It was still early; 1900 was hours in the future. It might as well have been nineteen hundred years.
What was I going to do until I was summoned?
The answer came to me in a flash, as it so often does when you’re at your wit’s end.
Ordinarily, I might have sat waiting, biting my nails, counting the hours, and working myself up into a lather. But not today—no, not today.
This time I would seize control before control had a chance to seize me. I would not wait until 1900 hours. Why should I? I was sick and tired of being a pawn.
Besides, there was a lot to be said for getting it over with. Since half of punishment is in the waiting, I could, simply by showing up early, reduce my sentence by half. I was not looking forward to confessing my sins to Father, but it had to be done, like it or not. Best get it over with.
I marched down the stairs, and if what was in my heart was not a species of happiness, it was not far off.
I tapped lightly on the door of Father’s study. There was no answer.
I put my ear to the door panel, but the hollow roar of an empty room told me that he was not inside. It was unlikely that he had gone upstairs; after all, hadn’t Dogger just been talking to him?
A quick trip round the west wing showed that he was not in the drawing room, where Feely was at the piano, staring in silence at a piece of sheet music; nor was he in the library, where Daffy sat cross-legged on the floor leafing through a pulpit-sized Bible.
“Shut the door when you leave,” she said without looking up.
I had just passed Father’s study when I heard a sound that stopped me dead in my tracks.
It was a sound I had heard often enough on the weekly episodes of Philip Odell, the private detective on the wireless, and one that I recognized instantly: the sound of a revolver being cocked. It had come from the firearms museum.
My blood turned to ice.
Foolhardy as it may seem—I can hardly believe now that I did it—I threw open the door and stepped inside.
Father was standing in front of an open glass case, and in his hand lay as nasty-looking a weapon as you would ever care to see.
I had peeked at it often enough in its case to remember that the tag identified it as an 1898 Rast & Gasser service revolver, made in Vienna for the Austro-Hungarian Army. Although the thing held eight 8mm cartridges, you could easily tell by looking at it that one would be enough.
Malevolent is the word Daffy would have used to describe the gun.
My mind was seething. What could I possibly say?
“You wanted to see me?” I asked. It was the only thing I could think of.
Father looked up in surprise—almost guiltily, and yet, as if from a dream. “Oh, Flavia … yes … I … but not until later. Surely it can’t be 1900 hours already?”
“No, sir,” I said. “It isn’t. But I thought I’d come early so as not to keep you waiting.”
Father ignored my twisted logic. It clearly didn’t make any sense, but Father didn’t seem to notice. Slowly, as if it were made of cut glass, he returned the pistol to its case and ran an opened hand across his brow.
“Badgers,” he said. “I was thinking of frightening off a few of the little blighters. They’re making such a frightful shambles of the west lawn.”
My heart broke a little for my father. Even I could have come up with a better excuse than that. Whatever was he thinking? What must be going through his mind?
“That’s very thoughtful of you,” he began, referring to the fact that I had come early, but before he could say another word, I broke in.
“I want to tell you how sorry I am about the will. I didn’t mean any harm. I didn’t intend to be disrespectful.”
No need to tell him about my failed scheme for Harriet’s resurrection. The less said about that, the better.
Yes, Father need never know.
“Sir Peregrine felt it his duty to inform me that your mother’s coffin had been tampered with.”
Blast the man! Had the Home Office no discretion? No heart?
“Yes, sir,” I said, steeling myself.
I waited for the blow to fall. Whatever punishment Father had planned, this would clearly be the end of Flavia de Luce.
Here it comes, I thought: They’re going to either cast me into Wormwood Scrubs or throw me into the Isle of Dogs Home for Delinquent Girls.
I watched as he raised a hand and pinched the bridge of his nose between a thumb and forefinger.
When his words came, they were words not of anger, but of infinite sadness.
“I am going to have to send you away,” he said.