Sleep was impossible. I tossed and turned, sweated and swore. By daylight I was a bad-tempered haystack, but I didn’t care. I had made up my mind what I was going to do. I would do it and hang the consequences.
Rosedale at dawn was a very different place. The weather had turned cold overnight and left the world brittle. In some of the lower spots, patches of low fog lurked among the hedges, as if the atmosphere there had curdled. Dark trees overhung the frosty grass, and the air was as sharp as knives.
I walked quickly, swinging my arms to generate a bit of heat. A school blazer and white blouse were hardly meant to replace a parka, and by the time I got to the Rainsmiths’, my nose was running and I was beginning to sneeze.
I was not a pretty picture.
Smoke was rising from the kitchen chimney as I made my way round the back of the house.
I tapped lightly at the door and Elvina opened it almost at once.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” I said, “but I should like to speak with Dr. Rainsmith. It’s urgent.”
“Urgent, is it?” she asked, beckoning me to come inside. “So urgent that you can’t have a cup of hot tea and a buttered scone? You look as if you’ve fallen off a dog-sled.”
“I’m all right,” I said, resenting both the remark and the way I looked. “Is Dr. Rainsmith at home?”
“Which one?” she asked.
“The chairman,” I said. “Ryerson.”
Some people are shy about using the forename of an older person, but I am not one of them.
“I’m afraid he’s not, dear. He’s off to a conference in Hamilton. Won’t be home until tonight. Is it something that can wait?”
“No,” I told her, perhaps unwisely. “It’s a matter of life and death.”
Unshaken (and it was only later that I realized that she probably dealt with matters of life and death daily, as others deal with dust) she replied, “Is it something I can help with—or Mr. Merton? He ought to be back from the train any minute now.”
“No,” I said. “It’s personal.”
The look on her face told me that she was recalling our earlier conversation.
“Honestly, I’m fine,” I said, touching her hand. It was the least I could do.
It was only then that I noticed that Dorsey Rainsmith was standing in the doorway. She had followed me in from the garden with a wicker basket full of flowers. I must have passed her without seeing her. Perhaps she had been bent over with her secateurs.
Was it just my imagination or had Elvina given a little jump? Had Dorsey Rainsmith taken us both by surprise?
“Well,” she said, “what is it?”
I had no more than a second to make up my mind. Did I stay or did I go? I thought of Alf Mullet’s many talks on military tactics which I had dozed through behind fascinated eyes. “Confrontation is a cannon,” he had said. “It’s a powerful weapon, but it gives away your position.”
“It’s about Francesca Rainsmith,” I said.
No going back now. I had fired my shot and could only wait for the consequences.
“You’d better come in,” Dorsey said, placing the basket of flowers on the kitchen sink and leading the way through into another room which turned out to be her study. The walls were lined with medical reference books that I’d have given my eye teeth to read, but this was hardly the time or place.
She took a chair at the desk without asking me to sit, then swiveled round to face me.
“I’m very busy,” she said.
“Good,” I said. “So am I. Let’s get on with it. Francesca Rainsmith.”
“What about her?” Dorsey said. “She died in tragic circumstances, and I’d prefer you to respect my husband’s privacy, and mine.”
“She died of arsenic poisoning at the Beaux Arts Ball,” I said. “A few days later, in a wedding dress and veil, you impersonated her on a moonlight cruise.”
“Quite preposterous,” she said.
“Yes, it is,” I replied. “Inspector Gravenhurst will find it even more so.”
I paused to let her guilt get to work. “He’ll find the results of the autopsy particularly interesting, especially in view of the fact that you’ve been in charge of the body since it was discovered.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean good morning, Dr. Rainsmith,” I said, and turned toward the door, an effect that was largely spoiled by my being convulsed with a sneeze.
“Flavia—wait.”
Reluctantly, I turned to face her again.
“Dr. Rainsmith and I—Ryerson, I mean. We’re on your side, you know. Pheasant sandwiches.”
She bared her teeth in a ghastly grin that was meant to be friendly but which, to me, looked more like a corpse in a comic book.
I said nothing. I was not going to let on that I recognized the phrase.
“Pheasant sandwiches,” she said again, smiling horribly … plaintively.
Again I gave her a barn-door stare.
“Listen,” she said. “What do you want?”
“The truth,” I said, and I must admit that those two words, as brief as they were, were as sweet in my mouth as milk and honey. “First of all, Collingwood. What have you done with her?”
“She’s been sent home to her parents. She suffered a bad shock at Miss Bodycote’s, then contracted rheumatic fever. We brought her here for a while, but she’s now been released.”
That much, I thought, was probably true.
“And Francesca Rainsmith?”
Dorsey Rainsmith got to her feet and locked the door.
Was I terrified?
Well, yes.
“I wish you’d wait until Ryerson comes home,” she said. “I’m sure he could make it quite—”
“He won’t be home until late tonight,” I said. “He’s away at a conference.”
“Oh, of course he is—I’d forgotten.”
“So it’s just you and me,” I said. I resisted the urge to add “Sweetheart,” like Humphrey Bogart.
“Talk,” I told her, and she did.
I could hardly wait to tell Inspector Gravenhurst.
“So you see,” I said, pacing up and down the room, “believing she was suffering from no more than indigestion, they took Francesca to Edith Cavell. A good sleep would do her good. They left her there and went downstairs, where it was said that they danced for hours.
“Toward the end of the evening, when they finally got back to Edith Cavell, they found Francesca dead on the floor. Her throat had been cut. They were appalled. They panicked. After all, it had been implied that they had much more in common than medicine, if you see what I mean.
“He needed to return to the ball to keep up appearances, Ryerson decided. He made his excuses, left instructions that his wife was not to be disturbed, and drove Dr. Dawes home. He’d deal with things himself. It was while driving back that he came up with a plan. He remembered that Francesca had wanted to go on a midnight cruise: to renew their vows. He’d already booked the tickets. There mustn’t be a breath of scandal, he decided: not about him and Miss Dawes and certainly not about Miss Bodycote’s Female Academy.
“When he finally got back to Miss Bodycote’s, although it was quite late, there was still laughter in the ballroom. He went quietly up to Edith Cavell, and found … nothing! Francesca’s body was gone. Not a sign of her. The room was untouched. Wiped clean.