Wilma Tenderfoot and the Case of the Frozen Hearts (18 page)

“How many hiding places can one man have?” Barbu yelled as Tully helped him pull one of his legs out of a particularly sticky pool of mud. “What's wrong with something simple? Like an iron box with a key? Or a very deep pocket? Nothing! Look at my boots! The suede is ruined!”

“Just one more place, Mr. D'Anvers,” said Janty, trudging ahead of his master, lantern aloft. A mist had rolled in from the sea and was so thick the light from the burning candle barely penetrated it. “There's a potting shed on the Lowside allotments. If my father hid the Katzin Stone, that's our last hope.”

“It'll be your last hope if it's not there,” spat Barbu, poking his young charge in the back. “Well, let's get on with it. The sooner we end this ridiculous farce the better!”

The Lowside allotments were shrouded in a dense fog, giving the ivy-covered canes a sinister appearance. The potting shed that Janty's father had used as a hiding point was toward the back. “There it is,” mumbled Janty, gesturing with his lantern.

“Break the door,” ordered Barbu with a low growl, pointing toward a padlock hanging on a loop of metal over the handle. “Do it now.”

Tully stepped forward, his breath billowing in the cold night air. Taking a large iron wrench from his pocket he smashed down on the padlock, sending it broken to the floor. He pulled open the door and Barbu entered, his cloak wrapped tight about him.

The shed was a mess. Tools, pots, and papers scattered the floor. Barbu, wild-eyed, gave Tully and Janty a shove and shouted, “Well, go on, start searching!” Tully, eager to put his shameful defeat at the hands of a ten-year-old behind him, started opening drawers and emptying everything he could get his hands on. Pencils, pots of paint, seed packets, old keys, twine, and a broken teapot spout tumbled about his feet. Janty, in contrast, stood very still and looked about him. “Where is it?” yelled Barbu, banging his cane on the floor. “Where did he put it?”

“Wait!” shouted Janty. “My father always said, ‘If you want to hide something, put it in plain view.'”

Barbu's head snapped around, his eyes narrowing as he scanned the cramped space. “There!” he said with a quiet air of excitement. “Look at the head of that watering can. Shine the lantern on it, Janty.”

Everyone's gaze followed Barbu's pointing finger. Just above a shelf of seeding trays there was a squat green watering can. Janty held up the lantern and there, in the light, something twinkled on the spout's head. Barbu stepped over the mess on the floor and tried to grab at it. “Hmmm . . . can't quite . . .”

“Shall I get you a stool to stand on?” asked Tully, looking for something suitable. “You know, so you can reach?”

Barbu spun back around. “Tully,” he began, his face contorted with anger, “I am perfectly capable of reaching anything and everything. But on this occasion I can't be bothered, so why don't you get it down instead? Seeing as that's your JOB!”

The henchman bumbled forward and lifted down the watering can. “Here you are, Mr. Barbu,” he mumbled, passing it down to his tiny master. Barbu, who was still glaring, snatched the can. “Aha!” he declared. “I think we have what we've been looking for!” For instead of a watering-can rose on the end of the spout, the sparkling splendor of the Katzin Stone was wedged there. Barbu, taking it in his hand and holding it up into the lantern light, threw back his head and let out a triumphant laugh. “It's mine!” he guffawed. “I stole it right from under their noses! I'm rich beyond my wildest dreams! The island is mine!” Barbu tossed the stone into the air, watched it as it dazzled, caught it, and slipped it into his breast coat pocket.

“But our work is not yet done,” he added, his smile turning to a scowl. “Someone tried to outwit me. And I don't like it. There is only one archvillain on Cooper! And it's me! Before we celebrate, we're going to track down the man behind this and kill him! Aren't we, Janty?”

“But we don't know who he is,” said Tully, looking a bit puzzled. “We haven't got the book.”

Barbu's top lip curled. “Yes, Tully,” he snarled, “I know we haven't got the book. And whose fault is that? Nonetheless, there must be other ways of working it out. Now think, both of you. What else do we know? Anything?”

