Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd

by Alan Bradley

  I grinned happily. This was more like it.

  Dieter was one of those rare persons who understood priorities.

  “Thornfield Chase,” I said. “It’s out in your neighborhood. Man called Sambridge. A wood-carver. Hung upside down on the back of his bedroom door. Cause of death unknown—at least to me.”

  “Roger Sambridge? They say he was a bit of a ladies’ man,” Dieter said.

  “Really?” I said. “I hadn’t heard that.”

  “Well, it’s what you might call farm talk. I don’t expect the Altar Guild would have got wind of it.”

  “Ho! Ho! Ho!” I said. “If you think those witches can’t sniff out a ladies’ man at a thousand yards, you’ve got another think coming.”

  This was sheer speculation on my part. I didn’t know much about the nonecclesiastical doings of the Altar Guild, but I had it on good authority from Mrs. Mullet that at least one or two of them “weren’t no better than they ought to be.”

  “Anything more specific?” I asked. “My mind is like a racing engine tearing itself to pieces for want of data.”

  “No,” Dieter said. “Not for want of data but ‘because it is not connected up with the work for which it was built.’ Sherlock Holmes, ‘The Man with the Twisted Lip.’ ”

  I stuck out my tongue at him. “Names, please.”

  “Well, don’t say I told you so, but the name Lillian Trench has been mentioned.”

  “Trench? It doesn’t ring any bells with me.”

  I thought I was on a first-name basis with everyone in Bishop’s Lacey and environs—and beyond.

  “She lives near Pauper’s Well,” Dieter said. “Bit of a recluse; she keeps to herself—or so I’ve heard,” he added hastily.

  “Not directly across the road from Thornfield Chase?” I asked.

  “I believe so, yes.”

  Good lord! Could it have been Lillian Trench who had twitched the curtains at me as I made my getaway from Sambridge’s house?

  “Anything else?” I demanded.

  “Well…you mustn’t repeat this, but I’ve heard it said that she’s a witch.”

  “Dieter, you’re a brick!” I shouted. I couldn’t help it.

  Dieter looked as pleased as punch. To him, being called a brick by an English native was probably more precious than a knighthood.

  I didn’t tell him that Carl Pendracka had already come calling, and I didn’t think I needed to. Dieter was already miserable enough without news of a rival.

  “You still haven’t answered my question,” I said. “How did you get in?”

  “I saw myself in by way of the front door,” he said. “As a former fiancé, I thought that—”

  “Hold on,” I said. “Who said ‘former’? Was it you?”

  “Well, no. It was Ophelia who put it that way.”

  “Feely?” I laughed in scorn, like Errol Flynn in Captain Blood. “Ophelia? My idiot sister? What does she know about love and courtship? Nothing! She pounds the piano. Period! A to G-sharp. Seven octaves and a bit. Apart from that she’s about as bright as a suet pudding.

  “If you don’t mind my saying so,” I added.

  Dieter began to laugh, but not very heartily. He broke it off abruptly, looking up and over my shoulder.

  I pivoted round and followed his gaze.

  There on the staircase, a long strand of her hair wrapped round her fist, her face ashen, stood Feely.

  I won’t take the trouble to describe the scene that followed, other than to say that it was not pleasant. My sister is capable of flights of drama that would make Joan Crawford and Bette Davis crawl away whipped and whimpering into their lairs.

  Without bothering to excuse myself, I trudged past the battling lovers and up the stairs to bed, leaving the two of them pleading and glaring like characters in one of the more high-pitched operas.

  It had been a long day.

  —

  Next morning, I made a point of being first down for breakfast. Feely would be drained from her battle with Dieter, and Daffy had been sluggish at breakfast ever since she learned to read. Midday to her was three o’clock in the morning, tented beneath the blankets with her trusty Eveready torch and something fat by Dickens.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Mullet,” I said cheerily, and probably too loudly.

  The poor woman had troubles enough with Father ill and the household in disruption.

  “Mornin’, dear,” she said. “Did you ’ave a good sleep?”

  “Topping,” I said. “I found another body—have you heard?”

  “Course I’ve ’eard, dear. That sort of thing gets round like ’orses on fire. Can’t say as I’m surprised. There’s them what does and them what watches ’em doin’ it, if you take my meanin’.”

