As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust (Flavia de Luce #7)(26)

Jumbo had opened her eyes to take a reading. “Who are you?” she asked in a conversational tone.

There was no reply and she repeated her question two more times.

Now the cursor was on the move again, sliding silkily to and fro across the board’s smooth surface, picking out letters, one by one, pausing only briefly at each before moving on to the next.

D—A—R—K—H—E—R—E, it spelled out.

“We understand,” Jumbo said, snapping her fingers. “We light a light for you.”

Snap!

She had obviously done this sort of thing before.

“Is that better?”

The cursor scurried across the board and stopped at the word “YES.”

“Do you have a message for someone here?”

“YES.”

For just an instant, my blood ran cold. Could this be the ghost of my mother, Harriet? She had, after all, once been a student at Miss Bodycote’s. Perhaps a part of her was attached to the place forever.

In truth, I hoped it wasn’t Harriet. I had received from her once before a message from beyond the grave: a message telling me that she was cold and wanted to come home.

I didn’t think that I could bear another.

Please don’t let it be Harriet!

As uncharitable as that might seem.

Get a grip, Flavia! I thought, and not for the first time.

“Who are you?” Jumbo asked, three times and slowly. “What is your name?”

It came in a rush. The pointer scuttled back and forth across the board like a panicked lobster.

L—E—M—A—R—C—H—A—N—D

Gremly, who had been writing down the results with the stub of a lead pencil, gasped. “Le Marchand!” she cried.

It was the name of one of the girls who, according to Collingwood, had gone missing from Miss Bodycote’s.

I looked round the circle of blanched faces. It was obvious from their haunted eyes that each one of them had already made the connection.

“Oh, my God!” someone whispered.

I have to give Jumbo credit. She was on to it like a terrier on a rat.

“We are prepared for your message.”

I noticed that even at a moment so tense as this, Jumbo spoke to the spirit in a grammatically correct manner. Again, she repeated her words three times.

The pointer fairly flew across the board.

O—N—E—O—F—Y—O—U—K—N—O—W—S—M—Y—K—I—L—L—E—R

“One of you knows my killer!” Gremly gasped, reading aloud the words she had just scribbled down.

With a sweep of her hand, the tiny blonde across from me sent the planchette flying to the far corner of the room.

“Enough!” she said. “This is stupid.”

“Steady on, Trout,” Jumbo said. “If you’ve busted the thing, it’s coming out of your pocket money.”

Trout. So that was her name.

I looked round the circle.

One of the girls—on my left—had made a puddle.





? EIGHT ?

ANYONE WHO HAS EVER played with a Ouija board has pushed.

I can practically guarantee it.

Let’s admit it: You’ve pushed, I’ve pushed—everyone has pushed.

The opportunity is simply too good to pass up.

Initially, someone else in the circle had been doing the pushing, and for a few minutes, even I had wavered. Wavered? No, more than that: I’ll admit that the first message shook me. But then rational thought had returned, and I realized that I’d just been handed a rare gift from the gods.

From that point on, it had been yours truly, Flavia de Luce, guiding the planchette.

One of you knows my killer.

Sheer inspiration on my part!

The results had been even more gratifying than I’d hoped. Trout had been shocked into scattering the board and its runner, and the girl to my left had lost control of her bladder.

I needed to make her acquaintance at the earliest possible moment.

“Oh, dear!” I said, going all solicitous and helping her to her feet. I noticed that no one else made a move. I would have her all to myself.

I led her along the hall to the WC called Cartimandua, which would be a safe haven for an interview, I thought. Although it was forbidden for any girl to be in another’s room after lights-out, there was no law against two of us answering the call of nature at the same time.

“My name is de Luce,” I said, as the tiny creature retired into one of the cubicles. “Flavia.”

“I know who you are, well enough,” she said, her voice echoing oddly from the room’s glazed surfaces.

“But I don’t believe I know yours,” I said.

There was a hollow silence. And then her name came, almost in a whisper.

“Brazenose. Mary Jane.”

Brazenose? It couldn’t be! That was the name of one of the missing girls.

Le Marchand, Wentworth, and Brazenose—or so Collingwood had told me.

Surely there couldn’t be more than one Brazenose in such a small establishment as Miss Bodycote’s?

Or could there?

“Was she your sister?” I asked gently.

A torrent of sobs from the cubicle provided the answer.