Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd

  There are times when even family can be of no use: when talking to your own blood fails to have meaning.

  I suppose when you stop and think about it, in the great scheme of things, that’s what vicars’ wives are for.

  I dismounted and leaned Gladys against the churchyard wall. She would be quite safe here until I was ready to go home. As Gladys was rather fond of churchyards, the wait would be something of a treat for her, in spite of the rain.

  “It’s nice to be home,” I whispered, giving her a pat on the seat, but not in a sentimental way. “Enjoy yourself.”

  I walked through the wet grass, wiped my feet on the steel scraper at the door, and tugged on the bellpull. From the depths of the vicarage came a distant, muted jangling.

  I waited. There was no answer.

  I counted slowly to forty—which seemed to be a reasonable interval: not short enough to seem a nuisance and yet not long enough for anyone inside to think the caller had gone away.

  Another yank on the pull resulted in the same far-off clattering.

  The house sounded empty.

  Perhaps Cynthia was in the church. I hadn’t thought of that. So much of her time was taken up with flowers, leaflets, surplices, hymnals, Brasso, and beeswax, to say nothing of parish visits, meetings of the WI, the Mothers’ Union, the Altar Guild, Brownies, Girl Guides (in which she served as Brown Owl), Boy Scouts, Wolf Cubs (in which she was sometimes acting Akela), the Restoration Fund (of which she was chairwoman), and the Parish Council (of which she was secretary).

  I waded back across the wet grass, but the church was empty. It was now raining harder than ever and my feet were cold and wet.

  As I walked back towards Gladys, there came a call from the direction of the vicarage.

  “Flavia! Yoo-hoo! Flavia!”

  I didn’t recognize the voice as Cynthia’s, but it turned out to be her all the same.

  She was huddled behind the front door, holding it open no more than a crack. As I stepped onto the veranda I could see that she was clutching closed a shabby pink dressing gown.

  She looked awful.

  “Welcome home,” she croaked. “I’ve got a beastly cold, so I won’t give you a hug. Denwyn and I were sorry to hear about your father. How is he?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “We’re going to see him this afternoon.”

  “Come in…come in,” Cynthia said, opening the door just wide enough to squeeze through. “I’ll put the kettle on and we’ll have a nice cup of tea.”

  That was Cynthia all over. She had her priorities straight: welcome, hug (whether delivered or not), explanation, sympathy, and tea, in that order.

  She had tactfully left the sympathy until near the end in order to make it seem less serious.

  It was a tactic I had used myself on occasion— burying the bad bits among the good—and I appreciated her thoughtfulness.

  “Milk and two sugars, if I remember rightly,” she said, when the kettle had boiled and the tea was steeping. “Your shoes and socks are soaked. Give them to me and I’ll put them on the hearth.”

  I handed them over and picked a few blades of wet grass from between my toes.

  “And how was Canada?” Cynthia asked, stifling a sneeze. “All lakes, moose, and lumberjacks, as expected?”

  This was something of a private joke between us. She had confided, as I was leaving for Canada, that her father had once been a log driver on the Ottawa River, and that she sometimes thought of following in his spiked boot steps.

  “Pretty much,” I said, and left it at that.

  “But how are you?” I added. “You look a fright.”

  Cynthia and I were great enough pals that I could get away with it.

  “I feel a fright,” she said. “I must look like something the cat dragged in.”

  Daffy’s very words to me, I thought.

  “I hope you’re not contagious.”

  “Good heavens, no! Dr. Darby was good enough to look in. He tells me I’m past that stage. Just as well. I have Wolf Cubs at half five and Scouts at seven. Pray for me, Flavia!”

  “You ought to be in bed,” I said. “Bundled in flannels and sipping hot toddy with milk.”

  Hot toddy and milk was a prescription I’d once heard Mrs. Mullet’s husband, Alf, recommend to Father. “It’s a sovereign remedy,” Alf had said. “Good for what ails you, man, beast, or angel.”

  Father had remarked later that Alf’s advice was ambiguous but well-meaning.

  “Do you have any rum or brandy in the house?”

  “I’m afraid not. Sacramental wine is my limit.” She giggled nervously, as if giving away a great secret.

