As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust (36 page)

I was not a pretty picture.

Smoke was rising from the kitchen chimney as I made my way round the back of the house.

I tapped lightly at the door and Elvina opened it almost at once.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” I said, “but I should like to speak with Dr. Rainsmith. It’s urgent.”

“Urgent, is it?” she asked, beckoning me to come inside. “So urgent that you can’t have a cup of hot tea and a buttered scone? You look as if you’ve fallen off a dog-sled.”

“I’m all right,” I said, resenting both the remark and the way I looked. “Is Dr. Rainsmith at home?”

“Which one?” she asked.

“The chairman,” I said. “Ryerson.”

Some people are shy about using the forename of an older person, but I am not one of them.

“I’m afraid he’s not, dear. He’s off to a conference in Hamilton. Won’t be home until tonight. Is it something that can wait?”

“No,” I told her, perhaps unwisely. “It’s a matter of life and death.”

Unshaken (and it was only later that I realized that she probably dealt with matters of life and death daily, as others deal with dust) she replied, “Is it something I can help with—or Mr. Merton? He ought to be back from the train any minute now.”

“No,” I said. “It’s personal.”

The look on her face told me that she was recalling our earlier conversation.

“Honestly, I’m fine,” I said, touching her hand. It was the least I could do.

It was only then that I noticed that Dorsey Rainsmith was standing in the doorway. She had followed me in from the garden with a wicker basket full of flowers. I must have
passed her without seeing her. Perhaps she had been bent over with her secateurs.

Was it just my imagination or had Elvina given a little jump? Had Dorsey Rainsmith taken us both by surprise?

“Well,” she said, “what is it?”

I had no more than a second to make up my mind. Did I stay or did I go? I thought of Alf Mullet’s many talks on military tactics which I had dozed through behind fascinated eyes. “Confrontation is a cannon,” he had said. “It’s a powerful weapon, but it gives away your position.”

“It’s about Francesca Rainsmith,” I said.

No going back now. I had fired my shot and could only wait for the consequences.

“You’d better come in,” Dorsey said, placing the basket of flowers on the kitchen sink and leading the way through into another room which turned out to be her study. The walls were lined with medical reference books that I’d have given my eye teeth to read, but this was hardly the time or place.

She took a chair at the desk without asking me to sit, then swiveled round to face me.

“I’m very busy,” she said.

“Good,” I said. “So am I. Let’s get on with it. Francesca Rainsmith.”

“What about her?” Dorsey said. “She died in tragic circumstances, and I’d prefer you to respect my husband’s privacy, and mine.”

“She died of arsenic poisoning at the Beaux Arts Ball,” I said. “A few days later, in a wedding dress and veil, you impersonated her on a moonlight cruise.”

“Quite preposterous,” she said.

“Yes, it is,” I replied. “Inspector Gravenhurst will find it even more so.”

I paused to let her guilt get to work. “He’ll find the results of the autopsy particularly interesting, especially in view of the fact that you’ve been in charge of the body since it was discovered.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean good morning, Dr. Rainsmith,” I said, and turned toward the door, an effect that was largely spoiled by my being convulsed with a sneeze.

“Flavia—wait.”

Reluctantly, I turned to face her again.

“Dr. Rainsmith and I—Ryerson, I mean. We’re on your side, you know. Pheasant sandwiches.”

She bared her teeth in a ghastly grin that was meant to be friendly but which, to me, looked more like a corpse in a comic book.

I said nothing. I was not going to let on that I recognized the phrase.

“Pheasant sandwiches,” she said again, smiling horribly … plaintively.

Again I gave her a barn-door stare.

“Listen,” she said. “What do you want?”

“The truth,” I said, and I must admit that those two words, as brief as they were, were as sweet in my mouth as milk and honey. “First of all, Collingwood. What have you done with her?”

“She’s been sent home to her parents. She suffered a bad shock at Miss Bodycote’s, then contracted rheumatic fever.
We brought her here for a while, but she’s now been released.”

That much, I thought, was probably true.

“And Francesca Rainsmith?”

Dorsey Rainsmith got to her feet and locked the door.

Was I terrified?

Well, yes.

“I wish you’d wait until Ryerson comes home,” she said. “I’m sure he could make it quite—”

“He won’t be home until late tonight,” I said. “He’s away at a conference.”

