"Missing Misdemeanour" 2 of 2 (Crusader Dorm)

Despite the definite lack of leisure time at Songmark, its Young Ladies were expected to keep well informed about current events, particularly the local ones. So it did not take long the next day for several sharp eyes to spot an article on the back page of the Spontoon Mirror.
    “Interesting.” Wo Shin spread the paper out on the desk, tapping the article with a claw. “Come and look at this, everybody. An anonymous “correspondent” seems to know something about tonight’s performance.”
    Liberty’s eyes widened as she read. “So she says. “I know what Miss Parkesson is really up to. I know who is trying to stop her. Miss Parkesson, I know the clue is in the barrel. Sooner or later the truth will out.” “ Her tail swished. “What we have to do is find who wrote that. It’d be a big project to get Beryl to talk - but someone else might be easier to - persuade.” She nodded to Wo Shin. “I’m heard your brother has some progressive ideas involving electrification - and that’s quite in tune with the dialectic.”
    “Communism is Socialism plus electricity,” Tatiana agreed. “If this correspondent will not be Social with us one way - we could apply the other.” Despite having mellowed considerably since being adopted by the Priestess Oharu, where Beryl was concerned all thoughts of tolerance and harmony went out of the window.
    Wo Shin agreed. “Though we’d have to be careful doing that around here. This isn’t Krupmark, worse luck.” Her long banded tail waved, as happy memories surfaced. “So - what barrel is it they’re talking about, and what’s Beryl got in it?”
    “Maybe Beryl she is smuggling opium, and those books she is selling are hollow,” Tatiana suggested. “That would appeal to her. Handing it out in full view of a crowded hall, and walking out with the money in plain sight. The barrel, is how she smuggles her supplies here in bulk?”
    “Hmm.” Wo Shin considered. “Not a bad idea. We can run with that till we find out otherwise. Find the barrel and we’ll know. But is it an oil barrel, an apple barrel or a gun barrel? Somebody knows aside from Beryl.”
    Liberty tapped the newspaper. “Here’s our clue. Unless there’s another revelation in tomorrow’s edition, it’s all we’ve got to go on. The Mirror is a typical bourgeois scandal sheet, seeking to placate the oppressed workers with cheap titillation and distract them from their rightful revolutionary progression … but someone ought to go and investigate this article. We’ve one pass for Meeting Island, but Casino Island shouldn’t be a problem.”
    “Why, and ‘tis a task for meself, I’m after thinkin’,” Brigit Mulvaney nodded happily, her long red ears dancing. “Red righteousness isn’t the tool for this job - a silver tongue ‘tis better. And you’ve done your share o’ the investigating last week, Liberty.”
    Liberty Morgenstern cast the Irish girl a suspicious glance. “You just want an excuse to get over to Casino Island, for its decadent pleasures,” she opined. “But share and share alike, and if Shin’s going to endure tonight’s “lecture”, I suppose it’s your turn.”
    “Ah, there’s more a girl can do with sweet-talk and a smile than a look that says a smile’d kill her,” Brigit said. “You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.” Her head cocked aside. “But I’ll not lie to ye and say I’d scorn an hour or so on Casino Island, though.”
    “Right! You work on the newspaper side of things, and I’ll go tonight and see what Beryl can teach me about sharp business practices.” Shin’s eyes gleamed briefly. Then her ears drooped. “Before we all head out - quarter shares in tonight’s fees?” She stuck her paw in her pocket with an expression as if she had jammed it into a white ant nest. That, and paying Beryl money, stung.

Across in the first-year dorm, it was not until after lunch that a certain star-nosed mole rushed in waving that copy of the Spontoon Mirror. All thoughts of complaining to the League of Nations about the excessive use of Poi on the Songmark menu were carefully put aside as the back page and its cryptic announcement were studied.
    “Cui Bonem, as the ancient Romans used to say. ‘Who benefits?’ That’s what my Father would always ask in a case like this.” Nancy Rote sat in the window-seat looking out over the Songmark gate. “It’s one thing to blow Beryl’s scam out of the water, by announcing it on the front page with all the details and evidence even if it wasn’t a case the police could act on. It’s another to do this. Why warn her off?”
    “One mystery after another. Ah, and ‘tis sich a case that the greats sleuths make their names on,” Maureen nodded appreciatively. “Many’s the time in one of the great country mansion murders, where sich a clue turns up out of the blue.” Maureen had taken quite a while to prove to Nancy that by British law, murders in a pre-arranged weekend at a registered mansion were not treated the same way in law. Although it was not as well codified as other game laws, there was a strict social etiquette about who could be that weekend’s victim. Youngsters and servants were utterly safe, for example.
    “We don’t know how true it is,” Isabella cautioned. “I no feel truths from paper, only living furs.”
    “And if we find out who put the article in, you can use your talent on them.” Nancy arranged her tail neatly and climber up to relax on her top bunk, her body resting but her mind in a rare state of turmoil. That morning a letter had arrived from her homeland - in a familiar handwriting. She thought back to her last day in her old life - the first stage in her sleuthing career, as she now thought of it - and meeting the handsome zebra Mr. Simmons who had made such an impression on her. He had won his firm’s prestigious Salesman of the Year award - and as it happened, the owner of the publishers that employed him also owned a travel company that had agreed his request to take a two week Spontoon holiday as his prize. The fact that he would be arriving at Christmas probably had something to do with him getting the free ticket ; that time of year there were few paying customers booking aircraft seats to the holiday resorts.
