The Boarding House Horror

12. Definition of Ace

So began my collaboration with the enigma. She could be the killer, and that thought lodged in my throat like a hunk of too-dry toast. But her cool head and driving energy were the two things I needed most, even if those same qualities would aid the dispassionate execution of a murder.

If she had killed him, then all of this snake-and-mouse business was artful fiction. But she pursued her theory with determination.

We invaded the crowded kitchen, adding our own comedy to the ongoing farce of four cooks failing to find recipes that could be made with the sparse larder. Only Lazar Yankov lurked out by the French doors. The rest of the residents bickered and laughed in the kitchen. Even Daria and Trevor smiled from time to time.

As I doubled over to scrounge in a low cupboard, my posterior collided with something soft. Over my shoulder I saw Mariam, also doubled over, also looking over her shoulder. Her face lit up. "Ooo, Inspector!" And she dissolved into a fit of giggles. I blushed.

My hunt eventually yielded a cocoa tin, which Alice Bree pronounced acceptable. I washed it out and dried it as the cooks decided on vegetable stew for dinner.

Bree clutched the empty tin and gave it a tap of satisfaction. "Come on. My room. Bring some cheese."

Mariam shot me a theatrically-scandalized round-mouthed look. I blushed, nabbed Flip's cheese and a spare candle, and slunk out of the kitchen.

Blind Alice Bree set off at a pace so rapid I almost broke into a run to keep up. Her hands brushed walls and stair-rails as she bustled along. She burst into her room.

"Don't hide my white cane, now," she said.

The neglected white cane in question leaned against a dresser. "Never would I," I murmured.

"Good man." She plunked the empty cocoa tin on the bed and dragged a small suitcase to join it. With a pair of spins on a combination lock, she snapped the suitcase open.

I had expected folded clothing inside, so I stared at the rows of dials and knobs that studded a boxlike contraption. "What is that?"

"It's a radio." Her hands were busy. From a side pocket next to the radio she extracted needle-nosed pliers and wire nippers. She laid them out next to the cocoa tin.

"It's like no radio I've seen before."

"Quite right." Her mouth stayed uninflected and matter-of-fact. She palmed a screwdriver. "I'll just borrow some of the Faraday shielding here." She attacked the radio housing with the screwdriver, prying up a strip of metal that ran around its base. Once it was loose, she laid the screwdriver next to her other tools.

I shifted weight from one foot to the other.

She gave a yank and ripped the metal strip from the machine with a snap. Her fingers ran up and down it. She chose a spot and began snipping at it with the wire nippers.

"Are you really blind?" my mouth said before my brain could apply brakes.

"Alas, yes. But it's a recent eventuality. How much cheese did you bring?"

"How much? Well, I brought the whole wheel."

"That's beyond the wildest of mouse dreams. Can you cut off a centimeter cube?"

I couldn't. I had to run down to the kitchen to find a clean knife. When I got back to Bree's room, she had transformed the cocoa tin into a mouse apartment with a vertically-sliding front door. The door ran on rails constructed of "Faraday shielding," whatever that was. As I watched, she drove the screwdriver through the cocoa tin in various spots, ventilating the contraption.