by Alan Bradley
By now we were approaching the stile. I lifted down one of the crosspieces and we stepped over easily without having to scramble across like a herd of schoolboys.
We stopped for a few moments under the willows to admire a mute swan with its two cygnets, both of which were dabbling about in circles.
“The mute swans belong to the king,” Claire told us. “They’re his personal property. At least, they did. Now they shall belong to the queen. How very odd it will seem to have a Queen Elizabeth on the throne again after three hundred and fifty years! It’s going to take some getting used to, I expect.”
A metallic clatter behind us made me turn round. Through the hanging branches I could see Scull Cottage, and someone dismounting from a bicycle.
“Shhh!” I said. “It’s Constable Otter.”
“Just in the nick of time,” said Claire.
·SEVENTEEN·
CLAIRE’S COTTAGE WAS EVERYTHING Orlando’s wasn’t: neat, compact, and filled with the morning light. A pair of wingback chairs, upholstered in cheery chintz, faced the fireplace. Dogger, with deliberate movements, lowered himself into one of them and I took the other.
Claire made herself busy with the teapot and the kettle, setting out three cups and saucers on the blue-painted kitchen table.
“Pleasant,” Dogger remarked.
I was happy to see that he seemed to be recovering himself. Having been exposed to his terrors in the past, I knew that they might be mild or severe, and of either short or horrifically long duration.
At least this time he hadn’t been haunted by visions.
As Claire was pouring the tea, I had a sudden vision of my own: of the Rolls sitting parked in the field beyond Orlando’s cottage.
Before I could say anything there came the clatter of boots on the porch and an abrupt, official-sounding knock on the door.
Claire seemed in no hurry to answer it.
“Yes, Constable?” she asked. “Is there a problem?”
Constable Otter made no secret that he was craning his neck to look past Claire to Dogger and me, who were still seated at the fireplace.
“I wondered, miss,” he said, “if you had noticed anyone about in the past twenty minutes or so?”
I knew perfectly well that he had spotted the Rolls in the field, and had done as any good policeman would do: checked the temperature of the radiator. He had estimated the time based upon the cooling rate and the time of day, taking into consideration the outside temperature.
Not bad, I thought. As I had noted before, young Otter was going places.
“No one other than my two guests, Constable. We’re just sitting down to a cup of tea. Would you care to join us?”
“Not while I’m on duty, thank you, Miss Tetlock,” he said.
Constable Otter was definitely going places.
“Anyone at Scull Cottage, I mean.”
“We walked through the property,” I volunteered, “on the way here.”
Careful, Flavia! I thought. Don’t slice it too fine.
“We parked in the field beyond,” I explained, hoping to shift attention from the cottage.
With great ceremony and a few fancy flourishes, Constable Otter produced his little black book and made a note.
“Miss de Luce and Mr. Dogger,” he said, pronouncing our names as he wrote them down.
Which seemed to satisfy him.
He closed his notebook and looked narrowly from one of us to the other. I recognized the technique.
Was the constable trying to intimidate us—or simply to assert his authority?
He turned as if to go, then paused and looked me in the eye.
“You seem to get about a good deal, Miss de Luce.”
“We’re on holiday,” I replied. “Trying to see as many of the sights as we can, yet remaining ready to hand, should you require us.”
That “ready to hand” and “require us” were both masterstrokes. They suggested availability and a willingness to please without actually fawning.
Still, I mustn’t risk being too clever with this man.
But then he turned and was gone.
Dogger, I realized, had said nothing during the constable’s visit.
I stared at him, wondering how he was feeling.
“Better, thank you,” he said.
It was remarkable! Dogger and I were as attuned to each other as two wireless sets operating on a private frequency.
At the same time, I could tell that he needed time to recuperate. It would be up to me to make good use of the meantime.
“I must admit I’m curious,” I said to Claire, who had come to stand behind Dogger. Although she appeared not to be, she, too, was keeping a close eye on him.
