The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

A dark shape moving in front of the Vauxhall's headlamps caught my attention as, for a moment, it cast Dogger and me into the shadows. A familiar figure, silhouetted in black and white, stood out like a paper cutout against the glare: Father.

He began shambling slowly, almost shyly, towards me. But when he noticed Dogger at my side, he stopped and, as if he had just thought of something vitally important, turned aside to have a few quiet words with Inspector Hewitt.

Miss Cool, the postmistress, gave me a pleasant nod but kept herself well back, as if I were somehow a different Flavia than the one who—had it been only two days ago?—had bought one-and-six worth of sweets from her shop.

"Feely," I said, turning to her, "do me a favor: Pop back into the pit and fetch me my handkerchief—and be sure to bring me what's wrapped up inside it. Your dress is already filthy, so it won't make much difference. There's a good girl."

Feely's jaw dropped about a yard, and I thought for a moment she was going to punch me in the teeth. Her whole face grew as red as her lips. And then suddenly she spun on her heel and vanished into the shadows of the Pit Shed.

I turned to Dogger to deliver my soon-to-be-classic remark, but he beat me to it.

"My, Miss Flavia," he said quietly. "It's turning out to be a lovely evening, isn't it?"

27

INSPECTOR HEWITT WAS STANDING IN THE CENTER of my laboratory, turning slowly round, his gaze sweeping across the scientific equipment and the chemical cabinets like the beam from a lighthouse. When he had made a complete circle, he stopped, then made another in the opposite direction.

"Extraordinary!" he said, drawing the word out. "Simply extraordinary!"

A ray of deliciously warm sunlight shone in through the tall casement windows, illuminating from within a beaker of red liquid that was just coming to a boil. I decanted half of the stuff into a china cup and handed it to the Inspector. He stared at it dubiously.

"It's tea," I said. "Assam from Fortnum and Mason. I hope you don't mind it being warmed-over."

"Warmed-over is all we drink at the station," he said. "I settle for no other."

As he sipped, he wandered slowly round the room, examining the chemical apparatus with professional interest. He took down a jar or two from the shelves and held each one up to the light, then bent down to peer through the eyepiece of my Leitz. I could see that he was having some difficulty in getting to the point.

"Beautiful bit of bone china," he said at last, raising the cup above his head to read the maker's name on the bottom.

"Quite early Spode," I said. "Albert Einstein and George Bernard Shaw drank tea from that very cup when they visited Great-Uncle Tarquin—not both at the same time, of course."

"One wonders what they might have made of one another?" Inspector Hewitt said, glancing at me.

"One wonders," I said, glancing back.

The Inspector took another sip of his tea. Somehow, he seemed restless, as if there was something he would like to say, but couldn't find a way to begin.

"It's been a difficult case," he said. "Bizarre, really. The man whose body you found in the garden was a total stranger—or seemed to be. All we knew was that he came from Norway."

"The snipe," I said.

"I beg your pardon?"

"The dead jack snipe on our kitchen doorstep. Jack snipe are never found in England until autumn. It had to have been brought from Norway—in a pie. That's how you knew, isn't it?"

The Inspector looked puzzled.

"No," he said. "Bonepenny was wearing a new pair of shoes stamped with the name of a shoemaker in Stavanger.”

"Oh," I said.

"From that, we were able to follow his trail quite easily." As he spoke, Inspector Hewitt's hands drew a map in the air. "Our inquiries here and abroad told us that he'd taken the boat from Stavanger to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and traveled from there by rail to York, then on to Doddingsley. From Doddingsley he took a taxi to Bishop's Lacey."

Aha! Precisely as I had surmised.

"Exactly," I said. "And Pemberton—or should I say, Bob Stanley?—followed him, but stopped short at Doddingsley. He stayed at the Jolly Coachman."

One of Inspector Hewitt's eyebrows rose up like a cobra. “Oh?” he said, too casually. “How do you know that?”

"I rang up the Jolly Coachman and spoke with Mr. Cleaver."

"Is that all?"

"They were in it together, just as they were in the murder of Mr. Twining."

"Stanley denies that," he said. "Claims he had nothing to do with it. Pure as the driven snow, and all that."

"But he told me in the Pit Shed that he had killed Bonepenny! Besides that, he more or less admitted that my theory was correct: The suicide of Mr. Twining was a staged illusion."

"Well, that remains to be seen. We're looking into it, but it's going to take some time, although I must say your father has been most helpful. He's now told us the whole story of what led up to poor Twining's death. I only wish he had decided earlier to be so accommodating. We might have saved…

"I'm sorry," he said. "I was speculating."

"My abduction," I said.