He turned and, perhaps feeling my eyes upon him, looked straight up at the window where I was standing.
My immediate reaction was to shrink back—to step away from the glass—but I found that I could not. Some remote part of my mind had already spotted a detail that was only now leaking slowly into my consciousness, and I’m afraid I let out a gasp.
The objects gripped in the hands of the bulldog man were Harriet’s firedogs—Sally Fox and Shoppo!
EIGHTEEN
“WHAT IS IT?” THE woman asked. Her voice seemed to be coming from a very great distance.
“It’s—it’s—”
“Yes, dear … what is it?”
It was the “dear” that brought me snapping back. A “dear” or “dearie” to me is about as welcome as a bullet to the brain. I’ve had places reserved in the ha’penny seats of Hell for people who address me in this way.
But I bit my tongue.
“It’s—just that you have such a smashing view from your window,” I said. “The river … Malplaquet Farm … all the way to East Finching and the hills beyond. One would never suspect, walking in the high street, that such a —”
There was a floor-shaking crash from downstairs as some heavy object was dropped. A couple of muffled curses came drifting up through the floorboards.
“Reginald!” the woman shouted, and there was an awkward silence in the depths.
“Men!” she said, loudly enough to make herself heard downstairs. “Windmills on legs.”
“I think I’d better go,” I said. “They’ll be expecting me at home.”
“Very well, dear,” she said. “Run along, then. And don’t forget about those letters. You may bring them whenever you’re able.”
I did not tell her what I was thinking, but rather, gave a very small mock curtsy, then turned and made my way down the narrow stairs.
At the bottom, I glanced towards the back of the shop. Reginald Pettibone and the owner of the van stood staring at me from the shadows. Neither of them moved or spoke, but I knew, in the way we females are supposed to know, that they had been talking about me.
I turned my back on them and walked to the door, stopping only to write my initials casually in the dust that covered an ebony sideboard. I wasn’t exactly afraid, but I knew how an animal trainer in a steel cage must feel when, for the first time, he turns his back on the fierce gaze of a pair of new tigers.
Although she didn’t say so, Gladys seemed happy to see me. I had parked her against a tree across the high street from Pettibone’s shop.
“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
