Cold-Blooded Myrtle

by Elizabeth C. Bunce

  “Mr. Kent, you’ve misspelled Parliament again. This will have to go back.” She passed the page off to a strapping fellow with dark hair and glasses and hastened over to us, pushing up her own spectacles.

  “This is a surprise! Come in.” She swung a little half door in a low wall, admitting us to the bustling heart of the newspaper. The invigorating scents of ink and paper and coffee hung over the room, which hummed with noisy energy. It reminded me of the police station, and I could see exactly why Genie would want to work here.

  Miss Judson seemed to agree. She leaned over and whispered to me, “I think it would be fun to run a newspaper.”

  Genie led us to a desk strewn with papers (no typewriter, sadly), found some extra chairs, and cleared a spot for us to sit. “You must have heard what happened to Mrs. Leighton!” she exclaimed. “We can’t keep up with the extras. I had the whole front page last night!” She handed over the smaller evening edition to Miss Judson, with Emily Leighton Arrested for Husband’s Murder splashed across the top.

  “Yes, it’s hard to believe,” Miss Judson said diplomatically.

  “It’s a complete frame-up! The idea that Mrs. Leighton suddenly took it into her head to put hemlock in her husband’s tea? It’s ridiculous!” Genie leaned in, just as she had at the coffeehouse. “You must be on to something with the Mayor, Myrtle. I can’t figure any reason Olive would want Mrs. Leighton arrested.”

  “That’s actually why we’re here,” I began eagerly, but Genie interrupted.

  “Oh—there’s my editor.” She jumped up from her desk. “I’ve been trying to talk to him all morning. Are you in a hurry? Can you give me a moment?”

  “Of course,” Miss Judson said, adding to her departing back, “Olive’s secret has already waited twenty years.”

  While Genie was gone, I let my gaze rove round her workspace. Copies of her Olive Blackwell stories were pinned to the walls in her corner nook, a reprint of Olive’s college photograph front and center, alongside a color poster of the Campanile. Scattered throughout were sloppily scrawled notes—apparently all those governesses she’d terrorized hadn’t managed to instill good penmanship.

  I moved closer to study her research. Pins and strings led from Olive’s picture to Genie’s notes: Which 6? read one, and 110-foot fall—HOW? One was merely a series of savage question marks gouged into the paper.

  I Observed something familiar tacked behind a faded ticket stub for a theatrical performance: creamy paper with a deckled edge, folded in half. I could see the inked contents through the paper. Heart banging, I nudged it open to what I knew I would find. Two words in Latin: Quæstio repetundarum.

  Genie squeaked through the swinging half door again. “Sorry about that,” she said, slipping into her chair. I plucked the note from the wall and waved it at her.

  “When did this come? Why didn’t you tell us?”

  Her face took on a closed look, and she snatched it from me. Turning to the wall, she pinned it back in place, smoothing down the ticket stub and neatening the red strings.

  “Genie?” Miss Judson prodded gently.

  “It’s nothing,” she mumbled. “Don’t worry about it.” She flashed us a grin. “I’m not. Now. What did you want to tell me?”

  “The killer could be after you next!” I cried.

  “I said, don’t worry about it.” She dug through the stacks on her desk, hunting for her notepad and pencil. A packet of letter paper spilled out at my feet, and she lunged for it, hastily sweeping up the loose pages.

  “Genie, this is serious,” Miss Judson said. “I think you should be worried. Have you gone to the police?”

  Genie’s eyes were full of fire. “You’re not my governess, so give it a rest.” A moment later she softened. “I’m sorry—you’re a sport, Miss J., really. But who would want to kill me? I’m just a reporter.”

  Miss Judson shot me a quelling look. I could think of at least one Prosecuting Solicitor who might be glad to see Swinburne down one journalist. But I held my tongue, instead stooping to pick up the last of the fallen papers, fingers catching on its roughened edge.

  Genie tugged it from my hand and shoved the whole pile under . . . another pile. “Now. You have news—I can tell by the look in Myrtle’s eyes! Spill it.” She gave us her easy grin once more.

