Alan Bradley - The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

DAFFY WAS IN THE DRAWING ROOM, sprawled full-length on the carpet, reading The Prisoner of Zenda .

"Are you aware that you move your lips when you read?" I asked.

She ignored me. I decided to risk my life.

"Speaking of lips," I said, "where's Feely?"

"At the doctor's," she said. "She had some kind of allergic outbreak. Something she came in contact with."

Aha! My experiment had succeeded brilliantly! No one would ever know. As soon as I had a moment to myself, I'd record it in my notebook:

Tuesday, 6th of June 1950, 1:20 P.M. Success! Outcome as postulated. Justice is served.

I let out a quiet snort. Daffy must have heard it, for she rolled over and crossed her legs.

"Don't think for a moment you've got away with it," she said quietly.

"Huh?" I said. Innocent puzzlement was my specialty.

"What witch's brew did you put in her lipstick?"

"I haven't the faintest what you're talking about," I said.

"Have a peek at yourself in the looking-glass," Daffy said. "Watch you don't break it."

I turned and went slowly to the chimneypiece where a cloudy leftover from the Regency period hung sullenly reflecting the room.

I bent closer, peering at my image. At first I saw nothing other than my usual brilliant self, my violet eyes, my pale complexion: but as I stared, I began to notice more details in the ravaged mercury reflection.

There was a splotch on my neck. An angry red splotch! Where Feely had kissed me!

I let out a shriek of anguish.

"Feely said that before she'd been in the pit five seconds she'd paid you back in full."

Even before Daffy rolled over and went back to her stupid sword story, I had come up with a plan.

ONCE, WHEN I WAS ABOUT NINE, I had kept a diary about what it was like to be a de Luce, or at least what it was like to be this particular de Luce. I thought a great deal about how I felt and finally came to the conclusion that being Flavia de Luce was like being a sublimate: like the black crystal residue that is left on the cold glass of a test tube by the violet fumes of iodine. At the time, I thought it the perfect description, and nothing has happened over the past two years to change my mind.

As I have said, there is something lacking in the de Luces: some chemical bond, or lack of it, that ties their tongues whenever they are threatened by affection. It is as unlikely that one de Luce would ever tell another that she loved her as it is that one peak in the Himalayas would bend over and whisper sweet nothings to an adjacent crag.

This point was proven when Feely stole my diary, pried open the brass lock with a can opener from the kitchen, and read aloud from it while standing at the top of the great staircase dressed in clothing she had stolen from a neighbor's scarecrow.

These thoughts were in my mind as I approached the door of Father's study. I paused, unsure of myself. Did I really want to do this?

I knocked uncertainly on the door. There was a long silence before Father's voice said, “Come.”

I twisted the knob and stepped into the room. At a table by the window, Father looked up for a moment from his magnifying lens, and then went on with his examination of a magenta stamp.

"May I speak?" I asked, aware, even as I said it, that it was an odd thing to be saying, and yet it seemed precisely the right choice of words.

Father put down the glass, removed his spectacles, and rubbed his eyes. He looked tired.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the piece of blue writing paper into which I had folded the Ulster Avenger. I stepped forward like a supplicant, put the paper on his desk, and stepped back again.

Father opened it.

"Good Lord!" he said. "It's AA."

He put his spectacles back on and picked up his jeweler's loupe to peer at the stamp.

Now, I thought, comes my reward. I found myself focused on his lips, waiting for them to move.

"Where did you get this?" he said at last, in that soft voice of his that fixes its hearer like a butterfly on a pin.

"I found it," I said.

Father's gaze was military—unrelenting.

"Bonepenny must have dropped it," I said. "It's for you."

Father studied my face the way an astronomer studies a supernova.

"This is very decent of you, Flavia," he said at last, with some great effort.

And he handed me the Ulster Avenger.

"You must return it at once to its rightful owner."

"King George?"

Father nodded, somewhat sadly, I thought. “I don't know how you came to have this in your possession and I don't want to know. You've come this far on your own and now you must see it through.”

"Inspector Hewitt wants me to hand it over to him." Father shook his head. "Most kind of him," he said, "but also most official. No, Flavia, old AA here has been through many hands in its day, a few of them high and many low. You must see to it that your hands are the most worthy of them all."

"But how does one go about writing to the King?"

"I'm sure you'll find a way," Father said. "Please close the door on your way out."

AS IF TO COVER UP THE PAST, Dogger was shoveling muck from a wheelbarrow into the cucumber bed.

"Miss Flavia," he said, removing his hat and wiping his brow on his shirtsleeve.

"How should one address a letter to the King?" I asked.

Dogger leaned his shovel carefully against the greenhouse.

"Theoretically, or in actual practice?"

"In actual practice."

"Hmm," he said. "I think I should look it up somewhere."

"Hold on," I said. "Mrs. Mullet's Inquire Within Upon Everything . She keeps it in the pantry.”

"She's shopping in the village," Dogger said. "If we're quick about it, we may well escape with our lives."

A minute later we were huddled in the pantry.

"Here it is," I said excitedly, as the book fell open in my hands. “But wait—this was published sixty years ago. Would it still be correct?”

"Sure to be," Dogger said. "Things don't change as quickly in royal circles as they do in yours and mine, nor should they."

The drawing room was empty. Daffy and Feely were off somewhere, most likely planning their next attack.

I found a decent sheet of writing paper in a drawer, and then, dipping the pen in the inkwell, I copied out the salutation from Mrs. Mullet's greasy book, trying to make my handwriting as neat as possible:

Most Gracious Sovereign:

May it please Your Majesty,

Please find enclosed an item of considerable value belonging to Your Majesty which was stolen earlier this year. How it fell into my hands (a nice touch, I thought) is unimportant, but I can assure Your Majesty that the criminal has been caught.

"Apprehended," Dogger said, reading over my shoulder.

I changed it.

"What else?"

"Nothing," Dogger said. "Just sign it. Kings prefer brevity."

Being careful not to blot the page, I copied the closing from the book:

I remain, with the profoundest veneration, Your Majesty's most faithful subject and dutiful servant.

"Perfect!" Dogger said.

I folded the letter neatly, making an extra-sharp crease with my thumb. I slipped it into one of Father's best envelopes and wrote the address: