Latshaw, Ben—Seems something of a troublemaker. But what would he gain by bringing the film’s production to a halt? He had been promoted due to Patrick McNulty’s injury. Could he have been hired by someone at llium Films to do in PW far from the studio? (Mere speculation on my part.)
Trodd, Marion—The horn-rimmed mystery. Hangs round in silence like the smell of a clogged drain. She bears a strong resemblance to the actress Norma Durance. But those were old photos. Should have asked Aunt Felicity about her. N.B.—do later.
I scratched my head with the pencil as I reviewed my notes. I could see at once that they were far from satisfactory.
In most criminal investigations—both on the wireless and in my own experience—there are always more suspects than you can shake a stick at, but in this case, the field seemed sparse indeed. While there had been no shortage of grudges against Phyllis Wyvern, there had been no outright hatred: nothing that would even begin to explain her brutal strangling or the bow of motion picture film tied almost gaily round her neck.
In fact, I could still see it: that band of black celluloid at her throat, each of its frames bearing a still image of the actress herself in her peasant blouse, her defiant face shining like the sun against a dramatically darkened sky.
How could I forget it when I had seen it so often in my dreams? It was from that shocking final scene of Anna of the Steppes, alias Dressed for Dying, in which Phyllis Wyvern, as the doomed Anna Sheristikova, lays herself down in front of the advancing tractors.
In my tired mind, I fancied I could hear the sound of their snarling engines, but it was only the wind, as it howled and battered at the house.
Wind … tractors … Dieter … Feely …
When my eyes snapped open it was eight minutes past midnight.
From somewhere in the house came the sound of singing.
“O little town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie …”
I could see in my mind the reverently upturned faces of the villagers.
I knew instantly that, in spite of everything that had happened, the vicar had decided to observe Christmas. He had asked the men of the village to move our old Broadwood grand piano from the drawing room into the foyer, and Feely was now at the keyboard. I knew it was Feely and not Max Brock, because of the hesitating little sob she was able to extract from the instrument as the melody flew up—and then began to fall.
Because Phyllis Wyvern’s remains were still present in the house, the vicar was allowing only the more subdued carols to be sung.
I leapt out of bed and pulled on a pair of the long, mud-colored cotton stockings that Father insisted I wear outdoors in winter. Although I hated the scraggly things with a passion, I knew how cold it would be on the roof.
That done, I grabbed the powerful torch I had pinched from the pantry and passed as silently as I could into my laboratory, where I shoved a flint igniter into the pocket of my cardigan.
I gently took up the plump Rocket of Honor, cradling it in my arms for a couple of moments and smiling down upon it as lovingly as in a Nativity scene.
Then I made for the narrow staircase.
• TWENTY •
THE ROOF WAS A howling wilderness. A biting wind blew stinging gusts of snow from peak to peak, blasting my face with particles as hard as frozen sand. The weather had worsened since last I had been up here, and it was clear that the storm was far from over.
Now came the real work. Trip after trip I made, back and forth, up and down the stairs between roof and laboratory, lugging pot after pot until at last my fireworks were ranged in rings round the chimney stacks like so many unlit candles on a tiered cake.
Although it was difficult to see in the darkness, I was reluctant to switch on the torch until it became absolutely necessary. No need to attract unwanted attention from the ground, I thought, by creating a wandering will-o’-the-wisp among the dark chimney pots, which now loomed above me—tall, ominous shadows against the snowy sky. The dark clouds, sagging above my head like half-deflated blimps, were almost low enough to reach up and touch.
I had now completed my last trip and Phyllis Wyvern’s Rocket of Honor was cradled heavily in my arms. I could not possibly lug it with me round acres of roof while I completed my preparations, nor could I dump it out here in the open, where it would quickly become wet and useless.
No, I would set the thing up on the east side of one of the chimneys, where it would be sheltered from the stormy blast, ready to launch when the time came.
I trudged my way through what seemed like miles of knee-deep snow, and gave a gasp of relief when I finally spotted my destination: the towering chimney pots of Buckshaw’s west wing. With surprisingly little trouble, I set up the rocket in the midst of my flowerpot fireworks by folding down the legs of the wire tripod I had improvised from a couple of Feely’s clothes hangers.
Just one flick of the igniter and WHOOSH! Up it would climb into the night sky like a blazing comet, before exploding with a BOOM! that would awaken Saint Tancred himself, who had lain sleeping under the altar of the village church for more than five hundred years. In fact, I had added an extra cup of gunpowder to the rocket’s inner chamber to assure that the dozing Saint T would not be left out of the festivities.
The Rocket of Honor, of course, would be the finale to my show of chemical pyrotechnics. First would come the golden rains and the opening buds of red fire, giving way gradually to the bangs and booms of the Bengali Bombardes.
I hugged myself, partly in glee and partly from the cold.
I would begin with the Royal Salute, a genteel but impressive aerial display whose recipe I had found in one of Uncle Tar’s notebooks. It had been formulated originally by the famous Ruggieri brothers for King George II in 1749, and designed to accompany the music that Mr. Handel had composed especially for the Royal Fireworks display.
Since the large wooden building constructed to house the king’s musicians had been set ablaze by the fireworks and gone up in flames, and the sheer number of spectators had caused one of the spans of London Bridge to collapse under their weight into the river Thames, that first performance had not been entirely successful.
Who was to say? My re-creation of a few of those famous explosions might make up, if only a little, for what must have been at the time something of a national embarrassment.
Let the show begin!
I swept away the snow from my waterproof flowerpots and reached into my pocket for the igniter. If the wind let up even for a few seconds, one good spark would be all that was needed—a single spark to set off a display of fire they would still be talking about when I was an old lady, cackling over my chemical cauldrons.
I stepped back for one last look at my lovingly crafted explosives.
Perhaps it was because my eyes had been squeezed half shut against the blowing snow that I had not immediately noticed the second set of footprints stretching back towards the door.
Father Christmas! I thought at once. He’s parked his sleigh, walked across the roof, and gone into the house by the same door I’ve just come out.
But why? Why wouldn’t he have climbed immediately down the chimney, as he had been doing for hundreds of years?
Of course! It was suddenly as plain as a pikestaff. Father Christmas was supernatural, wasn’t he? He’d have known about my glue and steered clear of it! Did supernatural beings even leave traces in the snow?