by H. Y. Hanna
“Oh Bertie—you know what? The main set of keys for the cottage has gone missing from Charles Mannering’s office! That means whoever took those keys is likely to be the murderer.” Poppy frowned, thinking hard. Who could have had access to the keys? Mannering’s secretary had insisted that she was at her desk almost all the time so anyone who tried to get to the cabinet where the keys were kept would have been seen by her.
Unless it was the secretary…?
Poppy laughed at that absurd suggestion and pushed the thought away. If she was going to start suspecting her, then she might as well suspect Charles Mannering or Tammy, the woman at the tourist information office, or those women at the pub…
No, it had to be someone else who had come in from the outside—someone who had managed to slip in and nick the keys from that cabinet while the secretary wasn’t at her desk. Perhaps she had gone into Mannering’s office for a moment to hand him some messages or even gone to the toilet (as she had admitted herself), but that would have meant that the person knew the exact moment when the secretary would be away from her desk, and how could they have managed that? Not without hidden cameras and spy equipment… and that really was getting ridiculous! Poppy laughed at herself again. This isn’t a James Bond movie!
Then it hit her. Why hadn’t she thought of it before? There was another person who would have had access to the key cupboard when nobody was around: the after-hours cleaner! Of course! When the office was closed and Mannering and the secretary had gone home, the cleaner would have vast amounts of time at her leisure to explore the office and search for the keys…
And Poppy had a strong idea she knew who Mannering’s office cleaner was. She recalled overhearing Jenny Sykes and her lover in the Covered Market. Jenny’s lover had suggested a dinner date and Jenny had told him she was working late that night: “You know Thursday nights I clean that lawyer’s office—I won’t be finished until well after eight.”
Of course, it could have been any lawyer in Oxford, but Poppy was willing to bet that it was Charles Mannering. And that would mean that Jenny had had ample chance to steal the keys the day before Pete was murdered. Perhaps she had lured her husband to the cottage and then hit him on the head with the spade when he had turned his back to her? Poppy thought of Jenny’s carefree attitude only a few days after her husband’s death. That could be an explanation for her callous indifference. After all, if she had killed him, she would hardly be grieving for him, would she?
Poppy came out of her thoughts to realise that Bertie was looking at her quizzically. She gave him an apologetic smile. “Sorry, Bertie… so have the police cleared you for the murder?”
“Eh? Oh yes, of course. Just a mix-up, like I said. Explained the hole in the wall and the Acanthus mollis—”
“The what?”
“Acanthus mollis. That’s why I was going through the gap—to gather it from the cottage garden next door. Look, I’ll show you…”
He led the way into his house, taking her to the kitchen. From the back of the pantry, he dragged out a laundry basket containing something wrapped in burlap. Poppy recognised it as the item he had been furtively carrying when she saw him climbing through the hole in the wall. He peeled back the heavy fabric to reveal an enormous clump of leaves, stems, and damp soil.
It was a plant that had been dug up from the ground. It had large, lobed leaves, fanned out and curled at the edges, like feather plumes, and there were even a few flower spikes sticking out of the clump. The individual purplish-white flowers themselves weren’t particularly pretty, but there were so many of them arranged up and down the long spikes that the overall effect was quite dramatic. The plant itself must have been nearly four feet tall and wide when it was in the ground and would have been an impressive sight.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Acanthus mollis, otherwise known as Bear’s Breeches or the Oyster Plant,” said Bertie. “Marvellous plant—been around since Roman and Greek times. Look at those beautiful big leaves!” He crouched down next to the clump and fingered one broad, dark-green lobe. “They were the inspiration for the carvings on the famous Corinthian pillars in Athens, you know. It’s even said that Helen of Troy wore a dress embroidered with acanthus leaves.” He shook his head sadly. “Of course, many people think of them as weeds, nowadays. Well, they do self-seed everywhere and they can regrow into a whole new plant from the tiniest piece of root left behind, so I suppose it is very hard to get rid of them if you no longer want them in your garden.”
