a perfect swimming pool for my darling Twizzle.”
“No, no real animal gets killed here,” Rosie sighed. “And there’s no silver cup either. Which is what I wanted. There is a silver platter, but I think it’s only plated. There’s some money but not much. And there’s a few feathers, two pieces of rice paper with nothing written on them, probably Whistle’s, and a very pretty silk scarf. Poor Kate, she wouldn’t have got enough for a year at most if she’d left The Rookery for any reason.”
“So she’s left and needs none of it,” Edna said with a complete lack of sympathy. “Help yourselves, ladies, or leave it here. Give it to Dipper perhaps. He deserves payment for a very well dug grave.”
Pushing everything including the money back into the sack, Rosie dragged it next door, and then the three women walked around to the back of the house where they sat and contemplated the grave.
Chapter Fifteen
That night Rosie was awakened by a loud tapping on her window. It was still dark, and she guessed it was around midnight or one in the morning. Since she had previously been visited by crows, she assumed the same, although it might be Peg with muddled spells again. Rosie cuddled down under her eiderdown. But the tapping continued, loud and fast. Reluctantly, she peeped from the covers.
Amazed to see her father’s face outside the mullions, Rosie grabbed a blanket around her and rushed to open the window. Alfred Scaramouch was barely hanging on to the window ledge, and thankfully climbed into the room, although with difficulty since it was small and he was large.
“I couldn’t do the stairs,” he whispered, “too noticeable. But I can’t fly very well, you see, At least you’re only on the first floor.”
Fear dripped down her back like icicles, and Rosie shivered. “What’s wrong?” Clearly something was terribly wrong, and her father’s expression was one of frantic dread.
“My dear,” he said, keeping to the whisper, “I believe you may be next.”
Rosie stared, face white and mouth open. His meaning could hardly be mistaken. “Me? How do you know?”
Sitting with a bump of relief on the carpeted floor by the bed, Alfred dropped his head in his hands. “I can’t tell you everything,” he groaned. “But it could be you. I’m not positive, but the risk is too great. You have to leave.”
Rosie felt something in her head spinning around and around, and she couldn’t think.
“Do you know the killer?”
He shook his head. “But the one obeying orders isn’t important,” he returned to the whisper.
“So who gives those orders?”
“I can’t say.” There were large tears rolling down both of his cheeks. “But I care for you too much. You were such a gorgeous baby. So chubby with big brown eyes. No fur.”
“Papa, I was a little girl. Not a mouse.”
“Yes, yes, my dear, but I adored your little round face and big blue eyes.”
Nothing yet made any sense. “That – that’s sweet. Thank you. But after all, Papa, I was your daughter.”
He looked up. “Oh no,” he said, wiping his eyes on his sleeve. “No, I’m not your father, my dearest. No, not at all. But that doesn’t matter. I looked after you like a father, and I still love you, my dear. So you have to get out of here and hide somewhere special until all this is over.”
There was too much to think about. The swimming buzz gyrating within her head now began to thump and pound. Rosie shut her eyes as the headache grew worse. Lights spangled both inside her closed eyes and outside her head. She tried to summon the spell which would at least clothe her back in her usual smock, and even that failed when she found it was on back to front. So she tried to call Oswald, and then realised he was still pinned to the back of the tunic. Then she silently called to the silver spoon and toadstool, asking them to hide somehow within the wide flax droop of her sleeves. She could not be sure this would work, but was delighted to feel the sudden cold angles of something close to her arms.
With both hands clasped to her head, she scrambled from the bed and bent towards her father.
“Please,” she begged, “you have to tell me a little more. Please explain something. Number one, am I adopted? Number two, who wants to kill me? Number three, what have I done?”
Standing, and reaching out to Rosie to help her also stand, Alfred gulped, tottered and croaked, “Adopted? Yes. In a way. Who? I cannot tell you, my sweet. And you haven’t done anything. Nothing at all. You’re a little angel, and so I told them. But now we have to hurry.”
He aimed for the open window, and Rosie followed but squeaked, “Papa, I can’t fly either.”
“We’ll jump,” he said, and took her hand.
It had been a day of sunshine, but the night was cold. A wind whistled through the trees, and Rosie remembered Whistle’s horrible death and wondered if that was exactly what she now escaped. In a swirl of creamy star spun glitter, the heavens were at peace, but she felt that the world was ending.