“I read that the man who found the stone and his aunt, the ones who were killed, both had some lavender in their hands,” said Janty, looking hopeful. “I don't know if that means anything.”

“Wait!” said Barbu, thinking hard. “Lavender? Someone tried to give me . . . Well, well . . . I'm an obvious target. Whoever it is wants to be the greatest villain on Cooper, and only I can prevent that. The lady at the Tweve Rats'Tails! I was right. No man would dare to outmaneuver me on this island. But a woman is a different matter. We are looking for a woman! Think you can manage that, Tully?”

Tully scowled but nodded. He'd been beaten by one female and he wasn't about to let it happen again. Whoever she was, her days were numbered. He would make sure of it.

“
L
avender,” said Theodore, opening the hand of the very dead Mrs. Waldock. “As I suspected.”

“And I'll wager her heart is frozen too, Goodman,” weighed in the Inspector, wiping his brow with his handkerchief. “Just like the others. I don't like it. Don't like it one bit.”

“Come here, Wilma,” said the detective softly, looking into a darkened corner of the room. Wilma, still shocked from her discovery, edged forward, her head hanging low. “Now, can you tell me anything? Anything that you noticed when you came in? Was there anything unusual or out of the ordinary?”

Wilma clutched her luggage tag to her chest. “I can't think of anything, Mr. Goodman. I just thought she was asleep ...” Her voice trailed off and she shivered a little. Pickle gave himself a sympathetic shake. “Although, hang on ...” Wilma's eyes brightened. “The fire!” she declared, pointing in its direction. “Mrs. Waldock never made up the fire! Even on a cold night. She always said it was a waste of coal. So that was different.”

“Hmmm,” said Theodore, walking over to the hearth and looking into it. He picked up a small iron poker that was hanging on a hook and poked at the still-hot coals.

“Perhaps the villain needed to burn something, Mr. Goodman,” suggested Wilma. “Destroy evidence? Like when Barbu D'Anvers burned all those cloth caps when you solved the Case of the Three-Stringed Ukelele?”

“Perhaps,” said the detective, frowning a little. “Or perhaps not.” He turned and stared at the body slumped in the chair. “We'll let Dr. Kooks and Penbert take over from here on. Although I suspect they'll just confirm what I now know.”

“And what's that?” asked Wilma, trying to look as if she already had an inkling, which, of course, she didn't.

“Not yet, Wilma,” said Theodore, tapping the magnifying glass in his waistcoat pocket. “Top tip number eight, remember? Proper detectives always save what they're thinking till last. Hang on a minute. What's this?” The great detective leaned toward the body and peered at the shoulder. Taking a pair of tweezers from his top breast pocket, he carefully lifted off something small, bright, and shiny. “Well, I never,” he said, holding it up to the light. “A false fingernail.”

“That's odd,” said Wilma, making a mental note to add it to her Clue Board. “Although Mrs. Waldock got me to chew her fingernails right down, so maybe she got herself some nice ones. To stick on.”

“Interesting,” Theodore mumbled, dropping the bloodred fingernail into a bag and handing it to the Inspector. “Did anyone visit Mrs. Waldock earlier, Wilma? Anyone at all?”

Wilma shook her head. “Mrs. Waldock didn't seem like she ever had visitors. In fact, she never left the house while I was there. The only person I ever heard her speak about was that man in the photo Pickle broke. I don't know who he was though.”

“Have you got that photo?” asked Theodore. “Can you show it to me?”

“No,” answered Wilma. “It's still at Miss DeChrista's Framing Emporium. I left it there yesterday when I followed Janty and the others. But hang on . . .” she added, remembering. “There's other stuff! Upstairs in a costume trunk!”

“Costume trunk?” asked Inspector Lemone, scratching his forehead. “What would Mrs. Waldock be doing with a costume trunk?”

“Fetch it for me, please, Wilma,” said the great detective, getting out his pipe. “It may be nothing, but we shouldn't overlook it.”

