by Alan Bradley
It was not Phyllis Wyvern I thought of, though, but Feely. With filming shut down, her chance of stardom was over.
Ages from now—sometime in the misty future—historians sifting through the vaults of Ilium Films would come across a spool of film with images of a letter being placed carefully, again and again, upon a tabletop. What would they make of it? I wondered.
It was pleasant, in a complicated way, to think that those out-of-focus hands, with their long perfect fingers, would be those of my sister. Feely would be all that remained of The Cry of the Raven, the film that died before it was born.
I came back to reality with a start.
Father was summoning Dogger with a single raised eyebrow, and I took the opportunity to escape up the stairs.
I had much to do and there was little time left.
And yet there was. When I got to my bedroom, I saw that it was not yet eleven o’clock.
I had always been told by Mrs. Mullet that Father Christmas did not come either until after midnight, or until everyone in the household was asleep—I’ve forgotten the exact formula. One way or another, it was far too early to check my traps: With half the population of Bishop’s Lacey wandering about at large in the house, the old gentleman would hardly risk coming down the drawing room chimney.
And then this thought came to mind. How could Father Christmas climb down—and back up—so many million chimneys without getting his costume dirty? Why had there never been, on Christmas morning, a filthy black trail on the carpet?
I knew perfectly well from my own experiments that the carbonic products of combustion were messy enough even in the small quantities in which they were encountered in the laboratory, but to think of a full-grown man descending a chimney encrusted with decades of soot while wearing an outfit that was little better than an oversized pipe cleaner was beyond belief. Why hadn’t I thought of this before? Why had such an obviously scientific proof never occurred to me?
Unless there was some invisible elf who followed Father Christmas around with a broom and a dustpan—or a supernatural hoover—things were looking grim indeed.
Outside, a rising wind buffeted at the house, rattling the windowpanes in their ancient frames. Inside, the temperature had fallen to that of a penguin’s feet, and I shivered in spite of myself.
I would tuck up in bed with my notebook and a pencil. Until it was time to venture out onto the roof I would turn my attention to murder.
I wrote at the top of a fresh page Who Killed Phyllis Wyvern? and drew a line under it.
SUSPECTS (ALPHABETICALLY):
Anthony, the chauffeur (I don’t know his surname.)—A lurking sort of person with a hangdog expression, who seems always to be watching me. PW seemed cold towards him, but perhaps this is the way of all film stars to their drivers. Is he resentful? Seemed vaguely familiar when he appeared on our doorstep. Eastern European? Or was it just his uniform? Surely not. Aunt F said PW had an irrational horror of Eastern Europeans and insisted upon always working with the same British film crew. Had Anthony, perhaps, appeared in one of her pictures? Or in a magazine photo? Look into—perhaps even ask him outright.
Crawford, Gil—PW humiliated him in front of the entire village by slapping his face. Although gentle as a lamb nowadays, it’s important to remember that as a commando, Gil was trained to kill in silence—by strangulation with a bit of piano wire!
Duncan, Desmond—No obvious motive other than that PW overshadows him. He’s acted with her for years on stage and in film. Rivalry? Jealousy? Something deeper? Further inquiry needed.
Keats, Bun—PW treats her like dog dirt on the sole of a dancing slipper. Although she should be filled with resentment, she seems not to be. Are there people who thrive on abuse? Or is there fire beneath the ashes? Must ask Dogger about this.
Lampman, Val (Waldemar)—PW’s son. (Hard to believe but Aunt Felicity claims it’s so.) PW threatened to tell DD about Val’s “interesting adventure in Buckinghamshire.” Obvious tension between them (e.g., the benefit performance of Romeo and Juliet). Does he stand to inherit his mother’s estate? Did she have bags and bags of money? How can I find that out? And what about his horribly scratched forearms? The wounds didn’t seem fresh. Another point to talk over with Dogger in the morning.
Latshaw, Ben—Seems something of a troublemaker. But what would he gain by bringing the film’s production to a halt? He had been promoted due to Patrick McNulty’s injury. Could he have been hired by someone at llium Films to do in PW far from the studio? (Mere speculation on my part.)
Trodd, Marion—The horn-rimmed mystery. Hangs round in silence like the smell of a clogged drain. She bears a strong resemblance to the actress Norma Durance. But those were old photos. Should have asked Aunt Felicity about her. N.B.—do later.
I scratched my head with the pencil as I reviewed my notes. I could see at once that they were far from satisfactory.
In most criminal investigations—both on the wireless and in my own experience—there are always more suspects than you can shake a stick at, but in this case, the field seemed sparse indeed. While there had been no shortage of grudges against Phyllis Wyvern, there had been no outright hatred: nothing that would even begin to explain her brutal strangling or the bow of motion picture film tied almost gaily round her neck.
In fact, I could still see it: that band of black celluloid at her throat, each of its frames bearing a still image of the actress herself in her peasant blouse, her defiant face shining like the sun against a dramatically darkened sky.
How could I forget it when I had seen it so often in my dreams? It was from that shocking final scene of Anna of the Steppes, alias Dressed for Dying, in which Phyllis Wyvern, as the doomed Anna Sheristikova, lays herself down in front of the advancing tractors.
