Violet stepped away, over to where the undertaker’s few sample coffins lay propped open, to give Vernon a bit of privacy to deal with the man. She understood what it was to have irrational customers. The grieving tended to be void of manners and politeness in the aftermath of a death, especially in the face of an unexpected one.
As the customer continued to rail against Vernon, who tried his best to placate the man, Violet wondered if the man had lost a wife, a parent, a child, or someone else. She then realized that although the customer was berating Vernon for dereliction of duty, he had not yet said anything about his loved one. That was curious. Typically, the grieving spoke of nothing else.
Vernon finally managed to calm the man down enough to get him out of the shop, with a promise to see him within the hour. “Don’t be late this time,” the man growled as the door’s bells jangled behind him.
The undertaker came to where Violet now stood among the coffins. He was pale and perspiring, and she noticed his right hand trembling. Had the customer so unnerved him that he was near to breaking down? An experienced undertaker became used to torrential outbursts, threats of violence, and any manner of unusual behavior. What had just happened with his customer wasn’t completely abnormal.
“Mr. Vernon, are you quite all right?” Violet asked.
“Yes, yes, of course.” He removed a handkerchief from a pocket and mopped his chubby face. “Sometimes clients are very demanding. Well, as you can see, I have my duties to attend to, if you will excuse me.”
Vernon was clearly relieved at the thought of getting rid of her.
“Pardon me, sir, was your customer unhappy with his service? Perhaps there is a way I can help you?”
“Ah, no. You know how it is. Sometimes people expect too much of an undertaker. Think it is our job to make them appear lifelike.”
Violet frowned. “But that
is
our job.”
“Of course, but when we get overwhelmed with too many bodies, certain . . . embellishments . . . have to be put aside to ensure we have everything ready for a backlog of funerals. Some customers are more, ahem, fussy than others and demand perfection.”
Violet did not like what she was hearing at all. Vernon was essentially admitting that he was deceptive, if not outright fraudulent, in his work. Undoubtedly he charged the same no matter what he did.
Violet was overcome by a thought and blurted it out without stopping to consider the repercussions of voicing it aloud. “I have a suspicion, Mr. Vernon. I suggest that you are, at a minimum, very lazy in your undertaking practices. You receive bodies and, with little inspection or preparation, toss them into coffins to be delivered to cemeteries, hospitals, or medical schools.”
Vernon blanched as his eyes blinked as rapidly as a hummingbird’s wings. “I object to your accusation, Mrs. Harper, which you are in no position to make. I am—”
“Sometimes you get confused and aren’t sure which body goes where. I also think that in your haste and confusion, you are accepting merely unconscious people and sending them off to their destinations, where they awake in total terror. It has happened twice in my own presence, and who knows how many other times.”
Vernon glanced around nervously, as though worried that someone else might enter the shop. He dropped his voice. “Mrs. Harper, I understand you are upset about mysterious doings at Brookwood.”
Violet knew that voice; she’d used it many times herself to soothe irate relatives. Did he think she wouldn’t know it when she heard it?
“I am by no means upset, Mr. Vernon. I am curious. I am perplexed. And at this moment, I am very suspicious.”
Vernon dropped his voice even lower, and this time in a matter of seconds it went from soothing to menacing, a thoroughly incongruent sound from the mousy man. “You are testing me, Mrs. Harper, for no good reason. May I suggest that it would be wise for you to take your leave now?”
What chord had Violet struck so precisely? Was she completely in tune in her assumption of his shoddy practices, or was she missing notes? Or was there something else making Vernon nervous? She couldn’t leave yet, not when she might be close to an answer.
With a fluid movement, he took an ominous step closer. She stood her ground, even though she had an overwhelming urge to turn and flee. “Do not attempt to intimidate me, sir. I am merely seeking answers, and if you are a fraud—”
“You dare accuse me?” His voice seemed to throb with suppressed rage as he enunciated his next words slowly. “You stupid, witless woman, you have no idea what you’re doing.” The hand that was trembling was now clenching and reclenching in a fist, the movement only slightly less rapid as his eyes were spasmodically blinking.
