Speaking From Among the Bones

by Alan Bradley

  The vicar was silent for a long moment—and then he chuckled. “You’re having a game with me,” he said. “I remember distinctly officiating at your baptism. Flavia Sabina de Luce was the name we bestowed upon you, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, amen, and Flavia Sabina de Luce you shall remain—until such time, of course, as you choose to change it by entering into a state of Holy Matrimony, like your sister Ophelia.”

  My jaw fell open like a bread box.

  “Feely?”

  “Oh, dear,” the vicar said. “I’m afraid I’ve let the cat out of the bag.”

  Feely? My sister, Feely? Entering into a state of Holy Matrimony?

  I could scarcely believe it!

  Who was it to be? Ned Cropper, the potboy from the Thirteen Drakes, whose idea of courtship was to leave offerings of moldy sweets at our kitchen doorstep? Carl Pendracka, the American serviceman who wanted to show Feely the sights of St. Louis, Missouri? (“Carl’s going to take me to watch Stan Musial knock one out of the park.”) Or was it to be Dieter Schrantz, the former German prisoner of war who had elected to stay behind in England as a farm laborer until such time as he could qualify to teach Pride and Prejudice to English schoolboys. And then, of course, there was Detective Sergeant Graves, the young policeman who always became tongue-tied and furiously red in the presence of my dopey sister.

  But before I could question the vicar further, Mr. Haskins, rope in hand, his torch producing weird, swaying shadows, came pushing into the already crowded space.

  “Make way! Make way!” he muttered, and the workmen fell back, pressing themselves tightly against against the walls.

  Rather than moving out of the chamber, I used the opportunity to squirm my way farther into it, so that by the time Mr. Haskins had fixed the rope round the outer end of the stone, I had wedged myself into the farthest corner. From here, I would have a front-row seat for whatever was going to happen.

  I glanced across at the vicar, who seemed to have forgotten my presence. His face was strained in the light of the small, swaying bulbs.

  What was it that Marmaduke, the man in the dark suit, had said? “You must stop it. You must put a stop to it at once.”

  It was obvious that, in spite of Marmaduke, whoever he may be, the work was going ahead.

  The vicar was now gnawing distractedly at his lower lip.

  “Where’s your friend, then?” Mr. Haskins asked suddenly, turning from his work, his words echoing oddly from the crypt’s curved arches.”I thought he wanted to be here for the main event?”

  “Mr. Sowerby?” the vicar said. “I don’t know. It’s most unlike him to be tardy. Perhaps we should wait a while.”

  “This here stone’s waitin’ on nobody,” Mr. Haskins said. “This here stone’s got a mind of her own, and she’s comin’ out whether we like it or not.”

  He gave the heavy block a familiar pat, and it made a most awful groan, as if it were in pain.

  “She’s hangin’ by her toenails, and no more. Besides, Norman and Tommy need to get back to Malden Fenwick, don’t you, lads? They’re here to work, and work they shall.”

  He waved grandly toward his workers, one exceedlingly tall, the other quite unremarkable.

  Down here, in the depths of the crypt, Mr. Haskins was the ruler of his own dark kingdom, and nobody dared raise a voice against him.

  “Besides,” he added. “This here’s only the wall. We won’t get to the sarcophagus till we’re through it. Fetch the rope, Tommy.”

  As Tommy worked the rope up and round an overhanging shelf of masonry, Mr. Haskins turned his attention full upon me. For an awful moment, I thought he was going to tell me to leave. But he had his audience.

  “Sarcophagus,” he said. “Sarcophagus. Now there’s a rare old word for you. Bet you don’t know what it means, do you, miss?”

  “It comes from two Greek words meaning ‘eater of flesh,’” I said. “The ancient Greeks used to make them of a special stone brought from Assos, in Turkey, because it was said to consume the entire body, except the teeth, in forty days.”

  Although I didn’t do it often, I offered up a little prayer of thanks to my sister Daffy, who had read this fascinating snippet aloud to me from one of the volumes of a coffin-black encyclopedia in Buckshaw’s library.

  “Aha!” said Mr. Haskins, as if he had known it all along. “Well, there we have it then, straight from the horse’s mouth,” he said, meaning me.