In my tired mind, I fancied I could hear the sound of their snarling engines, but it was only the wind, as it howled and battered at the house.
Wind … tractors … Dieter … Feely …
When my eyes snapped open it was eight minutes past midnight.
From somewhere in the house came the sound of singing.
“O little town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie …”
I could see in my mind the reverently upturned faces of the villagers.
I knew instantly that, in spite of everything that had happened, the vicar had decided to observe Christmas. He had asked the men of the village to move our old Broadwood grand piano from the drawing room into the foyer, and Feely was now at the keyboard. I knew it was Feely and not Max Brock, because of the hesitating little sob she was able to extract from the instrument as the melody flew up—and then began to fall.
Because Phyllis Wyvern’s remains were still present in the house, the vicar was allowing only the more subdued carols to be sung.
I leapt out of bed and pulled on a pair of the long, mud-colored cotton stockings that Father insisted I wear outdoors in winter. Although I hated the scraggly things with a passion, I knew how cold it would be on the roof.
That done, I grabbed the powerful torch I had pinched from the pantry and passed as silently as I could into my laboratory, where I shoved a flint igniter into the pocket of my cardigan.
I gently took up the plump Rocket of Honor, cradling it in my arms for a couple of moments and smiling down upon it as lovingly as in a Nativity scene.
Then I made for the narrow staircase.
• TWENTY •
THE ROOF WAS A howling wilderness. A biting wind blew stinging gusts of snow from peak to peak, blasting my face with particles as hard as frozen sand. The weather had worsened since last I had been up here, and it was clear that the storm was far from over.
Now came the real work. Trip after trip I made, back and forth, up and down the stairs between roof and laboratory, lugging pot after pot until at last my fireworks were ranged in rings round the chimney stacks like so many unlit candles on a tiered cake.
Although it was difficult to see in the darkness, I
was reluctant to switch on the torch until it became absolutely necessary. No need to attract unwanted attention from the ground, I thought, by creating a wandering will-o’-the-wisp among the dark chimney pots, which now loomed above me—tall, ominous shadows against the snowy sky. The dark clouds, sagging above my head like half-deflated blimps, were almost low enough to reach up and touch.
I had now completed my last trip and Phyllis Wyvern’s Rocket of Honor was cradled heavily in my arms. I could not possibly lug it with me round acres of roof while I completed my preparations, nor could I dump it out here in the open, where it would quickly become wet and useless.
No, I would set the thing up on the east side of one of the chimneys, where it would be sheltered from the stormy blast, ready to launch when the time came.
I trudged my way through what seemed like miles of knee-deep snow, and gave a gasp of relief when I finally spotted my destination: the towering chimney pots of Buckshaw’s west wing. With surprisingly little trouble, I set up the rocket in the midst of my flowerpot fireworks by folding down the legs of the wire tripod I had improvised from a couple of Feely’s clothes hangers.
Just one flick of the igniter and WHOOSH! Up it would climb into the night sky like a blazing comet, before exploding with a BOOM! that would awaken Saint Tancred himself, who had lain sleeping under the altar of the village church for more than five hundred years. In fact, I had added an extra cup of gunpowder to the rocket’s inner chamber to assure that the dozing Saint T would not be left out of the festivities.
The Rocket of Honor, of course, would be the finale to my show of chemical pyrotechnics. First would come the golden rains and the opening buds of red fire, giving way gradually to the bangs and booms of the Bengali Bombardes.
I hugged myself, partly in glee and partly from the cold.
I would begin with the Royal Salute, a genteel but impressive aerial display whose recipe I had found in one of Uncle Tar’s notebooks. It had been formulated originally by the famous Ruggieri brothers for King George II in 1749, and designed to accompany the music that Mr. Handel had composed especially for the Royal Fireworks display.
Since the large wooden building constructed to house the king’s musicians had been set ablaze by the fireworks and gone up in flames, and the sheer number of spectators had caused one of the spans of London Bridge to collapse under their weight into the river Thames, that first performance had not been entirely successful.
Who was to say? My re-creation of a few of those famous explosions might make up, if only a little, for what must have been at the time something of a national embarrassment.
Let the show begin!
I swept away the snow from my waterproof flowerpots and reached into my pocket for the igniter. If the wind let up even for a few seconds, one good spark would be all that was needed—a single spark to set off a display of fire they would still be talking about when I was an old lady, cackling over my chemical cauldrons.
I stepped back for one last look at my lovingly crafted explosives.
Perhaps it was because my eyes had been squeezed half shut against the blowing snow that I had not immediately noticed the second set of footprints stretching back towards the door.
Father Christmas! I thought at once. He’s parked his sleigh, walked across the roof, and gone into the house by the same door I’ve just come out.
But why? Why wouldn’t he have climbed immediately down the chimney, as he had been doing for hundreds of years?
Of course! It was suddenly as plain as a pikestaff. Father Christmas was supernatural, wasn’t he? He’d have known about my glue and steered clear of it! Did supernatural beings even leave traces in the snow?
