Speaking From Among The Bones (8 page)

It was also said that two popes had been among its victims.

How I adore history!

At last my flasks were ready, and I hummed happily as I mixed the solutions and decanted them into a waiting bottle.

I waved my hand over the still steaming mixture.

“I name thee Aqua Flavia,” I said.

With one of Uncle Tar’s steel-nibbed pens, I wrote the newly coined name on a label, then pasted it to the jar.

“A-qua Fla-via,” I said aloud, savoring each syllable. It had a nice ring to it.

I had created a poison which, in sufficient quantities, was enough to stop a rogue elephant dead in its tracks. What it would do to an impertinent sister was almost too gruesome to contemplate.

One aspect of poisons that is often overlooked is the pleasure one takes in gloating over them.

Then, too, as some wise person once said, revenge is a dish best eaten cold. The reason for this, of course, is that while you’re gleefully anticipating the event, the victim
has plenty of time to worry about when, where, and how you’re going to strike.

One thinks, for instance, of the look on the victim’s face as she realizes that what she is sipping from the pretty glass is more than just orange squash.

I decided to wait a while.

Gladys was standing patiently where I had left her, her fresh-washed livery gleaming handsomely in the morning sunlight from my bedroom windows.

“Avaunt!” I shouted. It was an ancient word meaning “Begone!” which I had learned when Daffy read
The Bride of Lammermoor
aloud to us at one of our compulsory Cultural Evenings.

“Both of us!” I explained, although it wasn’t really necessary.

I leaped into her saddle, pushed off, pedaled out the bedroom door, wobbled along the hall, made a sharp left turn, and moments later was at the top of the east staircase.

From astride a bicycle, stairs appear to be much steeper than they actually are. Far below, in the foyer, the black and white tiles were like winter fields viewed from a mountaintop. I got a firm grip on the front braking handles and started down at an alarming angle.

“Bucketa-bucketa-bucketa-bucketa,” I exclaimed, one for each stair, all the way down, my bones rattling pleasantly.

Dogger was standing at the bottom. He was wearing a
canvas apron and holding a pair of Father’s boots. “Good morning, Miss Flavia,” he said.

“Good morning, Dogger,” I replied. “I’m happy to see you. I have a question. How does one go about disinterring a dead body?”

Dogger raised one eyebrow a fraction. “Were you thinking of disinterring a dead body, miss?” he asked.

“No, not personally,” I told him. “What I mean is, what permissions must be obtained, and so forth?”

“If I remember correctly, consent must first be given by the church. It is known as a faculty, I believe, and must be obtained from the Diocesan Council.”

“The bishop’s office?”

“More or less.”

So that’s what the vicar had been talking about. A faculty had already been granted, he told Marmaduke Parr, the man from the bishop’s office. The bishop’s secretary, in fact.

“There can be no going back now,” the vicar had said.

It seemed obvious that a faculty had been granted for the exhumation of Saint Tancred, and then for some reason withdrawn.

Who, I wondered, would stand in the way? What harm could there be in digging up the bones of a saint who had been dead these past five hundred years?

“You’re a corker, Dogger,” I said.

“Thank you, miss.”

Out of respect, I dismounted, and wheeled Gladys discreetly across the foyer, and out the front door.

On the lawn, at the edge of the gravel, was a folding
camp stool, and beside it, several rags and a tin of boot polish. The day was warmer now, and Dogger had obviously been working outside in the fresh air, enjoying the sunshine.

I was about to push off for the church when I saw a car turn in at the Mulford Gates. It was the odd shape of the thing which had caught my attention: rather boxy, like a hearse.

If I left now, I might miss something. Better, I thought, to stifle my impatience and wait.

I sat down on the camp stool and studied the machine as it came flouncing along the avenue of chestnuts. Viewed head-on, it was certain from the tall Corinthian radiator of gleaming silver that it was a Rolls-Royce landau—in some ways, very like Harriet’s old Phantom II which Father kept stored away as a sort of shrine in the dimness of the coach house: the same broad skirts and the same gigantic headlamps. And yet there was something different.