“About the Three Graces, I mean.”
“Ah, the Three Graces,” she said. “Miss Willoughby, Miss Harcourt, and Miss Cray. Where did you hear about them?”
“Mrs. Dandyman at the circus told me about them. I didn’t want to pry too much.”
“Probably a wise choice,” Claire remarked, and left it at that.
“We should be happy to hear their story,” Dogger said, settling back into his chair.
This was an excellent sign, and I could see that Claire thought so, too.
“Well,” she began, “it all had to do with the church. St. Mildred’s had just begun to drag itself out of the Middle Ages. For the first time since the Creation, women were beginning to take on certain roles—not ordination, to be sure, but important roles nevertheless.”
“Such as vicar’s warden,” I said.
“Precisely. And as you can well imagine, because of the very novelty of these appointments, the competition to fill them was fierce. Until this time, Miss Willoughby, Miss Harcourt, and Miss Cray had been the greatest of friends—cronies, you might have called them. They played bridge and euchre together, they took holidays together, they made up half of the Volesthorpe ‘Bitter Knitters,’ as they called their little circle—jokingly, of course, but as you know, a joke, in order to be effective, must be at least half true.
“And then there was the gossip. It was said that those three had refined rumors into razor blades. There was nothing they didn’t know and weren’t willing to talk about: from the color of Annie Trout’s knickers, which were said to be Venetian red, to the precise amount to the penny in little Albert Morrow’s piggy bank…two shillings, fourpence, ha’penny.
“But when the vicar’s warden, dear old Dr. Glandley, died suddenly after catching a chill during a midnight house call, everything changed.
“It wasn’t exactly open warfare, but it wasn’t far from it. Oh, they were still polite enough to one another when they met, but it was as if each of them had mysteriously grown bristles. There were odd visits in odd hours to the vicarage: forgotten gloves, borrowed books, promised recipes…any pretext to get Canon Whitbread alone and press their case.”
“Who was it that called them the Three Graces?” I asked.
“Funnily enough, it was Canon Whitbread himself. Initially, I think, he tried to make light of the situation, but he finally realized that it was no joking matter. In the end, he said, he had to fall back on the wisdom of Solomon and let them take turns: a year for each, in strict rotation.”
“And what about Mrs. Palmer?” I pressed. “She told me she was vicar’s warden, too.”
“And so she was,” Claire said. “Although that happened a bit later—after Miss Cray came down with a severe colic.”
“Colic?” I asked. “I thought that was something babies got.”
“In adults,” Dogger said, “it may, among other things, be caused by kidney stones or gallstones.”
I couldn’t help shooting him a beaming smile.
“At any rate,” Claire went on, “Canon Whitbread ruled that, rather than disrupt the business of the parish with ‘temps,’ as they call them nowadays, a fourth volunteer be appointed to step in when any of the ‘Three Graces,’ as he called them, was indisposed.”
“That doe
sn’t make sense,” I objected. “A fourth person serving part-time would be no less disruptive than one of the other three filling in.”
“That very point was raised at a meeting,” Claire said, “but the canon pointed out that a temporary substitution, based upon the random bouts of illness in another, might result in an unjust division of duties. Or so he claimed. Frankly, I think he was not above inventing convenient excuses.
“The Three Graces had to pretend to be satisfied with that solution, and so Greta was allowed to join their company.”
“Greta?” I asked.
“Greta Palmer. Your present landlady.”
“Did anyone object to that?” I couldn’t resist the question.
“Oh, there was some grumbling, mostly among the Graces. There was the usual chin-wagging that Greta wasn’t as good as she ought to be—that there was some past scandal that hadn’t been properly aired—”
“And was there?” I interrupted.
Claire paused and looked up toward the ceiling as if to find an answer.
“And of which of us is there not?” she asked, finally.
I had to admit she had a point. Even I, Flavia de Luce, have done certain things in the past of which I am not particularly proud, although I don’t need to bother listing them here.