    Nancy felt her ears redden, and was glad none of her dorm-mates below could see her right now. Her Father had given permission for him to court her, and indeed after what had happened to her, it had seemed a mercy that anyone ever would want to. Had her life stayed on its old track she would probably have ended up married to a young squirrel gentleman of good family and prospects, as most of her cousins still expected to. Mr. Albert Simmons had been very understanding about what had happened to her, and despite his species and fur colour she had quite accepted the idea. That was before she had met Alpha … who she still had to find a way of telling the news to. Albert had said he was eager to meet her and Alpha, having seen the photographs.
    “Look who’s going out on Passes! Songmark’s own Organised Crime syndicate.” Svetlana pointed out of the window, having taken the vacant seat. “They’ve - yes, they’ve got Passes, they’re heading out.”
    “Maybe they won’t come back. We can but hope.” A pair of squirrel ears went down. “The cheek of it! Claiming the only reason we all got in was our Tutors wanted to give them “something to practice on,” and we were picked just for them to aim at.” With an inward wince, Nancy reminded herself that her dorm actually did look rather like that. “Against two crooks we’ve two trained sleuths, although really we’re all sleuths now. Against two Reds, two … well, decidedly anti-Bolsheviks.” Had Eva Schiller been in her dorm the symmetry would be complete - but Maureen was a staunch supporter of the New Party government in Britain, whose assassinated leader Lord Moseley was probably more effective as a revered figurehead than if he had lived to see his Party in power. Dead leaders were immune from making further mistakes, and anything their followers failed in was excused as not following the leader’s vision strictly enough.
    “They’re going to see Beryl tonight. That Chinese bandit she was collecting her pass just in front of me this morning.” Isabella looked up at Nancy; the mole’s snout tendrils writhed like a sea anemone. “Nancy! I have a list of things I thought of to ask. If I get the chance afterwards.”
    “Hmm. Let’s take a look.” Nancy’s ears perked up. “It’s going to be difficult, grilling her without the rest of the audience recognising what you’re doing. Beryl’s twisty enough to evade answering anything if she spots it’s a trap. Don’t forget, she’s had time to plan all this.” Her tail shivered. For an instant the image flashed before her of the scene and Alpha had speculated on. It was galling enough to have been taken in by the mouse and Piet at the start of term, but had they first all shared the sort of night she had thought of - that would have been hard to live with. She still had no real idea whether Beryl would have taken up such an offer.
    “Is good.” Svetlana peered over the squirrel’s shoulder. “In Vostok, even in school they have classes, in how to question suspects.”
    “Svetlana. I’ve heard people say … that where most countries have girls wanting to grow up to be dancers or nurses - in Vostok they want to join the Secret Police. I always thought that was a joke against your country.” Nancy had sudden visions of the Vostok equivalent of the Keystone Cops, with unmarked black vans screeching round corners with clapper-less alarm bells stealthily not ringing and masked Agents clinging onto the running boards.
    Svetlana shrugged. “Is true! We have two fine Secret Services. There are parodies yes, of every village having its friendly Secret Policeman on the beat. But that is how we would want it. We have such a need to defend ourselves from Bolshevism inside as well as outside our shores.”
    “Assuming everyone is enemy of the State, is a good way to make it come true,” Isabella prophesied darkly.
    “I don’t know. I’ve heard a lot of good things about Vostok,” Nancy said. “They’re very strict, but considering their neighbours, that’s really the only way. And they have that useful idea, the “Akula” I believe they call them. My friend Millicent at the Embassy mentioned them. They’re a bit like the Knight Errants of old, sent out to uphold the Law but operating outside it.”
    “Sounds familiar.” Maureen was looking through a fascinatingly perverse magazine titled “Criminal World” that she had found in the Songmark dustbin. Sleuths were not too proud to search in all sorts of places for evidence; unfortunately the back page with the delivery name and address was missing and she could not yet prove who had ordered it. “Here’s a parody cartoon they have, this month it’s “The Scent Stinks” where that crime-busting skunk Simon Hospitaler he loses for a change. ‘Tis sure and such a rag cares nothing for any poor author’s copyrights.”
    “I’ve read it. The original Simon Hospitaler stories I mean - not this.” Nancy snorted in disgust as she flipped through the comics pages of the salvaged magazine, noting that indeed there were more scurrilous publications than the Spontoon Mirror. She felt her ears going down at the “adventures” of Rick Traceless, the incredibly square-jawed lupine main character (she could see that a career crook might perversely call him the hero) who carefully tripped up the machinations of the outlaw detective skunk. Rather than have him “bumped off” in the usual but unimaginative Gangster style he had him delivered along with excellently forged incriminating evidence into the talons of the Scent’s long-time avian nemesis, Inspector Teal. The evidence would be shown as fake a month after Rick Traceless had left the country, appreciating both the sight of the Saint being sent to prison for hard labour on Dartmoor even briefly and the Police being shown as bumbling fools. “We should check this paper for paw-prints to find out who ordered it - but the guilty party would just claim to have looked through it in the post room, I’m sure.” Crusader Dorm had a small but growing collection of paw-prints and fur samples of the Songmark students and staff.
