The World's Greatest Detective
Page 24
“Gracious, no!” Miss Price clasped her hands to her heart. “As far as we knew, he was dead as a dodo, and we were supremely grateful to whoever had done the deed.”
“Actually,” Miss March said in a low voice, “we thought it was Julia Hartshorn.”
Toby had wanted to ask about Julia for days. “Is she really the Colebridge Cutthroat?”
“Good heavens!” Miss March looked horrified. “Where in the world did you get that idea?”
“I saw her tattoo,” Toby admitted, “and I know she escaped from Chokevine.”
“I see,” said Miss March. “Well, it’s true she’d been in prison, but she wasn’t a cutthroat. She caused a horrible accident years ago. A chemistry experiment she’d done at school went badly wrong, and I’m afraid the school’s headmistress died in the explosion. Julia went to great lengths to start a new life here on the Row after she slipped out of prison, but Mr. Abernathy discovered her secret, and he didn’t hesitate to let her know it.”
“So you were protecting her!” Toby couldn’t wait to tell Ivy that his hunch had been right. “I knew you were lying to that awful constable.”
“We like Julia,” said Miss Price. “We do not like Constable Trout.”
“Trout?” Uncle Gabriel called from his bed. “Is that what’s in this pie, Flossie? It tastes ghastly.”
“It’s good to see fame hasn’t gone to your head, Gabriel,” Miss March said crisply. She tossed her newspaper at him. “Your picture may be on the front page of this morning’s Bugle, but you haven’t changed one bit.”
Slowly, that summer, life on Detectives’ Row did begin to change. The grand white house at the corner of the High Street was taken over by the Colebridge City Museum, which strung velvet ropes across the inner doorways and began offering guided tours of the home that had once belonged to the city’s most notorious new criminal. For only a nickel, you could stand in the very place where Mr. Abernathy had sat as he waved his pistol at a brave young detective who’d uncovered his secrets. The wine cellar had been turned into a gift shop, and every morning at dawn, hired gardeners stepped out onto the balconies to trim the topiary. The tourists streamed in.
Some of those tourists had other business to conduct, too. Reluctantly at first, and more eagerly after that, they brought their stories of stolen gems and picked pockets to the Row’s remaining detectives. Mr. Rackham had retired after the Coleford Manor case, but Toby still saw him out and about each morning, feeding his chickens. Those clients who preferred a scientific approach to their problems lined up outside Julia Hartshorn’s house, while those looking for news about their friends and enemies hurried to see Miss March and Miss Price. And everyone wanted advice from the detectives who lived in the tall, narrow house in the middle of the Row, the one with walls that tilted ever so slightly to the east. Those detectives, after all, had bested Hugh Abernathy. The money didn’t pour into their pockets, but at least it did more than trickle. Toby had even started to save up for a new silk dress for Mrs. Arthur-Abbot. And he was getting very good at answering the door.
One morning in September, when Uncle Gabriel had shut himself in the kitchen and mysteriously refused to let anyone in, Toby answered the front door of one-fifteen Detectives’ Row and found Ivy on the other side of it. This wasn’t unusual anymore. The Websters had sold Coleford Manor to a wealthy murder enthusiast and moved to a small house in the city, where Ivy’s parents could walk to the museum, Ivy could walk to Detectives’ Row, and Lillie, to everyone’s regret, could walk to the Morning Bugle offices to exchange romantic gazes with Peter Jacobson. “I have to share a room with her!” Ivy had howled at Toby. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to be surrounded by all that neatness?” After that, Ivy and Percival showed up on the Montroses’ doorstep most mornings with crates of stuff from the Investigatorium, which they were in the process of relocating to Toby’s bedroom.
Today, however, Ivy was holding a small white envelope. “Look at this!” she said, pushing it into Toby’s hands. “The police sent it to me, but it’s really for both of us; you’ll see.”
Toby reached inside the envelope and pulled out a long, narrow strip of paper with writing on one side of it. “It’s a check!” said Ivy, almost bouncing out of her shoes. “Made out to Webster and Montrose! Our very first payment. It’s only a hundred dollars—not ten thousand, I know—but if the police want to thank us for helping them catch Mr. Abernathy, I’m certainly not going to complain about it.”
The check didn’t feel entirely real to Toby. He held on to it tightly, in case it blew away or crumbled or dissolved. “What should we do with it?” he asked. “Go to Doyle’s Detection Goods? Or Secondhand Sleuthery? Buy a bone for Percival?”
Ivy shook her head. “It’s for you,” she said, “and your uncle. I know he could use it.”
“Really?” Toby looked down at the check again to make sure it was still there. “Can we give it to him right now?”
Together, they ran through the kitchen door and straight into an enormous cloud of flour. Somewhere in the cloud, Uncle Gabriel sneezed. “Tobias?” he called out. “I told you not to come in! I am extremely busy.”
“Are you making pancakes again?” Toby asked. He hoped not. “I’m sorry to bother you, but we’ve got something for you.” As the flour cleared, Toby held out the check to Uncle Gabriel. “It’s a hundred dollars.”
“So you don’t ever have to send Toby away,” Ivy explained. “And maybe so you can buy breakfast.”
Uncle Gabriel rubbed the flour from his eyes. He wrinkled his forehead and examined the check. Then, with an egg-splattered hand, he handed the check back to Toby. “I think we need to set two things straight,” he said. “First of all, I have absolutely no intention of sending Toby anywhere.”