“Oh, of course he is—I’d forgotten.”

“So it’s just you and me,” I said. I resisted the urge to add “Sweetheart,” like Humphrey Bogart.

“Talk,” I told her, and she did.

I could hardly wait to tell Inspector Gravenhurst.

“So you see,” I said, pacing up and down the room, “believing she was suffering from no more than indigestion, they took Francesca to Edith Cavell. A good sleep would do her good. They left her there and went downstairs, where it was said that they danced for hours.

“Toward the end of the evening, when they finally got back to Edith Cavell, they found Francesca dead on the floor. Her throat had been cut. They were appalled. They panicked. After all, it had been implied that they had much more in common than medicine, if you see what I mean.

“He needed to return to the ball to keep up appearances,
Ryerson decided. He made his excuses, left instructions that his wife was not to be disturbed, and drove Dr. Dawes home. He’d deal with things himself. It was while driving back that he came up with a plan. He remembered that Francesca had wanted to go on a midnight cruise: to renew their vows. He’d already booked the tickets. There mustn’t be a breath of scandal, he decided: not about him and Miss Dawes and certainly not about Miss Bodycote’s Female Academy.

“When he finally got back to Miss Bodycote’s, although it was quite late, there was still laughter in the ballroom. He went quietly up to Edith Cavell, and found … nothing! Francesca’s body was gone. Not a sign of her. The room was untouched. Wiped clean.

“What to do? There was scarcely time to think. He told Fitzgibbon he was taking his wife home. No, no need to make a fuss. Carry on. He’d see to it.

“Two nights later, they carried out their charade with Dorsey wearing a wedding dress and veil. The gift box, of course, contained her ordinary clothing, and while Ryerson alerted the captain that his wife had fallen overboard, Dorsey was packing the wedding gear in the box and putting on a dark suit, after which she mingled with the other passengers on the deck until they returned to port. No one paid her the slightest attention; no one, remember, because of the veil, had previously seen her face.

“How did I discover this? Well, in the first place, Ryerson’s wife banged her head getting out of the taxi at the pier. Francesca Rainsmith was tiny: Had it been she, it never could have happened. That was what first alerted
me. And then the taxi: Why had they taken a taxi instead of having Merton drive them to the ship? As for the rest of it, I got it straight from Dorsey Rainsmith’s mouth.”

I waited for this to sink in.

“Now then: Did they kill Francesca? The answer is no. They foolishly plotted to conceal her death, but as for murder, you will find them not guilty. Francesca died of arsenic poisoning. You will almost certainly still find traces of it in her body.

“What made me suspect arsenic? I’m glad you asked. As you undoubtedly know, arsenic, heated, produces arsine gas. A body permeated with arsenic, wrapped in fabric, such as a flag, over time, will give off fumes that tarnish silver. I subjected a sample of the tarnish from a small silver medallion—which was clutched in the corpse’s hand—to the Marsh test, which confirmed my suspicions. I’ll be happy to turn it over to you so that you can verify my work. Yes, of course I ought to have handed over the medallion when you first arrived. I realize that now. But, like poor Collingwood, I must have been in shock. I hope you won’t think too badly of me.

“And now the flag. Why was the body wrapped in a Union Jack? To absorb the blood, of course, of which there was a great deal. The flag was easily at hand, being stored in a trunk in the hall. It was flown over the academy every twenty-fourth of May, Victoria Day. Mr. Kelly will probably confirm that it was missing last May, and that he had to requisition a new one. No, I haven’t asked him myself, but I
have
observed that there is presently a quite fresh Union
Jack in the trunk: one which can’t have been flown for more than a couple of days.

“Who, then, killed Francesca Rainsmith? The deduction is an easy one. Who held Francesca responsible for the car crash that condemned her friend to a life of torture in a wheelchair? Who has hated Francesca with every moment of her waking life?” (I’ll admit I was being a bit dramatic here). “Who is it that keeps a museum of taxidermy specimens, who has the ways and means to decapitate a dead body? Who had the upper body strength to shove a pitifully little body up the chimney? Having seen the killer run a wheelchair up and down steep banks and ramps with my own eyes, I’m satisfied that we need look no further.

