As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust

by Alan Bradley

  “And did he?”

  “Must have. Like I said, they danced like there was no tomorrow.”

  “Did anybody have a look at her?”

  “Not much. It was dark, remember.”

  “Dark? I thought it was a moonlight cruise.”

  “Bit of a washout there. Cloudy night, cold for June. Rainy squalls, choppy. Not many dancing on deck. Only the foolhardy and the lovesick few.”

  “And afterwards?”

  “Rainsmith was a broken man. Had to be helped off the boat.”

  “What about the box?”

  “Never had a chance to give it to her. Very touching story. DROWNING VICTIM DUCKS FINAL GIFT. Tasteless, maybe—but it won me a press award.”

  “Congratulations,” I said.

  “Look, kid. I’ve got to scram. There’s been a bank robbery downtown, and they’re screaming for Scroop. And listen, don’t forget our deal.”

  “I won’t,” I said, but he had already rung off, leaving me alone again.

  I think it was in that moment, standing alone at the back of the dark hallway at Miss Bodycote’s Female Academy, that I realized I was not only on my own, but likely to remain so. Although I had made the acquaintance of several of the girls at the Academy—Gremly and Scarlett, for instance—no deep long-term friendships had grown out of it. We were all of us like the proverbial ships that pass in the night, signaling only briefly to one another before sailing off over the horizon into our own patch of darkness.

  At least, that’s how I felt. It was sad, in a way.

  And yet, if it was sad, why did I feel so exhilarated?

  Could it be the challenge?

  In my personal experience, the solving of murder mysteries had involved the examination of a body, the gathering of clues, the putting-together of two and two, the unmasking of the killer, and … Voilà! Bob’s your uncle! Case closed. It was as easy as boiling water.

  But this case was an entirely new kettle of fish. The body had been removed before I’d had a chance to do more than barely glance at it, and there wasn’t the faintest hope that Inspector Gravenhurst was going to show up at the door to pile heaps of evidence at my feet with a shovel. There was no way of gaining access to autopsy results—short of trying to pry them out of Dorsey Rainsmith, which would be about as likely as the sun rising in the north tomorrow and setting in the south.

  I was going to have to develop a whole new technique: a new modus operandi, as Philip Odell, the private detective on the BBC wireless, would have put it.

  Rather than reasoning from corpse to killer, as I had in the past, I would now have to reverse the process. It would be like solving a crime in a mirror.

  Which was, perhaps, the cause of my excitement.

  I began a mental list that, if written in my notebook, might have looked something like this:

  (a) Who had a motive to murder Francesca Rainsmith?

  (i) Her husband, obviously. Daffy says there are motives in marriage that lie beyond reach of the church, the courts, and even the front page. Note: The News of the World claims that most killers and their victims come from the same family.

  (ii) Her soon-to-be replacement, Dorsey Rainsmith, whose reasons for wanting her rival dead are as plain as the nose on your face.

  (iii) Someone other than above. A stranger, perhaps. Some madman or madwoman.

  (b) Who has the capability to behead a corpse?

  (i) Dorsey Rainsmith is a forensic surgeon. She certainly possesses the know-how and the medical skill.

  (ii) Ryerson Rainsmith is a medical doctor. Not so skillful as his wife, perhaps, but still capable of getting the job done.

  (iii) Fitzgibbon is a former nurse, and may well have both the nerve and the stomach required to remove the part in question.

  (iv) Some unsuspected brute, such as the Ourang-Outang in Edgar Allan Poe that shoved a body up the chimney: a remarkable parallel to the present case, come to think of it. Remarkable, indeed!

  Again I found myself wondering: Could I, by sheer chance, have stumbled upon one of those classic killings, such as those written about by Miss Christie, in which the murderer mocks the police by carrying out killings that mimic nursery rhymes or fairy tales? Was Francesca Rainsmith’s killer intentionally reenacting The Murders in the Rue Morgue? I would never, as long as I live, forget the wild night that Daffy had read that tale aloud to us, the rain drumming on the drawing room windows, the blood and the hair on the hearth, and the old lady with her head cut clean off. I would try to find a copy as soon as possible to search for further parallels. Miss Bodycote’s had a small but serviceable library in an alcove in which nuns had once congregated to pray as they worked away at their invisible mending.

