Petronella Saves Nearly Everyone (6 page)

"Luckily she isn't your guardian," whispered Jane in my ear.

"Right, but she'd like to be in charge of my fortune. The last thing I need is that horde following me about," I whispered back. I turned to the undergardener. "In which part of the woods did you find the butterfly?"

"Over there, miss."

Hoping to escape my inveterate relatives and other investigators, I headed in the direction he indicated, only to see the horde moving to intercept me. I changed course and so did they, following me rather like the tail of a comet, strung out as they were. I sighed. Evidently, everyone was determined to follow me no matter which way I went.

Feeling safer among friends, I returned to my place near Ralph, who looked expectantly at my chocolate box. Then I noticed that Thomas the gardener and his staff were also looking expectantly at the box. An idea formed in my head.

"Let's all search the woods. Anyone who finds more of
these butterflies or any clues as to where they come from will get chocolates," I said.

Thomas and his staff took off at a run.

I held Ralph by the hand and asked, "Kind sir, would you be so good as to accompany me? I have some more questions to ask you."

He nodded.

"Are you inviting us as well?" asked James. I noticed that the morning sunshine glistened on his brilliantined locks and brought into relief his excessively handsome physiognomy.

"With all my heart," I said before I could stop myself. Then I bent to offer Ralph a chocolate, hoping to hide the resulting blush.

"Petronella!" my aunts cried in unison. They were nearly upon us.

Uncle glanced at the approaching horde with something like panic on his face. "Follow me. I have an idea."

My small band of conspirators and I scrambled after Uncle Augustus as he headed off in a slightly different direction from the gardeners. A glance over my shoulder told me that the horde veered in his direction right behind us. Were we never to be rid of them? Probably not until they found some reason to depose Uncle as the guardian of my fortune. I could only hope that once we were in the woods we could give them the slip.

I SOON REALIZED TO MY
dismay that one's carefully acquired sense of fashion, meant to assist one while navigating the jungles of polite society, has little worth when navigating the woods of one's estate. Sleuthing requires a more appropriate wardrobe than ruched shirtwaists with lace insets, S-bend corsets, and high-heeled pumps—the corset especially made it difficult to breathe deeply. As I stepped over fallen branches and disengaged my delicate voile and lace skirts from brambles, I found myself coveting Aunt Cordelia's khakis, something I heretofore had not thought possible.

Additionally, I could only suppose that Uncle led us this way because he had explored it during his predations on winged and multilegged creatures the previous night. I was
also dismayed to hear the sound of my esteemed relations crashing through the woods behind us.

"Where're we going and whotcher want to know? I got to get back to the message office or Mr. Smiff will have me ead," complained Ralph, evidently suffering from a belated case of work ethic.

Puffing slightly from the exertion of clambering over a fallen tree—although I might also have been a bit breathless because James had helped me—I asked Ralph, "Was the foreign gentleman at the train station waiting for a train, or had he just arrived?"

Ralph screwed up his face in an apparent effort to think, while James helped Jane over the fallen log. We had reached a clearing and could just see Uncle Augustus disappearing along the path ahead of us. Our way now unimpeded, we sped up, trying to catch up with my dear uncle.

Ralph ignored the proffered box of chocolates and said, "He were looking at the train schedule to London when he saw me give a message to the station master and asked me to deliver the one I brung to you. He give me a shilling, too. None of them tuppence."

I could see that the charm of chocolates as a bribe was beginning to wane.

James, evidently having been converted to expediency, held two shillings out to the young opportunist, who snatched them as soon as they appeared. "Those shillings are for you and another one besides if you can remember anything else about the man in the slouch hat. Was he short or tall? Did he say anything else? Did you see him get on the train? Which one?"

"Short. Got on the London 9:23. Muttered to himself in some heathen foreign tongue. Only fing I caught was somefing like
salas.
" Ralph held out his hand for the other shilling.

James looked both startled and thoughtful as he handed the coin to the boy. "
Salas.
I wonder."

