The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

  “You’re sniffling, dear,” she said, without looking up from her rolling pin. “Let me fix you a nice mug of chicken broth.” The woman could be maddeningly perceptive.

  At the words chicken broth, she dropped her voice to a near-whisper and shot a conspiratorial look over her shoulder.

  “Hot chicken broth,” she said. “It’s a secret Mrs. Jacobson told me at a Women’s Institute tea. Been in her family since the Exodus. Mind you, I’ve said nothing.”

  Mrs. Mullet’s other favorite bit of village wisdom had to do with eucalyptus. She forced Dogger to grow it for her in the greenhouse, and assiduously concealed sprigs of the stuff here and there about Buckshaw as talismans against the cold or grippe.

  “Eucalyptus in the hall, no grippe or colds shall you befall,” she used to crow triumphantly. And it was true. Since she had been secreting the dark waxy green leaves in unsuspected places around the house, none of us had suffered so much as a sniffle.

  Until now. Something had obviously failed.

  “No, thank you, Mrs. Mullet,” I said. “I’ve just brushed my teeth.”

  It was a lie, but it was the best I could come up with at short notice. Besides having a whiff of martyrdom about it, my reply had the added advantage of bucking up my image in the personal cleanliness department. On my way out, I filched from the pantry a bottle of yellow granules labeled Partington’s Essence of Chicken, and from a wall sconce in the hall I helped myself to a handful of eucalyptus leaves.

  Upstairs in the laboratory, I took down a bottle of sodium bicarbonate which Uncle Tar, in his spidery copperplate script, had marked sal aeratus, as well as, in his usual meticulous manner, Sod. Bicarb. to distinguish it from potassium bicarbonate, which also was sometimes called sal aeratus. Pot. Bicarb. was more at home in fire extinguishers than in the tummy.

  I knew the stuff as NaHCO3, which the cottagers called baking soda. Somewhere I remembered hearing that the same rustics believed in the power of a good old dosing of alkali salts to flush out even the fiercest case of the common cold.

  It made good chemical sense, I reasoned: If salts were a cure, and chicken broth were a cure, think of the magnificent restorative power of a glass of effervescent chicken broth! It boggled the mind. I’d patent the thing; it would be the world’s first antidote against the common cold: De Luce’s Deliquescence, Flavia’s Foup Formula!

  I even managed a moderately happy hum as I measured eight ounces of drinking water into a beaker, and set it over the flame to heat. Meanwhile, in a stoppered flask I boiled the torn shreds of eucalyptus leaves and watched as straw-colored drops of oil began to form at the end of the distillation coil.

  When the water was at a rolling boil, I removed it from the heat and let it cool for several minutes, then dropped in two heaped teaspoons of Partington’s Chicken Essence and a tablespoon of good old NaHCO3.

  I gave it a jolly good stir and let it foam like Vesuvius over the lip of the beaker. I pinched my nostrils shut and tossed back half of the concoction chug-a-lug.

  Chicken fizz! O Lord, protect all of us who toil in the vineyards of experimental chemistry!

  I unstoppered the flask and dumped the eucalyptus water, leaves and all, into the remains of the yellow soup. Then, peeling off my sweater and draping it over my head as a fume hood, I inhaled the camphoraceous steam of poultry eucalyptus, and somewhere up inside the sticky caverns of my head I thought I felt my sinuses throw their hands up into the air and surrender. I was feeling better already.

  There was a sharp knock on the door and I nearly jumped out of my skin. So seldom did anyone come into this part of the house that a tap at the door was as unexpected as one of those sudden heart-clutching organ chords in a horror film when a door swings open upon a gallery of corpses. I shot back the bolt and there stood Dogger, wringing his hat like the Irish washerwoman. I could see that he had been having one of his episodes.

  I reached out and touched his hands and they stilled at once. I had observed—although I did not often make use of the fact—that there were times when a touch could say things that words could not.

  “What’s the password?” I asked, linking my fingers together and placing both hands atop my head.

  For about five and a half seconds Dogger looked blank, and then his tense jaw muscles relaxed slowly and he almost smiled. Like an automaton he meshed his fingers and copied my gesture.