Why hadn’t I thought of this stupidly simple point sooner and saved myself all the trouble?
But wait! Hadn’t I been up here myself, earlier, to set up my pots of fireworks?
Of course! What a little fool you are, Flavia!
I was looking at my own footprints.
And yet … almost before that thought came to mind, I knew it could not possibly be true. It had been hours since I was last on the roof. With the blowing wind and the drifting snow, my own earlier footprints would surely have been filled in within minutes. Even my fresh-made prints were already losing their sharply defined edges.
A couple of leaps brought me to the trail of tracks, and I could see at a glance, close up, that they led away from the door, not towards it.
Someone besides Flavia and Father Christmas had been up here on the roof.
And quite recently, if I was not mistaken.
Furthermore, if I had read the signs correctly, they were still up here, hiding somewhere in the snowy wastes.
“Run for it, Flavia!” the ancient, instinctive part of my brain was shrieking, and yet I was still hovering—frozen by the moment, reluctant to move even an inch—when a dark figure stepped silently out from behind the chimney pot of Harriet’s boudoir.
It was dressed in a long, old-fashioned leather aviator’s coat that reached halfway down its riding boots, the high collar turned up above the ears. Its eyes were covered with the small, round green lenses of an ancient leather helmet of the sort Harriet had worn in her flying days, and its hands gloved in long, stiff leather gauntlets.
My first thought, of course, was that this specter was my mother, and my blood froze.
Although I had longed, all of my life, to be reunited with Harriet, I did not want it to be like this. Not masked—not on a windswept roof.
I’m afraid I whimpered.
“Who are you?” I managed.
“Your past,” I thought the figure whispered.
Or was it just the wind?
“Who are you?” I demanded again.
The figure took a menacing step towards me.
Then suddenly, somewhere inside my head, a voice was speaking as calmly as the BBC wireless announcer reading out the shipping forecasts for Rockall, the Shetlands, and the Orkneys.
“Keep your head,” it was saying. “You know this person—you simply haven’t realized it yet!”
And it was true. Although I had all the information I needed, I hadn’t put together all of the pieces. This specter was really no more than someone who had dressed themselves up from the film studio’s wardrobe—someone who did not want to be recognized.
“It’s no good, Mr. Lampman,” I said, standing my ground. “I know you murdered your mother.”
Somehow it didn’t seem right to call him “Val.”
“You and your accomplice did her in and rigged her up in the costume she wore in Dressed for Dying—the role you had promised to your—what do you call it?—your mistress.”
It was almost comforting to hear the words of that old formula coming out of my mouth—the final exchange between a cold-blooded killer and the investigator who had cracked the case. It had taken a great deal of poring over the pages of Cinema Secrets and Silver Screen to dig out that final incriminating tidbit. I was proud of myself.
But not for long.
The figure made a sudden lunge, taking me by surprise, almost knocking me backwards into a snowdrift. Only by windmilling my arms and making a blind and off-balance leap backwards was I able to stay on my feet.
With my attacker blocking the way to the staircase, there was no point in making a dash for it. Better to find safety in height, like a cat.
I scrambled, slipping and sliding up onto one of the chimney collars—one that I hadn’t slathered with glue. From up here I could hold on with one arm while kicking the killer in the face, should the need arise.
It didn’t take long.
With a hiss like an infuriated snake, my attacker pulled from one of its large coat pockets a stick which I believe is called by the police a truncheon, or a billy club, and brought the thing crashing down just inches from my feet.
Whack! it went—and whack! again, the blows raining down on the brick ledge of the chimney pot with a series of sharp, sickening sounds, like bones being broken.
I had to leap like a highland dancer to keep my toes from being pulverized.
Behind me, I remembered, on the drawing room chimney, were the fuses for the fireworks—perhaps no more than ten yards away. If only I could reach them … touch the striker to the fuse … summon help … the rest of it would be in the hands of Fate.
But now the gauntlets were grabbing at my ankles, and I was kicking back at them for all I was worth.
This time I was rewarded with the sound and the feel of shoe leather on skull, and the figure reeled back with a hoarse cry of pain, clutching at its face.
Taking advantage of the moment, I edged my way round to the far side of the chimney. From there, I could leap down unseen, I hoped, onto the roof.
I had to risk it. There was no other choice.
I landed more lightly than expected and was already halfway to the drawing room chimney when my attacker spotted me and, with a cry of rage, came charging across the roof, its boots throwing up clods of snow as it came.
Out of breath, I threw myself at the chimney, this one larger than the first, and pulled myself up to safety, my hand already digging into my pocket for the igniter.
The fuses were now just below me at shoe level. With any luck, just one click would do the trick.
I ducked down and squeezed the spring handle.
Click!
And nothing more.
Too late now. My attacker was already clawing at the ledge like a maddened animal, preparing to haul itself up beside me. If that happened I was finished.
I swung at its goggled face with the torch—and missed!
The torch slipped out of my hand and fell, as if in slow motion, tumbling end over end down onto the roof, where it lay half buried in a snowdrift, shooting a crazily angled beam up into my attacker’s eyes, half blinding it.