Wilma Tenderfoot: The Case of the Fatal Phantom (4 page)

Even Mr. Goodman had never been inside Blackheart Hoo before. The Blackheart family were notoriously secretive and very little was known about them even though their estate was the largest on the island. Some families like to keep themselves to themselves—usually because someone has done something unspeakable, like making a birthday cake out of cow dung for a visiting dignitary—so they avoid contact with the rest of the world out of embarrassment. Wilma
had consulted her Academy textbook on this very matter. There was a chapter on Dastardly Deeds on Big Estates that explained, very clearly, that the bigger the house, the greater the host of Likely Suspects. “This could be quite tricky,” she explained to Pickle as she tucked her book away. “When it comes to murder, there’s wayward sons, desperate daughters, rotten cooks, bad butlers, and malicious maids. We might have our work cut out on this one, Pickle!”

“Don’t go jumping to conclusions yet, Wilma,” advised Theodore, popping his bicycle clips into his top waistcoat pocket. “There’s no evidence that there has been a murder. And remember, even if there has, it was probably a very long time ago. This might turn out to be a case that cannot be investigated. Or no case at all, for that matter.”

Wilma screwed her mouth sideways. She hoped it was a case. She hoped that more than anything. Jumping out of the trailer, she helped Pickle down from his seat. He was in something of a grump and had a large bandage on the end of his nose after the unfortunate Brackling
incident from the previous evening. The bandage was pink and sparkly and had a picture of a cat on it. Pickle just hoped none of the big dogs from Coop would see it.

Standing waiting for them at the top of the front flight of stone steps was a tall man with hunched shoulders in a black morning suit. His jaw looked far too long for his face, and his eyes drooped at the corners. “That must be the butler,” whispered Wilma, giving Pickle a nudge with her foot. “My textbook says butlers are generally not to be trusted. Apparently they’ve always got secrets.” Pickle sniffed.

“Mr. Goodman?” said the man, with a small bow, as Theodore strode up the steps. “Master has been expecting you. No doubt you have heard of the unfortunate discovery in the bottom field? We would have had the body taken to the island laboratory in normal circumstances, but with the snow, I felt it best to keep it in the library. It’s been quite an inconvenience. I’d been hoping to plant my award-winning peas. As well as being the butler, I’m also in charge of the Hoo vegetable
patch. But that’s by the by. If you would like to follow me, I can take you to the body immediately.”

“Thank you,” replied Theodore, giving the magnifying glass hanging on a chain from his waistcoat pocket a twiddle. “Perhaps you could ask all the family to meet me there. And household staff too, please. I may have some questions.”

The butler’s dark-ringed eyes stared at the great detective without responding. Wilma gave Pickle another nudge. “Classic suspish,” she whispered again. “Not reacting instantly to basic requests. My book calls that a ‘physical tell.’ It’s when your body accidentally gives away secrets that reveal what you’re
really
thinking. It’s quite technical and a bit advanced for me. I’m not supposed to read that chapter till next year.”

“Wilma,” said Theodore, “you may think you are whispering, but I can hear every word you are saying. What did I tell you about pointless speculating?”

Wilma gulped.

“Precisely. Now then, shall we have a look at this mysterious body?”

“Yes, Mr. Goodman,” answered the butler, before glancing at Wilma. “Quick enough for you?”

Wilma mustered a weak smile and cleared her throat. This wasn’t quite the impressive start to the new case she’d been hoping for.

Despite the early hour, the interior of the house was dark and filled with shadows. The library was on the first floor, to the left of the main staircase at the end of a long, narrow corridor. The walls in the hallway were covered with dusty paintings of large and impressive pigs. “Told you so,” noted Inspector Lemone, pointing. “Actually
invented
the pig. Remarkable, don’t you think?”

As Wilma walked, she couldn’t help but be impressed by the grandeur of the place, but she also noticed how shabby everything looked. The rugs were a little threadbare, the statues a little chipped and grubby. Even the butler’s morning suit, she realized, had frayed trouser ends and cuffs.

“The body is in here,” murmured the butler, his hand resting on a dull brass doorknob set in
a large oak door. “I should warn you, it is rather alarmingly illuminated. One of our gas lamps is burning a little bright.”

