As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust (Flavia de Luce #7)(17)

“Creep,” Van Arque shot after him, but he was already too far away to have heard her.

Somewhere indoors, a bell began to ring.

“Curses!” Van Arque muttered. “Wouldn’t you just know it?”

She tossed the cigarette down and ground it out beneath her heel. “Come on,” she said. “We’ve got to go. They’ve put you in the fourth form—at least for the time being. As I said, Miss Fawlthorne told me to oversee you until she gets round to the formalities. She’s got rather a lot on her plate at the moment—or so she says.”

“I should say she has!” I volunteered, wondering if Van Arque’s had been one of the cherub faces floating in the darkness. “Did you see what happened in Edith Cavell last night?”

I hated myself as soon as I had said it. I am not ordinarily a gossip, but some inside force was suddenly making me spit out information like a clockwork ticket dispenser.

Was I automatically sucking up to Van Arque because of my inferior position as a new girl? I surely hoped not.

“No,” she said. “But I heard about it. That’s for darn sure!”

I said nothing. I have learned to use silence as a jimmy to pry information free. Or did I keep my mouth buttoned because I was still nauseated from that tidal wave of homesickness? I shall never know.

But whatever the reason, I held my tongue.

And it paid off. Van Arque couldn’t resist demonstrating her superior knowledge.

“The guff has it that Miss Fawlthorne found you standing over a dead body in Edith Cavell, and Collingwood in hysterics. I told you—you’re notorious. Now hurry up before they skin us and use our guts for snowshoes.”





? FIVE ?

AS WE MADE OUR way along the dark passage that led from the back entrance to the Great Hall, the bell clanged again.

“Oh, corn!” Van Arque whispered in the sudden silence that followed. “Now we’re in for it. We’ll be blacked.”

“Blacked?” I said. Collingwood had used this term, but I still had no idea what being “blacked” involved, although I must say it didn’t sound like much fun. I had visions of being painted with boot polish, like the vicar as Othello in the parish play. It seemed rather an extreme punishment for missing a stupid bell.

As if by chance, another bell sounded: this one closer and less loud.

“It’s the doorbell,” Van Arque said.

As sometimes happens when you’re in a pinch, Fate offered up a free spin of the wheel, and I took it.

Rather than following Van Arque, I veered across the hall and opened the door.

There, with his finger still on the electric bell button, stood a tall and excessively slender man. He had the long face and long fingers of a carved medieval saint and the body of a long-distance runner.

A younger, shorter man in a dark blue uniform stood sturdily to one side, his feet apart and his hands clasped—I assumed—behind his back. He might as well have had “ASSISTANT” stamped across his forehead with indelible ink.

“Yes?” I asked, taking the upper hand.

Behind me, Van Arque sucked in a noisy breath at my boldness.

“Miss Fawlthorne,” said the medieval saint. I could tell already that he was a man of few words. Rather like Gary Cooper.

“Ah!” I said. “You must be the police.”

It was, of course, a dim-witted thing to say, and yet at the same time, precisely right.

The tall man nodded, almost reluctantly. “That’s correct,” he said. He was giving nothing away.

“I’m Flavia de Luce,” I said, sticking out my hand. “And you are …?”

“Inspector Gravenhurst.”

“Ah!” I said, as if I had been already half-expecting that to be his name.

He gave me a quick but firm handshake. I could see that he was sizing me up even as our hands went up and down.

“And Sergeant …?” I said, taking a chance. Surely an inspector’s right-hand man would be a sergeant of one kind or another.

“LaBelle,” the sergeant said, not correcting me.

“I shall tell Miss Fawlthorne you wish to see her,” I said.

The inspector nodded, stepping inside and looking round the Great Hall with keen interest, taking in every detail with his penetrating gaze.

I liked this man already.

“By the way,” I said, turning back toward him. “I’m the one who discovered the body.”

This was not precisely true, but it was my only chance of becoming involved in the case. I resisted the powerful urge to tell him that this corpse was not my first: that in fact, cadavers were my calling card.

Modesty, though, prevailed.

The inspector brightened immediately.

“Indeed?” he said, and I liked him even more. Pity, though, that he wasn’t a member of the legendary Royal Canadian Mounted Police. That would have made things perfect, but it wasn’t likely his fault. His height had probably exceeded some idiotic and arbitrary physical requirement.

“Van Arque,” I said, surprised by my own boldness, “run upstairs and tell Miss Fawlthorne the inspector’s here.” I resisted adding, “There’s a good ducks.”

Van Arque’s mouth fell open.

“Van Arque’s a monitress,” I explained to the inspector. “She has first dibs on fetching the head.”