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pleased to meet you, Mr. Henry. Allow me to introduce my flower garden.” I had gotten so used to having people say nonsensical things to me in the last few days that it didn’t even faze me.
“Shall we see you at the fete, Mr. Henry?” Iris said, giggling. I’m afraid so, I thought,
I wondered if I could get away with saying I had just been downstairs to get a book. Without a candle. And where was said book?
“The crystal ball didn’t arrive.” “You’d think it would have foreseen that that would happen,” she said,
“You should be ashamed,” I said to him. “Letting her tempt you into a life of crime like that.
“Fish are going to be the death of you, you know that, don’t you?” I said, toweling her back and tail. “Cats only have nine lives, you know, and you’ve already used up six that I know of.” I rubbed her tail. “You need to switch to a safer habit, like smoking.”
“People will buy anything at jumble sales,” I said. “At the
Evacuated Children Charity Fair a woman bought a tree branch that had fallen on the table.”
I squinted at the screen, trying to look intelligent.
“It’s a penwiper,” I said. “A
pen wiper! It’s used to wipe pens!”
“You’re a wonderful girl, you know that?” I said, grabbing her by the shoulders. “You’ve solved a mystery that’s been plaguing me since 1940.
She would. She had to. The trip to Coventry had changed her life and inspired her great-great-great-great-granddaughter to make ours miserable.
Which just goes to show you that hanging round Lady Schrapnell and her ancestors can teach you a thing or two about getting things done.
“I mean the sculpture is a hideous atrocity, vulgarly conceived, badly designed, and shoddily executed,” he said,
“‘Thy fate is the common fate of all,’”Terence quoted.“‘Into each life some rain must
fall, Some days must be dark and dreary,’”
“Where am I?” she said faintly. “Between Upper Elmscott and Oldham Junction,” Tossie said. “On the train from Coventry,” I translated.
“What are you doing out here?” I said. He looked up dully. “‘The mirror crack’d from side to side,’” he said. “‘Out flew the web and floated wide,’” which didn’t exactly clarify things.
Why can’t people say who
and what they are talking about so the eavesdropper has a chance? I thought. The patient. Infection. Be more specific.
“Lady Schrapnell?” Warder said, as if she’d never heard of her. “Yes. Lady Schrapnell,” I said. “Coventry Cathedral. The bane of our existence. Lady Schrapnell.”
The sky outside was gray and overcast. “Oh, I hope it doesn’t rain for the consecration,” Verity said as we ran. “Are you joking?” I panted. “Lady Schrapnell would never allow it.”
“There is nothing heavier than the weight of a secret crime.”
A Grand Design we couldn’t see because we were part of it. A Grand Design we only got occasional, fleeting glimpses of. A Grand Design involving the entire course of history and all of time and space that, for some unfathomable reason, chose to work out its designs with cats and croquet mallets
and penwipers, to say nothing of the dog. And a hideous piece of Victorian artwork. And us.
“Also balderdash, pish-tosh, stuff-and-nonsense, humbug, and pshaw! To say nothing of poppycock!
That’s the problem with models—they only include the details people think are relevant, and Waterloo was a chaotic system.Everything was relevant.”
Grand Design made of a thousand thousand details.
