And then she added, “In much the same way, I expect, that—”
But she cut herself off short.
“Yes?”
“Oh, nothing.”
I licked the tip of my mental pencil and made a note: Query: Brazenose resented for brains in general? Harriet and Flavia ditto?
“And what do you believe happened to her?” I asked. A sudden probe without warning.
Again I thought how remarkably time can sometimes slow to a crawl: the wings of a bird in midair slowed to the speed of breakers on a beach; an arrow suspended in flight, halfway to the bull’s-eye.
My mind flew back to the night of my arrival; to the flag-wrapped body tumbling out of the fireplace. To the skull detaching itself and rolling to a grisly halt at my feet.
Had Collingwood recognized what was left of the face? It seemed unlikely, given the condition of the corpse. But if she had … let’s just say she had …
Had she told anyone?
We had still not heard, either from Inspector Gravenhurst or from the news reports, that the body had been identified. With all the radios that blared in dormitories in the early morning we could scarcely have missed it. Which meant either that the police were withholding the information because they were having difficulty getting in touch with next-of-kin, or that they didn’t know.
And, come to think of it, I hadn’t laid eyes on Collingwood since that horrific—but utterly fascinating—night.
All of this raced through my mind as I waited for Scarlett to answer.
She seemed to be having difficulty making her mouth move.
“I believe …” she said at last, her eyes as large and damp as peeled grapes, “I believe she—”
THWEE! THWEE! THWEE!
Three sharp blasts on a pea whistle came from the top of the embankment. Miss Moate, in her wheelchair, was making impatient “Come-here-at-once” motions with her arm.
Sixes and Sevens were dissolved as the two groups swarmed together and went scrambling up the slope. Under the elm, Scarlett and I got slowly to our feet. She put a solicitous arm round my shoulder, supporting poor, sick Flavia’s weight, and we crept as clumsily as a conjoined crustacean up the embankment.
Halfway to the top, pretending to lose her footing and floundering for traction, she contrived to bring her mouth so close to my face that I could feel her breath hot upon my cheek.
“Questions,” she rasped into my ear. “She asked too many questions.”
? FIFTEEN ?
LUNCH HAD BEEN BROUGHT in the bus and we picnicked upon pink bricks of tinned pork, boiled eggs, and Brazil nuts that looked like devil’s toenails, those fossilized bivalves from the Jurassic period, all of it washed down with milk from a galvanized carrier that had stood in the sun for too long.
Druce and Trout had plopped down on either side of me without invitation. In future, I decided, I would make it a rule not to be the first to sit. If Aunt Felicity were here, she would likely be pointing out that patience, to a point, provides choice. She probably had an elaborate mathematical formula to work out the optimum time to sit when in a group of thirteen.
How I missed the dear old girl.
I was wondering how Miss Moate, being wheelchair-bound, would fit into the equation, when I realized that Druce was speaking to me.
“I said, how does it feel to be a dog?” she repeated.
“I beg your pardon?” I asked, bristling.
“Don’t make me chew my cabbage twice,” she said. “How does it feel to be a dog? You know, D.O.G. Daughter of a Goddess.”
Trout collapsed into the grass, cackling helplessly at the wit of her mistress.
“Ah!” I laughed, airily, I hoped. “About the same, I expect, as it does to be a D.O.B.”
I left her to work it out.
Druce’s face clouded, then brightened suddenly as she forced a smile. “Listen,” she said, as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mandibles, “I’ve been wanting to ask—are you one of us?”
“Us?” I summoned up and assumed Utility Mask #7: the Village Idiot.
“Yes, you know … us.”
Was it my imagination, or did the word have a hiss in it?
I was aware, of course, that this might be an official test of my ability to keep a zipped lip when it came to the exchange of personal information.
“Come on,” Trout blurted, “you’re a boarder, aren’t you? Just like us. You have to know.”
Druce shot her a poisonous look, and Trout began furiously digging an unconscious hole for herself in the dirt with the end of a twig.
“Well?” Druce insisted.
“Well, what?” I asked. Village Idiots are not thrown out of character as easily as all that.
“Don’t play the fool with me,” she snapped.
If only she knew how close to the mark she was.
“I’m sorry,” I said, throwing my open hands upward in puzzlement and hauling my shoulders up round my ears. “If you mean am I a pupil at Miss Bodycote’s, or am I in the fourth form, then the answer, obviously, is yes. Otherwise I haven’t the foggiest idea what you’re talking about.”
I should have left out the “obviously.”
“Right, then,” she said. “Just so we know where we stand.”