Elementary, my dear Watson…
"How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?" (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The Sign of the Four)
Eleanor Sartorius stood in the dim hallway of her small London house looking absentmindedly at the marbled glass inset in her front door that had been obscured a moment ago by the black-clad figure of Maleficia Babbitt. She blinked slowly as she tried to order her thoughts in the aftermath of the conversation she had just had with the older witch.
So her former nanny, a dyed-in-the-wool adherent of the late Lord Voldemort, was ready to use her considerable knowledge of ugly and embarrassing Malfoy family secrets to do what? – To help reinstate a little squib girl as the rightful daughter of the current master of Malfoy Manor. That was warped enough to let Eleanor believe that in some rather perverted way Maleficia was truly fond of little Lavinia. She still doubted, though, that Draco would be successful where her own attempts and Lucius' former affection for his daughter had so obviously failed.
A sudden crash and commotion in the living room interrupted her and made her turn back. This seemed to be a day for surprises. As she looked into the room, casting a quick glance out of the bay window that overlooked the garden to check on Libby and her little girl she noticed a big barn owl on the rug in front of her fire-place. The bird had come down through the chimney – apparently with a cart-load of soot in its wake – and now hooted at her angrily trying to shake the mess from its feathers.
"Hey," she challenged the owl. "Don't get it all over the room!"
The messenger flapped its wings ignoring her protest and held out its left leg that had a small scroll of parchment tied to it. Eleanor crouched down and untied the ribbon that held it in place.
As she started to unfurl it, the owl pecked impatiently at the toes of her slippers and hopped towards the patio door. It was obviously not keen to leave the house by the way it had entered it. Absentmindedly the witch opened the door and watched the owl take off with long, lazy flaps of its wings, circle the garden once and fly away in the direction of the city. Then the text of the message captured her attention.
Dear Eleanor,
I've just heard from Mr. Malfoy that you have moved out of the manor, and he has given me your current address, so I'm owling you there and hope my message reaches you. We have had a horrible crisis at the Ministry this morning: Mr. Jones has been killed with an Unforgivable, Lucius is being detained as the prime suspect, and Mr. Weasley is facing a vote of no confidence before the wizengamot and his possible suspension as Minister of Magic. His own son has made the submission!
Things are a total chaos: I am desperate and really need your help. I would also suspect that whatever your differences are with your husband – he wouldn't be specific about that, though it might have curried him some favor during the interview with the aurors – you probably don't want to see him charged with a crime that I strongly suspect he didn't commit..
Can you come and see me at the Ministry immediately, please?
Yours, Marigold
"Merlin," breathed Eleanor. "You damned fool, Lucius. What have you done now?"
She waved her wand at the heap of ashes on the floor and then stepped out onto the patio calling for Libby. The elf's head poked out over the rim of a sandbox she had conjured up earlier for Lavinia to play in. Eleanor was more than reluctant to leave her daughter alone, especially at a time when the child was still reeling from the loss of her home and half her family, but she did not see another option than to go and visit her former student. Leaving her husband in his current predicament was a thought that despite everything else that had happened she would not even entertain for a moment.
A little while later Lavinia was safely tucked away in her small bed, yet again under the influence of a strong sleeping spell and in the care of the house elf, and Eleanor had apparated in a narrow cobbled side-street that allowed a clear view of the smashed phone-box that allowed access to the Ministry of Magic. Moments later she had surrendered her wand and strode across the polished dark wood of the Atrium to catch a lift to take her to the second level of the Ministry where the auror headquarters were located.
She tried to block the vivid memories of making the same trip as a prisoner of Alastor Moody several years earlier, during the time of Lucius' exile. After a brief exchange with a witch at the department entrance she was sent to a conference room where she found Daimon Spofford, several aurors and muggle police officers in animated conversation. She also recognized a wizard in slightly shabby and threadbare robes as Mundungus Fletcher, one of Lucius' guests at the manor a few weeks earlier.
Marigold Brannock excused herself and left a group of people to rush towards her. She was closely followed by a tall, thin, distraught-looking muggle in a rumpled suit who was wearing thick glasses.
