Amanda Cadabra and The Strange Case of Lucy Penlowr by Holly Bell (i like reading .TXT) 📗

name, as she’d done from the beginning. However, between the two of us, we assembled this much of the mutterings: The Moor. Gone in the night. Packed up. Boats. School. House.

‘Strictly speaking, it was outside my bailiwick, which was the coast east and west of Parhayle, going north, but stopping short of the Moor. However, I made what investigation I could.

‘I looked into the number of families moving out of the area: it was disproportionate. If I managed to track them down, they always had a perfectly ordinary explanation: a new job, moving closer to relatives, better schools. But none of it rang true. Still the doors were shut to me.

‘The Bodmin police said it was all apparently aboveboard.

“And you don’t mess with the Moor clans, if you can help it. The school has the paperwork and passed the inspections. It appears to be charitable, a private school that serves the local families. Yes, sometimes one or two of the children get sick, but all kids get sick, don’t they?”

“What about all these accidents among the Moor clans,’ I asked. ‘Death by misadventure? Rather a lot, aren’t there?”

“Yes, but no evidence to the contrary,” was the reply. I asked, what about other suspicious events, up there?

“Yes, there have been a few but no witnesses,” they insisted. “Ever. Not a peep. Not a dicky bird. Sorry.”

‘Uncle Mike. Wait,’ Amanda interrupted him. ‘Where was this school?’

‘It was in a rather grand house near the north shore of Dozmary Pool,’ Hogarth replied.

‘You mean there was a third clan up there?’

‘Indeed,’ he confirmed.

‘With a big house?’ Amanda asked with growing intensity.

‘Yes.’

‘But ... but where did it and they go? There’s nothing up there now.’

Hogarth smiled a little and looked at her out of the corners of his eyes.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Well — the inspector took me up there too — there are only the two: Cardiubarn Hall and Flamgoyne. Except ... well ... those stones ....’

Hogarth’s face was a mask of patient interest. He waited.

‘Sorry, Uncle Mike. Please continue.’

‘And so it went on … until the night of the fire. No one knew how it started. Growan House went up in flames. Casualties yes, but all the children got out. No one knew how. They disappeared and family members too. After that … no more school. Most, if not all, of the family who owned it died in the fire. Anyway, the house was left. Somehow the land passed to the Cardiubarns and Flamgoynes. What was left of the building was, er, salvaged by farmers and so forth. The fire, the school, the families were forgotten. And so it remained.’

‘So, there was a fire. And those stones: the remains of Growan House — growan is Cornish for granite!’

‘Yes. All that is left of the house of the Dowrkampyers. The fire brigade said they’d been alerted far too late to save anything or anyone. Lord Dowrkampyer was missing. Bodies were found in the fire of the rest of the family. No children were found. All of the remains were identified, except for that of Lord Dowrkampyer himself.’

‘Dowrkampyer? I’ve never heard that name before,’ marvelled Trelawney.

‘Nor I,’ agreed Amanda. ‘A witch-clan?’

‘You can decide that for yourself,’ replied Hogarth.

‘Please go on, Mike.’

‘Once the site was made safe, forensics moved in. Some time later, they were able to test DNA traces taken from the walls and stairs. All were thought to belong to the same person and, thanks to a tooth he’d had extracted by a local dentist, it was possible to match them up: Lord Mordren Dowrkampyer. He had been obliterated.’

‘No known weapon can do that to a human body,’ protested Trelawney.

‘Even so.’

‘And why was the fire brigade alerted so late? People living nearby must have seen the fire and smoke,’ insisted Trelawney. ‘Why did they take so long to raise the alarm?’

‘That’s what I asked the local farmers. They all said the same thing: they assumed it was swaling.’

‘Swaling?’ asked Amanda.

‘An ancient practise of burning to encourage regeneration of growth,’ explained Hogarth.

‘In the middle of the night?’ Trelawney looked at him incredulously.

‘They said it was none of their business what the “estates” chose to do on their own land.’

‘Meaning they saw it and thought good riddance!’

Hogarth looked at Thomas ruefully.

‘I think that was the subtext, yes,’

‘Well, in all fairness and speaking as a descendent of one of the ‘estates’, loath though I am to admit it, I can’t say I blame them,’ Trelawney admitted. ‘But what on earth went on at Growan House that night? What happened to Mordren Dowrkampyer? And at whose hand?’

‘All excellent questions,’ acknowledged Hogarth, who clearly either could not or would not answer them.

‘If no known weapon could do that to Dowrkampyer,’ reasoned Amanda, ‘and it involved witch-clans then it had to be magical. But I know of no spell that could … vaporise someone.’

Hogarth looked at her blandly and said,

‘Hmm.’

‘So, what did you do next?’ asked Trelawney.

‘In one respect, I was in luck. Two of the children who were said to have escaped that night, had lived on my patch and the case was handed over to me. All of the school records were destroyed in the conflagration, so I had to go on hearsay. I continued to send out what feelers I could but, at the time, there was nothing.’

‘But later?’ asked Amanda, hopefully.

‘Later, little by little, I did manage to locate the families of the two children. But I got nothing from them. Either they claimed not to have been there, or claimed no knowledge of anything untoward at Growan House. The children had been unwell, kept home from school, then a job opportunity had come up for one of the parents or educational opportunities had opened up elsewhere. The door was shut