The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place (29 page)

CHAPTER 26

“An elephant?” asked a stunned Constable Quill.

“An elephant,” declared Dour Elinor.

“Doctor Snelling, how could you?” Disgraceful Mary Jane hissed. “For shame!”

“He’s the thief!” Stout Alice cried. “Arrest
him
!”

Constable Harbottle scratched his head under his helmet. “Didn’t we switch to talking about murder? Or did I miss something? I got confused around the veal part.”

Kitty jumped up from her chair. “Constable Quill,” she said, “tonight this home was savagely invaded, ransacked, and searched. You’ve seen it. Windows were smashed and dishes, brass, and silver stolen. Our little dog was nearly drugged to death. And one thing we know for certain was taken was Mrs. Plackett’s ebony and gemstone elephant. Miss Elinor Siever just fished it out of his bag. He’s the thief.”

“Well, Doctor?” the constable said. “What say you to all of this?”

Dr. Snelling rose to his feet. “Constable, you know exactly what I was doing this evening. I smoked cigars outside the parish social, as half a dozen other men can attest,” he said. “I followed you to the police station afterwards. Now, pray tell, exactly what are you accusing me of doing tonight?”

“Doctor Snelling.” Pocked Louise stood cradling little Aldous close to her, but she spoke pointedly. “You tucked a scrap of fabric into your pocket this evening. May I see it?”

The doctor bent to fasten his bags. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What scrap of fabric?”

Louise met his gaze defiantly. “The one the dog sneezed up as he revived. Won’t you show it to us?”

He shouldered his bag and turned as if to leave. Constable Quill coughed suggestively. Dr. Snelling paused, looking much put upon, then inverted the liners of his vest and jacket pockets. “See? No scrap of fabric. You must have imagined it, owing, no doubt, to a surplus of hysteric nerves.”

“It was your right trouser pocket,” said a relentless Louise. “You pushed the scrap all the way down in, with your handkerchief. It was damp from being in the dog’s mouth.”

Dr. Snelling’s upper lip twitched, as though words wanted desperately to escape his mouth that oughtn’t to be said in ladies’ company. He plunged his hand into his trouser pocket and pulled forth the small scrap of black-and-white checked fabric. The sight of it puzzled Smooth Kitty.

“Appears the girl’s memory is correct,” he said. “I’d forgotten. I was just getting it out of the way. Always shoving things in my pocket; my forceps just the other day. Couldn’t find them when…”

That’s when it hit Kitty. “Pants!” she cried.

Constable Harbottle scratched his head. “How’s that?”

“More hysteria,” said Dr. Snelling, diagnostician.

Kitty nodded vehemently. It was all becoming clear. “Gideon Rigby’s pants!”

Constable Quill snapped to attention. “Whose pants?”

“Gideon Rigby’s,” Kitty said. “He came here collecting donations for retired basket weavers. He runs an antique furniture shop.”

“Not in Ely, he doesn’t,” said Constable Harbottle.

Constable Quill
f
lipped through his notebook so quickly, the pages might have caught fire. “Gideon Rigby,” he said, “is another name for Gainsford Roper. He’s a surgeon from Haddenham, out past Witchford, and if I’m not mistaken, one of Dr. Snelling’s friends from their university days.”

“You’re babbling,” said Dr. Snelling. “You’ve taken laudanum along with that dog. So I have a friend from Haddenham who wears pants. What are you accusing me of? Murder?” He buckled his black bag shut. “A doctor won’t stay in business long if he murders his patients.”

“Right now I’m only accusing you of running an illegal betting parlor,” said Officer Quill. “I’m arresting you for it, too.”

Dr. Snelling laughed aloud. “Betting parlor? You must be daft. I’m a man of medicine.”

“And a rich man,” said Pocked Louise, “though you said yourself that a country surgeon can never be wealthy.”

Constable Quill took the ebony elephant from Elinor and examined it. “From the looks of things, you and your friend Roper used rather extreme means to collect unpaid gambling debts. Breaking and entering. Aggravated theft. And that’s just for starters.”

“On what evidence?” demanded the doctor. “How do you know I didn’t come by that … rhinoceros in a perfectly reasonable way? Buy it in a shop?”

“Elephant,” said Dour Elinor.

“Aldous bit the evidence right out of your friend’s ghastly trouser leg,” snapped Smooth Kitty. “Your doctor friend nearly drugged him to death for it.”

