by Alan Bradley
I crunched across the gravel of the now empty forecourt and opened the front door. I thought it quite unlikely that anyone would be at the desk, and I was right.
The same silver bell sat beside the same smudged sign that read “Ring Plse.”
I didn’t bother.
From somewhere in the distance came the sound of many human voices and the clink of crockery. The air was sour with the smell of food prepared by the bucketful, the chiefest of which was cabbage and its derivative gases.
I knew that I would find Dr. Kissing where I always found him: at the far end of the narrow solarium.
The bubbling brown linoleum hissed and popped disgustingly beneath my shoes as I made my way across the vast, empty space.
From behind the high back of the familiar wicker bath chair, a silvery cord of cigarette smoke spiraled its way up towards a dark and distant ceiling.
“Hello, Flavia,” he said without turning round. He put down his Times with a faint rustle of paper.
I walked quickly into his field of view and gave him a polite peck on each cheek. His skin was as crisp and dry as must be one of those scrolls which have been found in a cave on the shore of the Dead Sea.
“You’ve come about your mother,” he said.
I remained silent.
“As I knew you would,” he added.
Dr. Kissing was not a person to beat about the bush.
Nor should I be, I decided.
“My father was here this morning,” I said. “Before sunrise.”
Dr. Kissing gazed at me coolly from amidst the rising cigarette smoke. In his mouse-colored dressing gown and tasseled velvet smoking cap, he might have been one of those impossibly old Oriental idols sitting placidly in a cloud of incense that I had seen on the jackets of the thrillers at Foyle’s.
If I was going to enter into the game, I might as well show the full strength of my hand.
“So were Aunt Felicity and Adam Sowerby,” I added.
“Yes,” he said at last, but pleasantly. “So they were.”
“I saw their cars in the forecourt.”
“Did you indeed?”
“From Blithe Spirit. Harriet’s aeroplane. Her owner took me up for a ride.”
Dr. Kissing nodded knowingly as he stubbed out his cigarette and reached for another.
“You heard us?”
“The sound of a Gipsy Moth engine clattering away like a contented sewing machine in the skies above this scepter’d isle is one of the few remaining assurances in our changed world. The time, I believe, was five minutes before six and approximately a quarter hour after sunrise.”
Did nothing escape this aged hive of information?
“I am very sorry about your mother,” he said suddenly grave, and then, after a moment’s thought: “You must be especially brave today.”
He looked at me with his old, faded eyes, and I knew that this was the moment: the moment when I would have my only chance to do what I was planning to do, to say what I had come to say.
Dr. Kissing had ordered me to be brave, and so brave I must be.
I took a deep breath. “You’re the Gamekeeper, aren’t you?”
Maddeningly, even though it was barely lighted, he stubbed his cigarette in the overflowing ashtray and selected another meticulously from the flat tin—not because he was nervous, but because he was in control, totally in control.
“Fetch that chair,” he said, pointing to an overstuffed horror in a corner.
I pushed the thing—which grated unnervingly on the rippled linoleum—into a position between Dr. Kissing and the window.
I seated myself demurely and waited.
“Let me tell you a story,” he began. “Let us pretend that, once upon a time, there was, somewhere in England, an ancient and ramshackle old rectory in which were brought together, in utmost secrecy, some of the greatest Brains that could be found in all the land.”
I grinned at the thought of all the rows and rows of brains, each in its own glass jar, lined up neatly on a shelf in some dim pantry.
“Is this a fairy tale?” I asked. “Or a true story?”
“The Official Secrets Act, even after all these years, still possesses a remarkably long and powerful arm. And so this must remain a fairy tale.”
“My sister Daffy says that, in one way or another, all fairy tales and myths are based on truth.”
“Your sister exhibits the hallmarks of a lady and a scholar,” he said. “And I predict that she will prosper. Now then—
“These Brains, as I shall call them—Brains with a capital B, for they deserve nothing less—were charged with breaking the codes of a faraway Emperor.”
