The Body in the Box Room

by L. A. Nisula

  But why was she here? A quick glance around the room didn’t show much besides dust-covered furniture. The only thing recently used was a liquor cabinet that had been pried open, but it seemed too much trouble to break into the house for a bottle of gin, and the girl looked like she could afford her own anyway. There were at least three safes, but all were dusty and didn’t seem to have been opened in quite a while. I turned to the others. “Do any of you know her?”

  No one answered. Milly continued to gape at her. Mrs. Fetherton gave me a look that seemed to suggest my conversational tone was not appropriate for the situation, although I’d never found panic to be particularly helpful at a murder scene, and Randall continued to lie uselessly on the floor.

  “Then it seems to be quite the puzzle. Is there a telephone somewhere near?”

  I stared at them until Mrs. Fetherton answered. “No.”

  “All right, do you know what the constable’s beat is?”

  No answers. I sighed. Completely unprepared for a murder. Not that I could remember being at a crime scene where the residents were prepared for a murder, but some seemed a bit more inclined to be helpful than others.

  “Then I’ll go looking for him. If you would try to wake Randall or drag him out of the crime scene or something.” As I stepped over Randall, I gave him a bit of a kick in the ribs. It didn’t wake him up, not that I really thought it would, but it did make me feel better so it accomplished something.

  Outside, I found a boy standing by the street lamp at the corner where Rusham Street met the high street, seemingly doing nothing more interesting than waiting for the lamplighter to come by. “Do you know where the constable is?”

  He looked up. “Why?”

  “If you brought him to me at number 24 Rusham Street, I’d give you a shilling, that’s all.”

  That perked him up. “Know right where ’e should be. Just take a minute.”

  I watched him run down the street then went back to the house.

  When I returned to number 24, it was to find the door unlocked as I’d left it and everyone crowded around Randall, who was finally regaining consciousness thanks to what smelled like a liberal amount of the smelling salts Aunt Hettie liked to pass out to anyone too polite or shocked to refuse them. If it had been someone else distributing them, I would have suspected they were meant to deter some of the inauthentic fainting fits, but Aunt Hettie had an unfortunate tendency towards hysterics, which made the theory unlikely. In any case, they seemed to have worked on Randall. He was sitting up in the doorway of the box room with Mrs. Fetherton and Milly fussing over him. I was tempted to go directly to the kitchen to avoid them, but that did seem a bit cowardly, so I announced my presence.

  “I’ve sent for a constable. He should be here shortly.”

  “Police?” Mrs. Fetherton asked in a tone that suggested I had invited a convention of dustmen into her house.

  Milly took her cues from Mrs. Fetherton. “Do you really think it’s necessary, Cassie?”

  I glared at her. If she was being that ridiculous, she was more obsessed with Randall than I’d thought. “There is a dead body under the desk in the box room; I would say police assistance would be advisable, yes.”

  Randall moaned and leaned back against the door frame. Milly uncapped the smelling salts again, causing even my eyes to water across the hall. It seemed to do the trick for Randall, though, or perhaps he simply did not wish to be confronted with them again at close range. He sat up and tried to straighten his cravat only to discover it had been taken while he was insensible. “I say, do we have to sit so close to it?”

  I did not point out that until a few moments ago, he was the sole member of the party who had not been ambulatory.

  Mrs. Fetherton answered him. “Let’s move to the sitting room.”

  Milly nodded and got to her feet then offered Randall a hand up. Randall staggered a bit as he rose, but I suspected it was for show, especially when Milly went for her smelling salts again and he suddenly regained his balance.

  “Would you get the door, Cassie?” Milly asked as she passed me.

  I found the sitting room again and held the door until Randall had been brought in and deposited on the couch. Mrs. Fetherton collapsed into an armchair.

  “Police in my house, what would your father think?” She started plucking at the buttons on the armrest.

  Milly hurried over with her salts only to be waved away. She went to sit beside Randall and watched him for any signs of lightheadedness, I assumed, as she kept the smelling salts at the ready.

  I looked around the room for some means of escape. I certainly couldn’t leave the house before the police arrived, but I would have settled for leaving the room.

  I’d almost given up when the front bell rang.

  Mrs. Fetherton looked up. “We’ll have to ring for Nora; I don’t think she can hear the door upstairs.”

  “Mrs. Fetherton sent her to bed,” Milly explained. “She was completely overwrought.”

  “Then we shouldn’t disturb her. I’ll see who it is.” It seemed prudent not to mention that I suspected it was the police, or at least my messenger boy back for his shilling.

  I opened the front door to find that one of my guesses had been correct. There was a police constable on the doorstep, and not one that I had met before, so apparently I did not know everyone at Scotland Yard, as had been suggested more than once. The constable on the doorstep was more or less what I had come to expect: young, neat, with close-cropped hair curling against his scalp and an expression of polite blandness. I held the door open for him. “Good evening.”

  He removed his helmet as he stepped inside. “Good evening. Tommy said he’d been promised a shilling by a lady if he brought me to number 24?”

  “That was me. But didn’t he come for his shilling?”

