As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust (Flavia de Luce #7)(6)

Outside the train’s windows, Canada rushed past, as if on a rotating turntable. It seemed to me to be composed of a remarkable amount of water.

And then it was dark, and all I could see in the window was the reflection of the Rainsmiths. Dorsey had fallen asleep, her neck twisted awkwardly, as if from the end of a rope, her mouth hanging open in a most unpleasant but satisfying manner.

I pretended she was the murderess Edith Thompson, whose violent drop was said to have caused John Ellis, the public hangman, to commit suicide.

A filament of drool appeared at the corner of Dorsey’s mouth, swinging with the motion of the train like an acrobatic spider on a thread. I was trying to decide whether this spoiled or enhanced the hanged-woman effect when Ryerson touched my arm.

I nearly leaped out of my skin.

“Toronto soon,” he whispered, so as not to disturb his sleeping wife.

He didn’t want her awake any more than I did.

I turned to watch the lighted windows that were now sliding by outside in the darkness: windows in which dozens of mothers cooked in dozens of kitchens, dozens of fathers read newspapers in dozens of cozy chairs, dozens of children wrote or drew at dozens of tables, and here and there, like a candle in the wilderness, the lonely blue-gray glow of a little television screen.

It was all so unbearably sad.

Could things be any worse?





? TWO ?

IT WAS RAINING IN Toronto.

Low clouds, reddened to the shade of inflamed intestines by neon advertising signs, glowered above the towering hotels. The wet pavements were a soggy crazy-quilt of swimming colors and running waters. Trams sparked in the damp darkness, and the night air was sharp with the acrid smell of their ozone.

Dorsey Rainsmith was not yet fully conscious, and she stood blinking on the curb beneath the umbrella her husband was holding, as if she had just awakened to find herself on an alien and most unpleasant planet.

“Taxis are busy tonight,” her husband said, looking up the street and down. “There’s bound to be another soon.” He wigwagged his arms frantically at a lone taxicab passing on the wrong side of the street, but it splashed on, oblivious.

“I don’t see why Merton couldn’t have met us,” Dorsey said.

“His mother died, Dodo,” Ryerson said, forgetting I was there. “Don’t you remember? He sent us a telegram.”

“No,” she said, going into one of her Grand Pouts.

Ryerson was gnawing fiercely at his lower lip. If a taxicab didn’t come along in the next two minutes he was going to need stitches.

“I shall order flowers tomorrow,” he said, “for both of you.”

Galloping Galatians! Was that an insult? Or had my ears deceived me?

Dorsey turned a slow, cold, reptilian eye upon him, but just at that moment, a taxicab splashed to a stop at the curb.

“Ah! Here we are,” Ryerson said brightly, rubbing his hands together—or wringing them, I’m not sure which.

The Rainsmiths climbed into the backseat and I was left to sit up front with the driver.

Ryerson gave their home address.

“We’ll put you up for the night, Flavia,” he said. “It’s too late now for Miss Bodycote’s. Well past their ‘lights-out.’ ”

“We’ll do no such thing,” his wife said. “We haven’t a room made up, and with Merton indisposed, I can’t possibly cope. Take us directly to Miss Bodycote’s Female Academy, driver. We’ll wake them up.”

And that was that.

In the driver’s rearview mirror, I could see Dorsey Rainsmith mouthing silent but angry words at her husband. The streetlights, seeping in through the taxi’s watery windows, made Ryerson’s face look as if it were melting.

Miss Bodycote’s Female Academy was on a cul-de-sac just off the Danforth.

It was not at all what I had expected.

Tall houses loomed up on both sides of the street, crowded cheek-to-cheek, their windows alight and welcoming. Standing in darkness among them in its own grounds, Miss Bodycote’s was a vast shadow in their midst: taller, larger—a couple of acres of stony darkness in the rain.

I was to learn later that the place had once been a convent, but I didn’t know that as Ryerson yanked angrily at the bell of what appeared to be a porter’s lodge, a sort of Gothic wicket set into one side of the arched front doorway.

Down a long flight of stone steps on the street, Dorsey waited in the taxi as I stood beside her husband on the step. Ryerson pounded on the heavy front door with his fist.

“Open up,” he shouted at the blank, curtainless windows. “This is the chairman.

“That ought to fetch them,” he muttered, almost to himself.

Somewhere inside, a dim glow appeared, as if someone had lighted a candle.

He shot me a triumphant look, and I thought of applauding.

After what seemed like an eternity, but which was probably in reality no more than half a minute, the door was edged open by an apparition in nightgown, thick spectacles, and curlers.

“Well?” demanded a creaky voice, and a candle in a tin holder was raised to light and examine our faces. And then a gasp. “Oh! I’m sorry, sir.”

“It’s all right, Fitzgibbon. I’ve brought the new girl.”

“Ah,” said the apparition, sweeping the candle in a broad arc to indicate that we were to step inside.