“Was the Emperor wicked?” I asked.
“Of course he was—as all Emperors in all fairy tales must be. Otherwise there would be no point, would there? The evil Emperor, you see, is crucial to democracy.”
I didn’t see, but I tried to look as if I did.
“Let us suppose also that for many years, our far-flung monitoring stations had been gathering and recording all the coded radio transmissions from all the Emperor’s ships in all the oceans of the world, and all his ships of the air—and that there had been some little success in cracking one or two of his codes, but not all of them, of which there were many.”
“You’re talking about Japan, aren’t you?” We had listened to a remarkably similar discussion on the BBC Home Service during one of the compulsory “Wireless Nights” Father had laid on. Besides, everyone knew that of all the enemies with whom we had recently been at war, Japan was the only one with an Emperor.
Dr. Kissing ignored me and went on: “The problem was this: No sooner would we break a code than the Emperor would change it.”
“How did the Emperor know it had been broken?”
“Ah, Flavia! I am delighted to see that my hope in you has not been misplaced. How did he know, indeed!”
“Someone was informing him. A spy!”
I was proud of myself.
“A spy,” Dr. Kissing echoed. “A short, nasty word with long, nasty consequences.” He blew a small puff of smoke followed by an elongated gray-blue trumpet to illustrate his words. “And what if,” he asked, “what if this spy were to be one of our own—one of the highest among us—one who had even, so to speak, the ear of our King?”
“Treason!” I said, probably too loudly.
“Treason indeed. But what are we to do about it?”
“Stop him!”
“How?”
Dr. Kissing had pounced upon me like a cat. The answer to his question seemed obvious, but I found myself not wanting to put it into words.
“Well?”
“Well—kill him, I suppose.”
“Kill him.” Dr. Kissing repeated my words in a flat, matter-of-fact voice. “Just so. But ‘kill,’ as you will have observed, like ‘spy’ and ‘stop,’ is really just one more of those short but exceedingly troublesome words.”
“Well, capture him, anyway.”
“Precisely. Let us pretend, however, that this traitor, in this fairy tale of ours, is firmly entrenched in one of the far-off branches of our own Foreign Office. Let us further imagine that he also possesses impeccable credentials. What then?”
I thought long and hard before replying. “Bring him home to justice,” I said at last.
Father had lectured us on the subject of justice during one of his Wednesday lectures on the various aspects of British Government, and I thought I had quite a good grasp of the topic.
I was not sure I was happy with my solution, though, but I could not think of a better one. To be perfectly honest, I was becoming a little tired of Dr. Kissing’s imaginary story. No—not tired—I was becoming uneasy.
“How does it end, this fairy tale?”
Dr. Kissing took an eternity to answer. He removed his spectacles, produced a spotlessly white handkerchief from a pocket of his dressing gown, polished both lenses with fanatic intensity, put them on again, and with infuriating deliberat
ion, chose another cigarette from the tin box.
“That … shall be up to you, Flavia,” he said at last.
There was a silence between us, which began comfortably enough, but all too quickly became unbearable.
I found myself getting up and walking to the window. I couldn’t believe it—I was behaving like Father!
This whole fairy-tale business needed thinking about. From my own chemical experiments, I was used to working with hypotheses, but this one seemed beyond me. There were simply too many variables; too many assumptions; too many meanings veiled in mystery.
Outside, beyond the windowpane, the ancient beeches squatted in green splendor. The madwomen who had danced among them on my previous visits were nowhere in sight.
There were no convenient distractions. I had to face up to reality. “You didn’t answer my question, Dr. Kissing. You’re the Gamekeeper, aren’t you?”
“No,” he said, suddenly and sadly—perhaps even a little reluctantly. “No, no … I am not.”
“Then who is?”
Much as I loved the old gentleman, I was becoming impatient with his diversions.
Dr. Kissing, almost unaware he was doing so, covered his lips with his right forefinger—and then his left.
