As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust (Flavia de Luce #7)(8)

I gathered all my strength and gave a mighty shove.

With a grunt and a thud someone fell heavily to the floor.

“What the dickens do you think you’re doing?” I demanded, snatching the candlestick from the desk. As a weapon—in a pinch—it was better than nothing. The guttering flame flared up.

Breath was sucked in. It sounded surprised.

“You’re not Pinkham!” the voice said in the gloom.

“Of course I’m not Pinkham. I’m Flavia de Luce.”

The voice gulped. “De Luce? The new girl?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, sheep shears! I’m afraid I’ve made an awful boner.”

There was a rustling sound and the overhead light was switched on.

There, with what Daffy always described as “strangle eyes” blinking in the glare, stood the most remarkable-looking little person I had ever seen. Long lizard legs clad in baggy black woolen stockings protruded from the dark blue skirt of a rumpled school uniform. Her body—almost an afterthought atop those remarkably long, bandy legs—was like a flattened lump of dough: a gingerbread man carelessly made.

“Who the deuce are you?” I demanded, taking the upper hand.

“Collingwood, P. A. ‘P. A.’ for Patricia Anne. Gosh, I hope you’re not too cheesed off with me. I thought you were Pinkham. Honest! I’d forgotten they moved her into Laura Secord with Barton because of her nightmares. Special dispensation.”

“And what did Pinkham do to deserve such a beating?” I wasn’t going to let her off easily.

Collingwood colored. “I mustn’t tell you. She’d kill me.”

I fixed her with the famous cold blue eye for which we de Luces are noted—although mine tend more toward violet, actually, especially when I’m riled.

“Spill it,” I said, raising the candlestick in a menacing manner and taking a step toward her. I was, after all, now in North America, the land of George Raft and James Cagney—a land where plain talk was understood.

Collingwood burst into tears.

“Oh, come on, kid,” I said.

Come on, kid?

My ears couldn’t believe what my mouth was saying. A couple of hours in Canada and I was already talking like Humphrey Bogart. Could it be something in the air?

“She ratted on me,” Collingwood said, wiping her eyes with her school tie.

They really did talk like that here. All those afternoons with Daffy and Feely at the cinema in Hinley had not been wasted after all, as Father had claimed. I had learned my first foreign language and learned it well.

“Ratted,” I repeated.

“To the head,” Collingwood added, nodding.

“Miss Fawlthorne?”

“The Hangman’s Mistress, we call her. But don’t let on I told you. She’s done the most unspeakable things, you know.”

“Such as?”

Collingwood looked over both shoulders before replying. “People disappear,” she whispered, pinching her fingertips together and then, like a magician, with a quick gesture, causing them to fly open to reveal an empty hand. “Poof! Just like that. Without a trace.”

“You’re pulling my leg,” I said.

“Am I?” she asked, her eyes huge and damp. “Then what about Le Marchand? What about Wentworth? What about Brazenose?”

“Surely they can’t all have vanished without a trace,” I said. “Someone would have noticed.”

“That’s just the thing!” Collingwood said. “No one did. I’ve been making notes. Pinkham caught me at it. She ripped the book out of my hands and took it to Miss Fawlthorne.”

“When was this?” I asked.

“Last night. Do you think they’re going to kill me?”

“Of course not,” I said. “People don’t do things like that. Not in real life, at any rate.”

Although I knew perfectly well that people did. And, in my own experience, more often than you’d think.

“Are you sure?” Collingwood asked.

“Positive,” I lied.

“Promise you won’t tell,” she whispered.

“I swear,” I said, for some unfathomable reason making the sign of the cross in the air.

Collingwood’s brow wrinkled. “Are you an RC?” she asked.

“Why?” I said, to stall for time more than anything. As a matter of fact, she had hit the nail on the head. Even though we appeared outwardly to be practicing Anglicans, we de Luces had been Roman Catholics since Rome was little more than seven picturesque hills in the Italian wilderness. The soul, Daffy says, is not necessarily where the heart is.

“As a matter of fact, yes,” I said.

Collingwood whistled through her teeth. “I thought so! We have next-door neighbors back home in Niagara-on-the-Lake—the Connollys?—they’re RCs, too. They make those same fiddles with their fingers that you just did. It’s the sign of the cross, isn’t it? That’s what Mary Grace Connolly told me. It’s a kind of magic. She made me promise not to tell. But listen! What are you doing here? Miss Bodycote’s is—”

“I know,” I interrupted. “So high Anglican that only a kitchen stool is required to scramble up into Heaven.”

Where had I heard that? I couldn’t for the life of me remember. Had Aunt Felicity told me? Surely it wasn’t Father.