A Red Herring Without Mustard

Filtered through the willow branches outside, the weak green light that seeped in through the two small windows above the sink gave the plates a weird and watery tint, which reminded me of what the Trafalgar Lawn had looked like after the rain: after the taking down of Brookie’s body from the Poseidon fountain.

At the entrance to the narrow passage through which we had entered the kitchen was a chipped wooden cabinet, on top of which was a cluster of identical bottles, all of them medicinal-looking.

Only as I read their labels did the smell hit me. How odd, I thought: the sense of smell is usually lightning fast, often speedier than that of sight or hearing.

But now there was no doubt about it. The whole room—even Miss Mountjoy herself—reeked of cod-liver oil.

Perhaps until that moment the sight of Miss Mountjoy’s nosebleed and her blood-splattered clothing had overwhelmed my sense of smell. Although I had first noticed the fishy odor when I saw her dripping blood at the door, and again when I had applied the cold key to the nape of her neck, my brain must have labeled the fact as not immediately important, and tucked it away for later consideration.

My experience of cod-liver oil was vast. Much of my life had been spent fleeing the oncoming Mrs. Mullet, who, with uncorked bottle and a spoon the size of a garden spade, pursued me up and down the corridors and staircases of Buckshaw—even in my dreams.

Who in their right mind would want to swallow something that looked like discarded engine oil and was squeezed out of fish livers that had been left to rot in the sun? The stuff was used in the tanning of leather, and I couldn’t help wondering what it would do to one’s insides.

“Open up, dearie,” I could hear Mrs. Mullet calling as she trundled after me. “It’s good for you.”

“No! No!” I would shriek. “No acid! Please don’t make me drink acid!”

And it was true—I wasn’t just making this up. I had analyzed the stuff in my laboratory and found it to contain a catalogue of acids, among them oleic, margaric, acetic, butyric, fellic, cholic, and phosphoric, to say nothing of the oxides, calcium and sodium.

In the end, I had made a bargain with Mrs. M: She would allow me to take the cod-liver oil alone in my room at bedtime, and I would stop screaming like a tortured banshee and kicking at her ankles. I swore it on my mother’s grave.

Harriet, of course, had no grave. Her body was somewhere in the snows of Tibet.

Happy to be relieved of a difficult and unwanted task, Mrs. Mullet had pretended to be scandalized, but cheerfully handed over both spoon and bottle.

My mind came snapping back to the present like a rubber ball on an elastic string.

“Trouble with antiques, was it?” I heard myself say. “You’re not alone in that, Miss Mountjoy.”

Although I almost missed it, her rapid glance upwards, towards the spot where the missing plate had hung, told me I had hit the bull’s-eye.

She saw me following her gaze.

“It was from the time of Hongwu, the first Ming emperor. He told me he knew a man—”

“Brookie?” I interrupted.

She nodded.

“He said he knew someone who could have the piece assessed discreetly, and at reasonable cost. Things have been difficult since the war, you see, and I thought of—”

“Yes, I know, Miss Mountjoy,” I said. “I understand.”

With Father’s financial difficulties, and the blizzard of past-due accounts that arrived with every postal delivery being the subject of much idle chitchat in Bishop’s Lacey, there was no need for her to explain her own poverty.

Her look formed a bond between us. “Partners in debt,” it seemed to say.

“He told me the railway had broken it. He’d packed the plate in straw, he said, and put it in a barrel, but somehow—he’d taken out no insurance, of course, trying to keep expenses down—trying not to burden me with additional—and then—”

“Someone spotted it in an antiques shop,” I blurted.

She nodded. “My niece, Julia. In Pimlico. She said, ‘Auntie, you’ll never guess what I saw today: the mate to your Ming!’

“She was standing right there where you are, and just as you did, she looked up and saw the empty space on the shelf. ‘Oh, Auntie!’ she said. ‘Oh, Auntie.’

“We tried to get the plate back, of course, but the man said he had it on consignment from an MP who lived in the next street. Couldn’t give out names because of confidentiality. Julia was all for going to the police, but I reminded her that Uncle Jamieson, who brought the piece into the family, was not always on the up-and-up. I’m sorry to have to tell you that story, Flavia, but I’ve always made it a point to be scrupulously honest.”

I nodded and gave her a little look of disappointment. “But Brookie Harewood,” I said. “How did he come to get his hands on the plate?”

“Because he’s my tenant. He lives in my coach house, you see.”

Brookie? Here? In Miss Mountjoy’s coach house? This was news to me.