The Grave's a Fine and Private Place

by Alan Bradley

  I also remembered, although rather vaguely, that Haldane had analyzed the air in the sewers beneath the House of Commons.

  It was not easy, though, to think. The ether was making it difficult to distinguish between thought and reality. Was Haldane a thought, or was he one of the faces that was now rushing toward me through a swirling tunnel at the speed of the Flying Scotsman?

  Because my body failed to respond, I couldn’t leap out of the way. Was I moving sideways or merely thinking about moving sideways? There was no way of knowing.

  I felt oddly like Alice, falling endlessly…endlessly falling, floating, rocking from side to side like an autumn leaf, down the rabbit hole, but with nothing to grab: no cupboards or bookshelves, no jars of marmalade to seize.

  Now I was becoming aware of a stinging tingle around my mouth and nose, as if the middle of my face had been held too close to a campfire.

  Diethyl ether does that, I found myself thinking idly, as if someone else were thinking my thoughts. It irritates the skin.

  I forced open my burning eyes, but could see nothing.

  Nothing but total darkness.

  Have I been struck blind? I remember wondering idly, as if it didn’t matter.

  Consciousness must have been returning by then, although I didn’t think that at the time.

  I am in a box, is what I thought in actuality. A coffin.

  For an instant, the odor of pine overwhelmed the chemical smell of ether.

  But what are its dimensions? How much air is available—and how long will it last?

  The standard coffin, I remembered, measured about five and a half feet by two by one and a half, which made a little over sixteen cubic feet, if my woozy mind was any judge.

  Minus, of course, the volume of my own body, which was roughly half that of the coffin. I didn’t actually work this out in my misfiring brain, but it made sense that the size of any container is proportional in some way to its intended contents, except in the case of breakfast cereal, of course.

  If the average person breathes, say, seven liters of air per minute, that would work out to about half an hour’s oxygen remaining.

  I must not panic.

  I must breathe slowly…shallowly…evenly…regularly. I must feed my brain without wasting oxygen on useless muscle movement.

  This is easier said than done when the mind is already flying ahead to vivid images of a black and desiccated corpse being dug up in some remote forest, its features frozen in horror, its fingers worn to stubs by frantic, fruitless clawing at the lid.

  No point in pounding at the wood, or screaming out my burning lungs. My attacker, whoever he or she might be, was still in the room, and would be the only person on earth who could possibly hear my cries for help.

  Besides, I thought, if I made too much noise, they might well decide to take certain other steps to speed my death. Although I didn’t want to dwell on this idea, I have to admit that fire—or water—crossed my mind.

  A person locked in a wooden box is a sitting duck, so to speak, to flame and flood.

  Better to keep quiet. Better to play dead.

  I winced as the inevitable ether headache wrapped a rope around my temples. I had read about this effect, of course, but this was the first time I had ever experienced it.

  How fortunate I was not to be suffering that other complaint which ether often causes: gut-wrenching vomiting. At the moment, in spite of the danger of the situation, I could think of nothing worse than to be locked in an airless box filled with my own stomach contents.

  I reached up slowly, tentatively, with my fingertips. As I had known it would be—feared it would be—the lid was right there, inches above my face.

  “Don’t dwell on claustrophobia,” a voice said quite clearly from somewhere close by—or was it in my head?

  My wits were beginning to return. Although there was still the stink of ether inside the coffin, it was not nearly so noticeable—or so I thought—as it had been.

  As a scientist, I knew that things must be dealt with in logical order: A helter-skelter chain of thoughts would result in my death. It was as simple as that.

  The first requirement was oxygen. Without it, there would be no second requirement. I focused upon oxygen and how to get it.

  A breathing hole would solve the problem: Even a tiny one could be breathed through in a pinch. All that was needed was some small metallic tool to work through the wood.

  Unfortunately, I had refused to wear my braces on this summer holiday.

  “Put them in your pocket, dear,” Mrs. Mullet had insisted. “You can wear ’em at night in bed when no one’s lookin’.”