  Mending reminded me of the laundry. Edward Kelly, the Human Mountain, the stoker of Miss Bodycote’s boilers, was the only suspect who physically fit the bill. With his bulk and his muscles, he could probably stuff a body up a chimney before you could say “Ginger!” To say nothing of the detached head.

  All of these things flickered like summer lightning through my mind as I stood in the lower hall, the telephone receiver still clutched tightly in my hand.

  One fact stuck out like a septic thumb: that Mrs. Bannerman’s name did not appear on my list—and yet Inspector Gravenhurst had arrested her without so much as a la-di-da.

  Was it because he knew more than I did? That was possible, I suppose, but I can’t say I much liked the idea. Or could it be that, as an acquitted murderess, she had become a perpetual suspect? I didn’t much care for that idea, either.

  The inspector, after all, had access to all the evidence gathered, to the autopsy findings, and to the statements of all those who had been questioned, whereas I had to be content with the crumbs.

  As I have said, I was on my own, and the business of gathering evidence was, and would continue to be, like picking up spilled pepper in the dark.

  I was, like poor, homesick Moses in the book of Exodus, a stranger in a strange land.

  An outcast.

  But there was no point in feeling sorry for myself. It is always better, and far more rewarding, I have observed, to have someone else feel sorry for you, than to do the job yourself.

  Which gave me a splendid idea.

  “May I come in?” I asked, knocking lightly on the door frame.

  Miss Moate looked up from the shelf attached to her wheelchair, upon which she was sorting fossils.

  She did not say yes and she did not say no, so I took a chance and stepped into the lab.

  “Well?” she asked, in her permanently peeved voice. I could tell that she hated being interrupted.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, Miss Moate,” I said. If I’d worn a cap I’d have been wringing it in my hands. “I wonder if you might spare me a few minutes. It’s rather a personal matter?”

  I was proud of my strategy. It was one I had been saving for just such an occasion as this. Who can say no to a personal matter? Even God is curious about such things, which is why He listens to our prayers.

  As a teacher, Miss Moate had presumably been trained in some dim and remote teachers college in how to handle the confidences of her pupils. Appealed to directly, she could hardly say no.

  “I’m busy,” she said. “Personal matters should be taken up with the head, or with your housemistress.”

  “My housemistress is Mrs. Bannerman,” I said, “and she’s been arrested.”

  “What?” A fossil clattered onto the hard surface of the tray. I could tell by the genuine look of surprise on her face that Miss Moate had not yet heard the news.

  “Arrested,” I said. “They took her away. In the middle of the night.”

  Rat-a-tat-tat. Just like that. Shocking news is best delivered in bursts for maximum impact. I was sparing this woman nothing.

  “How do you know this? Where did you hear it?”

  “I didn’t hear it,” I said. “I was there. I saw it with my own eyes.”

  I could see the wheels turning as she l
ifted the huge padded cozy from the pot and poured herself a cup of tea. Should she gossip with a student, or place herself above idle chatter?

  “This … personal matter,” she said at last. “You may speak. But first, close the door.”

  I did as I was told, knowing, as I began, that one of us was not good at this sort of thing.

  “I’m frightened,” I said.

  Her eyes considered this, and then she asked, “Of what?”

  “The place is haunted,” I told her. “Footsteps are heard in the halls, and a girl who died two years ago has been seen coming out of the laundry.”

  It was a bold opening, and I was proud of myself to have thought of it.

  “And have you seen with your own eyes, as you put it, this dead girl? Have you heard, with your own ears, these footsteps in the halls?”

  “Well, no,” I admitted.