“I suppose,” I agreed, a little too weakly for my own liking.
“Now then,” Claire said, “I expect you’re wanting me to get on with it—to get to the poisonings.”
This woman knew me like the inside of her eyelids.
I shrugged.
“If you wish,” I said, the best I could do on the spur of the moment.
She laughed: not a laugh as of silvery bells, as you might expect, but a wholehearted guffaw that grew from the gut and exploded into the room.
Dogger smiled.
Life had never been sweeter.
“The poisonings,” Claire said, as if she were reading aloud the title of a scientific paper at the beginning of a speech. “It was given in evidence at the trial of Canon Whitbread that on the morning of the murders, he got out of bed and, having overslept, put on his vestments at the vicarage, rather than in the vestry of the church, as he usually did.”
“Was it a Sunday?” I asked.
“Yes, it must have been. St. Mildred’s has not conducted early Communion services on a weekday for as long as I can remember—except on certain occasions.”
“Such as when Christmas falls on a weekday or a Saturday,” I said.
Claire nodded and went on.
“He left the vicarage directly—without breakfast, as is usual for one about to partake in Holy Communion—and hurried across to the church. He was several minutes late, a fact which was later confirmed by members of the congregation.”
“Was Orlando living with his father at the time?” I asked.
“As a matter of fact, he was,” Claire said. “Although it was claimed by the Crown Prosecutor at Canon Whitbread’s trial that he had taken the 7:02 up to London the previous evening.”
“Hmmm,” I said. I would need to look into this later, I thought. Alibis involving railway timetables do not happen nearly as often in real life as they do in detective novels. Not that it much mattered now anyway, since Orlando was dead.
Or did it?
“Sorry,” I said to Claire. “I was woolgathering. Go ahead.”
“Well, Canon Whitbread began the service. The congregation was sparse, as it so often is on early summer mornings. No more than a handful of people.”
“Including the Three Graces, obviously,” I said.
“Obviously. None of them would ever dream of missing a service. Couldn’t allow the other two to get one up on them. It might have been funny if it weren’t so pitiful.
“Everything was quite normal right up to Communion. Miss Willoughby, Miss Harcourt, and Miss Cray came up to the rail together, Canon Whitbread administered the Sacraments, and they returned to their pew.”
“The same pew?” I asked.
“Oh yes—they always sat together.”
“Who else?” I asked. “In the other pews, I mean.”
“Only three others. Lettice Farnsworth and her husband, Hugo, and…oh yes, the undertaker’s lad.”
“Hob Nightingale?”
“Yes, that’s right. The little lad. Sat in the front row out of habit. Anyway, it wasn’t long—no more than a couple of minutes—before the Three Graces began dropping like flies. I’m sorry to put it so crudely, but that’s how Lettice described it at the inquest.”
Lettice Farnsworth was to be congratulated. She had given a remarkably vivid—and accurate—description of cyanide poisoning.
In its most lethal form, hydrocyanic acid (HCN), in sufficient dosage, can kill within a minute. It does so by paralyzing the central nervous system and, perhaps more important, by paralyzing the heart directly.
It is always pleasant to reflect, also, that the same cyanogen is found in the kernels of peaches and cherries, and that the glucoside amygdalin, which is contained in the essential oil of bitter almonds, as well as in the kernels of plums and apricots, is converted into hydrogen cyanide in the presence of certain enzymes and a bit of moisture, and is often used to provide the characteristic taste and odor in the manufacture of certain sweets.
Do I enthuse too much? Very well, then, I enthuse too much.
The point is that, by dropping like flies, the Three Graces reacted exactly as I should have expected.
“Mrs. Farnsworth didn’t go up for Communion herself?” I asked Claire.
“No,” Claire said. “She was made to sign the pledge with the Band of Hope when she was a child that liquor would never pass her lips.”
“Not even when it’s the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ?” I asked.