He looked earnestly at Poppy. “That’s why I didn’t think anyone would mind me digging one up. I was careful to only take a plant from the back of the clump, though. There’s a whole swathe of them growing at the very bottom of the garden next door.”
“Are you going to plant it in your own garden?” asked Poppy.
“Oh, no, no… it’s the roots I want. The Romans used them to cure all sorts of things, like burns and sprains and even gout, you know, but I’ve discovered a fabulous new use for them,” he said excitedly. “To combat smelly armpits!”
“Sm-smelly armpits?” said Poppy.
“Yes, yes! Acanthus roots are very high in tannins, you see, which is a strong astringent, and I discovered—quite by chance—that it is remarkably effective, when combined with a formulation of citrus oil, bicarbonate of soda, and beeswax gel, to form a barrier to odour-causing bacteria. In fact, I have been testing it on myself and I’m delighted with the results!”
He sprang to his feet and came towards Poppy eagerly. “Smell my armpits!”
“What?”
Bertie raised one arm above his head and leaned towards her. “Go on, smell them! Smell them!”
“I… I don’t want to smell your armpits!” cried Poppy, rearing back as far as possible.
“Oh, don’t worry, my dear, you won’t be repulsed. Trust me!”
Poppy stared at him. She couldn’t believe she was considering smelling a weird old man’s armpits, but Bertie was so full of innocent enthusiasm—like a little child proudly showing off the drawing they had done on the first day at school—that somehow, she just couldn’t refuse him. She hesitated, then leaned slowly forwards and gave a cautious sniff. Then another. And another. Then she looked at him in amazement.
“There’s no smell!” she said.
The old man beamed at her. “You see? Isn’t it marvellous stuff? A revolutionary new all-natural deodorant that will work all day! Well, thirty-two hours and fifty-three minutes, to be precise. I haven’t trialled it beyond that… But I imagine it should hold good for at least forty-eight hours and perhaps more. Hmm… I wonder if the effectiveness could be improved by subjecting the ingredients to a high-pressure environment before combining…”
Muttering to himself, he turned away and started rummaging through the various test tubes and beakers on the kitchen counter. Then he paused as if remembering something and turned back to her, asking:
“Where’s Einstein?”
“Oh, he’s still at Nick’s house—you know, Nick Forrest the crime author, who lives in the house on my other side. I’m staying there until the police release the crime scene. I’ll go and fetch Einstein now…” She started to turn away, then paused and asked, “Or actually, would you like to come over for some tea? I’m sure Nick wouldn’t mind, and anyway, he isn’t around at the moment…” Poppy broke off as she noticed the expression on the old man’s face. It was the strangest combination of guilt, dread, and sadness. “Bertie? Is something the matter?”
He blinked. “Oh… no, nothing, my dear. You said Nick isn’t there?”
“No, he’s away on a book tour. His cat’s there—but I’m sure Oren won’t mind.” Especially if you’re coming to take his nemesis away, thought Poppy with a smile to herself.
Bertie hesitated, then drew himself up to his full height and said very formally: “I would love to come and have tea with you at Nick Forrest’s house.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Einstein bounded out of
the sitting room as soon as the door was opened and engulfed Bertie in an ecstasy of tail-wagging and face-licking. Poppy watched them for a moment with a smile on her face, then belatedly remembered Oren and looked up to see the ginger tom skulking in the hallway behind her, peering through her legs to watch the reunion. He actually seemed to be more curious than hostile, although when he caught Poppy’s eyes on him, he hastily assumed a disgusted expression and turned to stalk off, his nose in the air.
Poppy tried to get Bertie to wait in the sitting room while she went to the kitchen to make tea, but the old inventor seemed keen to explore the house. In fact, he was like a child in a toy store—poking things, opening drawers, peering into cupboards—whilst his eyes eagerly soaked up all the details.
“Hey! Bertie… I don’t think… I’m not sure Nick would like that… Bertie! Stop… you shouldn’t look in people’s—Bertie!”
