Edith Langford locked the school doors and hurried down the long road that constituted most of the aptly named village of Longborough. Passing neat rows of cottages on one side and sloping fields on the other, she reached the village shop and stopped to glance at her reflection. Her hat wasn’t the latest squeak of fashion, but if she rearranged it slightly—
“Hello Edith!” Mrs. Lundy bustled out of the shop, with Miss Mallowby in tow. “Getting ready to meet your young man?”
“How did you—” began Edith.
“I saw him drive past a few minutes ago.” She beamed at Edith excitedly. “Your first proper ‘date’, as they say. How wonderful! Isn’t it, Miss Mallowby?”
“I just came in to buy stamps…” murmured Miss Mallowby, but Mrs. Lundy wasn’t listening.
“Oh, my dear, your hat! Can you fix it?”
Edith grinned.
“It’s supposed to look fashionable. I hope I haven’t missed the mark and gone straight to rakish.”
Mrs. Lundy looked unconvinced.
“I know young people nowadays are apt to call anyone over the age of thirty ‘a Victorian’ and hopelessly outdated, but trust me. I know hats. That thing will fly off your head the first time your fellow tries to kiss you!”
Edith blushed.
“I’m not sure it will come to that,” she muttered, pushing the hat firmly back into place.
“That’s right.” Mrs. Lundy nodded approvingly. “A lady should be modest, yet prepared.” She glanced at the clock in the shop window. “But we mustn’t keep you! Goodbye! I do hope it goes well!”
“Good luck,” added Miss Mallowby curtly.
Edith thanked them and hurried on. She’d been so pleased when Detective-Sergeant Anderson had telephoned and asked to meet her at the village cafe, Longborough’s number one (and only) spot for courting couples. But, considering it had taken him nearly a year to get this far, she thought she needn’t worry about kissing for a good while yet.
Ensconced with D.S. Anderson at a corner table, with tea and cake before them, Edith felt her deductions were correct. The detective looked dreadfully nervous.
“Thank you for meeting me, Miss Langford,” he said.
Edith smiled.
“I think under the circumstances you can call me Edith.”
This seemed to put him at ease.
“All right, in that case you ought to call me John. The thing is—” He hesitated, then plunged on. “I really shouldn’t be discussing the case with anyone, but to be honest we’re hopelessly stuck, and I know I can trust you. In a way, you’ve been a sort of consultant to the police these past few months. And we really need your help this time.”
“You need my help… with a case.” Edith tried not to show her disappointment. So her hat was in no danger after all.
“Yes. It’s something of an impossible mystery. My inspector is talking of bringing in Scotland Yard, and Constable Horn thinks it must have been American cat burglars.”
“Go on,” said Edith, intrigued despite herself.
“The facts of the case are these. Three days ago, there was a burglary in the next village.”
“Ah yes, Professor Wrobel’s house. Some rare Roman artefacts went missing.”
The detective blinked.
“Mrs. Lundy?” he asked.
“Mrs. Lundy,” affirmed Edith with a smile. That lady’s good-natured interest in the lives of her neighbours was legendary.
“Naturally the professor is very distressed. That very day he had been in Oxford, allowing the curator of the Ashmolean Museum to persuade him to lend the items to a special collection. While he was out, he had two visitors. The first was a lady who claimed to be an old friend of his. She waited for about half an hour, then left. A short while later, his neighbour Professor Morris showed up. He only stayed for fifteen minutes. He’d come to argue about who should give a series of lectures in the village hall, so he fumed for a bit and left. When the professor returned, he found the cabinet in his study broken into, and a whole selection of coins and cameos gone.”
“Did the visitors wait in that room?” asked Edith.
“No, in the drawing room across the hall. The maid and housekeeper were at the back of the house. It was risky to sneak into the study like that, but not impossible.”
“So which part’s impossible?”
Anderson’s eyes twinkled.
“I knew I could count on you, Miss— Edith,” he said. “Professor Morris had the motive. He saw Wrobel as a rival and was jealous of him. So naturally, he’s the one with the iron-clad alibi!” He sighed ruefully. “The man spent the entire time pacing up and down by a side window where a gardener was doing some planting. He even called out to him at one point. I gather Professor Morris is the kind of person who likes to pull up gardeners on incorrect technique.”
“Yet never does any gardening himself,” murmured Edith. The detective grinned.
“You’ve got the suspect’s profile there. In any case, there wasn’t really a time when he could slip away unnoticed.”
“That leaves us with one suspect,” Edith pointed out.
“Exactly. We were all ready to find this woman and charge her, when we drew a complete blank. No one seems to have seen her or heard of her before this afternoon.”
“But she must have come from somewhere?”
