Page 100 of Murder on Cold Street
She moved her index finger down the page, her eyes searching. “Yes, the subject did come up. Mrs. Sullivan mentioned that she’d heard our tenants had moved out. She wanted to know if we would let the house out again. And my uncle said no, he’d decided against it, and was in fact about to instruct his solicitor to relate that decision to the letting agent.”
She looked up. “And Miss Hendricks said Mr. Sullivan was there the very next day?”
“She was very certain about that. Did he know of your love for the attic studio, by any chance?”
“I should say not—neither Uncle nor I ever brought it up in frontof him.” Slowly, Miss Longstead closed her diary. “What could he havepossiblywanted with the place?”
“Not to live there, that we can be sure of,” said Charlotte. “Would you mind showing me to Mr. Longstead’s study again? I still need to locate his keys.”
The mountainous miscellany that used to be on top of Mr. Longstead’s desk were still spread out on old newspaper on the floor.
Miss Longstead tapped an index finger on her temple. “I used to know where he kept everything, but it has been a good few years since I dug through this study for unexpected treasures. Let me think. No, he never did keep keys in the desk. They were usually...”
She picked her way to the shelves and carefully extracted an unused vase—it must have once marked the end of a row of books, but was now nearly swallowed by surrounding volumes, reminding Charlotte of a half-exposed fossil in a slab of a coastal shale. Miss Longstead shook it. It made no sound. Taking care not to step on the vast archaeological proliferation on the floor, she tiptoed along the shelves and excavated another vase. It, too, was empty.
The fifth vase she found clanged with her motion. She tipped it over and a set of keys dropped into her palm. “Here they are.”
She weaved back to the door and handed the lot to Charlotte. Charlotte inspected the four keys, especially the two brass ones with long shanks and elaborate bows: There were bits of white powder stuck on them. She took a sniff. Peppermint?
Mr. Sealy, the chemist, had said that Mr. Longstead enjoyed peppermint lozenges once in a while. And when Charlotte had examined the physical evidence the police had gathered, one pocket of his evening coat had contained a residue that smelled of peppermint.
“Do you remember whether your uncle carried those keys on his person on the night of the dance?”
Miss Longstead took off her glasses and wiped the lenses with a handkerchief. “He checked on me when I was getting ready. Mrs.Coltrane was with me at the time. She took one look at him and cried, ‘Good gracious, Mr. Longstead, whatever have you got in your pocket? It’s making your jacket appear lumpy.’ And he chuckled and said that he would get rid of it presently.”
They rang for Mrs. Coltrane. When the housekeeper arrived outside the study, she confirmed Miss Longstead’s account. “Yes, that did happen, but I can’t tell you what was in his pocket. He was standing half in the passage, which wasn’t lit as brightly as Miss Longstead’s room.”
Mrs. Coltrane returned to her duties. Charlotte said to her hostess, “I have one more request to make of you, Miss Longstead. Would you show me the places in this house where you and Mr. Longstead have hidden Christmas presents in the past?”
Miss Longstead’s eyes widened behind the glasses she’d just put on again. “All of them? Whatever for?”
“There is a chance that your uncle hid something in this house. Given that he expected you to search the house top to bottom for your present, what are the only places where you wouldn’t have searched?”
“The places we already used before! Because we were supposed to find new hiding places every year and he always played fair.” Miss Longstead’s eyes lit. But just as quickly, excitement faded from her beautiful face, replaced by a fearful dismay. “But what could he have hidden? Do you think... do you believe...?”
“Fortunately or unfortunately, I do think the item he hid had something to do with his murder. How directly the two were related, I don’t know. But if we find it, I’d like to take it with me for closer study.”
Miss Longstead braced a hand on the wall, but she needed only a moment to master herself. Opening her diary to a blank page at the back, she took out a pencil from a pocket, and wrote quickly.
“We spent three Christmases in town. So there are six past hiding places we’ve used before,” she said tightly, tearing out the list she’d made.
They started in the study itself, in one of the lower cabinets, thenproceeded to the unused nursery. There Miss Longstead looked under a cot and then inside a desk in the small schoolroom. Next, they stopped by Miss Longstead’s floor. In her sitting room, she crouched down and opened the doors under an occasional table, to a space filled with notebooks and various boxes.
“I’m afraid I hang on to odds and ends, too,” said Miss Longstead, her eyes once again darkened by grief. “Except I keep them in boxes, not heaps.”
Charlotte got down on her knees and peered in. Her heart thudded. “That box in the back—do you recognize it? The one with ivory inlays.”
Miss Longstead looked again. “Good gracious.” She pulled out the box. “The pattern on the outside looks like another one of my boxes but the size is completely different.”
The thickness—or the relative flatness of the box—was what had caught Charlotte’s attention. A keyhole was visible but when Miss Longstead lifted the lid tentatively, it gave: The box was not locked.
Miss Longstead, with the lid open half an inch, glanced at Charlotte.
Charlotte nodded.
Miss Longstead bit her lower lip and opened the box the rest of the way. Inside lay a collection of small notebooks, about four inches wide and five inches long. She flipped through one. Its pages were pasted with newspaper clippings and telegrams.
She turned to Charlotte again, her eyes disquiet, her voice hushed. “But these are—these are all in code.”