His voice, when it came, was suddenly old, suddenly tired, and for the first time since I had met him, I feared for his life.
“That you must find out for yourself, Flavia,” he said, his voice as faint and far away as if it were no more than an echo of the wind.
“That, too, you must find out for yourself.”
TWENTY-FOUR
DIETER MET ME JUST to the east of the ornamental lake. He was wearing what looked like a borrowed black suit, which was very slightly too small for him.
“Everybody has been looking for you,” he informed me.
“Sorry,” I told him. “I needed to go for a long walk. Who’s everybody?”
“Your father, your aunt Felicity, Ophelia, and Daphne—” Dieter always insisted on calling my sisters by their proper names. “Mrs. Mullet, also.”
I have to admit that that was pretty well everybody, although I was secretly pleased that Dogger hadn’t been asking my whereabouts.
“How did you know which direction to come looking for me?”
“Mr. Tallis and Mr. Sowerby told me they had seen you walking off towards the Palings.”
“Mr. Tallis and Mr. Sowerby are a pair of bloody village gossips!”
Dieter laughed. With Dieter, I could be myself without fear of being corrected, punished, or ratted upon.
“What did you think of Blithe Spirit? Tristram took me up for a ride this morning. Aren’t you jealous?”
A pilot in the Luftwaffe, Dieter had been brought down during the War not far from Bishop’s Lacey and, as a prisoner of war, had been put to work on Ingleby’s farm. When the War ended, he had chosen to stay in England, and now, six years later, was engaged to be married to my sister Feely. It’s a funny old world when you stop to think about it.
“She’s a beautiful craft,” he admitted. “But no, I am not jealous. I have had my time in the air.”
“How’s Feely bearing up?” I asked. I had scarcely given her a moment’s thought.
“She doesn’t eat, she doesn’t sleep. She thinks only of the music at your mother’s funeral.”
“Poor you,” I said, meaning it as a joke.
“I wish you would have a word with her, Flavia. I should take it as a great favor.”
Me? Have a word with Feely? What a preposterous idea!
“She respects you. She is forever talking about ‘my brilliant little sister.’ ”
“Ha!” I said. I was not at my most articulate when I was stupefied.
Respect me? I couldn’t believe it. Feely would rather eat frogs in clotted cream than listen to anything I might have to say.
Still, I didn’t want to miss an opportunity.
“I’ll see what I can do,” I said. “I should have thought you’d want to comfort her on your own.”
“It is not comforting she needs,” Dieter said, “but a female shoulder. Do you know what I mean?”
Well, a female shoulder was a female shoulder. There was no great mystery about that.
I nodded. “But it won’t be easy,” I couldn’t resist adding.
“No,” Dieter agreed. “I think she feels the loss of your mother more keenly than—”
“Than Daffy and I do?” I cut in.
Dieter did not deny it. “She has more memories than you and Daphne,” he said. “She has more of your mother to mourn.”
Dieter had hit the nail on the head. It was one of the things I resented most about my sister—although when you stopped to analyze it, the jealousy was entirely on my part, not hers.
“Poor Feely,” I said, and left it at that.
“She’ll be better after we’re married,” Dieter said. “When she is able to get away from Buckshaw. There are so many ghosts here.”
Ghosts? I’d never thought of it in that way. Any truly self-respecting ghost would rather die than haunt the halls of Buckshaw.
Which set me to wondering: When the dead die, do they come back to life? Is that what resurrection is all about—the death of the dead?
Although I had failed in my attempt to restore Harriet to the arms of her family, I could hardly be blamed. The men from the Home Office had interrupted my experiment, and I knew that I would never have another chance. Harriet would now be laid to rest and that would be that.
How sad it was that we should never get to know each other.
It was more than sad—it was a damned shame.
We paused at the corner of the redbrick wall which marked the corner of the kitchen garden.
“Cheer up,” I said, realizing even as I spoke the words, that I had said a similar thing to Daffy. “How are the teaching plans coming along?”
