We were strolling pleasantly in the long grass at the back of the churchyard, the Inspector and I.
“Your footprints are everywhere in that tunnel,” he said, pointing back toward Cassandra Cottlestone’s busy tomb.
I pretended surprise and bafflement. I could easily point out that there were plenty of people who wore plimsolls.
“Don’t bother,” he said. “We have your footprints on file.
“As well as your fingerprints,” he added.
“Well,” I said, “it’s a long story. There was a bat in an organ pipe and I was trying to find out how it got into the church. I was afraid it might be rabid. I didn’t want anything to happen to Feely. She’s engaged to be married, you know, and I was afraid—”
I flipped on the switch marked “Shuddering Sobs,” but nothing came.
Damnation! I used to be a dab hand at water on demand. What on earth was happening to me? Was I becoming hardened? Was this what being twelve was going to be like?
“Very commendable, I’m sure,” the Inspector remarked. “And what did you discover while you were down the rabbit hole?”
When tears fail, I decided on the spot, dazzle them with details.
I rattled off a quite decent reply. “The tunnel leads from the Cottlestone tomb to the space where I found Mr. Collicutt’s body. There was another branch, but I didn’t follow it. There’s a stone that can be moved with iron handles. That’s how they dumped him there. He was murdered in the organ chamber and brought down either through the crypt or outdoors through the churchyard. By the footprints that were there before mine, I suspect there was more than one killer.”
“Anything else?” the Inspector asked.
“No,” I said, lying through my teeth.
How could I possibly even begin to tell him about Miss Tanty or Mad Meg, or Jocelyn Ridley-Smith, or Mrs. Battle, or even, for that matter, about Adam and the Heart of Lucifer?
As I had noted before, I needed to leave him something to discover for himself. It was only fair.
“Flavia—”
I loved it when he said my name.
“You must remember that there are dangerous killers on the loose.”
My heart accelerated.
“Dangerous killers on the loose!” The words which every amateur sleuth lives in eternal hope of hearing. Ever since I first heard them spoken on the wireless by Philip Odell in “The Case of the Missing Marbles,” I had longed for someone to say them to me. And now they had. “Dangerous killers on the loose!” I wanted to shake the Inspector’s hand.
“Yes,” I said. “I know. I’ll be careful.”
“It’s not just a matter of being careful. It’s a matter of life and death.”
“A matter of life and death!” That other great phrase! Perhaps even greater than “dangerous killers on the loose.”
My cup of crime runneth over, I thought.
“Flavia, you’re not paying attention to me.”
“Yes I am, Inspector,” I assured him. “I was just thinking how grateful I am that you warned me.”
“You’re to stay strictly away from the church. Do you understand?”
“But tomorrow is Easter!”
“You may attend with your family. That is all.”
That is all? Was I being dismissed? Chopped like a chambermaid who’d been surprised with her snout in the sherry?
He was already striding away through the long grass when I thought to call after him, “Inspector, how is Mrs. Hewitt?”
He did not stop and turn around. In fact he didn’t even slow his steps.
It was obvious he hadn’t heard me.