A Red Herring Without Mustard

“There’s dirty work at the crossroads,” I told her. “I can feel it in my bones.”

I needed to get home at once to inspect the drawing-room hearth.

The trees were making late afternoon shadows as I cycled through the Mulford Gates and up the avenue of chestnuts. I’d soon be expected to put in an appearance at the dinner table, and I wasn’t looking forward to it.

As I opened the kitchen door, the sound of a Schubert sonata came floating to my ears.

Success! I knew instantly that my psychic booby trap had been sprung.

Feely always played Schubert when she was upset, and the opening of the Piano Sonata in B Flat Major when she was especially distraught.

I could almost follow her thoughts as the piano’s notes went flying past my ears like birds from a forest fire. At first there was the tightly controlled anger, with threats of rolling thunder (how I loved the thunder!), but when the full storm broke, Feely’s fierce talent could still make me gasp with admiration.

I edged closer to the drawing room, the better to hear this remarkable outpouring of emotion. It was almost as good as reading her diary.

I had to be careful, though, that she didn’t catch sight of me until dinner, when Father would be there to save my hide. If Feely so much as suspected that I was responsible for the spirit message on her mirror, there would be buckets of blood on the carpet and entrails dangling from the chandeliers.

The drawing room would have to wait.

I did not realize how tired I had suddenly become until I was dragging myself up the stairs. It had been a long day, and it was far from over.

Perhaps, I thought, I would have a nap.

As I approached my laboratory, I came to an abrupt halt. The door was standing open!

I peered round the corner, and there stood Porcelain, still wearing Fenella’s black dress, toasting a slice of bread over a Bunsen burner. I could hardly believe my eyes!

“Cheer-oh,” she said, looking up. “Would you like some toast?”

As if she hadn’t just recently accused me of bashing in her grandmother’s brains.

“How did you get in?”

“I used your key,” she said, pointing. It was still inserted in the lock. “I watched you hide it in the hollow bedpost.”

It was true. I had long before discovered Uncle Tar’s secret hiding place for keys and other things he wanted to keep to himself. My bedroom had once been his, and over time all, or most, of its secrets had been revealed.

“You’ve got your bloody nerve,” I said. The thought of someone invading my laboratory made my skin crawl, as if an army of red ants were swarming up my arms, fanning out across my shoulders, and up the back of my neck.

“I’m sorry, Flavia,” she said. “I know it wasn’t you that attacked Fenella. I can’t have been thinking straight. I was confused. I was tired. I came back to apologize.”

“Then you’d better get at it,” I said.

I was not going to be mollified—wasn’t that the term Daffy had used when she’d said the same thing to me: “mollified”?—with just a couple of token words. There are times when “I’m sorry” is simply not enough.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I really am. It’s all so upsetting. It’s just too much.”

Suddenly she was in tears.

“First there was Fenella—now they won’t let me see her, you know. They’ve got a constable in a chair watching the door to her room. Then there was that awful business of the man we found hanging from the fountain—”

“Brookie Harewood,” I said. I’d almost forgotten about Brookie.

“And now this latest body they’ve dug up in—what do you call it?—the Palings.”

“What?”

Another body? In the Palings?

“It’s all too much,” she said, wiping her nose on her forearm. “I’m going back to London.”

Before I could say another word, she dug into her pocket and pulled out a five-pound note.

“Here,” she said, prying open my fingers and pressing them closed upon the banknote. “That’s to feed Gry until Fenella’s discharged from hospital. And …”

She looked straight into my eyes, still gripping my hand. Her lips were trembling. “If she doesn’t recover, he’s yours. The caravan, too. I came here to tell you I’m sorry, and I’ve done it. And now I’m leaving.”

“Wait! What did you say about another body?”

“Ask your inspector friend,” she said, and turned towards the door.

I made a lunge for the key and slammed the door shut. We tussled for the doorknob, but I managed to grab the key, jam it into the inside lock, and give it a frantic twist.

“Hand it over. Let me out.”

“No,” I said. “Not until you tell me what you saw in the Palings.”

“Come off it, Flavia. I’m not playing games.”

“Nor am I,” I told her, crossing my arms.

As I knew she would, she made a sudden snatch at the key. It was an old trick often used by Daffy and Feely, and I suppose I ought to have been grateful for having learned it from them. Being ready for the next move, I was able to hold the key out, at arm’s length, away from her.

And then she gave up. Just like that. I could see it in her eyes.