The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

Curses! I'd been spotted. To ignore a “haroo” from Maximilian—even one from a bus stop bench—was to ignore the eleventh commandment. I pretended I had just noticed him, and laid on a bogus grin as I wheeled Gladys towards him through the weeds.

Maximilian had lived for many years in the Channel Islands, where he had been pianist with the Alderney Symphony, a position—he said—which required a great deal of patience and a good supply of detective novels.

On Alderney, it was only necessary (or so he had told me once while chatting about crime, at St. Tancred's annual Flower Show), in order to bring down the full power of the law, to stand in the middle of the town square and cry “Haroo, haroo, mon prince. On me fait tort!" This was called the "hue and cry," and meant, in essence, "Attention, my Prince, someone is torting me!” Or, in other words, committing a crime against me.

"And how are you, my little pelican?" Max asked, canting his head like a magpie awaiting a crumb of response even before it was offered.

"I'm all right," I said warily, remembering that Daffy had once told me that Max was like one of those spiders that paralyzed you with a bite, and didn't quit until he had sucked the last drop of juice from your life—and from the life of your family.

"And your father, the good Colonel?"

"He's keeping busy, what with one thing and another," I said. I felt my heart give a flip-flop in my breast.

"That Miss Ophelia, now," he asked. "Is she still painting her face like Jezebel and admiring herself in the tea service?"

This was too close to home, even for me. It was none of his business, but I knew that Maximilian could fly into a towering rage at the drop of a hat. Feely sometimes referred to him behind his back as “Rumpelstiltskin,” and Daffy as “Alexander Pope—or lower.”

Still, I had found Maximilian, in spite of his repellent habits, and perhaps because of our similarity in stature, occasionally to be an interesting and informative conversationalist—just so long as you didn't mistake his diminutive size for weakness.

"She's very well, thank you," I said. "Her complexion was quite lovely this morning."

I did not add “maddeningly.”

"Max," I asked, before he could wedge in another question, "do you think I could ever learn to play that little toccata by Paradisi?"

"No," he said, without an instant's hesitation. "Your hands are not the hands of a great artist. They are the hands of a poisoner."

I grinned. This was our little joke. And it was obvious that he had not yet learned of the murder at Buckshaw.

"And the other one?" he asked. "Daphne. the slow sister?"

"Slow" was a reference to Daffy's prowess, or lack of it, at the piano: an endless, painful quest to place unwilling fingers upon keys that seemed to shy away from her touch. Daffy's battle with the instrument was one of the hen pitted against the fox, a losing battle that always ended in tears. And yet, because Father insisted upon it, the war went on.

One day when I found her sobbing on the bench with her head on the closed piano lid, I had whispered, “Give it up, Daff,” and she had flown at me like a fighting cock.

I had even tried encouragement. Whenever I heard her at the Broadwood, I would drift into the drawing room, lean against the piano, and gaze off into the distance as if her playing had enchanted me. Usually she ignored me, but once when I said, “What a lovely piece that is! What's it called?” she had almost slammed the lid on my fingers.

"The scale of G major!" she had shrieked, and fled the room.

Buckshaw was not an easy place in which to live.

"She's well," I said. "Reading Dickens like billy-ho. Can't get a word out of her."

"Ah," Maximilian said. "Dear old Dickens."

He didn't seem to be able to think of anything further on that topic, and I dived into the momentary silence.

"Max," I said. "You're a man of the world—"

At this he preened himself, and puffed up to whatever little height he could muster.

"Not just a man of the world—a boulevardier," he said.

"Exactly," I said, wondering what the word meant. "Have you ever visited Stavanger?" It would save me looking it up in the atlas.

"What? Stavanger in Norway?"

"SNAP!" I almost shouted aloud. Horace Bonepenny had been in Norway! I took a deep breath to recover myself, hoping it would be mistaken for impatience.

"Of course in Norway," I said condescendingly. "Are there other Stavangers?"

For a moment I thought he was onto me. His eyes narrowed and I felt a chill as the thunderclouds of a Maximilian tantrum blew across the sun. But then he gave a tiny giggle, like springwater gurgling into a glass.