A Red Herring Without Mustard

She brushed her hair away from her face and walked back to one of the laboratory tables, where she splayed her fingers out upon its surface, as if to keep from toppling over.

“I went back to the caravan to pick up my things,” she said, slowly and deliberately, “and the police were there again. They wouldn’t let me anywhere near it. They were lifting something out of a hole in the ground.”

“Lifting what?”

She was staring at me with something that might have been defiance.

“Believe me, it wasn’t gold.”

“Tell me!”

“For God’s sake, Flavia!”

I waved the key at her. “Tell me.”

“It was a body. Wrapped in a carpet, or something—not very big. A child, I think. I only saw one of the feet … or what was left of it.

“A bundle of old green bones,” she added.

She clapped her hand across her mouth and her shoulders heaved.

I waited patiently for more, but if there were any further interesting details, Porcelain was keeping them to herself.

We stared at each other for what seemed like a very long time.

“Fenella was right,” she said at last. “There is a darkness here.”

I held out the key and she lifted it from my open palm with two fingers, as if it—or I—were contaminated.

Without a word, she unlocked the door and let herself out.

What was I supposed to feel? I wondered.

To be perfectly honest, I think I had been looking forward to having Porcelain dog my every step as I went about investigating the attack upon Fenella and the murder of Brookie Harewood. I had even thought of ways of giving her the slip, if necessary, as I traipsed about the village, digging up information. And perhaps I had too much anticipated sitting her down and patiently explaining the trail of clues, and the ways in which they pointed to the culprit—or culprits.

But now, by walking out, she had deprived me of all of that.

I was alone again.

As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

No one to talk to but myself.

Except Dogger, of course.

Dogger was sitting in the last shaft of sunlight in the garden. He had brought an old wooden chair from the greenhouse and, perched upon the edge of its seat, was hammering nails into the tin stripping that sealed the wooden tea chest that lay before him in the grass.

I lowered myself into the wheelbarrow that was standing nearby.

“They’ve found another body,” I said. “At the Palings.”

Dogger nodded. “I believe that’s so, Miss Flavia.”

“It’s the Bull baby, isn’t it?”

Dogger nodded again and put down the hammer. “I should be surprised if it weren’t.”

“Did you hear about it from Mrs. Mullet?”

Although I knew it was not a done thing to inquire of one servant about another, there was no other way. I couldn’t just ring up Inspector Hewitt and pump him for the details.

“No,” he said, preparing to drive home another nail. “Miss Porcelain told me.”

“Porcelain?” I said, gesturing up towards the east wing—towards my bedroom window. “You knew about Porcelain? That she was staying here?”

“Yes,” Dogger said, and left it at that.

After a few seconds I relaxed, and there fell between us another one of those luxurious silences that is part of most conversations with Dogger: silences so long and profound and golden that it seems irreverent to break them.

Dogger rotated the tea chest and began to apply stripping to another edge.

“You have very fine hands,” I said at last. “They look as if they belong to a concert pianist.”

Dogger put down the hammer and examined both sides of each hand as if he had never seen them before.

“I can assure you that they are my own,” he said.

This time, there could be no doubt about it. Dogger had made a joke. But rather than laughing condescendingly, I did the right thing and nodded wisely, as if I knew it all along. I was learning that among friends, a smile can be better than a belly laugh.

“Dogger,” I said, “there’s something I need to know. It’s about nosebleeds.”

I had the impression that he looked at me sharply—even though he hadn’t.

“Are you having nosebleeds, Miss Flavia?”

“No,” I said. “No—not at all. It’s no one here at Buckshaw. Actually, it’s Miss Mountjoy, at Willow Villa.”

And I described to him what I had seen in that dank kitchen.

“Ah,” Dogger said, and then fell silent. After a time, he spoke again—slowly—as if his words were being retrieved, one by one, from some deep well.

“Recurrent nosebleeds—epitaxis—may have many causes.”

“Such as?” I urged.

“Genetic predisposition,” he said. “Hypertension—or high blood pressure … pregnancy … dengue—or breakbone—fever … nasopharyngeal cancer … adrenal tumor … scurvy … certain diseases of the elderly, such as hardening of the arteries. It may also be symptomatic of arsenic poisoning.”

Of course! I knew that! How could I have forgotten?

“However,” Dogger went on, “from what you’ve told me, it is none of these. Miss Mountjoy’s nosebleeds are most likely brought on by the excessive consumption of cod-liver oil.”

“Cod-liver oil?” I must have said it aloud.