Pocked Louise spoke before the officer could. “You yourself said you had no time. If you had no time to steal it, you had no time to buy it at a shop. It was here before we left for the social. The thief must have broken in, stolen it, then slipped it to you at some point during the strawberry social, perhaps when you were outside smoking cigars. I wonder what else is in that bag of yours.”

“As for the betting parlor,” said Constable Quill, “the force has been building their case against you for quite some time. Mrs. Lally of Witchford has been extremely helpful. One of her tenants is one of your best clients. She became concerned when he went missing, and alerted us, thinking there could be some connection. She’s seen Mr. Roper come by to collect more than once, and even seen you together. That’s why we pursued Mr. Godding’s disappearance so strongly.” His chest puffed out rather larger than usual. “This burglary and this … elephant give us all the evidence we needed.”

“Balderdash,” declared Dr. Snelling. “I’m heading home. I don’t need to submit to such slander.”

“Harbottle,” said the Constable. “Take him into custody.”

Dr. Snelling made a show of refusing to cooperate, but Harbottle moved with a speed one might not expect from a person of his girth. The older man quickly surrendered to the handcuffs Harbottle slapped on his wrists.

As this bit of police bravado unfolded, Pocked Louise
f
lipped frantically through her notebook, crossing out names and scribbling. It was here. It was all here, she was sure. If she could just make the pieces fit!

“Constable,” said Mrs. Godding. “I’m confused. Are you saying my sister-in-law, Constance Plackett, was a gambler? That she owed debts to this man? This is absolutely preposterous.”

Constable Quill shook his head. “No. Her brother was. Aldous Godding.”

Mrs. Godding opened her mouth as if to contradict, then closed it once more and shook her head. From down the corridor they could hear footsteps on the stoop, and the sound of the front door opening. Pocked Louise watched the conversations closely, capturing every detail. She knelt and laid little Aldous gently down on the rug, then commenced a stream of steady scribbling in her notebook.

Amanda Barnes lifted her weary head off the couch, where she had lain in a daze ever since her faint. “He was just trying to get ahead in the world. Make something better of himself.”

Mrs. Godding frowned. “Gambling’s a wicked, foolish way to do it.”

Stout Alice turned toward the couch. “I still don’t understand, Barnes,” she said. “Why should you care what Mr. Godding was trying to do, or why? What made you look for him? Why are you so anxious to defend him?”

Pocked Louise snapped her notebook shut. “I suspect,” she said, “they must have been a couple. It’s the only reason I can think of for why she would murder Mrs. Plackett for him.”

CHAPTER 27

“You take that back, Miss Pox,” Amanda Barnes cried. “She lies! I’ll not be spoken down to by a little slip of a girl like her.”

The door opened, and Constable Tweedy, Farmer Butts, Henry, and Julius entered the parlor. Julius went to his mother and took her hand in his. Shock had made even his tanned skin pale and drawn. Smooth Kitty couldn’t bear to see his downcast face, nor could she leave off watching it.

Constable Tweedy surveyed the scene and noticed Dr. Snelling in handcuffs. “Ho!” he cried, and leaped to Constable Harbottle’s side. He frowned at the sight of Amanda Barnes stretched upon the couch. “What about … Weren’t we…” Constable Quill silenced him with a shake of the head.

“It’s true,” Henry Butts said. He seemed so stunned by what he’d seen, that he forgot to be tongue-tied. “The bodies are wrapped and lying in the back of Father’s wagon. We found them both buried in the garden. Right where the young ladies planted their cherry tree.”

Dull Martha covered her face and began to cry.

The adults in the room turned accusing eyes toward the students at Saint Etheldreda’s School.

“Wrong time of year for planting trees,” added Farmer Butts, as if that clinched the matter.

Dr. Snelling sneered at the girls. “Looks like you’ve found your murderers, Constable,” he said. “These little minxes! Do you have enough handcuffs to go around? Take mine. I haven’t any need for them.”

Amanda Barnes lay still upon the low couch, gazing at the ceiling, paying no attention to the conversation but speaking like one in a dream. “I told you he’d be there,” she said. “I found him there tonight. I saw the grave yesterday, after teatime. Just earlier, I’d heard her threaten him. So she’d done it, I thought. Tonight, after the social, I dug him up.” Her voice grew soft with weeping. “I knew he wouldn’t go off and leave for India without telling me.”

“’Course he would’ve,” scoffed Dr. Snelling. “In a minute, if it suited his purposes. He was a scoundrel and a wastrel. You’re not the first woman…”

“Hush!” Mrs. Godding hissed. “Have you no pity whatsoever?” She turned to Barnes. “Were you a couple, then?” inquired Mrs. Godding in a low voice.

