Alan Bradley - The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

Mrs. Mullet was there, too, with a short, roly-poly dumpling of a man visibly restraining her. This must be her husband, Alf, I thought: not at all the Jack Spratt I had imagined. Had she been by herself, Mrs. M would have dashed in and thrown her arms round me and cried, but Alf seemed to be more aware that public displays of familiarity were not quite right. When I gave her a vague smile, she dabbed at one of her eyes with a fingertip.

At that moment, Dr. Darby arrived upon the scene as casually as if he had been out for an evening stroll. In spite of his relaxed manner, I couldn't help noticing that he had brought his black medical bag. His surgery-cum-residence was just round the corner in the High Street, and he must have heard the crash of breaking wood and glass. He looked me over keenly from head to toe.

"Keeping well, Flavia?" he asked as he leaned in for a close look at my eyes.

"Perfectly well, thank you, Dr. Darby," I said pleasantly. "And you?"

He reached for his crystal mints. Before the paper sack was halfway out of his pocket, I was salivating like a dog; hours of captivity and the gag had made the inside of my mouth taste like a Victorian ball-float.

Dr. Darby rummaged for a moment among the mints, carefully selected the one that seemed most desirable, and popped it into his mouth. A moment later he was on his way home.

The little crowd made way as a motorcar turned off into Cow Lane from the High Street. As it bumped to a stop beside the stone wall, its headlamps illuminated two figures standing together beneath an oak: Mary and Ned. They did not come forward, but stood grinning at me shyly from the shadows.

Had Feely seen them there together? I don't believe she had because she was still prattling on tearfully to me about the rescue. If she had spotted them, I might quickly have found myself referee at a rustic bare-knuckles contest: up to my knees in torn-out hair. Daffy once told me that when it comes to a good dust up, it's generally the squire's daughter who gets in the first punch, and no one knows better than I that Feely has it in her. Still, I'm proud to say that I had the presence of mind—and the guts—to give Ned a furtive congratulatory thumbs-up.

The rear door of the Vauxhall opened and Inspector Hewitt climbed out. At the same time, Detective Sergeants Graves and Woolmer unfolded themselves from the front seats and stepped with surprising delicacy out into Cow Lane.

Sergeant Woolmer strode quickly to where Dogger was holding Pemberton in some kind of contorted and painful-looking grip, which caused him to be bent over like a statue of Atlas with the world on his shoulders.

"I'll take him now, sir," Sergeant Woolmer said, and a moment later I thought I heard the snick of nickel-plated handcuffs.

Dogger watched as Pemberton slouched off towards the police car, then turned and came slowly towards me. As he approached, Feely whispered excitedly into my ear, “It was Dogger who thought of using the tractor battery to get the Royce started up. Be sure to compliment him.”

And she dropped my hand and stepped away.

Dogger stood in front of me, his hands hanging down at his sides. If he'd had a hat, he would have been twisting it. We stood there looking at one another.

I wasn't about to begin my thanks by chatting about batteries. I wanted rather to say just the right thing: brave words that would be talked about in Bishop's Lacey for years to come.

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?"

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."