Poppy followed him around, snatching things out of the old man’s hands or shutting cupboards and drawers after him. She felt like she was babysitting a toddler or something… it was a surprise how hungry Bertie seemed for any kind of information about Nick Forrest: what books the author read and what music he listened to, what cereal he ate for breakfast, what detergent he used in the laundry… She wondered if Bertie was a big fan of Nick’s books—after all, most people were avidly curious about celebrities and public personalities that they admired, and most wouldn’t be able to resist the chance to snoop around in their private homes. Still, it was more the sort of behaviour she expected from a star-struck teenager, not a learned old man—although she had to admit that Bertie was almost childlike sometimes…
She came out of her thoughts to see that the old inventor was at the end of the hall. In fact, he was wandering into Nick’s study. Poppy gasped and charged after him.
“No, no—Bertie, you mustn’t go in there!”
She caught up with the old man just inside the door and glanced around. If possible, the room looked even more chaotic than when she had last seen it, with even more books, folders, and loose papers strewn everywhere. She shook her head in disbelief. She wondered how Nick managed to write a coherent sentence in this place, never mind a whole book!
“Is this where he writes his books?” asked Bertie, his eyes shining.
“Y-yes, this is Nick’s study. But I really don’t think we should be in here…” said Poppy uncomfortably. “Bertie, come on… Let’s go back to the sitting room—”
But Bertie wasn’t listening. He was picking his way gingerly across the room to Nick’s desk.
“Oh God—” Poppy swallowed another gasp. She remembered Nick’s scowl and his protective attitude towards his ramshackle “system”.
“Bertie! Don’t touch anything on that desk!”
To her relief, the old man seemed to listen to her for once. He peered at the mess piled on the desk but didn’t touch anything. Then something pinned to the wall next to the desk caught his eye. Poppy had managed to negotiate the room and reach Bertie’s side just as he plucked the item off the wall.
It was the photograph Nick had furtively taken of Pete Sykes’s body at the crime scene—the one he was using as inspiration for his current novel. Poppy shuddered. She didn’t think she would ever forget that image: the man’s body slumped facedown in the middle of the flowerbed, his arms splayed out and his legs twisted beneath him… and scattered all around him—like a gruesome parody of confetti—were flowers in all shapes and colours. They were obviously blooms that had dropped or been torn off the surrounding plants, as the murderer had dragged Pete’s body roughly into the flowerbed and then hastily covered it with some soil.
“Flowers…” said Bertie, staring down at the grainy photo.
Poppy followed the direction of his gaze, and this time she found, to her surprise, that she was able to focus on the flowers themselves and ignore the body in the picture. She stared at them, wishing—like she always did—that she could recognise the different blooms. She loved flowers but, to her shame, she could only name a few common, popular varieties, like roses, daffodils, tulips…
Then, as she continued to stare down at the photo held in Bertie’s hands, Poppy’s eyes widened and a delighted smile began to spread across her face. She did recognise them! That big white daisy-like flower… that was cosmos… and the long purple spikes were from a salvia bush… the big cupcake blooms were her namesake—Papaver nudicaule, to be precise, otherwise known as the Icelandic poppy… and those clusters of colourful, tubular-shaped flowers? Of course… they were snapdragons!
There were a few she didn’t recognise, although she could guess at their names—that dainty blue flower with the circle of thin petals was probably a Michaelmas daisy and those sprays of airy white florets—she was sure they were gypsophila… and that cheerful little flower which looked so much like a carnation—that was probably dianthus, also known as Sweet William or garden pinks…
Poppy found herself grinning from ear to ear. She hadn’t realised how much she had absorbed in those hours she’d spent poring over her grandmother’s plant encyclopaedia. It might have been silly, but she felt a wonderful sense of achievement—like she had suddenly deciphered a new language and could make sense of things that had previously been so obscure to her.
She glanced at Bertie, keen to share her excitement, and noticed that the old inventor was still staring at the picture and frowning.
“Bertie… is something wrong?” She reached out to touch his arm gently.
He started in surprise, then he muttered, still looking intently at the photo, "A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Luggnagg, Glubbdubdrib, and Japan."