  “I gave it to him. He’s an honest lad for the most part, and I think he needed the shilling.”

  I pulled the coin out of my pocket. “Then I think I owe you this. If you’d come through, she’s in the storage room.”

  “She?” he asked, allowing a slight bit of confusion to show in his voice, probably wondering what he had been summoned for.

  I hurried to enlighten him. “We’ve found a body in the box room.” I paused and then added, “Dead,” in case it wasn’t obvious.

  The constable raised an eyebrow and followed me through to the hallway. “If you’ll forgive my saying, you do not seem terribly affected by the discovery of a body.”

  I smiled a little. “You’ll have plenty of affected people soon. I don’t really know any of the parties. I came with my cousin, who knows the owner of the house’s son. And I’m afraid this isn’t my first body.”

  “Oh.” The constable didn’t seem to know what else to say to that.

  “Cassandra Pengear, by the way.”

  “Constable Lewis Declan.”

  “Then right through here, Constable Declan.”

  As we passed the sitting room, I could see the occupants were trying to watch without looking like they were interested in the arrival of the police, although Milly was leaning almost off the back of the couch in her efforts to catch a glimpse of our guest. I caught Constable Declan glancing into the room from the corner of his eye.

  “The older woman is Mrs. Fetherton, she owns the house,” I offered helpfully. “Randall is her son and Milly Prynne is my cousin.”

  Constable Declan nodded once. “So she is involved with Mr. Fetherton?”

  “She knows him,” I hedged. “I don’t really know how well.” That was, strictly speaking, the truth. “That’s the door to the box room. She’s behind the desk.”

  Constable Declan allowed himself to be distracted by the crime scene. I waited by the door while he went to the desk and looked over at the victim. “Did anyone recognize her?”

  “Not as far as I know.”

  He nodded. “I’d better meet the other witnesses then. Was anything disturbed?”

  “I think t
he curtain there was probably over her, so it was moved; otherwise, we tried not to.” Constable Declan looked around and gave me an oddly confused look.

  “But I wasn’t there when they found her, so I don’t really know. And of course, there’s no telling what happened when Randall fainted.”

  “Fainted?” He allowed himself a flicker of a smile. “I should meet them next. The sitting room, I believe?”

  “I’ll show you the way.”

  When we entered the sitting room, everyone immediately turned away from the door and tried to look as if they had just been discussing something terribly interesting and innocent. As Milly started commenting on the weather and Mrs. Fetherton started to point out that the tea hadn’t been brought in yet, it didn’t do very well as a ploy. Only Randall kept silent, but I suspected that was more from his confusion than any thought that keeping quiet might be a good idea.

  Constable Declan pretended not to notice the mismatched conversations. He went to the center of the small seating area and introduced himself. “Good evening. I’m Constable Declan. I’ll be summoning someone from the Yard to deal with the tragedy here. But before I do, I wanted to ask, does anyone here know anything about the circumstances surrounding…the events in the box room, which I should be made aware of?”

  I was standing behind the armchair, so I could see Milly and Randall but only the back of Mrs. Fetherton’s head. Milly shook her head. Randall looked like he wasn’t certain if he should say something or not. But it was Mrs. Fetherton who surprised all of us by bursting into tears and rocking back and forth in her chair. It took me a moment to make out the words in her sobs. “Here, how could this happen here?”

  Milly looked stunned and only kept her jaw from dropping by being distracted by Randall, who leaned across and gave his mother’s hand one quick pat, saying, “It’s all right, old girl,” before settling back on the couch and looking around the room for something, although I don’t think he knew what. Constable Declan was the only one who seemed to take her reaction in stride.

  “All right now, ma’am. A nice cup of tea will calm you down. Miss Pengear, would you mind?”

  Comforting hysterical witnesses was not my favorite part of crime solving, but it was a role I was frequently stuck with. I put my arm around Mrs. Fetherton and led her to the kitchen where the tea was still steeping from our aborted attempt at tea and cake. I fixed her a cup with extra sugar and then another for myself—no sugar, as I wasn’t hysterical.

  When Mrs. Fetherton looked a bit more herself, I asked, “Did you recognize her?”

  “No, no. I’ve never seen her. Why would someone come here to die?”

  I shrugged and fixed a third cup of tea. No reason to tell her the victim most likely had come here for other reasons and those reasons were probably what got her killed. “Are you feeling better?”

  “Yes, it was just the shock. You don’t suppose we’re in danger, do you?”

  “I wouldn’t dwell on that. Just rest for a few minutes. I’ll be back soon.” I took the extra cup of tea and went back into the hallway.

  I found Constable Declan by the front window, releasing one of the dull but functional mechanical birds Scotland Yard favored. “Summoning assistance?”

  “This is something an inspector needs to deal with. I will be guarding the scene of the crime until one arrives.”

  “I brought you this to pass the time.” I held out the teacup.

  “Thank you. I’m asking the witnesses to stay in the sitting room.”

  “I’ll let the others know.” I didn’t see any reason to tell him I doubted anyone would comply.