  “It’s on the tip of my tongue,” he said haltingly. Then, “I remember now: It’s ‘arsenic.’ ”

  “Careful you don’t swallow it,” I replied. “It’s poison.”

  With a remarkable display of sheer willpower, Dogger made himself smile. The ritual had been properly observed.

  “Enter, friend,” I said, and swung the door wide.

  Dogger stepped inside and looked round in wonder, as if he had suddenly found himself transported to an alchemist’s lab in ancient Sumer. It had been so long since he had been in this part of the house that he had forgotten the room.

  “So much glass,” he said shakily.

  I pulled out Tar’s old Windsor chair from the desk, steadying it until Dogger had folded himself between its wooden arms.

  “Have a sit. I’ll fix you something.”

  I filled a clean flask with water and set it atop a wire mesh. Dogger started at the little “pop” of the Bunsen burner as I applied the match.

  “Coming up,” I said. “Ready in a jiff.”

  The fortunate thing about lab glassware is that it boils water at the speed of light. I threw a spoonful of black leaves into a beaker. When it had gone a deep red I handed it to Dogger, who stared at it skeptically.

  “It’s all right,” I said. “It’s Tetley’s.”

  He sipped at the tea gingerly, blowing on the surface of the drink to cool it. As he drank, I remembered that there’s a reason we English are ruled more by tea than by Buckingham Palace or His Majesty’s Government: Apart from the soul, the brewing of tea is the only thing that sets us apart from the great apes—or so the Vicar had remarked to Father, who had told Feely, who had told Daffy, who had told me.

  “Thank you,” Dogger said. “I feel quite myself now. But there’s something I must tell you, Miss Flavia.”

  I perched on the edge of the desk, trying to look chummy.

  “Fire away,” I said.

  “Well,” Dogger began, “you know that there are occasions when I have sometimes—that is, now and then, I have times when I—”

  “Of course I do, Dogger,” I said. “Don’t we all?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t remember. You see, the thing of it is that, when I was—” His eyes rolled like those of a cow in the killing-pen. “I think I might have done something to someone. And now they’ve gone and arrested the Colonel for it.”

  “Are you referring to Horace Bonepenny?”

  There was a crash of glassware as Dogger dropped the beaker of tea on the floor. I scrambled for a cloth and for some stupid reason dabbed at his hands, which were quite dry.

  “What do you know about Horace Bonepenny?” he demanded, clamping my wrist in a steely grip. If it hadn’t been Dogger I should have been terrified.

  “I know all about him,” I said, gently prying his fingers loose. “I looked him up at the library. I talked to Miss Mountjoy, and Father told me the whole story Sunday evening.”

  “You saw Colonel de Luce Sunday evening? In Hinley?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I bicycled over. I told you he was well. Don’t you remember?”

  “No,” Dogger said, shaking his head. “Sometimes I don’t remember.”

  Could this be possible? Could Dogger have encountered Horace Bonepenny somewhere inside the house, or in the garden, then grappled with him and brought about his death? Had it been an accident? Or was there more to it than that?

  “Tell me what happened,” I said. “Tell me as much as you can remember.”

  “I was sleeping,” Dogger said. “I heard voices—loud voices. I got up and went along to the Colone
l’s study. There was someone standing in the hall.”

  “That was me,” I said. “I was in the hall.”

  “That was you,” Dogger said. “You were in the hall.”

  “Yes. You told me to buzz off.”

  “I did?” Dogger seemed shocked.

  “Yes, you told me to go back to bed.”

  “A man came out of the study,” Dogger said suddenly. “I ducked in beside the clock and he walked right past me. I could have reached out and touched him.”

  It was clear he had jumped to a point in time after I had gone back to bed.

  “But you didn’t—touch him, I mean.”

  “Not then, no. I followed him into the garden. He didn’t see me. I kept to the wall behind the greenhouse. He was standing in the cucumbers … eating something … agitated … talking to himself … foulest language … didn’t seem to notice he was off the path. And then there were the fireworks.”

  “Fireworks?” I asked.

  “You know, Catherine wheels, skyrockets, and all that. I thought there must be a fête in the village. It’s June, you know. They often have a fête in June.”

