As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust (35 page)

“Jolly good of Miss Moate to pitch in,” I said. “It mustn’t be easy for her.”

“Moatey’s a good sort,” Fabian said, flicking ashes on the floor. “Her bark is worse than her bite.”

I nodded, even though I didn’t agree. I was still trying to sort out where Fabian and I stood, which side we were on, and what was behind this duel in a shadowed room. Which one of us, for instance, was darkness, and which of us was light?

“She’s had a hard row to hoe,” Fabian said. “Since the accident, that is. Ditched by her best friend.”

Ditched?
I was missing something here.

Fabian saw my look of dismay. “Run off the road and into the ditch. Car flipped. Moatey flung out through the windshield. Broken spine, broken neck. They practically had to pick up her bits in a basket.”

I felt my gorge rising. Those injuries would account for that awful froggish expression into which her face had fallen. The poor woman must have undergone eons of surgery.

“It was positively eerie,” Fabian said, echoing my thoughts, “to see her at high table, serving lobster to the very person who put her in the wheelchair.”

I blinked, blankly.

“Francesca Rainsmith,” she said. “Her onetime best friend.”

My throat was suddenly dry. I was finding it hard to swallow. I thought of all those long-gone chemists who had accidentally inhaled a fatal dose of arsine and died with their legs in knots behind their necks. Or had I, without paying attention, taken a drink of water from a contaminated glass?

But no—other than the shock of hearing about Miss Moate, I had exhibited no symptoms.

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked. We were still circling each other as warily as two roosters in a ring, and I had already made up my mind not to be the first to mention pheasant sandwiches. If she was a member of the Nide, she could jolly well bring it up herself.

“Because you need to know,” she said. “I’ve had my eye on you for some time.”

I shrugged. What else could I do?

“You say you were actually there when the arsenic was administered?”

“I think so,” she said. “I was sitting across from Francesca when Moatey brought her a plate of lobster.”

“From the sideboard?”

“Can’t say. I had my back to it. Oddly enough, I remember Moatey lifting her beloved tea cozy from the plate.”

“She brought Francesca’s lobster under her tea cozy?”

“Doesn’t make sense, does it? I didn’t think much about it at the time, although I do remember thinking that our beloved chairman might have salted her plate with something nasty. He made such a show of breaking up the lobster for her, the claws, the abdomen—she squealed and closed her eyes at the sight of the antennae. Made her feel sick, just looking at them, she said. Funny, isn’t it.”

“Strange” was more the word that came to mind, but then Miss Moate’s oversize tea cozy was big enough to conceal almost anything you might wish to put under it.

Which raised a whole new set of possibilities.

“Which one of them was it, then? Ryerson Rainsmith or Miss Moate?”

“I don’t know,” Fabian said with a sigh. “I really don’t.”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?” I asked. “The police, for instance.”

Fabian regarded me with a distant eye, and then she said: “I have my reasons.”

I could have named one of them on the spot, but I
didn’t. I decided to steer the conversation into less personal channels—at least for now.

“We have to be very cautious with seafood poisoning,” I said. “Mussels, clams, scallops, and oysters contain organic forms of arsenic. So do crabs and lobsters.”

I never thought I’d find myself in the position of defending Ryerson Rainsmith, but it’s a funny old world, and when it comes to poisons, it’s always best to watch your step.

A hanged man can’t be unhanged, and besides, I didn’t think I could stand being made a fool of.

“The Marsh test can’t distinguish between the various forms of arsenic,” I said. “But since no one else died at the Beaux Arts Ball, I think that we can assume, at least for the moment, that Francesca Rainsmith’s poison came from somewhere other than the lobster’s natural toxicity.”

“The lobster was just a cover? Is that what you’re saying?”

“It might have been,” I said. “And then again, it might not.”

Fabian fixed me with a long stare, then shook her head. “You’re a strange one, de Luce. I can’t figure you out.”

“Neither can I,” I said. “So tell me more about the night of the ball.”

“It was as it always was. Long tables, alternate seating: faculty, student, faculty, student—democratic principles, remember. No hierarchy—everyone equal, that sort of thing.”

