Free I Am Half-Sick Of Shadows by Alan Bradley

little pink and smiled like a happy saint.
    “… and decided that sooner is better than later. Poor Val is facing a couple of unforeseen difficulties: an injured wrangler, a missing camera, and now, I’m told, a frozen generator. We’re not likely to expose any film for a couple of days yet. I know it’s terribly short notice, but do you think you could arrange something for tomorrow?”
    A shadow crossed the vicar’s face.
    “Dear me,” he said, “I shouldn’t wish to seem ungrateful, but there
are
certain difficulties of a … ah … practical nature.”
    “Such as?” she asked charmingly.
    “Well, to be perfectly frank, the WC in the parish hall has gone for a burton. Which means, of course, that any public function is simply not on. Poor Dick Plews, our plumber, has been laid up with influenza for days now, and not likely to be up and about for quite some time. The poor dear man’s eighty-two, you know, and though he’s usually as chipper as a sparrow, this bitter cold …”
    “Perhaps one of our technical people could—”
    “Most kind of you, I’m sure, but I’m afraid that’s not the worst of it. Our furnace, too, has been baring its fangs. The Monster in the Basement, we call it. It’s a Deacon and Bromwell, made in 1851, and shown at the Great Exhibition—a great steel octopus of a thing with the temperament of a scorpion. Dick has been having an affair of the heart with the brute since he was no more than a lad at his father’s knee. He coddles it outrageously, but in recent years he’s been reduced to casting replacement parts by hand, and, well, you see …”
    I hadn’t noticed him yet, but Father had come from his study and was standing quietly beside a pile of packing cases.
    “Perhaps a solution is more closely at hand,” he said, coming forward. “Miss Wyvern, welcome to Buckshaw. I’m Haviland de Luce.”
    “Colonel de Luce! What a pleasure to meet you at last! I’ve heard so much about you. I’m greatly indebted to you for so graciously opening your lovely home to us.”
    Lovely home? Was she being facetious? I couldn’t tell.
    “Not at all,” Father was saying. “We are all of us debtors in one way or another.”
    There was an uneasy silence.
    “I, for instance,” he went on, “am in the debt of my friend the vicar for fetching my sister and me from the train at Doddingsley. A most hazardous mission over treacherous roads, brought to a happy conclusion by his remarkable driving skills.”
    The vicar muttered something about winter tires augmented with snow chains and then subsided to allow Father his time in the spotlight with Phyllis Wyvern.
    They were still holding hands and Father was saying:
    “Perhaps I may be allowed to offer the use of Buckshaw for your performance? It is, after all, only for an evening, and I’m sure it wouldn’t infringe upon our agreement if the foyer were cleared and set up with chairs for a few hours.”
    “Splendid!” the vicar chimed in. “There’s room enough here for every soul in Bishop’s Lacey, man, woman, and child, with room left over for elbows. Come to think of it, it’s even more spacious than the parish hall. How odd that I didn’t think of it before! It’s too late for posters and handbills, but I’ll ask Cynthia to produce some tickets on the hectograph. But first things first. She’ll need to get the ladies of the Calling Circle organized to ring round the village and sign everyone up.”
    “And I’ll have a word with our director,” Phyllis Wyvern said, letting go of Father’s hand at last. “I’m sure it will be all right. Val can’t say no to me in certain spheres, and I’ll see to it that this is one of them.”
    She smiled charmingly but I noticed that both Father and the vicar looked away.
    “Good morning, Flavia,” she said at last, but her acknowledgment of my presence came too late for my liking.
    “Good morning, Miss Wyvern,” I said, and walked off coolly towards the drawing room