Free Speaking From Among The Bones by Alan Bradley

pulled my notebook and pencilfrom the pocket of my cardigan and pretended to be writing.
    I heard the tires crunch to a heavy stop. The door opened, and closed.
    I snuck a quick peek from the corner of my eye and registered a tall man in a tan mackintosh.
    “Hullo,” he said. “What have we here?”
    As if I were a waxwork figure in Madame Tussauds.
    I went on scribbling nothings in my notebook, resisting the urge to stick my tongue out the corner of my mouth.
    “What are you doing?” he asked, coming dangerously close, as if to look at the page. If there’s one thing I despise, it’s a person who snoops over your shoulder.
    “Writing down number plates,” I said, snapping my notebook shut.
    “Hmmm,” he said, gazing slowly round at the empty landscape. “I shouldn’t imagine you add many to your collection in such an out-of-the-way place.”
    In what I hoped was a properly chilling manner I said, “Well, I’ve got yours, haven’t I?”
    It was true. GBX1066.
    He saw me staring at the Rolls.
    “What do you think of the old bus?” he asked. “Phantom II, 1928. The former owner, requiring something to transport a racehorse in comfort, took a hacksaw to her.”
    “He must have been mad,” I said. I couldn’t help myself.
    “
She
, actually,” he said. “Yes, she was.
Quite
mad. Lady Densley.”
    “Of Densley’s Biscuits?”
    “The very one.”
    As I was thinking about how to respond, he produced a silver case from his pocket, flipped it open, and handed me a card.
    “My name’s Sowerby,” he said. “Adam Sowerby.”
    I glanced at the bit of pasteboard. At least it was tastefully printed in small black type.
    Adam Tradescant Sowerby, MA., FRHortS, etc .
Flora-archaeologist
Seeds of Antiquity—Cuttings—Inquiries
Tower Bridge, London E.1 TN Royal 1066
    Hmmm
, I thought.
The same four digits as his number plates. This man has connections
.
    “You must be Flavia de Luce,” he said, extending a hand. I was about to give back his card when I realized that he intended us to shake.
    “The vicar told me I’d likely find you here,” he went on. “I hope you don’t mind my barging in like this, unannounced.”
    Of course! This was the vicar’s friend, Mr. Sowerby. Mr. Haskins had asked about him in the crypt.
    “Are you related to Sowerby & Sons, our village undertakers?”
    “The present incumbent is, I believe, a third cousin. Some of us Sowerbys have chosen Life, and others Death.”
    I took his hand and gave it an intelligent shake, looking directly into his cornflower-blue eyes.
    “Yes, I’m Flavia de Luce,” I said. “I don’t mind you barging in at all. How may I help you?”
    “Denwyn is an old friend,” he said, not letting go of my hand. “He told me that you could very likely answer my questions.”
    Denwyn was the vicar’s name, and I mentally blessed him for being so frank.
    “I shall do my best,” I replied.
    “When you first looked into that chamber behind the stone, what did you see?”
    “A hand,” I said. “Rather dried. Clutching a broken bit of glass tubing.”
    “Rings?”
    “No.”
    “Fingernails?”
    “Clean. Well manicured. Although his hands and clothing were filthy.”
    “Very good. And then you saw?”
    “The face. At least, a gas mask
covering
the face. Golden-blond hair. Dark lines on the throat.”
    “Anything else?”
    “No. The torch was throwing quite a narrow beam.”
    “Excellent! I see that your reputation—which precedes you—is well deserved.”
    My reputation? The vicar must have told him about those several earlier cases in which I had been able to point the police in the right direction.
    I preened a little, inwardly.
    “No dried petals … vegetation … anything of that sort?”
    “Not that I noticed.”
    Mr. Sowerby gathered himself, as if he were about to ask a tender question. In a hushed voice, he said, “It must have been quite a shock to you. The poor man’s body, I mean.”
    “Yes,” I said, and left it at