  I was on my way back to the kitchen when there was another knock on the door. I was nearby, so I went to answer it. Mrs. Fetherton came into the entryway from the direction of the kitchen stairs as I opened the door. There were two men outside, both scruffy but well-fed, not quite intimidating but I had the feeling they could be, particularly as the shorter one had an oddly misshapen nose, and certainly not who I would expect to be calling on Mrs. Fetherton in the evening. The red-head asked, “The lady of the house in?”

  Mrs. Fetherton heard the voice and came to the door. “Now isn’t a good time. We’ve had a bit of a shock, and my son just bringing his fiancée to visit for the first time.”

  That was the first I’d heard of marriage. I wondered if Mrs. Fetherton knew something I didn’t.

  “She looks like a right fine one, then.”

  I was tempted to say, “It’s not me,” but as I didn’t know the men, and it was Randall’s mother standing there, I decided it would be impolite at best.

  The taller man, who was really only average height, quite average in every way really, save for the tattoo of a rope or snake or something over his knuckles, put a hand on the other man’s shoulder and applied a little pressure, pulling him back from the door, hinting they should leave. “We’ll come by tomorrow and find out when it’s convenient.”

  Constable Declan came to the end of the hallway to see who the newcomers were.

  “Thank you.” She closed the door practically in their faces. “From the church down the way,” she explained. “I’d promised them some old things for their charity work and they were here to pick them up. But it doesn’t seem right…”

  “It’s a good idea not to remove things from the premises just now,” Constable Declan said, “so quite right to send them away at the moment. They can get their things in a day or two. There will always be a need for it. Now, I would like to keep everyone in the sitting room if you don’t mind, ma’am.”

  Mrs. Fetherton nodded and quietly went to sit with Randall. Constable Declan went back into the box room. I was beginning to think the corpse would make better company than the Fethertons.

  Milly came out just as Mrs. Fetherton went in and I wondered if she was avoiding Mrs. Fetherton or very good at coincidence. “I suppose he’ll want Nora here too.”

  “I would think so.”

  “Then I’ll get her.”

  “Do you know where her room is?”

  Milly shrugged. “How hard can it be to find?”

  So she was avoiding at least some of the people in the sitting room. Not that I blamed her. I started for the kitchen. It seemed to me that, since I’d gone to the trouble of buying the cake, it would be a waste not to eat it. I had just brought the serving plate up to the parlor—not that I was avoiding the Fethertons in the sitting room, of course—and discovered the teapot we’d left there was already empty when the doorbell rang. Milly was half-way down the stairs—apparently the servants’ quarters were harder to find than she’d thought—and Constable Declan was the only other one in a fit state to answer it, and he was busy guarding the box-room door, so I opened the front door on my way back to the kitchen.

  “Miss Pengear, I should have known.” Inspector Wainwright looked as thrilled as ever to find me at a crime scene.

  “Hello, Inspector. There’s been a murder. I’m getting the tea.” I held up the empty pot and left him to close the door. I stopped at the end of the hall and pointed. “She’s in the box room there, the body, I mean, and there’s walnut cake in the parlor. Milly will show you where she is.”

  Milly came down the final steps and pointed to the box room, waiting for Inspector Wainwright to follow her.

  I had been told there was a family resemblance between Milly and me but had never been able to see it. From Inspector Wainwright’s expression, it was clear he could. I left for the kitchen before he could comment on it. If it had been another day, I might have felt some guilt at leaving Milly to deal with him, but she’d left me to deal with Randall, so it seemed fair enough.

  Chapter 3

  IN THE KITCHEN, I decided the number of policemen warranted a fresh pot and set the kettle to boil again. Milly came in as I was looking for something to take the kettle off the hob without burning myself. “That policeman doesn’t like you.”

  “I could have told you that.”

  “Oh. Most of them see
m to. Have you seen any headache powders here? Randall isn’t feeling well. Murder doesn’t agree with him.”

  “I’m not sure it agrees with anybody, really.”

  “It won’t hurt Randall’s chances will it?”

  “His chances at what?” I doubted he had much chance at whatever she was worried about.

  “I don’t know. Getting this solved. Not being a suspect. Things like that.”

  I had the feeling Randall was the sort to incriminate himself unintentionally. “Do you think he needs to be worried?”

  “Oh no, not at all. He had nothing to do with any of this.”

  She seemed quite certain, but I wasn’t so sure now. “Milly, have you come into any money recently?”

  “How did you know, Cassie? Remember the money Father had put in the Harrington Steam Works for me? Well, the income is finally getting transferred to my London accounts.”

  I sighed. “And how long after that did you start stepping out with Randall?”

  “Oh no, that was before. He’s the reason they got sorted out. I was complaining about it in a pub, and he overheard and offered to help.”

  I decided against lecturing her on the foolishness of discussing finances where anyone could hear her. “So he’s a banker?” Somehow I couldn’t see Randall content to work with other people’s money.

  “No, he introduced me to the banker who got it sorted out. Isn’t he marvelous?”

  I sighed. “I do work for some solicitors. You should have one of them look it over, just to be sure you don’t have any problems.” And aren’t funneling half of it into Randall’s accounts, although I didn’t say that.

  “You worry too much, Cassie.”