A Red Herring Without Mustard

“So you see, Inspector,” he had said, “Garvin’s fatal mistake was in running his fingers through his hair. The barber had scented it with brilliantine containing bay oil, which, of course, is soluble in alcohol, but not in water. Even after a night at the bottom of the millstream, the fingerprints on the handle of the knife were still plain enough to put his villainous neck in a noose.”

Philip Odell aside, I had my own ideas about underwater fingerprints. There was, for instance, a quite readily available household substance that would fix and harden any traces of residual grime that might be left by a killer’s hands. Given time, I would do the laboratory work, write it up, and present it to Inspector Hewitt on a silver platter. He would, of course, take my paper home at once and show it to his wife, Antigone.

But there had been no time. The compulsory cinema night and choir practice at St. Tancred’s, followed by my visit to Fenella in hospital, had robbed me of the opportunity to carry out the necessary research.

I would hurry home and begin at once.

I had no more than one foot out of the thicket when I heard the sound of an approaching motor. I ducked back into hiding, remembering to turn my face away as the thing swept past. By the time I judged it safe to come out again, the machine had vanished in the direction of Buckshaw.

I did not actually spot the Inspector’s blue Vauxhall until I had already set foot between the griffins of the Mulford Gates. It was parked off to one side beneath the chestnuts, and he was leaning patiently against it, waiting.

Too late now to turn and bolt. I’d have to make the best of it.

“Oh, Inspector,” I said, “I was just about to ring you up and tell you what I’ve found!”

I was aware that I was gushing, but I didn’t seem to be able to help myself. I held the wooden base out to him at arm’s length.

“This was in a thicket by the side of the lane. I think it’s part of Fenella’s crystal ball.”

He pulled a silk handkerchief from his breast pocket and took the wooden O from my hands.

“You shouldn’t have touched it,” he said. “You ought to have left it where it was.”

“I realize that,” I told him. “But it was too late. I touched it before I saw it—without meaning to. It was hidden under some weeds. I’d just stepped into the bushes for a moment …”

The look on his face told me that I was skating on thin ice: I had already used the “sudden call of nature” excuse, and it wouldn’t bear repeating.

“You saw me, of course, didn’t you? That’s why you stopped and waited for me here.”

The Inspector ignored this neat bit of deduction.

“Get in, please,” he said, holding open the back door of the Vauxhall. “It’s time for a talk.”

Sergeant Graves turned round and shot me a quick, quizzical glance from the driver’s seat, but he did not smile. Only then did I realize how much trouble I was in.

We drove to the front door of Buckshaw in silence.

It was my second full confession in as many days.

We were sitting in the drawing room—all of us, that is, except Father, who was standing at the window, staring out, as if his life depended on it, across the ornamental lake.

He had insisted that we all of us be present, and had summoned Feely and Daffy, both of whom had annoyingly come at once, and were now seated primly side by side on a flowered divan like a couple of toads come to tea.

“It is regrettable,” Inspector Hewitt was saying, “that our investigation has been so badly compromised. Crime scenes disturbed … evidence tampered with … crucial information withheld … I hardly know where to begin.”

He was talking about me, of course.

“I have tried to impress upon Flavia the seriousness of these matters, but with little success. Therefore, I’m afraid I’m going to insist, Colonel de Luce, that until such time as our work is complete, you keep her confined to Buckshaw.”

I couldn’t believe my ears! Confined to Buckshaw? Why not have me transported to Australia and be done with it?

Well, so much for choir duty and future cinema nights. So much for Father’s decree that we needed to get out more as a family.

Father mumbled something and shifted his gaze from the ornamental lake to the distant hills.

“That said,” the Inspector went on, “we come to the real reason for our being here.”

Real reason? My heart sank as if it already knew something that I did not.

The Inspector brought out his notebook. “A statement has been taken from a Miss Ursula Vipond, who says that she witnessed the removal from the river of what she described as …” He opened the notebook and flipped through a couple of pages. “… a glass sphere …”

My eyes widened.