The Adventure of the Murdered Gypsy

by Liese Sherwood-Fabre

  She spun around and glared at me, hands on her hips. “You aren’t going to tell me you think he’s hidin’ in that desk?”

  I held up a finger to silence her and examined the detritus hidden there. Mixed in with two more charcoal drawing pencils were various broken nibs, lead pencils stubs, and chalk for slate work. To one side lay several pieces of paper, and…

  “Hold on,” I said, more to myself than Constance. I closed my eyes and considered the series of events.

  Trevor had drawn a picture with the charcoal and had gone to…?

  I met Constance’s gaze. “I think Trevor drew a picture. For someone. He was angry with his mother, Miss Bowen…”

  “But not with you,” she said. “Maybe he went to give it to you.”

  My eyes widened. “Come on,” I said and grabbed Constance’s hand. “I think I know where he went.”

  Trevor would have known I wasn’t on the third floor, so he would have gone downstairs. Of course, I was hidden in the library listening to Father question Colonel Williams. Trevor wouldn’t have found me inside and…

  Would have gone to the workshop.

  With a goal in mind, I rushed down the stairs and into the kitchen, dragging Constance behind me. Along the way, I noted how deserted that part of the house was. The servants had obviously been sent out already to seek my cousin. Only after I rushed out the door did I realize I’d forgotten a coat. The wind sliced through my jacket and pants, causing me to gasp. Cold air filled my lungs, and I coughed in response.

  Constance had a similar reaction, and I turned to her.

  “Go get your coat. I’m going to the workshop. If you find either of my parents, send them there as well.”

  She rushed back inside, and I ran the distance between the two buildings, stopping only when I reached the door. Just outside I paused, deciding whether I should knock or simply enter. I listened for moment in case I could hear him or someone else already in there. All quiet.

  I pushed the door open and stepped into semidarkness.

  Another pause, listening for any indication of movement or someone else’s presence. The structure appeared to be deserted, but the rush of blood in my ears made it difficult to hear. Between the cold, the brisk run to the workshop and my own growing concern over my cousin, my breath took up the beat set by my heart. I drew in a lungful of air and considered my next step.

  Deciding that the search would go faster with some light, I took a lantern my uncle always kept by the door and lit it. The flame’s yellow circle cast elongated shadows in all directions. The posts and various tables scattered about the room loomed as dark shapes at the edges of the lamplight.

  “Trevor?” I said.

  The only answer was the scurry of some of the caged mice from my uncle’s experiments.

  Recalling my mother’s story of me asleep in the cot in the back, I made my way through the building, checking under tables and around posts as I went.

  As I stepped behind the screen Ernest used to mark off his sitting area, I cast the lantern light around, expecting to find my cousin asleep on the narrow bed.

  My stomach dropped as I found the top blanket pulled taut in my uncle’s neat military fashion. The rest of the furniture was equally empty.

  With a sigh, I turned to leave. Out of the corner of my eye, a flash of white caught my attention. I turned back to the sitting area and raised the light again. The white was a bit of cloth peeking out from the lid of a wooden trunk shoved against the back wall. While I was not certain what the trunk held, I was confident it had been shut tight before now. Setting the lantern on the ground, I stepped over and opened it.

  My first reaction was relief. Trevor lay curled up inside, atop what appeared to be some of my uncle’s old military items. At first, he appeared asleep on his side, his legs pulled up to his chest. Bile rose in my throat, however, when I saw the blood staining the dun-colored blanket underneath his head.

  I rushed out of the workshop, yelling at the top of my lungs for the others to come, and met Constance halfway, my parents trailing right behind her.

  My tongue adhered to the roof of my mouth as I tried to swallow. Mother leaned over Trevor’s still-curled body, checking his breathing and pulse. When she rocked back on her heels, I bit my tongue to avoid shouting out What? to her. If the news was as bad as my panic suggested, I knew I’d have to find a place to sit.

  Mother’s gaze met mine for a brief second before she announced her observations. “He’s breathing, but barely.”

