A Case of Grave Danger

by Sophie Cleverly

  She stared back, silent, and I knew I was right.

  ‘Your sunshine … That was her. You lost her.’

  Miss Stone’s hands began to tremble. ‘I had to give her up,’ she said, and her voice was quivering too. She spoke the words to the trees, as if I wasn’t there. ‘We’d have frozen, or starved … A rich family wanted her, and I – I – I had to. I had no choice, did I? All his fault. All his fault!’

  ‘Is that why you were stealing things? For her?’ I asked, remembering the reason for her being sacked.

  For more than survival, her diary had read. For a life.

  ‘I just wanted the best for her,’ she said quietly, her cold eyes now staring into mine. ‘For her to live as you did.’

  I stared back at her, feeling the sadness swell inside me. The world had not been kind to my governess, or to her daughter. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, hoping that my words wouldn’t get lost in the wind. The leaves rustled overhead. ‘I’m sorry about what happened to you both. I wish I could have done more to help. But what you’ve done is unforgivable. You were supposed to be a teacher. Supposed to care for others! You could have tried to make the world a better place, but instead you murdered people, Miss Stone. You left my friend for dead! He’s just a boy!’

  She flinched a little at that. I could see that what she’d done to Oliver had got to her. In her own twisted way, she had justified what she’d done to the rich men, to my father. But she knew Oliver was nothing but innocent.

  Despite her reaction, she seemed to shake it off quickly. She clenched her trembling hands and stared back at me, furious. ‘I am in the right here. I am making the world a better place. I stopped those men from hurting anyone else. It’s just good luck that your father got the blame. Perhaps it will teach him a lesson too.’

  ‘You falsely accused my father,’ I insisted as I stepped back again. This time she stepped forward. ‘That was no luck. You plotted all of this, you put an innocent man in jail! You need to turn yourself in!’

  ‘I can’t do that.’ She took another step towards me, her feet crunching on the leaves. I braced myself, ready to run if I had to. Danger, danger, the voices murmured, swirling around me like the leaves on the wind. A mist seemed to rise up from nowhere, fogging the air.

  Then I heard a crunch, louder than the whispers. A low growl came rumbling, and Miss Stone stopped dead.

  ‘Bones,’ I whispered. I looked down at him as he padded to my side, the deep red journal still clutched in his teeth. His lips curled into a snarl. He was warning her.

  ‘That’s mine,’ she said, pointing to the journal. ‘You’re going to let me have it, and then I’m going to leave.’

  ‘No!’ I shouted. No, no, no, the voices echoed. I felt every muscle in Bones’s body tense, but he kept tight hold of the little book. He knew how important it was to us, I was sure of it.

  ‘I’m not afraid of your dog,’ Miss Stone whispered, and she was near enough to me that I could just hear her over the wind and the angry whispers of the ghosts. ‘I won’t die for those men, and I won’t die for you.’ She reached into her clothing and I saw something glint. A flash of metal. A knife. ‘You will never be anyone. They won’t let you, you see. You’ll only ever be an undertaker’s daughter.’

  That one cut me more deeply than the knife could. It was as if she knew the fear that I carried with me always. Perhaps she was right.

  My muscles locked and my chest felt tight. I should have gone home. Everything in my body was screaming at me to get away, but there was no way out now. We had to do this. I took one final step back. Bones stayed by my side, continuing his warning growl.

  The Black Widow moved towards me again, taking a step over the railing that surrounded the glass-top tomb. I glanced down as my heart raced. There was another rustle from the trees beside us, louder this time. I had to keep her still.

  ‘I don’t want to hurt you, Miss Violet, but I’ll stop you if you stand in my way.’ She held out her arms now, at the forest of headstones around us. ‘Are you not afraid of this place? This place is death. All around you.’

  I stood firm. ‘I have nothing to fear from the dead,’ I said with confidence, as tendrils of mist that only I could see began to curl up around her. ‘You do, though.’

  She shook her head and sighed. ‘You don’t understand, child.’