  I didn’t, but I nodded knowingly.

  “Like Lillian Trench,” I said, leaving the choice to Mrs. Mullet.

  “ ’Er!” she said, slamming the sausages down in front of me. “ ’Er! Don’t you go meddlin’ with the likes of ’er!”

  “No,” I said. “I haven’t.” And that was the truth.

  So far.

  “There are some people best stayed clear of, an’ she’s one on ’em.”

  “Because she’s a witch?” I suggested.

  “Oh? And where did you ’ear that?” Mrs. Mullet asked, too casually, but by the way she suddenly made herself busy with crumbs and a little brush, I knew that she had heard it, too.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “Daffy might have mentioned it.”

  Daffy was not yet down for breakfast, and could not be questioned. In any case, Mrs. Mullet had been at Buckshaw long enough to know better than to become involved in the wars of the sisters de Luce.

  “Were there cats, candles, and corpses—that sort of thing?” I asked innocently, skewering a poached egg with my fork.

  My knowledge of witchcraft was limited to what I had learned from a book called The Devil Rides Out by Dennis Wheatley, which Daffy had read aloud to me last Christmas when I was recovering from a fall. It had frightened me so badly that I had been unable to close my eyes for a week.

  “Worse than that!” Mrs. Mullet said. “But I shall say no more.”

  “Worse than that” meant sex. I was sure of it.

  Although I wasn’t well up on the topic of witchcraft, I knew enough to know that it was best left to people in books and others who had nothing better to do. Dancing round a bunch of moldy stones in a wet and windy field, naked, in the dark, was not exactly my idea of ecstasy.

  “He was a wood-carver,” I said, steering the conversation back to Mr. Sambridge. “Churches, and so forth. Angels and gargoyles.”

  I did not tell her about the leering cherubs Roger Sambridge had carved on his own bedstead; the ghastly wooden imps dragging him down into the flames of Hell.

  And for the first time, I found myself wondering why he had done so. Did he think himself deserving of such a fate? Could he have committed so wicked a sin as to warrant eternal punishment?

  But Mrs. Mullet was not to be drawn out by angels and gargoyles.

  “They ought to be ashamed of themselves,” she snorted. “My friend Mrs. Waller says bonfires is all right for Guy Fawkes Night, but outside o’ that there’s no good comes of frightnin’ the cows and wakin’ the chickens. Alf says people needs to let out steam after what they seen in the war, and ’e says a good romp in the ’ills is better than a steak in the ear, but ’e was in the Army, mind, and ’as seen things ’e can’t talk about on pain of death, not even with the vicar—specially with the vicar, Alf says. Still, I say it isn’t right, and you’d better stay away from that lot, Missy, mark my words, there’s never no good comes of meddlin’ with the Black Carts—that’s what Alf calls ’em—no good tryin’ to see into next week when your feet is still all tangled up in yesterday. If all that nonsense worked, Alf says, why don’t they use it at the racetrack? Why don’t they use it on the stork exchange?”

  “Quite right, Mrs. Mullet,” I said, pushi
ng back my chair.

  I was now more determined than ever to pay a visit to Lillian Trench’s cottage. It would have to wait, of course, until after our hospital visit.

  —

  I found Dogger in the pantry. He was sitting on a wooden bench, his suit protected by a green apron, polishing Father’s best boots.

  “Are you taking those to him in the hospital?” I asked excitedly. “Is Father coming home today?”

  “I’m afraid not, Miss Flavia. I’ve had a word with Matron this morning. She tells me he had rather a restless night. That is often the case. Pneumonia is an exhausting disease, not only for the patients, but also for their families.”

  “Which means we might not see him at all today,” I said. Dogger’s meaning was plain enough.

  “Sometimes the greatest love can only be shown by staying away,” Dogger said. “It is a difficult truth, but a truth nonetheless.”

  “I understand,” I said. “Thank you, Dogger.”

  —

  Although the snow had stopped, the stuff that had fallen overnight had frozen into a crisp crust. Gladys’s Dunlop tires bit into it as eagerly as if it were no more than a few stiff egg whites. The road in front of St. Tancred’s was especially hazardous where morning traffic had formed a maze of icy ruts. I was picking my way carefully across this mess when a rather disreputable American Army jeep, traveling in the other direction, went into a skid and came to a spectacular stop at right angles to the road.

