Out of all the people at the manor, Toby realized, Mr. Peartree was the only one who’d known Mr. Abernathy well, and the only one who seemed truly upset. Losing a friend didn’t make Mr. Peartree an orphan, exactly, but maybe it didn’t feel all that different. “What will you do now?” Toby asked.
“Retire, I suppose.” Mr. Peartree examined the dirt underneath his fingernails. “Go abroad to the south of Gallis, where no one knows me and I can sit by the ocean in peace. I’ll have to wrap up Hugh’s affairs—sell the house, move out of the Row. I don’t suppose there’s another detective here who’ll want a secondhand biographer.”
Toby wondered what Uncle Gabriel would think of having his most recent investigations written up in the Sphinx Monthly Reader. Not even Mr. Peartree was talented enough to turn the case of Mrs. Lee’s lost jewels (found behind her dressing table) or the case of Mr. Sergi’s midnight visitors (a family of barn owls) into a really thrilling tale. And Uncle Gabriel would have been horrified by the idea; he would have marched through the house in his dressing gown, waving his spatula and shouting about that puffed-up old ostrich’s assistant. “Mr. Peartree,” said Toby, “I was wondering—is it true that Mr. Abernathy and my uncle used to work together?”
Mr. Peartree looked up. “Where did you hear that?”
“From Julia Hartshorn,” said Toby, “and from Philip Elwood. I think everyone knows about it, sir, except for me.”
“Well, it was a long time ago,” said Mr. Peartree, “before I came to Detectives’ Row. Hugh didn’t like to talk much about it, but if I remember correctly, he and your uncle were school friends. When they were old enough, they opened an agency together—Montrose and Abernathy, it was called. For a while, they were quite successful.”
“But they fought,” said Toby.
“It’s just as I said before, Mr. Montrose: detectives are impossible. Your uncle and Hugh couldn’t stand to share the spotlight; they each wanted all the fame and fortune for themselves. Still, they managed well enough until Lord Entwhistle recruited them to track down the Colebridge Cutthroat.”
Toby sat up straight. “Uncle Gabriel didn’t have anything to do with that case. Hugh Abernathy solved it alone. That’s how he became famous!”
Mr. Peartree shook his head. “Your uncle was there, too, Toby, though not many people know it. When Mr. Abernathy hired me to write that first story for the Sphinx, he asked me to leave Gabriel Montrose out of it, for Gabriel’s own sake.”
“What do you mean?” said Toby. “Did Uncle Gabriel do something wrong?”
Mr. Peartree considered his words. “I wasn’t there that night,” he said at last, “but I’ve been told that your uncle’s jealousy nearly cost Lord Entwhistle his life. Montrose and Abernathy were supposed to be guarding Entwhistle House, but Gabriel thought that Hugh was trying to take over the case, and he started an argument about it. I believe he even punched Hugh in the nose.”
“I’ve heard about that part,” said Toby. It wasn’t hard for him to imagine how the argument had gone. He wondered if Mr. Abernathy had been anything like Ivy, always eager to take charge and give orders. And he wondered if Uncle Gabriel had once been anything like Toby himself, small and nervous and always tagging along. This seemed to be so exactly the opposite of Uncle Gabriel’s personality that Toby almost laughed—but then again, Mr. Peartree had said it all happened a long time ago.
“In any event,” said Mr. Peartree, “the two men were so distracted by their own disagreements that they didn’t notice the Cutthroat sneaking into Entwhistle House. If Mr. Abernathy hadn’t realized their mistake and run to the rescue, all three men might have been killed on the spot.”
Toby cringed. No wonder Uncle Gabriel had never mentioned his role in the case. If anyone else had found out the truth of the matter, his career would have been ruined. “Uncle Gabriel must have felt awful,” Toby said.
“I’m sure he did,” said Mr. Peartree. “Lord Entwhistle was furious with both detectives. The next day, Hugh dismissed Gabriel from their partnership. He didn’t have a choice in the matter, you understand, but Gabriel took it badly.”
“He still hates Mr. Abernathy,” Toby said. “I don’t think he ever got over their argument.”
