by Alan Bradley
From this “coign of vantage” (as Shakespeare would have called it) I could not possibly be seen. I was tucked away, safely out of sight, high above my enemies like one of the swallows in the battlements of Macbeth’s castle.
… no jutty, frieze, buttress,
Nor coign of vantage, but this bird hath made
His pendant bed …
And here I would nest.
Daffy would be proud of me.
I tucked myself in and waited. The warm humidity and the gentle hissing of the steam duct made it seem as if I were a baby animal—a hippopotamus, perhaps, or an elephant, tucked up in contentment against her mother’s leathery skin, listening to her distant heartbeat and her long, slow breathing.
The heat must have caused me to fall asleep. I was jolted awake by a scream which began as a screech, then rose and fell, wailing in the air.
My eyes flew open, my blood already well on the way to curdling.
“What is it, Marge? What’s the matter?”
Sal’s voice.
“You look as if you’ve seen a ghost. Sit down, I’ll get a chair.”
I didn’t risk peering over the edge of the duct upon which I was lying. My uncanny powers of hearing would tell me all I needed to know.
A nauseating scraping of wood on concrete followed by a plump thump told me that Sal had fetched the chair and that Marge had dropped heavily into it.
A rustle of paper confirmed that Marge had handed my note to Sal.
There was a silence in the steam as words ceased, and a low moan began.
I was enjoying this, actually.
I pictured Sal’s eyes tracking hesitantly across the page, her lips moving as she read.
“What does it mean? One of you knows my killer?”
After hours of pondering, I had decided to crib the message of the Ouija board word for word. I could hardly have bettered it.
“Christ! It’s written in blood, Sal.” Marge had regained the power of speech.
“Fresh blood, too,” she added. “Hasn’t gone brown yet.”
I rubbed my thumb against the still-raw end of my forefinger, which I had pierced again and again with one of the despised embroidery needles from the personal kit I had been issued. It’s surprising how much blood it takes to write half-a-dozen words.
I had signed the message Francesca—a long, smudged signature that leaked horribly off the edge of the page.
“Could it be—her—do you think?” Sal again, her voice trembling.
“Has to be. No other dead Francescas around here—not that I know of.”
“Put it down, Marge. It’s haunted. It’s bad luck. Take my word for it.”
“Wasn’t here Friday when we locked up. Place is tighter than a drum. How did it get in here?”
Sal’s voice had begun to develop a quaver. “What’s it mean, ‘One of you knows my killer’? She wasn’t killed, she fell off a boat and drowned—or so they said.”
“Never found her, though, did they? Maybe somebody bumped her off.”
“Bumped her off?” Sal said indignantly. “Who’d do a thing like that?”
“Beats me. She was like a kid, really. Loved dressing up. Can’t imagine anyone wanting to do her any harm. I found one of her famous red socks a couple of months ago behind the sorting table. Made me sad. Remember how she used to sneak us bags of her home laundry? ‘The chairman would like a little more starch in his white collars,’ she used to say, didn’t she? ‘The chairman would like to have his cuffs turned and leather patches on his elbows.’ Remember? Well, the rich must have their little perks, mustn’t they? Lord love her. I wish her well wherever she might be.”
“Do you think she’s listening to us—right now, I mean?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Sal. There’s no such thing as ghosts.”
“But what about this note?”
Marge gave out a laugh that was a little too confident. “Dollars to doughnuts it’s one of our dear sweet girls. One of our dear, sweet, innocent little darlings that hopes to give us a heart attack. She’s probably hiding behind the boiler at this very moment with her fist shoved in her mouth.
“AREN’T YOU, DEARIE?” she shouted. “Hand me the broom, Sal. I’ll give her what for.”
There came a wild whacking on the wall and I caught a glimpse of Marge’s hairnet. I could almost have reached down and touched her, but I thought better of it.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are!” Sal cackled.
It had become a game, and I was the quarry.
“Ready or not, you must be caught. First caught’s it!”