  “Science does not believe in ghosts,” she said. “And nor, as a budding chemist, should you.”

  So my special classes with Mrs. Bannerman were no secret.

  “Ghosts are most often seen by girls and certain young men with an iron deficiency.”

  If she was referring to chlorosis, or hypochromic anemia, she might as well have saved her breath. The condition had been described as early as the sixteenth century, and a remedy containing iron, sulfuric acid, and potassium carbonate concocted more than a hundred years ago by Albert Popper, the Bohemian chemist, and it was no news to me.

  “I’m sorry to have bothered you,” I said, turning toward the door.

  “No, wait,” Miss Moate said. “Don’t take offense.”

  I let my shoulders slump a little as a sign of defeat.

  “You mustn’t judge an old woman too harshly,” she said, her voice softening. “Look at me.”

  I didn’t want to, and I found my eyes repelled by hers as if they were the like poles of a pair of magnets. By sheer strength of my optical muscles, I forced myself to meet her gaze.

  “I was not always like this, you know,” she said, her hands fluttering reluctantly to indicate her body. “No, this useless husk was not always as you see it.”

  She gave a barking, seal-like laugh to indicate the irony of her situation.

  “How did it happen?” I blurted, before I could stop myself.

  Now that I had locked my gaze with hers I found that I could not break free.

  “You are the first person at this academy who has ever asked that,” she said.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, aware, even as I spoke, what a marvelous picklock power was contained in that one little word.

  “Don’t be,” she replied. “Everyone else in the world is sorry. Dare to be something more than that.”

  I waited for the electric charge in the air to settle.

  “As you are now, so once was I,” she said, the words seeming ancient in her throat. “You’ll find that inscribed on tombstones in old graveyards, you know.”

  I was well aware of it. The churchyard at St. Tancred’s had several variations of the verse:

  Remember, Friend, as you pass by,

  As you are now, so once was I.

  As I am now, so you must be,

  So Friend, prepare to follow me.

  It was almost my favorite piece of poetry, as opposed to Keats, say, or Shelley, or someone who wrote less practical verse.

  “It was an accident,” she said, her voice harsh, the words now suddenly raw in her mouth. “A car accident.… a village … a valley … a picnic … a friend. She was thrown clear, but I”—she touched the rubber tires of her chair, almost caressing them—“was trapped among the wheels.”

  I was going to say that I was sorry, but I held my tongue.

  “My only consolation is in being allowed to spend most of my time here, among my real friends.”

  She brought her hand round in a broad sweep to include the glass cases of stuffed creatures.

  “They are trapped, also, you see? Birds of a feather! You may laugh, if you wish.”

  “It’s not amusing,” I said. “It’s tragic.”

  I was thinking how I would feel if I were no longer able to swoop like a swallow through a country lane, my feet on Gladys’s handlebars as we raced down Goodger Hill and swept across the little stone bridge at the Palings. “Yaroo!” I used to shout.

  There was a silence in the room, and I turned away from Miss Moate, as if I had become suddenly interested in the displays in their cases.

  I took down a browned skull from a shelf, turning it over in my hands.

  I could hardly believe my eyes.

  Steady on. Keep calm, I thought. Poker face, stiff upper lip … anything to keep from giving away what you’ve just seen.

  “Don’t touch that!” Miss Moate snapped. “The specimens are not to be handled.”

  “Sorry,” I said before I could stop myself, and returned the grinning head to its place among the others.

  “I’ve done it again, haven’t I? But as I said, you mustn’t judge an old woman too harshly.”

  “It’s all right, Miss Moate,” I said, focusing on trying to appear normal, which is much more difficult than you might think. “I understand perfectly. I have a very great friend back home in England who is confined to a wheelchair. I know how dreadful it is.”

  I thought of dear old Dr. Kissing, parked in his rickety bath chair at Rook’s End, who, in his ancient quilted smoking jacket and tasseled hat, his cigarette ash drooping like an acrobatic gray caterpillar from the leaf of his lower lip, was snug as a bug in a rug. Dr. Kissing had certainly never complained about his lot in life, and I mentally begged his forgiveness for even suggesting that he might have done.

