by Alan Bradley
The fact remained that a skull from antiquity was hardly likely to contain a tidy modern filling, much less three of them, which looked to me as bright and fresh as if they had been installed last Friday morning.
I’d bet my tongue, tonsils, and toenails that these fillings had not been done in any Stone Age cave.
In my mind, a few more pieces of the puzzle snapped into position: click! click! click! If this were a jigsaw, I’d now have the border complete.
I reached into my pocket and my fingers closed around my wadded handkerchief.
Of course! I’d wrapped the Saint Michael medallion to protect it from further contamination, which was odd when you stopped to reflect that it was usually the other way round: that while others begged Saint Michael to protect them, I was protecting Saint Michael from others.
Flavia de Luce, Protector of Archangels.
It had a nice ring to it.
My heart was a little lighter for the thought as I descended the stairs.
Today was Monday, and I remembered that I was due for my regular meeting with Miss Fawlthorne. What would she have in store? I wondered, and what kind of mood would she be in?
One could never tell.
Was I early or late? I’d forgotten the time she told me to report this week, but better late than never—or as I had learned as an investigator, better early than late.
But I needn’t have worried. No one answered my several knocks at the door.
I opened it gently and peeked into an empty room.
Tiptoeing—tor some odd reason which I didn’t quite understand—I took a piece of scrap paper from the wastebasket.
Dear Miss Fawlthorne, I wrote. I was here but you were not.
Perfect! Brief but informative, with just a pinch of accusation.
Now then, how should I sign it? Your obedient servant? Yours faithfully? Yours respectfully? Sincerely?
In the end, I simply put Flavia de Luce, and left it on her desk.
The library was probably the only room at Miss Bodycote’s where one could be alone without being accused of being up to no good. I could see through the many-paned glass doors that no one was inside.
As I let myself in, my nostrils were filled with musty but pleasant air, as if the books themselves were breathing in their sleep in the unventilated room. I made for the small fiction section and began scanning the shelves.
Anne of Green Gables was cuddled up next to Huckleberry Finn; The Hunchback of Notre Dame was wedged tightly between Heidi and Little Women; and Nicholas Nickleby leaned in a familiar way against A Girl of the Limberlost.
None of the books were in alphabetical order, which made it necessary to cock my head sideways to read each one of the spines. By the end of the third shelf I had begun to realize why librarians are sometimes able to achieve such pinnacles of crankiness: It’s because they’re in agony.
If only publishers could be persuaded, I thought, to stamp all book titles horizontally instead of vertically, a great deal of unpleasantness could be avoided all round. Chiropractors and opticians would be out of business, librarians cheerier, and the world would be a better place. I must remember to discuss this theory with Dogger.
Here, on a shelf near the bottom, was Ben Hur, and over there was Angela Thirkell: They were what Daffy called “nice novels,” with that look on her face. Except for a couple of blue-covered novels about a person named Nancy Drew, which had been read to ribbons, most of the books appeared seldom to have been opened.
Ha! Just as I had hoped: Tales of Edgar Allan Poe.
I slid it from the shelf. The illustrations were horrific—so horrific that I felt as if a moist snail were crawling across the back of my neck, especially when I turned to “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” where a gigantic Ourang-Outang, its shoulders scraping the ceiling, hunched over the body of a woman with a cutthroat razor in its hand.
I tucked the book under my arm for bedtime reading.
A shelf marked Geography caught my eye. Here were a handful of lonely-looking books: China, Africa, Europe, and so on. And here was Canada: a history of the maritime provinces, a biography of someone named Timothy Eaton, a cookbook by someone named Kate Aitken, an autobiography called No Star to Guide Me by Helen Murchison Trammell signed by the author—an old girl of Miss Bodycote’s, who, according to her biography on the dust jacket, had married an oilman from Calgary and never looked back—and a Gray Goose Street Guide of Greater Toronto, which I pocketed.
A quick trip to the telephone directory told me that the Rainsmiths lived in a neighborhood called Rosedale.