“But what if the clients stop coming?” Toby asked. “What if we run out of money?”
“They might,” said Uncle Gabriel, “and we might, but we’ll survive somehow, and we’ll do it together.” He wiped his hands on the front of his apron. “My god, Tobias, have you spent all this time thinking I’ve been fifty cents away from casting you out?”
Toby could feel his cheeks flush. “You had all those unpaid bills,” he said. “Aunt Janet said you couldn’t afford to keep me for long, and I wasn’t sure you even wanted me to stay. After all, you’re the Last Relative.”
“Egads.” Uncle Gabriel sat down heavily on a kitchen chair. “I wish you’d been sent to me first. I was devastated when your parents died, and I wanted to meet you right then and there, but Janet warned me to keep my distance. She said a person who rubs shoulders with the criminal element isn’t a suitable guardian for a young boy, and I have to admit I agreed with her. When I found out you’d be coming to live here, I worried that you’d be miserable. You’re not miserable, are you, Tobias?”
“No!” said Toby. “I want to stay here forever. Only . . .” He looked sideways at Ivy. “I was wondering, Uncle Gabriel, if I could do more than answer the door and organize your files. I’m almost done with Ivy’s correspondence course now, and I don’t think I’m really cut out to be a detective’s assistant.” He took a deep breath and coughed a little from the flour. “I think I’m better at being a detective.”
Uncle Gabriel shook his head. “Of course you are!” he boomed. “Even those fools on the western end of the Row can see that! You solved the crime of the decade, for goodness’ sake! I thought you liked organizing files.” He picked the check up from the floor and handed it back to Toby. “I want you to use this to get the Webster and Montrose Investigative Offices up and running, and I won’t hear a word of protest. Make sure Tobias follows my instructions, Ivy.”
“I will,” Ivy said solemnly. “I’d also like to know the second thing you need to set Toby straight on. It’s about how much he scrubs his fingernails, isn’t it?”
“No,” said Uncle Gabriel, “although that is a discussion we should have. I’m not making pancakes, Tobias; I’m making a cake. I wanted it to be a
surprise, but as you can probably see, I could use some help.” He waved his arms at the mess in the kitchen, nearly knocking over a mixing bowl in the process. “My powers of deduction have informed me that you have a birthday coming up, and I thought we should celebrate it. You do like cake, don’t you?”
Toby grinned. “I love it.”
“I suspected as much,” said Uncle Gabriel. “Ivy, assuming we can whack this dessert together before midnight, why don’t you join us? Bring that dog of yours, too. I could even invite Tobias’s aunt Janet.”
“Not Aunt Janet,” said Toby and Ivy together.
Uncle Gabriel had just taken a whisk to a bowlful of eggs when there was a knock at the front door. He looked out into the hallway, down at the eggs, and then pleadingly at Toby. “I know we just discussed this,” he said, “but do you think . . .”
“Don’t worry,” Toby told him. “I’ll get it.”
He dusted himself off, shook the flour from his hair, crossed the front hall, and pulled the door partway open. A woman stood there on the steps. She wasn’t any older than his mother would have been, and Toby could tell from the way she clutched her sweater around her that she was in trouble, one way or another.
“Excuse me, sir,” she said to Toby. “I’m sorry to bother you. I’m looking for the world’s greatest detective.”
Toby opened the door wide. “Then you’ve come to the right place.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Although the city of Colebridge, its case of “detective fever,” and its resident sleuths and criminals are fictional, they are loosely based on information from several nonfiction sources, particularly The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective by Kate Summerscale, The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime by Judith Flanders, and The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York by Deborah Blum.
Thanks are due, as always, to Toni Markiet for her editorial wisdom, faith, and patience, and to the irreplaceable Abbe Goldberg. Thanks also to everyone at HarperCollins Children’s Books who helped bring this story into the world, including Kathryn Silsand, Kimberly Stella, Amy Ryan, Tessa Meischeid, and Janet Rosenberg.
Huge thanks to Sarah Davies at the Greenhouse for her unyielding support, and to the wonderful team at Rights People.
Kristen Kittscher and Amy Rose Capetta read early drafts and gave invaluable mystery-writing advice; Cori McCarthy helped the story find its structure. More friends and family members than I can count lent their love and encouragement during the year I spent drafting this book, and for that, I won’t ever be able to thank them enough. Zach, I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you whodunit. Nora, I hope you’ll love a good mystery.
Finally, thanks to Agatha Christie, Ellen Raskin, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, with much admiration and many apologies.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo credit by Amy Rose Capetta
CAROLINE CARLSON is also the author of the Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates series. She holds an MFA in writing for children from Vermont College of Fine Arts and lives with her family in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
You can visit her online at www.carolinecarlsonbooks.com.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
BOOKS BY CAROLINE CARLSON
The Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates series:
Magic Marks the Spot
The Terror of the Southlands
The Buccaneers’ Code
CREDITS
Cover art © 2017 by Júlia Sardà
Cover design by Andrea Vandergrift
COPYRIGHT
THE WORLD’S GREATEST DETECTIVE. Copyright © 2017 by Caroline Carlson. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2016957943
ISBN 978-0-06-236827-0
EPub Edition © April 2017 ISBN 9780062368294
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