  “He’s—he’s alive?” I asked, unable to keep the tremor of relief out of my voice.

  “If you hadn’t found him, Sherlock, I’m certain he would have suffocated in that trunk. You most likely saved his life.” She rose to her feet. “We need to get him to his room. The wound to his head is not deep and the loss of blood not too great. Given the trauma to his head, however, I do fear a brain commotion.”

  My father shook his head slowly. “How am I going to tell Iris? Her nerves are already strung tight. Now that something has happened to Trevor, she might very well become catatonic.”

  “She need not know all the truth for the moment. Simply tell her Trevor hurt his head and will not be able to travel for a few days. I doubt he will even remember being in the trunk. He was unconscious when he was put there.”

  “How do you know that?” Father asked.

  “If you were put in a trunk awake, wouldn’t you push on the lid? Fight to open it? The items underneath him were neatly folded. No signs of struggle in the trunk.” She glanced at me and Constance. “Remember, share as little as possible with your aunt. Mr. Holmes is right. She will be quite distraught when she learns of her son’s injuries. No need to exacerbate the problem.”

  The three of us nodded in silence. Having all witnessed her reaction to learning her son was missing, we could all imagine her response upon hearing of his current condition.

  Following Mother’s instructions, my father gathered the boy in his arms to carry him back to the house. As he lifted him from the trunk, I caught sight of Trevor’s hands. They had been folded underneath his head, and I studied them to see if he held the paper I suspected he’d taken before searching for me. My shoulders drooped when I ascertained them empty.

  In the hopes it might have fallen from his grip, I remained to search the trunk after my parents left.

  Nothing.

  “No paper?” Constance asked when I straightened up.

  I shook my head. “Perhaps it fell inside? Let’s take everything out.”

  Stepping to my side, she reached for the blanket that had lain underneath my cousin, then stopped.

  “Th-that’s blood, isn’t it?” she asked, pointing to the dark stain on the blanket.

  She swallowed hard enough I could hear her effort, and I feared she might be ill.

  Retrieving the blanket, I saw the blood had already begun to dry, making it stiff and heavy. “I should show it to Mother, then take it to Mrs. Simpson for cleaning. We should make sure my uncle’s military uniform and equipment haven’t been…stained.”

  Setting the blanket aside, I checked the articles below. As I did so, I caught a strong whiff of naphthalene, used to repel moths. The blood hadn’t passed beyond the blanket. The pair of pants below remained creased. With great care, Constance and I removed each item. With every piece, my jaw tightened, only to relax again when nothing out of the ordinary appeared. By the time we reached the bottom, we’d found nothing of interest, and the heavy odor of naphthalene gave me a headache.

  I glanced at Constance. Her face had paled, whether from inhaling the moth repellant or thoughts about Trevor, I wasn’t sure.

  “Let’s find your mother,” she said when she caught my gaze. She glanced at the blanket resting to the side. “And show her that.”

  With leaden limbs, I replaced all but the blanket, taking care to return everything just as I had found it. What could poor Trevor have seen or done that would cause anyone to harm him? All because I’d b
een hiding in the library. On some level, I felt that what happened to him was my fault.

  When we stepped from behind the screen to the main workshop area, we found my uncle shutting the door behind him. He joined us and studied the item in my hands.

  “Was that in my trunk?” he asked.

  I nodded. “I’d hoped to find something that Trevor might have been carrying with him before he was attacked. I found this and thought I’d take it to Mrs. Simpson to be cleaned.”

  His gaze fell immediately upon the blanket.

  “Odd. It isn’t mine.” He pointed to the cot. “That’s the only one I brought back from India.”

  I stared at the woolen cloth in my hand. I had assumed it belonged to my uncle in good part because of its color. The tan resembled that of his uniform. Now away from the trunk, I noticed the blanket didn’t carry the strong odor of the moth-repellant that permeated the rest of my uncle’s things.

  I turned to Constance. “We must share this with Mother immediately.”

