since Minneapolis had never been bombed by enemy forces. (Though certain members of the party were beginning to wish that it had.)
Elizabeth was scribbling furiously in her notebook, adding diagrams and arrows to her text. Alice leaned over to catch a glimpse of the writing, but she was unable to decipher it. The tour proceeded at a brisk pace, without shopping breaks, and without backtracking. Mrs. Lacey was a wealth of information on historic buildings, medieval celebrities, and dates. She said very little about the mercantile aspects of the city, past or present.
Nearly an hour later the group stood once again at the west front of Exeter Cathedral, arriving there by a circular route that did not involve the retracing of their previous paths. Elizabeth’s note-taking had been steady throughout the latter part of the excursion, although Alice had been unable to determine any correlation between the guide’s remarks and the fervor of Elizabeth’s note-taking.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
“Tell you later,” muttered Elizabeth.
Compared to Winchester, the only other cathedral they had seen, Exeter looked rather wide and squat. It lacked the tall spires and the sprawling length of Winchester, but the exterior decoration was much more ornate. The entire west front of the cathedral was decorated with a pantheon of life-sized figures. Jesus and his apostles had pride of place above the central doorway, above more figures of kings, confessors, and prophets. The lowest row of statues depicted angels.
“Why are the statues damaged?” asked Frances Coles, pointing to a crowned figure who was missing several facial parts.
“Not the Blitz?” asked Alice. She had about decided that the Germans and the French deserved each other.
“No,” said Mrs. Lacey sadly. “The damage goes back to medieval times, I’m afraid. In those days people were very superstitious about the miraculous healing powers of saints. People used to chip off bits of the statues in hopes that the blessed stone would effect a cure for themselves or a loved one. Some of the statues have been replaced over the years. That king on the right is a new one. Now let’s go inside.”
Susan Cohen whispered to Elizabeth, “Since the statues are already so damaged, they probably wouldn’t notice if I broke off another little piece as a souvenir.”
“Try it and I’ll break your arm,” Elizabeth whispered back.
Elizabeth took no notes at all during the cathedral tour. She followed along in an abstracted way, while the rest of the party admired the rib vaulting of the ceiling (“finest decorated Gothic vault in existence”), and she came out of her reverie briefly to examine the carvings beneath the choir seats. The undersides of the seats were fashioned with a small shelf so that weary choir members might slump against these supports and still remain in a standing position. Mrs. Lacey explained that because the choir members were going to rest their posteriors on the
“This is meant to be the image of an elephant,” she told them, pointing to an object with tusks and hooves, carved under stall 44. “We think the artist did it from hearsay.”
“Well, it isn’t too bad,” said Frances Coles, who had seen her second-graders do worse after an eyewitness encounter with the beast.
Charles Warren carefully photographed the elephant seat, with and without the tour members grouped around it. Emma asked a number of technical questions about cathedral restoration, and Maud Marsh made a note of the times services were held.
“I may come back for Evensong,” she told the guide.
“I’ll come with you,” said Alice.
At 11:55 Mrs. Lacey finished the whirlwind tour at the west front of the cathedral and wished them a pleasant stay in Exeter. Most of the group started back for the hotel, where lunch was being served, and Susan was complaining that her feet hurt because Italians didn’t know how to make shoes. When Kate, Alice, and Frances declared themselves ready for more walking, Elizabeth looked at her watch. “We have fifty-five minutes until the baron wants us for rehearsal,” she announced.
“We could go shopping,” said Kate Conway wistfully. “But it would mean missing lunch.”
“I’d rather shop than eat,” said Elizabeth.
Frances Coles burrowed into her cavernous purse. “I saved some rolls from breakfast if anyone else would like one.”
Alice MacKenzie looked longingly at the maze of streets leading away from the cathedral. “I just wish we could find our way back to some of those shops we passed on the tour.”
“We can,” said Elizabeth, holding up her notebook. “I mapped the entire route, and made a note of all the best shops. But we only have an hour. Run!”
Two woolshops, five clothing stores, and eight curio vendors later, the weary shoppers returned to the hotel, laden with packages and too late for lunch, but triumphant in their success at having achieved an entire hour for a guide-free rampage in an English city.
“Rowan would be very disappointed in us,” said Frances Coles. “We should have been visiting museums or something.”
“Consider it a contribution to the local economy,” Elizabeth advised her.
After depositing the packages in their respective rooms, they hurried downstairs to the lower level, where the 1928 movie company was rehearsing its screen melodrama in the room that had been a banquet hall the night before. Now it was dark and the tables were gone. In their place stood a wooden coffin on sawhorses, illuminated by a brace of candles. The spectators lined the walls watching Sir Herbert the actor (Dracula) embrace a beautiful young victim.
“Did we miss much?” asked Elizabeth, who managed to recognize Martha Tabram in the semidarkness. Alice, Frances, and Kate crowded around to hear her whispered reply.
“They’re casting stand-ins for the actors. Sir Herbert was particularly asking for you, Kate.”
Kate blushed and hurried over to join the actors. Soon she was decked out in a white nightgown, ready to be the bride of Dracula.
Martha Tabram turned back to the shoppers. “Oh, before we began, the baron announced that Miss Jenkins had died of arsenic poisoning.” She laughed. “He read a list of symptoms that she displayed at the hospital. They tallied exactly with the ones you mentioned last night, Elizabeth.”
“Nice save on their part,” muttered Elizabeth grudgingly.
“Wouldn’t it be funny if she really were dead,” mused Frances.
“If so, I think you’ll find that she has been reincarnated,” said Martha. “Look at that woman standing beside the coffin.”
“The blonde?” asked Frances, squinting into the darkness. “She looks very young and beautiful to me.”
“So she does,” Martha agreed. “But if you put her in a frumpy gray wig and a shapeless dress, she could appear considerably older. It’s the same actress. Very clever of them. There wouldn’t be much point in having a member of the company out of commission after the first hour of the weekend.”
“Then it isn’t a clue,” said Alice, disappointed.
“No,” said Martha. “I just wanted to set Frances’ mind at rest. The secretary may be dead, but the actress who played her is very much alive.”
The cleverness of the acting company was further exhibited later that same afternoon. On the hotel terrace a sword-fight was staged between their two principal actors, with all the mystery guests watching from the sidelines. As they thrust and parried, the young blond Mr. Scott was cut on the arm. Ginger, the leading lady vampire, hurried him away to have it bandaged. This time Kate did not offer her nursing skills.
“Well, he’s dead,” said Alice MacKenzie cheerfully.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” protested Frances. “It was only a little scratch.”
“Hamlet,” Alice replied. “A little poison on the sword and he’s done for.”
“Better still,” said Susan Cohen, “irradiated thallium! Rick Boyer used that in
“Susan…