These two grown women had, in a matter of seconds, reverted to the kind of primitive urge that once made gentle housewives willingly assist in hauling old women off to the village green to be burnt or drowned as witches.
Drowned—was that what her killers did to Francesca Rainsmith? It didn’t make sense. My mind was reeling.
For the first time since coming to Miss Bodycote’s I was genuinely frightened.
“We’re coming to get you!” they began chanting, one at first and then the other. “We’re coming to get you!”
They began banging on the steam pipes, presumably with brooms, or whatever else was handy. The din was ferocious.
Fear, Dogger had once told me, is often irrational, but is nevertheless real because it is generated by the reptile part of our primitive brain: the instinctive part that is designed for dodging dinosaurs.
It was this uncontrollable reflex that caused me to do what I did: Instead of clinging to the duct and trying to hide, I scrambled to my feet and came clattering down the ladder—into their very midst, like a flushed rat.
The effect upon Marge and Sal was electric. They were as surprised as I was.
Marge put her hands on her hips and took a step toward me; Sal put her hands behind her back and stepped cautiously away. Both of them went red in the face like Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
“I told you,” Marge said. “I told you she was up there, didn’t I?”
Sal nodded wisely.
“What are you up to?” Marge demanded.
I looked from one to the other, pausing as long as I dared so that my words would have their maximum effect. When I judged the moment to be precisely right, I said: “I’m investigating the murder of Francesca Rainsmith.”
There are times when truth is the simplest and the most effective weapon, and this was one of them. It’s risky, but it sometimes works.
“Investigating?” Sal scoffed—almost spat. “A girl like you?”
I looked her in the eye. “Yes,” I said. “A girl like me.”
Utter silence.
“I hope you’ll be able to assist me,” I added, just as a way of oiling the cuckoo. The word “assist” is so much more civilized and lubricating, I find, than “help.”
“Depends,” Marge said, her voice cracking.
Hallelujah! I was halfway home!
“How well did you know Francesca Rainsmith?” I asked. “Did she come here often?”
“She used to bring her laundry in—his, too. Said she didn’t have time, and she used to give us a plant at Christmas—a poinsettia, generally, in colored foil.”
“Was she a medical doctor?”
Sal blew out air. “Her? No. I don’t know what she did. Nothing, I think. I saw her one time on a Wednesday afternoon—I remember because it was my day off—at the Diana Sweets, having tea in the middle of the afternoon. Shopping bags everywhere, on the chairs, on the floor. She nodded at me, I think, sort of.”
“Did they have any children?”
Facts, again. I needed facts. I was trying desperately to piece together out of thin air a detailed portrait of a woman I had only seen once, and even then, dead and decapitated.
She had not been at her best.
“Good lord, no! She hated kids. Used to cover her ears when she came around. Kept well away from them. Said they made her nervous. Wasn’t much more than a kid herself, to tell you the
truth … tiny bit of a thing. Girlish.”
“Was she ever a student here?” I asked, in what seemed to me a sudden burst of inspiration.
“What makes you think that?” Marge said suddenly.
“I don’t know,” I told her truthfully. “It was just an idea.”
A cloud had come over Marge’s face, as sudden as a summer storm. “Say, is this anything to do with that body in the chimney?”
“Yes,” I said, watching her face carefully. “I’m afraid it is.”
Marge’s and Sal’s hands went to their mouths at the same time, as if they had been stitched together at the elbows. It was obvious that, until this moment, they had not made the connection. I watched as horror crossed their faces.
“Listen,” I said, “I’m only telling you this because I trust you. I’m sticking my neck out. If anything comes out I’ll be held responsible.”
“Who told you this?” Marge demanded. “Was it that Scroop, from the Star?”
“As a matter of fact, it was,” I said, gilding the lily a little.
“Don’t you have nothing to do with him,” Sal said.
“Why not?” I asked, all wide-eyed and innocent.
“He’s always nosing around, isn’t he, Marge? A regular busybody. Miss Fawlthorne said not to breathe a word to him. If he tries to ask you questions, send him packing. That’s what Miss Fawlthorne said.”
