There was a photograph of the said Scroop standing alone on the many steps of what might have been a courthouse, notebook in hand, pencil poised.
The Morning Star has learned that the human remains recently found in a chimney at Miss Bodycote’s Female Academy in East York have yet to be identified. An autopsy has revealed that while the body is that of a woman aged 14–45, the detached head is that of a mummified male, possibly from ancient Egypt. “We’re at a loss,” said pathologist Dr. Dorsey Rainsmith. “These findings are most unusual and most unexpected.” Dr. Rainsmith went on to say that anthropologists at the Royal Ontario Museum had been consulted. “So far, they’re as baffled as we are,” she admitted. Officials contacted at the ROM have declined to be interviewed further. “It’s still a police matter,” said one public relations staffer, who requested that his name not be published.
There was more: much more, but all of it repetitive with little additional information. The only real facts were those contained in the first couple of sentences, spun, like candy floss, into endless threads of speculation, and I couldn’t help noticing that the story was as much about the Morning Star as it was about anything else.
Were they withholding anything?
I knew that certain details likely to be known only to the killer—and who would believe for an instant that the body in the chimney was not a murder victim?—were often held back from the public.
If there was more to be known, the only way I was going to find it out was from (a) Dorsey Rainsmith, (b) the police, in the form of Inspector Gravenhurst, or (c) Wallace Scroop.
The choice was an easy one. I reached for the telephone directory.
Ah, yes … here it was: the Morning Star. ADelaide 1666.
Miss Fawlthorne was not likely to be back in the next few minutes. It was now or never.
I dialed the number, which was picked up almost immediately by a surprisingly bright-sounding young woman.
“Newsroom, please,” I said, trying to make my voice sound as if I did this every day.
“Who’s calling?” she asked.
“Gloria Chatterton,” I said. “I wish to speak with Wallace Scroop.”
There was a pause, during which I knew she was making up her mind whether to put me through or not.
“Oh, Sister Mary Xavier,” I said, half covering the telephone’s mouthpiece, “could I ask you to close the chapel door, please? I’m speaking to the Morning Star and don’t want to disturb the High Mass. Thank you, Sister. It’s very kind of you, I’m sure.”
“I’m putting you through,” the operator said. “Hold the line, please.”
She must have been Catholic. I had to pinch myself to keep from exploding.
“Newsroom,” said a suitably gruff voice.
“Wallace Scroop,” I said sharply, cutting the niceties. “He’s expecting my call.”
There was a hollow bang at the other end as the phone was put down and I was left to listen to what sounded like the pounding of a platoon of typewriters.
This was living! My blood was electric!
“Scroop,” his voice said.
“We met at Miss Bodycote’s,” I said, plunging in with no preliminaries. “I have some information for you.”
“Who is this?” he demanded. “I need a name.”
“No names, no pack drill,” I told him. It was a phrase I had heard Mrs. Mullet’s husband, Alf, use on more than one occasion.
There was a dry chuckle at the other end of the phone, followed by a rustling, a scratching, and a wheeze. I knew he had just lit a cigarette, and I could almost see him, perched on the corner of a desk, cigarette in mouth and pencil in nicotine-stained fingers, ready to take down my every word.
“Shoot,” he said, and I shot.
“Three girls have gone missing from Miss Bodycote’s in the past two years. Their names are Le Marchand, Wentworth, and Brazenose.”
“Brazenose with a Z or an S?”
“A zed,” I told him. This man was wizard sharp.
“Is that it?” he asked.
“No,” I said. It was, in fact, only the bit of bait I was using to get him on the hook.
“I’ll trade you,” I told him. “Fact for fact. You give me one, I’ll give you one.”
“Tit for tat,” he said.
“Exactly,” I said. “Your turn.”
“What do you want to know?”
“The body in the chimney. Identity … cause of death.”
“Hard to say. Badly smoke-damaged. They’re working on it.”
“And the skull?”
“Like I said in the article, ancient, possibly Egyptian.”
“Is there an Egyptian skull missing from the Royal Ontario Museum?” I asked.
“Shrewd kid. They’re looking into that, too.”
There was a bit of a lull in our conversation, during which I could hear him scribbling notes.
“My turn,” he said. “What’s the scuttlebutt at the school? What are the kids saying?”
“Ghosts,” I said, and he laughed, and then I laughed.
“And the teachers?”
“Nothing.”
He paused to let my answer sink in. “Bit odd, isn’t it?”
And it was.
When you stopped and thought about it, it was odd indeed that there had been no official mention of a death at Miss Bodycote’s. There had been no assembling of the girls to reassure, or explain, or even deny. The police had come and gone in near silence.
Which could mean only one thing: that they already had their answers; that they were only waiting to pounce.
It was a chilling thought.
“Still there?” Scroop’s voice emerged tinnily from the receiver, and I realized that I had let it slip away from my ear, listening to the sound of approaching footsteps in the hall.
“Yes,” I whispered. “I have to go”—at the same time closing the telephone directory and shoving the newspaper back into the desk drawer.
“No! Wait!” he shouted, putting me even more on edge. “Give me something … anything. I need more to go on.”
“The first Mrs. Rainsmith,” I whispered, my lips tight against the holes of the telephone’s mouthpiece.
And then the door opened and I was caught.
Miss Fawlthorne and I stood there staring at each other for half an eternity.
“Hello? Hello?” Wallace Scroop’s voice was saying, as if from the depths of a well.
“Oh, yes,” I said into the receiver. “Here she is now. She’s just come back. I’ll put her on.”
At the same time, I slowly pressed down on the cradle with my left forefinger, disconnecting poor Scroop in the middle of a “Hello?”
“Someone for you, Miss Fawlthorne,” I said, handing her the now-dead receiver. “I’m sorry, I told them you had stepped out.”
She took the instrument from me and held it to her ear.
“Yes?” she said. She had fallen for it hook, line, and sinker. “Hello? Hello?”
But of course there was no answer.
“Did they leave a name?” she asked, hanging up.
“No,” I said. “It was a man’s voice.”
I added this in case she had heard any of Wallace Scroop’s words leaking from the receiver.
“Possibly the police,” I couldn’t resist adding, watching her reaction. “It sounded official.”
She stared at me as if I had slapped her face, and in a way, perhaps I had.
“Sit down, Flavia,” she said. “It’s time we had a little talk.”