The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches Page 11

  I nodded.

  “You’re not planning to inject it into some poor, unsuspecting creature, I hope?”

  It was the kind of philosophical question which might have baffled Plato—and even Daffy.

  Was Harriet poor? Was she unsuspecting?

  Not in the sense that Dr. Darby meant those words, I was sure.

  Was she a creature?

  Well, that would depend upon which definition one chose to use. I had looked up the word in the Oxford English Dictionary not long ago while trying to work out if it would be sinful to destroy a fly in the name of Science.

  “All things bright and beautiful,” we sang in church,

  “All creatures great and small.

  “All things wise and wonderful

  “The Lord God made them all.”

  The O.E.D. wasn’t much help. On the one hand, it said that “creature” meant anything created, animate or inanimate, while another definition stated that it referred to a living creature or animate being, as opposed to “man.”

  The moral choice was left up to the individual.

  “No,” I said.

  “Not that it’s my place to check you up.” Dr. Darby smiled.

  We sat there in silence for a few minutes, surrounded by the moundy graves in the churchyard, kicking at the wall with our four heels.

  “It is good to sit on a wall with a young woman on a sunny summer day,” the doctor said. He could see by my grin that I couldn’t agree more. He was flattering me but I didn’t mind.

  “It makes up in part for the less happy occasions.”

  I let the silence lengthen until he said: “We lost a girl today … about your age. At the hospital. Her name was Marguerite and she didn’t deserve to die.”

  “I’m sorry,” I told him.

  “There are times when all we doctors with all our fabled skills are simply not enough. Death defeats us.”

  “You must be sad,” I said.

  “I am. Damned sad. She suffered from what we call an idiopathic neuropathy. Do you know what that means?”

  “It means you don’t know the cause,” I said.

  “We’re working on it,” Dr. Darby said, nodding wearily, “but it’s early days yet. Early, that is, for the rest of us—but too late, I fear, for Marguerite.”

  “Was she beautiful?” I asked. It seemed desperately important to know.

  Dr. Darby nodded.

  I pictured the dying Marguerite with her golden hair spread out across a pillow, her face pale and damp, her black-circled eyes shut, her mind already in another world. I pictured her grieving parents.

  “And there was nothing you could do?”

  “We had been going to administer ATP as a last-ditch attempt, but—how very odd, you see, that you should have mentioned it.”

  “ATP? Adenosine triphosphate?”

  “It’s in my bag.” He pointed towards the still-steaming Morris. “An old school chum managed to wangle a couple of trial doses. Not much need for it now, I’m afraid.”

  Was Dr. Darby telling me what I thought he was telling me? I scarcely dared breathe.

  “If you wish to have it, it’s yours,” he said, sliding down from the wall and walking towards his car. “I’ll have to get Bert Archer to tow old Bessie into dry dock.”

  “I’m sorry about your car,” I said. “I should have watched where I—”

  Dr. Darby held up a hand, its palm towards me. “The poet Cowper,” he said, “who knew whereof he spoke, once wrote, ‘God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform.’ We mere mortals must never question what we sometimes take to be the blind workings of Fate.”

  He lifted his black doctor’s bag out of the Morris, reached into its square mouth, and extracted two stoppered glass vials. “That’s why I have faith in you, Flavia,” he said, and handed them over without another word.

  I suppose I should have been filled with feelings of warm gratitude, but I was not. Rather, I was overcome, sitting on that sunny wall, with something like a chill.

  How laughably easy it had been, when you stopped to think about it, to extract the thiamine and the ATP from Annabella Cruickshank and Dr. Darby. It was almost as if their actions were being guided by some greater power.

  Could it be that the spirit of my deceased mother, wherever it might be, was reaching through the veils from another world to assure her own resurrection?

  Were we all of us no more than puppets in Harriet’s dead hands?

  FIFTEEN

  MY ANKLES GREW FEATHERS like Mercury, the wing-footed god, as Gladys and I flew home—long way round, of course: west towards Hinley, then south along the same country lane by which we had come, until we were due west of Buckshaw.