  Before I could protest what I took to be an insult, he had given the rope a fierce tug.

  Nothing happened.

  “Lend a hand, Norman. Tommy, give the other end a nudge—see if we can swing ’er out.

  But in spite of their hauling and pushing, the stone wouldn’t budge.

  “Seems to be stuck fast,” the vicar said.

  “Stuck ain’t the word for it,” Mr. Haskins said. “Well and truly bloody—”

  “Little pitchers, Mr. Haskins, little pitchers,” the vicar said, putting a forefinger to his lips and giving an almost imperceptible nod in my direction.

  “Something jammin’ it up, like. Let’s have a dekko.”

  Mr. Haskins dropped the end of the rope and snatched the torch away from Tommy.

  Holding the lamp just behind its lens, he shoved his face against the crack.

  “No good,” he announced at last. “Wants more of an opening.”

  “Here—let me,” I said, taking the torch from his hands. “My head’s smaller than yours. I’ll tell you what I can see.”

  They were all so astonished, I think, that nobody tried to stop me.

  My head went easily in through the gaping crack, and, like a contortionist, I maneuvered the light until it was beaming into the tomb from over my head.

  A cold, dank draft brushed at my face, and I wrinkled my nose at the sharp, brackish stink of ancient decay.

  I was looking into a small stone chamber of perhaps seven feet long and three wide. The first thing I saw was a human hand, its dried fingers tightly clutching a bit of broken glass tubing. And then the face—a ghastly, inhuman mask with enormous, staring acetate eyes and a piggish rubber snout.

  Beneath it was a white ruffle, not quite covering the ink-black vessels of the neck and throat. Above the eyes was a shock of curly golden choirboy hair.

  This was most definitely not the body of Saint Tancred.

  I turned off the torch, withdrew my head, and turned slowly to the vicar.

  “I believe we’ve found Mr. Collicutt,” I said.

  •FOUR•

  It was the hair, of course, that gave it away. How many Sundays had I watched Feely galloping down the aisle for first dibs on the pew from which she would have the best view of Mr. Collicutt’s golden locks?

  Perched on the organ bench in his white surplice, his head illuminated by the light of a morning sunbeam streaming in through stained glass, he had often seemed like a Botticelli cherub brought to life.

  And he knew it.

  I remembered the way he would toss his head and quickly run all ten fingers through his glowing curls before making them pounce on the keys for the anthem’s opening chord. Feely once told me that Mr. Collicutt reminded her of Franz Liszt. It was not so long ago, she said, that there used to be found, in the keepsake boxes of ancient ladies who were freshly dead, the remnants of reeking cigar butts that had been smoked in another century by Liszt. I had meant to have a poke through Feely’s belongings to see if she were hoarding the cork tips of Mr. Collicutt’s Craven A’s, but it had slipped my mind.

  All of this went whizzing through my brain as I waited for the men to enlarge the opening and confirm my discovery.

  Not that I wasn’t shocked, of course.

  Had Mr. Collicutt died because I’d counted corpses on my fingers? Had he been made a victim by some dark and unsuspected magic?

  Stop it at once, Flavia! I scolded myself. The man was obviously dead for ages before you tempted Fate to hand you another cadaver.

  S
till, the man was dead. There was no getting round that.

  While part of me wanted to break down and cry at the death of Feely’s golden-haired Prince Charming, another part—a part I couldn’t quite explain—was awakening eagerly from a deep sleep.

  I was torn between revulsion and pleasure—like tasting vinegar and sugar at the same time.

  But pleasure, in such cases, always wins. Hands down.

  A hidden part of me was coming back to life.

  Meanwhile, the workmen had brought a number of sturdy planks to lever the heavy stone forward, as well as to serve as a makeshift ramp, down which it could be manhandled to the floor.

  “Easy, now—easy,” Mr. Haskins was telling them, “Don’t want to squash ’im, do we?”

  Mr. Haskins was completely at home with corpses.

  At last, after much grating and a couple of curses, the stone was removed, and the chamber’s contents became clearly visible.

  The gas mask strapped to the corpse’s face glinted horridly, as only wet rubber can, in the shuddering light.

