I Am Half-Sick Of Shadows (23 page)

“Why do you hate me?” I asked suddenly. “Is it because I’m more like Harriet than you are?”

If the room had been cold before, it was now a glacial ice cave.

“Hate you, Flavia?” she said, her voice trembling. “Do you really believe I hate you? Oh, how I wish I did! It would make things so much easier.”

And with that she was gone.

“I’m sorry we’ve all of us been trapped, as it were,” Father was saying, “even though we’ve been trapped together.”

What the dickens did he mean? Was he apologizing for the weather?

“Despite their … ah … polar expedition, the vicar and Mrs. Richardson have done yeoman work in keeping the little ones entertained.”

Good lord! Was Father making a joke? It was unheard of!

Had the stress of the season and the arrival of the moviemakers finally cracked his brain? Had he forgotten that Phyllis Wyvern was lying—no, not lying, but
sitting
—dead upstairs?

His words were greeted with a polite rustle of laughter from the people of Bishop’s Lacey, who sat rumpled but attentive in their chairs. Clustered in one corner, the ciné crew whispered together uneasily, their faces like masks.

“I am assured,” Father was saying, with a glance at Mrs. Mullet, who stood beaming at the entrance of the kitchen passageway, “that we shall be able to muster up sufficient jam and fresh-baked bread to last until we are released from our … captivity.”

At the word “captivity” Dogger sprang to mind. Where was he?

I swiveled round and spotted him at once. He was standing well off to one side, his dark suit making him nearly invisible against the stained wood paneling. His eyes were black pits.

I squirmed in my chair, hunched and unhunched my shoulders as if to relieve stiffness, and standing up, stretched extravagantly. I sauntered casually over to the wall and leaned against it.

“Dogger,” I whispered excitedly, “they dressed her for dying.”

Dogger’s head turned slowly towards me, his eyes sweeping round the vast room, illuminating as they came until, as they reached mine, they were as the beam of a lighthouse fixed on a rock in the sea.

“I believe you’re right, Miss Flavia,” he said.

With Dogger, there was no need to prattle on. The look that went between us was beyond words. We were riding the same train of thought and—aside from the unfortunate death of Phyllis Wyvern, of course—all was well with the world.

Dogger had obviously noticed, as I had, that—

But there was no time to think. I had missed Father’s concluding remarks. Val Lampman had now taken the spotlight, a tragic figure who was hanging on to a lighting fixture, with the most awful white knuckles, as if to keep from crumbling to the floor.

“… this terrible event,” he was saying in an unsteady voice. “It would be unthinkable to go on without Miss Wyvern, and I have therefore, reluctantly, made the decision to shut down production at once and return to London as soon as we are able.”

A collective sigh went up from the corner in which the ciné crew was gathered, and I saw Marion Trodd lean forward and whisper something to Bun Keats.

“Because we are unable to communicate with the studio,” Val Lampman went on, putting two fingers to his temple as if receiving a message from the planet Mars, “I’m sure you will appreciate that this decision must needs be mine alone. I’ll see that specific instructions are handed out in the morning. In the meantime, ladies and gentlemen, I suggest that we spend whatever is left of this rather sad Christmas Eve remembering Miss Wyvern, and what she has meant to each and every one of us.”

It was not Phyllis Wyvern I thought of, though, but Feely. With filming shut down, her chance of stardom was over.

Ages from now—sometime in the misty future—historians sifting through the vaults of Ilium Films would come across a spool of film with images of a letter being placed carefully, again and again, upon a tabletop. What would they make of it? I wondered.

It was pleasant, in a complicated way, to think that those out-of-focus hands, with their long perfect fingers, would be those of my sister. Feely would be all that remained of
The Cry of the Raven
, the film that died before it was born.

I came back to reality with a start.

Father was summoning Dogger with a single raised eyebrow, and I took the opportunity to escape up the stairs.

I had much to do and there was little time left.

And yet there was. When I got to my bedroom, I saw that it was not yet eleven o’clock.

