A Red Herring Without Mustard: A Flavia de Luce Novel

excavating.

It was difficult to judge his age, which might have been anywhere between four and seven. His large head wobbled uneasily atop a spindly body, giving the impression that one was looking at rather a large baby or a small adult.

“Timofey,” he said in a froggy croak, just as I was about to shove off.

“Timothy?”

There was another awkward pause, during which I shifted uneasily from foot to foot.

“Timofey.”

“Is your mother at home, Timofey?” I asked.

“Dunno—yes—no,” he said, giving me a wary sideways glance, and he returned to his digging, stabbing fiercely at the soil with his bit of tableware.

“Digging for treasure, are you?” I asked, going all chummy. I leaned Gladys against a bank and climbed down into the ditch. “Here, let me help.”

I casually worked my hand into my off-side pocket and closed my fingers around a stick of horehound.

With a quick darting motion, I reached down into the hole he was digging, and pretended to extract the sweet.

“Oh, Timofey!” I cried, clapping my hands. “Look what you’ve found! Good boy! Timofey’s found a sweet!” Although it jarred, I couldn’t bring myself to call him by any name other than the one he called himself.

As I held out the horehound, he snatched it away from me with a lightning-fast movement and shoved it into his mouth.

“Preasure!” he said, gnawing nastily.

“Yes, treasure,” I cooed. “Timofey’s found buried treasure.”

With the horehound stick jutting out of the corner of his mouth like a sickroom thermometer, Timofey put down his digging implement and attacked the hole with his bare hands.

My heart gave a leap as my mind registered what now lay exposed in the dirt: the silver … the prongs … the figure of the lobster punched from the handle … the de Luce monogram …

The child was digging with one of the de Luce lobster picks! But how could that be? Dogger had already shipped the silver to Sotheby’s for auction and the only piece that had been overlooked, perhaps, was the one that had been used to put paid to Brookie Harewood. And that, unless I was sadly mistaken, had, until quite recently, been shoved up Brookie Harewood’s nostril and into his brain. How could it possibly have made its way from there into the hands of an urchin grubbing in the Gully? Or could this be a copy?

“Here,” I said. “Let me help you. I’m bigger. I can dig faster. Find more sweets.”

I made digging motions with my hands, scooping like a badger.

But Timofey snatched up the lobster pick, and was holding it away from me.

“Mime!” he said around the horehound. “Mime! Timofey foumd it!”

“Good boy!” I said. “Let’s have a look.”

“No!”

“All right,” I said. “I don’t want to see it anyway.”

If there’s anyone on earth who knows the ways of a child’s mind, I thought, it’s me—Flavia de Luce—for I had not so long ago been one myself.

As I spoke, I reached into my pocket and extracted another stick of horehound—this one, my last. I gazed at it fondly, held it up to the sunlight to admire its golden glow, smacked my lips—

“Give over!” the child said. “I wants it!”

“Tell you what,” I told him. “I’ll trade you for that nasty digger. You don’t want that old thing. It’s dirty.”

I pulled a horrid face and went through the motions of retching, sound effects and all.

He grinned, and inserted the prongs of the lobster pick into one of his nostrils.

“No, Timofey!” I said in the most commanding voice I could summon. “It’s sharp—you’ll hurt yourself. Give it here.

“At once!” I added sternly, putting on the voice of authority, as Father does when he wants to be instantly obeyed. I held out my hand and Timofey meekly laid the silver lobster pick across my lifeline—the very part of my hand that the Gypsy—Fenella—was it only three days ago?—had held in her own and told me that in it she saw darkness.

“Good boy,” I said, my head swimming as my fingers closed upon the murder weapon. “Where did you get it?”

I handed him the horehound stick and he grabbed it greedily. I shoved my hand into my empty pocket, as if I were digging into a bottomless bag of sweets.

I locked my eyes with his, noticing, for the first time, the strange transparency of his irises. I would not look away, I thought—not until—

“Danny’s mocket,” he said suddenly, his words oozing out around the sticky horehound.

Danny’s mocket? Danny’s pocket, of course! I was proud of myself.

But who was Danny? It couldn’t be the baby—the baby wasn’t old enough to have pockets. Did Mrs. Bull have