“Arrr,” he said, whatever that meant.
Alf’s mention of Father Christmas, though, had reminded me that it was now Sunday—that tonight would be Christmas Eve.
Before I slept another night I would be scaling Buckshaw’s roof and chimneys to set in motion my chemical experiment.
“You’d better watch out …” I sang as I strolled out of the kitchen.
Beyond the kitchen door, the place was a madhouse. The foyer, in particular, was like the lobby of a West End theater at the interval—scores of people pretending to have a jolly old chin-wag and everyone talking at the same time.
The noise level, for someone with my sensitive hearing, was nearly intolerable. I needed to get away. The police would probably not be here for hours. There was still plenty of time to put the finishing touches to my plans for Christmas Eve.
I had first thought of the fireworks long before Father had signed his agreement with Ilium Films. My original plan had been to set them off on the roof of Buckshaw, a display of fire and lights that could clearly be seen a mile away in Bishop’s Lacey: my Christmas gift to the village, so to speak—a gift that would be talked about long after Saint Nicholas had flown home to the frozen north.
I would send up showers of fire that would shame the northern lights: elaborate parasols of hot and cold fire of every color known to man. Chemistry would see to that!
That plan had expanded slowly over the months to include a scheme to capture the bearded old elf himself, to put to rest for once and for all the cruel taunts of my stupid sisters.
Now, as I prepared the chemical ingredients, I was suddenly subdued. It had only just occurred to me that it might be disrespectful to set off such a terrific celebration with a corpse in the house. Even though, in all likelihood, the remains of Phyllis Wyvern would be removed by the time Father Christmas came to call, I wouldn’t want to be accused of being insensitive.
“Eureka!” I said, as I set out in neat rows the flowerpots I had borrowed from the greenhouse. “I have it!”
I would manufacture a giant Rocket of Honor in Phyllis Wyvern’s memory! Yes, that was it—a dazzling and earsplitting finale to end the show.
I had found the formula devised by the wonderfully named Mr. Bigot, in an old book in Uncle Tar’s library. All that was required was to add the right amount of antimony and a handful of cast-iron filings to the basic recipe.
Twenty minutes with a file and a convenient hot-water radiator had produced the first of these ingredients—the other was in a bottle at my fingertips.
Wads of waxed paper and a hollow cardboard tube made an admirable casing, and before you could say “Ka-Boom!” the rocket was ready.
With the dessert prepared, it was now time for the main course. This was the dangerous part, and I needed to pay close attention to my every move.
Because of the risk of explosion, the potassium chlorate had to be mixed with exceedingly great care in a bowl that would not produce sparks.
Fortunately I remembered the aluminum salad set Aunt Felicity had given Feely for her last birthday.
“Dear girl,” she had said, “you are now eighteen. In a few years—four or five, if you’re lucky—your teeth shall begin to fall out and you shall find yourself eyeing the girdles at Harrods. The early girls get the most vigorous grooms, and don’t you forget it. Don’t stare at the ceiling with that vacuous look on your face, Ophelia. These aluminum bowls are manufactured from salvaged aircraft. They’re lightweight, practical, and pleasing to the eye. How better to begin your trousseau?”
I had found the bowls hidden at the back of a high shelf in the pantry and seized them in the name of science.
To produce the blue explosions, I mixed six parts of potassium nitrate, two of sulfur, and one part of trisulfide of antimony.
This was the formula used for the glaring rescue rockets at sea, and I reckoned these ones would be visible from Malden Fenwick—perhaps even from Hinley and beyond.
To one or two of the portions, I added a dollop of oak charcoal to give the explosions the appearance of rain; to others a bit of lampblack to produce spurs of fire.
It was important to keep in mind the fact that winter fireworks required a different formula than those designed for summer. The basic idea was this: less sulfur and lots more gunpowder.
I had concocted the gunpowder myself from niter, sulfur, charcoal, and a happy heart. When working with explosives, I’ve found that attitude is everything.
It was something I had learned at the time of that awful business with the unfortunate Miss Gurdy, our former governess—but stop! That catastrophe was no longer spoken of at Buckshaw. It was in the past and, mercifully, had almost been forgotten. At least I hoped it had been forgotten, since it was one of my few failures in experimenting with dualin—a substance containing sawdust, saltpeter, and nitroglycerin, and notorious for its instability.
I sighed and, banishing poor, scorched Miss Gurdy from my mind, turned it to more pleasant thoughts.
Before packing the ingredients into earthenware flowerpots I’d borrowed from the greenhouse, I had added to some of them a certain amount of arsenious oxide (AS4O6), sometimes known as white arsenic. Although it was pleasant to think that a deadly poison should produce the whitest of aerial explosions, that wasn’t my reason for choosing it.
What appealed to me, what really warmed my heart, was the thought of suspending over our ancestral home, even if only for a few seconds, an umbrella of deadly poisonous fire that would fall—then suddenly vanish as if by magic, leaving Buckshaw safe from harm.
I didn’t care if it made sense or not. It was the idea of the thing, and I was happy that I’d thought of it.
Each of the flowerpots now needed to be sealed, like preserves, with a lid of onionskin paper to protect the chemicals against moisture. Later tonight, just before bedtime, I would lug them, one at a time, up the narrow staircase that led from my laboratory to the roof.
And then I’d begin my work among the chimney pots.
I was halfway down the stairs, hoping I didn’t smell too much of gunpowder, when the doorbell rang. Dogger appeared, as he always does, as if from nowhere, and as I reached the last step, he opened the door.
There stood Inspector Hewitt of the Hinley Constabulary.
I hadn’t seen the Inspector for quite some time and our last meeting had been one I’d rather not dwell upon.
We stood staring at each other across the foyer like two wolves that have come from different directions upon a clearing full of sheep.
I was hoping Inspector Hewitt would let bygones be bygones—that he would stride across the foyer, give me a chummy handshake, and tell me that it was nice to see me again. I had, after all, helped him out of a number of jams in the past without so much as a pat on the back or a “kiss my arsenic.”
Well, that’s not quite true: His wife, Antigone, had asked me to tea in October, but the less said of that the better.
Which is why I was now standing there in the foyer, pretending to check something that had become lodged between my teeth by examining my reflection in one of the polished newel posts at the end of the banister. Just as I decided to relent and give the Inspector a curt nod, he turned and, without a backward glance, walked away towards Dr. Darby, who had made an appearance suddenly on the west landing.
Blue curses! If I’d been thinking straight, I’d have welcomed the Inspector myself—shown him upstairs to the scene of the crime.
But it was too late. I had shut myself out of the Chamber of Death (that’s what they called it on the wireless mystery programs) and it was now too late to eat crow.
Or was it?
“Oh, Mrs. Mullet,” I said, barging into the kitchen as if I’d only just heard the news. “The most dreadful thing has happened. Miss Wyvern has met with a frightful accident, and Inspector Hewitt is here. I thought that, what with the awful weather and so forth, he’d be grateful for a cup of your famous tea.”