Mystery & Mayhem

First published in Great Britain 2016

by Egmont UK Limited

The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN

Emily and the Detectives © 2016 Susie Day

Rain on My Parade © 2016 Elen Caldecott. Characters first appeared in the Marsh Road Mysteries series, published by Bloombury 2015

The Mystery of the Green Room © 2016 Clementine Beauvais

The Mystery of Diablo Canyon Circle © 2016 Roman Mysteries Ltd

Mel Foster and the Hound of the Baskervilles © 2016 Julia Golding

Dazzle, Dog Biscuits and Disaster © 2016 Kate Pankhurst

God’s Eye © 2016 Frances Hardinge

The Mystery of the Pineapple Plot © 2016 Helen Moss

The Murder of Monsieur Pierre © 2016 Harriet Whitehorn

Safe-Keeping © 2016 Sally Nicholls

The Mystery of the Purloined Pearls © 2016 Katherine Woodfine

The Mystery of Room 12 © 2016 Robin Stevens

Cover and inside illustraions © 2016 David Wardle

The moral rights of the authors and illustrator have been asserted

First e-book edition 2016

ISBN 978 1 4052 8264 2

Ebook ISBN 978 1 7803 1746 5

www.egmont.co.uk

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction by Katherine Woodfine

IMPOSSIBLE MYSTERIES

Emily and the Detectives by Susie Day

Rain on My Parade by Elen Caldecott

The Mystery of the Green Room by Clementine Beauvais

CANINE CAPERS

The Mystery of Diablo Canyon Circle by Caroline Lawrence

Mel Foster and the Hound of the Baskervilles by Julia Golding

Dazzle, Dog Biscuits and Disaster by Kate Pankhurst

POISON PLOTS

God’s Eye by Frances Hardinge

The Mystery of the Pineapple Plot by Helen Moss

The Murder of Monsieur Pierre by Harriet Whitehorn

CLOSED-SYSTEM CRIMES

Safe-Keeping by Sally Nicholls

The Mystery of the Purloined Pearls by Katherine Woodfine

The Mystery of Room 12 by Robin Stevens

Back series promotional page

INTRODUCTION

The very word ‘mystery’ is exciting. It instantly conjures up visions of ruined castles, secret passageways, lost treasures, brave detectives and dastardly villains. Most of all though, it suggests an enigma – a puzzle to solve, a question that characters as well as readers are trying to answer.

From Hercule Poirot to the Hardy Boys, the Secret Seven to Sherlock Holmes, mystery stories have long been favourites on our bookshelves. Whether it’s the Famous Five or Nancy Drew, it’s hard to resist the fun of an old-fashioned mystery tale. But over the last few years we’ve seen an explosion of brand new mysteries appearing in our bookshops and libraries. With page-turning plots, puzzling clues to follow and plenty of heart-pounding action and adventure, these books nod to the much-loved mysteries of the past, but also bring detective fiction bang up to date.

If you want to get a taste of this new generation of crime fiction, the twelve original stories in this collection are the perfect place to start. Showing just how varied and diverse today’s mysteries can be, this anthology takes us from an elegant Georgian country house in Helen Moss’s The Mystery of the Pineapple Plot to the buzzy streets of present-day Marsh Road in Elen Caldecott’s Rain on My Parade. We visit the Great Exhibition of 1851 in Frances Hardinge’s intriguing God’s Eye and explore the streets of 1780s Soho in Harriet Whitehorn’s The Murder of Monsieur Pierre.

These are stories that have plenty of fun with the traditions of crime fiction. Robin Stevens and Clementine Beauvais offer us brain-boggling, Agatha-Christie-style puzzles that even Miss Marple might struggle to solve; while Sally Nicholls’ Safe-Keeping is a tribute to ‘Boy’s Own’ style adventures. Caroline Lawrence’s modern-day mystery has a hint of the American Wild West and Julia Golding’s Mel Foster and the Hound of the Baskervilles even features an appearance from the great detective Sherlock Holmes himself.

