Amanderella and the Casket Mystery Chapter 10.

Chapter Ten.

 

A Sticky problem.

 

 

“Let’s hope he won’t find the Gin,” said Nellie. “Mrs Terkins came and told us to carry on making the ordinary Marmalade. She said that we had to make enough to fill the orders so that she would have enough money to pay us at the end of the week and for the expensive funeral that Mr Terkins had wanted. She said the funeral costs for a ‘Twelve-Ounce Special’ burial were highway robbery. She cleared out every drop of the ‘fortifiers’ to make sure we didn't ‘fall into the same spirits that claimed our Master.’”

Amanderella led the way into the yard. The office door was wide open. Inside Mr Terkins was slumped behind his mahogany desk, a pathetic figure draped in the soot-stained St Gal’s sheet. He wasn't drinking; he was shivering. His hands, orange-stained and trembling, were frantically rummaging through the Manager’s Cupboard.

“Gone,” Terkins croaked, his voice cracking like a dry reed. “All gone. The Highland Malt... the Napoleon... even the medicinal Gin. Someone has... has taken them all!”

“Exactly, Mr Terkins,” Amanderella said, stepping into the room. “Removed to a safe place”. Your wife, acting on the assumption that you were currently occupying a much smaller and more permanent mahogany box, decided to safeguard the health of the workforce.”

Terkins let out a low, shuddering moan, the very sound that had terrified the neighbourhood. It was the sound of a man with a concussed skull and a shattered thirst.

“I’m parched, Nellie,” he whispered, his eyes darting toward the empty cupboard. “The walls are... they’re starting to look like they’re made of marmalade. Big, orange spiders with rinds for legs.”

“That would be the Delirium Tremens making their formal introduction,” Amanderella noted clinically. “Coupled with the fact that your head was used as a braking system for a falling shelf. You are not a ghost, Pravis; you are merely a clinical catastrophe in a stolen bedsheet.”

“Where’s the Brandy?” Terkins wheezed, grabbing a wooden spoon and gnawing on the end of it.

“In the sink, most likely,” Nellie said with a touch of grim satisfaction. “Mrs Terkins didn't want any ‘temptation’ lingering while we worked to pay for your headstone. She’s already paid the deposit to the stonemason.”

Mr Terkins shuddered again, the sheet rustling like a frightened ghost trying to hide behind itself.

“She’s not here, is she?” he whispered, eyes darting toward the doorway as though expecting his wife to materialise out of the coat‑hooks.

“You are safe,” said Amanderella. “Mrs Terkins is not amongst us at the moment.”

“She’s a terrifying woman,” Mr Terkins breathed. “Terrifying. You’ve never seen her when she’s—”

He broke off, clutching the edge of the desk as though bracing for an earthquake only he could feel.

“—when she’s disappointed,” he finished in a hoarse whisper.

Nellie folded her arms. “She’s disappointed now, sir. She thinks you’re dead.”

Mr Terkins let out a thin, despairing whine. “Oh, she’ll be furious about that. She hates surprises.”

Amanderella stepped closer, her tone firm but not unkind. “Mr Terkins, your wife is not here. She does not know you are alive. And until you are in a fit state to be seen by anyone, she will remain blissfully unaware.”

He blinked at her, hope and terror wrestling behind his eyes.

“You mean,” he said slowly, “I have time?”

“Time,” Amanderella confirmed, “and medical necessity.”

Mr Terkins sagged with relief, then immediately stiffened again. “But she’ll come looking. She always comes looking. She can smell guilt at twenty paces.”

“Fortunately,” Amanderella replied, “you currently smell of marmalade, soot, and hospital laundry. Guilt is the least of your aromas.”

Nellie nodded. “Aye. If she finds you by scent alone, she deserves a medal.”

Mr Terkins made a small, wounded noise and clutched the sheet tighter around himself.

Amanderella placed a steadying hand on his shoulder. “You require a doctor, Mr Terkins. Not a hiding place. Not a cupboard. And certainly not another bottle.”

He swallowed hard. “You’re taking me back to St Gal’s, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” said Amanderella. “Before you collapse, combust, or hallucinate yourself into the jam‑boiler.”

Amanderella turned to the workers. “Tom, Harry, he needs a doctor who understands the delicate balance between a head wound and a chronic habit. And for heaven’s sake, get him a blanket. If the City Trumpeter sees the ‘Citrus Monster’ in this state, they’ll realise he’s not a demon, he’s just a very thirsty manufacturer who’s been declared legally dead by his own wife.”

Tom and Harry exchanged a look, the sort of look shared by men who had once lifted a jam‑boiler together and now suspected they were about to carry something far more volatile.

“A blanket, aye,” said Tom, already backing toward the door. “Two, maybe. He’s shakin’ like a blancmange in an earthquake.”

Harry nodded vigorously. “And if the City Trumpeter comes by, we’ll tell him the Monster’s gone to ground. Or evaporated. Or… or been bottled.”

“Bottled?” Nellie snorted. “He’d only drink himself.”

Mr Terkins whimpered at this, clutching the sheet tighter around his shoulders.

Amanderella ignored the interruption with the serene focus of a woman who had once navigated a garden party where a mischievous guest had “accidentally” fortified the punch.

“Tom,” she said, “you will fetch the blanket. Harry, you will find something resembling a coat. And Nellie,”

“Yes, Miss?”