More than anything in life, other than perhaps the hand of my sister, Dieter wanted to teach English literature to the English. He was a lifelong devotee of the Brontë sisters and was positively champing at the bit to be able to share his enthusiasm in a proper classroom.
He brightened at once. “Can you keep a secret?” he asked.
I nearly laughed in his face. Of all the billions of people who have ever trod the face of planet Earth, none of them—not a single blessed one!—has ever been as much a master of the zipped lip as Flavia de Luce.
I crossed my heart and my lips and showed him the two-fingered bunny-ear sign.
“In blood,” I vowed. It was an oath known to very few.
“Your father has put in a word for me at Greyminster. I am to begin my teaching duties there in the autumn.”
I threw my arms around him. I couldn’t help myself. I had known that Dieter had been away on some mysterious interview during the Easter holidays but had heard no more about it.
“Yaroo!” I shouted. “That’s spiffing! Congratulations, Dieter!”
“Keep it under your hat—is that how you say it? We didn’t want to announce it until we’ve got through the funeral.”
I didn’t fail to notice the word “we.”
I gave him another hug. “Hullo, Mr. Chips,” I said. “Fear not. Your secret’s safe with me.”
Dieter shot me one of his gorgeous grins and offered me his arm. “Shall we go in?” he asked. “I shall inform them that you have been found.”
In spite of the lovely weather, there was a coldness inside the house which I could not easily explain. It was as if the world had suddenly entered a new ice age: a change that had caught everybody by surprise and left them, every single one, in a kind of chilly lethargy.
In the foyer, the last straggling mourners stared at one another in a kind of antishock, as if they had abruptly lost the ability to recognize their neighbors.
There was an uneasy hush, broken only by the scuffling of shoes on the black-and-white marble and the suppressed sobs and sniffling of a woman I had never seen before in my life.
&
nbsp; I think we all of us were realizing that the time of Harriet’s funeral was drawing near.
It was going to be a bloody awful afternoon.
I found Feely in the drawing room, seated at the piano, her face white and her eyes the red of raw meat. Her fingers were moving over the keys but no sound was coming from the instrument. It was as if she hadn’t the strength to summon music from the thing. I stood for a moment or two at the door, trying to guess by watching her fingers what silent melody she might be playing.
The very least I could do was to begin the conversation on a civil note.
“I’m sorry, Feely,” I said at last. “I know how difficult this must be for you.”
Her head came slowly round and her swollen eyes settled unsteadily on me.
“Do you?” she asked. And then after an immensely long time she added, “I’m glad.”
She certainly didn’t look glad.
In ordinary circumstances, although I never tell her so, my sister Feely is strikingly beautiful. Her hair shines with a golden glow and her blue eyes sparkle vividly. Her complexion—at least since its volcanic activity settled down—was turning out to be what the cinema magazines called “English peaches-and-cream.”
But now, with Feely hunched miserably before me at the keyboard, I had a brief glimpse of what she was going to look like when she was an old woman, and it was not a pleasant picture. In fact, it was frightening.
Worse, I felt an overwhelming wave of pity.
I longed to tell her how desperately I had tried to bring Harriet back from the dead so that we all of us, she and Father and Daffy and I, and not forgetting Dogger and Mrs. Mullet, of course, should live happily ever after.
It was, in a way, like Dr. Kissing’s story: half truth, half fairy tale. But which half was which?
I no longer knew.
Was this nightmare pulling me towards reality or fantasy?
“Is there anything I can do?” I asked, fighting the undertow of my tired mind.
I realized how little sleep I’d had and how powerfully it was affecting me.
“Yes,” Feely said. “There is. Don’t do anything this afternoon to embarrass us.”
As if I were a tramp at the kitchen door.
I think it was the “us” that hurt the most. Just one more of those little words with long shadows: two plain little letters, u and s, that transformed me from a sister into an outsider.
