My one reliable ally in law enforcement had agreed, reluctantly, to participate in my trap. I had offered him an arsonist, after all, revealing several convincing bits of evidence, including that Harrison had left the dance studio before the fire started. If I’d called it wrong, Lester would have sneering rights forever. A cop—I smiled at my abbreviation—cannot resist that. Now Officer Lester owed me a drink, which I much looked forward to. I might even wear the black dress. If it ever dried.
“What? What the hell is this? Who are you?” Even in handcuffs, Harrison demanded answers. He pointed his chin at me, narrowed his eyes. “Wait a minute—you! In the glasses. You’re that Irene Irvine! But where’s Penny Moran? Only she could know—”
Then he stopped.
“Precisely,” I said, pointing at him for punctuation. “Officer Lester, do you have enough?”
“Gotcha, Sherlock,” he answered. “And got you, too, buddy.”
“You’re fired, Irvine!” Harrison, red-faced and fuming, was no longer so handsome.
“It has been my pleasure.” I curtsied, briefly, impossible to resist.
“You have the right to remain silent . . .” Officer Lester began.
My initial reaction had been wrong, I thought again as I listened to Jake give the Miranda warning. The messages were not in substitution code. The three cops were shorthand. And the other message? Initials.
Not apple smiley-face heart, but their first letters. A-S-H. Anthony Selwyn Harrison.
Not Sun Moon Wind. But, as events now confirmed, Stoke Moran, Wednesday.
And then the death’s head. Unmistakable shorthand. No wonder Ms. Moran had fled in fear.
“Hang on, you morons.” Harrison, blustering even after the Miranda, apparently could not fathom the collapse of his scheme. “If Penelope Moran isn’t here, then who sent me that email?”
“I did, of course,” I said. “My colleague set up our own anonymous email account, and when you saw the pictograms, you assumed, as I intended, they must be from the only other person who understood them. And that Ms. Moran had—after your reprehensible arson of the home she would not sell to you—finally capitulated to your demands.”
Orange and kangaroo, the emoticons on my message to Harrison had depicted. Meaning, I hoped, “Okay.” I had signed it Pear Moon. Penelope Moran. And then, not in code, the place, time, and date.
“And here you are, arriving exactly as the email proposed,” I went on.
“Penelope Moran? I have no idea about her!” Harrison bellowed. “I hardly even know her! Or her idiot boyfriend.”
I heard a growl coming from behind the armoire. But for now, I ignored it.
“That’s enough from you, sir,” Officer Lester interrupted. “Tell it to the judge. And possibly you can also explain arson, extortion, and abduction. But”—Lester gave me a wink—“I doubt it.”
The cop and his quarry wrestled out the door, Harrison’s protests echoing down the hall. “There’s no abduction! I want a lawyer! I have no idea where that woman is!”
“I do,” Penelope Moran said, as she stood in the now empty doorway. “That bathroom is really small, Annabelle.”
With a whoop I cannot describe, Arthur Daley burst from his hiding place. Watson did, too. It was almost farcical, but Arthur’s ardent rush to his beloved’s side instead set a joyous mood.
“But how did you—?” Daley looked at me, but briefly, for his eyes were only for his Penelope. “Why did you—?”
“Miss Holmes emailed me,” Ms. Moran explained. “Using the same initial code. Look.” She held up her phone. “Orange, and kangaroo. And then she explained who she was, and how she understood the code, and how Harrison had found out about the copper lode, and then tried to frighten me into selling Stoke Moran, and how you had come to help, Arthur, and how you loved me, and how everything would be okay. Then she told me the plan.”
The rest of whatever she was saying was lost then, muffled by embraces. Watson and I averted our gaze, giving them privacy. Watson sidled up to me, eyes wide.
“That’s pretty awesome,” she said. “You could put all that in a code? You used pictograms to explain the whole thing—who you were, and the copper, and Harrison, her name, and the plan—all in little pictures? How long did that take?”
“No time at all,” I replied. “Once I got past the Orange and the Kangaroo, to prove I understood the code, I simply typed the rest in actual words. And then we talked on the phone. In actual English. Imagine that, my friend.” I smiled; I could see Watson picturing it. “Someone has to be precise, after all.”