  “Hiya, kid!” called a familiar voice. It was, of course, Carl Pendracka.

  “My name is not kid,” I said, as I dragged Gladys sideways across the jagged ruts and approached the jeep. “I’d appreciate if you’d refrain from using it.”

  “Just kidding,” Carl said. “Just showing off a bit for Mordecai here.”

  He waved to indicate the person sitting next to him. All I could see was a pair of enormous eyeglasses. Mordecai was bundled to the nose with a khaki scarf, and wore a knitted tuque or jeep-cap. His every breath was visible in the cold air, giving him the look of a teapot covered with a cozy.

  “Got some gen for you,” Carl said. “You got a pencil?”

  “I don’t need a pencil,” I told him. “I have my brain.”

  “Spunky little gal, ain’t she?” Carl said, turning to Mordecai. “Almost as bad as her sister.”

  I gave Gladys’s handlebars a sudden twist and moved away.

  “Hey! Hold on. Don’t you want to hear what I have to tell you?”

  “If you can do so without condescending to me,” I replied, stopping, but not looking back.

  “I’m sorry,” Carl said. “Sometimes I’m so full of beans I get away on myself.”

  I trudged slowly back to the jeep, letting the lesson sink in.

  “You wanted to know last May’s Derby winner,” Carl said. “Tell her, Mordecai?”

  Mordecai’s great glasses turned towards me, but he shook his head and said nothing.

  “Mordecai’s shy, aren’t you, Mordecai? Nervous around women.”

  I could have pointed out that I’m not a woman, but then I would have had to add that I am not a girl, either. It’s altogether too complicated to discuss, and so I kept my mouth shut.

  “Arctic Prince,” Carl said. “Wasn’t it, Mordecai? Two minutes, thirty-nine and two-fifths seconds. Won it by six lengths. And do you know what?”

  “No. What?” I asked.

  “It was the richest running in Derby history. Twenty-eight-to-one odds. Paid off twenty-two thousand pounds.”

  I let out an admiring whistle. I couldn’t help it.

  Had Mr. Sambridge been a winner? The only way to know for certain would be to turn in his ticket. Aside from that—

  “Anything about Mr. Sambridge?” I asked. If the dead wood-carver had suddenly come into money, surely someone would have noticed a change in his habits in the past six months.

  “Hold on,” Carl said. “You promised me something, remember? A deal’s a deal.”

  “Of course I remember,” I said. “I’m not a total imbecile, you know.” I crossed my arms and glared at him.

  “Ah, don’t be sore, Flavia,” he said. “I was just reminding you. Here, have a chaw.”

  He held out a package of Wrigley’s Spearmint chewing gum, knowing full well that there were temptations that even I couldn’t resist.

  “Take two, they’re small.” He grinned, and I obeyed him—except that I took three to teach him a lesson.

  Carl grinned again as I shoved the gum into my pocket.

  Then he turned to Mordecai. “Refresh me,” he said.

  Mordecai leaned over and whispered into Carl’s ear, the words coming out of his mouth in a string of miniature puffs of steam, like a train emerging from a tunnel.

  “Bought Thornfield Chase five years ago,” Carl repeated. “Paid three thousand pounds for it. Cash on the barrelhead. No trace of him before that. No military record, as far as we can see. Mordecai reckons the wood-carving’s just a front—that he’s actually a racketeer, dealing with dirty money, don’t you, Mordecai?”

  Mordecai’s spectacles steamed up as he gave a frosty nod.

  “Other than that, we know that he downed an occasional pint at the Goose and Garter, in East Finching. Always got a bit morose. ‘Morose’—that’s Rosie the barmaid’s word, not mine. But she ought to know. By the way, I suppose you know this Sambridge’s dead?”

  I nodded, trying not to communicate more than was absolutely necessary.

  “Funny thing,” Carl said. “Just by coincidence, he died the same day you asked me to get the goods on him.”

  “Hmmm,” I said, trying to sound as if I were from St. Louis, Missouri, “is that a fact?”

