Page 70

‘Shut up,’ said all twenty-seven Ivys at the same time.

I frowned, piecing the story together. ‘Hang on – there weren’t any men hiding in the trunk room when you got there?’

Theodora looked baffled. ‘No – why?’

‘I’m not lying!’ Mr Benson yelped insistently. ‘There were four of them – three men, and one on the floor! They must have left and gone outside, just before those three went in!’

I turned back to Theodora, Lavinia and Éimhear. ‘You didn’t run past any men, outside or in the basement?’

They shook their heads. I glanced at Miss Decima, confused.

‘Very well,’ said Miss Decima. ‘You hid in the room to escape, then Mr Benson inadvertently trapped you inside. But I imagine you wouldn’t want to leave anyway. Because the next thing you knew, you could hear policemen searching the basement, talking about an officer being murdered in the street outside. Am I correct?’

We all turned to Lavinia. Her eyes were reddening, right in front of us.

‘I – I thought it was my fault,’ she whispered. ‘I thought I’d killed him by accident. That he’d hit his head on the pavement or something. I was terrified, utterly terrified.’ She wiped at her eyes. ‘But when I heard an officer talking about his throat being cut, I … well, I just didn’t know what to think.’

‘It really was terribly difficult,’ said Theodora, placing a hand on Lavinia’s knee. ‘Four days in that room, trying to understand what had happened. Not being able to tell our loved ones the truth. I must confess that if you hadn’t found us … I don’t know what we would have done.’

Miss Decima frowned, struggling to piece it all together. ‘And the three of you had absolutely no plans to plant explosives anywhere?’

Theodora blinked. ‘Explosives? Why on earth would you think that?’

Miss Decima turned to Éimhear. ‘Your bedroom, my dear, contained a carpet bag identical to this one. Filled with dynamite and hatpins. The very same hatpins that were found all over Miss Welford’s dormitory room and Miss Gussett’s bedroom.’

Lavinia sat bolt up. ‘Oh! Those hatpins! That’s right – I was sent a package stuffed full of them, last week. I’ve no idea who sent them to me. Dreadfully strange.’

‘And that’s not all we found,’ Miss Decima said calmly, her eyes still fixed on Éimhear. ‘We also found a large amount of evidence suggesting that the three of you were responsible for the murder of Sir William Crace.’

This time, Lavinia almost leapt from her chair. ‘Me? Kill Uncle Egg?!’

‘I really am terribly confused,’ muttered Theodora, shaking her head.

Éimhear frowned at Miss Decima. ‘Are you mad? I don’t know the first thing about explosives. I don’t even know who this Crace is.’

Miss Decima’s eyes danced between them, searching for the gaps, trying to decide if she was being lied to. Eventually, she folded her hands in her lap.

‘Ladies, allow me to be completely frank. The police officer who chased you did not simply have his throat slashed from ear to ear. A suffragette ribbon was stuffed down his open throat: a ribbon identical to the ones being stored in Lavinia’s dormitory. Her missing reed blade was also found beneath his body; further to that, key incriminating evidence was placed in Éimhear’s bedroom linking you three to the murders of Constable Watts and Sir William Crace. It appears that the three of you have been the victims of an elaborate scheme to frame you for a double homicide. The real killers of Kensington Gore were relying on your racing from the statue and straight to Theodora’s apartment, as per the original plan, where you would later be found by police and arrested. These mysterious men must have already been outside when the three of you ran into the basement of Number 89 and hid yourselves inside the trunk room. It was only thanks to a minor miracle of timing that you were prevented from running into them yourselves.’

Éimhear was dumbstruck. ‘But … who are they?’

‘Why did they want to kill that officer?’ asked Theodora.

‘And why were they framing us for it?’ added Lavinia.

Miss Decima paused for a moment, and then grandly removed her teeth.

‘These are all questions, my dears, which we must solve as soon as possible.’ She picked up an old newspaper from the table beside her and tossed it over to the women. ‘There – that is the crime scene, from the day the murder took place. We must scrutinize it from top to bottom, leaving not a single hair unexamined. If there’s anything in that image which seems unusual to you, anything at all, no matter how granular or seemingly insignificant or –’

‘That’s not him,’ said Lavinia cheerfully.

Miss Decima stopped mid-sentence. ‘I – what?’

Lavinia turned the paper around. She wasn’t pointing at the photograph of the crime scene – she was pointing at the other photograph beside it. The one of Constable Albert Watts. ‘That’s not who chased us. The officer I thumped was far older than that. Though I must confess I didn’t get much of a look at him – I was too busy running.’

Éimhear grabbed the paper off her. ‘That’s right. Didn’t he have a moustache and all?’

‘He did!’ said Theodora, jabbing a finger at the crime scene. ‘And he collapsed outside the front of the building, too – not there, at the far end of the road!’