Poppy frowned at him. “Bertie? What on earth are you talking about?”
He didn’t answer, just muttered the same words once more. Puzzled, Poppy took the photo from him and he let it go without demur. Then he seemed to completely forget about the photograph.
“Shall we have tea now?” he asked brightly.
“Er…” She looked at him quizzically, then decided that maybe she should stop questioning things and just be thankful for small mercies. “Yes, come on.”
Back in the kitchen, Poppy made tea, then they sat together, sipping from their mugs and nibbling biscuits, whilst Einstein danced on his hind legs around them and begged for crumbs—and Oren sat on the windowsill, shooting dirty looks in their direction. To her surprise, Bertie sat quietly, with none of his earlier hyperactive inquisitiveness. She wondered if—having sated his curiosity about his favourite author—the old inventor had burned out, like a child who had been on a sugar high and was now drained of energy.
He’s such a strange mass of contradictions, Poppy thought, and realised again how little she knew Dr Bertram Noble. She was still thinking this as she walked him and Einstein to the door and stood watching as they made their way through the iron gate and down the lane towards his house. She waited until they were out of sight, before closing the door with a sigh and heading back to the kitchen to tidy up.
She found Oren hovering around the table, close to where Einstein had been sitting. The ginger tom was sniffing the table legs and floor with great disgust, his nostrils flaring and his whiskers quivering indignantly. He looked up as Poppy came back into the room and gave her a reproachful look.
“Yes, Oren, I know the whole place stinks of dog,” she said with a rueful smile. “I’ll get a mop and give the floor a wipe later, okay?”
“N-ow!” Oren said, twitching his tail. “N-oow!”
Poppy sighed. “Oren, you can’t—” She broke off as she spied something on the floor beneath the chair that Bertie had been sitting in. She bent down to retrieve it: it was a scrunched-up piece of paper. She didn’t remember seeing it on the floor before—aside from his study, Nick’s home was spotless—so she guessed that it must have fallen out of Bertie’s pocket.
Absent-mindedly, Poppy unfolded the paper and spread out the creases. Then her heart skipped a beat as the scrawled words jumped out at her:
Be
rtie ~
Thanks for the book—it’ll be a great help to know what to avoid. And don’t worry, your secret is safe with me!
Pete S
A wave of unease washed over her. She distinctly remembered Bertie telling her that he had never met Pete Sykes and didn’t even know that the man had been murdered. And she had believed him—it had seemed completely plausible that an absent-minded “mad scientist” would be so caught up in his own world that he wouldn’t even notice the police presence in the property next door.
And yet here, now, was a note to Bertie, written from Pete Sykes himself. Did that mean that the old inventor had lied to her? But why?
Unbidden, Charles Mannering’s words from that morning came back to her: “How well do you actually know Dr Noble? Do you know anything about his background? What he does? Where he came from? …When we like someone, we automatically want to believe them to be good.”
Poppy swallowed uneasily. Could she have been wrong about Bertie? Could he have had something to do with the murder after all?
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The morning seemed to drag. Poppy found that she was unable to stop thinking about the murder, constantly comparing one suspect against the other and going around and around in circles until her head ached. She just couldn’t bring herself to believe that Bertie could be involved—in spite of the mystery surrounding him and that incriminating note she had found—and so she put all her energies into the other two suspects: Hubert Leach and Jenny Sykes. One of them had to be the murderer.
Alibis, she thought suddenly. Wasn’t that what police always focused on? Because no matter how guilty someone looked, they simply couldn’t be committing a murder if they were proven to be somewhere else at the same time. She knew that Jenny had lied about her alibi… what about Hubert? Would the police have questioned him? Would he even be on their radar as a suspect? Well, if he wasn’t, she could easily change that by speaking to Suzanne Whittaker. Oh, not about the “snowdrop theory”—no, she had to admit that that did sound a bit far-fetched and ridiculous—but the other suspicion regarding Hubert’s attempts to invalidate her grandmother’s final will by getting rid of one of the witnesses—yes, that was a very good motive and a realistic possibility.
