The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

A lie-in? How could he be back in bed when the place was alive with the law?

'How did he take it when you told him about the—you know—in the garden?'

Dogger turned and looked me directly in the eye. “I didn't tell him, miss.”

He reached out and with a sudden snip of his secateurs, pruned a less-than-perfect bloom. It fell with a plop to the ground, where it lay with its puckered yellow face gazing up at us from the shadows.

We were both of us staring at the beheaded rose, thinking of our next move, when Inspector Hewitt came round the corner of the house.

'Flavia,' he said, 'I'd like a word with you.'

'Inside,' he added.

four

'AND THE PERSON OUTSIDE TO WHOM YOU WERE speaking?” Inspector Hewitt asked.

'Dogger,' I said.

'First name?'

'Flavia,' I said. I couldn't help myself.

We were sitting on one of the Regency sofas in the Rose Room. The Inspector slapped down his Biro and turned at the waist to face me.

'If you are not already aware of it, Miss de Luce—and I suspect you are—this is a murder investigation. I shall brook no frivolity. A man is dead and it is my duty to discover the why, the when, the how, and the who. And when I have done that, it is my further duty to explain it to the Crown. That means King George the Sixth, and King George the Sixth is not a frivolous man. Do I make myself clear?'

'Yes, sir,' I said. 'His given name is Arthur: Arthur Dogger.'

'And he's the gardener here at Buckshaw?'

'He is now, yes.'

The Inspector had opened a black notebook and was taking notes in a microscopic hand.

'Was he not always?'

'He's a jack-of-all-trades,' I said. 'He was our chauffeur until his nerve gave out.'

Even though I looked away, I could still feel the intensity of his detective eye.

'The war,' I said. 'He was a prisoner of war. Father felt that. he tried to—'

'I understand,' Inspector Hewitt said, his voice gone suddenly soft. 'Dogger's happiest in the garden.'

'He's happiest in the garden.'

'You're a remarkable girl, you know,' he said. 'In most cases I should wait to talk to you until a parent was present, but with your father indisposed.'

Indisposed? Oh, of course! I'd nearly forgotten my little lie.

In spite of my momentary look of puzzlement, the Inspector went on: “You mentioned Dogger's stint as chauffeur. Does your father still keep a motorcar?”

He did, in fact: an old Rolls-Royce Phantom II, which now resided in the coach house. It had actually been Harriet's, and it had not been driven since the day the news of her death had come to Buckshaw. Furthermore, although Father was not a driver himself, he would permit no one else to touch it.

Consequently, the coachwork of this magnificent old thoroughbred, with its long black bonnet and tall nickel- plated Palladian radiator with intertwined Rs, had long ago been breached by field mice that had found their way up through the wooden floorboards and nested in its mahogany glove box. Even in its decrepitude, it was sometimes still spoken of as “The Royce,” as people of quality often call these vehicles.

'Only a ploughman would call it a Rolls,' Feely had said once when I'd momentarily forgotten myself in her presence.

Whenever I wanted to be alone in a place where I could count on being undisturbed, I would clamber up into the dim light of Harriet's dust-covered Roller, where I would sit for hours in the incubator-like heat, surrounded by drooping plush upholstery and cracked, nibbled leather.

At the Inspector's unexpected question, my mind flew back to a dark, stormy day the previous autumn, a day of pelting rain and a mad torrent of wind. Because the risk of falling branches had made it too dangerous to hazard a walk in the woods above Buckshaw, I had slipped away from the house and fought my way through the gale to the coach house to have a good think. Inside, the Phantom stood glinting dully in the shadows as the storm howled and screamed and beat at the windows like a tribe of hungry banshees. My hand was already on the door handle of the car before I realized there was someone inside it. I nearly leaped out of my skin. But then I realized that it was Father. He was just sitting there with tears running down his face, oblivious to the storm.

For several minutes I had stood perfectly still, afraid to move, scarce daring to breathe. But when Father reached slowly for the door handle, I had to drop silently to my hands like a gymnast and roll underneath the car. From the corner of my eye I saw one of his perfectly polished half-Wellingtons step down from the running board, and as he walked slowly away, I heard something like a shuddering sob escape him. For a long while I lay there staring up at the floorboards of Harriet's Rolls-Royce.

'Yes,' I said. 'There's an old Phantom in the coach house.'

'And your father doesn't drive.'

'No.'

'I see.'