    “So, that’s two newspapers to check, ‘tis the truth,” Maureen threw the torn copy of Criminal World down. “How can we get a Pass for Casino Island and the Mirror offices? I’ll ask Miss Windlesham what ‘tis we must do to earn one.” With that she was off, Isabella and Svetlana following to give moral support.
    Nancy relaxed, borrowing one of Isabella’s pillows from the bed below to lie on. She forced herself to calm down, feeling her heart rate slow. “I must get a note to Alpha - and she’ll be interested in that Criminal magazine too, I’m sure.” Her ears twitched, as she strained to make out what Lucy Ulrich was saying in the next dorm through the thin wooden wall. The Texan bobcat was in the habit of reading out to her dorm choice excerpts from her stories that seemed to include a lot of science fiction. Before coming to Songmark she had made a respectable pen-name for herself writing for pulps such as “Far More Astounding Than Other Astounding Stories” and “Even Weirder Tails” that mostly featured on their covers scantily clad space-monsters being pursued by lecherous Earth girls.
    “’Not so fast!’ And with a press of a hidden button the silver-suited mink triggered a net of oddly glowing metal that grabbed the party like a giant spider-web. ‘You arrive too late, my adventurous friends. This lever here’ - he gestured expansively ‘completes a super-circuit that will, even from here in Cranium Island, project my voice on all radio channels on Earth. And then …’ he waved a heavy book ‘and then, I shall read out the entire unexpurgated book of That Which Was Not Meant To Be Known. The world will run howling, raving mad - except for me!’ With that he threw his muzzle back and laughed a wild, baying laugh that echoed off the tempered bakelite walls of the chamber. ‘And THEN, we’ll see who calls who mad!’”
    “That Lucy.” Nancy smiled, shaking her head. She had little time for fiction, unlike her friend Bethany back in Creekside who was always to be found with her muzzle in some highly coloured romance tale. There was a letter from her that had arrived mid-week, where she had re-thanked Nancy for the long-term loan of her smart blue roadster. Although to a casual eye there was nothing much in the letter to cause comment, she knew how her friend thought and how to read between the lines. Bethany had mentioned often giving a lift to a poor young dark-furred equine lad who lived on a remote farm outside Creekside, and had been “much obliged” to her for the ride home. Several times. Nancy’s reply was going out airmail, and including some of the severely practical advice the Songmark nurse Mrs. Oelabe had given them all the first week.
    Ten minutes later, the rest of her dorm reappeared with ears and tails down. “No luck with the Passes?” Nancy asked.
    “Nyet. Miss Windlesham she says, we have already one Pass today, to see Beryl on Meeting Island.” Svetlana’s ears suddenly perked up. “But, Nancy! Maybe a Spontoon Mirror journalist, will be covering the meeting tonight. Is not much else to report on Spontoon, this time of year.”
    “Yes. Isabella, see what you can do. Even if the reporter knew, they’d protect their sources. But you’ve resources of your own, if you can just ask the right questions.” Nancy nodded graciously, telling herself that the star-nosed mole at least had a talent. Isabella certainly would not make it as a movie starlet, unless the film was set on Cranium Island where she would pass as a believable Native.

The second of Beryl Parkesson’s public lectures were fifty cowries apiece; nobody complained at paying the price of a cinema ticket where the notorious Songmark third-year was involved. Besides, that week’s film premier release was the latest Little Shirley Shrine epic, “Shrine On Harvest Moon” which by repute was only entertaining for those keen on regurgitation. Some Spontoonies arrived at Meeting Island with the expectation of a practical business lecture; others eagerly expected a riot. Not a few were entirely prepared for both.
    “Good evening, everyone,” Beryl smiled, standing on the dais where in office hours the Minister of the Interior announced such things as the sharp rise in that year’s Invisible Earnings to a far smaller audience (often courtesy of some extremely friendly and professional Spontoonies who unlike their colleagues in most of the world paid taxes and received official Police protection rather than harassment). Beryl wore her neat, businesslike dark blue dress, an original Rachorshka design in heavy lustrous silk that had been a substantial but very worthwhile investment that term. “I’m so glad to see so many faces back from last week - and new ones besides.” Her open, friendly gaze scanned the crowd. From Red Dorm, she noted Wo Shin there neatly dressed in her best. It would have been too much to expect her to have emulated Liberty’s transport troubles of the week before; the red panda was more than smart enough to have booked her water taxi days in advance. Which was a pity, she thought; Shin had a lot more fur to dry out than Liberty and would look still better soaked.
    “And now, to business.” Beryl’s tail twitched slightly when a few of the furs on the back row heard that as a call for a toast and echoed “To Business!” with raised bottles. “Now - last week I made a start. The key to success is to persuade people that you can give them what they really want. To persuade people to see things your way - you must first persuade them that you’re seeing things theirs. Chapter two, for those who bought the book. I have plenty more if you’d like to see me in the interval.” She pulled a rope, drawing back a curtain on the stage beside her.
