The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

The tile was heavier than it looked, and I had to drop to my knees as I tried to shove it back into place. Per haps the thing had rotated, or maybe the adjoining tiles had sagged. Whatever the reason, it simply would not slide back into the dark socket from which my foot had yanked it.

I could easily slip my hand into the opening to see if there was any obstruction—but then I remembered the spiders and scorpions that are known to inhabit such grottoes.

I closed my eyes and shoved my fingers in. At the back of the cavity they encountered something—something soft.

I jerked back my hand and bent over to peer inside. There was nothing in the hole but darkness.

Carefully, I stuck my fingers in again and, with my thumb and forefinger, plucked at whatever was in there at the back of the hole.

In the end, it came out almost effortlessly, unfolding as it emerged, like the flag that fluttered above my head. It was a length of rusty black cloth—Russell cord, I think the stuff is called—sour with mold: a schoolmaster's gown. And rolled up tightly inside it, crushed beyond repair, was a black, square-topped mortarboard cap.

And in that instant I knew, as sure as a shilling, that these things had played a part in Mr. Twining's death. I didn't know what it was, but I would jolly well find out.

I ought to have left the things there, I know. I ought to have gone to the nearest telephone and rung up Inspector Hewitt. Instead, the first thought that popped into my mind was this: How was I going to get away from Greyminster without being noticed?

And, as it so often does when you're in a jam, the answer came at once.

I shoved my arms into the sleeves of the moldy gown, straightened the bent crown of the mortarboard and jammed it on my head, and like a large black bat, flapped my way slowly and precariously back down the cascades of trembling ladders to the locked door.

The pick I had fashioned from my braces had worked before, and now I needed it to work again. As I fidgeted the wire in the keyhole, I offered up a silent prayer to the god who governs such things.

After a great deal of scraping, a bent wire, and a couple of minor curses, my prayer was finally heard, and the bolt slid back with a sullen croak.

Before you could say “Scat!” I was down the stairs, listening at the bottom door, peering out through a crack at the long hall. The place was in empty silence.

I eased the door open, stepped quietly out into the corridor, and made my way swiftly down the gallery of lost boys, past the empty porter's lodge, and out into the sunshine.

There were schoolboys everywhere—or so it seemed—talking, lounging, strolling, laughing. Glorying in the outdoors with the end of term at hand.

My instinct was to hunch over in my cap and cape and skulk crabwise away across the Quad. Would I be noticed? Of course I would; to these wolfish boys I would stand out like the wounded reindeer at the back of the herd.

No! I would throw my shoulders back and, like a boy late for the hurdles, lope off, head held high, in the direction of the lane. I could only hope that no one would notice that underneath the gown I was wearing a dress.

And nobody did; no one gave me so much as a second glance.

The farther I got from the Quad, the safer I felt, but I knew that, alone in the open, I would be far more conspicuous.

Just a few feet ahead, an ancient oak squatted comfortably on the lawn as if it had been resting there since the days of Robin Hood. As I reached out to touch it (home free!), an arm shot out from behind the trunk and grabbed my wrist.

"Ow! Let go! You're hurting me!" I yelped automatically, and my arm was released at once, even as I was still spinning round to face my assailant.

It was Detective Sergeant Graves, and he seemed every bit as surprised as I was.

"Well, well," he said with a slow grin. "Well, well, well, well, well."

I was going to make a cutting remark, but thought better of it. I knew the sergeant liked me, and I might need all the help I could get.

"The Inspector'd like the pleasure of your company," he said, pointing to a group of people who stood talking in the lane where I had left Gladys.

Sergeant Graves said no more, but as we approached, he pushed me gently in front of him towards Inspector Hewitt like a friendly terrier presenting its master with a dead rat. The torn sole of my shoe was flapping like Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp, but although the Inspector glanced at it, he was considerate enough to keep his thoughts to himself.

Sergeant Woolmer stood towering above the blue Vauxhall, his face as large and craggy as the Matterhorn. In his shadow were a sinewy, darkly tanned man in overalls and a wizened little gentleman with a white mustache who, when he saw me, jabbed at the air excitedly with his finger.

"That's him!" he said. "That's the one!"

"Is it, indeed?" Inspector Hewitt asked, as he lifted the cap from my head and took the gown from my shoulders with the gentle deference of a valet.