I had always been told by Mrs. Mullet that Father Christmas did not come either until after midnight, or until everyone in the household was asleep—I’ve forgotten the exact formula. One way or another, it was far too early to check my traps: With half the population of Bishop’s Lacey wandering about at large in the house, the old gentleman would hardly risk coming down the drawing room chimney.

And then this thought came to mind. How could Father Christmas climb down—and back up—so many million chimneys without getting his costume dirty? Why had there never been, on Christmas morning, a filthy black trail on the carpet?

I knew perfectly well from my own experiments that the carbonic products of combustion were messy enough even in the small quantities in which they were encountered in the laboratory, but to think of a full-grown man descending a chimney encrusted with decades of soot while wearing an outfit that was little better than an oversized pipe cleaner was beyond belief. Why hadn’t I thought of this before? Why had such an obviously scientific proof never occurred to me?

Unless there was some invisible elf who followed Father Christmas around with a broom and a dustpan—or a supernatural hoover—things were looking grim indeed.

Outside, a rising wind buffeted at the house, rattling the windowpanes in their ancient frames. Inside, the temperature had fallen to that of a penguin’s feet, and I shivered in spite of myself.

I would tuck up in bed with my notebook and a pencil. Until it was time to venture out onto the roof I would turn my attention to murder.

I wrote at the top of a fresh page
Who Killed Phyllis Wyvern?
and drew a line under it.

SUSPECTS
(
ALPHABETICALLY
):

Anthony, the chauffeur (I don’t know his surname.)—A lurking sort of person with a hangdog expression, who seems always to be watching me. PW seemed cold towards him, but perhaps this is the way of all film stars to their drivers. Is he resentful? Seemed vaguely familiar when he appeared on our doorstep. Eastern European? Or was it just his uniform? Surely not. Aunt F said PW had an irrational horror of Eastern Europeans and insisted upon always working with the same British film crew. Had Anthony, perhaps, appeared in one of her pictures? Or in a magazine photo? Look into—perhaps even ask him outright
.

Crawford, Gil—PW humiliated him in front of the entire village by slapping his face. Although gentle as a lamb nowadays, it’s important to remember that as a commando, Gil was trained to kill in silence—by strangulation with a bit of piano wire
!

Duncan, Desmond—No obvious motive other than that PW overshadows him. He’s acted with her for years on stage and in film. Rivalry? Jealousy? Something deeper? Further inquiry needed
.

Keats, Bun—PW treats her like dog dirt on the sole of a dancing slipper. Although she should be filled with resentment, she seems not to be. Are there people who thrive on abuse? Or is there fire beneath the ashes? Must ask Dogger about this
.

Lampman, Val (Waldemar)—PW’s son. (Hard to believe but Aunt Felicity claims it’s so.) PW threatened to tell DD about Val’s “interesting adventure in Buckinghamshire.” Obvious tension between them (e.g., the benefit performance of
Romeo and Juliet
). Does he stand to inherit his mother’s estate? Did she have bags and bags of money? How can I find that out? And what about his horribly scratched forearms? The wounds didn’t seem fresh. Another point to talk over with Dogger in the morning
.

Latshaw, Ben—Seems something of a troublemaker. But what would he gain by bringing the film’s production to a halt? He had been promoted due to Patrick McNulty’s injury. Could he have been hired by someone at llium Films to do in PW far from the studio? (Mere speculation on my part.)

Trodd, Marion—The horn-rimmed mystery. Hangs round in silence like the smell of a clogged drain. She bears a strong resemblance to the actress Norma Durance. But those were old photos. Should have asked Aunt Felicity about her.
N.B
.—do later
.

I scratched my head with the pencil as I reviewed my notes. I could see at once that they were far from satisfactory.

In most criminal investigations—both on the wireless and in my own experience—there are always more suspects than you can shake a stick at, but in this case, the field seemed sparse indeed. While there had been no shortage of grudges against Phyllis Wyvern, there had been no outright hatred: nothing that would even begin to explain her brutal strangling or the bow of motion picture film tied almost gaily round her neck.