  There had been no fête; of that I was sure. I’d rather slog the entire length of the Amazon in perforated tennis shoes than miss a chance to pitch coconuts at the Aunt Sally and gorge myself on rock cakes and strawberries-and-cream. No, I was well up on the dates of the fêtes.

  “And then what happened?” I asked. We would sort out the details later.

  “I must have fallen asleep,” Dogger said. “When I woke up I was lying in the grass. It was wet. I got up and went in to bed. I didn’t feel well. I must have had one of my bad turns. I don’t remember.”

  “And you think that, during your bad turn, you might have killed Horace Bonepenny?”

  Dogger nodded glumly. He touched the back of his head.

  “Who else was there?” he asked.

  Who else was there? Where had I heard that before? Of course! Hadn’t Inspector Hewitt used those very words about Father?

  “Bow your head, Dogger,” I said.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Flavia. If I killed someone I didn’t mean to.”

  “Bend down your head.”

  Dogger slumped down in the chair and leaned forward. As I lifted his collar he winced.

  On his neck, below and behind his ear, was a filthy great purple bruise the size and shape of a shoe heel. He winced when I touched it.

  I let out a low whistle.

  “Fireworks, my eye!” I said. “Those were no fireworks, Dogger. You’ve been well and truly nobbled. And you’ve been walking around with this mouse on your neck for two days? It must hurt like anything.”

  “It does, Miss Flavia, but I’ve had worse.”

  I must have looked at him in disbelief.

  “I had a look at my eyes in the mirror,” he added. “Pupils the same size. Bit of concussion—but not too bad. I’ll soon be over it.”

  I was about to ask him where he had picked up this bit of lore when he added quickly: “But that’s just something I read somewhere.”

  I suddenly thought of a more important question.

  “Dogger, how could you have killed someone if you were knocked unconscious?”

  He stood there, looking like a small boy hauled in for a caning. His mouth was opening and closing but nothing was coming out.

  “You were attacked!” I said. “Someone clubbed you with a shoe!”

  “No, I think not, miss,” he said sadly. “You see, aside from Horace Bonepenny, I was alone in the garden.”

  twenty

  I HAD SPENT THE PAST THREE QUARTERS OF AN HOUR trying to talk Dogger into letting me put an ice pack on the back of his neck, but he would not allow it. Rest, he assured me, was the only thing for it, and he had wandered off to his room.

  From my window, I could see Feely stretched out on a blanket on the south lawn trying to reflect sunshine onto both sides of her face with a couple of issues of the Picture Post. I fetched a pair of Father’s old army binoculars and took a close look at her complexion. When I’d had a good squint I opened my notebook and wrote:

  Tuesday, 6th of June 1950, 9:15 A.M. Subject’s appearance remains normal. 96 hours since administration. Solution too weak? Subject immune? Common knowledge that Eskimos of Baffin Island immune to poison ivy. Could this mean what I think it might?

  But my heart wasn’t in it. It was difficult to study Feely when Father and Dogger were so much on my mind. I needed to collect my thoughts.

  I turned to a fresh page and wrote:

  Possible Suspects

  FATHER: Best motive of all. Has known dead man for most of life; has been threatened with exposure; was heard quarreling with victim shortly before murder. No one knows whereabouts at the time crime was committed. Insp. Hewitt has already arrested him and charged him with murder, so we know where the Inspector’s suspicions lie!

  DOGGER: Bit of a dark horse. Don’t know much about his past, but do know he is fiercely loyal to Father. Overheard Father’s quarrel with Bonepenny (but so did I) and may have decided to eliminate threat of exposure. Dogger subject to “episodes” during and after which memory is affected. Might he have killed Bonepenny during one of these? Could it have been an accident? But if so, who bashed Dogger on the head?

  MRS. MULLET: No motive, unless to wreak vengeance upon person who left dead snipe on her kitchen door-step. Too old.

  DAPHNE de LUCE and OPHELIA GERTRUDE de LUCE: (Your secret is out, Gertie!) Don’t make me laugh! These two so absorbed in book and looking-glass that they wouldn’t kill cockroach on own dinner plate. Did not know deceased, had no motive, and were snoring with mouths open when Bonepenny met his end. Case closed, as far these two dimwits concerned.

