Maddie Hatter and the Deadly Diamond (17 page)

Footsteps passed in the hall as she was about to command TD to speak. Then the breakfast gong sounded and she hurried out, leaving him where he now blended in so well. There was still a chance Lady Sarah would return to that parlour after breakfast and say or do something incriminating.

At the table, Hornblower announced, “I, Hercule Hornblower, am ready to reveal all about the mysterious death of the baron of Bodmin Manor. You will all gather in the library immediately after breakfast or expose your own guilt. Footman,” he bellowed as that surly fellow came in with a fresh pot of steaming cocoa, “take a message to Madame Midas-White. She must bring her prisoner to the library in thirty minutes if she desires answers.”

Nobody ate much breakfast. Maddie, picking at her kedgeree and bacon, saw preoccupation on some faces, anxiety elsewhere, a lowered brow there, and of course the bruises on Professor Plumb’s face from his tumble down the stairs. But nothing she could definitively say was guilt. At the conclusion of the allotted time, they all followed the great detective into the library. She settled closest to the hall door and opened her notebook, looking unobtrusively for Obie’s little sparrow on the windowsill. He was not to be seen. What recording was done would be TD’s alone, from his station inside the parlour door. It was far from ideal.

Lady Sarah sat far off by the parlour door. Her husband paced before the fire. Colonel Muster took the desk chair. When Mrs. Midas-White entered, she chose the sofa facing the grate, beside Professor Plumb, while Professor Windy Jones, escorted by two burly crewmen, slouched between the two tall windows. One of these people had almost surely killed Baron Bodmin, but Maddie still was not sure which. Hercule Hornblower set himself in the corner by the hearth, effectively displacing Sir Ambrose. The latter leaned against a bookshelf near the colonel and crossed his arms uneasily over his scrawny chest.

“Good people,” said Hornblower grandly, “some of you were friends of the dead man, others his relations. One was his enemy implacable, and this person, I say to you, is in this room today.” He went on in this vein for some minutes, his hands dancing for emphasis, without mentioning a single relevant detail. Maddie wondered if he’d read her notes, or fallen asleep. For that matter, would he fall asleep in the midst of his exposition?

As Maddie watched her employer, something beyond his head caught her eye. The picture of Sir Ambrose’s granny, with the morning sun full upon it, was propped on the mantle, its shot-split wire coiled at its side. Above it, a neat hole could now be seen in the dark paneling. Ah, that was the source of the dust in the parlour. The bullet from Professor Jones’ gun had passed through that wire last evening, straight into the paneling and out to the parlour, bringing mortar dust and wood splinters with it. Surely that was what had coated TD where he sat. Or had she moved him to that spot after the shooting? She replayed the events of the evening but could not be certain.

“To continue,” Hornblower announced. One of his plump hands dropped to his waistcoat. The other pointed directly at his employer.

“Madame Midas-White,” he roared at her. “Did you or did you not know the research that guided Baron Bodmin on his travels was in fact stolen? Did you kill the baron to gain that treasure? Or, when he refused to either give you the mask or repay your money, did you shoot him of your vengeance?”

Mrs. Midas-White glared at him, her brass claws clicking. “In England, I can sue you for making such an accusation.”

“Hercule Hornblower accused nobody, merely asked the question: Did you kill Baron Bodmin?”

“I’d have made a better job of it. Get on, man. Who is the killer? Who stole my mask?”

Hornblower’s chubby digit moved on. “Professor Plumb. You stole the research into the Eye of Africa mask from Professor Windy Jones, is it not so? Did you come to Bodmin Manor, not to catalogue the library for your friend’s estate, but to claim your share of the treasure? Did you kill him when he refused to split the proceeds? Or did he threaten to reveal your theft and see you ejected from your university? Did you kill the Baron Bodmin?”

“Me? But . . . no!” Plumb sat up, miraculously forgetting all his injuries. “It was still term time when his airship appeared. Anyway, Bodmin would have told me the story of his adventures. Me, recorded for all the newssheets with the Eye of Africa in my hands? My fortune as a traveling lecturer would have been assured.” Plumb sank back on the sofa, groaning from pain or the shattered dream of glory.