As the car turned side-on, I saw that its paint was apple green, and that the roof had been peeled away from just behind the driving seat, like a tin of opened sardines. Where the backseats had once been were rows of gray, unpainted wooden boxes, each crammed cheek by jowl with flowerpots, all of them open to the weather, rather like a gallery of cheap seats atop a charabanc from which the seedlings and the growing plants could view the passing world.

Since Father had lectured us so often about the evils of staring, I instinctively pulled my notebook and pencil
from the pocket of my cardigan and pretended to be writing.

I heard the tires crunch to a heavy stop. The door opened, and closed.

I snuck a quick peek from the corner of my eye and registered a tall man in a tan mackintosh.

“Hullo,” he said. “What have we here?”

As if I were a waxwork figure in Madame Tussauds.

I went on scribbling nothings in my notebook, resisting the urge to stick my tongue out the corner of my mouth.

“What are you doing?” he asked, coming dangerously close, as if to look at the page. If there’s one thing I despise, it’s a person who snoops over your shoulder.

“Writing down number plates,” I said, snapping my notebook shut.

“Hmmm,” he said, gazing slowly round at the empty landscape. “I shouldn’t imagine you add many to your collection in such an out-of-the-way place.”

In what I hoped was a properly chilling manner I said, “Well, I’ve got yours, haven’t I?”

It was true. GBX1066.

He saw me staring at the Rolls.

“What do you think of the old bus?” he asked. “Phantom II, 1928. The former owner, requiring something to transport a racehorse in comfort, took a hacksaw to her.”

“He must have been mad,” I said. I couldn’t help myself.

“
She
, actually,” he said. “Yes, she was.
Quite
mad. Lady Densley.”

“Of Densley’s Biscuits?”

“The very one.”

As I was thinking about how to respond, he produced a silver case from his pocket, flipped it open, and handed me a card.

“My name’s Sowerby,” he said. “Adam Sowerby.”

I glanced at the bit of pasteboard. At least it was tastefully printed in small black type.

Adam Tradescant Sowerby, MA., FRHortS, etc
.
Flora-archaeologist
Seeds of Antiquity—Cuttings—Inquiries
Tower Bridge, London E.1 TN Royal 1066

Hmmm
, I thought.
The same four digits as his number plates. This man has connections
.

“You must be Flavia de Luce,” he said, extending a hand. I was about to give back his card when I realized that he intended us to shake.

“The vicar told me I’d likely find you here,” he went on. “I hope you don’t mind my barging in like this, unannounced.”

Of course! This was the vicar’s friend, Mr. Sowerby. Mr. Haskins had asked about him in the crypt.

“Are you related to Sowerby & Sons, our village undertakers?”

“The present incumbent is, I believe, a third cousin. Some of us Sowerbys have chosen Life, and others Death.”

I took his hand and gave it an intelligent shake, looking directly into his cornflower-blue eyes.

“Yes, I’m Flavia de Luce,” I said. “I don’t mind you barging in at all. How may I help you?”

“Denwyn is an old friend,” he said, not letting go of my hand. “He told me that you could very likely answer my questions.”

Denwyn was the vicar’s name, and I mentally blessed him for being so frank.

“I shall do my best,” I replied.

“When you first looked into that chamber behind the stone, what did you see?”

“A hand,” I said. “Rather dried. Clutching a broken bit of glass tubing.”

“Rings?”

“No.”

“Fingernails?”

“Clean. Well manicured. Although his hands and clothing were filthy.”

“Very good. And then you saw?”

“The face. At least, a gas mask
covering
the face. Golden-blond hair. Dark lines on the throat.”

“Anything else?”

“No. The torch was throwing quite a narrow beam.”

“Excellent! I see that your reputation—which precedes you—is well deserved.”

My reputation? The vicar must have told him about those several earlier cases in which I had been able to point the police in the right direction.

I preened a little, inwardly.

“No dried petals … vegetation … anything of that sort?”

“Not that I noticed.”

Mr. Sowerby gathered himself, as if he were about to ask a tender question. In a hushed voice, he said, “It must have been quite a shock to you. The poor man’s body, I mean.”

“Yes,” I said, and left it at that.

“The police have made quite a hash of the scene—removing the remains and so forth. Anything that may have been of interest to me is now no more than—”

“Dust on the sergeant’s boots,” I suggested brightly.

“Precisely. Now I shall have to go over the ground with a magnifying glass, like Sherlock Holmes.”

