The Body under the Piano

by Marthe Jocelyn

  “Unless there is a mighty clever character laying down false evidence,” said Constable Beck, “Miss Marianne Eversham is our murderess.”

  For someone not willing to discuss a murder, the constable had become usefully forthcoming.

  “I don’t believe it,” I said. “It just can’t be.”

  Or could it? Was I wrong about everything?

  “The daughter, Rose, she’d be the second choice,” said Constable Beck. “Except that—”

  “She wasn’t there,” I said.

  “That’s right,” he said. “And there’s no trickery involved with the alibi. The vicar’s wife is witness for every minute of Saturday up to the moment Rose learned of her mother’s death. If Rose Eversham wanted her mother dead, she would have needed help.”

  What about Roddy Fusswell? I wanted to say, but refrained. I wished first to know that if he’d done it, Rose was not a partner in the scheme.

  “It’s usually someone in the family, going after money. I expect Marianne Eversham imagined she’d be getting some residual of her brother’s estate, once his wife was out of the way, never mind Rose being the daughter. You’d be downright disheartened to know how often an inheritance enters the picture.”

  “What if Roddy Fusswell thinks he could marry Rose and get rich from her inheritance at the same time?”

  “That’s a bit far-fetched,” said Constable Beck. “Would you marry someone once he’d murdered your mother? I think we can knock out Fusswell and his helpers, along with the unrelated casuals, like the flower delivery boy and the reporter coming back in the middle of the morning to find the case for his spectacles.”

  “Mr. Fibbley was there too?” He certainly had a knack for turning up wherever there was a hint of drama. A knack? Or a darker purpose? Was he also smitten with Rose?

  The canny reporter had fallen in love with the beautiful heiress from afar. He asked her disagreeable mother for permission to propose, but she sneered at his audacity and sent him away, little knowing the dangerous strength of his resolve…

  Actually, I had some questions I’d like Mr. Fibbley to answer. What had he noticed in the Mermaid Room on the morning of the murder? Who had used the pantry? Had anyone aroused his suspicions when he thought about it afterward? Which part of the story was I missing?

  “There’s only one thing stopping us from putting Miss Marianne Eversham in prison this very night,” said Constable Beck.

  “What’s that?” I whispered. The bicycle seat seemed suddenly very hard.

  “What if the nasty cuppa was meant for her? We’ve got to make certain that she wasn’t the one that someone wanted dead.”

  “She wasn’t.” The words slipped out before I had considered whether or not the policeman should hear them. “Unless she was not well-known to the killer.” Like Mr. Augustus Fibbley. Or even Mr. Roddy Fusswell. It is doubtful that either of those men was overly familiar with her personal habits.

  “What makes you think that?” said Constable Beck.

  “Miss Marianne is a dancer,” I said. “She never eats sweets. Anyone who knows her knows that. She does not take sugar in her tea.”

  I thought again of Miss Marianne’s little blue milk jug, and next to it the gilded sugar bowl with the crest emblazoned on its side. “Mr. Roddy Fusswell had to bring his own sugar from the Royal Victoria Hotel because there isn’t any in the pantry of the Mermaid Room.”

  “I shall make a note of that irregularity,” said Constable Beck. “You’ve been of considerable assistance, for a person of a youthful nature.”

  I let myself grin for half a moment in the dark. I had offered common knowledge—Miss Marianne’s dislike of sweets—after learning a small important detail: Mr. Fibbley’s timely presence in the dance studio just before it became the scene of a crime.

  “I can walk from here,” I said. “You’ve done the hard part.” We had reached the top of Bertram Road and were minutes from home.

  “Pardon me for mentioning,” said the policeman, as I climbed down from the bicycle seat. “But you appear to be underclad for the weather.”

  He’d reminded me just in time. I found my bundle under the privet hedge. “Turn around,” I told him.

  I turned my back to his back and pulled on my petticoat, chilled and wrinkly, but giving me an extra layer, however thin.

  “We’ll have to wake someone up,” said Constable Beck, “and get you safely inside.”

