by Alan Bradley
He was almost too beautiful: like the Blue Boy of Gainsborough’s famous painting, but rather more pale.
But wait! It was a painting he reminded me of—yet it certainly wasn’t a Gainsborough. No, it was a work by a much less well-known artist named Henry Wallis.
The Death of Chatterton, it was called, and it depicted the body of that sad young poet who had poisoned himself in 1770 at the age of seventeen, having been exposed as a literary forger.
I ought to have realized this at once, but I didn’t, even though a large framed reproduction of the original had been hanging for years in a place of honor on my bedroom wall.
It is one of my favorite works of art, I must admit.
In the painting, Chatterton, his flesh an awful fish-belly white, lies stretched upon a shabby couch in his rented garret, the fingers of his left hand seeming to bare the breast in which his heart had quite recently been beating.
His right hand lies stiffly clutched on the floor, near the empty arsenic bottle.
All art ought to be this fascinating.
“Please remain where you are, Miss Ophelia and Miss Daphne,” Dogger said, pulling me out of my thoughts. “Keep a sharp eye out, both up and down the river.”
What a clever man, I thought. He meant to keep them occupied; keep them from going into hysterics; keep them from trampling the evidence.
It is a remarkable fact that orders given in a firm voice at the scene of a tragedy are invariably obeyed.
“If you’d be good enough to stay here, Miss Flavia,” he said, “I shall go for the police.”
I gave him a brisk nod and he was off, scrambling up the grassy riverbank toward the church, the wet turn-ups of his trousers sloshing round his ankles, but still dignified in spite of it.
As soon as he was gone, I lifted the corner of the blanket.
The pale blue eyes, which were half open, the pupils dilated, gazed up at me in surprise—as if I had suddenly snatched a coverlet from the face of a light sleeper. The irises matched the color of his lips and the silk ribbons at his knees.
I sniffed the lips—actually touched them with the tip of my nose—but could detect nothing but the brackish smell of river water.
I leaned low over the corpse and drew up into my nostrils the smell of his eyeballs.
I was already half expecting it: the odor of apples.
Potassium cyanide, I recalled, is quite odorless until mixed with water, in which it freely dissolves to form an alkaline solution, from which prussic acid is abundantly evolved, which, when exposed to air, volatilizes to produce the smell of apples.
The tissue of the eyes, being the thinnest and softest in the body, not only are more absorbent of chemical odors than are other parts of the body, but retain them longer. If you don’t believe me, take a whiff of your own tears an hour after you’ve eaten onions.
Also, the eyes, having been fixed in a half-closed position, would have been better protected from the diluting effect of the water than the nose and lips.
His complexion was—well, let’s just say that it was interesting. Although the features were somewhat bloated, there was remarkably little lividity: a sure sign, I remembered, either that the body had not been in the water for long, or that it had been sunken in the cooler depths for several days. The fact that it had now floated up to the surface, though, was a likely indication of gaseous putrefaction. There were other possibilities, of course, but that was the most likely sequence of events.
Further physical signs (which I could have checked) might also be present, but examining these would have involved stripping the body, which, I decided, would not be decent. Besides, there wasn’t time: Dogger would be returning with the police at any moment.
In drowning, it is sometimes the internal evidence which turns out to be most crucial. Obviously, I couldn’t conduct a full-scale postmortem here on the riverbank. I would have to settle for the next best thing.
Placing both hands in an overlapping position on the dead man’s chest, I threw all my weight into a powerful straight-armed push.
I was amply rewarded: A surprisingly rich flow of frothy broth, followed by what I took to be water, streamed out from between his blueish lips.
Reaching for my handkerchief, I blotted up the mess, folded it inward in a ball to avoid contamination, and returned it to my pocket.
Certain people—such as Mrs. Mullet, for instance—kept going on about the importance of always carrying a clean handkerchief about one’s person, and for once they were right.
A quick look round told me that I had not been observed.
