Goodly and Grave in a Deadly Case of Murder Read online

  “It’s a bit of a long story, but Lord Grave discovered me using magic to win poker games. I didn’t even know I was doing magic! So he brought me here so he could train me to use magic properly.”

  “Do you have any family?”

  “Yes, my parents.”

  “Don’t they miss you? Don’t you miss them?”

  “Yes,” Lucy admitted. She worried about them too, especially about her father who had a bad leg. She explained to Rivers that Lord Grave had made an agreement with her mother and father that she could stay at Grave Hall. Of course, Mr and Mrs Goodly thought that this was because she was an excellent boot girl and not because Lord Grave was training her to be a magician. To keep her parents out of trouble (they were hopeless without Lucy to look after them) Lord Grave had cast a good luck charm on them to make sure they won all their poker games, telling them he was sure Lady Luck would be good to them. This was partly so that they could earn enough money to rebuild Leafy Ridge, the Goodly family home, which had burned down when her parents accidentally left a pigeon pie in the oven when they went off to play bridge.

  “And is Lady Luck being good to them?” Rivers asked.

  “I think so. I had a letter from them. They seem to be fine. They’ve gone to Venice. There’s a famous casino there that they’ve always wanted to visit.”

  “Ah, yes. I’ve heard of it. The famous Casino di Venezia.”

  By now, Lucy and Rivers had reached the house. “Why don’t you run along to your meeting, Miss Goodly? I’ll get rid of this straw. It does whiff a bit, doesn’t it?” Rivers said, wrinkling his nose.

  Once Lucy had changed out of her armour and into her usual clothes, she rushed off to the meeting room. Everyone else was already there, looking rather baggy-eyed from lack of sleep. Smell was stretched out on a sheaf of papers, snoring softly. Lucy slipped into her seat beside Bertie, who had a rather mutinous expression on his face. Lord Grave must have come straight from his bed as he was still in his night things. Bathsheba was there too, padding around the room uneasily as though she was as worried as Bertie about her master.

  There was a knock on the door and Mrs Crawley came in, carrying Vonk in her beefy arms. He was wan and pale and swaddled in tight bandages from waist to chest. Even though Mrs Crawley set him down gently in one of the chairs, he winced in pain.

  “I’m sorry to have to question you while you’re so unwell and should be resting,” Lord Grave told Vonk.

  “He’s not the only one who should be resting!” Bertie said.

  Lord Grave looked at Bertie affectionately. “I promise you I’ll go back to bed as soon as we’re finished here. Now, Vonk, can you take us through what happened?”

  Vonk explained what Lucy already knew: that he’d been having a bedtime cup of cocoa in his butler’s pantry when he’d heard suspicious noises.

  “I came out into the entrance hall and saw a man at the bottom of the stairs. He had the notebook under his arm. I shouted at him and he ran for the door. So I tackled him.”

  Lucy thought this was very brave of Vonk. He was an unusually small man, smaller than Lucy herself, in fact.

  “What did this chap look like?” Lady Sibyl asked.

  “He had a scarf over his face so I couldn’t see. I tried to pull it off him, but he was too strong for me. But I did manage grab the notebook – he dropped it while we were fighting. When the vase fell off the table and broke, he must have realised that the noise would rouse the house, so he gave up and ran off.”

  “Do we know if he was on a horse or on foot?” Beguildy Beguildy said.

  “On foot I think. I would have heard hooves on the gravel outside if he’d had a horse.”

  “Could he have used magic to escape?” Lucy said. She explained about the strange web-like thing she’d seen after the break-in. “I’m sure it was something magical; could it have had anything to do with how he got away?”

  Nobody replied. They were all too busy staring at Lucy, as though she’d said something very shocking indeed.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  UNCLE EBENEZER’S QUILL

  Lord Grave’s eyebrows were nearly meeting his hair. Even Smell had half opened his eye.

  “What, what is it? What have I said?”

  Lord Grave’s eyebrows lowered a little. “What you saw was a trace of magic. Traces are a mysterious phenomena. Very few magicians can see them and we know very little about them. But it’s thought that whenever magic is performed, a remnant of energy is left behind, which is visible to some magicians.”