  In response to our knock on the nursery door, Mother stepped from the room.

  She glanced at the blanket but didn’t ask any questions. Instead, she shared about my cousin and his condition. “He’s resting, which is what he needs at the moment. Both to replace the blood loss and to recover from the blow on his head. You don’t recall when you had your brain commotion after tumbling down the stairs. You slept a long time then as well.”

  I swallowed again, remembering with a shudder the pain and dizziness I’d experienced in my effort to keep Constance from arrest. She’d tried to help us by stealing a book taken from my mother. I pushed down the memory and the concern for my cousin. I had to focus on the moment.

  “There may be an additional reason,” I said. “The trunk reeks of naphthalene.”

  “I smelled it too,” she said with a nod. “I was too focused on him at the time, but I wouldn’t doubt…” She paused, as if considering the implications. “I don’t recall reading anything specific on exposure to the repellant, but given it was inhaled, I assume exposure to fresh air will help relieve him. I do believe I have read of children eating tar camphor. I’ll research it if I have a chance.”

  “And Aunt Iris?”

  “Resting. I did get her to take a sedative. Your father is sitting with her for the moment.” She placed a hand on my cheek and gave me a slight smile, I knew for sympathy. “They are both mending. We must focus on finding who did this.”

  Before I could share my information about the blanket, Constance spoke up.

  “Did you find any paper on him? No chance something appeared in his pocket? As you undressed him?” When Mother shook her head, Constance continued, her voice gaining speed as she did so. “Sherlock thinks Trevor drew a picture for him and that’s why he left the schoolroom. We didn’t find it in the trunk so maybe he had it with him.”

  When she paused for a breath, I added, “But we also found this blanket, and I think it might reveal something as well.”

  Mother had pulled her head back as Constance spoke, and then quieted as if taking in her information. When she finally moved, it was to tap her finger against her lips. “Given we don’t have the picture, let’s start with the blanket and see what it might reveal.”

  She waved her arm toward the schoolroom, and the three of us stepped inside. After quietly shutting the door and locking it, she turned to us. “Constance, please be so kind as to open the curtains. The sunlight will allow us to examine the blanket properly. And, Sherry, dear, do you think you might be able to find some magnifying glasses? We should still have some from your science studies.”

  While Constance and I completed our assigned tasks, Mother repositioned the teacher’s desk to catch the largest square of sunlight. I managed to find two magnifying glasses and carried them to the table.

  I dropped my gaze before meeting Constance’s. “I’m sorry. I could only find two.”

  “That’s all right,” she said, crimson creeping into her cheeks. “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to see anyway.”

  “It’s not a matter of seeing,” Mother said, taking one of the glasses from me and putting the blanket on the desk. “It’s a matter of observing. Follow over Sherlock’s shoulder and see if you catch something he misses.”

  With the blanket sitting in the sunlight, the side next to Trevor’s head now appeared more worn than I had noticed in the workshop’s dim light. Definitely not something my uncle would have kept. A round circle of blood toward the top fold indicated where Trevor’s head had lain.

  “Odd,” I whispered when I considered it.

  Mother turned her gaze to me. “What is, Sherry, dear?”

  “The stain, it’s almost circular. I don’t recall seeing any blood on the floor of the workshop, but he must have bled. And you said head wounds bleed profusely. If he was hit and then placed in the trunk, there should have been blood.”

  “What if someone wrapped his head?” Constance asked.

  “That would explain the lack of blood,” Mother said and tapped her finger to her lips. “But the attacker didn’t use this blanket.”

  “Exactly. The spot wouldn’t be so…so…” I searched for a word to describe the spot that didn’t make me sound insensitive to Trevor’s plight.

  Mother seemed to have understood my discomfort. “It’s almost perfectly round, isn’t it? I would say it was formed from a bleeding wound at its center. Let’s focus on this blanket now.” She flipped the blanket open, following the bloodstain through the various layers, each one growing smaller in circumference until only a spot appeared on the last layer and nothing on the far side. “Shall we see what we can observe beyond the stain?”

