by Alan Bradley
“I see,” the Inspector said. “It’s most kind of you to point it out.”
I gave him my most winning smile and made a graceful exit.
I made directly for the drawing room, bursting at the seams to tell Feely and Daffy the news. I found them with their heads bent over a stack of back issues of Behind the Screen.
“Don’t tell us,” Daffy said, raising a hand as I opened my mouth. “We already know. Phyllis Wyvern’s been murdered in the Blue Bedroom and the police are on the scene.”
“How—?” I began.
“Perhaps, since you’re their main suspect, we shouldn’t even be talking to you,” Feely said.
“Me?” I was flabbergasted. “Where did you ever get such a stupid idea?”
“I saw you,” Feely said. “That woman and her infernal ciné projector kept Daffy and me awake again for hours. I finally decided to give her a piece of my mind, and was halfway along the corridor when guess who I spotted sneaking out of the Blue Bedroom?”
Why did I suddenly feel so guilty?
“I wasn’t sneaking,” I said. “I was going for help.”
“There are perhaps a small handful of people in the world who would believe you, but I am not among them,” Feely said.
“Tell it to the Marines,” Daffy added.
“As it happens,” I said haughtily, “I am assisting the police with their inquiries.”
“Horse hockey!” Daffy said. “Feely and I were talking to Detective Sergeant Graves and he wondered why he hadn’t seen you around.”
At the very mention of the sergeant’s name, Feely drifted towards the looking glass and touched her hair as she turned her head from side to side. Although not first on her list of suitors, the sergeant was not to be counted out—at least I hoped not.
“Sergeant Graves? Is he here? I haven’t seen him.”
“That’s because he doesn’t want to be seen,” Daffy said. “You’ll see him, right enough, when he claps the darbies on you.”
Darbies? Daffy had obviously been paying more attention to Philip Odell than she let on.
“What about Sergeant Woolmer?” I asked. “Is he here, too?”
“Of course he is,” Feely said. “Dieter helped them shovel through the drifts.”
“Dieter? Is he back?”
“He’s thinking of going in for a police inspector,” Daffy said. “They told him they couldn’t have got through to Buckshaw without him.”
“What about Ned?” I asked, seized with a sudden thought. “What about Carl?”
Feely had more swains than Ulysses’s wife, Penelope, had suitors—I like “swains” better than “suitors” because it sounds like “swine”—all of whom, through some strange quirk of fate, had now turned up at Buckshaw at the same time.
Ned … Dieter … Carl … Detective Sergeant Graves. Every one of them, God only knows why, was smitten silly with my stupid sister.
How long would it be before they began slugging it out?
“Ned and Carl have volunteered to help clear the forecourt. The vicar’s organized a snow-shoveling party.”
“But why?” I asked.
It didn’t make sense. If all the roads were closed, what use was it clearing a way to the front door?
“Because,” said Aunt Felicity’s voice behind me, “it is a well-known fact that more than two men shut up together in an enclosed space for more than an hour constitute a hazard to society. If unpleasantness is to be avoided, they must be made to go outdoors and work off their animal spirits.”
I smiled at the thought of Bunny Spirling and the vicar taking up snow shovels to work off their animal spirits, but I kept my mouth shut. I also wondered if Aunt Felicity had heard about Phyllis Wyvern.
“Besides,” she added, “the hearse will be required to remove the remains. They can hardly drag her off by dogsled.”
Which answered my question. It also raised another.
The stairs from the laboratory were narrow and steep. No one had been up here for years, I thought, but me.
At the top, a door opened onto the roof—or, at least was supposed to open onto the roof. I struggled with the bolt until it suddenly shot free, pinching my fingers. But now the door itself was stuck shut, probably piled high on the other side with a drift of snow. I put my shoulder against it and pushed.
With the peculiar grunting sound that snow makes when it doesn’t want to be budged, the door opened grudgingly about an inch.