  But I had sauced her dreadfully, and how I regretted it now!

  I wiped away a tear which, I realized, hadn’t been caused by the ether.

  I took silent inventory: no braces, no hairpins, no pens. Even my little silver crucifix with its concealed magnifying glass and switchblade knife had been left at home through my own stupid fault.

  If ever I escaped this predicament, I decided, I was going to acquire a ladies handbag with a tool kit that would cause any burglar to drool with envy. I would never, in future, go anywhere without it. Not even to the WC.

  No wonder women lugged all that stuff around on their shoulders! It was necessity—not vanity—that determined what you carried in your kit.

  But wait!

  What about the crochet hooks in my pocket? I had almost forgotten them.

  Taking care not to exert myself—keep calm, Flavia!—I worked one hand slowly into my pocket. My fingers touched the L-shaped hook.

  Slowly…gingerly…I extracted it and, anchoring its business end against the side of the coffin, began a twisting motion.

  After only a few minutes my fingertips were throbbing. The awkwardly shaped hook was going nowhere. The varnish was too hard, the coffin wood too thick.

  As I had noticed earlier, this was a well-made coffin. Too well made for my liking.

  I mentally cursed Mr. Nightingale for various reasons, and as I did so, the crochet hook snapped in half.

  Son of a sea-cook!

  Although each half now had a sharper end than before, they were both too short to get a decent grip on.

  I reached for the second hook. Perhaps the sides of the coffin were thinner. Lids and bottoms would be the thickest because, well, we wouldn’t want any unpleasant accidents during funerals, would we?

  I shifted myself to one side and resumed my drilling motion, but I soon realized it was in vain. The hook was slipping in my sweating hands.

  I was breathing too rapidly.

  How stifling it was in the coffin, and how heavy my lungs had suddenly become.

  No point in using up whatever remained of the oxygen. How much time remained?

  Twenty minutes? Less, perhaps, because of my exertions.

  Time to face reality. It was now quite clear that if rescue were to come, it would come from the outside. I had exhausted my resources.

  I shifted my head slightly, first to the right and then to the left, pressing my ear softly against one side of the coffin, and then the other.

  As I knew from years of listening at doors, an ear to a wooden panel amplifies the slightest sound remarkably. If anyone else was in the room, I would certainly hear them.

  Thank heavens, I thought, that my attacker had chosen a coffin which had not yet been lined with decorative padding of muffling silk or satin. Even a single layer of fabric, such as curtains, for example, can be frustrating to an eavesdropper.

  But outside the coffin, the room sounded as silent as the tomb.

  A breath caught in my throat as I tried to ration the air.

  All right, I admit it: I wanted to weep for myself. I wanted to explode with fury.

  Surely, I was entitled to that? A little display of fireworks to celebrate my entry into the afterlife?

  Even a condemned killer was entitled to a last supper, as pointless as it may seem. To the best of my knowledge, no one had ever d
ied from going hungry to the gallows.

  Which turned my mind back to Canon Whitbread. What had his last meal consisted of?

  Had he ordered up a banquet of roast beef with all the trimmings or had he humbly settled for Holy Communion, and gone to the grave with the taste of sacramental wine on his lips, as had his victims, the Three Graces?

  Suddenly, everything began to fall into place. I remembered Daffy once reading aloud from Boswell’s life of Dr. Samuel Johnson, in which that ancient bore had said, “Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”

  Although I had at the time thought this the most awful load of rubbish, it turned out to be true after all. The prospect of my own immediate death washed windows in my mind which must have become clouded over with the scum of my own accumulated pigheadedness. At that very instant, I made a solemn vow. Should I survive this day, I would never, ever scoff at anything or anyone again.

  And—by all that’s holy—it worked!

  Suddenly—just as the good Dr. Johnson had said it would—the darkness had lifted and my mind was sparkling with remarkable clarity. It could not possibly be due to the ether, which is known, in fact, to have quite the opposite effect.