    All the audience briefly noted the crate of books that some had bought of the previous week. Beryl noted with unconscious interest the few whose eyes suddenly fixed on the aluminium barrel behind it, half hidden in the shadows at the back of the room. It might be nothing but heating oil destined for the boilers in the basement of the Meeting Island assembly hall - but Beryl took note with great satisfaction the furs whose instantly suppressed ear or whisker twitches showed they had far greater suspicions.
    With a wide, innocent smile she looked behind her at the stock of books then turned to the audience. Now the entertainment had really begun.

    “A silver barrel, about five gallons, no obvious markings on the side I could see,” Isabella reported just before lights out that night. “Beryl she pulled back the curtain to hide it. When I went to buy a book in the interval, it was gone.” She waved the copy of the business guide written by “Chip” Carnegie. “I think Piet must have moved it, I did not see him in the crowd then.”
    “So. It’s something she doesn’t trust out of her sight or her partner’s” Nancy mused. “Behind the stage it’s a dead end, solid brickwork with not even a window. Very secure. Anyone getting past her she’d have seen. Piet was there in the crowd, you said?”
    Isabella nodded. “Si! And he was there when I left. So was Beryl. I had to go before the end, many furs were still there. So I could not stay till she asked for any questions!” Her small tail and ears drooped. “And no Mirror journalists, at least not wearing a Press pass. I had to get back before my own Pass ran out. Unlike Beryl.”
    Third-years at weekends could get overnight passes, Nancy told herself. Even second-years could stay out later before having to report back to Songmark. Her tail twitched at the thought of what Beryl was probably doing at the minute, probably involving a handsome rat gentleman - if “Gentleman” applied to anyone whose preferred club was the Temple of Continual Reward. “They probably took it with them. If it’s so important - I’ve heard Piet’s Father owns a casino, there’s probably plenty of secure storage there. But why not keep it there?”
    “Must be something to do with the lectures.” Maureen scratched an ear, frowning. “What if Beryl, she’s usin’ it all as some sort ‘o auction? A fur twitches an ear, who’s to know if it means anything? Who’d even see in the crowd? Excepting her in front lookin’ at them.”
    “She could,” Nancy mused, looking at a sketch of the assembly room she had made from her friends’ descriptions, with the positions of key players noted. “It’d be like her to enjoy that sort of thing. But we can’t prove it yet. More evidence needed.” Her pencil waved like a conductor’s baton as she looked over the rest of Crusader Dorm. Suddenly her eyes gleamed. “You’re all heading to Casino Island tomorrow morning to church. I have an idea.”

“So, what did that criminal have to say for herself tonight?” Over in the second-year dorms Liberty Morgenstern looked over at Shin with a sour expression “Beryl, I mean.” It was an unfair world outside of New Haven, the half-breed coyote mentally reaffirmed for the thousandth time - Shin had returned just before the gates were closed for the night, her fur as neat and dry as any parasitic bourgeois heiress fresh from exploiting the labour of repressed workers at a decadent grooming parlour. Had Shin had to swim at least one leg of the journey it would have shown some sort of solidarity.
    Wo Shin seemed to be in an excellent mood, all the more so as she looked at Liberty’s wrinkled snout and flattened ears. “She made a pretty good lecturer, I’ll give her that much. She worked the crowd like she was doing them a favour.”
    Brigit snorted. “She’d sell water in the desert to a fur as was dyin’ o’ thirst, that she would.”
    “I’m starting to think she could sell bottled tap water even to a crowd that wasn’t,” Shin reflected “bottles of plain water! There’s a stupid idea. But she could probably swing it if anyone can. She could sell pork pies in New South Zion and NSZ-built kosher refrigerators to the Germans in New South Thule.” Her eyes gleamed. “The lecture was straight out of the book, but a lot of furs were nodding along with it - at the end some stood up and said they’d already successfully used what she’d taught last week. I know a couple of them from school here, and I don’t even think they were her stooges. Hard to believe, I know.”
    “Who else went that we know?” Liberty had her notebook ready. “That aristo oppressor Lady Allworthy, I suppose?”
    “None of that dorm. Beryl was the only third-year there. But someone else was interested in the barrel. After the meeting finished, someone tried to steal it! It was on a cart a Native coolie was pulling, heading back to the dock with just Beryl there to look after it. Three low-grade roughs tried to take it. That was something to watch.”
    “They drove her into the ground like a tent stake?” Liberty asked hopefully. She stood in her bare fur, about to slide into bed. Pyjamas and night-dresses were a bourgeois affectation, and had no place in the New Haven 5-year textile and fibres plan. A good Worker kept herself hardy and well conditioned to doing without such decadent luxuries - and that was in a New Haven winter, let alone the mild Spontoon climate.