I was being resisted by millions of tiny crystals, I knew, but the strength of their chemical bonds was enormous. If all of us could be like snow, I thought, how happy we should be.
Another shove—another slow inch. And then another.
After what seemed like a very long struggle, I was able to squeeze myself between the door and its frame and step out onto the roof.
I was instantly up to my knees in snow.
Shivering, I clutched my cardigan up about my chin and waded to the battlements, the back of my mind ringing with all of Mrs. Mullet’s dire warnings about pneumonia and keeping one’s chest warm.
“She wasn’t outside more’n a minute,” she had told me, wide-eyed, speaking of Mrs. Milne, the butcher’s wife. “Just long enough to ’ang the baby’s nappies on the line—that’s all it took. By four o’clock she ’ad a cough, by seven ’er ’ead was as ’ot as the Arab desert, and by the time the sun come up she was in a box and stiff as a board. Pneumonia, it was. There’s nothin’ else as’ll snatch you off like pneumonia. Makes you drown in your own juices.”
From up here on the roof, I could look out to the east, the rolling countryside one vast unbroken blanket of snow, dazzling in its whiteness. Had there been footprints, I could have easily spotted them at once, but there were none.
In spite of the freezing wetness that was puddling in my shoes, I forced myself to clomp my way to the north front, where I stood shivering, peering down into the forecourt.
Dieter’s tractor stood, like Eeyore, covered with snow—a gray form huddled beneath a white blanket. Beside it was the blue Vauxhall, which I recognized at once as Inspector Hewitt’s.
In the forecourt, the vicar’s crew, in coats, gloves, and galoshes, were digging bravely away at the drifts, their every breath visible on the frigid air. They had managed to clear a parking area somewhat smaller than a tennis court, and even that, with the persistence of the wind, had begun to fill in again with blown fingers of the granular drifts.
There was also a narrow passage in the middle of the drive, packed tightly on either side with layers of snow. Here and there the prints of chains were still clearly visible, and in the middle of the path, tire tracks that led directly to the parked Vauxhall. It was easy enough to deduce that the police had commandeered a wrecker with a snowplow fastened to the front, to clear their way from the village.
Apart from the shadowy blue ribbon that was the plowed path winding away to the north, all of the approaches to Buckshaw were one vast expanse of untrodden white.
With my back to the wind, the south battlement was only slightly warmer than the north. Below me, beside the kitchen garden, the snow-draped vans and lorries of Ilium Films stood huddled like a small circus in winter. Narrow trails had been trodden out between them, and I watched as a man in uniformed livery came out of the kitchen door and picked his way precariously towards one of the smaller vans. It was Anthony, Phyllis Wyvern’s chauffeur. I had forgotten all about him.
I leaned as far over the battlement as I possibly could, peering along the side of the house. Yes, there was the radiator of the black Daimler, just poking out into view. It seemed to be tucked up beside a buried flower bed. As I leaned forward another inch to see if anyone was sitting in it, I dislodged a clump of snow, which plummeted down and fell with a whump onto the Daimler’s roof.
“Bugger!” I said under my breath.
Anthony stopped suddenly, turned, looked up, and saw me. There followed one of those peculiar moments when strangers lock eyes with each other, too far apart to speak, but too
close to pretend it hadn’t happened. I was wondering what would be appropriate to call out to him—condolences or Christmas wishes?—when he turned away and teetered off towards the trailer.
Those leather riding boots must be treacherous in snow, I thought.
As I made my way back towards the door, I looked up at the towering chimney pots and lightning rods of Buckshaw, which rose up from their sturdy bases, rank upon rank, like organ pipes of brick and iron and pottery, the chimneys of the kitchen and the north and west wings sending up wind-torn tatters of smoke into the leaden sky.
I thought with a delicious shiver—half pleasure and half fear—that before the night was out I would be scaling those ragged pinnacles for a rendezvous with Saint Nicholas—an experiment whose outcome might well determine the future course of my life.
