by Alan Bradley
“You go first,” I said as I picked an excuse out of the air. “I’m terrified of heights.”
My real reason was that I didn’t want anyone between me and the top of the staircase.
“Always guard your exits,” Daffy had once told me during one of our frank talks. She had been reading an English translation of an ancient Chinese text on military strategy, and was adapting its teachings to everyday life. “You never know,” she warned, “what each new wind will bring.”
And she was right. A light breeze had now begun to stir the flag above our heads, bringing with it the sound of faint music from Shadrach’s Circus and, if I was not mistaken, the sharp odor of wild animals.
“Come,” said Mr. Clemm, beckoning with a forefinger.
I followed him cautiously round the shedlike structure. The view, I must admit, was spectacular.
Far, far below us, at the bottom of a dizzying drop, were the lead roofs of the church, jutting every which way at sharklike Gothic angles.
“Behold,” Mr. Clemm said, pointing, as he swept his arm round half the horizon. “All the wicked world.”
Was he being facetious? Perhaps not. The man was, after all, an ordained minister of the Church of England and, as such, licensed to hear confessions. If anyone in Volesthorpe had the worldly goods on everyone, it was probably Mr. Clemm.
Perhaps even more so than Constable Otter.
“Over there,” he said, pointing to the dock at the edge of the churchyard, “was where the poisoned chalice was found.”
I nodded knowingly. I’d almost forgotten the poisoned chalice. Who had put it there, I wondered, after the tragedy of the Three Graces?
“And also,” he drew the words out with great emphasis, “the spot where you recovered the body of Orlando Whitbread.”
He leered at me.
“Could it be, do you think, a coincidence?”
Was the man trying to tell me something? Was he trying to tip me off about something he had been told in confidence, without actually betraying the Seal of the Confessional, which, Daffy had told me, although it was a popular plot device and dear to the hearts of grubbing novelists and foreign film directors who were completely devoid of imagination, did not actually exist in law—not, at least, in England?
“Huh?” I said.
Mr. Clemm had on his face a look which I took to be exasperation.
“Is it not odd,” he asked, moving a little closer, “that Orlando Whitbread should be found dead at precisely the same spot at which the murder weapon, so to speak, used by his own father was found?”
“Now that you mention it,” I said, “I suppose it is.”
“Look—Miss de Luce—” the vicar said. “I know who you are. There’s no point in pretending with me. Your reputation has preceded you. I know where you’ve been and what you’ve done.”
He was referring, I supposed, to my successfully solving a number of crimes which had perplexed the police. I couldn’t help preening a little.
“Constable Otter has enlightened me—” he went on.
I held up a modest hand to stop him.
“What is it you wished to show me, Mr. Clemm?” I asked.
One of the greatest accomplishments of the detective’s art is in learning to seem obtuse.
Another is in learning to provoke at precisely the right moment.
“Or did you simply want to get me up here alone?”
It was a bold move and, as I suspected it would, it took him by surprise.
He took another step toward me.
I stepped backward and away from him—toward the parapet.
“Hello the tower!” called a voice from somewhere below. “Miss Flavia!”
I risked a rapid glance over the edge.
Harriet’s Rolls-Royce was parked on the gravel path, and beside its open door stood Dogger, calling up to me through the megaphone of his cupped hands.
·TWENTY-ONE·
IT IS UTTERLY IMPOSSIBLE for anyone ever to know what Dogger is actually thinking.
Except for me, of course.
Because of the great hardships to which he was subjected during the war, Dogger wears nothing on his sleeve but cloth. He can seem as blank as a newly whited wall, and yet—
I have learned to observe, by the minute movements of his eyelashes, the degree to which he parts his lips when he speaks, the caliber of his nostrils, and the tension of the skin at his temples (a sure indicator, which cannot be suppressed or modified by even the greatest actors of stage and cinema), his innermost thoughts.
In spite of that, the two of us always observe the ritual courtesies with each other.