  “I’ll just slip in the way I came out,” I said. “Through the kitchen. If you ring the bell, you’ll give Mummy nightmares and set Tony barking like a fiend!”

  “Letting you go unreprimanded will not be adequate to the situation,” he said. “You go in and send down Miss Graves.”

  “You want me to wake Miss Graves at half past midnight? To speak with you alone, wearing her nightclothes?”

  I felt the sing of an arrow winning its mark.

  “Well, perhaps not. But I’ll be back in the morning. And for now,” he said, “I want a promise from you that I will never find you prowling the road at night, not ever again.”

  “I promise.” That was easy! If I were ever again prowling the road at night, I would certainly avoid being found by Constable Morris Beck.

  “And,” said the constable, “I want a promise that you will stop trying to do my job. You get into your bed and be a good girl after this. No more detecting, do you hear me?”

  “Bed sounds delicious,” I said truthfully.

  “And?”

  I crossed my fingers inside the pocket of Cook’s jacket to counteract the lie. “And…no more detecting.”

  Until tomorrow.

  “Off you go, then.” Constable Beck tipped his chin toward the kitchen door and I squelched up the path, sighing a gust of relief when I rounded the holly bushes and was out of his sight. I leaned Leonard’s bicycle carefully against the back of the shed, intent on silence. I was halfway up the path when I heard, “Hey!”

  I went still.

  Had Constable Beck changed his mind and followed me to insist on seeing Charlotte? Or was it Mr. Fibbley, again lurking in the garden?

  But no, it was Leonard who stepped out of the shadows.

  “You scared me witless,” I said. He peered toward the road.

  “Your copper gone then?”

  “He’s not my copper!” I said. “I nearly ran him down on Bertram Road and—”

  “On my stolen bicycle,” said Leonard. “After I told you no.”

  I bowed my head. “I’m sorry, Leonard. I will not take your bicycle again.”

  “No, Miss Aggie, you will not. I won’t tell you again.” He slunk away, back to his awful shed. I must speak to Mummy about that in the morning—if I weren’t in terrible trouble for tonight’s adventure.

  My feet were so numb I wanted to weep. I hobbled to the kitchen door, imagining the moment of pulling on my bedsocks. Tucked under the door latch was an envelope. With my name on it. I held it in both hands, staring. I had not seen his script before, but I knew it was from Hector. The letters were precisely formed, with a flourish to the A that resembled the mustache he one day planned to wear.

  Inside the door, I put Cook’s jacket back on its hook. Hector had also been sneaking through the streets in the middle of the night! Delivering news to a trustworthy friend, just as I had been! My note would greet him upon his return to the vicarage. I stripped off my slippers and pushed them deep into the bin of kitchen refuse. I clutched Hector’s letter and limped to my room. By the flickering light of the candle, I read his admission of failure:

  CHAPTER 17

  AN UNSETTLING NOTORIETY

  TOO FEW HOURS AFTER I’d crawled into my bed, stiff and chilled to the very bone, Charlotte tried to waken me. I protested by telling her I’d do for myself, and then tucked my head under my pillow to sleep a few minutes longer. Eventually, with my hai
r brushed as well as I could manage, and wearing my thickest stockings over sore feet, I came down for breakfast.

  “Good morning, Grannie Jane.” I kissed her soft, rosy cheek.

  “Hullo, Charlotte. I apologize for being a bear earlier.” I kissed her too. If Constable Beck kept his vow to report on last night’s encounter, this might be the last kiss of mine that Charlotte ever accepted.

  Grannie Jane rose early, before the sun, and was always beautifully dressed for breakfast. Today she wore the pale violet, its bodice embroidered with tiny dark blooms.

  “That’s my favorite dress of yours, Grannie.” I took a boiled egg from the warming basket and two pieces of toast from the rack.

  “Mmm.” Grannie Jane read the newspaper while she ate, just as if she were a man. She did not pay attention to what was said around her until she had absorbed the news of the day. Papa had been the same way—unapproachable until all world disasters had been digested along with his morning trout.