  I explained my deduction (well, hypothesis) about the steam tunnels underneath the Campanile.

  “That’s brilliant!” I could tell she meant not just my theory, but Olive’s escape. “Oh, so very clever.”

  “We haven’t figured where she went afterward, or how she got down there with no one noticing, though.”

  Genie tapped her pencil on the edge of her desk. “David Carmichael,” she said thoughtfully.

  “Clarify,” Miss Judson directed.

  But I knew exactly what she meant. “They planned to run off together—that was in his letter to Mum. And he was an expert mountaineer!”

  “Until he wasn’t,” Miss Judson murmured.

  “He could have rigged it so that Olive could climb down the side of the Campanile!” I didn’t know all that much* about mountaineering, but they could have concealed the equipment for just such an escape, deceiving and distracting the rest of Hadrian’s Guard. While Olive was scaling down one sheer face of the Campanile, no one the wiser, David could have led the group to another opening, to stare down in horror at where she had “fallen.” Misdirection.

  I sat back, eyes wide and heart thumping, like I’d witnessed it myself. Genie was right—it was brilliant.

  “The killer could be using the same tunnels.” Genie scribbled notes.

  “But are we right?” I looked to both of them. “How can we prove it?”

  Genie thought a moment. “Give me a minute,” she said. “I’m going to phone my brother.”

  * nothing, in fact—not that it stopped me from speculating on the details

  18

  Ad Fundum

  The mystifying tradition of making merry with an array of intoxicating (note the root word, toxic) substances has apparently been going on since the Yule celebrations of our pagan ancestors. Their Roman conquerors likewise toasted the season during Saturnalia.

  —H. M. Hardcastle, A Modern Yuletide

  Thursday afternoon we assembled in the basement morgue of Genie’s newspaper. Funny how it had so swiftly become that, Genie’s newspaper instead of the Tribune. We were a convivial crowd, and I hated to think that the murderer was after her now, too. Or worse: what would happen if Father found out we were aiding and abetting his nemesis.

  Even without dissection equipment, I found this morgue enthralling. Tall shelves held bound issues of the newspaper, going back generations, and huge filing cabinets stored notes, clippings, pictures, and more. Study tables marked it as a room designed for research. It was like a library, but somehow all the more thrilling thanks to its hint of scandals and secrets.

  With a sound like an entire herd of out-of-work solicitors crashing down the stairs, Mr. Blakeney arrived, arms overflowing with rolls of paper.

  “You would not believe what five shillings will get you in the county records office!” he exclaimed, spilling it all across the table—heedless of the stacks of archived newspapers that were already there. “These are plans for Swinburne, going back—well, practically to the Romans.”

  Miss Judson eyed the bounty skeptically. “How did you come by these? By which I mean, how exactly did you persuade the records clerk to part with it all?”

  Mr. Blakeney put a stricken hand to his chest. “I assure you, it was completely above board! I merely said I was on official business, and had been directed to have reproductions made, and vowed that I should return the originals posthaste, in pristine condition.”

  “Silver-tongued,” Genie said. “He always could convince our governesses of anything.”

  “And why was that necessary? Genie, I said, pristine condition.” Mr. Blakeney snatched a pencil from her grasp
, before she could make notes on one of the plans. “All right, girls—er, team—what exactly are we looking for?”

  Genie and I grabbed opposite ends of a roll and weighted down the corners. “Anything that connects the Campanile with Leighton’s Mercantile and the neighborhood near the museum.”

  “And the Mansion House,” I added. “Where Nora’s body was found.”

  “Splendid,” Mr. Blakeney said. “Here’s the college.” He handed one to me, which I toted over to the table where Miss Judson was waiting. Our map was beautiful. Drawn in the 1860s, it showed a prospect of the main buildings, nestled in prettily sketched trees, the Gothic spire of the Campanile poking out like a watchtower. Hand-inked letters read Schofield College Quadrangle & Campanile. The rest of the sheet, which was as big as the tabletop, was covered by a tangle of pathways and intersecting lines. It would take some sleuthing to tease them apart—walkway from roadway from sewer line.