    Shin chuckled. “If only they had. I’d have sneaked in a bottle of Nootnops Blue - no, it’s single malt whisky we’d be celebrating with right now. No, she would have made our Tutors proud for once. Seems those white fashion gloves of hers are full of lead shot and steel plates! You should have seen her. She moves like a viper, that girl. There’s one guy who’ll be asking the street sweepers if they found any of his teeth, tomorrow.” She paused, and frowned. “I had to clear out before the police arrived, no sense in getting mixed up for no profit. Beryl was handling the situation pretty well and the coolie was all the witness she needs that she was defending herself. An innocent Young Lady set upon by common crooks. Some lady.” Shin gave a snort of amusement. “Someone apart from us is interested in what’s in that barrel though. They were just Euro low-grade heavies, probably here to work over a tourist or two. But one of them at least can read. Still, the Spontoon Mirror doesn’t use big words.”
    Just then they heard the paw-steps of Miss Cardroy on the stairs as they realised it was lights-out time, and dived for their respective beds. Shin ran through the events of the evening in her head, nodding appreciatively in the darkness after their Tutor looked in and passed by. Beryl was certainly attracting a lot of attention, and there was no better way to get free advertising for her course. As for her probably cheating the Spontoonies - well that was their lookout.
    “The Lord tempers the wind to the shaved lamb,” she grinned to herself, ironically quoting what she had heard from a street preacher on Casino Island. “Or so they say.” Though not strictly a Spontoonie herself, years of education on the island had honed her appreciation of Missionaries interpreted as free street theatre. Her own views were shaped more by the deep philosophies of Krupmark Island - anyone who was dumb enough to let themselves get fleeced, deserved to have their tails freeze off.

Nancy Rote awoke a minute before the alarm, glad that she had trained herself to make the most of what sleep Songmark allowed its students. She stretched, appreciating the relative luxury of a Sunday morning.
    Svetlana knocked her own ringing alarm clock off the bedside drawers and retrieved it, grumbling in Russian. “In Vostok, there are clubs and “singing cabinets” that are still open at this hour.”
    Nancy smiled, her eyes bright and keen as she nodded across the room. “Early to bed and early to rise! At least it’s an hour more than we’ll get tomorrow.” She looked at the rain running down the windows outside. “And whichever third-year dorm was on gate guard last night will have a real reason to complain.”
    “Not that it’ll do them any good,” Maureen paused as she slipped her night-shirt off. “’Tis a sore trial, I’m after thinkin’, to have to be up at three and lose what extra Sabbath rest there is around here.” She padded over in her bare fur to look out of the window. “A wet trip to the Kirk, to be sure.”
    “Yes.” Nancy nodded, thinking hard. “I’ve looked at your schedules. There’s a chance one of us can track Beryl, she’ll have to get back here sometime today. From what I’ve heard, she stays up at all hours at the Casinos. She probably won’t be up till around lunchtime, when you’re all finishing at Church.” Her muzzle wrinkled. “When we first met, Beryl told me she was brought up strict Planarian. I assumed it was some odd religious sect. It means a flatworm. Very appropriate for her.”
    “And yourself, what’ll you be doing?” Maureen raised an eyebrow. “Sitting in the dry, mastermindin’ the plan?”
    “I’m going to Religious Observation myself - I’ve even got a Pass for it. Surprised, aren’t you?”

Twelve noon that day saw Nancy free and legally on Casino Island, a Pass in her pocket that was good till sunset. The rain had cleared after breakfast, and her dorm had enjoyed a bracing ride across on the water-taxi before splitting up to their various churches - and coincidentally to cover the island better watching out for a certain irritating mouse returning.
    “If it wasn’t for her, I could have spent the day with Alpha,” she frowned, looking around carefully. “We could get a Pass for Eastern Island after lunch, if nothing else.” Her tail twitched; she had planned via several passed notes another trip to South Island, to be arranged as soon as possible. Hopefully there would still be some official Guides around. She recalled the month before, enviously watching an outwardly respectable tourist heading out that direction with a handsome young Spontoonie mule guide. “Though we’ll have to be sure not to acquire any … souvenirs.” There had been a striking-looking goose also wearing a Guide costume; no furred girl was ever worried about laying eggs.
    Nancy had spent an interesting morning with Mr. Rushkov, a tall martin and reformed Anarchist who was the island’s only Agnostic Missionary. His sacred mission to sow doubt and uncertainty amongst the unthinkingly devout was something that had struck a chord with Nancy, although many of his professional rivals accused him of being an undercover agent for Satan.
    “I’m not sure I’ll be back, even if it gets me out of Sunday kitchen duties” she mused, heading towards the Casino strip of Casino Island “but it’s no bad philosophy for a sleuth to have. Question everything and everybody. Trust nothing on principle.” Mr. Rushkov had speculated that even if there had been a One True Religion it was just as likely to have been some small Native cult already crushed by missionaries or lost to history. The vision of an utterly strict Judgement Day with only the (non-existent) modern worshippers of some Ancient Chaldean or pre-dynastic Egyptian deity being Saved, was a potent image the Agnostic preacher had conjured with.
    Just then a set of sharp-tipped squirrel ears went right up as Nancy’s keen eyes spotted a diminutive figure. No longer in her elegant silks, Beryl Parkesson was standing outside the service entrance of Van Hoogstraaten’s Casino, evidently waving farewell to someone inside. She wore a neat, freshly cleaned and pressed Songmark best uniform that matched Nancy’s own - except for an extra two year bars embroidered on the musical note emblem on the shoulder and collar.