  I was pushing Gladys through a gap in the hedgerow, heading for the last lap across the fields, when a familiar blue Vauxhall emerged from a grassy turnout and rolled at an ominously low speed towards me.

  It was, of course, Inspector Hewitt.

  “I thought we might catch you coming round this way,” he said, rolling down the window. On the other side of the car, at the wheel, Detective Sergeant Woolmer ducked his head slightly and turned his face to give me one of his stolid police-issue looks.

  “I hope you weren’t lying in wait too long, Inspector,” I replied lightly, but he was not amused.

  The door opened, and he stepped out into the lane.

  “Let’s take a walk,” he said.

  We strolled along in silence for about fifty yards before the Inspector stopped and turned to me. “I’m very sorry about your mother, Flavia. I can’t even begin to imagine how you must feel.”

  At least the man had the sense to admit it.

  “Thank you,” I said, meaning it.

  “If there’s anything Antigone and I can do, don’t hesitate to ask.”

  “I’d like both of you to come to the funeral,” I said suddenly without even thinking. I don’t know what made me blurt it out. “It’s tomorrow.”

  Antigone, the Inspector’s wife, was, to me, the sun. I adored the woman. Just the thought of having her there to share Harriet’s funeral made it seem a little less dreadful.

  “We were planning to come anyway,” the Inspector told me, “but thank you for the invitation.”

  The formalities were out of the way, the right words spoken. It was time to get down to the real reason for his visit.

  “I expect you’ll be wanting to question me about the man who was murdered on the railway platform.”

  “Murdered?” the Inspector repeated. He almost—but not quite—gasped the word.

  “Someone said he was shoved. I don’t know who.”

  “Shoved? Is that what they said?”

  “Actually, they said ‘pushed’: ‘Someone pushed him.’ I didn’t see who said it, and I didn’t recognize the voice. I’m surprised no one’s told you that.”

  “Yes, well. We still have many witnesses to interview. I’m sure that one or more of them will be able to substantiate your statement.”

  If I were in charge of the police investigation, I thought, I’d be looking first for the person who said “Someone pushed him,” rather than those who might merely have overheard it.

  But I said nothing. I didn’t want to aggravate the Inspector.

  “It has been stated that you were the first to reach the victim’s side.”

  “I was not the first,” I told him. “There were others there before me.”

  Inspector Hewitt pulled a notebook from his pocket and made a note with his Biro. “Begin with the moment the train braked suddenly.”

  Thank heavens! I thought. He’s sparing my feelings about Harriet.

  There was no need, then, to tell him the words the stranger had spoken to me: no need to tell him that the Gamekeeper—whoever he may be—was in grave danger.

  “The train braked,” I said. “Someone screamed. I thought I might be able to help. I ran to the edge of the platform—but it was too late. The man was dead.”

  “How
do you know that?” the Inspector asked, fixing me with a keen eye.

  “There can be no mistaking that perfect stillness,” I told him. “It cannot be faked. The only things moving were the hairs on his arm.”

  “I see,” Inspector Hewitt said, and made another note.

  “They were golden,” I added.

  “Thank you, Flavia,” he said. “You’ve been more than helpful.”

  Ordinarily, a compliment like that from Inspector Hewitt would have wreathed my head in a blaze of glory, but not this time.

  Was he being what Daffy called “ironical”? She had once told me that the word meant the use of veiled sarcasm: the dagger under the silk.

  “The smiler with the knife!” she had hissed in a horrible voice.

  I gave the Inspector a sad smile, which seemed appropriate to the occasion, then turned and walked off along the lane. I picked up Gladys and resumed our way home across the fields.

  When I was far enough away, and under the pretense of adjusting my pigtails, I sneaked a quick look back over my shoulder.

  Inspector Hewitt was still standing precisely where I had left him.

  Undine met me at the kitchen door.