“I hope you’ll forgive my raising my voice, Miss Flavia,” he said, as he met me at the door. “St. Mildred’s has an uncommonly high tower for a fourteenth-century church. A hundred and thirty-five feet, I should say.”
“A hundred and thirty-six,” I told him. I had seen this fact inscribed on the tablet in the porch. “But perhaps, over the years, it has sunk a foot into the churchyard.”
“Perhaps,” Dogger said.
I had left Mr. Clemm on the roof to his own devices. I paused for a moment to listen for his footsteps on the winding stone staircase, but the old church was in silence.
“Dogger,” I asked as we walked slowly to where the Rolls was parked, “has it ever occurred to you that Canon Whitbread may have been innocent?”
“It has indeed, Miss Flavia,” he said. “It was, in fact, one of the reasons I suggested visiting Volesthorpe on our little holiday.”
“You didn’t!” I said, knowing perfectly well that he had. Dogger had put forward several excellent-seeming reasons for selecting this part of the river rather than Oxford or Cambridge, and in the end, even Aunt Felicity had been swayed.
“You astonish me!” I said.
“Yes.” Dogger smiled.
“But,” I said, remembering my visualization of the crimes from the pews of St. Mildred’s, “if Canon Whitbread didn’t kill those three old ladies, then who on earth did?”
“Someone,” Dogger said, “who had something to hide. Someone who feared being found out.”
“The poor man!” I said, thinking of Canon Whitbread.
“If that should be the case,” Dogger went on, “then a very grave miscarriage of justice has occurred. Very grave indeed. Judicial murder.”
“But whatever made you think so?” I asked.
“It was perhaps the speed with which he was arrested, tried, and executed,” Dogger answered, holding open the front door of the car for me. “There is, of course, the so-called three Sundays rule which suggests—although not officially, of course—that three Sabbaths must be allowed to pass between the putting on of the judge’s black cap and the drop from the scaffold, but still…”
“So much death,” I said.
“Yes,” Dogger agreed. “Too much death.”
Without another word, he eased into first gear, and we rolled silently out of the churchyard.
“Have you had an interesting day?” I inquired.
“Most interesting,” Dogger replied. “A day at the circus can be remarkably instructive.”
“And not because of the elephant,” I said, teasing a little.
“Not because of the elephant.” Dogger smiled. “But perhaps in spite of it.”
“Meaning?” I asked.
Before answering, Dogger turned the Rolls around and pointed its bonnet to the narrow dirt road that led along the riverbank. I knew enough to keep silent.
“In all walks of life and in all professions,” he said at last, “there are those whom we might call the Invisible Ones. No one remarks upon the presence of a clergyman at a funeral, or a policeman at the scene of a crime. No one thinks it strange to find a surgeon in the operating theater.”
Although I could quite agree with him, I didn’t see exactly what—or who—Dogger was driving at in this particular case.
“I suppose we usually look for the person who is out of place. ‘Ch
erchez le stranger,’ Daffy would probably say.”
“Precisely.” Dogger nodded. “And often quite wrongly. Although we have no way of knowing who might or might not have been present at the death of a man in blue silk and red ballet slippers, we may be permitted to make certain deductions.”
I loved it when Dogger talked like this. It made me feel that we were partners.
That we were equals.
It made me feel grown up and appreciated. It made me feel wanted.
A momentary pang struck at my heart. How could I possibly withhold from this kind and generous man the fact that I had picked the corpse’s pocket as I waited on the riverbank?
Should I own up to Dogger and be done with it?
How could I admit that there was part of me that—quite desperately!—needed to have the upper hand, to intentionally withhold information: information which would all but guarantee that I should be the one to solve the murder of Orlando Whitbread?
In the Roman Catholic Church, I remembered, a sin is covered by the grace of sacrament until you get around to confessing it, but in criminal investigation, it’s an entirely different matter.
The answer was clear: I would confess later.
“Do you suppose there’s any connection between Orlando’s death and the deaths of the Three Graces?” I asked Dogger.
