As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust (Flavia de Luce #7)(75)

How odd, I thought, that anyone should be coming or going at such an ungodly hour. Miss Bodycote’s was not the kind of establishment that encouraged callers, even during the daylight hours, so that a middle-of-the-night arrival or departure was most likely to be bad news.

Had someone been taken ill? Had someone called a doctor? If that were the case, the doctor was not Ryerson Rainsmith. I knew his car, and this was not it.

The interior light flicked on, and I could see that the passenger was a man: not anyone from Miss Bodycote’s, then. He was talking to the driver.

After several minutes, both doors sprang open and two men stepped out. Even in the dim light of the streetlamps I recognized Inspector Gravenhurst and Sergeant LaBelle. As they came up the steps, the front door opened, and a long rectangle of yellow light was cast out into the night. Silhouetted in it was the shadow of a woman, though whose, I could not tell.

And then the door was closed, and the entranceway was once again in darkness.

I crept quietly out into the hall, leaving my bedroom door ajar. Thank goodness I was still wearing yesterday’s clothing and didn’t have to dress.

At the top of the staircase, I paused, keeping to the shadows, and peeked down into the foyer.

The inspector and Sergeant LaBelle were standing just inside the door. They had not removed their hats, so they didn’t intend to stay. Facing them was Miss Fawlthorne, and beside her, stiff as a marble statue, was Mrs. Bannerman.

The two women had obviously been awaiting the police, since they had opened the front door at once.

The inspector stepped forward and said something in a low voice, which I could not quite catch, and then Miss Fawlthorne opened the door for the others to step outside.

Not wanting to miss the least detail, I tiptoed back to my room as quickly as possible without giving myself away, and flew to the window.

Inspector Gravenhurst, with a firm grip on Mrs. Bannerman’s elbow, was easing her into the backseat of the car.

In spite of the outward appearance of manners, I knew that Inspector Gravenhurst was no Prince Charming, and Mrs. Bannerman no Cinderella.

It was no candlelight ball they were off to in a pumpkin coach, but rather a cold car ride to some dank, sour cell in a draughty police station.

Mrs. Bannerman was under arrest.





? TWENTY-FOUR ?

I FELT AS IF my heart had been shot down in flames and crashed into the sea. Primarily, of course, for poor Mrs. Bannerman, but also, I must admit, for my own lost chances.

It was entirely my fault. I should have taken the opportunity to question her earlier about all those goings-on at Miss Bodycote’s in years past. She had certainly been there long enough to know where all—or at least most—of the bodies were buried, if I may put it in such a coarse way.

Those early morning hours in the chemistry laboratory before the academy was awake had allowed us to form bonds that could never have developed in a classroom or on the playing field.

Squandered, I thought. Utterly wasted.

Without putting myself in even more of a jam than I was in already, there was no way of questioning students or faculty.

But that had never stopped Flavia de Luce before.

“Trust no one,” Gremly had typed out on the Morse code sender. And Miss Fawlthorne had said the same—at least before she had contradicted herself.

Gremly, at least, was a member of the Nide, or so she had claimed. It was she, also, who had tipped me off about the first Mrs. Rainsmith. But she had distanced herself from me on the bus, and I knew, even without being told, that she did not want us to be seen together.

Who, then, could I trust?

Scarlett? I had asked her the cryptic pheasant question, but she, like Gremly, had recoiled with something that could only be fear.

Inspector Gravenhurst, I supposed, but it seemed unlikely he would share the results of his confidential investigations with a mere schoolgirl such as me.

Wallace Scroop came to mind, but I wrote him off almost immediately. He had spilled the beans about the ancient skull, but nothing more. If the truth be told, I had given him more information than he had given me—even if mine had turned out to be untrue. If Clarissa Brazenose, Wentworth, and Le Marchand were still alive, the information I had fed him was no more than a load of old horse hockey. I wondered if he knew?

At any rate, Wallace wouldn’t likely be in much of a mood to share further confidences.

Outside, it had begun to rain: not a downpour, but a cold drizzle which almost at once, due to condensation and the dropping temperature, began to fog the window.

I breathed heavily upon the glass, obscuring my view of the street, and creating a blank canvas upon which I could draw a whole new world with my forefinger.

I did it without even thinking: It came from somewhere deep inside.

Here was Bishop’s Lacey, and here, St. Tancred’s, with its churchyard. I sketched in a couple of little tombstones with my fingernail. Over here was the High Street, and Cow Lane, and Cobbler’s Lane, and Mrs. Mullet’s cottage.

Lord, how I missed her!

A warm tear ran down my cheek, matching to perfection a racing raindrop on the outside of the cold glass.

Here was her picket fence, and here her old rosebushes, which Alf kept trimmed to military standards. I almost began to sob as I etched in the clothesline, with someone’s shirts—Father’s, I realized with a shock—flapping wildly, sadly, in the fresh English breeze.