“And why decapitate? To avoid identification if the body were ever found. The skull which is presently in the morgue was formerly on the shelf of the natural history museum, here at Miss Bodycote’s. And as for Francesca Rainsmith’s skull, I expect you will find it on that same shelf in the same position, dyed with tea, in order to age it.

“How do I know that? Why, I smelled it, of course. There is a definite odor of orange Pekoe.

“Have I missed anything? Well, I suppose someone might ask how Francesca Rainsmith’s killer managed to get her severed head from Edith Cavell to the museum, and the replacement skull from the museum back to Edith Cavell, without being spotted on the night of the Beaux Arts Ball, when the place was simply crawling with people. Don’t quote me on this because I’m not absolutely positive, but I suspect it has to do with an oversized tea cozy.

“And now, thank you for your time, Inspector. I am happy to have been of assistance.”

These were the things I
might
have said to the handsome Inspector Gravenhurst had I been given the opportunity, but of course, I hadn’t. I had made a bargain with Wallace Scroop that he was to get the credit for figuring out the Rainsmiths’ moonlight cruise deception, and I meant to stick to it. I have to admit that I’ve never regretted anything in my life so much as giving up that glory. But choices are choices, and there’s no going back.

I didn’t much mind not being able to tell the inspector that Fabian was Brazenose, but then, it’s not my place to be doing his work for him, is it? Let the police carry out their own investigations. It will keep them on their toes.

Fabian had, of course, given herself away by admitting that she had been at the Beaux Arts Ball, and had witnessed the poisoning of Francesca Rainsmith. Rather a bad slipup on her part. She
had
been present, but in the character of Clarissa Brazenose. “Fabian” had not been created or enrolled at Miss Bodycote’s until a year ago.

I hadn’t mentioned in my summary her transformation into Fabian. It had puzzled me for a while why Fabian had been forced to appear without her disguise, the night Scarlett had spotted her outside the laundry. I’d speculated that she might have had a bank account from which she could not withdraw funds without appearing in person, but that idea proved to be a bust when I remembered that Scarlett had seen her at night; the banks closed at three o’clock.

As it turned out, the solution was a simple one. The Brazenose sisters have an elderly great-aunt who suffers
from a form of senility which they call “hardening of the arteries.” Clarissa sometimes risked sneaking out at night to visit the old lady, who lives, as it turns out, just a block away from Miss Bodycote’s. Miss Fawlthorne is apparently aware of this bending of the rules, but chooses to overlook it.

Poor Mary Jane. She still believes her sister is dead. Will they tell her the truth one day? I don’t know, but one thing’s certain:
I
won’t.

Le Marchand and Wentworth will, I suppose, haunt me forever: phantoms of Miss Bodycote’s, never seen but ever present. I wonder who they are and what they are doing, and sometimes the very thought of it makes my blood run cold.

I looked at myself in the mirror in which I had been rehearsing my speech to the inspector: a speech which I knew I would never deliver. What I saw staring back at me was a plain, ordinary, somewhat dowdy schoolgirl in black tights, blue blazer, white blouse, and a panama hat.

I was dressed that way because I had been ordered to report to Miss Fawlthorne’s study, and full kit was the rule.

I turned, and marched out the door to meet my fate.

“C
OME IN
,” M
ISS
F
AWLTHORNE
said.

She was seated at her desk behind a pile of papers, among which was my report on William Palmer.

“Please be seated.”

I sat primly on the edge of a chair, my knees together and my hands folded in my lap, leaning forward eagerly, as if I could hardly wait for my next assignment.

“You’ll no doubt be happy to hear that Miss Moate has been arrested,” she said, “and Mrs. Bannerman released.”

I nodded sagely.

“I don’t know what part you have played in these matters, and I’m not sure I want to know. If you have been instrumental in bringing the right person to justice, I congratulate you. I must say that I am relieved to learn that a person from the
Morning Star
, Wallace Scroop, is being
commended for pointing the police to a solution. He was apparently on the scene two years ago, at the time of Francesca Rainsmith’s death, and has never ceased making extensive private inquiries.

“But in doing so, he has dragged the name of Miss Bodycote’s Female Academy into the public press. The headlines are shocking. The chairman and his wife are being questioned. Our board of guardians is a shambles. The work that we do here has been seriously compromised, if not damaged beyond repair.