  My spirits rose. I would go out in a blaze of glory.

  Hang the exhausted air in the coffin. I might be dying, but I would die a de Luce. I would die defiant!

  How proud of me my mother, Harriet, would have been. How proud my father, also.

  In a very few moments now I would be rejoining them.

  Farewell chemistry, I thought. Besides my parents, I would also be greeted by some of the greatest chemical minds of all time: Humphry Davy, Henry Cavendish, Edward Frankland, Ernest Rutherford. How proud I was of my country.

  Die I might—but I would die British.

  How exhilarating that decision was! I lay rigidly at attention, my arms straight down at my sides, and began to sing:

  “God save our gracious King!

  Long live our noble King!

  God save the King!”

  Although King George VI, my dear and beloved old friend, had died four months ago, his daughter, Princess Elizabeth, had not yet been crowned queen.

  But she would be. Oh, yes, she would be! Before my bleached bones had settled into the English soil, Queen Elizabeth II would be seated on the throne and the world would be fresh again.

  And now I was bellowing the words, the tears springing hot to my eyes:

  “Send her victorious,

  Happy and glorious,

  Long to reign over us,

  God save the Queen.”

  Now only darkness and death remained.

  I awaited them, my head held as high as I could manage.

  —

  Someone was hammering…hammering…hammering. I wished they would put an end to it and leave me in peace.

  “Go away!” I wanted to shout, but my tongue was dry and swollen in my mouth.

  Then came the nauseating grinding sound of protesting wood. I tried to wet my lips but there was no moisture left.

  In the darkness, I was being jerked and jolted, like shot game in a hunter’s bag.

  Stop it! I thought, since I couldn’t form the words.

  A sudden blaze of light caused me, in spite of my weakness, to throw up my boneless hands defensively in front of my face.

  Someone was wrapping their arms around me. I struggled to fight them off, but it was no use. My entire body was an unpleasant, reeking jelly.

  “Flavia?” said a voice, and I tried with all my strength to force one eye open against the stabbing pain of the light.

  Again: “Flavia!”—more insistent this time.

  As things swam into focus, I saw a face looming above me: a huge, round face, its features grossly distorted as if viewed through a fishbowl.

  It couldn’t be! It was impossible!

  “Flavia,” Dieter said as I threw up on his cashmere jumper. Pity, was my only thought. It was such a beautiful robin’s-egg blue.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled, as he lowered me gently to the floor and propped me against the wall. I looked wobbly-eyed round the room in amazement.

  Feely was bending over the prostrate Mr. Nightingale with a rubber mallet clutched like a cricket bat in her hands and, from the rising red welt on the back of the undertaker’s neck, I knew that she had recently used it.

  The poor man wouldn’t have stood a chance against Feely’s anger.

  “How dare you manhandle my sister?” she shouted, seizing the man by the collar and giving him a shake that would have loosened a monkey in a tree. “How dare you attack my fiancé?”

  Nightingale seemed not to be hearing her.

  “How…?” I asked weakly, waving one of my flippers at the open coffin. “Did Dogger send you?”

  “We were outside in the courtyard,” Dieter said, coloring slightly, highlighting the fresh abrasion on his chin. “Feely and I. Behind the coffin cases. We wished to—you know—to be alone. We thought no one would ever—”

  “Dieter!” Feely snapped, her cheeks like Mary Poppins’s. “That’s enough!”

  In spite of the risk to his life, Dieter shot me a secret wink. I wiped off my mouth and did my best to grin.

  “Ring up Dogger and have him bring the Rolls around,” Feely said, pointing to the telephone on the desk. “Then call the police. They’ll know what to do with him.”

  “Don’t count on it,” I managed to say.

  The rest of that evening is best left to the imagination, except to say that mops and buckets played a prominent part. Who would have believed that a girl could sleep so much in June?

  ·TWENTY-FIVE·

  I HAD BEEN UP since long before the sun. The sickly sweet effects of the ether had still not worn off completely and my stomach felt like a seagoing barge.