  Her words sparked an anger that burned through whatever was left of my fear. I felt all Father’s words over the years flowing through my mind. Perhaps he had underestimated me, talked down to me. But he had loved me, and he had taught me the most important things he knew. He had taught me respect for the souls of others. He had filled me with the wisdom of life and death.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘No, you don’t understand the power of the cemetery. You don’t understand death. All these lives, all these hopes and dreams, you think they just fade away? To nothing? Then you’re wrong.’

  The whispers flowed around me through the headstones. I could feel the weight of their lives giving me strength.

  ‘This is where we plant our memories.’ I took a deep breath, my eyes still on the knife. ‘An apple tree in a graveyard doesn’t just grow bones. It grows new fruit.’ I waved my hand. A shadow moved behind Miss Stone. ‘Do you know what this graveyard grew?’

  She tipped her head.

  ‘Me.’

  I turned and screamed: ‘Oliver, NOW!’

  Oliver raised the hammer, and brought it down on the glass beneath Miss Stone’s feet with an earth-shattering crack.

  And with a scream, she fell into the darkness.

  liver, Bones and I all stared down into the gaping hole. A groan floated up from below.

  For a few moments, I was too stunned to say anything. I could barely breathe.

  We’d done it.

  We’d trapped the Black Widow.

  I sank down on to the stone that topped the Hamiltons’ tomb. Oliver stood clutching the hammer, staring at his hands as if he couldn’t quite believe what had just happened.

  ‘The police,’ I told him. ‘Go. Go!’

  He dropped the hammer to the ground with a heavy thud, turned and ran.

  Bones seemed to have calmed. He curled around me and dropped the red book in my lap. The ghosts, too, had gone quiet, the rising mist slinking away back down the hill. I peered at the shards of glass that remained round the edges of the hole – there was frost glittering on them that I could have sworn was not there before.

  And lying on the edge, a jet-black spider brooch with a few strands of pale hair. Now that I could see it up close, I could see that the outside wasn’t silver at all – just coloured metal, cracked and dirty. A fake. I left it where it was.

  The full moon was climbing the sky. In the dim twilight, I picked up the diary and held the pages close to my face so that I could make out the writing. I flipped through, desperate to check that it proved what we needed it to prove. Dark words, dark deeds soon jumped out at me. Names of victims. It was all there.

  I hit him. He went down easily. I knew it was the right thing to do. These masters cannot be allowed to get away with their crimes any longer.

  Wutherford. A cruel man. His servants tell me whispers. They see me as a friend, a confidante. I will not fail them.

  Eriksen. He will not see me coming.

  Comely-Parsons. Aberforth.

  … the hammer. I didn’t mean to hurt the boy.

  He should not have been in the way.

  Will you regret turning me away in my hour of greatest need? I lost her because of you, when all I wanted was to make her happy. Now you will lose everything because of me.

  The pieces are in place. The hammer, the forged blackmail letter. His debts will be a black mark against him.

  I have taken his files on the victims and burned them. It will look as though he has covered his tracks. Little do they know that I am covering mine. I fear, though, that I may have left something behind. When I came home, I noticed that my glove was torn, a piece missing.

&n
bsp; The journalists will feast on this. An undertaker who takes lives. An anonymous tip-off will do the job.

  I curled up against Bones for warmth.

  ‘Let me out!’ I heard Miss Stone’s voice cry weakly from below. I peered down, and I could just see the outline of the dark figure sprawled on the floor.

  ‘They’re coming for you,’ was all I said.

  Then Bones and I sat together under the rising moon in the company of ghosts, and we kept watch.

  It seemed like forever, but eventually I heard a commotion coming up the hill. I tried to scramble to my feet, but I felt heavy with exhaustion. Bones got up and trotted over to greet the new arrivals.

  It was to my great relief that I saw flickering lights coming up the path, and that they illuminated Oliver and Mother, followed by the imposing figure of Inspector Holbrook and shiny police helmets behind him. They had also fetched Alfred on the way in. He was clutching a large iron key – the spare key to the tomb, I realised.

  ‘Violet!’ Mother looked as though she had been hysterical, blotting her eyes with a handkerchief. She hurried over and threw an old blanket round my shoulders.

