A Red Herring Without Mustard: A Flavia de Luce Novel

And then I heard it—a metallic clanking that echoed round and round the chamber.

I’ll admit it—I froze.

Another clank.

“Hello,” I called, my voice shaking. “Is anyone there?”

From somewhere came another sound: an animal sound for certain, though whether it was human, I could not tell.

What if a fox had made its way into the tunnel? Or a badger?

If that was the case, it would likely run away from a human with a torch—but what if it didn’t?

“Hello?” I called again. “Is anyone there?”

Again a muffled sound, weaker. Was it farther away, or was I imagining things? One thing was certain: It could only be coming from somewhere behind a giant pipe that rose up out of the stonework, leveled off, bent ninety degrees, and headed off towards the far side of the chamber.

I scrambled up onto the thing, straddled it for a moment—then dropped down on the other side.

The passageway into which the pipe led was lower, narrower, and damp. Moisture beaded on the walls, and the floor, between bricks, was wet earth.

Just ahead, the tunnel was blocked by an iron gate: an iron gate that was chained shut and locked on the other side with a large, old-fashioned padlock.

I gave the thing a rattle, but it was absolutely solid. Without a key, there wasn’t a hope of getting past.

“Damn!” I said. “Damn and double damn!”

“Flavia?” someone croaked.

I must admit that I came very close to disgracing myself.

I shone the beam through the bars and picked out a shape huddled on the ground.

For as long as I live I shall never forget his white face staring up at me, blinded by the torch’s beam. He had managed, somehow, to lose his spectacles, and his pale eyes, blind and blinking, were those of a baby mole pulled from its hole and dragged out suddenly into the daylight.

“Colin?” I said. “Colin Prout?”

“Turn it off!” he pleaded in a ragged voice, twisting away from the light.

I swung the torch away, so that the passage beyond the bars was once more in near-darkness.

“Help me,” Colin said, his voice pitiful.

“I can’t. The gate is locked.”

I gave the massive thing a shake with one hand, hoping it would spring open—perhaps by some as-yet- undiscovered magic—but that did not happen.

“Try it from your side,” I told him. “There might be a latch …”

I knew, even as I said it, that there wasn’t, but anything was worth a try.

“Can’t,” Colin said, and even in the darkness I could tell that he was on the verge of tears. “I’m tied up.”

“Tied up?” It seemed impossible, even though I had once or twice been in the same position myself.

“I’ve got the key, though. It’s in me pocket.”

Praise be! I thought. Finally, a bit of luck.

“Wiggle yourself over to the gate,” I said. “I’ll try to reach the key.”

There was a painful silence, and then he said, “I’m … I’m tied to somethin’.”

And he began to whimper.

It was enough to make a saint spit!

But wait: The padlock was on Colin’s side of the gate, wasn’t it? I had noticed this but not given it my proper attention.

“Did you lock yourself in?” I asked.

“No,” Colin snuffled.

“Then how did you get in there?”

“We come through the door in the fountain.”

A door in the fountain? We?

I chose to ask the most important question first.

“Who’s ‘we,’ Colin? Who did this to you?”

I could hear him breathing heavily in the darkness, but he did not answer.

I realized at once the futility of it all. I was not about to spend the rest of my life trying to pry answers out of a captive from whom I was separated by a wall of iron bars.