Rosedale was considerably farther from Miss Bodycote’s than I had imagined. The streets were laid out among a series of hills and ravines, some of them little more than horseback trails. Estates lay behind elaborate iron gates, with flowerbeds and lawns which looked as though gardeners on hands and knees had trimmed them with manicure scissors and tweezers. A couple of Rolls-Royces and Bentleys were parked in driveways in front of half-timbered houses. It was all very grand: a reflection of England but ever so much less grubby: more new and somehow unreal, as if it were a backdrop freshly painted.
The Rainsmiths lived in an Elizabethan manor house the size of a cricket pitch. To one side of the garden, at the end of a trellised walkway, was a long, low building of yellow brick that looked as if it meant business. It had once apparently been a coach house, but was now all casement windows and gables and climbing vines.
A couple of electric lamps burning inside during daylight hours, and a swinging Georgian sign reading “Mon Repos” in gold and black curlicue letters, told me that this was the private nursing home.
Somewhere behind all that glass and ivy, Collingwood was being held prisoner.
Or was she?
There was only one way to find out.
Directly across the street, a neighboring mansion was meant to be modeled on Anne Hathaway’s cottage, complete with what appeared to be a thatched roof and what undoubtedly was an English cottage garden: one of those little jungles of artists’ colors whose owner tries to include every flower mentioned in Shakespeare. Because it was now late in the year, the garden was not at its best, but I still managed to nick a fistful of Michaelmas daisies and chrysanthemums: the daisies because of Saint Michael—and, I must admit, because they were pictured on the dress of one of Jack the Ripper’s victims—and the mums because I was in a hurry.
Back across the street, I was already inventing lies as I approached the glass doors of the nursing home. I needn’t have bothered: Ahead of me an endless corridor of closed doors stretched off into the distance. There was no one at the desk.
Were all nursing homes, everywhere, alike? I thought of Rook’s End, with its bubbling linoleum, where Dr. Kissing sat smoking away in his ancient bath chair. Rook’s End, too, had infinite hallways and an unattended entrance, which had always surprised me. It was as if you had arrived at the Pearly Gates only to find a sign saying “Out to Lunch.”
With the bouquet clutched in plain sight in my fist, and a look of sad resignation on my face, I walked quietly along, as if I knew where I was going. The occupants’ names were printed on removable cards—in case of death, I supposed—attached to each door, so it was easy enough to construct a list of patients.
The place smelled of commodes and playing cards, and before I was halfway to the end I had made a firm resolve never to begin to die. For me it would be all or nothing: no half measures, no lingering on the doorstep.
A metallic clatter made me spin round.
A woman in scrubber’s uniform was backing out of a room, hauling a wheeled bucket behind her. She seemed as surprised as I was, and then a grin broke her face.
“Cripes! You startled me!”
“Same here,” I said, wiping my brow with my forearm and flinging off drops of imaginary sweat.
We both laughed.
“Can I help you?” she asked. “Looking for someone in particular?”
“No,” I said. “I’m with the Girl
Scouts. Rosedale Troop Number Thirty-nine, Scarlet Pimpernel Patrol. I’m working on my charity badge and Brown Owl assigned me to visit as many of the patients here as possible.”
I tried to arrange my features into a look of hopeless determination combined with wilting enthusiasm. It was not easy.
“Quota system, eh?” the woman said. “Everything’s quotas nowadays, it seems like. So many yards per floor per shift.”
She stuck the head of her mop into a mechanical squeezing mechanism and gave the lever a fierce pull.
“ ‘Life’s a tally board,’ my dad used to say, ‘where the peg won’t stay in.’ ”
I gave her a slightly conspiratorial grin—not enough to discredit the Girl Guides but enough that she would know that I wasn’t born yesterday, either.
“Carry on, then,” she said and, cracking my heels together, I gave her a two-fingered bunny salute.
At the end of the hall, the last door on the left had a bilious yellow card hanging from a thumbtack: QUARANTINE. NO ENTRY.