    Nancy’s ears went flat, and she ducked back around the corner. Just then she spotted another two welcome sights - Eva Schiller and Maureen, coming towards her down a side-street. Beryl would not see them till they crossed the main street. A wave, a halt sign and an urgent pointing round the corner - her hand pantomiming the shape of a set of big round mouse ears - and Eva was nodding in comprehension.
    Even before arriving at Songmark Nancy had always travelled prepared for many eventualities. From her pocket she drew a steel “trench mirror” and carefully poked it around the corner, first checking that the sun’s position would not flash in Beryl’s direction and give her away.
Having seen Beryl walking away, she beckoned her fellow sleuths across, and they crossed the street with a rush as if they were diving between trenches in no-furs-land. “Beryl.” Nancy indicated the receding figure. “We can cut through the side streets and get ahead of her.” All three had used wisely their free days of exploration on Spontoon before starting Songmark, and needed no map of Casino Island.
    “Yes! “ Eva nodded. “It looks like she’s heading West, Old China Dock direction. We’ll cut her off.” With that she was off at a run, her pure silver brush streaming behind like a comet tail.
Five minutes saw Eva proved right, as Beryl rounded the corner of the street next to that salubrious venue, The Devil’s Reef. This end of town was just the kind of place a disreputable mouse could be expected to keep her secret dealings. Nancy watched intently as she unlocked a small door in a warehouse and vanished inside.
    “So.” Eva and Maureen rejoined her, having circled round and come in from the other end of the street. “We have tracked the rodent to its bolthole. Do we try and get a look inside, or wait? Beryl, she can stay out on her Pass longer than we.”
    “True. So we’d better see if we can spot her game.” Nancy looked around. The warehouse itself was small and solid, with no obvious entrances apart from the one Beryl had used, which was a small access door in the main street gate. “Up there - the building across the alleyway, that has a fire escape.” For the agile squirrel it was no challenge to leap up to the bottom rung of the rusty stairs, and very soon she was on top of the taller building looking down with a suspicious eye.
    Although the skylights were scandalously dirty, there were definitely moving figures within - a suspicious sight in itself for a Sunday, when apart from one Chinese wholesaler the commercial properties on the street were all closed.
    “I can’t see if any of them are Beryl. I can’t see much, for that matter” Nancy whispered to Eva as the fox joined her, leaving Maureen watching the street. “There’s two - no, three furs moving around down there. If we could get onto that roof we might be able to clear a patch of window, or hear what’s going on.” She frowned. It was a twelve-foot leap with the far side a good six feet lower down; quite within her abilities, but without an external fire escape the suspect warehouse seemed to have no way off the roof apart from through the building. “Aaahg! Thirty feet of good rope and we could do it - but it’s not something you can put in your pocket.”
    “The third-years have those shorts they’ve made with loops of cargo tape built in for climbing rope,” Eva mused. “If we made ourselves some - up and down buildings, not so hard.”
    “Yes. We’ll see what we can do about that.” With that, Nancy settled down to keep vigil.

Two buildings away, a periscope slid around a corner, carefully avoiding breaking any skylines and emerging into deep shade.
    “Well, well.” Wo Shin studied the view through her trench binoculars. “Why am I not surprised ? A certain sleuth and a silver-fox blackshirt. They’re nearly in sniffing range of Beryl.”
    Tatiana nodded, her duty on the rooftop being to keep an eye out for everything but their target. If any police or rival cat-burglars made an appearance on the scene, she would be the one to spot them. “What’s that warehouse, Shin? You know these streets.”
    “Old customs store, used to hold spirits and expensive goods long before my time,” Shin replied promptly, her eyes still fixed on the binoculars. “It’s available for rent - lots of furs have used it for one-time deals.”
    “Maybe these rooftops could get crowded,” Tatiana mused. “Da, maybe whoever wrote that letter may be here somewhere. If only we knew who! Brigit, she is to work on that Mirror journalist.”
    Twenty minutes later Tatiana’s wandering gaze indeed spotted an extra arrival. “And here she is, Brigit,” she tapped Shin’s exposed ankle, the only part within reach. “Now we maybe hear.”
    “Faith, and ‘tis a grand view ye’ve found yourself,” Brigit panted, crouching low in cover of the roof ridge of the warehouse. “’T’was Liberty told me where ye’d gone. Herself is at her post watching the exits.”
    “Good.” Shin twisted round to glance at the Irish Setter. “You’re looking very full of yourself.” Brigit’s eyes were wide and her tail held jauntily; her musk made Shin’s nose wrinkle.
    The setter’s ears blushed. “I tracked down the journalist who took that story. He’s a fine figure of a rooster, to be sure. And he wasn’t at first to be talking.”
    “I’m sure you found a way of getting it all out of him.” Shin smirked. She had noticed a small feather trapped under Brigit’s collar. “Getting a taste for poultry, are you? So, what did he give you? The story, I mean.” Although a sensible girl in most ways, Shin reflected that Brigit had some very odd religious superstitions. She would go to confession next week and describe in lurid detail everything she had done - but she and her priest would apparently be much happier that with an avian she would not have had to take any of the Precautions Mrs. Oelabe taught all Songmark girls in their first week. Merely being sensible afterwards was to Brigit’s system ten times the sin in the first place.