He twisted the knob and with a groan, the heavy door into the library opened. “Ooooh!” cried Inspector Lemone. Wilma, who couldn’t quite see from behind the inspector’s bulk, pushed around him. Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open as she saw what sat before her. Leaning against a high-backed velvet chair, its strange angles and shrunkenness exaggerated by a bright beam of gaslight, was the desiccated body. Its legs were twisted across each other and one arm was wrapped about its torso while the other was extended upward, the large, rusty key still in its grasp. But it was the face that was most disturbing. Black sockets seemed even deeper in the lamplight, the mouth agape as if in mid-scream. It was the single most frightening thing Wilma had ever seen.

“Interesting,” Penbert muttered, pulling on her official white coat and getting to work immediately. Within seconds she had placed small red
cones around the body and taped off the area. “The body looks ancient but perfectly preserved, as if it’s been in some sort of embalming fluid. But that’s impossible.”

“Fascinating,” agreed Theodore, stepping between Wilma and the body and giving her a reassuring pat as he did so. He approached the near-skeleton to take a quick look at it through his magnifying glass. “It’s as if all the moisture has been sucked out of it.”

“It’s a phenomenon that’s not as uncommon as you might imagine,” said a voice from behind the chair, making Wilma jump. “Dr. Irascimus Flatelly,” the archaeologist added, emerging from the room’s shadows and extending a hand. “I found the body.”

“Pickle found it, actually,” chipped in Wilma, flicking to a page in her notebook. “I wrote that bit down.”

“Thank you, Wilma. Now, remember your top tips and Golden Rules. Observe and contemplate for the time being,” said the detective seriously as he reached for the archaeologist’s hand and shook
it. “Theodore P. Goodman,” he added, introducing himself. “I don’t believe we have ever met, though you do look familiar. I am aware of your work, of course. I read a paper you wrote on early Cooperan correctional devices. Fascinating stuff. Of course—that’s why I’ve seen you before. There was a picture of you holding a large wrist-slapper, though you had on your rather big-brimmed archaeologist’s hat at the time, so you looked a bit different.”

“Indeed.” Dr. Flatelly removed his glasses and began to polish them with a small strip of cotton taken from his pocket. “But as I was saying, preserved bodies are not unusual finds in this part of the island,” he went on, looking down. “Something in the soil seems to prevent the bodies from decomposing. It may be the salt, but there is also a significant presence of acetic acid.”

“The stuff found in vinegar!” declared Dr. Kooks, lifting a finger in the air.

“So the body,” mused Penbert, getting out a large pair of magnified glasses and putting them on, “has, in effect, been pickled.”

Pickle’s ears pricked and sensing his moment had come, he stepped over the tape around the body and gave it a quick lick. He clacked his lips together. It was like a preserved onion. A very old preserved onion.

“Please don’t lick the evidence,” retorted Penbert, bustling Pickle back out of the taped area. “And don’t breach the perimeter. Very irregular.” Penbert returned to examining the body. “Hmmm,” she continued. “There seems to be an unusual build-up of something in patches on the skin …” Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a small pair of tweezers and a scalpel. Taking the blade, she scraped off a sticky black mass, tweezered it onto a strip of glass, and slipped it under her field microscope. “Well, I never,” she muttered with a sniff. “Fascinating.” She made a quick scribble in her notebook.

Wilma, who liked to think she was the same level as Penbert, what with them both being assistants, stood on her tiptoes and tried to read Penbert’s notes. “No looking at the official records until they’re completed, thank you,” said
Penbert, shielding what she’d written with her arm. “I still have working out to do.”

Wilma scrunched her nose up. She hated waiting for the good bits.

“I must say,” chipped in Dr. Flatelly, stepping forward, “this is a particularly fine specimen. And what do you make of the body’s expression of abject terror? I take it you have all noticed that? Quite disconcerting.” And even as he said it, the room seemed to darken and grow cold. In the distance, a dog howled.

“Don’t worry,” Wilma explained, holding a hand up. “That’s Pickle. I sent him outside. To stop him licking the evidence.”

Abject terror? Are things about to turn positively PETRIFYING? Let’s hope not, eh?

A
chilling scream rang out behind them.

Wilma spun around and saw a young but plain woman in a pale cream lace dress falling backward into the arms of a raffish-looking fellow in a bright red blazer. “Sorry!” he shouted at them in a jolly fashion. “It’s my sister, Belinda. She screams and swoons at the slightest thing.”

“That must be Tarquin Blackheart,” muttered Wilma under her breath. “Young sons can also be trouble, according to my textbook. Best keep an eye on him. And Belinda Blackheart. She’s the daughter. She may be desperate. I’d better write them in my Likely Suspects list.”