“Not even,” Claire said, shaking her head.
“What about her husband? What was his name…Hugo?”
“Poor Hugo has had his struggles with alcohol, but he’s been abstinent for years. He and Lettice go to church for reasons of their own, but when it comes to Holy Communion, they both sit on their hands.”
“It seems un-Anglican,” I said.
Claire laughed that laugh again.
“Someone once said that all Roman Catholics are Roman Catholics for the same reason, but every Anglican is Anglican for reasons of their own.”
Dogger smiled. In spite of his silence, he was following our conversation intently.
“Now then,” Claire said. “Let me get on with my story, and you can save your questions for later.”
Had I just been put in my place?
If so, she had done it so gently that I could hardly take offense.
I gave her a grin, to show that there were no hard feelings.
“Dropping like flies,” I prompted.
“Oh, yes—dropping like flies. Well…Canon Whitbread had returned what remained of the consecrated elements to the altar. Before they could finish the recital of the Lord’s Prayer, the Three Graces were dead.”
—
How fascinating, I thought, that “Feed on him in thy heart” and “preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life” would be the last words that the Three Graces would ever hear in this life before the cyanide froze their hearts, and they were plummeted into Eternity.
But what could they have done to deserve so dire a death?
“Hold on,” I said. “One more question: Why would Canon Whitbread poison three harmless old ladies? What was his motive?”
“Well,” Claire said, “it came out at his trial that there had been some jiggering of the church funds. Not a great deal, mind, but enough that the various vicar’s wardens could no longer ignore it. They had decided to join together as a body”—how apt, I thought—“in order to confront him.”
“Was Mrs. Palmer one of those?” Dogger had been sitting so quietly I’d almost forgotten he was in the room.
“Yes,” Claire answered. “They arranged to meet in the vestry. Canon Whitbread reportedly di
dn’t take it very well.”
“All of this came out at the trial, I presume?” Dogger asked.
“Yes, and most—but not all—of it was reported in the newspapers. The Church still has long arms where certain interests are involved.”
Dogger nodded, satisfied, and subsided into his thoughts.
“Now comes the interesting part,” Claire went on, resuming her story. “After the Three Graces had collapsed into their pew—like circus contortionists, Lettice told me later—Canon Whitbread went on to the Gloria and the Blessing. He didn’t come down from the altar until he had completed the service.”
“To give the cyanide time to work!” I exclaimed. “He wanted to be certain they were dead.”
“So the Crown Prosecutor suggested at his trial. But the defense suggested—quite brilliantly, at least in this instance—that the older clergy had been taught to carry on ‘come hell or high water,’ as he put it (begging M’lud’s pardon) and citing the instance of the Vicar of Chittleford who, despite a direct hit on the nave of his church during the Blitz, had gone on to the completion of Holy Communion though not a single member of the congregation remained alive. The defense then, changing course slightly, began to put forward an argument for shock, but the judge was having none of it. In the case of the Three Graces, no one from the congregation had come to their assistance until it was too late.”
“The Farnsworths and Hob Nightingale, you mean,” I said. “It wouldn’t have mattered much if they had—unless they’d just happened to have three doses of the antidote to cyanide up their sleeves, and got to the victims within seconds.”
“I suppose,” Claire said. “But Lettice claimed that they hadn’t really noticed anything untoward until Hope Harcourt slipped out of her pew and crumpled to the floor. It is not uncommon for elderly ladies to doze off at early morning services on warm summer mornings—not uncommon at all.
“Although they don’t anymore,” she added. “Since the Three Graces died, it’s believed bad luck to sit in that pew. Some say it’s haunted, some say you can still smell the poison.”
“Hold on,” I said. “What about Hob—did he see them fall?”
“Hob didn’t give direct evidence. He’s underage. But he gave a statement to the police saying that, since he was seated in front of the three victims, he would hardly have noticed anyway. Smart as a whip. A very clever thinker, our Hob is, for so young a lad.”