“Send him to her is what she said,” Marge corrected. “But he’s never been back, not so far as I know.”
“Mrs. Rainsmith,” I said, getting back on the track. “Francesca, I mean. How did she die?”
“Originally, or recently?” Marge asked.
This Marge was a smart cookie. I had to give her credit.
“Originally,” I said. “The moonlight cruise.”
“Two years ago. Right after the Beaux Arts Ball. Their anniversary. She was all excited about it. The chairman booked it in advance as a kind of treat.”
“Dr. Rainsmith?” I asked. “Ryerson?”
“That’s right. She was all excited about it, wasn’t she, Sal. Said she’d been a bit nervy. Moonlight cruise was all she needed—just what the doctor ordered. She laughed when she said it, ’cause the doctor was her husband, you see, and he did order it.”
I smiled dutifully. “She told you this?” I asked.
“Stood right where you’re standing,” Sal said.
“And they never found the body,” I said.
“No. They were seen going up the gangplank, and from then on it was all drinks and dancing. They didn’t hobnob with the other passengers—didn’t want to, really. It was their anniversary, you see. Very romantic. They even wore their wedding outfits. It was in all the papers, you know. A real mystery. Sometime after midnight, somewhere off Port Dalhousie, the chairman told the captain he thought his wife might have fallen overboard. Might have had a drink too many. Captain kept it pretty well to himself … didn’t want to alarm the other passengers. That’s what he told the papers: didn’t want to upset the other passengers. If you ask me, what he meant was he didn’t want bad publicity. He sailed around in circles in the dark for a while—searchlights, and that—but they never spotted her. Not a trace.”
“Not a ripple,” Sal added. “I remember they called in the Air Force in the morning: boats, helicopters. No use. It was on the radio.”
“ ’Course there wouldn’t be, would there, if she was in the chimney all along,” Marge said, glancing at me knowingly, as if we had just shared a very great secret.
“And the second Mrs. Rainsmith?” I asked. “Dorsey?”
“He knew her for years,” Sal said, with an obscure kind of glance at Marge. “Met her at medical school.”
“They say she was a great comfort to him in his time of loss,” Marge said.
“Who’s ‘they’?” I asked. “Who said that?”
“Well, she did,” Marge admitted.
A shadow flitted like a bat across my mind. How could Dorsey, Miss High Muckety Muck herself, ever have happened to come into conversation with the likes of Marge, a lowly laundry lass.
“Oh!” I said, seeming surprised. “Does she bring her laundry round, as well?”
“No,” Sal said.
“Well, just the once,” Marge said reluctantly. “She had a dress—an expensive one. Pure silk, like rippling water on a lake. Bought it at Liberty’s, in London. Must have cost her an arm and a leg, I told her. ‘More than that,’ she said. ‘Far more than that.’ I remember her saying it.”
“And?”
“An emergency. She was called in to handle an emergency. Car crash. Got blood on it. She phoned me at home and asked if I could help her out. Girl to girl. She slipped me ten bucks. Oh, don’t look at me like that, Sal. I’ll split it with you, if you like.”
“Hold on,” I said. “Was this after she married the chairman?”
“No, before. A year or so. I’ll still split it with you, Sal.”
“Was it before or after the Beaux Arts Ball?” I asked, my heart accelerating.
“After,” Marge said. “Just after.”
“Thank you,” I said. “You’ve both been of enormous help, and I mean to make it up to you.”
Marge glowed, and although Sal brushed off my remark with a flick of her fingers, I knew that she was secretly pleased.
“May I ask one last question?”
“Fire away,” Marge said.
“How was it that you knew Dorsey Rainsmith before her marriage to the chairman?”
“Why, because she was on the board of guardians,” Marge said.
My head was like a spinning top as possibilities sparked and glittered off in all directions.
Was Ryerson Rainsmith a member of the Nide? Was Dorsey? Had Francesca been?