“Perhaps not.” Mr. Peartree paused and studied Toby’s face. “Since we’re speaking of your uncle, I hope you won’t mind if I ask you a question about him. Is he training you properly?”
“To be a detective?” Toby shrugged. “I’m in charge of answering the door, taking clients’ coats, and getting tea for them if they want it. I dust Uncle Gabriel’s desk twice a month and organize his files on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”
“Hmm,” said Mr. Peartree.
“They need a lot of organizing.”
“Well, if that’s what makes you happy, Mr. Montrose, then I am happy for you.” Mr. Peartree pulled his gloves back on and got up from the armchair. “Enough about your uncle. I’m very sorry to hear about your spat with Miss Ivy, and I’m sure you’ll go on to do remarkable things, with or without her. But I hope you’ll feel comfortable coming to me if you have any more trouble. I know more than a little about dealing with difficult detectives.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Toby. He remembered how Mr. Abernathy had smashed Mr. Peartree’s pocket watch against the floor, and how Mr. Peartree had only sighed. That, Toby thought, was the sort of detail you never read about in any of the Hugh Abernathy stories. In fact, it reminded him of something he’d been wondering about earlier, before the rattrap and the lemonade and the fight. “Mr. Peartree?” he said. “Could you tell me something about Mr. Abernathy?”
“Certainly.”
“Did he have any secrets?”
Mr. Peartree paused in the doorway. There was a soft tapping sound as he drummed his green-gloved fingers on the doorknob. “I’m sure he must have,” he said at last, “and I knew him better than anyone, but even I can’t tell you what his secrets might have been. I’m afraid only the world’s greatest detective could possibly tell you that.”
CHAPTER 17
THE NIGHT WATCH
Night had settled over Coleford Manor. Outside the house, murder tourists yawned and turned toward home, while the hardiest journalists crawled inside tents they’d pitched and tried to scribble by firelight. Inside the house, servants lit the lamps and drew the curtains, and all the detectives trudged away to sleep, still muttering theories about poisons and blackmail and escaped convicts. “Only one day left before the coppers take over,” Mr. Rackham said on his way up the stairs. “Heaven knows we’ll need all the time we’ve got left.”
No one had gone out of the manor all afternoon, with Mr. Abernathy’s stolen files or without them. That made sense, though: if Toby had been a criminal, he wouldn’t have wanted to risk being spotted by taking the papers outside in the daylight. He would have waited until the household had gone to bed, until he was the only one awake in the huge old house, with its echoing corridors and ancient beams that made him jump every time they creaked. Even Percival had fallen asleep on the hallway rug.
Toby didn’t know whether Ivy was awake, and he told himself he didn’t care. He’d hardly even seen her since he’d stormed out of the parlor. He’d spent the rest of the day trying to do as much detecting as he could without her help, but it hadn’t exactly been easy. When he’d attempted to interrogate Miss Price and Miss March, they’d dragged him into a long and tangled skein of gossip instead: Lillie Webster had been humming cheerfully on the staircase that morning; did Toby think she was likely to be in love? Had Toby heard how Mr. Peartree had shouted at poor little Percival when the dog had tugged on the laces of his moss-colored shoes? And wasn’t Julia Hartshorn looking ill this afternoon, as though her lunch had turned her stomach? Was Toby feeling all right? What had he been doing that day? By the time he escaped from the white-carpeted Daisy Room, Toby hadn’t learned a single thing about the murder, but Miss March and Miss Price had learned practically everything there was to know about Toby. He wishe
d he knew how they’d done it. At least he’d avoided telling them about the trap.
Julia Hartshorn didn’t look all that ill to Toby, but she had been acting strange. She’d spent the afternoon rummaging through the manor’s cupboards and storerooms for anything that might contain Brandelburg acid, but she kept stepping out of rooms whenever Toby stepped into them, and he’d seen her three different times in the conservatory, staring out the window at the crowd beyond the gates. Was she planning to meet someone? Was she trying to escape? Toby still hadn’t managed to find out.