Wilma scampered to fetch the trunk's most interesting contents, eager as always to show Mr. Goodman that she was worthy of being a detective's apprentice. With Mrs. Waldock dead, her future on the Farside was uncertain but not hopeless.

“Here you are, Mr. Goodman,” puffed Wilma, returning. “I brought down this poster. It looks like she belonged to a circus or something.”

Theodore peered at the picture. “Perhaps you could look into that, Lemone? Find out whether the circus is still around—if anyone remembers Mrs. Waldock or her gentleman friend.”

“Will do,” said the Inspector with a nod.

“Well,” declared Theodore, packing his pipe with some rosemary tobacco, “nothing more we can do here. I think you should be getting to bed, Wilma. It's been a long day. Gather your things. We'll ask Mrs. Speckle to make up the spare room until we can work out what to do with you,” he added. “Can't have you staying here, not now Mrs. Waldock is gone.”

 

Wilma had never had anyone really care for her apart from Pickle, and as Theodore and the Inspector walked with her to the front door a gentle warm glow radiated through her chest. Here she was with the famous and serious Theodore P. Goodman, about to stay with him in his house and sit drinking peppermint tea and eating biscuits just like a proper detective. Bit by bit she was creeping toward her dream, and one day, she thought, she wouldn't be trying to work out why her horrible ex-employer was lying dead in an armchair, she'd be finding out what was meant by that mysterious luggage tag left around her wrist when she was a baby. She looked down at her Clue Board on top of her bundle of things—she'd already started to update it while Mr. Goodman and the Inspector had been finishing off in Mrs. Waldock's living room. Surely there were some answers on it by now . . .

 

They had just reached the broken gate of Howling Hall when they heard a cart approaching. It was a black buggy drawn by two black horses, and as it made an abrupt stop a cloud of dust was kicked up into Wilma's face. She squinted her eyes and coughed.

“Wilma Tenderfoot?” said a voice that sounded like knives being sharpened. Out from the dust loomed a face that Wilma knew all too well. It was Madam Skratch. “Well, this is an inconvenience, I must say,” she barked, her pointed nose bobbing up and down. “I received the telegram a couple of hours ago. Mrs. Waldock dead? I hope you had nothing to do with it.”

“No . . . I . . .” Wilma began.

“Telegram?” asked Theodore, stepping forward. “What telegram?”

“Don't be ridiculous,” snapped the matron. “What telegram indeed? The telegram YOU sent me, Mr. Goodman. In fact, here it is!” She reached into her overcoat and pulled out a small yellow piece of paper.

Theodore reached up and read it. “Barbara Waldock dead. Wilma Tenderfoot to be returned to Institute immediately. Theodore P. Goodman.” The great detective looked back up. “But I never sent this telegram. It must have been sent by the killer!”

“Why does the killer want me back at the Institute?” wailed Wilma, clutching the ends of her pinafore.

“I'll thank you not to speak,” boomed the matron, holding out a hand. “I have absolutely no interest in anything you might have to say. So let's get this over with. Into the cart, please. You're going back to the Institute.”

“What?” cried Wilma. “No! But I can't! I . . .”

“Surely Wilma doesn't have to go back quite yet?” Theodore stepped in as Madam Skratch clutched Wilma's shoulder with her bony fingers. “The girl has had a terrible shock! Are you sure this is necessary? I did not send that telegram, Madam Skratch!”

“I couldn't care less who sent it. And yes, I'm afraid it's very necessary,” snapped back Madam Skratch, dragging Wilma toward the buggy. “Orphans make me money! It's quite plain. It's in the small print.” Tossing Wilma up into the back of the buggy, Madam Skratch reached again into the dark folds of her corseted dress and pulled out a contract. “Here!” she added, waving it in Theodore's direction. “At the bottom. In the event of the employer's death, the child will return to being the property of the Institute to do with as they think fit. She's mine, more's the pity. Good night!”