"Eleanor," cried the witch. "So glad you could come so quickly! It's all a horrible mess!"
"Oh, is this Mrs. Malfoy?" exclaimed the muggle behind her excitedly rubbing his fingers.
He didn't even wait for the answer but darted forwards and grabbed Eleanor's hand.
"Mrs. Malfoy! I'm Professor Sedgewick, a very good friend of your husband's. Please call me Alfred. This is such a tragedy, and your poor husband falsely accused of this horrific murder! I cannot believe they are even suspecting him. He has been such a wonderful wizard to work with – very eccentric of course, no offense – but so very, very interesting. Who would have thought all this magic really existed, the psi-phenomena, the…"
Eleanor lifted her free hand to stop the breathless flow of Mr. Sedgewick's speech.
"Please," she pleaded with him. "Alfred? I'm here to help. And of course it is to your credit that you believe my husband is innocent."
So this was the rather annoying muggle Lucius had been telling her about. Actually it was quite amazing the man was in such good shape after his weeks of close cooperation and acquaintance with his wizard counterpart. Her husband had obviously exercised superior restraint. She turned to Marigold who was frowning in some irritation at the parapsychologist.
"What's happened?" she asked quickly. "Detective Jones is dead?"
The auror sighed. Her chin-length mouse-brown hair looked scraggly and mussed and she seemed definitely stressed.
"Let's find an empty office and talk," she suggested. "I'll fill you in."
Professor Sedgewick could not be got rid of without obvious rudeness, so a little while later the three of them had settled into a small room that exuded a strong smell of camphor, beeswax and wood-polish. Marigold pulled on the sleeves of her green auror robes as she recounted the events of the morning. She explained how Lucius' secretary had entered the wizard's office to set everything up for a meeting with Professor Sedgewick, and how she had found the body of the muggle detective on the floor right before Lucius' desk; how she had raised the alarm and how the auror and Mr. Malfoy had arrived at his room at almost the same time.
Marigold had detected the Unforgivable that had killed the detective, and her colleagues, who had joined them moments later, had taken Lucius into custody.
"Just as they were leading your husband away for questioning Arthur Weasley arrived. I had sent for him, because he would need to handle muggle relations. Of course Percy Weasley showed up just a minute or so later. After all, the muggle exchange program is part of his department.
Believe it or not, they hadn't even cleared away the body yet, and those two started fighting already. Percy accused his father of being the true cause of Mr. Jones' death. Of course the Minister started yelling back at his son, telling him that Muggle Liaisons are part of his department, and he should stop shifting the responsibility. Then they spent a few minutes arguing who could be blamed for being supportive of Mr. Malfoy as Chief Muggle Liaison, when the man was clearly a bloodthirsty maniac – no offense, Eleanor. And then Percy invoked statute 67!"
"What's statute 67," interjected Mr. Sedgewick curiously.
"A very rarely used vote of no confidence: it means Mr. Weasley has to go before the wizengamot. His son can present his case, the Minister can defend himself, and it will then be voted by all members whether he is fit to continue his term of service, or if he has to step down and re-elections are to be held," explained Marigold. "We have a bloody government crisis on our hands over this!
Anyway, Eleanor, I left them to it and put one of my men in charge to support the muggle police in their investigations. Meanwhile I joined the aurors who were interrogating your husband. I really thought he had nothing to do with it. I mean he'd be capable of it, you know my opinion of him, but he is not stupid. He wouldn't leave such clear clues pointing to himself."
Sedgewick looked as if he had issues with the auror's cool assessment, but she continued without giving him a chance to interrupt.
"So I thought that if he could tell me he'd been home at Malfoy Manor all night – the murder occurred about 11 yesterday evening – and I could check out the story with you to back him up, we'd be in the clear. And then he tells me you moved out a few days ago! You can believe my shock. I tried to get him to tell me the details, but he shut up like a clam. What's been happening with you two?"
Eleanor took a deep breath, feeling the muggle's disapproving glance on her. He obviously thought that no reason in the world could excuse someone for moving out on Mr. Marvelous Malfoy. As far as she was concerned she had no qualms about telling him and Marigold, but she was painfully aware of the fact that the last thing Lucius wanted publicized widely would be his offspring's lack of magical abilities.
