The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

'Oh? What's the trouble? Nothing serious, I hope.'

'She's gone all green,' I said. 'I think it's chlorosis. Dr. Darby thinks so too.'

In his 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, Francis Grose called chlorosis “Love's Fever,” and “The Virgin's Disease.” I knew that Ned did not have the same ready access to Captain Grose's book as I did. I hugged myself inwardly.

'Ned!'

It was Tully Stoker again. Ned took a step towards the door.

'Tell her I was asking after her,' he said.

I gave him a Winston Churchill V with my fingers. It was the least I could do.

SHOE STREET, like Cow Lane, ran from the High Street to the river. Miss Pickery's Tudor cottage, halfway along, looked like something you'd see on the lid of a jigsaw puzzle box. With its thatched roof and whitewashed walls, its diamond-pane leaded-glass windows, and its red-painted Dutch door, it was an artist's delight, its half- timbered walls floating like a quaint old ship upon a sea of old-fashioned flowers such as anemones, hollyhocks, gillyflowers, Canterbury bells, and others whose names I didn't know.

Roger, Miss Pickery's ginger tomcat, rolled on the front doorstep, exposing his belly for a scratching. I obliged.

'Good boy, Roger,' I said. 'Where's Miss Pickery?'

Roger strolled slowly off in search of something interesting to stare at, and I knocked at the door. There was no answer.

I went round into the back garden. No one home.

Back in the High Street, after stopping for a look at the same old flyblown apothecary jars in the chemist's window, I was just crossing Cow Lane when I happened to glance to my left and saw someone stepping into the library. Arms outstretched, I dipped my wings and banked ninety degrees. But by the time I reached the door, whoever it was had already let themselves in. I turned the doorknob, and this time, it swung open.

The woman was putting her purse in the drawer and settling down behind the desk, and I realized I had never seen her before in my life. Her face was as wrinkled as one of those forgotten apples you sometimes find in the pocket of last year's winter jacket.

'Yes?' she said, peering over her spectacles. They teach them to do that at the Royal Academy of Library Science. The spectacles, I noted, had a slightly grayish tint, as if they had been steeped overnight in vinegar.

'I was expecting to see Miss Pickery,' I said.

'Miss Pickery has been called away on a private family matter.'

'Oh,' I said.

'Yes, very sad. Her sister, Hetty, who lives over in Nether-Wolsey, had a tragic accident with a sewing machine. It appeared for the first few days that all might be well, but then she took a sudden turn and it seems now as if there's a real possibility she might lose the finger. Such a shame—and she with the twins. Miss Pickery, of course…”

'Of course,' I said.

'I'm Miss Mountjoy, and I'd be happy to assist you in her stead, as it were.'

Miss Mountjoy! The retired Miss Mountjoy! I had heard tales about “Miss Mountjoy and the Reign of Terror.” She had been Librarian-in-Chief of the Bishop's Lacey Free Library when Noah was a sailor. All sweetness on the outside, but on the inside, “The Palace of Malice.” Or so I'd been told. (Mrs. Mullet again, who reads detective novels.) The villagers still held novenas to pray she wouldn't come out of retirement.

'And how may I help you, dearie?'

If there is a thing I truly despise, it is being addressed as “dearie.” When I write my magnum opus, A Treatise Upon All Poisons, and come to “Cyanide,” I am going to put under “Uses” the phrase “Particularly efficacious in the cure of those who call one ‘Dearie.’”

Still, one of my Rules of Life is this: When you want something, bite your tongue.

I smiled weakly and said, “I'd like to consult your newspaper files.”

'Newspaper files!' she gurgled. 'My, you do know a lot, don't you, dearie?'

'Yes,' I said, trying to look modest, 'I do.'

'The newspapers are in chronological order on the shelves in the Drummond Room: That's the west rear, to the left, at the top of the stairs,” she said with a wave of her hand.

'Thank you,' I said, edging towards the staircase.

'Unless, of course, you want something earlier than last year. In that case, they'll be in one of the outbuildings. What year are you looking for, in particular?'

'I don't really know,' I said. But, wait a minute—I did know! What was it the stranger had said in Father's study?

'Twining—Old Cuppa's been dead these—' What?

I could hear the stranger's oily voice in my head: “Old Cuppa's been dead these… thirty years!”

'The year 1920,' I said, as cool as a trout. 'I'd like to peruse your newspaper archive for 1920.'

'Those are likely still in the Pit Shed—that is, if the rats haven't been at them.' She said this with a bit of a leer over her spectacles as if, at the mention of rats, I might throw my hands in the air and run off screaming.