  “I could run over to the Thirteen Drakes and beg a bottle. I’m sure Mr. Stoker would be happy to put it on tick. It’s not as if—”

  “Thank you, Flavia, but no. It’s very sweet of you. I’ve so much to do, I hardly know where to begin.”

  And then suddenly, shockingly, she was in tears. I handed over a clean handkerchief and waited for her to subside. Some things simply can’t be rushed.

  After a while, the sobs became wet snickers, and the snickers became a weak grin.

  “Oh, dear! Whatever must you think of me?”

  “I think you work too hard,” I said. “What can I do to help?”

  “Nothing,” she answered. “I shall simply have to let some of my chores slide. I shall ring up and tell people the truth: that the vicar is away and that I’m ill.”

  “Is the vicar away? I didn’t realize that. How awful for you.”

  “The bishop called one of his snap inspections of clergy. ‘The Brains Trust,’ he calls it, in order to make it sound jolly. At the diocesan office, of course. Denwyn won’t likely be home until late.”

  “You’re sure there’s nothing I can do?”

  “I wish there were,” she said. “But the tasks of a country vicar and his church-mouse wife can only be—hold on—wait a minute—yes, there is one thing.”

  “I’ll do it!” I said, not caring what it was.

  “I hate to send you out in the rain, but our car’s cracked a piston or a connecting rod or some such impossible part, and Bert Archer says he can’t get it back to us before next Wednesday.”

  “Don’t worry,” I told her. “I feel better in the rain.”

  It was true. The human brain performs more efficiently when taking in humid air than it does in hot or cold dry weather. My theory is that this is some kind of throwback to our fishy ancestors, who lived in the sea and breathed water, and some day when I have sufficient time, I intend to write a paper upon the subject.

  “Do you know where Stowe Pontefract is?”

  Cynthia’s voice broke in upon my thoughts.

  Of course I did. It was only a mile or so as the crow flies from Bishop’s Lacey; two miles, perhaps, if the crow has to ride a bicycle and keep to the roads and lanes. In spite of its spelling, the name of the place was pronounced “Stowe Pumfret,” and it was something of a joke in Bishop’s Lacey.

  “It’s a hamlet,” Daffy had once told me. “Too small to be a village—too big to be an omelette.”

  “It was done Stowe Pontefract style,” people in Bishop’s Lacey would sometimes say, meaning seldom, poorly, or not at all.

  “Yes, I know the place. It’s between here and East Finching,” I said. “First road to the right at the top of Denham Rise. Just past Pauper’s Well.”

  “That’s it!” Cynthia said. “Thornfield Chase is no more than a quarter mile in.”

  “Thornfield Chase?”

  “Mr. Sambridge’s place. Although I’m afraid it’s not nearly so grand as it sounds.”

  “I’ll find it,” I said.

  I could be there and back in an hour. It was not yet mid-morning. Plenty of time to get home and scrubbed for my first visit to Father.

  “What would you like me to do?” I asked.

  “Just deliver an envelope to Mr. Sambridge, dear. He’s a very clever wood-carver. More of an artist, I suppose. D
enwyn’s been trying to entice him into replacing—or at least restoring—some of the carved medieval angels on the hammer-beam ends. The poor man suffers dreadfully from arthritis—to be quite frank, he’s as stiff as a board—so that we hate to ask him to come in again. Still, Dr. Darby says keeping active is the best thing for it. Shocking what the deathwatch beetle can do once it gets into old oak. You’re sure you don’t mind?”

  Whether Cynthia was talking about Mr. Sambridge’s joints or the carved angels, I couldn’t work out, and I didn’t want to ask.

  “Not at all,” I said. “I’d be happy to help.”

  And it was true, although what I was happy about was not so much being helpful, but being able to get away from Buckshaw, Undine, and my blasted sisters, even for a couple of hours. A ride in the rain would do me good. It would blow out the cobwebs that had been forming in my cranium for quite some time.

  —

  To the north of Bishop’s Lacey, the road rises steeply in a series of folds. I stood on Gladys’s pedals and pumped for all I was worth. There was no traffic, but if there had been, the drivers would have seen a red-faced girl in a yellow mackintosh swerving slightly and wobbling from side to side as she fought the hill and the furious gusting of the north wind.