The young sleuths in these stories can be anyone, from Kate Pankhurst’s quick-thinking dog-walker Sid to my own Edwardian chorus-girl-turned-detective Lil. But what unites them all is that they are the ones smart enough to unravel the mystery, rather than the adults around them. Sharp-eyed and even sharper-witted, these young heroes are courageous, cool-headed and clever, able to follow the clues and come up with the solution even when no one else can. Susie Day’s Emily and the Detectives illustrates this perfectly: the world believes that clueless Lord Copperbole and scientist Mr Black are brilliant detectives, but in fact it’s Mr Black’s daughter, the capable Emily, who’s really responsible for discovering whodunnit every time.

Perhaps one of the reasons that mystery stories like these are so enjoyable is that they allow us to share the challenge of solving the puzzle. We too can experience the satisfaction of pitting our wits against the mystery, piecing together the clues and unravelling the evidence to work out what happened and why. The stories in this collection offer exactly this challenge: can you solve the crimes alongside the daring young detectives? But whether or not you manage to crack the cases, there’s a huge amount of fun to be had along the way.

Happy sleuthing!

Katherine Woodfine

IMPOSSIBLE MYSTERIES

Sometimes crimes seem simply impossible. But intrepid detectives know that this is never really true. As Sherlock Holmes said, ‘Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.’

These three locked-room mysteries seem unbelievable, but each case can be cracked – and as soon as they are, each of them make perfect sense.

EMILY AND THE DETECTIVES

By Susie Day

‘No, but . . .’ said Emily.

‘Hush, dearest,’ said Mr Black – or Father, as she more usually called him. ‘We are on the brink! Of a discovery! We are mere instants from revealing all – are we not, Lord Copperbole?’

Lord Copperbole – or Irritating Moustachioed Weasel, as she more usually called him – leapt back from the laboratory bench, as it erupted in blue flames.

‘The clue!’ moaned Mr Black.

‘The clue!’ howled Lord Copperbole, nursing a burnt thumb.

‘The bucket?’ suggested Emily, tugging a pail full of sand from beneath the bench, and dumping it unceremoniously on to the fire.

A shame. The blue flame indicated atacamite, as she had expected from the sugary crystals gathered in the corner of the clue: an envelope addressed to Lady Tanqueray, greasy from travel, and impressed with the shape of a scarab beetle. It could not have been more obvious.

It was lucky, really, that Mary the housemaid neglected to refill the bucket with sand.

The Chinese puzzlebox Lord Copperbole brought to the house was a rare and beautiful thing: jet black, inlaid with a complex pattern of abalone shell.

‘My dear friend Lady Tanqueray has again entrusted me with unlocking a mystery,’ he explained, purring as he stroked his new-grown goatee. ‘A gift to her eldest daughter, from an admirer. We must be discreet, Charles.’

‘Of course, my dear fellow,’ said Mr Black, turning it this way and that. ‘But if your intellect cannot unlock it, I scarce presume to hope I might.’

This was silly, Emily thought, since her father was a very clever – if amateur – scientist, and Lord Copperbole was just a person who happened to live in a large house full of expensive things. But Mr Black was indeed outfoxed – until Emily slid the abalone-shell catch up, left, down, left and up, mirroring the castellation pattern on the lid until it clicked.

She smiled as the box sprang open.

The secret within was a large furred spider (poisonous, clearly: anyone could identify those red markings), which scuttled out of its prison and on to the floor.

‘Oh!’ said her father.

‘Help!’ yelped Lord Copperbole.

Emily reached under the table, placed the empty bucket over the spider, and stood on top in her black buttoned boots until an eminent zoologist could be located.

The eminent zoologist revisited Mr Black’s house in Richmond three weeks later, accompanied by his weeping wife.

He recounted the tragic tale of his wife’s mother – an elderly seamstress, formerly of the royal household – and her purloined silver spoons. All but one had been mysteriously stolen from her private collection.

‘The police are baffled, sir!’ declared the eminent zoologist. ‘Her eyesight failed many years ago; she only discovered the theft when she came, alas, to sell them. And she is quite distraught, the poor lady, for they were gifts given to her by her daughter, my dear Agatha: one for each Christmas since our marriage. And now there is but one left.’

His weeping wife dabbed at her eyes.