  Charlotte was reading Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen for the ninety-ninth time. Often I brought Sherlock Holmes to keep me company until Mummy showed up. But I’d forgotten my book this morning, what with trying to think up a story to explain where my slippers had gone, and anticipating a visit from Constable Beck. Being naughty and deceitful certainly put clever thoughts out of one’s head.

  “Wait! What does that say?” I’d caught sight of bold print on the front page of Grannie’s Torquay Voice.

  MERMAID ROOM MURDER!

  IS DANCING SPINSTER A POISONER?

  “Grannie? What has happened with Miss Marianne?” I leaned over and rattled the corner of the newspaper. “Grannie Jane? Please tell me!”

  She pulled the Voice out of my reach. “Have we sunk so low that my grandchild is snatching things at table?”

  “No. I’m sorry.” I could not risk having her miffed on a day when there was likely to be plenty more reason than bad table manners. I waited three long seconds. “But I do so wish to know…”

  “When I’m finished.” Grannie Jane made a show of turning the page, lining up the edges, and folding the thin, rustling paper into a rectangle small enough to read.

  I thought of Leonard’s supply of rolled-paper kindling, yesterday’s stories going up in smoke each evening while awaiting fresh fuel each morning after breakfast. Another thing to worry about! How best to approach the topic of the garden shed being unsuitable for habitation—without revealing that I’d seen its interior? Could I proffer an innocent question, perhaps? Do you suppose it’s getting chilly in Leonard’s shed?

  Charlotte finished her bowl of porridge—topped with cream and brown sugar—and poured herself a cup of tea. She asked did I want some? But at the same moment, my grandmother refolded her newspaper so that the front page beamed its headline again.

  “It is unsettling,” she said, “but not surprising, to hear of the strange evil of humans in our midst.” She held the newspaper out and shook it gently. “As much as I understand your curiosity, I wish you had not participated quite so much in the story’s action.”

  Charlotte’s head popped up from her book, alert to any wrongdoing that could be assigned to me.

  “Me? But I—”

  “What have you done now, Miss Aggie?” fussed Charlotte.

  “Do not concern yourself, Charlotte.” Grannie Jane handed me the Voice. “It is merely a lesson for Agatha.”

  The story filled several columns and was utterly absorbing. I ignored my boiled egg and let the toast go cold.

  TORQUAY VOICE

  MERMAID ROOM MURDER!

  IS DANCING SPINSTER A POISONER?

  by Augustus C. Fibbley

  On Saturday last, Irma Eversham, 44, widow of the esteemed Captain Giles Eversham, was taken suddenly ill in the Mermaid Dance Room on Union Street, operated by Miss Marianne Eversham, sister to the victim’s late husband.

  According to the unmarried dance instructress, her sister-in-law arrived at the studio unannounced and in a state of high anxiety. “I made her a cup of tea,” said Marianne Eversham. “But she soon worsened.” At the first indication of distress—a struggle for breath—the 39-year-old dancer claims that she assumed the apoplexy was due to the victim’s odious habit of tight-lacing her corset. Marianne Eversham is well-known in town as an advocate for certain female liberties such as forsaking binding undergarments—and having the right to vote in the nation’s elections.

  The corset was not, however, the cause of Irma Eversham’s trouble. As the older woman fell to the floor, Marianne Eversham rushed to find medical assistance, leaving her relation insensible but not yet deceased.

  “I knew it!” I cried. “Insensible, but not yet deceased!” Though even Mr. Fibbley had only Miss Marianne’s word for that.

  “Miss Aggie,” said Charlotte sternly. “Did you not bring your book this morning?”

  Sally pushed open the door from the kitchen.

  “Excuse me, madam,” she said to Grannie, “but Miss Graves is wanted.”

  Charlotte took a gulp of tea and followed Sally out.

  I raced on.

  Dr. Frank Chase, the physician called upon, stated that Marianne Eversham expressed great alarm and urgency in her request for his attention, claiming that an illness had befallen her sister. Dr. Chase accompanied the distraught dancer and examined the patient, whereupon he pronounced life extinct, and noticed details of the woman’s aspect that indicated death by poison.