    “Oh. T’was a surprise he had for me.” Brigit grinned. And she told them. She had the gratifying sight of a red panda and an ermine tail bottling out in surprise - though both had discussed that answer as one of the possibilities.
    Shin folded her trench binoculars back in their case with a snap. “Well. That’s us out of here. We don’t want our paws burned in this one.”
    “Crusader Dorm though. Would be good to watch what happens.” Tatiana mused. “Still, we will no doubt hear all about it.”

Being intent on the shadowy figures dimly visible below in the warehouse, neither Nancy Rote nor Eva Schiller had noticed that they were not the only ones on the rooftops of Casino Island that November lunchtime. To be fair, they would have had to be specifically watching the shadows several buildings away to spot Red Dorm rapidly clearing the area.
    “They’re moving - there’s some sort of vehicle. A cart, a trailer?” Nancy hazarded a guess. “If they move out, we’ll be stuck up here.”
    “Exactly.” Eva nodded. “We guess the barrel, or what it holds, is here. Now - where would she take it?” She followed the squirrel down the fire escape, taking care not to dislodge any of the debris that was liable to fall and make a noise.
    “Depends what it is. Which is a rather circular argument.” With that Nancy dropped lightly to the solid ground of the alleyway.
    They were just in time to hear the creak of a rusty door from round the front - and then the sound of a diesel engine starting up inside. There was the crunch of gravel around the corner as a lorry moved out onto the road. Nancy was about to run out into the street after it but checked herself - the whole point of stalking Beryl had been stealth and now was not the time to break it. Besides there were other furs in the building, presumably criminal types, and would presumably protect their plot.
    Five seconds later Nancy had at least got the registration number and make of the lorry, an old White that looked as if it had been World War surplus and quite probably had. She held Eva back till the street was clear, and then waved her out, spotting Maureen emerging from cover across the street. There was nobody visible in the warehouse; presumably they had all left in the lorry.
    “Casino Island isn’t that big,” Nancy pointed out as they followed the direction it had taken. “If we split up again - we’ll have a chance still.”
    As it happened, only Maureen had branched off on the first turning when Nancy spotted the suspect vehicle ahead in the distance, pulling to a halt. The fox and squirrel redoubled their pace, and split to left and right to take cover on each side of the street. Blatantly, the vehicle was parked in front of Lingenthal’s Continental Delicatessen, Casino Island’s sole public supplier of excellent cream cakes, German strudel and Currywurst.
    Nancy took advantage of a passing pedal taxi to cross the road unobserved, to crouch next to the lorry’s running board. With a scuffling Eva emerged from the far side having rolled and crawled under from the restaurant side. Her fine fur was tousled and muddy but her eyes were bright.
    “Nancy! Beryl and three furs are sitting down having coffee and strudel! The nerve of it!” Eva nodded towards Lingenthal’s.
    “Criminals aren’t very bright, deep down,” Nancy confirmed. “Or they wouldn’t be criminals. They’ve not only left the barrel in the back but they’ve left the keys in the ignition!”
    The two sleuths looked at each other.
    “Nancy. Do we take this to the police, with our suspicions?” Eva raised an ear.
    “No.” Nancy’s tail twitched in glee. “We take this to our Tutor. I wish we could bring the lorry and all. I can’t wait to hand it over - it’s probably full of dangerous illegal drugs, or forged currency. And her paw-prints will be all over it! That’s definitely something she couldn’t wriggle out of. We could be rid of Beryl by tonight!”
    Eva grinned, her sharp teeth showing. “Such deeds my Leader loves. Simple, direct, radical. We do it.” With that she eased open the door and Nancy slid quietly in, taking an instant to re-orient herself to the Spontoonie right-hand drive, courtesy of their British heritage. While Eva scrambled round to the front with the starting handle, Nancy blessed the fact that it was midday with other traffic around and not the middle of the night - where starting up one more engine would not bring Beryl and her henchmen swarming after them before they had got out of first gear.
    “Yes!” Nancy thumped the wooden dashboard in glee as the still-warm engine caught right away. As she engaged gear Eva swung round to her side and perched on the running-board, stowing the starting handle. First gear, second gear and third - in the light Sunday traffic they were almost at Ferry Square Market and the mooring slips before Nancy had even thought of top gear.
    A water-taxi was just pulling in as they arrived - hastily wrapping the barrel in tarpaulin to keep their paw-prints off it and whoever’s would be incriminated on, fox and squirrel lugged it towards the dock. Just then the fur on Nancy’s neck began to rise. She looked round, to see the least likely combination of furs - Beryl pulling up on a bicycle with a cyclist Spontoonie Constable in full Casino Island uniform.
    The policeman, a sturdy Ratel, took out his notebook and looked at Nancy, Eva and the lorry, its engine still running. He cleared his throat. “Is this your vehicle, young Miss?”
    There was a long silence. Nancy felt the blood draining out of her ears, and her tail drooped. When she and Alpha had been allowed into Songmark, it had been under the promise that they stayed within the law. If either got into trouble - both were out. Rather than Beryl being the one on the first plane out that evening, Nancy suddenly realised it could be herself.