  “Look,” said Miss Judson, “here are the steam tunnels the carillonist mentioned.”

  I bent my head and traced them from the Campanile across the grounds to a building marked Power Station—evidently the site of the boilers powering the heating systems for the college. “How far do they go?”

  We examined the schematic, but it seemed to be a closed network. “The tunnels don’t leave the college grounds.” I shoved the map away in defeat.

  “What, Stephen, giving up so soon?” Mr. Blakeney hefted his own roll of papers at me. “Don’t forget, our culprits were archæologists.”

  “Exactly,” Genie said. “They could have excavated connections between tunnels.”

  “She was one college student, not an army of engineers. Do you suppose she’s been living under the village all this time, like—” I fought for an analogy.

  “Grendel’s mother?”* Miss Judson suggested.

  “Not a bit,” Mr. Blakeney said. “Mother Grendel was nowhere near as industrious as a nineteenth-century English girl! We’ve bred pluck into our girls in the last eight hundred years.”

  “Robbie, stop while you’re ahead.” Genie pushed her sleeves back. “I still think Myrtle’s tunnel theory has merit. We just haven’t found the connections yet. Swinburne has steam tunnels and catacombs† and sewers and things all over. Look here, for instance.” She planted a finger down on the map her brother had been studying. “Drainage sewers running right down High Street. Someone could have used an older system or taken advantage of a weak spot between two networks.”

  “Good.” Miss Judson’s voice was brisk. “Find the two termini in closest proximity to each other. Schofield’s tunnels extend . . . about half a mile to the north. Where does that put us?”

  “In the middle of Lake Laverne. Try again, Miss J.”

  She chose another path leading away from the college. “A quarter mile due east?”

  “Oh, that’s better.” Genie waved her hand to get our attention. “That’s within spitting distance of the end of the tramlines.” There was a glint in her eyes. “Telegraph wires.”

  “Where do the telegraph wires go?” I was starting to feel eager again. All over England, telegraph wires were buried alongside train tracks, to keep the train signals running correctly.

  Mr. Blakeney had the High Street map. “The tramline goes straight down the street. Assuming the lines for the cables are deep enough, you could conceivably get almost anywhere from there. They have to be accessible, to allow for maintenance of the lines.”

  Miss Judson had come closer, and now bent over the table with great intensity. “There appears to be a sewer outlet right here, in front of the Leightons’ shop. And another . . .” She traced a finger across the map, bringing it to a stop near the museum. “Right here near Aunt Helena’s. Exactly where we found Miss Carmichael. The museum must be connected to these sewer lines as well.”

  I stared at it, pulse racing. “That’s it, then,” I said, forgetting I was looking for Olive. “That’s how the killer’s been doing it all—through the tunnels. We have to examine them. There might still be evidence.”

  “Right-o, then,” Mr. Blakeney declared. “I’m always up for a little subterranean archæology.”

  Genie fixed him in a look of such deep skepticism, it was impossible to mistake their familial connection. “You. In a tunnel.”

  “I beg your pardon.” Mr. Blakeney looked outraged. “I’ll have you know that in my association with Hardcastle and Judson, I have survived gunshots, explosions, and the collapse of a seaside Pier. I hardly think a steam tunnel is beyond my ken.”

  “I think not.” Miss Judson’s voice was crisp and final.

  “But we have to! What if the killer strikes again?”

  “Remind me, why do we have police constables?” Miss Judson said.

  “They’re not going to do this! Besides, we promised Father we wouldn’t get involved in the current murders. If we notify the police, you know what will happen.” Word would, eventually, get to Father.

  “Exactly.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means I have no intention of granting my approval for such an expedition. I am satisfied that our Investigation may safely—and successfully—be accomplished aboveground, in the open air, in the spirit of open and—”

  “Miss J., you’re babbling.” Genie’s voice was gentle—but it broke into Miss Judson’s train of speech.

  “Babbling?” Miss Judson’s eyes grew narrow. “I am not aware that I ever babble.”

