A Red Herring Without Mustard: A Flavia de Luce Novel

“There was a time when I loved to gaze down upon that ancient crook in the river as if from the summit of my years. In fact, I was doing so on that day in April, two and a half years ago, when the Bull baby disappeared.”

My mouth must have fallen open.

“From my vantage point, I saw the Gypsy leave her encampment—and later, saw Mrs. Bull pushing the baby’s perambulator along the Gully.”

“Hold on,” I said. “Surely it was the other way round?”

“It was as I have described. The Gypsy woman hitched her horse and drove her caravan north along the Gully. Sometime later, the Bull woman appeared, wheeling her baby south towards the Palings.”

“Perhaps the pram was empty,” I ventured.

“An excellent point,” Dr. Kissing said, “except for the fact that I saw her lift out the infant whilst she retrieved its lost bottle from the blankets.”

“But then Fenella couldn’t have kidnapped the baby.”

“Very good, Flavia. As you may have perceived, I’ve long ago come to that same conclusion.”

“But—”

“Why did I not inform the police?”

I nodded dumbly.

“I have asked myself that, again and again. And each time I have answered that it was, in part, because the police never asked me. But that will hardly do, will it? There is also the undeniable fact that when one reaches a certain age, one hesitates to take on a new cargo of trouble. It is as if, having experienced a certain amount of grief in a lifetime, one is given pass-slip to hand in to the Great Headmaster in the Sky. Do you understand?”

“I think I do,” I said.

“That is why I have kept it to myself,” he said. “But oddly enough, it is also the reason that I am now telling you.”

The silence between us was broken only by the sound of the falling rain.

Then suddenly, from across the lawn, there came a shout: “Dr. Kissing! Whatever are you thinking?”

It was the White Phantom, the same nurse I had seen on my previous visit to Rook’s End, now looking ludicrous in her white uniform and huge black galoshes as she came galumphing across the grass towards us through the falling rain.

“Whatever are you thinking?” she asked again as she stepped beneath the umbrella. I’ve observed that domineering people like the White Phantom often say everything twice, as though they’re on a quota system.

“I am thinking, Nurse Hammond,” Dr. Kissing said, “of the sad decline in English manners since the late war.”

His words were met with a silent sniff as she seized the handles of his wheelchair and shoved off rapidly with it across the lawn.

As she paused to open the conservatory door, Dr. Kissing’s words came floating back to my ears—

“Tally-ho, Flavia!”

It was a call to the hunt.

I waved like mad to show him that I had understood, but it was too late. He had already been wheeled indoors and out of sight.

TWENTY-TWO

I THINK THERE MUST be a kind of courage that comes from not being able to make up your mind.

Whether it was this or whether it was Gladys’s willfulness I can’t be sure, but there we were, suddenly swerving off the main road and into the Gully.

I had been going here and there about the village, avoiding the unpleasant Mrs. Bull in much the same way as a housefly avoids the folded newspaper. But the Gully was a shortcut home to Buckshaw, and there was no time like the present.

Although Gladys’s black paint was now spattered with mud, she seemed as frisky as if she had just been curried with a bristled brush and wiped down to perfection. Her nickel handlebars, at least, glittered in the sun.

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you, old girl?” I said, and she gave a little squeak of delight.

Would Mrs. Bull be standing guard at her gate? Would I have to pretend again to be Margaret Vole, niece of that fictional—but beloved—old character actress, Gilda Dickinson?

I needn’t have worried. Mrs. Bull was nowhere in sight, although the hovering smoke from the rubbish heaps made it difficult to see much of the property.

Her redheaded boy—the one who had been perched in the branches when I rode through the Gully with Fenella—was now sitting in the ditch at the edge of the road, digging his way to China with a piece of cutlery.

I brought Gladys to a slithering stop and put both feet on the ground.

“Hello,” I said, rather stupidly. “What’s your name?”

It was not the most brilliant opening, but I wasn’t accustomed to talking to children, and hadn’t the faintest idea how to begin. It didn’t matter anyway, because the little wretch ignored me and went on with his