The pointing finger moved on. “Colonel Cardsharp, er, Muster. You were the oldest friend and the trustee of Baron Bodmin, and you had fled London several days before his airship was found adrift. Did you, being desperately short of money and about to be cast out of your regiment, kill your old friend for the treasure he may have brought back from Africa?”

Colonel Muster said nothing. The dark lenses gave away nothing. After staring at him for a moment, Hornblower waved a pudgy hand at the distant windows.

“Professor Windsor Jones. You lost your research, the product of many years’ labour. You were laughed out of Oxford. You were betrayed by a comrade in academe and beaten to the treasure and the undoubted fame that would rightfully have been yours. Did you come here to confront the baron and kill him in a fit of your undoubted American temper?”

Jones leaped forward, cursing incoherently, and the two crewmen grabbed his arms. As he struggled, Maddie could just make out Obie beyond the window, half-concealed in the ivy. When he caught Maddie’s gaze, he pointed emphatically upward, mouthing something. She shrugged confusion. He pulled TC out of his jacket pocket and made a sign like a question mark in the air. Maddie pointed to the parlour, where TD remained on his lonely vigil. Obie grimaced, poked a finger at the parlour and then repeated the emphatic “up”. He vanished. The ivy shook. He was climbing it, but to what purpose? Did he want her to retrieve TD and send him to the roof?

With Jones subdued, Hornblower faced Sir Ambrose. “You, sir. Perennial financial distress is your lot. You gambled away your own fortune to Colonel Muster—and nobody would blame you for wanting to murder him, if you had done so. Your hope of marrying another fortune was dashed by a woman’s guile. Did you kill your uncle to inherit his estate and his new African treasure?”

The heir flattened against the bookcase. “You can’t say that. Sarah, tell them we weren’t here then. It’s not true!”

“Yes, we come to Lady Peacock,” said Hornblower, smoothing his moustaches with both index fingers as he gazed out over his audience. “That loveliest of liars. She tried to induce the baron to take her with him on his treasure hunt. When that failed, she lured his feckless heir into marrying her instead, that she might come to the treasure by another route. Did she sneak away to Bodmin Manor to silence the baron before he could reveal to his nephew her true nature?”

At that he spun, and the attention of the room whirled with him. “What do you say, Lady Peacock?”

The chair by the parlour door was empty.

“
LADY PEACOCK? WHERE
is that woman?”

“Sarah!” wailed Sir Ambrose.

“She’s the killer,” yelled Colonel Muster. “I knew she couldn’t be trusted.” He rushed to the parlour door. Maddie slipped out to the hall. The devious widow/wife/imposter had escaped while the struggle with Windy Jones distracted everyone. That must have been what Obie had tried to tell her. But how?

Obie had been pointing upward. Maddie ran up the main stairs, along the gallery to the attic stairs and thus to the roof stair. As she burst into the bright Cornish morning, a shadow passed overhead. The White Sky airship was coming in to moor. Where had it been? And what was that rapidly vanishing blob on the horizon? She put her hand up to shield her eyes.

A small airship shimmered briefly in the full morning sunlight. Then it activated reflectors and vanished against the sky. Dangling beneath it from a rope ladder was a slender man’s form. Was that Obie?

A tiny brown sparrow zoomed toward the roof and circled Maddie’s head twice. With no TD to comprehend his excited twitters, he soon soared away in the direction of the cloaked ship.

Yes, it was Obie hanging off that ladder. Not for a moment did Maddie question whether he might be absconding with the Eye of Africa. No, he had followed the escaping Lady Sarah in the only way that presented itself. Doubtless he would send a message when he could. She could only hope he would get aboard the ship, and not be thrown to his death by the desperate imposter.

She was still standing, watching the general direction the ship had gone, when Mrs. Midas-White appeared on the roof. Behind her came Hercule Hornblower, moving faster than Maddie had ever seen him.

“Madame! You have not paid me yet. I demand recompense.”