  But she had gone even more than usually still, her celebrated composure now less implacable calm, and more rigid—dread? For a moment I could only stare at her, slack-jawed, until I remembered to shut my mouth and sit down, like a Young Lady of Quality. This turned my whole orderly world upside down. Miss Judson wasn’t afraid of anything.

  For a moment we all just sat there, no one saying anything. Finally, Mr. Blakeney spoke up. “I believe I have a suggestion.” We turned to him, expectantly. “Rather than taking the tunnels from the Campanile into town, wouldn’t it be more”—searching for a word, he came up with one guaranteed to woo Miss Judson—“efficient, to start at the destination and work backward?”

  I realized what he meant. “Of course! We just need to look for tunnel exits near the crime scenes—at Leighton’s, and in the square near the Mansion House.”

  “And wherever Olive Blackwell got to,” Genie added.

  Miss Judson gradually thawed. “Very well.” I could tell she still wasn’t enthusiastic about the plan—but she also didn’t want it to proceed without her. “We might as well get this over with.”

  Genie demurred. “I can’t today. Deadline on the latest Mrs. Leighton nonsense. Don’t worry,” she put in hastily. “I won’t say anything about this. No tunnel talk at all. I promise.” She mimed turning a key at her lips. “But I can wriggle away this weekend. Robbie?”

  “Footloose and fancy free,” he said. “I’ll be there.”

  We had succeeded in figuring out how Olive Blackwell might have disappeared, but we were no closer to knowing why. As we emerged from the newspaper morgue into the brisk afternoon, Miss Judson and I regarded each other grimly.

  “Now what?” I said, flinging my mittened hands aloft. “I feel like we haven’t done anything.”

  This would have been an ideal time to pay a comforting (and inquisitive) call on Mrs. Leighton—but of course she was not at the shop to answer our questions. I sank down upon the newspaper offices’ low brick windowsill to sulk, thinking about the workshop underneath all those fascinating Wonders of the Empire.

  “Wonders of the Empire,” I said softly.

  “Hmm?”

  I slipped off the ledge. “Can we go to the museum? I want another look at the Saturnalia Chalice.” It was the key to everything, that Wonder of the Roman Empire, and we hadn’t really examined it properly.

  Miss Judson looked relieved by this proposed expedition, so we set off for the grim brick edifice. In brig
ht daylight, it was not much cheerier than when we last had visited. We chained our bicycles to the iron railing and rattled up the steps to the main doors. The cavernous great hall was hushed and empty, and our footfalls on the marble stairs echoed overloud. The festive greenery had been removed, and the objects looked lonely and bored. And wrong.

  “Miss! It’s gone!”

  The glass case that had held the Saturnalia Chalice was empty. I whirled about in a panic—had they been robbed?

  “The plot thickens,” Miss Judson murmured. “Let’s find out where it’s got to.”

  It did not take long to track down one of the museum fellows, the gentleman who had introduced Miss Carmichael at the gala.

  “Well, well,” he said. “What can I do for you two ladies?”

  “What has become of the Roman chalice? We saw it here the other evening, and were hoping to have another look.”

  The fellow’s face took on a bright and ruddy smile. “You’re in luck!” he exclaimed. “It’s being moved to the new Leighton Gallery, so we’re doing more testing on it. Come—you can see it up close while it’s out of its case.”

  A little thrill went through me, and I couldn’t resist saying, “My mother was on the Expedition that discovered it.”

  Now he was practically beaming. “Is that right? One of Professor Leighton’s students? You’d be a grandstudent, then!” He laughed at his own joke. “In that case, you certainly deserve to see it for yourself. Follow me.”

  He led us down wide, marble-clad corridors to an ordinary, businesslike door—but behind which, I suspected, lurked all sorts of fabulous secrets. It was almost as exciting as gaining entry to an Egyptian tomb. We followed him into a workshop not unlike our schoolroom at home, with cabinets and paraphernalia and tall windows letting in lots of light. A slight fellow with a stoop and side-whiskers bent over a long workbench, and in his hands he held the Saturnalia Chalice.

  “Mr. Smithson is one of the keepers here,” our fellow said, handing us off. “Smithson, I have some notable guests who’ve come to see the Chalice.”