  “They’ve been looking for you everywhere,” she announced. “They’re furious—I can tell. Ibu wants to see you at once.”

  In ordinary circumstances, I would have responded to such a command by sending up a reply that would have given Undine’s mother a perm that would be truly everlasting, but I restrained myself.

  There was enough pressure in the house already without my adding more.

  And so, like a perfect little lady, I turned and walked gracefully up the stairs.

  I could hardly believe it.

  Dogger had billeted the Cornwall de Luces in a bedroom above the north front: a musty room with moldy cream and green wallpaper which made the room look like a cavern hung with Roquefort cheese.

  I knocked and entered before Lena could tell me to come in.

  “Where have you been?” she demanded.

  “Out,” I said. I was not going to make this easy for her.

  “Everyone has been looking for you,” she said. “Your father collapsed at the foot of your mother’s coffin. It was dreadful. Dreadful!”

  “What?” I could scarcely believe it.

  “He wasn’t to stand watch until this evening,” I said.

  “The poor man has barely left her side since they brought her into the house this morning. Your aunt Felicity was with him. Her vigil ends at 6:48, and they want you to relieve her—to take your father’s place.”

  “Thank you, Cousin Lena,” I said. “I shall see to it.”

  I stepped outside and quietly closed the door, leaving her to the Roquefort.

  Safely alone in the hall, I leaned against the wall and took a deep breath.

  I wasn’t worried about Father: Dogger would have put him to bed, and I had no doubt that everything in that department was under control.

  Lena had made no mention of the doctor being called, so I was quite sure that it was a case of exhaustion, pure and simple.

  Father had barely rested since the news had come of Harriet’s death, and now that she had been brought home to Buckshaw, he would be sleeping even less.

  What concerned me was this: With only a few hours to go before my watch began, there was little time to prepare. Kind Fate had tripled the time I would have with Harriet: Instead of 4 hours and 48 minutes, I would now have more than 14 hours—albeit in three sessions: Father’s, Feely’s, and mine (interrupted by Daffy’s, of course)—to bring Harriet back from the dead.

  There would be one chance—and one chance only—to convince the family of my worth. If I failed, I would remain forever an outcast.

  There wasn’t a second to waste.

  Everything now depended upon Flavia de Luce.

  SIXTEEN

  ALONE IN MY LABORATORY with the door firmly bolted, I began my final preparations.

  Esmeralda looked on from her perch, completely disinterested.

  The first step was to lay out a kit of the required tools: screwdriver, tin-snips, gloves, galvanized coal scuttle, and torch.

  The first of these items was to open Harriet’s coffin; the second to cut through the metal lining; the third and fourth to receive whatever might remain of the dry ice in which I was counting on her being packed; and the fifth to add more light to the scene than would be provided by the flickering candles alone.

  Then there were the hypodermic needles: two sturdy and somewhat suspicious specimens from Uncle Tar’s truly comprehensive collection of laboratory glassware.

  I removed from my pocket and unwrapped from my handkerchief the two vials of adenosine triphosphate which Dr. Darby had so generously contributed to my scheme, followed by the bottle of thiamine which Annabella Cruickshank had handed over in open defiance of her brother, Lancelot.

  If Undine or Lena had noticed the peculiar bulges in my jumper they had said nothing.

  Next, in preparation for the act itself, I reviewed the relevant pages from Uncle Tar’s notebooks: those concerning the reanimation of the dead.

  The resurrection of Harriet de Luce.

  I pulled up a tall stool and began reviewing the spidery, handwritten texts.

  It was obvious to even the most casual reader that Uncle Tar had actually experimented upon rabbits. Page after page was filled with his hand-drawn charts and graphs showing times, dosages, and results of his attempted resurrections of twenty-four rabbits, who had been given the names Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and so on, all the way up to Omega.

  All of them—save Epsilon, who Uncle Tar suspected might have had a dicky heart to begin with—had been successfully revived from a state of clinical death and had lived to be experimented upon another day.