  Carl looked at Mordecai. Mordecai looked at Carl.

  “Asking questions about a dead man—or a soon-to-be-dead man—might not look so good. We’re not going to be in hot water over this, are we? With the police, I mean.”

  “Golly,” I said. “I hope not!”

  And with that I turned, gave Gladys her head, and set off across the frozen wastes in the direction of Thornfield Chase.

  —

  The rising road to Pauper’s Well was treacherous. In spite of a weak sun, the temperature was plummeting and a north wind rising. More than once, to keep from sliding backwards, I had to dismount and gain a footing in the crisp, frosty dead grass at the roadside.

  I should have dressed more warmly; I admit it. Mrs. Mullet was always going on about the need to bundle up. “Never get your kidneys cold,” she would say. “Cold kidneys is killers, and I don’t mean them as what’s on a plate.”

  I could appreciate her concern, but what would it look like to investigate a murder wearing mittens? I would simply have to make do by blowing into my closed fists one at a time.

  I leaned into the wind, puffing and panting, my lungs stinging from the cold air. The turnoff to Stowe Pontefract and Thornfield Chase could not come soon enough.

  When I reached it at last, I was surprised to see fresh tire marks: so fresh, in fact that the slight watery residue caused by the vehicle’s passing had not yet had time to refreeze. With icy roads, I knew, most drivers going to and from Stowe Pontefract would use the much more gentle road to the east, towards Malden Fenwick. And yet, two cars, it appeared, had passed this way: one coming and one going.

  No! Hold on—it was the same car. It had either arrived from the direction of Bishop’s Lacey and then returned, or had gone towards the village and then come back.

  Its tire tracks—identical—sometimes ran apart and sometimes together as the car was driven in and out of the ruts.

  The arrival and departure must have been at about the same time, since the watery slush was of about the same consistency in both directions.

  The freezing of water, I know, depends upon air temperature. Had there been more than, say, a quarter of an hour between the car’s arrival and departure, the earlier tracks would have had time to freeze harder than the later.

 
; Such was the theory, anyway. With a sharply dropping temperature, to work out the actual effect would probably take seven Oxford mathematicians, working with seven pencils, seven years.

  I noted simply that a car had come and gone in rather a short space of time.

  When I reached Thornfield Chase, it all became quite clear. The car had turned in at the gates, stopped, and backed out into the road, now facing in the other direction. A passenger had emerged on the offside, and a single set of footprints led away—not towards Mr. Sambridge’s house, but rather to the cottage across from it.

  The house with the twitching lace curtains.

  · TWELVE ·

  THERE IS AN ART to staging a convincing accident. It is not as easy as you may think—particularly on short notice. First and foremost, it must look completely natural and spontaneous. Secondly, there must be nothing comical about it, since comedy saps sympathy.

  I had but a fraction of a second to think before putting my plan into effect.

  As I crossed the set of footprints at the cottage gate, I lurched in my seat and let one elbow come up, apparently by accident, yanking Gladys’s handlebars to one side and launching her into a vicious skid which I then tried madly to correct by applying the opposite handlebar, but it was too late. Fighting for balance, I slewed and skidded this way and that, seeming sometimes almost to gain control and then to lose it again. The result was a spectacular series of vicious fishtails, slipping and sliding from side to side on the road like a drunken skater before leaving it entirely and hurtling across the ditch to land with an alarming crash and a clatter in a holly hedge with Gladys, her wheels spinning crazily, on top of me.

  I lay perfectly still while I counted to twenty. Death must appear to be a very real possibility, and if not death, then at least a serious coma.

  At last I opened one eye just a crack and risked a peek. One of the curtains had been lifted and a white, shocked face was staring out at me, a hand covering its mouth, aghast.

  Why was Lace Curtains not rushing outside to see if I was all right?

  I needed to go into Act Two of my little drama.

  While raising my head slowly and painfully, using both hands to give it a series of slow chiropractic adjustments, I was able to note that the derelict Austin at Thornfield Chase had not been moved. There were, as I suspected there would be, no footprints in the snow. Nor had the police visited this morning. The only tracks on the scene were those of the car that had dropped Lace Curtains off at the gate, and the single set of prints that led from there to the door of the cottage.