“Fool.” The airship magnate turned on one spiky heel and stabbed her claws in his direction. “I see no murderer and no mask. Count yourself fortunate if I do not sue you for the advanced expenses back.” She whirled away and stalked across the roof, ignoring Maddie. The White Sky airship unfolded its gangplank to meet her. As soon as she was on board, the ship lifted off and turned its head toward London, leaving Hornblower still yelling about his fee.

When the craft was almost out of sight, he said, “Hercule Hornblower will never work again for an American. Pack your bag, young lady. And bespeak whatever conveyance can be found to return us immediately to that forsaken inn.”

Maddie ran down to the hall, gave the footman the message about a cart, and darted between the parlour curtains to retrieve TD. He was just where she’d left him, with even more dust silted down upon his little brass head. Above him, the portrait of the smiling girl was askew. She poked the frame. It swung easily, releasing another cloud of ancient grit into her face. She blinked hard and soon saw the portrait had concealed a small wall safe. Its door was not quite shut.

Grabbing the nearest ottoman, she climbed up and pulled. The safe was empty, but its dusty floor showed where something had been. A thing about as large around as a human face, or a life-sized African mask.

Lady Sarah must have figured out the mask’s location overnight and taken the opportunity of Jones’ outburst to steal away with it. She must have planned to leave today in any event, for she had gone to the expense of hiring a reflector-equipped runabout to lift her from the roof. If Obie hadn’t grabbed onto the boarding ladder, she’d have got clean away. And might still do so.

Maddie sagged. All the observing and puzzling and recording and reporting, and she had nothing to show for her pains. Lady Sarah, who was at the very least a thief and an imposter, was gone. Mrs. Midas-White was gone, to pursue her lawsuits and pinch her pennies. Obie was gone. Soon Maddie too would be gone, with no murderer and no mask to report to CJ. Three nights in this spider-infested pile of rocky damp, and she was ignominiously en route to London, facing joblessness yet again. What a week!

ON THE JOLTING
ride back across Bodmin Moor, Hornblower was too enraged by his lack of payment to doze off. His grumbling monologue did nothing to ease her fury at Lady Sarah’s escape. Blossoms on the hedgerows moved her not, nor did gamboling lambs. The cloudless sky mocked her. Lady Sarah the Vile Imposter was up there in her reflective, all-but-invisible airship, fleeing with whatever remained of Maddie’s visiting cards, the Nefertiti jewels, and now, presumably, the Eye of Africa mask with its fabulous red-veined diamond. What had Madame Taxus-Hemlock said: that she hadn’t killed but rarely left a place without a profit? Had she this time crossed her own line, killing Baron Bodmin to lift that profit to the stratosphere?

After fuming halfway to Jamaica Inn, Maddie realized she had power to foil Sarah, at least in England. She could submit an article, with TD’s image from Cairo, telling of the mysterious woman fleeing England with the Eye of Africa. Every policeman, watchman, and ticket-taker in every port and terminal would be watching for Sarah. Maddie spent the last few rocky miles composing the telegraph she would send from the inn. The news could be on the streets of London before Sarah reached the metropolis. Take that, Lady Sarah!

If, indeed, London was her destination. Although Maddie had tucked TD up onto her hat, to readily receive his twin if TC found them, there was no message from Obie. How far could he fly clinging to the ladder under that little craft? Had he been hauled aboard or set down on some desolate tor? Or, worse yet, cut loose to plummet? Was he lying up there on the trackless moor, broken and bleeding?

No. All the clockwork birds were equipped with a distress program in the event their person met with an accident. Madame’s family hawks flew routes between all the main English and European cities, and would immediately divert for a distress call from one of their own flock. Obie was fine. He had been in many scrapes before and come through unscathed. This time would be no different.

The cart rattled onto the cobbles by the inn as the east-bound airship approached. Clutching her hat with one hand and her portmanteau with the other, Maddie hurried inside, calling for the landlord and a telegraph form. With the telegram handed in, she counted out coins to cover it and the cost of the cut-down image of Sarah. Image transmission could take half an hour to dot-dash for every tiny square, and that was if the little puncher-bugs were working up to listed speed. She could not stay to confirm its dispatch, for the call went out to report to the roof for boarding.