Nooks & Crannies (22 page)

Camilla Lenore DeMoss, Countess of Windermere, was a former murderess.

“Well,” Tabitha said, hoping for an explanation to strike her. “Perhaps she's changed? Been rehabilitated?”

Squeakity. Squeak! Squeak!

“Oh dear, you're right,” Tabitha said miserably. “Mary Pettigrew must have found the files and had a stroke. But maybe they aren't the Countess's files, Pemberley,” she said, hand shaking as she locked the drawer and stood. “Perhaps it's a matter of interest. The crime paintings, the murder files . . . everyone needs a hobby, right? Something to pass the time?” She stared at the painting of the boy. Poor Thomas, who had grown up, who had run away, and who had died.

Oh God, who had died in a
drowning
accident. Had it really been an accident, or had the son been deliberately dispatched? Tabitha recalled the Countess's words from the night before:
Nobody will be dying accidentally.

“Pemberley, I don't mean to frighten you, but this is very, very bad.” Tabitha sank into the Countess's chair and let herself tremble. “We are trapped in a house with someone who has a penchant for murder. She could kill any of us at any moment. I mean, she hasn't yet, and there are parts of her that seemed fairly normal, but—”

Squeak!

“I don't know! I don't know what's going to happen! Just take a deep breath, Pemberley, and
don't panic
. Oh dear. I don't know what to do.”

But Tabitha did know what to do. Or at least Inspector Tabitha knew. She would act normally—as normally as possible under the circumstances. Any odd behavior would mark her as trouble that would best be disposed of.

“Pemberley,” she said, forcing three deep breaths into her lungs and pushing them out before continuing, “this is
it
. We are firmly entrenched in foul play of the most dangerous kind. This is Inspector Pensive territory if ever I've seen it, and while we are not actually in a mystery novel, we have seen this type of situation before. Our goal must be twofold: to provide occasion for an arrest and to do it without anyone in our party getting killed.”

Before Tabitha could deduce the best way to do that, the door handle jiggled madly. She jumped as the door burst open, but it wasn't Phillips who swept inside. Instead the pallid face of Agnes appeared, lips pawing at the air as though trying to find words to grip. “Oh,” she finally said, sucking down a fresh breath of air. “Where's the Countess? It's terrible!”

Tabitha stepped quickly toward Agnes, grateful that she seemed to be hunting around the room for the Countess rather than appraising Tabitha's previous position at the desk.

“What's terrible, Agnes?” Tabitha asked.

The Countess hurried through the open door, the revolver still in her hand. “Yes, what's terrible, Agnes, other than the state of you, and the fact that I can't find Phillips, and the other fact that you've probably let a diseased mouse go flitting around the manor?” The Countess strode over to Agnes, looking her up and down (allowing Tabitha to scoop Pemberley into a quick recovery).

“It's happened again, Your Ladyship. Another child is missing! I couldn't get in! It was locked!”

Cook came running, as did Phillips and Burgess.

“What?” The Countess stared at each of them, baffled. “Who's missing?”

“I was tidying your room, Countess, and went to the laundry for fresh sheets. When I came back, the door was locked. ‘Who's in there?' I asked, but nobody answered. And then there was a yell and she cried for help!”

“Who?” Tabitha asked.

Agnes clutched the desk with one hand and her chest with the other. “She said she was being taken! And then she stopped. Phillips came and broke your door down, but she was already gone!”

“Who?” demanded the Countess, this time shaking the revolver.

“Oh!” Agnes finally noticed the weapon and backed into the study wall, knocking her head and sinking to the floor. “Oh!”

“Oh, for God's sake, don't be stupid, the revolver's for a mouse, not for you. Who's missing?”

“Frances Wellington,” Agnes cried. And then, unable to take any more drama, she fainted onto the carpet in a rather crumpled pile of overworked maid.

Tabitha's mind whirled with the new information. She gave a silent pat to her mouse, who no doubt felt the meaning and urgency in her fingers.
The plot thickens, Pemberley.

When a member of a party dies, there is sadness and sometimes speculation. When a member of the party disappears, the speculation is accompanied by fear. When the members of a party turn to fear, Tibbs, quite anything can happen.

—Inspector Percival Pensive,

The Case of the Beleaguered Boatman

W
ithin moments of Agnes's recovery, the small party transferred themselves to the Countess's enormous quarters, where there was, indeed, a sign of struggle. Drawers of clothing were open and dresses were strewn about and the closet door was ajar, revealing a most un-countess-like row of sensible shoes and Teagan McTeagle's Best Foot-Soaking Salts. Every cream jar and makeup brush and perfume bottle appeared bothered, and three jewelry boxes on the dressing table were opened and in a state of disarray. The room was scattered nearly to bursting with an excess of personal items. But Frances Wellington was nowhere to be seen.

Cook patted a recovering Agnes on the hand. “There, there, dear. Do you remember anything else?”

Agnes shook her head miserably. “Miss Wellington seemed angry in her shouting at first. Then frightened.” The maid buried her head in both hands. “So very frightened. And then more noises—thumps and bumps—and a muffled cry, and then silence. It all was over in a matter of seconds, really. It was ghosts.” She nodded to herself. “They've spirited her away.”

The Countess seemed more upset at the invasion of her privacy than at the disappearance of a child. “What was she doing in here in the first place?”

While Phillips looked under the bed, the Countess began ripping aside all four sets of heavy curtains, checking behind each one and muttering to herself. She marched across the room to slam the closet door shut. “All I want is a horrid little grandchild. Why is that so difficult? Stop staring at me, Cook, and get out of here! Get out and start preparing your unpalatable excuse for a luncheon.”