  “Very well, then,” Miss Moate said abruptly, clearing her throat as if to wipe the conversational slate clean. “Now, back to this personal matter … you’re frightened, you say?”

  “Well, not so much frightened as worried,” I admitted. “It’s about the Rainsmiths.”

  I dared not say more.

  “What about them? Has one of them done something to you?”

  “Not to me,” I said, “but perhaps to someone else.”

  “To who?” she demanded ungrammatically.

  “I mustn’t say. School rules forbid it.”

  Although I kept a sober face, I was smiling inwardly. Defending oneself by hiding behind the rules was a clever trick, like using a mouse to stampede the enemy’s elephants and causing them to trample him to death. Shakespeare had a phrase for it (as he had a phrase for everything): “hoist by his own petard,” which, according to Daffy, meant rousted by the smell of one’s own barn burners.

  “Forget the school rules,” she said. “When a child is at risk, the rules must be set aside.”

  Who did she think was at risk? I wondered. I had admitted being frightened and worried, but I had said nothing about being at risk—which was actually no more than a weasel word for danger.

  “Now, then,” she said in a soothing voice, “tell me about the Rainsmiths.”

  “I think they may have murdered someone.”

  “Who?” she said instantly. “In particular.”

  “Clarissa Brazenose.”

  I could have mentioned the names of Le Marchand and Wentworth, but I wanted to keep things simple. I had already suggested to Miss Fawlthorne that this trio may still be alive, but Miss Moate was not aware of that.

  Partial disclosure is a sharp knife that can be used again and again as long as you watch what you’re doing.

  “That’s a very serious accusation,” Miss Moate said. “Are you sure?”

  “No. I only think they may have. But I needed to tell someone.”

  “Well, I’m glad you did. I shall certainly see that—”

  Somewhere a bell went off, and moments later, the halls were filled with the sound of many feet. A babble of loud voices came closer and closer, and suddenly the horde, like a buffalo herd, was upon us.

  “Later,” Miss Moate said, mouthing the words to be heard above the clam
or. “We shall talk later.”

  Then, her voice suddenly restored, she shouted harshly: “Girls! Girls! Girls! We are not savages!”

  I nodded to let her know that I had understood and, like a salmon fighting its way upstream, I muscled my way to the door.

  I forced myself to plod doggedly along the halls to my room. No one paid me the slightest attention.

  When I reached Edith Cavell, I stepped inside, closed the door, and flattened my back against it. Now that it was safe to do so, my breath began coming in great, ragged gulps. I was becoming light-headed.

  The skull in Miss Moate’s science lab—the skull I had held in my hands …

  Before I replaced it on the shelf, I could not help spotting that three of its teeth contained amalgam fittings.

  • TWENTY-SIX •

  DENTAL SURGERY HAS BEEN around for almost as long as teeth. I had learned this stomach-curdling fact from the pages of a rather sticky journal in the waiting room of a London dentist’s office—a dim and ancient chamber of horrors in Farringdon Street whose prominent painted Victorian signs on every window, PAINLESS DENTISTRY and NO WAITING, had been lying to the public in florid capital letters for more than a century.

  Fillings, I had read, had been found in the teeth of some of the skulls in the Roman catacombs, although it was believed that most of the ancient mouths had been plundered by grave robbers who had pried out the gold. The Etruscans and Egyptians also had tinkered with teeth, and it was believed that even our earliest ancestors had stuffed their cavities with beeswax.

  I’m no expert in the art of filling teeth, but I’ve spent enough time hog-tied in the chair, having barbed wire strung from tooth to tooth, to have studied in great detail the large colored posters that illustrate in dripping color the perils of not brushing after every meal. As I’ve said elsewhere, I adore rot, but not in my mouth and, more to the point, not in the mouths of strangers to whom I have not been introduced.

  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.