“Hold on,” I said. “How was it that the chairman was seated next to his wife? You
did
say that, didn’t you?”

“Hmmm,” Fabian said. “I hadn’t thought of that. Unless it just worked out that way because of the number of chairs.”

“So,” I said, changing the subject. “Miss Moate produces Francesca’s plate of lobster from under her tea cozy, the chairman breaks it up for her, and she tucks into a hearty meal. Is that it?”

“Pretty well,” Fabian said. “I was busy dismembering my own lobster, mind you, and it was a chore. One hates to splatter one’s neighbors with melted butter and intestinal juices. One tries to be ladylike.”

“And Francesca?”

“Oh, she seemed to be getting on quite well, chatting up the girls, for a while, anyway. She was the center of attention in her Cinderella getup.”

“What about the chairman? Was he in costume, too?”

Fabian snorted. “I should say not. He’s above that sort of thing.”

“What about the prizes?” I asked. “Didn’t Francesca present one of them?”

“Yes,” Fabian said. “I think so. Oh, yes, of course she did.”

“The Saint Michael Award,” I said. “For church history.”

“Yes.”

“To Clarissa Brazenose.”

“Yes.”

“Who vanished later that same night.”

“So they say,” Fabian said.

“And what do
you
say?”

Fabian lit another cigarette with the same mannerisms as before. “You mustn’t put too much stock in what the younger kids say,” she said, blowing out the match with as much force as if it were a forest of candles on the birthday cake of a hundred-year-old. “Their minds are full of nonsense. Ghost stories, fairy tales. They’re easily spooked.”

“I’m not asking what the younger girls say, I’m asking what
you
say.”

“I say, ‘Who knows?’ People come and go all the time. It’s the nature of schools. She might have been sent down. Gated. Failed to Flourish.”

“Yes,” I said. “She might have.”

This whole game of to and fro, this whole game of put and take, this whole game of cat and mouse with Fabian was getting me down, and yet it was somehow strangely familiar. I realized with an almost physical start that it was the same rigmarole I had often fallen into with Feely: a parlor game where persistence paid and only the bold survived.

“About Francesca,” I said, with a cucumber-cool expression on my face. “She gave out the Saint Michael Award, and then what?”

“I don’t know,” Fabian said. “I suppose I noticed she had become more quiet—withdrawn, you might say. Touching her napkin to her lips a lot. She seemed to be growing paler by the minute. Wiped her brow a lot, too. Although it was hot, you know: June, crowded room, stuffy, too many bodies. Not that she wasn’t trying to remain on the rails. She asked Clarissa if she could have a better look at the medallion she had just presented—stared at it as if she were trying
to remember where she was and what she was doing. Then she whispered to her husband. He helped her to her feet, said something to Miss Fawlthorne and Miss Dawes—”

“Miss Dawes?” I interrupted. “You’ve lost me.”

“Dorsey Dawes. Dorsey Rainsmith, now. She was on the board of guardians at the time.”

“Interesting,” I said. “Go on.”

“Well, they helped Mrs. Rainsmith away from the table and out of the room. That was the last I saw of her. You could have knocked me over with a feather when I heard a couple of days later that she had drowned. The whole school felt like that. We were in shock.”

“I suppose you don’t know where they took her when they left the table?”

“Oh, but I do. They took her to Edith Cavell. Moatey insisted.”

“Edith Cavell? Why on earth—?”

“Because it was Moatey’s room at the time. They were renovating hers, and she had moved into Edith Cavell for the summer to get away from the paint fumes.”

“And whose room had it been before that?” I asked.

“Mine,” Fabian said.

Somewhere in the universe something went
“click,”
and then another … and another. Like footsteps on the tiles of time.

I wanted to shout out “Tombola!” or “Bingo!” or whatever they call it on this side of the pond, but I restrained myself.

Already there wasn’t glory enough to go around and I didn’t want to dilute it any further.

“Hmmm,” I said instead. This was the moment I had been waiting for.

“And the chairman,” I said. “Did you see him again? That night, I mean?”

“Of course. He and Dorsey—Miss—sorry
—Doctor
Dawes—came back and danced for hours.”

“With whom?” I demanded, perhaps too quickly.