“I can still hear you, Wilma,” hissed Theodore. “Ah. Lord Blackheart,” he added as an elderly gentleman in a hunting jacket strode into the room. He had a napkin stuffed into his collar and was carrying a fork with a large fish on the end of it.

“Middle of breakfast!” Aloysius Blackheart bellowed. “Chap dug up at the bottom of the estate by all accounts! Portious—take this fish. Now then. Where is the nuisance? By golly,” he added, bending to look closer at the body. “Looks like a smoked eel.” Spinning around, he snatched the fish back from the butler Portious and took a bite out of it. Chewing, he stepped toward Theodore and had a good look at him too. “You the detective? Fine mustache. Never trust a man with no facial hair. That’s my tip. Oh. This fellow with you is quite clean-shaven. Hmph! Well, we shan’t be giving
you
anything important to do. And who’s this?” he added, glancing down at Wilma. “Far too short for a police officer. What are you? The mascot?”

“I’m Wilma Tenderfoot,” Wilma replied, bewildered. “I’m Mr. Goodman’s apprentice.”
She stuck her thumb behind the silver apprentice badge she wore on her pinafore and pushed it upward.

“Please excuse my husband,” came a smooth, serene voice from the doorway. “He’s impossible until he’s had his breakfast. How do you do?” The woman who’d spoken glided into the room. She had a slight frame, a pinched nose, and hair arranged in a high and intricate heap. As she wafted past, the gentle scent of roses filled the air and Wilma saw that the shawl wrapped about the lady’s shoulders had a few holes in it and looked a bit moth-eaten. The woman extended a soft lily-white hand toward Theodore. “I’m Lady Blackheart. Oh dear,” she added, noticing the body. “Is this the ghastliness Portious was telling us about? Tarquin, do fan your sister, please. You know how she has a tendency to drift.”

“Mr. Goodman,” interrupted the butler gloomily, gesturing toward a small group of people who were gathering behind the family, “here are the rest of the house staff, as you asked: Mrs. Moggins the cook, and Molly and Polly the housemaids.”

Wilma leaned sideways so that she could see them all. Mrs. Moggins was a short, red-faced woman who looked like a steamed pudding, and Molly and Polly were slightly disheveled-looking things wearing headbands that pulled the hair back from their faces. Molly, the pudgier of the two, was blinking a lot, while Polly, who was as skinny as a bone, was chewing her bottom lip and sniffing.

“Likely Suspects …” Wilma muttered to herself. “‘Cooks often harbor terrible grudges,’” she recited, “‘probably because they eat too much salt. And maids can be flibbertigibbets.’ I have no idea what that is, but it sounds painful.”

Wilma looked back at the group of servants and pursed her lips. Given the size of the house, there seemed to be precious few staff. Her textbook listed lots of possible servants. Where, for instance, was the pruner or the gamekeeper? Perhaps this family wasn’t as rich as they appeared. And besides that, there was definitely someone missing. There was no sign of that boy she had seen helping Dr. Flatelly the day before. Where was he?

“Now then,” bellowed Lord Blackheart, wiping his mouth with his napkin and turning to Theodore. “My son tells me you’re the great and very serious fellow to call on Cooper when something like this happens. Dead body uncovered and all that. Thought you could sort it out.”

“You are correct,” said Theodore, taking the reins. “The question for us all is who is it and how did he come to be dead and buried here with a key in his hand? A cursory examination, however, leads us to believe that this person—murdered or no—has been dead for over a century.”

“Which means come what may, no one here’s a suspect,” chipped in Lemone, trying to be useful. “Unless anyone here’s about a hundred and fifty years old,” he added, scanning the room quickly, just to be sure.

“If he’s been dead for years, how can you possibly work out who it is?” rasped Lord Blackheart, taking another bite out of his fish.

“I might be able to help with that,” piped up Dr. Flatelly. “As you know, I have been investigating the Blackheart family for my next paper on
Cooper history. I wrote to you some time ago seeking permission to visit and you kindly said I could conduct a small exploratory dig toward the very edge of the estate. When Mr. Goodman’s apprentice found me I was trying to preserve the site, given the onset of the freezing weather. Little did I know it would uncover such a thing as this. Anyway, if you look carefully at the body, there are two things of interest. One of the front teeth is missing. And here,” he added, reaching for the hand wrapped across the corpse’s chest, “on the right hand, there is a ring with the Blackheart crest barely visible.”