Cook plastered an obedient smile on her face and curtsied in an exaggerated manner.

Tabitha felt ill, thinking of the horrid criminal acts she'd just read about. For the first time since she'd met him, she very much hoped that she would see Barnaby Trundle soon, and in one piece. Frances Wellington, too. She wouldn't even begrudge them an insult or two.
Stay calm,
she ordered herself.
Pay attention.

The Countess seemed as perplexed as everyone about the children's whereabouts, but even if she was innocent of child snatching, Tabitha reasoned that anger and frustration and confusion and knives and murderous histories mixed up together in a manor house would not make for a pleasant outcome.

She felt Pemberley moving about and casually pinched at her sweater.
Yes, that's exactly what we need. A distraction.
Inspector Pensive had been very clear about that in the very first novel in the series:
Always give the suspects a decent length of rope with which to hang themselves, Tibbs, and shift your focus to someone else when possible. One who believes himself to be completely free of blame and attention will often relax to the point of idiocy, and thus prove himself guilty of all manner of things.

Oliver, Viola, and Edward appeared in the doorway, hesitantly peeking into the room.

“Does anyone need assistance?” Oliver asked. “We thought we heard a scuffle.”

“This room is absolutely huge!” Viola said, gazing around the Countess's quarters. She clapped a hand over her mouth, then relaxed. Then her eyes grew wide and she let out an enormous sneeze.

“Frances has vanished,” Tabitha informed them gravely.

“Gone, is she?” Edward looked rather pleased. “That's the two bad apples out, then.” He saw that nobody was smiling. “Well, wouldn't you say so, Oliver? I mean, no offense to them, but the rest of us are decently pleasant and Barnaby and Frances are rather—”

“Oh, stop!” said Viola, appearing guilt-stricken. She grabbed Edward's hand. “It's awful enough that I used her as an example of how bad things happen when children are spoiled with an excess of money, and how, how . . .” Viola's left eye twitched, and her mouth opened for a long second. “How . . . ahhhhhh-choo!!” She began an impressive series of seven full sneezes, before raising her head with watery eyes. “It's even worse in here than in the Countess's study! What on earth am I allergic to?”

“I suppose we can rule out Frances, her having been snatched by the ghosties,” Edward quipped.

Viola shook her head miserably, then tightened her grip on Edward. “Don't you
dare
go anywhere without me from now on.”

“Must go to the facilities eventually,” Edward stated logically. “So, Phillips, what have we got here? What's the what?”

Phillips clipped over in his black work heels, examining the four remaining children. “Sometime in the last thirty minutes, Agnes began cleaning the Countess's room. After going to the laundry to fetch fresh sheets, she returned to find Frances locked in here. Do any of you know how that came to pass?”

“Maybe you should ask the Countess,” Edward suggested. “It being her room and all.”

The Countess came very close to slapping Edward, halting her hand inches from his face. “I didn't do anything with the child, is that understood? I'm not hiding anything.”

Not hiding anything. That seems unlikely.
The Countess's behavior had been increasingly erratic since they'd arrived, as though some sort of facade was gradually melting to reveal an unknown truth. If Her Ladyship
was
on the verge of becoming unhinged, it was best to put her attention elsewhere. Tabitha watched her search behind the final curtain. It waved back and forth, its edge brushing against a painting.

A painting of a child.

Tabitha felt an Inspectorish tingling sensation. A deduction fluttered on the edge of her consciousness. What was it about the paintings featuring that small boy? There was something about the paintings and the Countess saying that she wasn't hiding things. Hiding things . . . hidden things . . .
hidden things like passages
.

Tabitha scoured the walls for disturbances that might indicate a passage door. One wall, two walls, three walls . . . wait! The rug! A rich Oriental square near the dressing table was slightly off its mark, revealing a small dust corner. Tabitha followed the rug's length, keeping an eye on the wall, and there it was. The rich wood paneling was such that the dividing lines weren't noticeable unless one was looking hard for such a thing. And periodic bits of ornate carving let the keyhole blend seamlessly into the darkly stained images of wings and feathers.

But it was there.

At that moment, Tabitha was certain. She was certain the same way that Pensive was taken by sudden inspiration to make wild connections. There had been a painting of the boy in the library and the study and the kitchen.
Pemberley, don't you see? Each room with a child painting holds a door into the hidden passage.
The disappearances were no coincidence. The children were being taken by someone. Or, she thought, thinking of the ghosts,
something
. And if the passages could be used to make people disappear, perhaps they could aid the children's own escape.

“The Countess didn't snatch Frances,” Tabitha agreed.

“Then who was it?” asked Viola.

“Don't tell me,” Agnes whispered weakly. “I don't have the energy to faint again.”

“She came up here on her own.” Tabitha took a deep breath, mentally weighing the card she was about to play. “Frances was stealing. She has a bit of a problem.”

“She's right,” Oliver said, looking at Tabitha with wonder. “That must be why Frances came up here.”

The Countess turned to Tabitha, who'd led the accusation. “Explain,” she ordered.

Tabitha eyed her audience, silently summoning the wisdom and confidence of her literary mentor. “Well,” she began, “Frances has a habit of thievery. She was found with certain household items in her reticule.”

Agnes gasped. Oliver and Viola and Edward stared at her with puzzled curiosity, no doubt wondering how she knew about the stealing when she'd been absent from the parlor at the time Frances's purse had spilled.

All eyes were on Tabitha with marked attention for perhaps the first time in her life. “Phillips, did you actually hear Frances's voice?” she asked.

He frowned. “Well, no. But Agnes said—”