    Suddenly Beryl spoke up. “Oh, there must have been some misunderstanding, Officer. These dear girls are good friends of mine. They must have known I’d want this delivered right away. Isn’t that right?”
    Eva muttered something sulphurous in German, evidently composed of a dozen unladylike words strung together in a compound curse far worse than the sum of its parts.
    “Of course you’re my very good friend,” Beryl prompted, helpfully.
    “We’re your very good friends,” Nancy forced the words out, the sensation like coughing up a hairball.
    “Who’d do anything for me. Isn’t that right?” Beryl asked sweetly. The policeman frowned, looking from one face to the other.
    “Of course we would. We’d do anything for you. We were delivering it to Songmark for you.” Nancy saw one last glimmer of hope and lunged at it. “We knew Miss Devinski would like to see what was in it.” Though she watched the mouse minutely, Beryl did not flinch a whisker.
    The constable scratched his head. “It all looks most irregular to me. I think I’ll ride along with you young ladies, and see that you really do go there.”
    “Thank you, Officer!” Eva gave one of her alarming grins. “We will all find that most Helpful. Will we not, Beryl, my friend?”
    “Oh, yes.” A mouse tail swished nonchalantly. “I’m sure we’ll all find it most - enlightening.”

A tension-packed water taxi ride brought Songmark students, barrel and constable to the Songmark gates fifteen minutes later, the policeman explaining things to the gate guards and then to a hastily summoned Miss Devinski.
    Their tutor turned, looking her charges up and down carefully. “I see. I take it, Beryl, that you aren’t pressing charges?”
    “Oh no, Miss. I’m not a bit offended. In fact I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.” Beryl looked the fox and squirrel over, and smiled. Her head cocked to one side as she reconsidered. “Well, for quite a large acreage anyway.”
    “Then I’ll be off, Misses. You might want to keep the lorry ignition keys in your pocket, next time. The Ratel saluted, turned and headed back to his regular beat. Something odd was certainly happening - but the Songmark tutors were handling it, and that was as much information as he really wanted.
    “Permission to speak, Miss Devinski?” Nancy burst out. At her Tutor’s curt nod she pointed at the barrel. “That is Beryl’s. Her paw-prints will be all over it - and I’ve witnesses who saw it in her possession. I think you might want to take a look inside it.” With that she gave a quick précis of their investigations.
    The Labrador raised an eyebrow. “Indeed. You have been busy.” Miss Devinski cast a sharp eye at Nancy Rote. “You might have been spending the time completing the essay you were asked to do. Or even doing as the Pass we gave you for Casino Island religious instruction specified.”
    “Miss Devinski! I recommend you look at what is in the barrel before coming to any conclusions.” Eva Schiller cut in bravely.
    The third-year Tutor, generally regarded as Songmark’s leader, nodded slowly. “That we will. And you three will wait outside our gates while we do so.”
    The two third-year girls on gate guard, a bovine and a mongoose, ran off to the engineering shed and came out with a flatbed trolley for the barrel, which was carefully lifted onto it still wrapped in the tarpaulin.
    Nancy glowered at Beryl. “Well. I think we’ve cooked your goose this time.”
    Beryl returned the glare with a warm and friendly smile. “Oh, well. It’s a pity, in a way. It’s all turned out quite happily - but had it run another week, you should have seen what Piet had lined up for you! I paid him in more than shells for that idea.” She swished her finely groomed tail.
    There was an uncomfortable break of ten minutes before the Tutor returned and beckoned them all inside Songmark’s boundary. Nancy felt a thrill of relief. She and Alpha had discussed how getting ejected from Songmark would not necessarily mean saying farewell forever - there was a parachute plastered untraceably into a support pillar at the airport Lady’s powder room that Nancy planned to grab on any enforced way out. Getting out of a passenger aircraft was not impossible to a determined girl, and within an hour they could both be as safe on Cranium Island -- or as safe as anyone on Cranium Island ever was.
    Miss Devinski nodded. “Beryl’s project as she presented it to us was to prove she could make money honestly and in public, without involving her disreputable friends. She has passed that test.” The older hound had a hint of a smile on her muzzle as she looked over the leader of Crusader Dorm. “What other people make of that, is not something we are marking her on.”
    “But the barrel!” Nancy burst out. “We followed the trail exactly - what did that newspaper correspondent mean? And who was it?”
    Beryl’s smile increased. “Mister Crane at the Mirror knows how a good mystery boosts newspaper circulation - and I paid him classified advert rates to put that letter in. He’s a fur – or should I say a plume, after my own heart.” She winked. “The mystery barrel you’ve all been chasing, I’ve donated to the kitchen. I always planned to.”
    At Miss Devinski’s nod, Nancy and Isabella rushed out of the room to where the local cooks were busy preparing the evening meal. One was busy with a crowbar prizing up the lid of a barrel they had taken from the suspect lorry. A fishy, pickled smell filled the kitchen.
    Nancy’s ears and tail drooped. She knew that scent; there had been a restaurant back home in Creekside that had specialised in classical European dishes. As the cooks began to dish out the contents, she turned to Isabella with a ghost of a smile.
    “Red Herrings, anyone?”

the end (of this case)