“What are you hoping to find?”

“Seeds,” he said. “Remnants of Saint Tancred’s interment. The mourners often tossed fresh flowers into the tomb, you know.”

“But there was nothing in the tomb,” I said. “It was empty. Except for Mr. Collicutt, of course.”

Adam Sowerby gave me a quizzical look. “Empty? Oh, I see what you mean. No, it’s hardly likely to be empty. The crevice where you found Mr. Collicutt is actually a chamber above the tomb proper. Its lid, if you like. Saint Tancred will still be nicely nestled somewhere down below.”

So that was why there had been no bones! My question was answered.

“Then it’s quite likely that you’ll still find seeds and so forth?”

“I should be surprised if we didn’t. It’s just that, in any investigation, one likes to start at the outside and nibble one’s way in.”

I couldn’t have put it better myself.

“And these seeds,” I said. “What shall you do with them?”

“I shall coddle them. I shall put them in a warm place and provide them with the nourishment they need.”

I could tell by the passion in his voice that seeds were to him as poisons were to me.

“And then?” I asked.

“They might well germinate,” he said. “If we’re extraordinarily lucky, one of them will be brought to blossom.”

“Even after five hundred years?”

“A seed is a remarkable vessel,” he told me. “Our one true time machine. Each of them is capable of bringing the past, alive, into the present. Think of that!”

“And then?” I asked. “After they’ve blossomed?”

“I sell them. You’d be surprised what some people will pay to be the sole possessor of an extinct flower.

“Oh, and then there are the academic trumpets, of course. Who can live nowadays without the academic trumpets?”

I had no idea what he was talking about, but the part about the flowers was intriguing enough.

“Would you mind giving me a lift into the village?” I asked suddenly. It was still early in the day and an idea was taking shape.

“Does your father allow you to beg rides from complete strangers?” he asked, but there was a twinkle in his eyes.

“He won’t mind, if you’re a friend of the vicar’s,” I said. “May I put Gladys in the back, Mr. Sowerby?”

“Adam,” he said. “Since we’re both under the vicar’s spell, I expect that it’s all right to call me Adam.”

I climbed up into the front passenger’s seat. There was a prolonged and grinding judder as Adam trod on the clutch and coddled the shifting lever down into first gear, and then we were off.

“Her name is Nancy,” he said, indicating the instrument panel, then, glancing at me, he added, “… after Burns’s poem.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know it,” I said. “My sister Daphne is the bookish one.”

“ ‘Though poor in gear, we’re rich in love,’ ”
he quoted. “From ‘The Soldier’s Return.’ ”

“Ah!” I said.

The churchyard was, if anything, more vividly green than it had been in the early morning light. The Inspector’s blue Vauxhall was still parked in the same spot, as was Mr. Haskins’s van.

“I’ll drop you off here,” Adam said at the lych-gate. “I have odds and ends to discuss with the vicar.”

It was a way of saying “I want to speak with him privately,” but he handled it so politely that I could hardly object.

Although I could see that Gladys was excited about her first ride in a Rolls-Royce, I sensed that she was glad to be on solid ground again. I waved as I wheeled her away.

I had no sooner set foot in the church when a large, dark figure loomed up, barring the way. “Hold on,” growled a voice.

“Oh, good morning, Sergeant Woolmer,” I said.
“Lovely day, isn’t it? In spite of the rain earlier, it’s actually turned out quite well.”

“It’s no good, miss,” he said. “You’re not getting in. The place is closed. Off-limits. It’s the scene of a crime.”

“I just want to say a few prayers,” I said, going all stoop-shouldered and mousy like Cynthia Richardson, the vicar’s wife, and injecting a bit of a whine into my voice. “I won’t stay long.”

“You can pray in the churchyard,” the sergeant said. “The Lord has large ears.”

I sucked in my breath as if I had been shocked at his blasphemy.

Actually, he had given me an idea.

“Very well, Sergeant,” I said. “I shall remember to mention your name.”

That would give the brute something to think about!

Cassandra Cottlestone’s tomb had the appearance of a massive Elizabethan dresser which had been made off with by culprits who, being caught in the act, had abandoned the thing in the churchyard where, over the centuries, it had turned to stone.