you by my side. But the scene of the crime is no place for a child.’
‘And the daughter of the Queen’s Detective should be an accomplished young lady,’ added Lord Copperbole, lingering at the looking glass to tweak the pointy collar of his new green coat. ‘A young lady’s most becoming delicate qualities are not to be acquired in a laboratory, my dear.’
‘But, Father,’ protested Emily, ‘we have work to do! Mysteries to solve! Legs to sit on, puzzle boxes to unpuzzle . . .’
You need me, she meant.
And – she had plenty of qualities already. She had learnt to read at four and a half from Darwin’s Origin of Species (she liked the part about tortoises) and ever since had consumed a new book daily, sitting on the kitchen stove to ensure a warm bottom and a ready supply of toast. She knew an Erlenmeyer flask from a retort. She was a bit good at solving crimes, even if no one else noticed.
Mr Black took her hands in his. ‘The former Lord Copperbole – Basil’s father – was good enough to provide me my education. Now my dear friend has offered to provide for you. You are to go to Lord Basil’s house in the country. He has appointed a governess for you. You’ll hardly have time to miss me, I promise!’
Lord Copperbole’s house was in Sussex, surrounded by rolling green hills and a lingering unmentionable smell relating to cows. It was very grand and only slightly damp. Emily had her own room and schoolroom, the run of the library (which was happily stuffed with every modern work relating to science and its principles, and a less interesting selection of magazines about hair), a stable of horses should she wish to ride, a cook to prepare all her meals, and a dog, who she called Wilfrid, because Pashmina was a silly name for a spaniel. None of which helped her heart from squeezing tight in her chest at the thought of her father, hurrying after Lord Weasel, or alone in his laboratory. Mary was bound to have forgotten to fill up the fire bucket again.
Emily resolved to make the best of it.
‘I’m so pleased you’re here,’ she said to the governess, with her very warmest smile. ‘I love learning. Especially chemistry, and botany, and mathematics.’
‘We will study the pianoforte, conversational French and watercolour painting,’ said Miss Hethersmith, who wore a bun, and spectacles, and a mouse-like expression.
‘Of course we will,’ said Emily brightly.
And she proceeded to spend her time at the piano, or the easel, or with her French text on her knee.
‘Oh yes, sir, she has been a most attentive student,’ Miss Hethersmith assured Mr Black, when he and Lord Copperbole visited on Friday evening.
It was not a lie. She had indeed been attentive: to the pamphlet on poisons tucked into her French vocabulary; to the careful detail in her watercolour portrait of the human anatomy and its vulnerabilities to violent attack; to the composition of a baroque piano solo, using a substitution code to spell out I AM BORED AND WOULD LIKE TO DO SOME DETECTING. And, of course, to the newspapers, which had begun to report what they were calling the Case of The Deadly Bedchamber, a mystery so bewildering that there was no question who must be called upon; a case so baffling that the police were ‘probably, like, not even going to bother’, according to a source. Copperbole & Black had been summoned at once, and were now investigating the most mysterious murder of Viscountess Lucetta von Fromentin.
The facts of the case were plain.
The Queen received Viscountess Fromentin, a widow from Austria, for tea on September 12th. The Viscountess had taken a liking to London on a previous visit, and that day had moved into a small but well-appointed house in Marylebone, which had been decorated to her very exacting instructions: carpeting from Constantinople; blown-glass vases from Venice; an extensive range of Austrian cheeses in the larder.
She was noted by her lady’s maid, Bertha, to seem especially pleased by the appearance of her bedroom: a comfortable reading chair, an antique grandfather clock, and all decorated in wallpapers, curtains and bedlinens from Paris, in the latest fashionable green.
(‘I am always rather ahead of the tide,’ said Lord Copperbole, swishing his striped green coat-tails in case they were not noticeable enough.)
After leaving the palace, the Viscountess dined in a hotel in Kensington on soup and stewed guinea fowl, and consumed a single glass of Medoc which she insisted came from a bottle which no one else would drink; the sommelier recalled pouring it away (with a tragic sigh; it was a very good year) in front of her, to be certain.
(‘Most curious,’ noted Mr Black. ‘Though the contents are lost I should very much like the bottle, for testing.’)
Bertha took her a small bottle of soda water as was her habit shortly before ten that night, and noticed the Viscountess looked pale and dishevelled. She later recalled hearing a terrible noise in the night, like the thumping footfalls of some monster. The lady’s maid also swore she had heard the bedroom’s grandfather clock strike thirteen. And then she had gone back to bed, because that was scary.
The following morning, Bertha found herself unable to enter her mistress’s room: the Viscountess had locked the door from inside, and the golden key was still wedged into the keyhole. Her knock received no answer. The windows, their green Parisian curtains still drawn, were bolted shut on the inside.
Fearing her mistress had been taken ill – or worse – the lady’s maid roused the cook, who roused the underbutler, and they hurled themselves at the locked door until it gave way.
What they saw then was quite impossible.
On the bare floorboards beneath the grandfather clock was written, in ominous blood-red letters, the word ‘hare’.
The green linens of the bed had been rent and torn, as if by claws.
The soda bottle was smashed.
And on the bed lay the still, white body of the Viscountess in her Parisian nightgown, quite dead.
(‘A tragedy,’ pronounced Lord Copperbole, wiping his brow with exaggerated sorrow. ‘Such exquisite taste in decor, and she had barely one night in which to appreciate it.’)
All this was recounted to Emily over limande sole au beurre (buttered lemon sole; Emily was learning all her poissons alongside her poisons) at Lord Copperbole’s dining table on Friday.
‘I feel we have barely scratched the surface of this most enticing case, dearest Emily!’ said her father, eagerly squeezing a lemon over his fish. ‘One week into our investigations and so many clues still to unravel! So many theories present themselves . . .’
‘I maintain the Lady’s maid is prime suspect,’ sniffed Lord Copperbole. ‘Sole witness. First to find the body. One should never be too trusting of a servant, Miss Emily,’ he added meaningfully, as a footman held out a platter of potatoes. Somehow the footman did not tip them all upon his head.
‘Ah, now, I have my eye on the sommelier still, sir!’ said Mr Black. ‘The wine was surely poisoned. Although how he would have profited from the murder, I have yet to draw together. And that does not explain the significance of the hare.’
‘Then there is the matter of the torn bedlinen . . .’
‘And the clock which struck thirteen . . .’
Mr Black drank deeply, and smacked his lips. ‘Indeed! It is a remarkable case. One for the history books, if we can but solve it! Tell me, dearest Emily, what do you make of it?’
Emily dropped her fish knife (into all her other knives – there were at least six) in surprise. He was smiling benevolently at her, sincerely curious as to her mind. She felt suddenly aglow. Perhaps, at last, he saw her.
She stole a glance at Lord Copperbole, waiting for his lip to curl ready with dismissal – but he was staring listlessly at his plate, pushing his limande sole about. He had not touched either of the soups, nor the kickshaws of pickled herring (hareng mariné, she remembered) and horrid oysters (les