Violet wondered if she’d pushed him too far. It was too late to recant what she’d said, although she stole a glance toward the shop’s door. She would have to dodge a couple of coffins to reach it, but she could do so, provided her skirts didn’t get caught or tangled up against anything. The shop was fairly sparse, so it shouldn’t be too difficult.
She took a breath, exhaled, and dove recklessly back in. “As I said, sir, I am merely an undertaker seeking answers about some bodies that were found—”
To Violet’s burgeoning horror, Vernon’s right hand snaked out like a striking viper and grabbed her by the throat. She clawed desperately at his hands, scrabbling to remove them, but he was surprisingly more powerful than he looked. His fingers dug in, pressing in to cut off her windpipe. Within seconds, he had lifted her off the ground and her booted feet were reaching uselessly for the ground. She couldn’t breathe, the excruciating pain arresting her flailing movements. His grasp was so tight that she was helpless to even utter a noise of protest.
Vernon put his face close to hers, his once pale and timid face suffused with malevolent rage. She could see an unearthly brightness in his eyes as he stared intently at her as if in fascination over her suffering.
“You want to discuss corpses? What if we discuss yours?” he growled menacingly. The sound of his voice was starting to fade, as if it came from the far end of a long tunnel.
Just as everything in the room slowly closed into a pinpoint of the pale-gray color of three-day-old dead skin, Violet felt herself lifted even higher. Then she was flying backward, completely weightless until she found herself on her back staring up at the ceiling. She had the completely irrelevant thought that there were rust stains on the ceiling, most likely from rainspouts leaking into the building. The thought evaporated as she began coughing frantically, drawing in great, wheezing breaths now that air was finally rushing into her windpipe.
Where was she?
She gasped several times and was only vaguely aware of her limbs being jostled and thrown together. Vernon’s face loomed over hers, and he said quietly, “You must learn manners, Mrs. Harper.” A large shadow appeared between Vernon and Violet.
“No!” she cried out weakly as she realized what Vernon was doing, but in a moment the world was black and in the darkness she knew that her nose was mere inches from the underside of the coffin lid. In fact, she could smell the sickeningly pungent traces of varnish that had probably been applied a couple of weeks ago to this sample coffin.
Taking uncontrollably shallow breaths, her first instinct was to scream, as a crest of pure terror washed over her.
Don’t panic,
she thought.
Don’t do anything that will take air out of the coffin too quickly.
She knew she had less than two hours of air inside the box. What was she to do? If she begged for mercy and Vernon refused to listen, or had even left the shop, she would use up much of her air. But if she did nothing, she would surely die.
All of a sudden, Violet very much wished she were in a bell coffin.
Wait a minute. Might she be? She clung to that small and improbable hope as she felt around for a cord or metal loop. Nothing. Of course, she was packed in so tightly that it was difficult to do more than stretch her arms just slightly at her sides. No wonder the string had to be attached to the finger before burial. Finding herself needing the very device she despised, Violet was overcome with the strange desire to laugh hysterically.
She took one more deep breath. The air was already getting stale inside the coffin.
Don’t panic,
she reminded herself. Then she realized that she hadn’t heard the sound of Vernon securing the lid to the coffin. Nor could she hear him moving about outside the coffin. Maybe he was gone, and all she had to do was push the lid off.
Except she couldn’t. In the cramped space, it was as if her arms were pinned down to her sides, and she couldn’t maneuver them up enough to get leverage under the lid.
That brief flickering of hope was extinguished like a candle stub. She really was going to die inside a coffin in an undertaker’s shop. Visions of Susanna giggling over silly things and the way Sam’s eyes lit up when Violet entered a room swam in her head. It just wasn’t possible that she wouldn’t see them again.
But how would anyone find her here? Vernon would just ship her off to Brookwood to be handed over to the Royal Surrey County Hospital.
A bubble of wild laughter erupted from her at the thought, a sign that she had surely lost her sanity during these past few minutes. Or had it been an hour?