  There was great distortion of the face and a disarrangement of her garments. No apparent loss of blood was indicated but there was evidence and a reek of vomit. This reporter can confirm that an open box of VerminRid, a common solution to domestic rodent infestation, was discovered in the Mermaid Room pantry. Mice have invaded many homes and establishments in Torquay as the seasonal temperatures drop.

  The crime scene was interrupted by Marianne Eversham’s eleven o’clock dance students, notably Miss Agatha Caroline Morton, a twelve-year-old neighbor—

  “Oh!” I cried. “My name!”

  My finger rested on the place. Miss Agatha Caroline Morton right there in black lettering, for all of Torquay to read this morning. Under this paragraph was an illustration, drawn tidily with pen and ink, of a sugar bowl bearing the crest of the Royal Victoria Hotel. I, Miss Agatha Caroline Morton, had made the observation of that particular murder weapon! Well…not precisely the murder weapon, but rather the vessel for the weapon. Like the holster for a gun, or the sheath to hold a knife.

  I read on…

  a twelve-year-old neighbor of the Eversham villa on Bertram Road, first on the scene. Miss Morton spoke candidly in an interview, saying that Mr. Roddy Fusswell of the Royal Victoria Hotel had supplied the sugar bowl full of poison and that the police would be wise to look beyond her dance teacher to find their killer. Mr. Fusswell was heard to say in Miss Morton’s presence, “If I were going to kill someone, I’d do it with my bare hands.”

  “I never accused Roddy Fusswell!” I protested.

  Even if I’d wanted to.

  “But I firmly believe that Miss Marianne is innocent.”

  Florence Fusswell’s face flashed through my mind, pasted with a ferocious scowl. I would never be able to meet her eyes again. “I…I mentioned the sugar bowl, but I did not accuse him.” I intended to be in possession of a little more evidence before I did that.

  “When exactly did this candid interview take place?” said Grannie Jane, head tilted to one side. I had evaded that question when she’d asked in the hotel tearoom. Now I had no choice but to tell the truth about Mr. Fibbley appearing at the garden gate. She listened with grave attention.

  “I see now why he assumed such familiarity during our encounter,” she said.

  “He twisted my words!” I said. “It sounds as if I’m making a careless accusation! If Roddy Fusswell is the killer, I shall be t
he next victim!”

  “And I should not fault him for it,” said Grannie Jane. “Having one’s reputation trampled by a twelve-year-old goes a long way in explaining his irritation yesterday, if the reporter provoked him with these suppositions.”

  My pleasure at being named in the newspaper turned quickly to mortification. Not so severe, however, to stop me from reading the remainder of the news story.

  Schoolgirl guessing aside, the police are conduct­­ing their inquiries under the direction of Detective Inspector Henley Locke. On the afternoon of the murder, the body of the ill-fated woman was conveyed to the mortuary at Torquay Hospital. Due to the continuing investigation, the burial of Irma Eversham has been postponed until further notice.

  Grannie poured a second cup of black coffee and took a sip.

  “It is your good fortune that I am the only person in the house who will read the story,” she said. “Being quoted by a journalist in reference to a murder is not an accomplishment to please your mother.”

  I looked at the page, and then back to my grandmother. “Can it be considered a quote if I did not say what he reports that I said?”

  “I will repeat what I said to Mr. Fusswell yesterday,” said Grannie Jane. “Be wary to whom you speak your mind.”

  Sally came in with the morning’s post.

  “There’s one for you, Miss Agatha,” she said.

  “Marjorie!” I reached for the pile.

  “I don’t think so, miss.”

  Grannie passed the letter, in a creased envelope, addressed with the same precise lettering as the note I’d found at the kitchen door last night. Goodness! How had I forgotten? Reading Mr. Fibbley’s story had pushed all other worries from my head. Grannie watched me over the rim of her teacup. Sally moved spoons on the sideboard, her eyes on me as well. I supposed they were waiting to see who, other than Marjorie, might be my correspondent and expected me to pick up the letter knife or warble with pleasure at receiving post.