  By now, Bertie had stopped looking and was listening intently. “Fingerprints!”

  “What’s that my boy?” Lord Grave said.

  Bertie waggled his fingers in the air. “There’s a surgeon, Mr Overton, who says that we all have our own unique fingerprints and that they could be used to solve crimes. Are these traces like that?”

  Lord Grave nodded. “It’s possible. Some people think traces are unique to each magician, but that’s just one theory about them.”

  Bertie leaned forward. “So if Lucy saw this trace, can’t we find a way of identifying who it belongs to?”

  “Afraid not, my boy. As I said, it’s just a theory.”

  Bertie sank back in his chair and crossed his arms again. “Someone should test that theory then. Now I know how Mr Overton feels. No one listens to him either.”

  As there was very little else to discuss for now, the meeting broke up. Lucy was about to leave with the others, when Lord Grave asked her to stay behind, much to Bertie’s annoyance.

  Once they were alone, Lord Grave motioned to the sofas that were grouped around the enormous stone fireplace. When they had both settled themselves, Lord Grave took a cigar out of his dressing-gown breast pocket and lit it.

  “Don’t tell Bertie, he wants me to give up,” he said as he took a puff, sighing in satisfaction. “Now as we have a moment of calm, can you explain to me exactly what it was you did in the graveyard? How did you control the angel?”

  Lucy stared into the fire for a few moments, trying to put her strange experience into words.

  “I was angry and frightened. I thought you might be dead, that I might be next. It all welled up in me.”

  Lord Grave nodded. “Sometimes intense emotions enable us to perform magic we didn’t know we had in us. What happened next?”

  “I told the angel it should be helping us not the graverobber. It stopped trying to hurt me as if it was obeying me for a few seconds. And so I thought I’d try telling it what to do next and imagine it at the same time. It worked and the angel let me go. But the graverobber was still half controlling it too. It was like a mental battle, both of us trying to control the angel, but somehow I won.”

  “Lucy, what you did was an incredible piece of magic. As I said to you last night, animation is a rare skill.”

  “Can you animate things?”

  “Not really. It’s something I never mastered. The only thing I have ever managed to partially animate is the statue of my great-grandmother.”

  “The one outside the Room of Curiosities?”

  “That’s right.”

  Lucy thought back to the time she had tickled the statue of Lord Grave’s great-grandmother under the chin to make her come alive and hand over the keys to the Room of Curiosities, where she had got into all sorts of trouble. Had she been able to do that because of her animation skills?

  Now it was Lord Grave’s turn to stare thoughtfully into the fire. After a few moments, he said, “If you feel up to it, I’d like you to try animating something. Let’s see … ah, Uncle Ebenezer.”

  “Who?”

  Lord Grave pointed to the portrait of a man that hung on the chimney breast. It was obvious that he was a relative of Lord Grave, as he had the family eyebrows and the same slightly grumpy demeanour. “See if you can make him move a little, Lucy.”

  Lucy slipped out of her armchair and stood facing the portrait. Uncle Ebenezer had a feather quill clutched in his hand. Lucy imagined
him dropping it.

  “Let go of the quill!” she commanded.

  Nothing happened.

  She tried again.

  Nothing.

  Lucy huffed in frustration.

  Lord Grave glanced at the portrait. “Oh dear. Uncle Ebenezer was always a terrible old snob. Perhaps that’s why he won’t co-operate.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Let’s just say he thought the lower classes were incapable of performing complex magic. The great unwashed, he called them. Said they were only fit for performing circus tricks.” Lord Grave took another draw on his cigar. “To be honest, I agree with him. Perhaps you’re not as talented as I thought. Perhaps you’ve simply had a couple of lucky accidents.”

  “Lucky accidents!” Anger surged in Lucy. The first time she’d ever met Lord Grave she’d thought him to be a thoroughly horrible man. She should have trusted that first instinct! “I might be lower class, but I’m just as good as you! Better, in fact. I don’t sit around all day on my backside while other people do all the work.”