Would chemistry put paid to Christmas? Or would I, tomorrow morning, find a fat, infuriated elf caught fast and cursing among the chimney pots?
I must admit that part of me was hoping for the legend.
There were times when I felt as if I were standing astride a cold ocean—one foot in the New World and one foot in the Old. As they drifted relentlessly apart, I was in danger of being torn up the middle.
The hordes in the foyer were beginning to show their fatigue. They’d been here for the better part of twenty-four hours, and it was apparent that patience was wearing thin.
Everywhere I looked there were dark circles under tired eyes and the crowded quarters had become filled with an air of staleness.
I had noticed on other occasions that overcrowding, even in a spacious place, makes one feel like a different person. Perhaps, I thought, whenever we began to breathe the breath of others, when the spinning atoms of their bodies began to mingle with our own, we took on something of their personality, like crystals in a snowflake. Perhaps we became something more, yet something lesser than ourselves.
I would jot down this interesting observation in my notebook at the first opportunity.
Those people who had slept flat on the tiled floor were still rubbing their bones, staring balefully at the lucky souls who had staked out corners in which they could prop themselves up with their backs to the wall. Maximilian Brock had erected a wall of books around his little patch of tiled turf, and I couldn’t help wondering where he had found them. He must have raided the library during the hours of darkness.
Could the good villagers of Bishop’s Lacey, caged up here at Buckshaw, have so quickly become as territorial as jungle cats? If they were confined much longer, they’d soon be staking out allotments and planting vegetable gardens.
Perhaps there was something after all in what Aunt Felicity had said. Every last one of them, men and women alike, looked as if they could do with a brisk walk in the fresh air, and I was suddenly glad that I had ventured out onto the roofs, even if only for a few minutes.
But by doing so, had I breached an official order?
Although I hadn’t heard it with my own ears, Inspector Hewitt must have given orders that no one was to leave the house. It was standard procedure in cases where murder was suspected, and Phyllis Wyvern’s death was neither natural nor suicide—she’d been done to death with a vengeance.
But what about Anthony, the chauffeur? Hadn’t he been wandering around freely outdoors? I’d seen him from the roof. And what about the diggers in the forecourt? Wasn’t the vicar, by raising a crew, flying in the face of the law? Somehow, it seemed unlikely. He must have requested permission. Perhaps the Inspector himself had asked for the forecourt to be cleared.
As I was thinking about them, the front door opened and the shovelers came stamping and blowing into the foyer. It was several minutes before I realized that someone was missing.
“Dieter,” I asked, “where’s the vicar?”
“Gone,” he said with a frown. “He and Frau Richardson have set out on foot for the village.”
Frau Richardson? Cynthia? The village?
I could scarcely believe my ears. I looked quickly round the foyer and saw that Cynthia Richardson was nowhere in sight.
“They insisted,” Dieter said. “The Christmas Eve service begins in just a few hours.”
“But half the congregation is here!” I said. “It makes no sense.”
“But the rest are in Bishop’s Lacey,” Dieter said, throwing up his hands, “and one does not preach sense to a Church of England clergyman.”
“The Inspector is going to do his nut,” I said.
“Am I indeed?” said a voice behind me.
Needless to say it was Inspector Hewitt. Beside him was Detective Sergeant Graves.
“And what is it that will cause me to do, as you say, my nut?”
My mind made a quick jaunt round the possibilities and saw that there was no way out.
“The vicar,” I said. “He and his wife have set out for St. Tancred’s. It’s Christmas Eve.”
This was no more than the truth, and since it was hardly a state secret, I could not be blamed for blabbing.
“How long ago?” the Inspector asked.
“Not long, I think. Not more than five minutes, perhaps. Dieter can tell you.”
“They must be brought back at once,” the Inspector said. “Sergeant Graves?”
“Sir?”
“See if you can overtake them. They’ve got a bit of a head start, but you’re younger and fitter, I trust.”
“Yes, sir,” Sergeant Graves said, his sudden dimples making him look like a bashful schoolboy.
