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I glanced at the wall, but all I could see was a dark rectangle where the wooden panels and a boring painting of a sailboat once were. Quoth slipped inside the gloom, then came back out again.
“It’s a secret passage,” he said, his voice grave. “The wall is spring loaded. It extends through the wall here and around the corner. There’s another spring on the other end – I think the door will open out into the hallway that leads out to the kitchen, but it seems to be locked on the other side. It’s quite wide, wider than you’d expect for a secret passage—”
“I know what that is,” Morrie said. “It’s a servants’ passage.”
“A what?”
“In old houses like this, these types of passages were installed so that the staff could move in and out of the rooms without having to pass the guests in the halls. It’s wide so the kitchen staff could carry trays of food into this room without going the long way around and carrying them past guests mingling in the hallway.”
“It’s kind of cool.” Quoth disappeared inside again.
“It’s also an important clue,” I said, my heart hammering. “If this passage leads outside, it means that someone else could have snuck into the room and killed Hugh.”
CHAPTERTWENTY-EIGHT
We gathered around the entrance to the servants’ passage and contemplated the meaning of this new discovery.
“Every part of our investigation so far was built on the assumption that only the writers within the room could have committed the crime.” Morrie said in his ‘I’m thinking deep thoughts’ voice. I couldn’t see him, but I knew he’d be rubbing his chin. “We never considered how someone from outside could get in and out again without anyone seeing.”
“Mina considered it,” Heathcliff reminded him, but there was no hint of anger in his voice. “She thoughtwedid it.”
“Mina is cleverer than the rest of us. This passage opens up a whole new host of possibilities. Any one of the staff or guests at the lodge could have done the deed.”
“But who?” Quoth asked. “Does anyone on the staff have a motive for killing Hugh?”
“He’s been coming to the castle for years for these sodding retreats,” Heathcliff said. “He’s bound to put someone’s back up with his charming personality.”
“He’s a tosser, but you don’t kill people for being unpleasant,” Morrie said. “Well, most people don’t. I’ve definitely fallen off that particular bandwagon from time to time.”
“It’s unlikely that a guest knew about this doorway,” I said. “In fact, it’s strange that Donna never mentioned it, since she owns the castle. If she’d told us about the doorway, then we wouldn’t have been looking at her as a suspect.”
“Maybe she didn’t know about it,” Quoth said. “She left the house for London the first chance she got. Apart from some scuffed prints on the floor, it’s pretty dusty in the tunnel. I don’t think people have used it for decades, which means whoever knew about it was familiar with the castle’s history…”
Oh Hathor, oh no…
The clues rearranged themselves in my brain, shifting to fit around my horrible theory. I turned to the guys, who were still considering the suspects.
“Donna wrote that book on Meddleworth’s history!” Heathcliff said. “She had to know about it.”
“I don’t think it was her,” Morrie said. “It has to be another staff member, someone who would know secrets like this about the castle…”
“We know that Hugh has a thing for young women,” Quoth pointed out. “Perhaps he tried something with one of the cleaners or the kitchen staff members, and she decided to teach him a lesson?”
“I know who did it.” I turned back to the guys. “I know who the murderer is. It’s been staring us in the face the entire time. It’s Jonathan.”
CHAPTERTWENTY-NINE
It has to be. It all fits.
The more I considered it, the more sure I was that I had the villain.
“How did you figure that out, gorgeous?” Morrie asked, his voice thick with awe.
“Jonathan must have taken the pen when he came in to pull Heathcliff off Hugh,” I explained. “In the chaos, he could have pocketed the pen without anyone noticing. He filled it with cyanide from the supply in the forge. He’d know exactly where it was kept. Then, later, he cut the power, came through the passage, struck Hugh in the throat with the pen, and escaped without any of us noticing him in the gloom.”
“But Jonathan was trying to get the door open,” Morrie said. “You heard him banging on it.”
“No. I heardFergusbanging on it,” I explained, my voice breathless with excitement. This bit really was quite clever. “When I went to the bathroom at the opening drinks, Fergus was throwing his weight against the door. He heard Oscar in the stall with me and he wanted to get to the other dog. Inside the stall, it sounded like someone trying to break down the door. Jonathan must have shut off the power, come back inside with Fergus, and after his initial words to me, he left Fergus to throw himself against the door while he snuck through the butler’s passage and killed Hugh.”