  Like an aeroplane, a bicycle is capable of stalling at too low a speed, and one has to be prepared to step off and push at any moment. Even with the lowest gear engaged, it was a rough go.

  “Sorry, Gladys.” I puffed. “I can only promise you that it’s downhill all the way home.”

  Gladys gave a little squeak of delight. She loved coasting as much as I did, and if there was no one in sight, I might even put my feet up on her handlebars: a bit of bicycle artistry that she loved even more than ordinary free-wheeling.

  The turnoff came sooner than I expected. A weathered fingerpost pointed east in the direction of Stowe Pontefract. The road was no more than a narrow, rutted lane, but at least it was level. Dense, wild holly hedges grew on either side, their scarlet berries sparkling in spite of the gray, watery light. These pretty but poisonous berries, I recalled with pleasure, contained, among other things: caffeic acid, quinic acid, chlorogenic acid, kaempferol, caffeine, quercetin, rutin, and theobromine. “Theobromine” means, literally, “the food of the gods,” and is the bitter alkaloid found also in tea, coffee, and chocolate. An overdose could be fatal.

  Death by means of a lavishly large box of chocolates delivered to a rich and elderly aunt was not just something that happened in mystery novels. No, indeed! It was probably no coincidence that holly and chocolates were always somewhere about at Christmas: the time of year when mortality rates peaked among the aged.

  This pleasant train of thought was interrupted by the appearance of a pair of crumbling brick pillars on my left. A cracked wooden signboard, its painted letters peeling as if it suffered from eczema, read: THORNFIELD CHASE. I braked, turned carefully into the drive, and dismounted.

  All that remained of the estate was a Gothic hunting lodge, and what was left of that was in sad disrepair. A carpet of green and black moss covered the sagging roof, the doorframes were rotten, and the windows were as dull as dead eyes. A dismal drip-drip-drip came from the plugged gutters, the remains of which hung in metallic tatters.

  What an odd place for a so-called master carpenter to live, I thought. There must be more than a little truth in that old proverb: The cobbler’s children and the blacksmith’s horse are always without shoes.

  What were Colonel Haviland de Luce’s children without?

  That part of my mind switched itself off.

  A derelict Austin sedan stood under the trees, a liberal spattering of bird droppings suggesting that it had not been recently moved. I glanced quickly in through its spotted windows. A pair of soft leather driving gloves was visible—one on the seat, the other on the floor. Nothing else.

  I turned and slogged through dead wet leaves to the door.

  A tug on an old-fashioned bellpull—an ivory knob in a brass plate—produced a surprisingly bright and crisp ringing from somewhere inside the lodge.

  In case someone should be watching me through a peephole, I brought the envelope out from beneath my mackintosh and arranged my features into what I thought might pass for eager efficiency: one elbow crooked and slightly raised, brows slightly beetled, lips lightly pursed—a cross between a Post Office telegram boy and Alice’s white rabbit.

  The gutters dripped.

  I rang again.

  “Mr. Sambridge,” I called out. “Mr. Sambridge…are you here?”

  No answer.

  “Mr. Sambridge, it’s Flavia de Luce. I have something for you from the vicarage.”

  “Something” sounded more tantalizing than “a letter.” “Something” might be money, but then, I imagine, so could “a letter.”

  But my choice of words made no difference anyway: Mr. Sambridge was not responding.

  I suppose I could have dropped the envelope through the mail slot, but that is not the way of Flavia de Luce. Cynthia had given me an errand to run, and I would carry it out come hell or hobnails. It was a question of honor and—yes, let’s face it—curiosity.

  I lifted the flap, applied my eyes, and peered through the slot at a painted brick wall with a single coat-hook, upon which hung a Norfolk jacket of the style worn by gamekeepers.

  “Hello?” I said, speaking into the opening. “Mr. Sambridge?”

  I tried the door, knowing even as I did so that it was pointless, but to my amazement, it swung open easily and I stepped inside.

