The Curious Case of the Copper Corpse by Alan Bradley

Author:Alan Bradley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2014-12-08T16:00:00+00:00

Whistling along with the hymn, I strolled nonchalantly off toward the far end of the building.

I remembered that the housemaster’s study was located just inside the west door. Taking care to avoid the porter’s lodge, I made my way along the back of the building.

Sundays, I decided, are perfect for detective work. Everyone expects that Justice is set aside—at least until church or chapel lets out—and their guard is let down.

I met not a soul, and slipped as easily into Staircase No. 1 as if I were invisible.

The study was precisely where I had remembered it, with the name W. O. G. Denning lettered neatly on a card.

I suffered a brief pang as I realized I should have brought the keys from Mr. Denning’s pocket. Perhaps, though, a man of such authority would have no need to secure his doors: Respect would serve as its own lock and key. Even if he had shot the bolt, I could always count on my powers of lock-picking, for which I am eternally grateful to Dogger. A bent fork from the dining hall or a bit of stout wire from a stovepipe was as good as a Yale key in the right hands. As it turned out, though, I needn’t have worried: The door opened at a touch, and I had locked myself into the housemaster’s study before you could say “Spit!”

My stealth was wasted. The room was as empty of personal belongings as a tomb. Save for a foxed Christmas card from four years ago, propped open on a windowsill, addressed “Dear Mr. Denning,” and signed “Norah Willett (for the Battersea Dogs’ Home),” there was nothing but a bed, a desk, and a shelf of dusty schoolbooks. The desk drawers were empty except for a red pencil, a ruler, scissors, an India-rubber eraser, a box of drawing pins, and a spoon.

It was as if the man had no more needs than a phantom: as if he scarcely existed.

Although I checked under the mattress and pillows and inspected the undersides of drawers and the insides of rolled-up socks, my heart was not in it. I expected to find nothing, and nothing’s what I found.

I let myself out.

In order to reach the stairs, I had first to run the gauntlet of staring, black-framed faces that lined both sides of the hall: those Old Boys of Greyminster, students and masters, who had graduated into death “That Others Might Live,” as it said on each of the frames. I kept eyes front as I passed in review before these now-dead eyes, trying with all my strength not to break into a run before I reached the staircase.

At the back of the next floor up was the chemistry lab: a shameful jungle of unwashed flasks, stained beakers, and soiled petri dishes which showed clearly that Mr. Winter, the chemistry master, was more obsessed with Jaguars and speed than with cleanliness. I could have swatted him!

The blackboard was covered with equations, as well as a list of test results, upon which the names of Somerville and Plaxton led all the rest.

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