Ralph saluted us and sprinted off in what I knew to be the direction of Upper Middle Totley-on-Wode. I remembered that the message office was just down the street from the train station, which made Ralph's information all the more credible.

I did not have time to ask James what he wondered. We'd arrived at the end of the path, and my aunts were right behind us. Aunt Cordelia, who had not been encumbered by fashion, was in the lead. The path opened onto a lane that ran along the borders of a meadow. I recognized it as belonging to the Barrowspring Farm, leased from me by Farmer Hodgkins, as generations of his ancestors had leased it from my ancestors. The meadow was inhabited by a large bull that had chased me not three years ago when I tweaked its tail. It had been a dangerous and foolish thing to do, but I was, after all, an Arbuthnot and a Percival, and had begun an early career of adventures. The lane also ran close to the shrubberies that edged the large lawn where my coming-out party had taken place. Things were starting to fall into place.

"Petronella," panted Aunt Cordelia, her golden ringlets bouncing from beneath her pith helmet with each breath. However, she could not seem to find the energy to say more.

Not so Great-aunt Theophilia as she glided into the lane, looking almost as neatly attired as she had in my drawing room. I could not say the same for Crimea and Boeotia, who shot me looks of immense dislike as they tried to smooth their skirts and straighten their hats. Crimea's, with its bunches of fruit amid feathers, was especially askew and, I might add, ridiculous.

Great-aunt Theophilia said, "Petronella. You look a disgrace and your behavior is reprehensible. If your uncle is encouraging you in—"

"Doing her duty to God and king?" interrupted Uncle Augustus.

"Well," breathed Great-aunt Theophilia.

Uncle took my arm and steered me down the lane to where a tumble of logs blocked part of the road. Over his
shoulder, he called, "Inspector, if you need to inspect something, then inspect these logs, if you please."

Inspector Higginbotham, brushing leaves from his tweed jacket and followed by Sergeant Crumple, headed for the logs. "And what do we have here? It looks like a pile of logs, if you ask me."

"Yes, sir. That it do," said Crumple. I noticed that one of his packing-twine shoelaces was broken.

Uncle Augustus's face took on the studiously patient expression of one dealing with persons of less than normal levels of wit. "Yes, I do admit they are logs, but I do not recall seeing logs like these before. How did they get here? Where did they come from? They could be a clue."

I agreed with Uncle. The logs had cinnamon-colored bark that hung in long strips between patches of brilliant green lichen. Sunning themselves on the pile were two Tou-eh-mah-mah butterflies, their purple, yellow, and turquoise wings illuminated against the dark bark. Suddenly something large and cartilaginous pounced on one of the butterflies and began devouring it with a gusto that rivaled Uncle Augustus's. It was a beetle like the one Uncle had swallowed, but so much larger that it would have been difficult even for Uncle to ingest this creature in one bite.

"I say. I wonder if Maximus knows that the beetles feed on the butterflies," said Uncle, more to himself than to anyone
in particular, his hands clasped tightly around
Insectile Creatures.
I was grateful that he was restraining himself from feasting in front of my aunts.

"Here is something of real interest," said Inspector Higginbotham, who had wandered down the lane a few feet. All of us converged on him. He waved us back. "Now don't destroy the evidence. Look at the wagon ruts. Not so unusual for a country lane, correct? But look at what I found in one of the ruts." He reached down and then held out his hand, palm up, to display a glittering ruby. "The generalissimo had rubies in his medals. Am I correct?"

Uncle, James, Jane, and I nodded.

Uncle pointed to the ruts, which we all studied obediently. "Excellent clue, Inspector. Notice how the impressions stop just where you found the ruby, and the ground next to them is scuffed with footprints. It is possible that a wagon was stopped here, the logs were unloaded, and the generalissimo and dame were loaded into it and transported away."

We all turned toward the inspector to see what he thought of Uncle's brilliant deduction.

The inspector shrugged, his attention trained on the ruby in his hand. "Perhaps. It's of no consequence how they were transported. What is important is that the ruby establishes the presence of the victims at this spot. I must report our
findings to my superiors and see what can be done about the ransom."

