Alan Bradley - I Am Half-Sick of Shadows

Well, that’s not quite true: His wife, Antigone, had asked me to tea in October, but the less said of that the better.

Which is why I was now standing there in the foyer, pretending to check something that had become lodged between my teeth by examining my reflection in one of the polished newel posts at the end of the banister. Just as I decided to relent and give the Inspector a curt nod, he turned and, without a backward glance, walked away towards Dr. Darby, who had made an appearance suddenly on the west landing.

Blue curses! If I’d been thinking straight, I’d have welcomed the Inspector myself—shown him upstairs to the scene of the crime.

But it was too late. I had shut myself out of the Chamber of Death (that’s what they called it on the wireless mystery programs) and it was now too late to eat crow.

Or was it?

“Oh, Mrs. Mullet,” I said, barging into the kitchen as if I’d only just heard the news. “The most dreadful thing has happened. Miss Wyvern has met with a frightful accident, and Inspector Hewitt is here. I thought that, what with the awful weather and so forth, he’d be grateful for a cup of your famous tea.”

Flattery can never be overcooked.

“If you mean she’s dead,” said Mrs. Mullet, “I already knewed it. Word like that gets round like beeswax. Shockin’, I’m sure, but there’s no ’oldin’ it back, is there, Alf?”

Alf shook his head.

“I knewed it as soon as I seen Dr. Darby’s face. ’E goes all-over sobersides whenever death’s about. I mind the time Mrs. Tarbell was took in the bath. ’E’s always been like that an’ ’e always will be. Might just as well ’ave a sign plastered on ’is fore’ead sayin’ ‘She’s Dead,’ mightn’t ’e, Alf.”

“A signboard,” Alf said. “On ’is fore’ead.”

“I told Alf, I did, didn’t I, Alf? ‘Alf,’ I said. ‘Somethin’s not right,’ I said. ‘There’s such a face on Dr. Darby which I seen in the corridor just now an’ if I didn’t know better I should say as there’s a corpse in the ’ouse.’ That’s what I said, didn’t I, Alf.”

“ ’Er exact words,” said Alf.

I didn’t bother knocking at the door of the Blue Bedroom. I simply strolled in as if I’d been born at Scotland Yard.

I gave the knob a twist and pushed the door open with my behind, maneuvering the tray through the doorway in the way that Mrs. Mullet always did.

For a moment I thought I had annoyed the Inspector.

He turned slowly from Phyllis Wyvern’s staring body, sparing me no more than a rapid glance.

“Thank you,” he said. “You may put it on the table.”

Meekly, I obeyed—dog that I am—hoping desperately he wouldn’t order me to leave. In my mind, I made myself invisible.

“Thank you,” the Inspector said again. “It’s very kind of you. Please tell Mrs. Mullet we’re most grateful.”

“Bug off,” was what he meant.

Dr. Darby said nothing, but noisily extracted a mint from the bottomless bag in his waistcoat pocket.

I kept as still as a snake in winter.

“ Thank you, Flavia,” the Inspector said, without turning round.

Well, at least he hadn’t forgotten my name.

There was a silence that grew more uncomfortable by the second. I decided to fill it before anyone else had a chance.

“I expect you’ve already noticed,” I blurted, “that her makeup was applied after she was dead.”

• THIRTEEN •

TO MY SURPRISE, THE Inspector chuckled.

“Another of your chemical deductions?” he asked.

“Not at all,” I said. “I simply observed that there was makeup on the upper surface of her lower lip. Since she has a slight overbite, she’d have licked it away in seconds if she’d been alive.”

Dr. Darby bent in for a closer look at Phyllis Wyvern’s lips.

“By George!” he said. “She’s right.”

Of course I was right. The endless hours I had spent being fitted and refitted with braces in Dr. Reekie’s chamber of tortures in Farringdon Street had made me a leading authority on jaw alignment. In fact, there had been times when I’d thought of myself as the Human Nutcracker. To me, Phyllis Wyvern’s mandibular displacement had been as easy to spot as a horse in a birdbath.

“And when did you make that observation?” the Inspector asked.

I had to give him credit. For an older man, he had a remarkably nimble mind.

“It was I who discovered the body,” I told him. “I went for Dogger at once.”

“Why would you do that?” he asked, instantly spotting the flaw in my account. “When Dr. Darby was no farther away than the foyer?”

“Dr. Darby came with Dieter in the sleigh,” I said. “I saw him arrive, and I knew he hadn’t brought his medical bag. He was also very tired. I noticed him dozing during the performance.”

“And?” he said, raising an eyebrow.

“And … I was frightened. I knew that Dogger was likely the only one awake in the entire house—he sometimes doesn’t sleep well, you know—and I just wanted someone to—I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

It was a lie, but a jolly good one. Actually, I’d been thinking as clearly as a mountain stream.

I made my lower lip tremble just a trifle.

“It was easy to see that Miss Wyvern was quite dead,” I added. “It wasn’t a question of saving her life.”

“And yet you had your wits about you sufficiently to spot the makeup where no makeup ought to be.”

“Yes,” I said. “I notice things like that. I can’t help it.

“Please don’t strike me,” I wanted to add, but I knew I was already slicing the bacon a trifle on the thin side.

“I see,” the Inspector said. “It’s most kind of you to point it out.”

I gave him my most winning smile and made a graceful exit.

I made directly for the drawing room, bursting at the seams to tell Feely and Daffy the news. I found them with their heads bent over a stack of back issues of Behind the Screen .

“Don’t tell us,” Daffy said, raising a hand as I opened my mouth. “We already know. Phyllis Wyvern’s been murdered in the Blue Bedroom and the police are on the scene.”

“How—?” I began.

“Perhaps, since you’re their main suspect, we shouldn’t even be talking to you,” Feely said.

“Me?” I was flabbergasted. “Where did you ever get such a stupid idea?”

“I saw you,” Feely said. “That woman and her infernal ciné projector kept Daffy and me awake again for hours. I finally decided to give her a piece of my mind, and was halfway along the corridor when guess who I spotted sneaking out of the Blue Bedroom?”

Why did I suddenly feel so guilty?

“I wasn’t sneaking,” I said. “I was going for help.”

“There are perhaps a small handful of people in the world who would believe you, but I am not among them,” Feely said.

“Tell it to the Marines,” Daffy added.

“As it happens,” I said haughtily, “I am assisting the police with their inquiries.”

“Horse hockey!” Daffy said. “Feely and I were talking to Detective Sergeant Graves and he wondered why he hadn’t seen you around.”

At the very mention of the sergeant’s name, Feely drifted towards the looking glass and touched her hair as she turned her head from side to side. Although not first on her list of suitors, the sergeant was not to be counted out—at least I hoped not.

“Sergeant Graves? Is he here? I haven’t seen him.”

“That’s because he doesn’t want to be seen,” Daffy said. “You’ll see him, right enough, when he claps the darbies on you.”

Darbies? Daffy had obviously been paying more attention to Philip Odell than she let on.