‘I enjoy a mystery, sir,’ said Mr Black with a frown, ‘but I don’t know that we are quite the right people to –’

‘Nonsense!’ declared Lord Copperbole, snatching up a paisley velvet scarf and knotting it with a confident flounce. ‘I half see the solution already! What puzzles me is why the thief would take every other spoon, and leave only one.’

‘Or,’ said Emily, looking up from her book, ‘perhaps there only ever was one spoon, and the daughter gave her the same one every year?’

The weeping wife stopped weeping, and attempted to leap through the window.

Mr Black gripped her by the ankle, hauled her back inside, and Emily sat on her legs until the constable arrived.

The police were not pleased to have been bested.

The newspapers, however, became terribly keen on the exploits of Copperbole & Black.

The Mystery of the Eminent Zoologist’s Wife’s Mother’s Spoons was reported in the Daily Telegraph.

The Case of One-Legged Jack (who was, Emily discovered, actually Two-Legged Jill) was featured on the front page of the Illustrated London News.

After the Adventure of the Magician’s Hatbox, their appeal extended into the society pages.

Lord Copperbole is quite the fashionable gentleman, lately seen sporting a spotted cravat tied in a manner some have dubbed ‘The Detective’s Twist’. Meanwhile, in spite of his unfortunate dusky appearance, Mr Black cuts a more traditional figure, yet his habit of tucking a crocus into his lapel is also gaining regard.

There was no mention of young Miss Emily Black’s contribution.

‘Or the way she wears her stockings all wrinkly about the ankle and her hair in knots,’ Mary the housemaid said, finding Emily gloomily scouring the back pages. ‘Fame’s not all it’s cracked up to be, miss. Fame brings trouble. You’re better off out of it.’

Emily supposed so. Though it seemed to bring a lot of other things too.

Lady Tanqueray’s favourite Parisian tailor made Lord Copperbole a new green brocade coat – ‘At no charge!’ said her father. ‘Can you imagine? And you know Basil; he is fond of a tailor.’

Mr Black found himself invited to the Royal Society – not to join, of course, but to dine, once.

But after the Case of the Lost Prince (who happily really was lost, not dead, and thanks to Emily soon found again, in a coal cellar) mere fame changed into true regard.

Lord Copperbole and Mr Black were summoned to the palace, and each anointed with a new title: DBE, Detective of the British Empire.

There is no crime they cannot solve, the papers declared. LONDON IS SAFE.

Emily felt torn in two. One portion of her blazed with envy. Her second self glowed with secret pride.

Until one day, everything changed.

‘Dearest Emily,’ said her father, ‘we are quite preoccupied, Lord Basil and I, with our work for Her Majesty. I know you have always enjoyed playing our little chaperone, and since your poor mother – rest her soul – was lost to us, I have adored having 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 huîtres horrible) he typically pounced upon.

She recognised the expression; her father often sank into similar despondency mid-case. Unless Lord Copperbole was realising he was shortly to be replaced at her father’s side . . . by herself ?

‘Well,’ she said eagerly, pushing her plate away. ‘I think – that is to say, what I make of it is –’

Her voice faded to a croak.

Emily, for the first time in her life, had no idea how the crime had been committed.

Usually she was able to see each clue, each suspect, each moment of importance in her mind as if they were chessmen on a board – and played a swift and confident game until the only piece remaining was the solution. For the first time, for every pawn she took, there was another jostling for attention. For the first time, it seemed the murderer had left too many clues to his identity, not too few. And all while seemingly committing the crime from inside a locked room – and vanishing.

Her shoulders drooped. Perhaps she was not worthy of royal patronage after all.

‘Oh dearest, in my excitement I’ve overtired you with this unpleasantness,’ said her father. ‘We shall not speak of it again.’

Emily opened her mouth to protest, but it stretched itself into an unbidden yawn. She was sent up to bed at once, and the next morning her father and Lord Copperbole returned to London to pursue the case.

‘Today, we shall paint this vase of lovely flowers,’ said Miss Hethersmith.

Emily was so dejected, she obeyed without argument.

The rest of the week was spent pressing flowers, reciting poetry, and improving her deportment.

On Friday evening, the Queen’s Detectives returned to Sussex, aflow with new theories.

At least, her father was.