I had found Collingwood.
But there was no card in the slot: no name to identify the room’s occupant.
I pushed open the door.
The room was as empty as the infirmary had been at Miss Bodycote’s.
Collingwood had vanished again.
I took the precaution of checking the WC.
It, too, was empty. Where was she? What had they done with her?
I was trying to think what to do next when I heard voices in the hall, voices that were coming closer with every second. As a precaution, I dived into the WC and pulled the door to, leaving it open barely a crack.
Two people came into the room: nurses, I guessed, from their words.
“I suppose now we’ll have to burn the bedclothes,” one of them said. “And the mattress.”
I shrank back in horror. What had become of Collingwood?
“No such thing,” the second voice said. “We don’t do that anymore. Fumigation’s cheaper. Cost-saving’s the name of the game. Mattresses are money. So are sheets and towels. Better check the bathroom. I’ve already asked Gilda to clean it. God knows what—”
I pushed the door closed the last inch and positioned myself on the toilet seat.
And not a second too soon. The door was flung rudely open by a middle-aged woman in white, whose mouth fell open just before her face froze.
She slammed the door.
“There’s a girl in there,” I heard her say.
“Who?”
“No idea. Complete stranger.”
There was a silence with much muttering as they discussed strategy.
Then there was a knock at the door.
“Who is it?” I asked, trying to sound outraged.
“Staff,” came the muffled answer.
I waited for a decent interval to pass—twenty-five seconds by actual count—then flushed the lav and walked out with my nose in the air as if I were the anointed queen of the hoolie-joolies.
“Disgraceful,” I said, pointing behind me. “You ought to be ashamed of yourselves.”
And I walked out of the room and out of the building without so much as a look back.
Chalk up another Triumphant Exit to Flavia de Luce.
• TWENTY-SEVEN •
GAINING THE UPPER HAND might result in a few moments of pleasure, but it does not bring genuine contentment. I realized this as I stood, suddenly dejected, on the brick walkway between the Rainsmiths’ mansion and the nursing home, my bouquet still clutched firmly in my hand.
How foolish I must have looked.
I might have won the battle, as Mrs. Mullet’s husband, Alf says, but lost the war. Collingwood was still missing, Mrs. Bannerman was in jail, and I was stuck in some godforsaken suburb of Toronto without two fresh ideas to rub together.
I was not hopeful. I hardly dared even think about poor little Collingwood. The very mention of burning her mattress was enough to suggest that her end had been a tragic one. And as for Mrs. Bannerman—well, any dreams I might have had of studying with her had vanished like so much smoke up the chimney.
And it was in that instant—as it so often is—that a major piece of the puzzle fell into place, as if from the sky—as if the Gods of Deduction had tossed it overboard and let it fall at my feet.
I needed to get back to Miss Bodycote’s and the chemistry lab without wasting another minute.
A hissing sound caught my attention. It was coming from somewhere behind the Rainsmiths’ house and to my left.
A hissing in the garden is a sound that cannot be ignored by any human female since the time of Eve, and I was no exception. I moved slowly off the walk and onto the grass, craning my neck in the hope that it would allow me to see without being seen.
A pleasant-looking gentleman in uniform except for his shirtsleeves was playing a hose over a blue car: a car I had last seen picking up Miss Fawlthorne on the Danforth with Ryerson Rainsmith at the wheel.
While I was considering my options, my feet developed a mind of their own and began walking toward the man with the hose.
“Hello?” I heard myself calling out. “Is this the Rainsmith residence?”
The man twisted the nozzle and the spray of water choked to a drizzle. He studied me before answering.
“Miss Bodycote’s?” he said at last, although it was not really a question.
My school uniform was a dead giveaway.
I nodded glumly.
“And your name is …?” he asked.
“De Luce,” I told him. “F for Flavia. You must be Mr. Merton. I was dreadfully sorry to hear about your mother passing away,” I told him. “It’s awful when that happens. My own mother died in April.”