“I could hardly be persuaded otherwise,” he said. “Multiple deaths in a tight-knit community prove often to be links in a single chain, however obscure that chain may seem to be. Miss A, for instance, might stab Miss B in the heart with an ice pick for love of Mr. C, while Miss D or Mrs. E might pine away in silence for the same unwitting gentleman.”
“Mr. C would have a great deal to answer for,” I said, “even if he was unaware of the facts.”
“In a chemical reaction, I believe, the catalyst need not be aware of the reactants. It is little consumed itself, and often only a minute quantity is required to cause an infinitely larger effect. Of course, you’d know much more about this than I would, Miss Flavia, but you take my point.”
Of course I did! Dogger was brilliant!
What smoldering embers had lain beneath the surface of this sleepy town, waiting only for the tiniest flash of flame to ignite the tinder?
I thought at once of Mrs. Palmer and the brass stallion in her poem. Who had he been, and who had resented him?
And the Three Graces: What tales had their tongues tattled to result in their triple murder?
“Why isn’t Constable Otter investigating Orlando’s death as suspicious?” I asked. “Why is he so anxious to treat it as a simple drowning?”
“The police move in mysterious ways,” Dogger said. “Their wonders to perform.”
Which opened whole realms of possibilities. Was Dogger hinting that Constable Otter himself might be involved? Could the constable be the brass stallion of the poem?
Or could it have been Orlando?
This was the most complicated case I had ever come across. Four people dead—five if you counted Canon Whitbread, who may have been wrongfully executed—and hardly a sensible clue to be had.
Everyone in town, it seemed, within the past two years, had bought cyanide for one reason or another: none attracting the slightest bit of attention, apparently, except for the good Canon Whitbread, whose campaigns against the humble wasp had resulted in a noose around his neck.
Even Mrs. Dandyman, of Shadrach’s Circus, who came to Volesthorpe only once a year, seemed obsessed with ridding the world of sinners and replacing them with painted saints.
Perhaps it was too much for me, I thought. Perhaps I ought to ring up Inspector Hewitt, dump my basket of undigested trifle at his feet, and let him apply his superior brain to the evidence.
Should I? In a pig’s parlor!
I would never live it down.
Flavia de Luce Fails! the headlines would scream. Copper Solves Shocking Case Single-Handed.
“I shouldn’t worry about it,” Dogger said, breaking into my thoughts. “Inspector Hewitt would be as baffled as we are.”
“How did you know I was thinking of Inspector Hewitt?” I asked, taken aback.
“You straightened your hair and then you bit your thumbnail.”
“Marvelous, Holmes!” I said, even though I felt like an idiot for being so transparent.
“No more so than your working out the state of my…health,” Dogger said, with a sideways smile.
I had to laugh.
“You’re observing me observing you observing me. Is that the way the world works?”
“Largely,” Dogger said. “Yes.”
We fell into one of those warm silences that I live for, and I stared out at the passing willows as the road narrowed to little more than a footpath.
“Where are we going?” I asked. “Back to Scull Cottage?”
“No,” Dogger said. “Miss Tetlock has kindly arranged for us to visit the formidable Poppy Mandrill. We’re to pick her up. They are, apparently, old friends.”
I gasped.
“I told her I was keen on the history of the London stage. I’m sorry for speaking such an untruth, but I couldn’t see any other way around it.”
“But are you?” I asked. “Keen, I mean?”
“I have seen a few shows in my day. I shall manage.”
“But,” I said, my mind reeling, “Poppy Mandrill might well be our prime suspect.”
And although I had vowed to keep back my confession until later, the whole sad story of how I had deceived him came suddenly pouring out: not just my rifling of the corpse’s pockets and my finding of the crumpled paper, but also Hob Nightingale and his camera, the chemist, the aerial photos, the empty wheelchair—all of it in one breathless blurt.
I was ashamed of myself.
“Well done!” Dogger said, shaking his head.
Claire Tetlock was waiting for us at the edge of the field. Dogger got out of the Rolls and opened the back door for her.