“With everyone. He danced with students—democracy again—with faculty—”

“With Miss Moate?”

“Of course not! Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Where was she by this time?”

“I don’t know. She was around somewhere, I expect. I remember helping her roll up the paper garlands at the end of the night.”

“And the chairman—dancing. Didn’t he seem worried about his wife?”

“Didn’t seem to be. ‘Upset tummy’ was the word that went around. After all, he
is
a doctor, and ought to know. Besides, it was his duty to dance with all the girls.”

“Yes,” I said. “I know: democratic principles. Did he dance with you?”

“Yes. Twice, in fact.”

“Why?”

“How do I know, you idiot? Because I was the most beautiful girl in the room. Because he liked the smell of my Chanel. Because he likes tall girls. What a ridiculous question!”

I saw that I had struck pay dirt, but I kept a poker face.

“What did you talk about?”

“Oh, for god’s sake, de Luce … how do you expect me to remember that? It was years ago.”

“I’d have remembered,” I said. “I don’t often dance with a doctor. Or a man, for that matter.”

“What are you getting at?”

“Nothing,” I said. “It was just a thought. What did you talk about?”

“The weather. The heat. He said I waltzed well. He complimented me on my corsage.”

“Did he bid you farewell?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” Fabian demanded.

“Did he wish you well in your new life?”

“Whatever are you talking about, de Luce? Are you insane?”

“Not entirely,” I said. “I thought he might at least have congratulated you on winning the Saint Michael Award … Clarissa.”

I
REACHED OUT AND
ran my finger slowly down her cheek. It came away covered with pale powder. Underneath, her exposed skin was the same swarthy shade as that of her sister, Mary Jane.

“Makeup, hair color, and hairstyle can fool a lot of people,” I said, “but the underlying facial structure can never really be changed—not in the long run, anyway, and not to the professional eye.”

This was a fact I had learned from Dogger one rainy afternoon in the greenhouse as we pored over photographs of criminals in the back issues of
The Police Gazette
he had turned out from under the stairs. We had assumed (incorrectly, as it turned out) that they had belonged to Uncle Tar.

Nevertheless, Clarissa Brazenose’s transformation into Fabian had been remarkable, a triumph of the actor’s
makeup box. Even now, with the light stain on my fingertip, there was only an inch of the real Clarissa showing through.

“You’ve managed to fool even your own sister,” I said. “You ought to be proud. You ought also to be ashamed. Poor kid, being made to think you were dead these past two years. She still doesn’t know, does she? And perhaps never will.”

Fabian stared at me, not quite defiantly. I had to give her credit.

“How did you manage?” I asked. “The makeup, of course, which you were taught to apply professionally. And you must have worn wigs, changed your posture, re-learned how to walk. I compliment you on a most remarkable performance.”

I reached out as if to touch her hair.

She backed slowly away out of reach.

“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about,” Fabian said, as of course she would. She had been trained to deny even to the death.

And was I, at bottom, any different?

The truth of the matter was that I hadn’t the heart to expose her. If I revealed the fact that Fabian was Clarissa Brazenose, then, even though I had won, she had lost. All of her efforts, and those who had trained her, would be for naught.

The point of it all was this: Did I have the generosity to let her get away with it? Could I let her win? Throw the match, so to speak?

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I must have been mistaken.”

And before she could stop me, I ran out of the laboratory.

I did not need more entanglements.

It was only when I got back to Edith Cavell that I realized I had not completed my experiment. I would return later to clean up.

When Fabian was gone.

Sleep was impossible. I tossed and turned, sweated and swore. By daylight I was a bad-tempered haystack, but I didn’t care. I had made up my mind what I was going to do. I would do it and hang the consequences.

Rosedale at dawn was a very different place. The weather had turned cold overnight and left the world brittle. In some of the lower spots, patches of low fog lurked among the hedges, as if the atmosphere there had curdled. Dark trees overhung the frosty grass, and the air was as sharp as knives.

I walked quickly, swinging my arms to generate a bit of heat. A school blazer and white blouse were hardly meant to replace a parka, and by the time I got to the Rainsmiths’, my nose was running and I was beginning to sneeze.