And with that, I handed him the bouquet.
Without a word he accepted the flowers, retrieved his jacket from the stone wall where it had been draped, and beckoned me to follow him into the house.
The interior was dim, and the kitchen, being on the north side of the house, was a room that had never known sunshine.
“Elvina,” he called out, “we have a visitor.”
A slim, dark woman of middle age came out of the pantry, dusting her hands of flour. Her gleaming black hair was held in a tight bun by a black tortoise-shell clasp and her eyes were like newly polished Whitby jet. She was Spanish, perhaps, or Mexican, although her dark dress gave away nothing.
“Flavia de Luce,” he said. “… from the academy.”
And there was something in the way he said it that put me on high alert.
A fugitive look flitted between them.
“Here,” Elvina said, taking the flowers from Merton. “Let me put these in a vase. They’re lovely.”
“Flavia brought them,” he said. “For my mother,” he added. “Most considerate.”
I hadn’t, of course, but I didn’t try to correct him. Credit is credit no matter how you slice it.
“Michaelmas daisies mean ‘Farewell,’ ” Elvina said, “and the chrysanthemums ‘Cheerfulness in Spite of Misfortune.’ You must have put a lot of thought into choosing them.”
I hung my head in bashful acknowledgment.
“We were just about to sit down for tea. Would you like to join us?”
I knew that she was fibbing: Merton was washing the car and she had barely begun baking something.
“Yes, please,” I said.
Merton pulled out a chair as if I were a lady, and we all sat—at least Merton and I did until Elvina boiled the kettle and joined us at the kitchen table.
Beginning a conversation is always difficult with three strangers who have nothing in common. The usual method is to start with the weather and hope for the best.
But I hadn’t the time. I would soon enough be missed at Miss Bodycote’s and a hue and cry sent up. I needed to get back to the lab for a crucial test. There was no time to waste.
“You’ve had a great deal of bereavement,” I said. “Your mother, Mr. Merton—and the first Mrs. Rainsmith.”
It was a bold thing to say, but I had to take a chance.
“A great deal,” Merton said. “A very great deal. This household has had its share of sadnesses.”
“It must have been an awful shock to you when Mrs. Rainsmith drowned,” I said. “I mean, not that it wasn’t to Dr. Rainsmith, but he’s a medical doctor, isn’t he, and trained to cope with death. But poor you …”
I left the thought hanging in air.
Elvina gave me something of a sharp look, but Merton said, “Flavia’s mother died in April.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Elvina said. “Was it unexpected?”
“Yes and no,” I said. “She had been missing for ten years and her body was found in the mountain ice.”
“Oh! You poor lamb!” Elvina said. “You poor, poor lamb.”
And then, as if anxious to change the subject to something less tragic, no matter how little, she said: “It’s not that poor Mrs. Rainsmith’s death was completely unexpected, what with her being so ill before the accident.”
“Ill?” I asked, daring to say no more.
“Gastric trouble,” Elvina said. “Very bad. But she was a trouper. Never let it get in the way of her obligations.”
“Gosh!” I said. “You must have felt awful. It’s always the cook that—”
I cut my words off as if I had just realized what I was saying.
“You have no idea,” Elvina said. “Most people don’t appreciate the cook’s position. Gastric trouble is cook trouble. There’s always someone willing to point the finger.”
“So I suppose, in a way, it was a good thing that she drowned. I know that must sound awful, but—”
Elvina gave off a nervous laugh. It was time to get my feet on firmer ground.
“I know what you mean when you say she was a trouper,” I said. “She presented one of the awards at the Beaux Arts Ball the night she was taken ill, didn’t she?”
“Nothing to do with me!” Elvina said. “Bit of bad lobster at the ball. That’s what Dr. Rainsmith said. I never saw her again, so I wouldn’t know.”
“Never saw her again?” I leapt on her words like a hound on a bone.
“No, never. Dr. Rainsmith brought her home and had invalid soup sent over from the nursing home.”