They stood together on the narrow window sill, heads bent in order to get through without absolute decapitation. She was so terrified, she could hardly breathe, and Alfred was white-faced with his hair in a knotted cap of tangles.
“One. Two. Three and–” muttered Rosie.
The jump from her window one storey up had jolted her entire body, and her knees felt almost broken, while her headache pounded like a huge drum in her head. Fear made her sick. She doubled over, but Alfred grabbed at her again. “No one saw us,” he said hopefully. “Now we run.”
“Run where?”
“There’s a hollow tree just a little way off.”
They ran across the two sad graves, and Rosie noticed her father was wearing large brown boots with mud on the soles and a bedraggled old cord to lace them up. She heaved again, but kept running.
With neither a cloak nor a blanket to warm her, she was freezing at first, but the rush had done a better job than a cloak, and now she was hot, but could hardly breathe. They passed the tree where Alfred’s house had been built and raced beneath where the crows nested, babies now fast asleep nestled beneath their mothers’ wings. Kettle Lane meandered off towards the hills beyond, but Alfred did not follow the path and headed towards a great yew tree rising in its strangled twists from an enormous girth into an equally great height. Although at first it looked dead, and the trunk was bent, sufficiently gnarled to be many hundreds of years in age, sprigs of fluttering threads of leaf grew from several of the branches. Within the main trunk and high behind the leafy clusters was a wide uneven hollow, big enough for half of Alfred’s overhead cottage.
“There,” he said.
“I’ve got to hide in a dead tree?” Now her heartbeat was louder than her words, and the ramming thunder in her head was louder still. “Must I climb all the way up there? I can’t fly. Not unless I hold a hand. And even you couldn’t fly that high, Papa.”
“I’m not your father,” he replied. “Although I wish I was. But don’t you know any spells to get you up there?”
She shook her head and wished she hadn’t since it was screaming at her. She wanted to be sick. “I don’t know proper spells. I’m only a fifty. And I know you’re only a twenty, but you’re older, and you’ve learned more than me. And I think I’m going to die. Won’t you please explain a little more? Just a little bit? What makes you think I’m next on the list?”
“Because it’s almost happened,” He said. “Hurry now. You have to go.”
“Oh, come on,” said a small rough voice behind her. “I’ll help.”
She wondered who on earth it was, and so did Alfred. Then she realised. “It’s Oswald. He’s – well, I think Whistle sent him to me.” She paused, took a deep breath and asked, “Oswald
, can you help me fly up to that hole in the tree?”
“Naturally,” said the voice.
Immediately Rosie found herself in the air. She looked down frantically, waved goodbye to Alfred and promptly found herself sitting upright in a large hollow, lined with dry moss, a few old dried leaves and a large sleeping owl cuddled up tight, head buried in its neck feathers as it slept with an occasional humph.
She sank back, didn’t want to be sick all over the owl, even though it certainly wasn’t Cabbage, and tried desperately to sooth her headache. Finding the space unexpectantly comfortable, Rosie explored. The base was thickly carpeted in leaf and dry moss, creepers and owl feathers. This kept it warm. It was, she decided, like a small wooden cave and not so small at that. She couldn’t stand up, but she could lie down if she curled her legs. Indeed, the owl was a very cosy comforter. She simply hoped, as the nest’s presumed owner, it would not turf her out once it woke. Already night, and she reminded herself that owls woke and went hunting at night. This one, however, was fast asleep.
With a thousand thoughts in turmoil still spinning in her head, Rosie found sleep impossible, so she twisted her tunic around, mumbled good morning to Oswald with a special thank you for the flight up the tree and pulled out the silver spoon and toadstool. Pressing against the smooth wooden wall at her back, Rosie begged for explanations.
“Am I in danger? Was my father right?”
“He’s not your father,” sniffed the toadstool.
“Danger, yes,” the spoon interrupted. “Imminent? Perhaps. Good idea to hide? Yes indeed.”
“So I have to stay here?” It was a terrifying thought.
“Well,” said Oswald. “Perhaps not for the rest of your life. Just a few days.”
“How do I eat or drink?”
“As a giver of considerable importance,” said the spoon with a click of the tongue it didn’t actually have, “I shall supply all meals. Being an expert chef, you will eat better here than back in The Rookery.”
She was thinking of her mother’s magical failures at cooking, when another thought occurred to her. “So,” Rosie asked timidly, “is my mother really my mother?”