“I feel like visiting royalty,” she said, settling back into the soft leather upholstery. “Hello, Flavia.”
I twisted round from my usual seat beside Dogger and gave her my warmest smile.
“Hello, Claire,” I said, remembering she had given me permission to use her Christian name.
The first time I had seen her, Claire had been hot from hoeing, damp under a tropical hat. But now—dressed to kill, I thought—in a bluish-green belted summer frock with a bit of lace at the throat, she looked like nothing so much as a visiting duchess. Maureen O’Hara astray in the English countryside.
I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
“I’m quite looking forward to this,” she said. “I haven’t visited with Poppy for ages. She’s quite a character, you know.”
“I hadn’t realized you were such good friends,” I said, recalling how uneasy Claire had seemed at Scull Cottage in the presence of Poppy’s ancient theatrical posters.
“Not quite friends,” Claire corrected. “I had occasion to call upon her as a nurse. It was more of a professional association.”
My ears perked up. Was Claire aware that Poppy Mandrill was able to get out of her wheelchair when the occasion demanded?
“Poor soul,” I said. “She’s not quite well, is she?”
Which Claire could take in any way she wanted.
She laughed.
“Poppy is an actress,” she said. “And a very great one, at that. The London stage did not misjudge her. In her day she was a Titan…a Titaness. Or a Poppaea. That’s her name, you know. Poppy. Poppaea.”
Poppaea Sabina, I recalled, from Daffy’s sometimes daring chatter at the breakfast table, was the woman who schemed her way into a marriage with the Roman emperor Nero, who later (Daffy had whispered over the kippers) kicked both her and her unborn child to death.
Perhaps in part because we shared the middle name Sabina, I had always felt an invisible kinship with this determined and yet somehow tragic woman. Being married to Nero must not exactly have been a piece of cake.
>
After turning it round, Dogger negotiated the Rolls along a narrow lane that rose, gradually, away from the river, ending in a shady grove where the yaffling call of a green woodpecker rang out among the trees like a series of rapid ricochets in an elderly Western film. Only the puffs of smoke were missing.
“Alhambra House,” Claire told us. “Named after the theater.”
There was nothing quite so grand about this place. A dank-looking pile whose weathered white plaster front was so cracked with an overgrowth of ivy that one longed to slash at it with a sword-stick, as Queen Mary, the Queen Mother, was said to be so fond of doing.
A couple of once-impressive pillars marked the entrance, their peeling paint betraying that they were composed of no more than worm-eaten wood, from which ants came and went in busy funeral processions.
“Poppy has fallen upon hard times,” Claire said. “This place was once the Mecca of the theatrical world. Noel and Larry simply begged to be allowed to sit at the feet of the grande dame.”
Which reminded me of something.
“What happened to her leg?” I asked.
“It was a national calamity,” Claire replied. “An accident with a piece of stage machinery. Poppy’s greatest, most famous scene at the end of the play. She was swinging high above the stage on an iron crescent moon when the rigging somehow failed. Although it was later determined to have been an accident, some said that the gear had been tampered with. At any rate, the heavy contraption, in falling, acted like the blade of a scimitar and…well…”
I didn’t need Claire to describe the scene. I could picture it all too well: the crashing down of the mechanical moon; the single horrible, bloodcurdling scream; the audience, electrified, leaping to their feet; the hundred gasps; the hands raised to cover mouths; the sudden dimming of the stage lights; the curtain gliding slowly down to hide the blood.
“How ghastly!” I gasped.
“Quite,” Claire said. “And yet in spite of it, just six weeks after the amputation, Poppy returned to the stage as Long John Silver, the one-legged pirate in Treasure Island.”
“Good lord!” I said, and I meant it.
“It was one of the greatest moments in theatrical history. She still sometimes makes use of the battered wooden crutch she used so effectively in that role. She keeps it hidden in the depths of that ridiculous old bath chair, but pulls it out at dramatic moments. As I say, Poppy’s a very great actress. But don’t let her fool you. You’d be surprised what she’s capable of.”