"We had a disagreement about Lavinia's upbringing," she finally said, hoping she would get away with the understatement of the century and could keep vague on the details. "He really ticked me off, and I took our daughter and moved into my old house in North Finchley. I wanted to give us both time to cool off and re-examine the situation. Unfortunately that means I honestly can't tell you where he was last night around 11. Still I agree with you: he wouldn't put an Unforgivable on a muggle in his own office and then leave the corpse there for anyone to find."
Marigold nodded.
"Okay. We're both agreed on that. So it wasn't him. The muggle police hasn't found out anything else that would help us. Percy Weasley is recommending suspension of all muggle-wizarding contacts for the time being…"
"Which I strongly oppose!" interrupted the professor.
"…Now what do we do? We are responsible to clear this up and to prevent it from happening again. The muggle ministry has already told us they'd launch their own inquiry if we cannot come up with results, soon."
Eleanor pulled absentmindedly on a strand of her hair.
"As far as I can see the killer or the killers have always been a step ahead of us, playing with us, leaving clues that lead to dead ends. If we continue merely analyzing the crimes after the fact, seeking for giveaways we won't catch them. We need to start controlling the situation. So first off: what do we know so far?"
"Well, I think the murderer knows about muggles, and how our police officers work. They have always been careful not to leave prints," said Sedgewick.
Marigold nodded. "There's a woman involved," she said. "Lucius told me a cloaked and hooded woman bought the weapon used in the first murder from Mundungus Fletcher who sold it on behalf of Mr. Burgin. Fletcher has corroborated this. He said the woman had a high-pitched voice, as if she was fairly young."
"Hm, that won't narrow down the field of suspects too much," said Eleanor. "But what about the motive for murdering those people? What has been the outcome so far?"
"Mr. Malfoy's reputation is in danger. He may be accused of being the murderer," suggested the professor.
"Yes, and Weasley senior may lose his post as Minister of Magic," added Marigold.
"Well, Weasley's suspension may or may not be a desired effect, but I think it's safe to assume that someone definitely has it in for Lucius," said the red-haired witch. "First someone gives Narcissa's biography to the professor to discredit my husband. When that doesn't work, they obtain a weapon that used to be in the possession of the Malfoys to commit murder. When Lucius still is exonerated they kill the next muggle right in his office, and with a curse that was once widely used among the Death Eaters. Which begs the question: why use such a roundabout way? Why not just curse him and be done with it?"
The auror's eyes suddenly grew wide.
"What if they know that they can't," she asked.
"They can't?" asked Sedgewick interestedly. "I just knew it! Does Lucius know some special magic?"
For a moment Marigold hesitated, unsure whether she could trust the muggle, but then she seemed to remember that the man could hardly be expected to obliviate a book or cast an Unforgivable.
"There was an event, about three years ago," she explained. "A magical mirror was consecrated in the presence of several witnesses to protect the entire Malfoy family. Any magic employed to harm any of them directly would be reflected back on the caster magnified several times over. That's dangerous business and would be a powerful deterrent to anyone who knows. At the time the Ministry put a gag order on all the witnesses, because while the mirror was destroyed after a fashion the remnants might still attract thieves who could abuse the magical artifact. Anyone who would have talked about it would have been affected by the Ministry's spells and ended up in St. Mungo's."
She paused. "I think we've got it, Eleanor: we're looking for someone who was at Malfoy Manor to witness the event, who is either female or has a female accomplice, who hates Lucius, knows about but doesn't much like muggles, and who might want to push Minister Weasley out of office. Oh, and they are definitely wizard folk, and not half-bad at magic, either."
She frowned in concentration.
Suddenly Eleanor leaned forward and whistled sharply through her teeth.
"Fudge," she said.
"What!" exclaimed Marigold.
"What's a piece of fudge got to do with it?" asked Sedgewick, looking confused.
The auror glared at him and then looked at her former teacher in disbelief.