  I hadn’t realised how cold I was until that moment. I began to shiver uncontrollably. Bones came back to me and I wrapped my arms round him.

  The police constables – the useless Pickles and Williams – stopped further down the hill, in front of the door to the tomb. I watched as Alfred went to unlock it for them.

  Inspector Holbrook stood before me. ‘This had better not be some kind of game, Miss Veil,’ he said.

  ‘It’s not,’ I said. ‘You’ll find all the p-proof you need in t-there.’ I handed over the notebook, and he took it quickly and quietly, secreting it away into the pocket of his overcoat. I prayed that I could trust him, that he would keep the evidence safe.

  Mother helped me to my feet. She seemed barely able to speak, but just clutched on to me. That was another apology I needed to make. She had been so angry and I had just seen her as standing in the way of what we had to do. ‘I’m s-sorry,’ I said to her, though it came out as a bit of a sob. She simply held me tighter until my shaking subsided.

  Oliver came to stand beside us and held up the lamp he was holding. ‘It’s all right, miss,’ he said. ‘It’s over.’

  I managed to stretch my lips into a smile. I felt relieved, even a little proud of us, but we had just brushed so close to mortal danger that it was hard not to feel in shock.

  Inspector Holbrook picked up the hammer as if it weighed nothing. ‘Hmm,’ he said.

  I watched as Alfred stood back and the constables shouldered their way through the heavy wooden door into the tomb.

  They emerged not long later, holding up a hobbling Miss Stone and the knife she’d been carrying. Her heavy black clothes seemed to have protected her from the breaking glass, but there were a few cuts on her skin. She said nothing, didn’t even meet my eyes as they took her away.

  I breathed out. They had her now.

  ‘You should all go home,’ the inspector said, turning back to us. ‘We’ll take this woman for questioning. Get some sleep.’

  ‘Will you free my father?’ I asked. ‘He won’t have to go to trial now, will he?’

  The inspector looked down at me. ‘We’ll see,’ was all he said.

  Not long after, I was in bed with a fire blazing in the hearth and Mother and Maddy tucking me in.

  ‘Don’t you frighten us like that again, Miss Violet,’ Maddy said. She gave me a gentle smile and then went to stoke the coals.

  I was about to say I couldn’t promise anything, but I thought better of it. ‘I’m sorry,’ I repeated for what felt like the thousandth time.

  Mother kissed my forehead. ‘I’m sorry too, my darling. I should have told you about the trial.’ She sighed. ‘I … I felt as though I was drowning in all this.’ Bones jumped up on the bed and laid his head in her lap. For once, she didn’t push him away, but sat stroking behind his ears. ‘It seems you might have thrown us a lifeline.’

  ‘Did you know that she was stealing things?’ I asked, laying my head back on my downy pillow. Everything felt so warm and cosy after the cold cemetery. ‘For her daughter?’

  Mother went still for a moment. ‘I … I always thought she was a little strange, and I had noticed the odd missing item. Some of your toys and clothes, even.’ She frowned. ‘I presumed they were lost. If she had only asked, I could have passed some on …’ She sighed. ‘I think your father realised the truth, and he must have felt sorry for her, if I know him. All I knew was that he had seen it fit to let her go.’

  I yawned. ‘You didn’t ask why?’

  She stared down at Bones for a moment. ‘No. It was his choice, as head of the household. Perhaps … perhaps I ought to have.’

  ‘Goodnight, young miss,’ Maddy called from the doorway. ‘Stay in your bed tonight, won’t you?’

  ‘For tonight, I can promise I’m not moving,’ I said. The warmth of the quilt seeped into my skin.

  Mother stood up, causing Bones to reshuffle his position. ‘We will go to the police station first thing in the morning and find out what’s happening. I promise.’ She kissed me on the forehead.

  I smiled sleepily. Bones curled up next to me.

  ‘Don’t think you’re not in trouble, though,’ she said as she walked out of the room. ‘I’ll have you polishing the coffins for the next three weeks. And you can dust all the immortelles.’ I thought of our vast display of porcelain flowers. That was going to take a while. ‘And …’ She paused for a minute in the doorway. ‘You can darn all of Thomas’s socks that get holes in from now on!’