Returning to my physical examination of the corpse, I felt the palms of the dead man’s hands for looseness of skin, the “glove effect” which would indicate a longer immersion in the water, but they were remarkably firm.
Almost without thinking, I raised my fingertips to my nose.
It’s remarkable, really, how much we ignore our sense of smell: until, that is, we detect one extreme or another, fragrant or foul—either roses or rot. The human olfactory system has trained itself to ignore anything that doesn’t matter.
I sniffed my fingers.
Aha! I hadn’t really expected anything out of the ordinary, but my nose was picking up an unmistakable smell.
Paraldehyde, by all that’s holy! Good old, jolly old (CH3CHO)3—a foul-smelling, foul-tasting, but colorless liquid which can be easily produced by treating aldehyde with sulfuric or hydrochloric acid. The stuff was first synthesized in 1829, and had once been combined with extract of vanilla, syrup of raspberries, and chloroform to treat insomnia. It had also been used, mixed with equal parts of cherry-laurel water, to administer subcutaneous injections to the insane.
But because of the lingering reek of the breath it produced in the patient, paraldehyde had generally been abandoned a hundred years ago. Although I had overheard someone remark that there were still those—particularly among the aristocracy—who had gone beyond alcohol and become addicted to the stuff.
I sniffed my fingertips again to reinforce my memory of the facts.
Paraldehyde poisoning, if I recalled correctly, contracted the pupils, whereas this poor man’s were dilated. It didn’t quite add up. There wasn’t that sudden “click” of certainty.
It would have to wait until later. There was no time now.
I returned my attention to the lower parts of the body.
On one of the feet, which stuck out slightly beyond the far end of the blanket, was what I can only describe as a red ballet slipper. The other foot was bare. He was not a tall man, I judged: somewhat less than five and a half feet, perhaps, although it was difficult to estimate with him lying on his back and partly covered.
Yes! That was it: The man was a ballet dancer, which would account for his costume.
I was proud of myself. He had come down to the riverbank in the night, perhaps to practice his pirouettes away from prying eyes. Swan Lake, probably.
What a sight that must have been beneath the weeping willows and the sleepily flowing river—until he had misjudged—or tripped—and fallen into the dark water.
Or been pushed.
Had he become entangled in reeds or duckweed? I folded back more of the blanket. There was no vegetation clinging to his body.
Perhaps some of it had become caught up in his clothing. I decided to search him.
Have you ever stuck your hands into the pockets of a corpse? Perhaps not. I myself have done it on only a couple of occasions, and I can tell you that it’s not always the most pleasant of occupations.
Who knows what may be lurking in the crevices of the clothing? With a drowning victim, you’re at risk of eels, water snakes, crabs, and so forth, and I tried to recall quickly which species of these—such as the Chinese Mitten Crab—had been known to make their way upstream from the tidal waters of the Thames. When it comes to crabs you can never be too cautious.
I needn’t have worried. Except for a wad of wet lint and a folded bit of soggy blue-lined paper
from his trousers, the corpse’s pockets were empty. I fished out the paper between my first and second fingers, noting as I did so that I would need to give my hands a jolly good scrubbing later because of the slime.
Smoothing it carefully with my thumb to avoid disintegration, I slowly unfolded the scrap. Something had been written upon it in pencil: a series of numbers.
54, 6, 7, 8, 9
A date perhaps? The year 1954—with 6, 7, 8, and 9 representing the months of June, July, August, and September? If so, it was still some two years in the future, since we were now in June of 1952.
People don’t usually make appointments that far in advance.
Or could it be the combination to a safety lock? That seemed unlikely, since a series of four small numbers in strict numerical sequence would be extremely difficult to dial accurately—if it could be done at all. As Dogger had taught me, during one of our sessions devoted to the art of lock-picking, combinations generally contain at least two widely spaced numerals.
Or was it a telephone number? I couldn’t be sure which exchange was represented by the first two digits, but one could always ring the number and see who picked it up on the other end.