  Lucy turned back to Uncle Ebenezer. Fury-driven adrenalin coursed through her. Her surroundings seemed sharper and brighter. She stared at the painting and imagined the quill falling to the floor.

  “Do as I say, you revolting old codger, and—”

  Before Lucy could finish her command, uncle Ebenezer’s fingers opened and he dropped the quill.

  “Incredible! Incredible!” Lord Grave guffawed.

  “How’s that for a lower-class unwashed magician!” snapped Lucy, her hands on her hips.

  Lord Grave laughed even harder, bracing his hands on his knees. Bathsheba stared at her master in bewilderment. “I’m terribly sorry, Lucy. I didn’t mean any of it. I thought I’d make you angry to help you make the animation work. Uncle Ebenezer was a truly good man who helped many a less well-off magician develop their talents. I try to follow his example.”

  Lucy collapsed back into her seat and closed her eyes, waiting for her breathing and heart rate to return to normal. “Do anything like that ever again and I’m telling Bertie about you smoking!”

  They both laughed again. But then Lucy had a sobering thought. “Is animation really that rare? The graverobber was able to do it too.”

  The laughter faded from Lord Grave’s face. “That’s true. You managed to take control of the angel from him, but even so, he must be a very skilled magician. We’re up against someone who has the potential to be extremely dangerous.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE EMERALD EYE

  As soon as Lucy arrived in the kitchen next morning, Mrs Crawley thrust a cup of tea and a slice of toast at her.

  “Get these down you quickly, Lucy. Lord Grave needs you in the drawing room right away!”

  “What’s happened?” Lucy asked between gulps of tea.

  “There was a robbery last night at the jeweller’s.”

  “A jeweller’s?”

  “It’s not an ordinary jeweller’s, of course. His Lordship hasn’t gone and joined the constabulary. He’ll explain. Off you go now!”

  Lucy hurried out of the kitchen just as Becky was hurrying in carrying a full dustpan. The two of them collided and the contents of the dustpan tipped out on to the floor.

  “You nincompoop!” Becky yelled.

  “Sorry. Can’t stop, Lord Grave wants me!”

  Becky replied with something very rude, which earned her a sharp rebuke from Mrs Crawley.

  Lucy left them to it. When she reached the drawing-room door, she paused to shake a sprinkling of the dustpan’s contents off her jacket.

  When she went into the drawing room, Lucy was pleased to see that Lord Grave was looking much better today. He was sitting at his desk fully dressed. He wore a new top hat to replace the one the angel had destroyed. Lucy did notice a sliver of bandage, though, poking out from underneath it.

  “We’re off to the seaside. To Brighton and Roland Mole,” he said.

  “Who?”

  “He’s the jeweller. Didn’t Mrs Crawley tell you?”

  “She said there’d been a robbery at a jeweller’s. But it’s not an ordinary sort of jeweller’s?”

  “That’s right. Roland Mole deals in magical jewels and one of his most precious specimens was stolen last night.”

  “Do you think it’s the same person who broke in here? Is that why you want to investigate?”

  “No, I don’t think the two crimes are linked. But we still need to look in to it. I was thinking about visiting Mole anyway so he can take a look at the notebook. Examine the jewels on the cover and tell us if there’s any magic in them that we might have missed. We may as well be doing something useful while we’re waiting for Reedy to arrive.”

  Lucy looked at him blankly.

  “Angus Reedy. The bookbinder! He’ll be here tonight. Are you ready to leave? Mole’s relaxed all the shop’s protections so that we can shortcut inside.”

  Before Lucy could reply, the drawing-room door opened.

  “Father!” Bertie said.

  “What is it, my boy?” Lord Grave said, suddenly looking furtive.

  “You should be in bed. You’re not well. I hope you’re not planning on going off anywhere. You promised me you’d rest all of today. No meetings. No investigations.”

  “I’m absolutely fine,” Lord Grave said. The tail of the bandage beneath his hat had come loose and he surreptitiously tucked it back in. “We’re just taking a quick trip to Brighton, the sea air will be of benefit. Good for the constitution.”