“We were going to be married,” Barnes said in a faraway voice. “In a church, with my mother there, as soon as Mrs. Plackett was … as soon as Mrs. Plackett gave her blessing.”

Pocked Louise knelt and stroked little Aldous.

“What you mean to say, Barnes,” she said, “is that you and Mr. Godding planned to marry as soon as Mrs. Plackett was out of the way.”

Constable Quill paused and studied Pocked Louise. “How old are you, exactly?”

Louise ignored this. “It’s quite simple,” she said. “Martha. Tell us how you cooked the veal, and why you did it that way.”

“I fried it in two little pans.” Martha’s voice was small. “But first, I roasted both cutlets together in the oven with a little water. Cook, back home, taught me that trick, so I wouldn’t undercook the pork chops and make Pappa sick again.”

Constable Quill frowned. “I fail to see what undercooking veal has to do with murder, unless you think the deceased contracted food poisoning.”

“It’s hard to know with meat!” Dull Martha cried. “Pre-roasting it makes sure it’s done. Pappa got ever so ill that one time, and I never wanted to make the mistake again!”

“And, now, Martha,” Louise said reassuringly, “tell us who provided you with the recipe you used to cook the meat.”

Martha’s eyes were wide. “Why, Barnes, of course,” she said. “She always leaves instructions for how to cook Sunday dinner.”

Louise nodded. “And how did she tell you to prepare the veal?”

“By breading and frying it,” answered Martha obediently. “Only, it was the strangest thing. Ordinarily we have at least three skillets that would serve to fry several cutlets. But they all went missing. The only things I could find were two tiny frypans, the kind you use to fry a single egg. Each barely large enough for one cutlet. One pan was ours, but the other I’d never seen before. That’s the one Barnes came and collected on Monday evening.”

“Don’t you see, Freddie?” Mary Jane cried. “Barnes left the recipe, swiped the skillets, and left the little pan. She wanted the cutlets cooked separately, because she had poisoned one of them.”

“Yes, don’t you see,
Freddie
?” mimicked Dr. Snelling, making the constable turn purple.

“But Miss Barnes left work on Saturday afternoon, I presume. Isn’t that correct?” asked the constable.

“That’s true,” Kitty replied. “And the groceries didn’t arrive until later, Louise.”

Louise smiled. “It doesn’t matter. The groceries were delivered to us by her nephew. His younger brother told us just the other day how he makes a point of bringing them to her so she can inspect them before he brings them to our house. She could poison one veal chop from her home in town and wrap it separately.”

“Where would she get poison?” inquired the usually silent Officer Harbottle.

“Simple,” said Louise. “Insect killer made from cyanide. The chemist asked us just the other day if Barnes has been successful in getting rid of our carpet beetles. To our knowledge, we’ve never had a bug problem.”

“Cyanide,” scoffed Constable Quill. “Now you’re inventing madcap ideas you’ve read about in mystery books. You’d have no way to recognize cyanide.”

“Oh, wouldn’t she, though?” cried Disgraceful Mary Jane. “Freddie, you’re being a beast and showing your ignorance. Our Louise is the best scientist in all of Cambridgeshire, I’ll wager! You march into the schoolroom and see for yourself all the equipment she’s set up, with … acids and chemicals and things. She proved it was cyanide.”

Constable Quill nodded toward Officer Tweedy then glanced toward the door. Tweedy lumbered off in search of the laboratory.

“I brought it out of suspension using potash, iron sulfate, and oil of vitriol,” Louise said simply. Constable Quill looked quizzically at Dr. Snelling, who hesitated, then nodded. “But you don’t need to take my word for it. Dr. Snelling, you know it was cyanide that killed the admiral tonight, don’t you?”

Dr. Snelling, still handcuffed, stuck out his lower lip. “I’ll save my professional opinions for the inquest.”

“You smelled the almonds, too, didn’t you, Constable?” Louise asked.

Constable Freddie Quill seemed torn by some great inner struggle. “But it makes absolutely no sense!” he sputtered. “I never heard of a more reckless, foolish game. To poison one piece of veal, and not the other, and trust that the right one would be eaten by the right person … it’s an outrageous gamble!”

“You’ve already told us,” Stout Alice said, “that Aldous Godding was a gambler.”

The constable’s pencil
f
lew across his notebook pages. Miss Barnes struggled upright on the couch, peeping over its edge like a corpse rising from its coffin. Mrs. Godding and Julius stood close to one another, listening mutely to all that unfolded.