As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust (Flavia de Luce #7)(89)

Which raised a whole new set of possibilities.

“Which one of them was it, then? Ryerson Rainsmith or Miss Moate?”

“I don’t know,” Fabian said with a sigh. “I really don’t.”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?” I asked. “The police, for instance.”

Fabian regarded me with a distant eye, and then she said: “I have my reasons.”

I could have named one of them on the spot, but I didn’t. I decided to steer the conversation into less personal channels—at least for now.

“We have to be very cautious with seafood poisoning,” I said. “Mussels, clams, scallops, and oysters contain organic forms of arsenic. So do crabs and lobsters.”

I never thought I’d find myself in the position of defending Ryerson Rainsmith, but it’s a funny old world, and when it comes to poisons, it’s always best to watch your step.

A hanged man can’t be unhanged, and besides, I didn’t think I could stand being made a fool of.

“The Marsh test can’t distinguish between the various forms of arsenic,” I said. “But since no one else died at the Beaux Arts Ball, I think that we can assume, at least for the moment, that Francesca Rainsmith’s poison came from somewhere other than the lobster’s natural toxicity.”

“The lobster was just a cover? Is that what you’re saying?”

“It might have been,” I said. “And then again, it might not.”

Fabian fixed me with a long stare, then shook her head. “You’re a strange one, de Luce. I can’t figure you out.”

“Neither can I,” I said. “So tell me more about the night of the ball.”

“It was as it always was. Long tables, alternate seating: faculty, student, faculty, student—democratic principles, remember. No hierarchy—everyone equal, that sort of thing.”

“Hold on,” I said. “How was it that the chairman was seated next to his wife? You did say that, didn’t you?”

“Hmmm,” Fabian said. “I hadn’t thought of that. Unless it just worked out that way because of the number of chairs.”

“So,” I said, changing the subject. “Miss Moate produces Francesca’s plate of lobster from under her tea cozy, the chairman breaks it up for her, and she tucks into a hearty meal. Is that it?”

“Pretty well,” Fabian said. “I was busy dismembering my own lobster, mind you, and it was a chore. One hates to splatter one’s neighbors with melted butter and intestinal juices. One tries to be ladylike.”

“And Francesca?”

“Oh, she seemed to be getting on quite well, chatting up the girls, for a while, anyway. She was the center of attention in her Cinderella getup.”

“What about the chairman? Was he in costume, too?”

Fabian snorted. “I should say not. He’s above that sort of thing.”

“What about the prizes?” I asked. “Didn’t Francesca present one of them?”

“Yes,” Fabian said. “I think so. Oh, yes, of course she did.”

“The Saint Michael Award,” I said. “For church history.”

“Yes.”

“To Clarissa Brazenose.”

“Yes.”

“Who vanished later that same night.”

“So they say,” Fabian said.

“And what do you say?”

Fabian lit another cigarette with the same mannerisms as before. “You mustn’t put too much stock in what the younger kids say,” she said, blowing out the match with as much force as if it were a forest of candles on the birthday cake of a hundred-year-old. “Their minds are full of nonsense. Ghost stories, fairy tales. They’re easily spooked.”

“I’m not asking what the younger girls say, I’m asking what you say.”

“I say, ‘Who knows?’ People come and go all the time. It’s the nature of schools. She might have been sent down. Gated. Failed to Flourish.”

“Yes,” I said. “She might have.”

This whole game of to and fro, this whole game of put and take, this whole game of cat and mouse with Fabian was getting me down, and yet it was somehow strangely familiar. I realized with an almost physical start that it was the same rigmarole I had often fallen into with Feely: a parlor game where persistence paid and only the bold survived.

“About Francesca,” I said, with a cucumber-cool expression on my face. “She gave out the Saint Michael Award, and then what?”

“I don’t know,” Fabian said. “I suppose I noticed she had become more quiet—withdrawn, you might say. Touching her napkin to her lips a lot. She seemed to be growing paler by the minute. Wiped her brow a lot, too. Although it was hot, you know: June, crowded room, stuffy, too many bodies. Not that she wasn’t trying to remain on the rails. She asked Clarissa if she could have a better look at the medallion she had just presented—stared at it as if she were trying to remember where she was and what she was doing. Then she whispered to her husband. He helped her to her feet, said something to Miss Fawlthorne and Miss Dawes—”

“Miss Dawes?” I interrupted. “You’ve lost me.”

“Dorsey Dawes. Dorsey Rainsmith, now. She was on the board of guardians at the time.”