  Bertie narrowed his eyes. “I know about the jewel robbery. Lady Sibyl mentioned it at breakfast.”

  “Well, I was going to do just a little investigating. Nothing strenuous.”

  “I’m coming too. Look what happened last time you and Lucy went off investigating. It’ll be safer with three of us.”

  As Lucy had never been to Roland Mole’s shop, and there wasn’t time to fiddle about finding a suitable picture of it, Lord Grave shortcut them there. It took him several attempts to make the opening so he obviously wasn’t feeling quite as chipper as he was pretending.

  “I knew he wasn’t a hundred per cent,” Bertie muttered to Lucy. “It’s a good thing I came with you.”

  “I can hear you, my boy. Nothing wrong with me and my hearing is as sharp as ever,” Lord Grave said.

  As Lucy climbed through the opening into the jeweller’s she gasped at the treasures it contained. There was a vast array of glass cabinets holding jewellery made of gold, silver and brightly coloured precious stones. A dark-haired girl was busily polishing the already gleaming displays while an equally spotless small fluffy dog trotted around. Everything glittered most impressively in the light from a huge chandelier, which held hundreds of delicate, extremely thin candles. Lucy decided the chandelier must be magical; if the candles were lit by hand, the first one would have burned out by the time the last was lit.

  “Father!” called the girl. “They’re here!”

  A man stepped in through a door at the back of the shop.

  “You took your time, Grave,” he said in a snippy voice.

  “Came as quick as I could, Mole. This is my son Bertie and my assistant Lucy.”

  Roland eyed them warily. “Don’t like strange children in my shop. They mess around. Break things.”

  Lucy huffed. “We’re not toddlers, you know!”

  “Is there somewhere to sit, Mole?” Lord Grave asked. He was looking rather peaky.

  After calling to his daughter to look after the shop, Mole picked up the fluffy dog and then led them into the back room, where he offered packing cases to sit on. Lord Grave looked very grateful for a seat, even though the cases were splintery.

  “What happened, Mole?”

  “It was very early this morning. Was fast asleep. A most pleasing dream about garnet necklaces. Then Precious here began barking. She wouldn’t stop. So I went down into the shop. At first, nothing seemed amiss. But then I realised that the Emerald Eye was missing.”


  Lucy and Bertie exchanged puzzled looks.

  “For the benefit of you children, I shall explain. The Emerald Eye is very unique jewel. It has a particularly exquisite magical quality; it enhances sight, as the name suggests. Look at an object through the Emerald Eye and you can see the most tremendous detail. It’s very valuable and one of my most requested jewels.”

  “Mole rents out his jewels to other magicians when they need them for magical purposes,” Lord Grave explained.

  “So the Emerald Eye is a microscope? They’re common enough,” Bertie said.

  “There is no comparison,” Mole replied huffily. “Use of the Emerald Eye can reputedly even give a blind person sight. Can your microscope do that, young man?”

  “No, but one day science will find a way to—”

  “Mole, perhaps you could show us where the Eye was kept?” Lord Grave interrupted.

  “Certainly.” Mole led them back out into the shop where his daughter was still cleaning. He showed them a display cabinet, which stood in the centre of the shop floor. The jewels beneath the glass were arranged in a display of ever decreasing circles, at the centre of which was a setting for single jewel. The setting was empty.

  “What did the Emerald Eye look like?” Lucy asked.

  “A beauty. Green as the freshest grass, with the most wonderful markings,” Mole said, kissing his fingers.

  “Do you have a picture of it, Mole?”

  “It’s in my catalogue. Annette, my lovely, could you fetch a copy?”

  The dark-haired girl stopped her dusting. “Of course, Father.”

  When Annette had brought the catalogue over, Mole flicked though it until he found the page he was looking for. Lucy could see instantly why the Emerald Eye was so named. At its centre was a dark, glossy and perfectly round spot, just like the iris of a human eye. The spot had diagonal and vertical lines running from it to the edges of the jewel, a little like the spokes of a wheel. But the overall effect was still that of an eye.