  Aside from the boxy little entranceway—constructed to keep the weather from blowing directly in—the ground floor of the lodge was a single large room, and it was clear that this was Sambridge’s woodworking shop. The smell of fresh shavings filled the air: The room was fragrant with the sappy scent of the forest.

  A workbench stood in the light of a window, littered with knives, planes, saws, and files, and an assortment of sharp cutting tools: some with flat, some with curved, and some with V-shaped blades. There was a vise, and wooden and rubber mallets of different sizes.

  On a stand stood a magnificently carved oak eagle, not quite finished, its vast wooden wings raised and spread, its beak open in a silent shriek, its feathers slightly ruffled, as if rising up like a puff adder to defend its nest from mountain climbers. It was a lectern, of course, and I knew that the eagle represented Saint John the Evangelist.

  Once installed in whatever church it was destined for, this bird would strike secret terror into the hearts of all the little children lining up for their first communion—as perhaps it was supposed to do. Even my neck was bristling slightly.

  As a wood-carver and an artist, Mr. Sambridge was a genius, no doubt about it.

  A small cooker, a sink full of soiled dishes, its slow drip-drip matching the sound of the ruined gutters outside, and slipping in and out of time with the Black Forest cuckoo clock on the wall.

  Tick…tock…tick…tock…DRIP…tick…tock…tick…DRIP…tock…

  And so forth.

  The hands of the clock were at 10:03.

  A few books and a cold fireplace completed the ground floor. A narrow staircase led to the upstairs.

  “Hello?” I called again, as I set foot upon the first step.

  The man might be an unusually sound sleeper.

  Or perhaps he drank. Anything was possible. Even if he did carve evangelical eagles.

  “Mr. Sambridge?”

  A stair tread creaked and I froze—but realized almost at once that I was frightening myself. “Getting in a state,” as Mrs. Mullet called it.

  I gave a carefree little snort to relieve the tension. The man had gone out and left his front door unlocked. There was no more to it than that.

  Technically, I suppose, I was trespassing—perhaps even housebreaking. I’d have just a quick peek into the upper room and then make my exit. I’d leave the envelope on Mr. Sambridge’s workbench, where he couldn’t miss it. I might even scribble a
little note giving my name and the time of day—so that he would know who’d been in his cottage, and when.

  Everything on the up-and-up…all shipshape and Bristol fashion…all according to Hoyle.

  But that was not the way things turned out.

  At the top of the stairs was a door.

  A closed door.

  There is a certain type of person to whom a closed door is a challenge—a dare, a taunt, a glove thrown down—and I am one of them. A closed door is more than a mystery to be solved: It’s an insult. A slap in the face.

  As anybody with two older sisters can tell you, a closed door is like a red rag to a bull. It cannot go unchallenged.

  I stepped forward, put my ear to the panel, and listened.

  Dead silence. Not even the usual amplified roar of an empty room that you expect when you use a wooden door as a sounding board.

  I put my hand on the knob, gave it a twist, shoved open the door just wide enough to let my eyes rove over the room.

  What a disappointment.

  In alphabetical order: bed (neatly made), bookshelf, chair, chamber pot, clothes press, table, and a thin Turkey carpet: all very orderly. All surprisingly neat and clean.

  No monsters, no madmen: none of the things you always expect to come leaping out at you when you’re snooping round a stranger’s house.

  I pushed the door a little wider, but with a sudden thump, it seemed to meet with some obstruction. It jammed just past the halfway mark.

  I stepped into the room, and as I did so, the door swung slowly closed of its own accord.

  It must have been off balance, I decided later, because of the weight of Mr. Sambridge’s body.

  I spun round.

  He was hanging upside down, lashed to the back of the door—his arms and shackled legs spread in the shape of a human “X.”

  · TWO ·

  THE EXPRESSION ON HIS darkened face was ghastly: a look of sheer horror. The eyes bulged out in a stare that might have been amusing if their owner had not been dead. The nostrils were flared and cavernous, like those of a horse about to bolt: as if they had flung themselves open in one last desperate attempt to draw in oxygen. The corners of the open mouth, inverted as they were—turned up instead of down, in mockery of a smile—made it clear that the man had, at the instant of death, been terrified.