That was just it, wasn’t it? That’s what we were: dwellers all in time and space. Not old scraps of iron lashed together like a Meccano set by some invisible builder—not on your bloody life!
I looked over at Mrs. Bannerman. What did she think, I wondered, of being labeled a section of scaffolding? She had come within an ace of meeting her end on the most dreaded bit of scaffolding in the whole wide world. A date with the public hangman, I expect, is not one that can be easily forgotten.
And yet, here she was, head held high, caroling away, bright-eyed, and with a slight, mystical smile on her lips, as if science were her Savior.
… As if she knew something that none of the rest of us knew.
Perhaps she did. Perhaps—
In that instant, I understood what I must do. Of course I did: I had planned it all along.
There is a standing and unwritten order in most churches that a worshipper taken ill is not to be interfered with. One minute it’s “We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done; And there is no health in us.” And the next it’s “Action stations!” as we flee, hand over mouth, to the nearest exit.
It is a good rule, and one that I had taken advantage of in the past.
Even before the last notes of the organ had died up among the rafters, I gave Mrs. Bannerman a tight, gulping smile.
“Excuse me,” I managed, edging my way to the end of the pew, and then I fled.
The entire academy was here at church, and would be for at least the next hour. I turned my face toward the east and ran like a scalded rabbit.
I needed to question Collingwood without interference, and this was the time to do it. After the purging I had given her, and a good night’s sleep, she should have recovered sufficiently from the chloral hydrate to be subjected to a jolly good grilling.
As I knew it would be, Miss Bodycote’s was in perfect silence.
There is always something vaguely unsettling about being alone in an empty building that is not your own. It is as if, whenever present inhabitants are away, the phantoms of former owners come shimmering out of the woodwork to protect their territory. Although you cannot see these ghosts, you can certainly feel their unwelcoming presence, and sometimes even smell them: a sort of shivering in the air that tells you that you’re not alone and not wanted.
Like layers of ancient paint, the older ones underlie the newer: fainter, paler perhaps, and yet, for all that, far more ominous.
What sights have been witnessed by these arching ceilings? I wondered. What tragedies have played out in these ancient halls?
My back sprouted goose bumps.
Up the cold, dim stairs I flew and into the infirmary, as if all the demons of hell were gnashing their teeth at my heels.
The gaunt drapes were drawn round Collingwood’s bed.
“Quickly,” I said in a hoarse whisper. “Get up. Get dressed. We’re getting you out of here.”
The curtain rings shrieked on their metal rods as I yanked back the hanging curtain.
Collingwood’s bed was not only empty: It was as neatly and as freshly made as if it had been arranged for a magazine photograph.
“Well, well,” said a voice behind me, and I spun round. Ryerson Rainsmith was closing the clasps of a black leather doctor’s bag.
Of course! Flavia, you idiot!
Doctor Rainsmith, his wife had called him on the ship, and I had not heard because I had not wanted to hear.
It was Rainsmith who had been dosing Collingwood with chloral hydrate. And it was Rainsmith whom Fitzgibbon had been referring to when she said she’d have the doctor look in later. How could I have been such a fool not to see it?
“Where’s Collingwood?” I demanded. “What have you done with her?”
“Confidentiality between doctor and patient forbids me from answering,” Ryerson Rainsmith said quietly. “Besides, I’m in charge here. This is my infirmary. It is I who should be asking the questions.”
“He’s right, you know,” said another voice behind me, and I spun round.
Dorsey Rainsmith had come up silently behind me.
I might have known.
Her dress was a sand-colored tent, its billows held in by a broad belt. Who knew what weapons were concealed beneath? There seemed room enough in it for racks of axes.
“You have no business being here,” she said. “Why aren’t you in church with the others?”
“Where’s Collingwood?” I asked again. “What have you done with her?”
“She’s had a very bad shock,” Rainsmith said. “She requires peace and quiet if she’s to make a full recovery.”
I was not going to be shaken off so easily. “Where is she? What have you done with her?”
“Dorsey—” he said, giving his wife a brisk nod.
I did not wait to be seized and clapped into a straitjacket. I did what any intelligent girl would do in the circumstances: I took to my heels.
I clattered out of the room and down the stairs with the sound of falling tiles.
“Stop her, Ryerson!” Dorsey shouted, but it was no use. I was younger, faster, and had a head start.
At the bottom, I looked up and caught a glimpse of their white faces, like twin moons, staring down at me from above.
I shot them an insolent grin like the runaway pancake in the fairy tale, swiveled on my heel, and ran straight into the chest of Inspector Gravenhurst.
I nearly knocked him over.
The inspector looked even more surprised to see me than I was to see him.
How long had he been standing there? How much had he seen and heard?
It seemed obvious—at least to me—that he had come to Miss Bodycote’s for a quiet Sunday morning snoop. After all, the doors were always left unlocked from dawn to dusk, and besides, who in their right mind would want to enter such a forbidding-looking fortress?
The question was this: Which of us was more embarrassed?
I was faced with a sudden choice and left with only an instant to make up my mind: Should I blow the whistle on the Rainsmiths for what they had done to Collingwood, or should I keep my trap shut and take my chances on gaining the upper hand?
Well, if you know Flavia de Luce as well as I do, you’ll know that it’s a mug’s question.
“Oh, Inspector,” I said, and I’m ashamed to admit that I allowed my eyelids and eyelashes to flutter almost imperceptibly. “I was hoping to see you again. Have you had any luck identifying the body in the chimney?”
Oh, Flavia! You puncturer of other people’s importance! What a saucy thing to say to the poor man. “Luck?” As if the Toronto Police were only capable of solving crimes by a toss of the dice—or by pulling lots from some plump constable’s hat.
“As a matter of fact we have, Miss de Luce,” he said. “It was front-page news in all the papers. But I don’t suppose you see them at Miss Bodycote’s, do you?”
So. Wallace Scroop must have got his story after all.
Not knowing what to say, I glanced up at the two faces that were still staring blankly down from the landing like a masked chorus waiting to make their entrance.
The inspector, following my gaze, spotted the Rainsmiths.
“Ah, Dr. Rainsmith,” he said. “Good morning. Perhaps, as the pathologist of record, you’re in a much better position than I am to answer this young lady’s question?”
Pathologist? Ryerson Rainsmith the pathologist? Besides being the academy’s appointed medical doctor and chairman of the board of guardians?
How improbably bizarre. How downright dangerous!
But it was not Ryerson Rainsmith who responded to the inspector’s words. In fact, quite the contrary: It was Dorsey Rainsmith, his wife, who began her slow descent of the stairs toward me.
“I shall be happy to, Inspector,” she said. “You may leave it to me.”