“You’d think that. But no one in the village saw a strange woman walking around. None of the bus drivers remember her. And no one saw a car anywhere near the professor’s house. It seems she simply materialised on the doorstep, stole some valuables, and vanished into thin air.”
“How interesting!”
“Even the maid’s description of her is completely vague.” He fished out his notebook and read: “‘I thought she must be one of them lady professors, she was all drab and dowdy looking, with great big spectacles. We wondered if she was the professor’s old sweetheart.’ Hardly helpful.”
“And Constable Horn thinks she was a cat burglar?”
“He’s convinced she shimmied up a drain pipe and made her escape over the rooftops,” said Anderson glumly, “despite me pointing out that it was the middle of the day.”
Edith took a thoughtful sip of tea.
“If she were a professional burglar…” she began.
“Ah, but there were much more valuable pieces in that room,” said Anderson. “The stolen items were the professor’s prized possessions, though. Pointing to someone who knew him well. If only Professor Morris hadn’t loitered by that window!”
“They did have monetary value, though?” she asked. “I wonder— were they insured?”
“Yes. Now that you mention it, Professor Wrobel insured that collection for a tidy sum.”
“Perhaps we’ve been missing a suspect all along. People do fake burglaries for insurance money.”
Anderson frowned.
“But why would he steal the things and then say he’d lend them to the museum?”
Edith pondered this.
“Wait!” she exclaimed. “What if we’ve got it the wrong way round? He had to steal them, because they were fake, and he’d be disgraced if the museum ever exhibited them.”
Anderson’s face lit up, but then he frowned again.
“No good. He could just say no to the curator. He’d done it before. Not a very friendly man, the professor. Apparently the few people he ever talked to, like his neighbour, he inevitably quarrelled with.”
“Hardly the type to have old sweethearts showing up on his doorstep,” Edith remarked. She applied herself to cake and deep thought. Burglars did not just vanish into thin air, after all. They must be missing something about this woman. Certainly something about her felt off…
“Today is Thursday, isn’t it?” she asked suddenly. Anderson looked puzzled.
“It is.”
“And Professor Morris, is he a bachelor?”
He consulted his notebook.
“No, a widower.”
“And both men are older, would you say?”
“In their sixties.”
“But the professor’s maid is a young girl?”
“Yes, but look here—” He sounded slightly scandalised. Edith giggled.
“Whatever you’re thinking about elderly professors and young maidens, put it out of your mind, please. I’m on a serious tack here. Now, why did Professor Wrobel change his mind about exhibiting his collection?”
“I believe the curator finally flattered him into it by promising a big display devoted to his life’s work. That’s why he agreed to go over and discuss it.”
“Aha,” said Edith. “It all fits. It’s a mad notion, but I suppose it wouldn’t be hard to check.”
“Check what?”
“Whether the reason your mystery lady disappeared was that she never existed.”
She took in his baffled look with satisfaction and sipped some tea.
“I mean,” she explained, “that whether the dowdy, bespectacled lady academic wasn’t a bit too much like a disguise. And if it was a disguise, there was only one person who would wear it.”
“Surely not—?”
“Oh yes. The person who had a grudge against Professor Wrobel and resented him getting a big exhibition. The person who knew the household routine. The crime was committed on Monday, you see.”
“I do not see,” admitted Anderson.
“Monday is wash day. The housekeeper and maid would have been in the back garden, washing and hanging up clothes.”
“Oh! And meanwhile Professor Morris —” He shook his head, apparently unable to picture Professor Morris in a frock.
“Meanwhile Professor Morris dressed up in his late wife’s clothes, committed the crime, then ‘vanished’ into his house down the road. And a while later he came back to establish the perfect alibi. It’s only guesswork,” she finished, “but I hope it gives you something to go on?”
“It’s brilliant,” said Anderson warmly. “We’ll look into Morris thoroughly. I’m sure you’re right.” His blue eyes twinkled once more. “So what gave it away? You always have some teacherly knowledge that throws an entirely new light on the case.”
“Actually, this time the credit goes to Mrs. Lundy. She was grumbling earlier about young people seeing everyone over thirty as an old-fashioned Victorian. And it got me thinking that to the young maid, someone dressed up in old, out-of-fashion clothes, would look just like that: ‘drab and dowdy’. But why would a woman dress so strangely if she were trying to escape notice?”
“But a man, especially an elderly academic, he’d have no clue about fashion. Just like I missed the clue about wash day.”
“And I bet you didn’t even notice my hat,” Edith murmured sadly.
“Actually, I think it’s a lovely hat,” said Anderson. “I just hope it doesn’t blow away in the wind when I take you for a romantic stroll.” Then, turning rather red, he hurriedly fumbled with the bill.
“The hat will just have to take its chances,” said Edith firmly, and gave him an encouraging smile.
Daria Writes 