Mystery & Mayhem. Julia Golding

but the crowd jeered and booed.

      Emily looked imploringly at the line of policemen, but they only had eyes for the crowd.

      She tried calling out: ‘Father! Papa, I am here, come out at once!’ but her voice could not carry.

      She could not draw him out alone. But she was not alone.

      Thinking fast, Emily crouched down on her pillar box perch.

      ‘I don’t think they’re even in there,’ she said, to no one in particular.

      ‘Darlin’, I saw them go in myself,’ said a woman hotly.

      ‘They could’ve slipped out of a back entrance,’ said Emily casually.

      ‘Ere, that’s a point.’

      ‘How do we know they’re still in there?’

      ‘Oi! Show yourselves, Lord La-di-dah and Wotsisface!’

      The crowd took up the cry. ‘Show yourselves! Show yourselves!’

      To Emily’s joy, a pair of curtains on the first floor were thrown back, and a sash window lifted.

      Mr Black leant out, looking rather irritable. ‘Sirs, ladies, it is rather a challenge to solve a locked-room mystery; more so if you will not allow us to keep it locked.’

      ‘Papa! Father, over here! It’s Emily, I’m here!’

      This time Emily’s voice was heard. Mr Black almost fell out of the window in surprise at finding his daughter, in London, alone, standing on a postbox, but she shook off all his demands for an explanation.

      ‘No time, Papa! You must get out of there at once, both of you! The room is deadly!’

      ‘We know that, dearest,’ said her father, gently.

      ‘No – the room itself is deadly.’ She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. ‘Father – Lord Copperbole has been unwell. Has he taken a turn for the worse since entering the room?’

      Mr Black looked furtive, as a gaspy choking sound issued from behind him. ‘Er. Possibly?’

      ‘I know why. And it is what killed the Viscountess Fromentin!’

      The crowd, which had fallen silent, began to mutter.

      Emily brandished the pamphlet triumphantly above her head, almost slipping from her perch.

      ‘Why are you waving a fashion catalogue from Paris about, dearest?’

      ‘Paris Green!’ she called back. ‘The Viscountess was not murdered by a vanishing monster, or an invisible bee. She was poisoned.’

      ‘By the wine, I knew it!’ yelled someone.

      ‘Nah, son, it was that guinea fowl.’

      Emily shook her head. ‘No! What poisoned her was the wallpaper, the curtains, her bedlinens – all handmade in Paris, to the popular shade, exactly like Lord Copperbole’s coat. Paris Green. Also known as copper acetoarsenite.’

      ‘Eh?’ said the crowd.

      ‘But . . . that’s toxic . . .’ said her father, his face falling as he glanced at the curtain by his side.

      ‘Oooh,’ said the crowd.

      ‘Ordinary exposure will result in a slower reaction,’ Emily continued. ‘That’s why Lord Copperbole has been unwell! His coat has been very slowly poisoning him. But – the room, the furnishings: I think they must have been super-impregnated with the compound. Sleeping in that room, in a bed, coated in the same poison – that takes only one night to kill.’

      There was stillness for a moment.

      ‘Wait. What about the torn bedlinen?’

      ‘It was a new bed, new linens. I believe the sheets were torn before she slept, to give the impression of an assailant in the room. The maid either did not notice when she made up the bed, or feared blame if it were mentioned.’

      The crowd grumbled.

      ‘Why did the clock strike thirteen?’

      ‘I believe the mechanism was tampered with, to add confusion.’

      ‘What about the wine that got poured away?’

      ‘Oh! That was just wine. And a viscountess being mean.’

      ‘All right, all right, I buy it all so far,’ yelled one of the policemen. ‘But who or what is that hare all about?’

      Emily’s throat was beginning to hurt from shouting, and her boots really were slippery, but to be called upon by an officer of the law urged her on to reveal her proudest deduction.

      ‘That,’ she said loudly, ‘holds the vital clue to why this crime occurred in this way. After all, if you want to kill a viscountess, there are quicker ways than selling her curtains super-impregnated with poison. The word “hare” does not mean hare as in furry rabbity creature, but the beginning of another word. Hareng. It is the French word for “herring”, written in blood. A red herring. I think it was written on the floorboards before the Viscountess moved into the room, and covered up with a rug. The missing letters were wiped away by footfalls – or perhaps missed out all along, to prolong the mystery. For this is why the Viscountess died: to preoccupy the Queen’s Detectives with an impossible case. To give them too many clues to solve. To humiliate them with failure – and to draw them into the same trap. The Deadly Room – which is killing them both while I’m talking! Father? Papa? Please, please come down?’

      The crowd’s faces turned up to the window, to the forgotten Mr Black above.

      Emily met his bright eyes, and saw her father’s chest swell with pride at last.

      ‘Oh! Yes, at once,’ he said, coming back to himself. ‘I mean to say – oh – Lord Copperbole will need a doctor! And no one is to come into this room!’

      Lord Basil Copperbole made a full recovery, and acquired a new coat (demure grey, though the lining was pink and yellow stripes) in time to accompany Miss Emily Black and her father to the palace, where she received a gallantry award for services in the prevention of crime.

      ‘Perhaps some time back in the country, until all this fuss has died down, hmm?’ said Mr Black, peering anxiously from their carriage as they drew up to the old Richmond house and laboratory, to find the usual crowd gathered to catch a glimpse of the Queen’s Detectives and their young protégée.

      ‘A little Sussex air . . . some shopping, of course,’ said Lord Copperbole, clapping his hands.

      ‘Indeed, sir, indeed!’ said Mr Black.

      ‘Aren’t we going to finish the case first?’ asked Emily.

      ‘But you solved it, dearest Emily!’ said her father, squeezing her hands. ‘All those clues . . . solved the lot. Even the ones that weren’t really clues.’

      ‘Yes. Very clever,’ said Lord Copperbole, his cheek twitching with the effort.

      ‘Um. Well, we know how the Viscountess died, Papa. But we haven’t caught who arranged for her to furnish her home with super-impregnated poisonous bedlinen then laid a false trail of clues, all in order to entrap the two of you in the same room and kill you,’ said Emily, quite slowly, to be sure it went in.

      ‘Oh. Oh dear,’ said her father.

      ‘Good heavens,’ said Lord Copperbole. ‘And now we have no clues to go on at all!’

      ‘Apart from the tailor you visited in Paris who made you your coat,’ said Emily. ‘And whoever recommended him.’

      She looked Lord Copperbole in the eye.

      Lord Copperbole clutched his lace handkerchief to his lips. ‘But – you can’t be suggesting . . .’

      ‘She