Alan Bradley - I Am Half-Sick of Shadows

That done, I fumbled my way behind the curtain, which gave off another cloud of choking dust.

I grabbed the bridge of my nose and squeezed just in time to reduce a major sneeze to a tiny, but rather rude, exclamation point of sound.

“Pee-phwup.”

Bless me!

I had to be careful about the paint-swollen door. I couldn’t close it as tightly behind me as I wished, but had to settle instead for a couple of careful, but almost silent, tugs. The curtains in each room would not only muffle the sound, but perhaps even keep all but the most determined observer from noticing the door’s very existence.

Happily, the mess of paint chips I had dislodged was on my side of the door and I couldn’t help congratulating myself on leaving the Blue Bedroom without a trace.

Taking Flo’s—or Maeve’s—hairbrush from the dresser (after replacing their dessert spoon carefully in its bowl of fruit) and forming a makeshift dustpan of the Cinema Weekly that was lying on the bed, I swept up the paint chips and tipped them carefully into the pocket of my cardigan.

I’d dispose of them later. No point in leaving confusing evidence to distract the police.

I opened the door a crack and peeked out. No one in sight as far as I could see.

As I stepped into the corridor, a familiar voice behind me said, “Hold on.”

I had nearly stepped on Inspector Hewitt’s toes.

“Oh, hello, Inspector,” I said. “I was just looking for, uh, Flo.”

I could tell at once that he didn’t believe me.

“Were you, indeed?” he asked. “Why?”

Damn the man! His questions were always so to the point.

“That’s not quite true,” I confessed. “Actually, I was snooping in her room.”

No need to drag in my fib about the summons from Val Lampman.

“Why?” the Inspector persisted.

Sometimes there’s nothing for it but to tell the truth.

“Well,” I said, scrambling madly for words, “actually it’s a hobby of mine. I sometimes snoop on Daffy and Feely quite frightfully.”

He stared at me with what somebody once called “that awful eye.”

“I thought the bedrooms of cinema people were bound to be more interesting …”

“Including Miss Wyvern’s?”

I made my eyes go wide with innocence.

“I heard you sneeze, Flavia,” he said.

Bugger!

“Empty your pockets, please,” the Inspector said, and I had no choice but to obey.

Remembering Father’s tales of his exploits as a boy conjurer, I tried to “palm,” as I believe it is called, by folding it under my thumb and pressing it into my handkerchief, the crumpled ball of paper I had found in Phyllis Wyvern’s boot.

“Thank you,” the Inspector said, holding out his hand, and I was, as the vicar says while playing cribbage, skunked.

I gave him the paper.

“Other pocket, please.”

“It’s nothing but rubbish,” I told him. “Just a lot of—”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” he interrupted. “Turn it out.”

I locked eyes with him as I turned the pocket inside out and a small Vesuvius of paint chips erupted and fluttered in horrid silence to the floor.

“Why do you do it, Flavia?” the Inspector asked in a suddenly different voice, his eyes on the mess I had made of the carpet. I don’t think I had ever seen him look so pained.

“Do what?”

I couldn’t help myself.

“Lie,” he said. “Why do you fabricate these outlandish stories?”

I had often thought about this myself, and although I had a ready answer, I did not feel obliged to give it to him.

“Well,” I wanted to say, “there are those of us who create because all around us, things visible and invisible are crumbling. We are like the stonemasons of Babylon, forever working, as it says in Jeremiah, to shore up the city walls.”

I didn’t say that, of course. What I did say was:

“I don’t know.”

“How can I impress upon you—” he began, at the same time uncrinkling the paper and giving it a single glance. “Where did you get this?”

“In Phyllis Wyvern’s shoe,” I said, remembering not to call attention that it was, in fact, a boot. “The right foot. You must have overlooked it.”

I could see his dilemma: He could hardly tell his men—or his superiors—that he had found it himself.

“There’s a connecting door, you see,” I said helpfully. “I knew you’d already taken your photos and so forth, so I just slipped in for a quick look round.”

“Did you touch anything else?”

“No,” I said, standing there in plain view with my soiled handkerchief crumpled in my hand.

Please, God, and Saint Genesius, patron saint of actors and those who have been tortured, don’t let him tell me to hand it over .

And it worked! All praises to you both!

I would send up a burnt offering later in my lab—a little pyramid of ammonium dichromate, perhaps—a shower of joyful sparks …

“Are you quite sure?” the Inspector was asking.

“Well,” I said, lowering my voice and glancing along the corridor in both directions to see that we were not being overheard, “I did have a quick peek into her purse. You spotted the Phyllida Lampman driving license, of course?”

I thought the Inspector was going to have an egg.

“That will be all,” he said abruptly, and walked away.

• SEVENTEEN •

“I REQUIRE YOUR PERSONAL advice,” I said to Daffy. This was a tactic that never failed to work.

As always, she was curled up in the library like a prawn, still deep in her Dickens.

“Supposing you wanted to look someone up,” I asked. “Where would you begin?”

“Somerset House,” she said.

My sister was being facetious. I knew, as well as everyone else in the kingdom, that Somerset House, in London, was where the records of all births, deaths, and marriages were kept, along with deeds, wills, and other public documents. Father had once pointed it out to us rather glumly from a taxicab.

“Besides that, I mean.”

“I should hire a detective,” Daffy said sourly. “Now please go away. Can’t you see I’m busy?”

“Please, Daff. It’s important.”

She continued to ignore me.

“I’ll give you half of whatever’s in my Post Office savings account.”

I had no intention of doing so, but it was worth a try. Money, to Daffy, meant books, and even though Buckshaw contained more books than the Bishop’s Lacey Free Library, to my sister, it was not enough.

“Books are like oxygen to a deep-sea diver,” she had once said. “Take them away and you might as well begin counting the bubbles.”

I could tell by the twitch at the corner of her lips that she was interested in my offer.

“All right—two thirds,” I said. One can always up the ante safely on bad intentions.

“If they were someone ,” she said, without looking up from her book, “Burke’s Peerage.”

“And what if they weren’t someone? What if they were merely famous?”

“Who’s Who,” she said, her finger pointing to the bookcases. “That will be three pounds, ten and six, if you please. As soon as the roads are cleared, I’ll personally walk you to the Post Office to see that you don’t welsh on your promise.”

“Thanks, Daff,” I said. “You’re a corker.”

But it was too late. She had already begun her descent into the deeps of Dickens.

I ambled casually over to the bookcases. Who’s Who had rung a bell. Although I had never opened one of them, the shelf of fat red volumes, their dates stretching well back into another century, were part of Buckshaw’s library landscape.

But even as I approached, my heart began to sink. A wide gap at the right of the second shelf showed that a number of volumes were missing.