Had Francesca’s death been an official undercover act? An execution?
Was Miss Fawlthorne in on the secret?
Or was it more sordid than that? One of those Lady Chatterley affairs that Daffy was so keen on reading, and which left me bored stiff?
Time enough to think about those things later. I had suddenly become aware of my hands, which meant only one thing: It was time to say my farewells and make a graceful—or at least dignified—exit.
Dogger had once told me, “Your hands know when it’s time to go.”
And he had been right. The hands are the canaries in one’s own personal coal mine: They need to be watched carefully and obeyed. A fidget demands attention, and a full-blown not-knowing-what-to-do-with-them means “Vamoose!”
I gave Marge and Sal a grateful smile and headed for the door.
“Oh, by the way,” Marge called out, “better get Fitzgibbon to put something on that finger. I think you’ve cut yourself.”
• TWENTY-FIVE •
“NEWSROOM,” I WHISPERED INTO the telephone transmitter. “Wallace Scroop.”
I was in the shadows of the back hall, hoping my uniform would make me invisible against the dark paneling. It was still early, after breakfast but well before classes, and the sudden departure of Mrs. Bannerman seemed to have cast an invisible pall over Miss Bodycote’s.
There was an eerie silence: an absence of joy and youthful voices. The air was a weighted vacuum.
“Scroop.” Wallace’s voice came clearly through the receiver.
“It’s me again,” I said. “I need a favor.”
“What’s in it for the Morning Star?” he asked. “More to the point, what’s in it for Wallace Scroop?”
He caught me by surprise. I had not expected to negotiate, had not thought it through before placing the call.
I had to make a snap decision, and I did. It was one of the most difficult things I have ever been made to do in my life.
“Everything,” I said.
And I meant it.
“All right,” he said, when we had agreed on the terms, “tell me what you need.”
“The details of Francesca Rainsmith’s death. She drowned on a midnight cruise two years ago. I am
told by a reliable informant that it was in all the papers. You must have them in the files. I need everything I can get, especially eyewitness accounts, the captain and crew, passengers, and so forth.”
“That’s a tall order, isn’t it, little lady?”
“I’m not a little lady and it’s not as tall as what you’re asking me to do for you.”
“Touché, José,” he said. “But there’s no need to disturb the morgue—that’s what we call the files, by the way. Yours truly was on the scene and it’s etched into my brain in hot lead.”
“Go ahead,” I said. “I’m listening.”
“Gentleman and lady show up in taxi at harbor two minutes before sailing. Both in wedding duds: tux, tails, boiled shirt, cuff links, bow tie; white dress, veil, lots of lace, bouquet. Tips the purser—tells him it’s their anniversary.”
“Were they carrying anything?” I asked.
“He was. Big gift box. Fancy wrappings, blue ribbons.”
“And her?”
“Just the bouquet.”
Somewhere above me, a floorboard creaked. Someone was on the stairs.
“Hold on,” I whispered. “I’ll be back in a jiff.”
I put down the handset and tiptoed to the bottom of the stairs. By craning my neck I could see to the landing and above.
I put my foot on the bottom step and began upward, making more noise than I needed to by shuffling my shoes.
And then I stopped. If someone had been listening, they had beetled off.
I went back to the telephone.
“Sorry,” I told him, whispering. “Go on. About the Rainsmiths …?”
“They danced. Danced their hooves off till the wee hours. Everyone dog-tired. Drinks. Nobody paying attention. He appears in the wheelhouse, frantic. Out of his mind. Wife’s fallen overboard. Tipsy—must’ve lost her balance. Maybe the bang on the head.”
“Hold on,” I said. “What bang on the head?”
“Oh, yeah. I forgot to tell you. She conked her head on the door frame getting out of the taxi. There was gore galore. Purser offered to call a doctor. Wouldn’t hear of it. Rainsmith said he was a doctor. Just a scalp wound. Scalp wounds bleed a lot, you know. Nothing serious. He would patch her up.”