Free Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd by Alan Bradley

going soft?
    Would I soon be reduced to one of those gibbering idiots said to be locked away in a walled-up tower room by so many of our titled English families?
    Although homesickness can take many forms, one’s eventual homecoming can be even more terrifying than being away. Could it be one of those illnesses Dogger had once told me about, in which the cure is far worse than the disease?
    I was thinking not so much of Undine as myself.
    “I suppose I’d better go powder my nose and get ready for the hospital,” I said, trying desperately to make light of an otherwise awkward situation.
    “I’m afraid we’ll not be going today,” Dogger said quietly. “Matron feels that Colonel de Luce needs his rest, and Dr. Darby agrees.”
    The taste of disappointment in the mouth is more bitter than gall: more bitter even than brucine or strychnine, which are two of the most sour substances known to humankind.
    My fury was incandescent. I felt as if I were going to burst into flames: as if I were about to spontaneously combust. I hardly dared draw another breath for fear of fanning the fire.
    Where, then, did the power come from—the power that made me nod wisely as if I were in full agreement? The power that made me float as gracefully up the staircase as if I were Vivien Leigh in powdered wig and silk brocade?
    Don’t tell me there are no such things as miracles.
    I know better.
    —
    I was lying on my bed with my hands clasped behind my head. As sometimes happens when you’re frustrated, snippets of verse kept popping, one after another, into my head:
O Timballoo! How happy we are
    When we live in a sieve and a crockery-jar!
    Edward Lear had written that, and Mr. Lear was a very wise man. Living in a sieve and a crockery jar was a near-perfect description of my present situation. Shakespeare himself couldn’t have phrased it better.
When I was down beside the sea
    A wooden spade they gave to me
    To dig the sandy shore.
    This one was Robert Louis Stevenson.
    As a child, I had thought it was a nursery rhyme about burying someone on the beach, but was disappointed to be told that it was merely about puttering in the stupid sand.
    Crispian Crumpet had built sand castles, too, hadn’t he, in those books by Oliver Inchbald? Like a grave digger, Crispian was always doing something with shovels.
    For instance:
Crispian Crumpet is digging a hole
    Down by the garden wall.
    “Where will it take you?” I ask him politely.
    “To China,” he says, “Or Bengal.”
    “What will you do when you get there?” I ask him
    Down by the garden wall.
    “I shall buy tigers or tea,” he says brightly
    “Or a red rubber rug for the hall.”
    Why had Mr. Sambridge kept immaculate first editions of this nauseous drivel on his bedside table? And why was Carla Sherrinford-Cameron’s name inked into one of them?
    Had Carla killed the old wood-carver? It seemed unlikely, but stranger things had happened, as I knew all too well, not only from listening to the detective adventures of Philip Odell on the wireless, but also from my own life.
    Was there some hidden link between the girl and the owner of Thornfield Chase? Could he possibly be her grandfather?
    My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the doorknob being rattled. Since Dogger didn’t rattle doorknobs, I had already worked out who it was most likely to be.
    “Go away!” I said.
    “Open the door,” came Undine’s voice.
    I just knew it!
    “Go away. I’m sleeping.”
    “Let me in, Flavia. It’s vitally urgent.”
    I couldn’t help smiling.
    “Just a minute,” I said. I took my time about letting her in.
    “I’m sorry if I discommoded you,” she said. “Abu used to say that ‘discommoded’ was when you shoved someone off the loo. She was being facetious, of course.”
    “Abu” was the name she had called her mother back home in Singapore. “Possibly,” I said. “What do you want?”
    “Feely promised to take me to the Advent concert at St. Tancred’s, but now