  MARY STOKER: Motive: Bonepenny made improper advances to her at Thirteen Drakes. Could she have followed him to Buckshaw and dispatched him in cucumbers? Seems unlikely.

  TULLY STOKER: Bonepenny was guest at Thirteen Drakes. Did Tully hear what happened with Mary? Decide to seek revenge? Or is a paying guest more important than daughter’s honor?

  NED CROPPER: Ned sweet on Mary (plus others). Knew what happened between Mary and Bonepenny. May have decided to do him in. Good motive, but no evidence he was at Buckshaw that night. Could have killed Bonepenny somewhere else and brought him here in wheelbarrow? But so could Tully. Or Mary!

  MISS MOUNTJOY: Perfect motive: Believes Bonepenny (and Father) killed her uncle, Mr. Twining. Problem is age: Can’t see Mountjoy grappling with someone Bonepenny’s height and strength. Unless she used some kind of poison. Query: What was the official cause of death? Would Insp. Hewitt tell me?

  INSPECTOR HEWITT: Police officer. Must include only in order to be fair, complete, and objective. Was not at Buckshaw at time of the crime, and has no known motive. (But did he attend Greyminster?)

  DETECTIVE SERGEANTS WOOLMER & GRAVES: Ditto.

  FRANK PEMBERTON: Didn’t arrive in Bishop’s Lacey until after the murder.

  MAXIMILIAN BROCK: Gaga; too old; no motive.

  I read through this list three times, hoping nothing had escaped me. And then I saw it: something that set my mind to racing. Hadn’t Horace Bonepenny been a diabetic? I had found his vials of insulin in the kit at the Thirteen Drakes with the syringe missing. Had he lost it? Had it been stolen?

  He had traveled, most likely by ferry, from Stavanger in Norway to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and from there by rail to York, where he’d have changed trains for Doddingsley. From Doddingsley he’d have taken a bus or taxi to Bishop’s Lacey.

  And, as far as I knew, in all that time, he had not eaten! The pie shell in his room (as evidenced by the embedded feather) had been the one in which he secreted the dead jack snipe to smuggle it into England. Hadn’t Tully Stoker told the Inspector that his guest had a drink in the saloon bar? Yes—but there had been no mention of food!

  What if, after coming to Buckshaw and threatening Father, he had walked out of the house through the kitchen—which he almost certai
nly had—and had spied the custard pie on the windowsill? What if he had helped himself to a slice, wolfed it down, stepped outside, and gone into shock? Mrs. M’s custard pies had that effect on all of us at Buckshaw, and none of us were even diabetics!

  What if it had been Mrs. Mullet’s pie after all? No more than a stupid accident? What if everyone on my list was innocent? What if Bonepenny had not been murdered?

  But if that was true, Flavia, a sad and quiet little voice inside me said, why would Inspector Hewitt have arrested Father and laid charges against him?

  Although my nose was still running and my eyes still watering, I thought perhaps my chicken draught was beginning to have an effect. I read again through my list of suspects and thought until my head throbbed.

  I was getting nowhere. I decided at last to go outside, sit in the grass, inhale some fresh air, and turn my mind to something entirely different: I would think about nitrous oxide, for example, N2O, or laughing gas: something that Buckshaw and its inhabitants were sorely in need of.

  Laughing gas and murder seemed strange bedfellows indeed, but were they really?

  I thought of my heroine, Marie-Anne Paulze Lavoisier, one of the giants of chemistry, whose portrait, with those other immortals, was stuck up on the mirror in my bedroom, her hair like a hot-air balloon, her husband looking on adoringly, not seeming to mind her silly coiffure. Marie was a woman who knew that sadness and silliness often go hand in hand. I remembered that it was during the French Revolution, in her husband Antoine’s laboratory—just as they had sealed all of their assistant’s bodily orifices with pitch and beeswax, rolled him up in a tube of varnished silk, and made him breathe through a straw into Lavoisier’s measuring instruments—at that very moment, with Marie-Anne standing by making sketches of the proceedings, the authorities kicked down the door, burst into the room, and hauled her husband off to the guillotine.

  I had once told this grimly amusing story to Feely.

  “The need for heroines is generally to be found in the sort of persons who live in cottages,” she had said with a haughty sniff.