  After opening the blanket and spreading it out on the table, she gestured to me to move to the other side. Using both the magnifying glass and my unaided eyesight, I examined the surface, starting at one end of the cover and working toward the center while Mother used a similar method from the other end.

  As I proceeded across the item, I found I had to force myself to concentrate on the task at hand. Once again, Constance’s presence at my side drew my attention to the warmth radiating from her body, the scent of her hair, and the slight prickle on my neck when her breath passed over it. My thoughts flitted briefly to my brother. Did he notice similar aspects in Miss Meredith? Is that what attracted him to her?

  For a moment, I found myself understanding some of his infatuation.

  I gave myself a mental shake and refocused my thoughts, reminding myself that allowing my thoughts to wander would do no good for my cousin. Perhaps because of such random notions, Mother was the first to discover our first indication of the blanket’s origin.

  “Hello,” Mother said, peering through the glass. “What do you make of this?”

  She passed her glass to Constance, and she and I trained our gaze on the area Mother indicated with her finger.

  “That’s hay,” I said, straightening my back.

  “Do you think the blanket is from the barn?” Constance asked.

  “You can ask your father,” Mother said. “He might be aware of whether any blankets are missing.”

  “If it did come from the barn, why are there not more bits of hay or straw?” I asked. “I’m afraid I haven’t found any on this side.”

  “Perhaps it came from Trevor,” Constance said.

  “A possible explanation.” She paused and closed her eyes. She had to be remembering her original examination of my cousin. “Miss Bowen helped me undress him, bind his head. I’m afraid I was too focused on the boy to notice anything else, but she or one of the servants will know where his clothes are.”

  Knowing now to keep an eye out for straw, we returned to the item. Once again, I observed the unemotional detachment required for such work. Mother’s concentration had been elsewhere and had kept her from noticing the state of Trevor’s clothes when he had been undressed. By now, the items could have been washed and any hints as to where he was before the trunk could be lost. W
hen lives were perhaps at stake, one couldn’t allow emotions to block one’s attention.

  With our second review of the item, we found a few more bits of straw. Similarly, when the blanket was turned over, additional traces appeared, along with a long, dark strand of hair.

  “This couldn’t be his,” I said, holding the strand by one end. It swayed gently in the breeze as the sunlight bounced off it. “Only a woman would have hair that long.”

  “Or an animal, like a horse or cow,” Constance said. “And horses are around hay.”

  At that suggestion, my gaze met Mother’s as if each of us knew what the other was thinking. A thrill ran down my spine, as I knew where to go next.

  The barn.

  I opened my mouth to suggest we search the place at once when someone rapped on the door.

  Mother motioned to me and Constance to stand in front of the table holding the blanket before opening the door to Miss Bowen.

  “Mr. Holmes is asking for you. Apparently, Mrs. Fitzhugh has awakened and is quite distraught.”

  “Please tell Mr. Holmes I’ll be there directly.”

  After the governess left, Mother turned to me and shrugged. “As much as I would like to continue with our efforts, I’m afraid I must leave you two to explore the barn yourselves.”

  Once Mother had shut the door behind her, Constance turned to me.

  “How did she know we are to go to the barn? Because of the hair on the blanket?”

  “That’s right. There may be something there to tell us who attacked Trevor.”

  Her entire body then straightened, and she stared at me as if an idea occurred to her. “Do you think they are out for children? Like the gypsies?”

  “At the moment, we can assume he found something that someone else didn’t want him to have,” I said with a shake of my head. “I don’t think the attacker is interested in children in general.”

  “Still, it ain’t right. Hurtin’ a little one like him. Let’s go to the barn.”

  When I entered the barn, my gaze strayed immediately to the spot where I’d found the man, and a shiver passed through me. Had it only been a week and a half? So much had happened during that time. The attack on Miss Meredith. Mr. Moto’s death. Now Trevor. I shook my head. As Mother had observed, this was hardly the peaceful country Christmas we’d intended.