Suddenly there was light, nearly overwhelming her in its glorious brightness. Was she dead? Was this the entry to heaven?
It couldn’t be because James Vernon loomed over her again, and it had to be impossible that he would be in residence
there
. “Mrs. Harper?” he asked solicitously. Concern and worry etched his face.
Violet realized that she wasn’t dead, yet she was still lying in a coffin. Now that she was accustomed to the light, she breathed in deeply and gratefully, welcoming the fresh air that filled her lungs.
Vernon was his previous meek self again. “My goodness, Mrs. Harper, what are you doing in there?” He shook his head, mystification and disbelief in his eyes.
“What do you mean?” Violet said in complete outrage as Vernon offered her an arm and helped her out of the coffin. She hated that she had to accept this odious man’s help from the coffin bed. “You pushed me in there, you, you—” Violet was speechless from her ordeal.
He looked at her curiously. “My dear lady, it would be akin to murder to put a live body in a coffin. I would never do such a thing.”
Violet blinked. Was Vernon a Bedlamite, or was she? Had she imagined the entire interlude? She put a hand to her neck, now tender to the touch. It affirmed for her that she wasn’t the daft one. “You choked me and threatened me just now.”
“Mrs. Harper!” He gasped, a look of horror on his face. “You impugn my honor. I am a respectable undertaker, not a marauding villain. I think you may have damaged your senses when you locked yourself in that coffin.” His eyelids were in motion again.
What was wrong with the man? One moment he was a wilted flower, the next he transformed into an enraged madman, then the next he was an innocent bystander. Violet wasn’t sure whether to shout at the man or cry in frustration. Deciding neither was helpful, she realized the smartest thing to do was to leave the shop before Vernon decided to do something worse, like stuff her in an urn or tie her up in a shroud and dispose of her off Westminster Bridge.
“Pardon me, I must have made a mistake.” She spoke through gritted teeth.
He smiled expansively. “We all make mistakes at times, Mrs. Harper. Let not your heart be troubled.”
Violet edged her way past the man and out of his shop. By the time she reached the cabstand at the top of the street, she was trembling in delayed reaction to Vernon’s abuse. Should she go to the police? Would they even believe her story that an undertaker had pushed a fellow undertaker into a coffin? Violet could almost imagine the ensuing laughter. No, she had had enough humiliation for one day.
A half hour later, as she exited the cab at her own shop, though, her fear had transformed into fury over what had happened—or nearly happened—to her. She headed to the back room to perform some mindless tasks so she could spend time in thought, but Harry greeted her with “Good afternoon, Mrs. Harper. Would you care to take a look at how I’ve set up the Boyce and Sons coffins?”
Violet stopped, but just for a moment. “Truthfully, Harry, the last thing in the world I wish to see right now is the inside of a coffin.”
She left Harry scratching his head in puzzlement.
Roger awoke slowly in the still darkness. He attempted to adjust his eyes to the blackness, but they refused to cooperate. Why couldn’t he see anything? He blinked several times. It didn’t help. He’d never been in such a black space before, but his mind was as foggy as St. Paul’s churchyard on a December morning. He remembered the events of the past few days through a glass darkly, as his grandfather used to say. Everything was just gray, opaque shapes and unintelligible voices.
He rolled to one side. Or attempted to roll to one side. His left shoulder met with an immovable object. What in the name of . . . ?
Roger tried moving the other way and met the same resistance. He also attempted to spread his hands out. They, too, met with resistance. He closed his eyes again, which made no difference to his situation but somehow made it easier to think.
Where
am
I? What is happening to me?
He shook his head, and the gray shapes began to form and lump together, creating coherent—and chillingly frightening—images. Roger now knew exactly where he was and began panting heavily.
It was then that he could feel the thrum of the furious but rhythmic clacking deep below him, and a doleful whistle in the distance. What was that? Was there someone nearby?
“Help me!” he shouted. His words bounced ineffectively around in his confined space.
He flexed his fingers to feel around and realized there was a string tied around his right forefinger. He began tugging frantically on the string.