The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

The Inspector laid down his Biro and notebook as carefully as if they were made of Venetian glass.

'Flavia,' he said (and I couldn't help noticing that I was no longer 'Miss de Luce'), 'I'm going to ask you a very important question. The way in which you answer it is crucial, do you understand?'

I nodded.

'I know that you were the one who reported this. incident. But who was it that first discovered the body?'

My mind went into a tailspin. Would telling the truth incriminate Father? Did the police already know that I had summoned Dogger to the cucumber patch? Obviously not; the Inspector had only just learned Dogger's identity, so it seemed reasonable to assume they had not yet questioned him. But when they did, how much would he tell them? Which of us should he protect: Father or me? Was there some new test by which they would know that the victim was still alive when I discovered him?

'I did,' I blurted out. 'I found the body.' I felt like Cock Robin.

'Just as I thought,' Inspector Hewitt said.

And here was one of those awkward silences. It was broken by the arrival of Sergeant Woolmer, who used his massive body to herd Father into the room.

'We found him in the coach house, sir,' he said. 'Holed up in an old motorcar.'

'Who are you, sir?” Father demanded. He was furious, and for an instant I caught a glimpse of the man he must once have been. “Who are you, and what are you doing in my house?”

'I'm Inspector Hewitt, sir,' the Inspector said, getting to his feet. 'Thank you, Sergeant Woolmer.'

The sergeant took two steps back until he was clear of the door frame, and then he was gone.

'Well?' Father said. 'Is there a problem, Inspector?'

'I'm afraid there is, sir. A body has been found in your garden.'

'What do you mean, a body? A dead body?'

Inspector Hewitt nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said.

'Whose is it? The body, I mean.'

It was at that moment I realized Father had no bruises, no scratches, no cuts, no abrasions… at least none that were visible. I also noticed that he had begun to turn white round the edges, except for his ears, which had begun to go the color of pink plasticine.

And I noticed that the Inspector had spotted it too. He did not answer Father's question at once, but left it hanging in the air.

Father turned and walked in a long arc to the liquor cabinet, touching with the tips of his fingers the horizontal surface of every piece of furniture he passed. He mixed himself a Votrix-and-gin and downed it, all with a swift, fluid efficiency that suggested more practice than I had imagined possible.

'We haven't identified the person as yet, Colonel de Luce. Actually, we were hoping you could offer us assistance.'

At this, Father's face went whiter, if possible, than it had been before, and his ears burned redder.

'I'm sorry, Inspector,' he said, in a voice that was nearly inaudible. 'Please don't ask me to. I'm not very good with death, you see.'

Not very good with death? Father was a military man, and military men lived with death; lived for death; lived on death. To a professional soldier, oddly enough, death was life. Even I knew that.

I knew instantly, too, that Father had just told a lie, and suddenly, without warning, somewhere inside me, a little thread broke. It felt as if I had just aged a little and something old had snapped.

'I understand, sir,' Inspector Hewitt said, 'but unless other avenues present themselves.'

Father pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his forehead, then his neck.

'Bit of a shock, you know,' he said, 'all this.'

He waved an unsteady hand at his surroundings, and as he did so, Inspector Hewitt took up his notebook, flipped back the cover, and began to write. Father walked slowly to the window where he pretended to be taking in the prospect, one which I could see perfectly in my mind's eye: the artificial lake; the island with its crumbling Folly; the fountains, now dry, that had been shut off since the outbreak of war; the hills beyond.

'Have you been at home all morning?' the Inspector asked with no preliminaries.

'What?' Father spun round.

'Have you been out of the house since last evening?'

It was a long time before Father spoke.

'Yes,' he said at last. 'I was out this morning. In the coach house.'

I had to suppress a smile. Sherlock Holmes once remarked of his brother, Mycroft, that you were as unlikely to find him outside of the Diogenes Club as you were to meet a tramcar coming down a country lane. Like Mycroft, Father had his rails, and he ran on them. Except for church and the occasional short-tempered dash to the train to attend a stamp show, Father seldom, if ever, stuck his nose out-of-doors.

'What time would that have been, Colonel?'

'Four, perhaps. Perhaps a bit earlier.'

'You were in the coach house for—' Inspector Hewitt glanced at his wristwatch. '—five and a half hours? From four this morning until just now?'