  I pouted back at her, but she just gave me a small smile and left.

  I nestled into the covers and petted Bones. A few minutes later, Oliver appeared in the door, glancing around to make sure Mother wasn’t looking. He leaned against the frame. ‘Are you all right, mi …Violet?’

  ‘I am,’ I replied, appreciating that he was making the effort to say my name. ‘How about you?’

  He smiled at me. I noticed that his hair was sticking up and his jacket was hanging loose, but his posture was easy. He seemed more relaxed than I’d ever seen him. ‘I feel … lighter,’ he said. ‘Just knowing she’s been caught. I didn’t realise how much it was weighing me down being … being afraid all the time.’ He rubbed his hand through his messy hair and exhaled deeply.

  ‘Oh, Oliver,’ I said, propping myself up on my elbows. ‘You should have told me!’

  He shrugged. ‘I was trying not to think about it. But just knowing someone was out there who did that to me … it was scary. An’ I didn’t know why.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ I told him. ‘You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nothing like that will ever happen to you again.’

  ‘Not with you two here to protect me,’ he said, grinning at me and Bones. The dog thwomped his tail on the bed in agreement.

  I chuckled. I hoped that was true.

  ‘Your … your pa’s going to be all right, isn’t he?’

  I crossed my fingers on both hands. ‘We can but hope.’

  Oliver nodded a little sadly, but I think we were both feeling a lot better. Tomorrow we would really find out my father’s fate. Had we done enough?

  ‘Goodnight.’

  ‘Goodnight.’

  I lay back, stroking Bones again. ‘Well done, boy,’ I said. ‘You’re the best dog ever.’ He looked up at me, with his deep dark eyes like galaxies. ‘We’ll give you the juiciest bone we can find, I promise.’ His tail gave another sleepy swish and then he began to snore.

  When I finally fell asleep, I dreamed of opening a tomb, and of doves flying out into the sky.

  he next day, I was up as soon as the sun rose.

  It was a weaker sun as the autumn days spilled into winter, but when I pulled open the curtains it still lit up the room. The place was getting dusty. I was sure Mother would put me on the duty of cleaning it as another punishment, but I didn’t feel
so bad about it. My world was turning again.

  All of us went down to the police station, bundled up in our coats and gloves. Bones trotted along beside us. Maddy held Thomas’s hand and I trailed along beside Mother and Oliver. We were all too anxious to speak.

  The station was quiet that morning, the waiting area mostly empty – with one notable exception.

  ‘Father!’ I cried.

  He was standing by the door that led to the stairs, with Inspector Holbrook. Constable Pickles had him in handcuffs. There were bags under his eyes, and his face was unshaven. For one horrible, everlasting-seeming moment, I worried that we hadn’t done it. That Miss Stone had escaped justice somehow, and they were taking him to the trial.

  But then his blank expression cracked into a huge grin as Constable Pickles unlocked the handcuffs.

  I ran over and threw myself into his arms.

  ‘Steady, girl,’ he said, putting me back down.

  Thomas ran over too. ‘Daddy!’ he shouted as Father leaned down and put his arm round his shoulder. Bones barked and circled excitedly.

  Pickles rolled his eyes. ‘That blasted dog. Can we get him out of here?’

  I put my hands on my hips. ‘That blasted dog helped us catch the real murderer, unlike— Mmmf!’ Mother had clamped her hand over my mouth.

  ‘What my daughter means to say,’ she told them as I wiggled away, ‘is that we are relieved that justice seems to have been done. Is my husband free to leave?’

  Inspector Holbrook gave the curtest of nods. He turned to Father. ‘Mister Veil – you may go.’

  Mother exhaled a shaky breath as she went over and took Father’s hand. The happiness sparkled in his tired eyes. The two of them stepped away from us for a moment and talked in low voices. Thomas laughed and patted Bones enthusiastically while Maddy watched them with a huge grin. Pickles merely glared and walked away.

  Oliver, to my surprise, came and stood next to me and drew himself up to his full height in front of Inspector Holbrook. ‘Don’t you owe them an apology, sir?’