He also hadn’t managed to interview Mr. Rackham, but this wasn’t entirely his fault, since Mr. Rackham had disappeared for most of the afternoon. He’d set off to search the farthest reaches of the manor, and everyone had been worried when he hadn’t returned by the dressing gong. Mrs. Webster finally found him half an hour later, pacing back and forth in one of the attics. “Got turned around pretty badly up there,” Mr. Rackham had explained as he brushed the cobwebs from his clothes. “I blame the builders. There’s no good reason at all to construct a house with so many rooms! Only three things live in attics like those: bats, ghosts, and murderers.” After hearing this, Lillie had announced that she wouldn’t go up to the attics ever again, and Ivy had tormented her by making ghostly noises all through dinner. They’d been awfully funny noises, actually, and Toby had tried hard not to laugh.
Now, in the darkness, the idea of ghosts didn’t seem quite so funny. Toby hadn’t been frightened of the dark since he was small, and of course he knew ghosts weren’t real, but what was making the pipes clang in the ceilings? Why had a floorboard creaked in the empty hall? Had those been footsteps? He’d probably only imagined them. Still, crouched near the long, heavy curtains, with a draft from the conservatory window prickling his neck, Toby couldn’t help realizing the truth: he was entirely alone in a strange house at midnight, looking out for a murderer. He hadn’t even thought to bring along a weapon to defend himself. Would the person who’d killed Mr. Abernathy hesitate to kill Toby, too? If he wasn’t extremely careful, he was going to end up as the ghost of Coleford Manor.
That was when the howling began.
It started low and grew louder: a thin, unearthly noise, the sound of loneliness and danger, of empty moors and people lost at sea. It echoed in Toby’s bones; it seeped into his heart. He knew he was supposed to stay quiet, and he tried as hard as he could, but there was no way to avoid it: he started to scream.
Then a black-clad arm reached out from the shadows, and a black-gloved hand clamped over his mouth.
“Toby!” said Ivy. “Hush! Do you want the murderer to hear you?”
“Mmph,” said Toby. It was hard to say anything at all through the glove.
“Don’t worry; I’m not the murderer.” Ivy pulled her hand away from his mouth. “It’s me! Ivy!”
“I know,” said Toby. Now that his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, he could see her more clearly. She was dressed all in black, with her hair tied back and a mask over her eyes, as though she were auditioning for the role of a burglar in a country play.
“Why did you scream?” Ivy asked. “Did I frighten you?”
Toby glared at her. “You didn’t have to howl like that.”
“Howl?” Toby couldn’t see Ivy’s face very well in the darkness, but she sounded genuinely confused. “Oh! You must have heard Percival. He’s a wolf in his dreams, you know. He once frightened Cook so badly that she locked herself in the linen cupboard and refused to come out until morning.”
Toby was glad Ivy couldn’t tell exactly how mortified he looked. What sort of detective was frightened of small brown dogs? Now Ivy would tease him the way she’d teased Lillie. “Could you stand somewhere else, please, Inspector Webster?” he said before she could start. “I’m trying to look out for a murderer, and you’re blocking my view.”
Ivy drew back as though she’d stepped on a snake. “Well, all right, then. I’m looking out for a murderer, too, as it happens, but I’ll do it over here.” She stalked over to the opposite side of the window and sat down on the floor. “How’s your view now, Detective?”
“Wonderful,” said Toby through his teeth.
“I suppose you learned a lot during your investigations this afternoon.”
“Heaps,” Toby agreed.
“And you didn’t need any help?”
“That’s right,” said Toby.
“Good,” said Ivy. “I didn’t, either.”
The room was horribly quiet.
“Toby?” Ivy whispered after a while. “Are we still partners?”
Toby hugged his knees to his chest. “I don’t think so.”
“Oh,” said Ivy. “Are we still friends?”
Toby hadn’t thought about this. Ever since he’d left the farmhouse, he hadn’t lived in one place long enough to have friends—not real ones, the kind you laughed and ran wild with and trusted with your most important secrets. He wasn’t even sure he remembered how to make them. “I don’t know,” he told her.