"But what about me? I'm supposed to deliver it," I said.

The inspector ignored my comment as both he and Sergeant Crumple stumped off in the direction of Upper Middle Totley-on-Wode in order to take the train to London and the Yard.

I almost called them back, since I felt somewhat responsible for the kidnappings. Then I decided that they obviously did not feel I was responsible for anything, which was a bit disheartening.

"Well," huffed Great-aunt Theophilia. It appeared to be her favorite expression today. She seemed about to say something else, but at that moment further crashings in the woods caused us to turn in that direction. One of the undergardeners, followed by Thomas and the others of his staff, stumbled out into the lane. When they saw us, they nearly fell over each other in their hurry to reach us, making Crimea and Boeotia jump back in alarm.

"Miss! Miss! We didn't find more butterflies, but we did find these." Into my hand the undergardener placed a glittering, although bent, tiara that I recognized as having been worn by Dame Carruthers on the night of her doom and a coin that I didn't recognize at all.

"What kind of coin is this?" I held it up to the sunlight to read the inscription. "Why, this is a Colombian coin. It says it is a
peso,
" I exclaimed.

"Is it worth a chocolate, anyway?" asked the undergardener.

WHEN ONE HAS BEEN THE
center of attention for a considerable amount of time, to be treated as inconsequential, as the inspector had treated me, has the effect of bringing one rather low. Was it possible that I was not as clever as I had been led to believe? Perhaps I was no better than Georgie Grimsley—perish the thought—who was chattering with Cyril. It turned out that they were schoolmates. I hoped Georgie did not feel that Cyril's visit gave him an excuse to grace us with his presence on a continual basis.

"Here now," said Jane, slipping her arm through mine as we walked back to the house. "That inspector obviously has an overinflated sense of his own worth. He will find to his sorrow that he should have listened more carefully to you and your uncle."

James joined us. "What pomposity. I'm afraid that inspector reminds me all too much of certain people I know in government."

I smiled at my friends, my heart eased by their comments, even as it palpitated quickly at having James so near. "We do have some rather interesting clues that he took no notice of, do we not?" I asked.

Back in my drawing room, the remaining horde soon set to feasting upon the crumpets, tea cakes, and tea that I had asked Moriarty to supply. While James, Jane, and I ate—and Uncle snacked surreptitiously—we sat at the far end of the table and examined our collection of clues.

Besides serving us lunch, Moriarty had also been good enough to acquire several glass jars with stout lids, which we arranged on the table. In the jars we placed the beetle, the remaining butterfly, and strips of bark from the logs, to which were attached chrysalises. We rather hoped that more butterflies might hatch. The beetle could obviously see the butterfly in the container next to it because it kept throwing itself against the side of its bottle, just as Uncle had thrown himself against the glass cases in Professor Lepworthy's office.

Next to the bottles we also laid the Colombian
peso
and the bent tiara and a scrap of paper on which was written the word
ruby.
Altogether we had accumulated a fair number of
interesting items, but I failed to see how they could lead us to the dame and generalissimo.

From her Italian leather handbag, Jane produced a small pad of paper and a pencil. "Perhaps we should make a list of what we know about the case."

"Tip-top idea, old flesh and blood," said James. "We should put them into categories—one category per page. First two, of course, should be Dame Carruthers and the generalissimo."

Getting into the spirit of things, I said, "Another page could be the man who gave Ralph the message."

"And another could be the wagon. Transportation is important, in spite of what the inspector thinks," added Uncle Augustus.

When we had finished adding items to our lists, we surveyed the pages laid out on the table in front of the bottles.

"Have you noticed how the majority of the clues are related to Colombia and Panama?" I said. "It would seem other than Dame Carruthers, everything hinges on those two countries."

"Although Dame Carruthers does appear to be important as leverage to get the twenty thousand pounds," said Jane.

James smacked his forehead with his palm, nearly propelling his hirsute splendor into oblivion. "Of course! It's staring us in the face, and we never saw it."