“Ensure he does not attempt to crawl under the desk again. I will not have to explain to St Gal’s why their missing patient arrived folded.”

Nellie planted herself beside the trembling manufacturer. “He’s not goin’ anywhere.”

Mr Terkins blinked up at Amanderella, his eyes glassy and enormous. “You’re… you’re really takin’ me back to the hospital?”

“Yes,” she said. “Before you expire, explode, or attempt to distil the ink from your own ledger.”

He sagged. “They won’t like it.”

“No,” Amanderella agreed. “But they will like the alternative even less.”

Tom reappeared with a blanket that looked as though it had been knitted during the Crimean War. Harry followed with a coat that had once belonged to a man twice Terkins’ size and half his sobriety.

Between them, they draped the shivering marmalade magnate in enough wool to disguise him as a migrating haystack.

Amanderella stepped back to inspect the result.

“Acceptable,” she said. “Let us move before he begins hallucinating again. The last thing we need is another sighting of the Citrus Monster.”

Mr Terkins whimpered. “She’s not waiting outside, is she?”

“No,” Amanderella said firmly. “Mrs Terkins is nowhere near this factory.”

He breathed out in relief, and promptly swayed sideways.

Tom caught him. Harry steadied him. Nellie rolled her eyes.

Amanderella opened the office door.

“Gentlemen,” she said, “we are going to St Gal’s Free Hospital. And we are going with dignity.”

Tom and Harry exchanged another look.

“Right,” Tom muttered. “Dignity.”

Harry nodded. “As much as we can manage.”

And with that, the procession began: Amanderella leading like a general, the workers staggering behind with their trembling, blanket‑swaddled burden, and Mr Terkins muttering faintly about spiders made of peel.

The door at Entrance B was as before, unlocked. Amanderella pushed it open and marched in.

Behind her, Tom and Harry staggered under the weight of Mr Terkins, who was muttering about “rind‑spiders” and trying to burrow deeper into the Crimean blanket. Nellie followed, arms folded, ready to prevent any escape attempts.

The porter, the same Arthur Harrip as before, looked up, saw the approaching bundle of wool and terror, and went the colour of unripe porridge.

He dropped his ledger.

He dropped his pen.

He very nearly dropped himself.

“Oh no,” he whispered. “Not again.”

Amanderella stopped before him. “Good afternoon. We require medical attention.”

The porter pointed a shaking finger at the blanket‑swaddled figure. “He’s back.”

“Yes,” Amanderella said crisply. “And this time he is alive, conscious, and in need of a doctor who can distinguish between a head injury and a hangover.”

The porter clung to the doorframe. “I have to fetch Matron. She said if he ever came back, I was to, I was to—”

He swallowed.

“—alert her immediately and then lie down somewhere dark.”

“Do the first,” Amanderella said. “You may save the second for later.”

The porter fled inside, his boots slapping the tiles like panicked applause.

Moments later, Matron Nipp appeared, tall, rigid, and full of starched indignation. She stopped dead when she saw the bundle.

She did not flinch; she simply adjusted her cuffs with a sharp, decisive tug that suggested she was preparing to re-organise the entire universe. Her spine stiffened to a degree that suggested internal scaffolding.

“Absolutely not,” she said.

“Absolutely yes,” Amanderella replied.

Matron’s gaze snapped to her. “Lady Gottsnobbler, this hospital does not admit figments.”

“He is not a figment,” Amanderella said. “He is a man with a concussion, dehydration, delirium tremens, and a wife who believes he is both dead and preserved.”

Mr Terkins whimpered. “She’ll pickle me.”

Matron’s expression flickered, just for a moment, with something that might have been sympathy, or indigestion.

“The hospital,” she said stiffly, “has no record of this gentleman.”

“That,” Amanderella replied, “is because your staff tore out the page, and attempted to pretend he had never existed.”

The porter made a small, guilty noise behind her.

Matron inhaled sharply. “That page was removed for… administrative reasons.”

“Indeed,” Amanderella said. “And now your administrative reasons are shivering, hallucinating, and leaking marmalade onto your doorstep.”

Matron looked at the trembling figure. Then at the workers. Then at Amanderella.

The Matron’s gaze moved to a sticky, orange-stained boot poking out from the horse-blanket. “He is dripping on the Portland stone,” she observed, her tone suggesting that the mess on the pavement was a far greater sin than the resurrection. “And if that is a Grade-A linen shroud I see peeking out from that rug, I shall expect it to be returned to the laundry in a state of 'immaculate'. We cannot have the deceased wandering about in the inventory.”

Finally, she exhaled through her nose like a disgruntled bull.

“Very well,” she said. “Bring him in.”

The porter sagged with relief.

Mr Terkins sagged with exhaustion.

Tom and Harry sagged under his weight.

Amanderella did not sag at all.

As they carried him inside, Matron muttered, “This solves the loss problem, at least. The Board will be relieved.”

Amanderella arched an eyebrow. “The loss problem?”

Matron sniffed. “It is far easier to explain a misplaced patient than a resurrected one.”

Mr Terkins whimpered again.

Amanderella followed them into the corridor, her voice cool and precise.

“Matron, I shall require a full account of how this occurred.”

Matron stiffened. “And I shall require a full account of how he escaped.”

Amanderella smiled faintly.

“Oh, Matron,” she said. “I suspect we shall both be disappointed.”