  “Oh dear,” the vicar said. “Oh dear. I’d best ring up Constable Linnet.”

  “No great rush, I’d say,” said Mr. Haskins, “judgin’ by the smell of him.”

  Harsh words, but true. I knew in great detail from my own chemical researches the process by which the human body, after death, digests itself, and Mr. Collicutt was well along the way.

  Tommy and Norman had already produced handkerchiefs and clapped them to their noses.

  “But before I do so,” the vicar said, “I would ask each of you to join with me in a short prayer for this most—this most—ah, unfortunate individual.”

  We bowed our heads.

  “O Lord, receive the soul of this, thy faithful servant, who has come to great misfortune alone and in a strange place.”

  A strange place indeed! Although I didn’t say so …

  “And perhaps, also, in fear,” the vicar added, after taking a few moments as if fishing for the proper words. “Grant him, we beseech thee, eternal peace and the life everlasting. Amen.”

  “Amen,” I said quietly

  I almost crossed myself, but I fought down the urge. Although our family patronized St. Tancred’s because the vicar was one of Father’s dearest friends, we de Luces, as Daffy liked to say, had been Catholics for so long that we sometimes referred to Ssaint Peter as “Uncle Pete” and to the Blessed Virgin Mary as “Cousin May.”

  “Flavia, dear,” the vicar said, “I’d be indebted to you if you’d come up and help me deal with the authorities. You’re so much better at this sort of thing than I.”

  It was true. There had been several occasions in the past upon which I had pointed the police in the proper direction when they were hopelessly stumped.

  “I’d be happy to, Mr. Richardson,” I said.

  For now, I’d seen all I wanted to.

  Outdoors, it had rained, and the vicar and I stood waiting side by side in the porch, strangely tongue-tied by what we had just witnessed.

  The police, when they arrived in their familiar blue Vauxhall saloon, were wearing their best poker faces. Inspector Hewitt gave me a curt nod and a fraction of a smile as he stepped from the car. Detective Sergeants Woolmer and Graves were their usual selves: Woolmer like a large and surly dancing bear (the Vauxhall groaned audibly with relief when he hoisted himself ponderously out of it!) while Graves, young, blond, and dimpled, was grinning at me ear to ear. As I have said, Sergeant Graves had a first-rate crush on Feely, and in a number of ways, I hoped he would be the one to march the divine Ophelia (Ha ha! Pardon me if I laugh!) to the altar. One more detective in the family would give us something to talk about during the long winter evenings, I thought. Guts, gore, and Tetley’s tea.

  Sergeant Wollmer gave me barely a glance as he hauled his photo kit from the car’s boot. I looked away, and nodded pleasantly at Sergeant Graves who was carrying a familiar case.

  “Got the dabs organized, have you?” I asked pleasantly, showing him I remembered that his specialty was fingerprints.

  The sergeant colored nicely, even though I was merely Feely’s sister.

  Like Santa Claus in the American poem, they spoke not a word but went straight to their work. They filed into the porch, bound for the crypt, leaving the vicar and me standing alone together at the door.

  “How long has he been missing? Mr. Collicutt, I mean.”

  “Missing?”

  In spite of having telephoned for the police, the vicar still seemed somewhat in a daze.

  “We hadn’t really thought of him as missing. Departed, I should say. Oh dear! No—that’s hardly the correct word, either.”

  I said nothing: a useful tool that I had added to my kit by closely observing Inspector Hewitt at his work.

  “Mrs. Battle said he came down that last morning for breakfast just as he always did. A single slice of toast only. He was always careful of his figure. Needed to keep his waist in shape for the pedal work. Oh dear, I’m gossiping.”

  “When was that, exactly?” I asked, as if I’d known it all along, but forgotten.

  “The Tuesday after Quinquagesima, as I have reason to remember,” the vicar said.

  “About six weeks ago,” I said, counting rapidly backwards in my head.

  “Yes. Shrove Tuesday.”

  “Pancake Day,” I said with a dry gulp as I remembered for an instant the plate of rubbery flat tires Mrs. Mullet had set before us on that unfortunate morning.

  “Indeed. The day before Ash Wednesday. Mr. Collicutt was to have picked up Miss Tanty and driven her to Hinley for her opthalmological examination.”