  We were going home today, but before we left, I had several things to do, one of which was to telephone Inspector Hewitt. I agonized about how best to manage this.

  I had covered a sheet of paper with scrawled notes, with headings such as “Opening Pleasantries,” through “Topics for Discussion,” all the way down to “Thanks and Closing Remarks.”

  But what if the inspector didn’t want to talk to me? What if he decided that unsolved murders were not a permissible topic for discussion with a member of the public?

  I would simply have to take my chances. The worst the inspector could do, I suppose, would be to tear a strip off me and hang up in my ear. I’d have to prepare myself for that.

  The hours seemed to drag by, as if they, too, had been soaked with ether. Dawn took forever.

  When I told her I needed to make a personal call, Greta Palmer had kindly offered the use of the telephone in the private cubicle tucked away beneath the stairs, where I would be free from prying ears.

  “It’s on the house,” she had said. “After all, we’re sisters under the skin.”

  She must have seen my puzzled look.

  “ ‘The Colonel’s Lady an’ Judy O’Grady are sisters under their skins,’ ” she said. “Rudyard Kipling. The sly old bird knew more about women than he’s been given credit for.

  “I’ll leave you to it,” she said as she closed the door. “I don’t fancy a lot of embarrassing gush so early in the morning.”

  I grinned, even though she was already gone.

  Just after sunrise, I put through a call to Bishop’s Lacey.

  “Hello? Mrs. Mullet? It’s Flavia. I hope I didn’t get you out of bed.”

  “Lord, no, ducks! I was peelin’ parsnips for Alf’s soup before I go out. Where are you? Is everything all right?”

  Poor Alf! I thought. His life was measured in parsnips.

  “Yes, thank you, Mrs. M. We’re still at Volesthorpe, but we’re coming home today. I thought we’d better let you know.”

  I didn’t tell her that I desperately needed to hear her voice.

  “It’s good of you to think of me, dear. I shall peel
some extra parsnips. Did you ’ave a nice holiday?”

  “Quite pleasant,” I said. “We viewed the church, and so forth.”

  “I missed you,” she said suddenly, almost reluctantly. “Missed ’avin you underfoot and stickin’ your fingers in my custard mix. I shall be glad when you’re home.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Mullet,” I managed. “So shall I. I trust you’re keeping well?”

  “Same as always. But I have to go now, dear. My friend Mrs. Waller ’as a prolapsed eucharist and I promised I’d bring ’er round some water biscuits for breakfast. ’Er doctor says she needs to stay off ’er feet.”

  I expressed my sympathies, we said our goodbyes, and I rang off.

  I waited until I could no longer stand the tension. Was there the slightest chance that Inspector Hewitt had come in early to work? There was only one way to find out.

  I wiped my sweating hands on my jumper and reached for the phone.

  “I’d like to speak with the Hinley Constabulary,” I said. “Inspector Hewitt.”

  There were various electrical clicks, hums, buzzes, and disconnects before a powerful, weary voice which could only belong to a police sergeant answered.

  “Who shall I say is calling?” he asked.

  “Flavia de Luce,” I told him, and there was—at least I think there was—a fleeting silence.

  After what seemed like an eternity but which must have been, in reality, no more than twenty seconds, the phone was picked up.

  “Hewitt,” said that familiar voice: that voice of which I realized I had been far too long deprived.

  “Inspector Hewitt,” I said, “this is Flavia de Luce speaking.”

  “Oh, yes, Flavia. How are you?”

  At least he hadn’t forgotten me!

  “Quite well, thank you,” I replied. “I should like to report a murder. No—four murders.”

  Curses! I’d forgotten to ask about his wife, Antigone, and their baby.

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  “Volesthorpe,” I told him. “At the Oak and Pheasant.”

  “I’m afraid that’s rather off my turf, Flavia,” he said. “Perhaps you should get in touch with the station there?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that.” I lowered my voice. “You see, I have reason to believe that the police themselves may be involved.”