“Tell them that while we’ll do everything in our power to expedite the process, my orders must not be circumvented.”
How cleverly put, I thought: compassion with a stinger in its tail.
“And now, Miss de Luce,” he said, “if you don’t mind, I think we’ll begin with you.”
“Youngest witness first?” I asked pleasantly.
“Not necessarily,” Inspector Hewitt said.
• FOURTEEN •
TO MY SURPRISE, THE Inspector suggested that the interview be conducted in my chemical laboratory.
“Where we shall be undisturbed,” he had said.
It wasn’t his first visit to my sanctum sanctorum: He had been here at the time of the Horace Bonepenny affair, and had called the laboratory “extraordinary.”
This time, with no more than a rapid glance at Yorick, the fully articulated skeleton that had been given to Uncle Tar by the naturalist Frank Buckland, the Inspector had sat himself down on a tall stool, put one foot on a rung, and pulled out his notebook.
“What time did you discover Miss Wyvern’s body?” he asked, getting down to brass tacks without any pleasant preliminaries.
“I can’t be sure,” I said. “Midnight, perhaps, or a quarter past.”
He sat with his Biro poised above the page.
“This is important,” he said. “Crucial, in fact.”
“How long does the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet run?” I asked.
He seemed a little taken aback.
“Capulet’s orchard? I don’t really know. Not more than ten minutes, I should say.”
“It took longer than that,” I told him. “They were late getting started, and then—”
“Yes?”
“Well, there was that business with Gil Crawford.”
I supposed that someone would have informed him about it by now, but I could tell by the way he gripped his Biro that they had not.
“Tell it to me in your own words,” he said, and I did: the failure of the spotlight to pick out Phyllis Wyvern at her first appearance … her coming down from the makeshift balcony … her walk up the aisle to the scaffolding … her climb up into the darkness … the stinging swat across Gil Crawford’s face.
It all came pouring out, and I was surprised by the outrage I had been bottling up. By the time I finished I was on the verge of tears.
“Most upsetting,” the Inspector said. “What was your reaction—at the time?”
My answer shocked me.
“I wanted to kill her,” I said.
We sat there in silence for what seemed like an eternity, but was, in fact, probably no longer than ten seconds.
“Are you going to put that in your notebook?” I asked at last.
“No,” he said, in another, softer voice. “It was more of a personal question.”
This was too good an opportunity to miss. Here, at last, was a chance to ease the ache that had been in my conscience since that dreadful day in October.
“I’m sorry!” I blurted. “I didn’t mean to … Antigone … your wife.”
He closed his notebook.
“Flavia …” he said.
“It was horrid of me,” I told him. “I didn’t think before I spoke. Antigone—Mrs. Hewitt, I mean, must have been so disappointed with me.”
I could hear my own voice ringing in my ears.
“Why don’t you and Inspector Hewitt have any children? Surely you can afford it on an Inspector’s salary?”
It had been meant lightly—almost a joke.
My spirits had been elevated by her presence, her beauty, and perhaps by the chemistry of too much sugar from too many pieces of cake. I had been a glutton.
I’d sat there glaring at her gleefully like some London toff who has just made a capital joke and is waiting for everyone else in the room to get it.
“Surely you can afford it on an Inspector’s salary?”
I’d almost said it again.
“We’ve lost three,” Antigone Hewitt had said with infinite heartbreak in her voice, taking her husband’s hand.
“I should like to go home now,” I’d announced abruptly, as if the power to utter every other word in the English language had been denied me.
The Inspector had driven me back to Buckshaw in a silence of my own choosing, and I had leapt out of his car without so much as a word of thanks.
“Not so much disappointed as sad,” he said, bringing me back to the present. “We haven’t been as successful as some in getting to grips with it.”
“She must hate me.”
“No. Hate is for haters.”
I saw what he meant, although I couldn’t have explained it.
“Like whoever it was that killed Phyllis Wyvern,” I suggested.