"You've got to be joking! Fudge has been in Malfoy's pocket forever. That's why he didn't get reelected: because he and your husband were best buddies, which blinded him to You-Know-Who's rise for so long."
Eleanor gave her a terse smile. She considered briefly how much she should tell Marigold about the secret meeting at Malfoy Manor several weeks ago and decided that she would restrain herself as much as possible. Nine years with Lucius had taught her discretion.
"Precisely. And he has not forgiven him for it. As a matter of fact: Lucius is in the position he is in precisely because of the ex-minister."
"What are you talking about?"
"Do you think the old boys' network has disappeared over night just because we have a Weasley in the top seat now? You can't be that naïve. The old Fudge faction shouldered Lucius into the position as Chief Muggle Liaison – ostensibly for damage control, and to check the new Minister's policies. Then once everybody is aware of the most unsuitable appointment ever – including Alfred here who mysteriously receives a copy of Narcissa's biography – muggles start to die, killed by a Malfoy knife and a classic Death Eater Unforgivable curse.
If Lucius ends up in prison, Weasley gets suspended and re-elections are held, Fudge is in a perfect position to run again. He has also had his revenge on the ex Death-Eater who has cost him his post and abused his trust. Lucius' appointment is seen as Weasley's ill-advised decision, and Fudge is cleared of his former association.
The utter bastard! He knew he couldn't get at Lucius directly, because he was one of the witnesses at the Manor who saw the mirror destroyed. He set us up!"
Marigold still didn't look entirely convinced, but she didn't seem quite as outraged by the suggestion any more.
"Well, he knows a lot about muggles after two terms in office, and he is a capable wizard, but who's the woman, then?" she challenged her mentor. "Even Mundungus Fletcher wouldn't mistake Fudge for a young witch."
Eleanor waved away the objection.
"Pff, there's always Polyjuice potion," she said. "But I think Fletcher's mystery witch was Umbridge. She has a girly voice, and she is fanatically loyal and devoted to the ex-minister."
The auror considered. "Lucius said that Mundungus told him the woman was terribly nervous. That would fit." She paused. "But we have no proof."
The red-haired witch smiled: "No, but we have a chance to trap him. After the first murder Weasly remained in power and Lucius was suspected, but proved his innocence. So the murderer killed again. What if we undo what he has achieved with Jones' murder? He'll have to try a third time. But this time you'll be ready for him."
Marigold shot her a grim look.
"Yeah, undo an invocation of statute 67 and release a murder suspect. Piece of pumpkin pie!" she complained.
Eleanor shrugged her shoulders.
"Hold Lucius for the remainder of 24 hours. Drag your feet and omit to charge him, and habeas corpus will force you to release him. If you're unsure whether you can pull it off, allow him to contact his advocatus, Mr. Tethering. He'll get his client out so fast it'll make your head spin. It won't look too competent on your part, I have to admit, but after you've got the actual killer you can figure out how to redeem your professional standing."
Marigold didn't look too thrilled with that.
"You know, I'm really going out on a limb here, based on mere conjecture. This could cost me my career. If I didn't know you were my teacher and my friend… You're not just doing this to get your husband out of a mess, are you?"
The older witch fell silent for a moment, and the auror suspected that she felt insulted by the allegation, but when she answered, there was no annoyance in her voice.
"Listen, Marigold: ultimately this has to be your decision, but you did ask my advice. We both know Lucius didn't do this. And I think we both want to prevent a third attack. I will help you through this, and if the worst happens, tell the truth: blame me. I don't care, because I don't think I'll be hanging around here much once this is over."
Alarmed the auror wanted to ask what that last cryptic comment meant, but Eleanor had already turned to Sedgewick.
"We will need your assistance, too," she said. "You'll have to help us keep Minister Weasley protected."
The professor smiled and nodded eagerly.
"Of course! Anything!" he exclaimed. "I will do everything in my power to help exonerate Lucius."
The witch suppressed the strong urge to tell the muggle how misguided his loyalty to her husband really was and that it would earn him little gratitude from his so-called "friend". Instead she forced herself to smile back.
"Well then, it's time for a crash-course in British wizarding constitutional law. Here's what we'll do…"