The possibilities seemed endless, which made it all the more exciting, since possibilities are so much more thrilling than certainties—or so I’ve always thought.
I was about to stuff the wadded paper back into the corpse’s pocket when a sudden shadow blocked the sun and fell upon the body. An electric chill shot through my bones.
I twisted round and put my hand up to block the light, but could see only a black silhouette hovering over my shoulder.
“What are you doing to Orlando?” demanded a voice, and I nearly leapt out of my liver. The speaker was seated in an antique wicker bath chair, and had rolled up in such silence that I hadn’t heard her coming.
“What are you playing at? Is this a game? Another one of your larks? Get up at once, Orlando—you’re soiling your silks.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, scrambling to my feet. “I’m afraid—”
“And well you might be, you shameless girl. What are you playing at? Answer me at once!”
My first impression of the woman was that she had a beak like a battleship: forward-jutting and powerful enough to slice through the most fearsome Atlantic breakers as if they were runny cheese.
Her snow-white hair was tied up so tightly into a large bun at the back of her head that it gave her face the appearance of a squeezed pimple in the instant before it bursts.
The toe of a riding boot peeked out from under a lap robe, and an old school tie flopped out of a Norfolk jacket onto her ample chest. The woman seemed all odds and ends.
“What are you staring at?” she asked. “Didn’t your parents teach you not to gawk?”
That did it. My parents—both of them now deceased, God rest their dear departed souls—had taught me the most important thing of all, which was to show some spine in the face of bullying.
I know that I ought to have been a fountain of condolences, a rock of sympathy in a sea of sadness, but this woman had stepped across my line of decency. I couldn’t bring myself to touch her, let alone hug her.
“Orlando is dead,” I informed her. “He drowned. We found the body.”
I could tell she was not listening to me.
“Orlando, get up at once,” she commanded. “The Hawthorne-Wests will be arriving in an hour, and you know how Parthia hates to be kept waiting.”
Orlando’s already pallid complexion was tinted an even more awful green by the closeness of the grass, and I couldn’t help noticing that a couple of dandelions beside his ears were reflecting little yellow bruises onto his cheeks, like dabs of rancid butter.
“That’s enough, Orlando,” the woman said, releasing a foot from its stirrup beneath the lap robe and giving his shoulder a prod. “Get up now and come along.”
I seized her arm.
“Better not touch him,” I said. “He’s dead. The police have been called.”
The woman looked up at me—then back at the corpse—then back at me again. Her eyes widened and her vast and lightly whiskered upper lip curled back as a horrible wail shattered the quiet air—rising and falling like a demented air-raid siren.
Her ear-splitting screech caused Feely and Daffy to swivel their heads in our direction—but only for a quick glance, returning at once to scouting the river as Dogger had instructed them to do.
“See no evil, hear no evil” was their motto, and some small part of me didn’t blame them. Being embroiled with bodies is not so simple as some people seem to think it is.
Looking away is easy, but staring Death in the face takes more than a strong stomach.
Dogger, I saw, was now returning through the churchyard, accompanied by two other persons. One, it was obvious by his uniform, was the village constable; the other, by his dog collar, the vicar, a roly-poly, jolly-looking gentleman.
Thank heavens, I thought. I would no longer have to deal with this howling harpy on my own.
“Stand back, please,” the constable said, as I knew he would. I was happy to obey by getting to my feet and shuffling backward to a point where I could watch without being watched. Of such small tools from one’s bag of tricks are great investigators made.
I know how stuffy that must sound, but it’s true.
Dogger and I stood looking on as the constable—gingerly, I thought—peered under the corner of the blanket. Having satisfied himself that he was dealing with a dead body, he tugged at his jacket, straightened his tie, turned to us, and said, “Yes. Well, then…”
He jabbed his thumb vaguely toward the church and, presumably, the high street.
“I’d be obliged if you’d all step across to the Oak and Pheasant. The landlord lays on a good spread of pickled hocks and cheese, if you feel up to it, that is. I shall be along in due course.”