In fact, I could still see it: that band of black celluloid at her throat, each of its frames bearing a still image of the actress herself in her peasant blouse, her defiant face shining like the sun against a dramatically darkened sky.

How
could
I forget it when I had seen it so often in my dreams? It was from that shocking final scene of
Anna of the Steppes
, alias
Dressed for Dying
, in which Phyllis Wyvern, as the doomed Anna Sheristikova, lays herself down in front of the advancing tractors.

In my tired mind, I fancied I could hear the sound of their snarling engines, but it was only the wind, as it howled and battered at the house.

Wind … tractors … Dieter … Feely …

When my eyes snapped open it was eight minutes past midnight.

From somewhere in the house came the sound of singing.

“O little town of Bethlehem
,

How still we see thee lie …”

I could see in my mind the reverently upturned faces of the villagers.

I knew instantly that, in spite of everything that had happened, the vicar had decided to observe Christmas. He had asked the men of the village to move our old Broadwood grand piano from the drawing room into the foyer, and Feely was now at the keyboard. I knew it was Feely and not Max Brock, because of the hesitating little sob she was able to extract from the instrument as the melody flew up—and then began to fall.

Because Phyllis Wyvern’s remains were still present in the house, the vicar was allowing only the more subdued carols to be sung.

I leapt out of bed and pulled on a pair of the long, mud-colored cotton stockings that Father insisted I wear outdoors in winter. Although I hated the scraggly things with a passion, I knew how cold it would be on the roof.

That done, I grabbed the powerful torch I had pinched from the pantry and passed as silently as I could into my laboratory, where I shoved a flint igniter into the pocket of my cardigan.

I gently took up the plump Rocket of Honor, cradling it in my arms for a couple of moments and smiling down upon it as lovingly as in a Nativity scene.

Then I made for the narrow staircase.

TWENTY

THE
ROOF
WAS
A howling wilderness. A biting wind blew stinging gusts of snow from peak to peak, blasting my face with particles as hard as frozen sand. The weather had worsened since last I had been up here, and it was clear that the storm was far from over.

Now came the real work. Trip after trip I made, back and forth, up and down the stairs between roof and laboratory, lugging pot after pot until at last my fireworks were ranged in rings round the chimney stacks like so many unlit candles on a tiered cake.

Although it was difficult to see in the darkness, I was reluctant to switch on the torch until it became absolutely necessary. No need to attract unwanted attention from the ground, I thought, by creating a wandering will-o’-the-wisp among the dark chimney pots, which now loomed above me—tall, ominous shadows against the snowy sky. The dark clouds, sagging above my head like half-deflated blimps, were almost low enough to reach up and touch.

I had now completed my last trip and Phyllis Wyvern’s Rocket of Honor was cradled heavily in my arms. I could not possibly lug it with me round acres of roof while I completed my preparations, nor could I dump it out here in the open, where it would quickly become wet and useless.

No, I would set the thing up on the east side of one of the chimneys, where it would be sheltered from the stormy blast, ready to launch when the time came.

I trudged my way through what seemed like miles of knee-deep snow, and gave a gasp of relief when I finally spotted my destination: the towering chimney pots of Buckshaw’s west wing. With surprisingly little trouble, I set up the rocket in the midst of my flowerpot fireworks by folding down the legs of the wire tripod I had improvised from a couple of Feely’s clothes hangers.

Just one flick of the igniter and
WHOOSH!
Up it would climb into the night sky like a blazing comet, before exploding with a
BOOM!
that would awaken Saint Tancred himself, who had lain sleeping under the altar of the village church for more than five hundred years. In fact, I had added an extra cup of gunpowder to the rocket’s inner chamber to assure that the dozing Saint T would not be left out of the festivities.

The Rocket of Honor, of course, would be the finale to my show of chemical pyrotechnics. First would come the golden rains and the opening buds of red fire, giving way gradually to the bangs and booms of the Bengali Bombardes.