“All right.” Ivy leaned forward and rested her chin in her hands. They sat like that for a very long time, Toby at one end of the window and Ivy at the other, with the whole night stretched out between them. Sometimes, in the darkness, Percival howled.
“If we’d been friends,” Ivy said eventually, “Mother would have been happy. She worries about me. She says I spend too much time by myself, even though half the time I’m with Percival and the rest of the time I’m with Egbert—but that’s not the sort of company that makes Mother feel any better. I know because I overheard her and Father talking once, when I was practicing my eavesdropping technique. ‘I never worry one bit about Lillie,’ Mother was saying, ‘but Ivy is such an unusual child. There are times when she’s a complete mystery to me.’ Then Father agreed with her—and you know how awful they both are at solving mysteries.”
Ivy’s chin wasn’t pointed toward the ceiling any longer, and her confident air seemed as thin and flimsy as one of Madame Ermintrude’s scarves. How hadn’t Toby noticed it earlier? He’d spent all day trying to dig up people’s secrets, but he’d never even thought of uncovering Ivy’s. “What did you do after that?” he asked.
“I tried to be more like Lillie and less like myself, of course, but it didn’t stick. Not the piano lessons, not the charity work, and definitely not the manners.” Ivy pulled off the burglar’s mask and tossed it onto the rug. “I’ve got fifty different costumes in the Investigatorium, but none of them turns me into a girl who fits this family. You were right that Mother and Father would never send me away; they do love me, and I don’t have any idea what it’s like to lose your parents. But I know what it’s like to feel that you don’t quite belong anyplace, and that’s what I wanted to tell you, although I don’t think I’ve done it very well.” Ivy squirmed. “And I’m sorry I called you well behaved.”
“I didn’t mind that part so much,” Toby admitted. “I am well behaved.”
“Well, it’s not your fault.” Ivy sounded like she might be smiling. “We can’t help who we are.”
Somewhere, not so very far away, something creaked.
Toby froze. “Did you hear that?” Ivy whispered.
Toby nodded. “I hope it’s not ghosts again.”
“It’s the squeaky floorboard on the front stairs,” Ivy said. “If our criminal had ever tried to raid the pantry for midnight snacks, he’d have known to step over it.”
“We don’t know yet that it’s a criminal,” Toby whispered. “Maybe it’s someone who walks in their sleep, or—”
“Shh!” said Ivy. “Listen.”
Soft footsteps hurried down the hall, and a tall, thin shadow passed the conservatory door. For all Toby could make out in the darkness, it might have been anyone. His heart felt as though it might spring out of his chest at any moment. Had that shadow been the person who had killed Mr. Abernathy?
A door squealed open farther down the hall, and Ivy held up a hand in warning. Then there was a scrabb
ling sound, like someone fumbling with a window sash, and Toby knew that the rat had sprung its trap.
“Come on!” Ivy whispered, but Toby was already halfway to the door. They ran down the hall, looking into each room they passed along the way. The dining room was empty and undisturbed. So was the music room. But in the front parlor, a breeze billowed the drapery, and the moonlight illuminated a figure with a sheaf of papers clutched to his chest and one foot already out the window.
“I knew it!” Ivy shouted.
Philip Elwood froze. He put his foot back down on the floor. He looked at Toby and Ivy.
Then he dropped the papers and ran.
CHAPTER 18
ANSWERS AND QUESTIONS
Philip Elwood was out the back door of the parlor before Toby and Ivy had a chance to blink. They tore after him across the ground floor of the manor, startling Percival awake and making Mrs. Webster’s ancient artifacts quiver. “He’s too fast!” said Toby. “We’ll never catch up to him!”
“Don’t worry,” Ivy said. “This is the perfect time to follow lesson eighty-three of Inspector Webster’s correspondence course.”
“Lesson eighty-three?” Toby’s elbow collided with the dressing gong as they ran past it, and the boom echoed through the manor.
“Yes,” said Ivy. “‘Three Rules for Pursuing a Criminal on Foot.’”
“I don’t think I’ve seen that lesson yet.”
“Of course you haven’t!” said Ivy as they skidded through the kitchen doorway. “It doesn’t exist!”
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