  My eyes were heavy, not helped by my uncle’s minuscule handwriting, as they plowed over the pages. Once or twice I nodded—recovered with a start—yawned several deep yawns and—

  I awoke completely disoriented. The side of my face lay flat upon the laboratory bench in a puddle of drool.

  I shook my head groggily and rotated it upon my neck, trying to ease the dull headache that invariably comes with sleeping during the day.

  I unlocked the door and hurried to my bedroom to have a look at the clock.

  It was 6:44!

  I had slept away whatever little remained of the afternoon and now had just four minutes to get to Harriet’s boudoir and take up my post. I would have to sneak back later for my tools and supplies.

  With the speed of a music-hall quick-change artist, I removed my rumpled clothing and threw on my best black jumper and a clean white blouse. Long black stockings and a pair of detestable black goody-two-shoes completed the getup.

  Using my fingers as a comb, I gave my hair a lick and a promise and straightened my pigtails.

  Too late for decent grooming, I rubbed the crusty sleep from my eyes, removed a smudge of dirt from my chin with a bit of spit, and made haste for the west wing.

  “You’re two and a half minutes late,” Aunt Felicity said, glaring at her wristwatch.

  “I was held up by the crowd outside,” I said, which had a morsel of truth in it. The straggling line of silent mourners still stretched along the upper hall, down the stairs, across the foyer, out the door, and, for all I knew, all the way into the village.

  I had asked the woman at the head of the queue—a stranger, I hasten to say—to wait a bit longer before entering: There was an urgent family matter that must be seen to before the public visitations resumed. She had stared unflinchingly at me with her offended duck eyes. To be honest, she gave me the fantods.

  “Orp!” I had wanted to shout in the woman’s face. It was easier than saying “orpiment,” which was the layman’s term for As2S3, or “arsenic trisulfide.”

  Before Aunt Felicity could reply, I changed the subject.

  “I’m worried about Father,” I said. “What happened to him? I thought he wasn’t due to begi
n his vigil until now.”

  “He couldn’t bear to stay away,” Aunt Felicity said. She nodded towards Harriet’s catafalque. “He came up the stairs with her and remained at her side until he crumpled. It’s a jolly good thing I was here to go for help.”

  “Dogger?” I asked.

  “Dogger,” she said. And that seemed to be that—until she added: “Whom else would I send for?”

  “Well, Dr. Darby. I should have thought—”

  “Pfah!” Aunt Felicity almost spat. “Dogger has better qualifications than half the medical men in the kingdom.”

  “Dogger?”

  “Oh, don’t look so shocked, girl. And close your mouth—it’s not at all becoming. I thought you might have worked it out long before this.”

  “Well, I’ve always known he has buckets of medical knowledge, but it seemed—”

  “ ‘Seemed’ isn’t worth tuppence. How many solicitors or publicans, jockeys or bishops, do you know who could set a broken femur or snick out a pair of infected tonsils?”

  “None,” I admitted.

  “Precisely,” Aunt Felicity said. “There it was all the time, wasn’t it? As plain as the nose on your face.”

  She was taking such great delight in my ignorance that I thought for a moment she was going to crow.

  But everything fell suddenly into place. How many times in the past had Dogger described to me the most exact clinical details of various medical conditions? I couldn’t even begin to count the occasions. Why is it, I wondered, that the facts closest to our noses are so often the most overlooked?

  I felt an absolute chump. Although I prided myself on being able to put two and two together, for most of my life, I had been adding them up to get three. It was humiliating!

  “He was with Father in the prisoner-of-war camp, wasn’t he? In Changi—in Singapore?”

  This was a bit of family history I had wheedled out of Mrs. Mullet and her husband, Alf, in particles of gossip too small individually to draw attention to themselves.

  “Dogger saved your father’s life on more than one occasion,” she said, her voice suddenly soft. “And for that, he paid the price.”

  The light of the flickering candles threw such shifting shadows upon Aunt Felicity’s features that it seemed as if the hovering face of a stranger were telling the tale.