  Miss Tanty, who sang in the choir, was a retired music mistress whose sheer physical bulk and full-strength spectacles gave her the appearance of an ancient omnibus with enormous acetylene headlamps bearing down upon you in a narrow country lane.

  Hers was the voice that could always be heard rising above the rest of the choir during the Magnificat:

  “My soul doth mognify the Lord …”

  Everything about Miss Tanty was mognified.

  Both her glorious soprano voice and her bottle-glass gaze were capable of making wet chills ooze down your spine.

  “When he hadn’t arrived by nine-fifteen,” the vicar went on, “she rang up Mrs. Battle, and was told by Florence, the niece, that he had gone out the front door at eight-thirty on the dot.”

  “Did no one report him missing?”

  “No. That’s the thing. Crispin—Mr. Collicutt, I mean—was so much involved in various music festivals that he was seldom at home during the week. ‘You shall make great savings on the kippers and cabbage,’ he told Mrs. Battle, when she first took him in as a boarder. And then, of course, there was that rather odd comment he made about—but I must say no more. Cynthia is forever telling me that I have a propensity to prattle, and I do believe she’s right.”

  Cynthia Richardson, the vicar’s wife, was Bishop’s Lacey’s equivalent of smallpox, but I didn’t let that thought distract me.

  “Who was the man with the white hair? I asked, changing the subject abruptly. “The one you were talking to in the porch?”

  A shadow crossed the vicar’s face. “Marmaduke Parr,” he said. “From the Diocesan Office. He’s the bishop’s—”

  “Hit man!” I blurted. I had learned about hit men from listening to the detective Philip Odell on the wireless: “The Case of the Copper Cupcake.”

  “—secretary,” the vicar said, trying not to smile at my little joke. “Although I must admit Marmaduke is rather a—how shall I put it?—determined individual.”

  “He doesn’t want Saint Tancred’s tomb to be opened, does he? He’s ordered you to stop.”

  But before the vicar could answer, Constable Linnet, Bishop’s Lacey’s arm of the law, came pedaling up the path and swung off his bicycle directly in front of us as neatly as a cinema sheriff dismounting his horse. He leaned the bike against a yew tree, flipped open his notebook, and licked the
tip of his pencil.

  Here we go again, I thought.

  The constable began by asking both of us for our full names and complete addresses. Although he knew them perfectly well, it was important, because of his superiors, to have an unblotted notebook—even if it was written in pencil.

  “Stay here, mind,” he said, unbuttoning the breast pocket of his uniform and tucking the notebook away. He waved an official forefinger at us, and disappeared into the porch.

  “Poor Crispin,” the vicar said after a very long time, as if thinking aloud. “Poor Crispin. And poor Alberta Moon. She’s going to be devastated—simply devastated.”

  “Alberta Moon?” I asked. “The music mistress at St. Agatha’s?”

  I had once heard Miss Moon play a Schubert sonata at a village concert, and I have to say that she wasn’t a patch on Feely.

  The vicar was in the middle of nodding glumly when Constable Linnet reappeared at the door.

  “Downstairs,” he ordered, jabbing his thumb toward the ground like a Roman emperor breaking the bad news to a defeated gladiator. “Inspector Hewitt would like a word. In the crypt.”

  The Inspector stood with his chin cupped in his hand, a forefinger extending along his cheekbone. In the crypt’s dim light he looked rather like John Mills, I thought, although I’d never tell him so to his face.

  The ghastly remains of Mr. Collicutt were illuminated every few seconds by the blinding flashes of Sergeant Woolmer’s camera.

  “Who discovered the body?” the Inspector asked, which seemed to me a reasonable place to begin.

  “Er … Flavia here,” the vicar told him, placing a protective hand on my shoulder. “That is, Miss de Luce.”

  “I might have known,” the Inspector said.

  Then the miracle happened. As the vicar glanced uneasily at the remains of Mr. Collicutt, the Inspector slowly closed and reopened his right eye so that only I could see it.

  He had winked at me! Inspector Hewitt had winked at me!

  Somewhere, church bells rang. Somewhere cannons boomed. Somewhere fireworks exploded crazily in a darkened sky.