If we felt up to it? I suppose he meant to sound solicitous. Or was it supposed to be humorous? Whose leg did this village idiot think he was pulling?
I had half a mind to tell him that there was nothing I loved more than gorging on cold ham while examining a particularly juicy corpse.
I caught Dogger’s eye before I replied.
“That’s very thoughtful of you, Constable,” I said. “I think I could stand a whiff of smelling salts about now.”
Because it was expected of a girl my age, I flashed him a quick but slightly sickly grin, leaving him to work out what I meant.
“Have we seen everything that we need to?” I asked Dogger from the corner of my mouth, as we walked to fetch Feely and Daffy from the punt.
“We have, indeed, Miss Flavia,” he said. “More than enough.”
·THREE·
“HOW PERFECTLY ICKY!” DAFFY whined when we were seated round a table in the saloon bar of the Oak and Pheasant.
I hadn’t the faintest idea whether she was referring to the pub, the corpse, or the wailing woman in the bath chair we had left to the tender mercies of the constable on the riverbank.
Nor did I particularly care.
Feely shifted uneasily in her chair, giving quick, darting glances round the room. I knew at once that she was unable to hide her discomfort at being seated with a servant.
I don’t know what she was worried about. The only other patrons in the pub were a group of rather shabby men of assorted sizes, all wearing colored kerchiefs round their necks, all busily poking one another in the chest and laughing loudly at the others’ jokes.
Not that Dogger would have minded. We were on holiday, and so was he. Rank and station were forgotten—or were supposed to be. Things were different since the war. Feely had been brought up in a different world, and it showed.
I pitied my sister. Her life had not been an easy one—especially recently. She was mourning Father and moping over her postponed marriage. To someone used to getting her own way, it must have seemed like the Apocalypse.
“What’ll it be?” the landlord asked, his penci
l poised. “Ploughman’s lunch all round?” In his apron and shirtsleeves he was the very picture of an innkeeper in a cartoon from Punch.
“A pint of Guinness, please,” Feely said, and I nearly fell out of my chair. It was the first time she had spoken since breakfast.
“Are you over eighteen?” the landlord asked. “Sorry, miss, but I’m obliged to inquire.”
“I can vouch for her,” Dogger said.
“I’ll have the same,” Daffy blurted, and the man was too taken aback to repeat his question. She was evidently even more shaken than I had thought.
“Ginger beer for me,” I said. “And if it’s not too much trouble, I’d like it warmed on the back of the cooker for three minutes.”
It’s always a good idea to demand some quirky service, to let them know that you’re not just anybody.
I knew that with an investigation getting under way over against the churchyard wall, we were bound to be in this village for quite some time, and it was essential to establish priorities at the outset. You can’t command respect after the starting whistle’s been blown—especially among strangers.
The landlord gave me a squinty eye, but he wrote down my order.
“And you, sir?” he asked, turning to Dogger.
“Milk,” Dogger replied. “A small glass of milk. It’s pasteurized, I presume?”
“Pasteur-ized and past your ears, sir!” The landlord laughed, slapping his knee. I could have slapped his face. “You’ve never seen milk so pasteurized as our own. Why, just yesterday I was saying to Mr. Clemm, our vicar, ‘You’ll get no trade from our kitchen!’—meaning, of course, in the funeral department. He wasn’t amused—like Queen whatsername.”
I stopped listening. I knew all too well the dangers of unpasteurized milk.
The chemist Louis Pasteur was, after all, one of my great heroes. I had eagerly memorized the symptoms of tuberculosis—also known as consumption, or phthisis—and how the bacillus responsible caused the victim’s lungs to turn into a kind of weeping cheese: the features becoming livid and darkening as the blood retains excessive carbon, the hectic fevers, the racking cough, the racing pulse, the wasting muscles, the night sweats, and the agitated delirium—the mind, however, remaining cruelly clear and focused almost until the very end.