As Ellie reached for it, Angela snatched the coin away, an evidence bag primed over her fingers. She pocketed it in her jacket, gulped more wine, and headed for the door. Before leaving, she called back, “Police Constable Finley Walsh, that means you,” then muttered, “if you can put your tongue away.”
Finn drained the dregs of his pint and grabbed his jacket, tripping over himself in his haste to follow Angela. His clumsiness made Ellie’s occasional stumbles look graceful by comparison. As he rushed out, Ellie noticed Sammy, the pretty blonde landlady about Finn’s age, watching him go with a hint of disappointment in her eyes. Maybe Ellie was the second biggest klutz after Finn.
The coin had been found, after all, but like the manuscript, it had slipped through her fingers once again. Though, as the days went on, the coin was starting to feel more like a coincidence and less a clue that would lead them to find the killer.
The invisible ink, on the other hand…
The broken pen at the crime scene. The first clue Ellie had noticed because of the thing that shouldn’t have been there, or in this case, should have been there. The ink. The invisible ink. The thought of a pen that wrote with invisible ink fascinated Ellie. Excited her, even. She thought of all the secret love letters Jane Austen characters might send to each other if they had ink pots filled with invisible ink. There were old remedies for the stuff. Lemon juice, for one. Ellie had helped a prop department arrive at that conclusion when they’d needed words that could disappear on a scroll.
But a pen filled with invisible ink used as a murder weapon, for that same ink to show up on the pages of the manuscript Thomas Blackwood died trying to hoard was too poetic not to be a coincidence.
Oliver drained the last of his drink and set the glass down with a decisive thud. “Well, I hate to drink and dash, but I’ve got a hot date to get to. It was only supposed to be a quick drink, after all.” He stood up, eyeing Ellie with an amused glint in his already bleary eye. “You should head home and take care of yourself. I don’t mean to be rude, but you look knackered.”
Ellie raised an eyebrow. “Is this what having a brother is like? Insults?”
Oliver paused, considering. “Yes,” he said with a grin. “I think so. Go on, do me.”
Ellie screwed up her face as she tried to think of something mean to say. “Your skin is really smooth and shiny, you look like… glass?”
“You think I look like glass?” Oliver gasped, ducking to see his warped reflection in the brass of a thick picture frame. “It’s true what people are saying about you.”
“Uh, I don’t think I want to know.”
“They’re saying you’re nice,” he said, digging his fingertip into her upper arm. “I thought you’d be more like your mum, but you’re more like gran. So, yeah, whatever you’re worrying about… just… relax? Easier said than done, I know.” He checked his reflection in the frame again, this time adjusting his neatly cut hair. “So, don’t you want to know who I’m going on a date with?”
“Desperately.”
“Ah, sarcasm.” He wagged a finger at her. “I’m tuning in. I like, I like. And let’s just say he’s Greek, tall, dark, handsome, and I met him reaching for the same bag of coffee beans at the cash and carry, and he asked for my number. If that isn’t the start of a true love story, I don’t know what is.”
He held up a piece of paper between his fingers, wafting it at Ellie when she didn’t immediately reach for it.
“What’s this?” Ellie asked, unfolding it. “Do I get this handsome stranger’s number too?”
“Hands off,” Oliver warned. “I think you’ll like this more. It’s the riddle you said you lost when my cruel mother snatched the manuscript from your arms on South Street this afternoon. She’s been asking everyone who’ll listen what they think Edmund meant with this one.”
Maggie, who had been lingering nearby, muttered, “We must be off the list this time around.”
Oliver left for his date, and Maggie slid into his vacated seat, her eyes bright with anticipation as she nudged the note in Ellie’s hand.
“Go on then,” Maggie urged. “Let’s hear what this riddle’s all about.”
Ellie smoothed out the creases and cleared her throat, reading aloud:
“In twilight’s embrace where shadows entwine,
A cryptic basin, where secrets align.
Veiled surfaces conceal a truth most deep,
Hushed secrets whispered, in silence they seep.
Seek where mirrors unseen blend and mend,
By the sleepy sentinel, mysteries suspend.”
Ellie frowned, the words swimming before her eyes. Unlike the previous riddles, this one didn’t immediately click. She looked up at her grandmother, hoping to see a spark of recognition. Maggie’s brow was furrowed in deep concentration as her lips traced the lines without making any connections. Like Ellie, a dud match dragging against a dull striker.
“Something to do with a mirror?” Maggie suggested after a while, scratching her hair. “Maybe a two-way mirror?”
“Mirrors unseen?” Ellie ventured, sensing another possible pattern as she looked up, seeing her face warping back at her from the brass picture frame. “Veiled surfaces? Cryptic basin? Could it be... a bathroom?”
“Yes... yes...” Maggie wagged her finger in agreement. “And ‘sleepy sentinel’—that could be the bedroom, couldn’t it?”
“Possibly,” Ellie agreed, feeling a surge of excitement. “That old house must have hidden compartments all over. Why not the bathroom?”
Ellie stared at the riddle again, her mind racing with possibilities. Before she could delve deeper, Maggie’s hand on her arm pulled her attention away.
“We’ll come back to it,” Maggie said, her voice firm but excited. “Right now, we’re going to Blackwood House. We might get a chance to check for ourselves.”
Ellie began to protest, her finger tracing the lines of the riddle against the bar’s smooth surface. “But if we just go through it line by line—”
“Not now.”
Maggie yanked open one side of the pub doors, and Ellie hurried to catch up, pulling open the other side before they strode through together. The cool evening air hit her face, a welcome change to the stuffy pub.
“So much for a quiet drink after work,” Ellie said as they closed the short distance to Blackwood House as the sun slipped away for the day. “What were you doing in there?”
“Can’t I have a quiet drink after work too?”
