The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

As I climbed over the last stile and Buckshaw came into view across the field, it almost took my breath away. It was from this angle and at this time of day that I loved it most. As I approached from the west, the mellow old stone glowed like saffron in the late afternoon sun, well settled into the landscape like a complacent mother hen squatting on her eggs, with the Union Jack stretching itself contentedly overhead.

The house seemed unaware of my approach, as if I were an intruder creeping up on it.

Even from a quarter of a mile away I could hear the notes of the Toccata by Pietro Domenico Paradisi—the one from his Sonata in A Major—come tripping out to meet me.

The Toccata was my favorite composition; to my mind it was the greatest musical accomplishment in the entire history of the world, but I knew that if Ophelia found that out, she would never play the piece again.

Whenever I hear this music it makes me think of flying down the steep east side of Goodger Hill; running so fast that my legs can barely keep up with themselves as I swoop from side to side, mewing into the wind, like a rapturous seagull.

When I was closer to the house, I stopped in the field and listened to the perfect flow of notes, not too presto—just the way I liked it. I thought of the time I heard Eileen Joyce play the Toccata on the BBC Home Service. Father had it switched on, not really listening, as he fiddled with his stamp collection. The notes had found their way through the corridors and galleries of Buckshaw, floated up the spiral staircase and into my bedroom. By the time I realized what was being played, raced down the stairs, and burst into Father's study, the music had ended.

We had stood there looking at one another, Father and I, not knowing what to say, until at last, without a word, I had backed out of the room and gone slowly back upstairs.

That's the only problem with the Toccata: It's too short.

I came round the fence and onto the terrace. Father was sitting at his desk in the window of his study, intent on whatever it was he was working at.

The Rosicrucians claim in their adverts that you can make a total stranger turn round in a crowded cinema by fixing your gaze intently on the back of his neck, and I stared at him for all I was worth.

He glanced up, but he did not see me. His mind was somewhere else.

I didn't move a muscle.

And then, as if his head were made of lead, he looked down and went on with his work, and in the drawing room, Feely moved on to something by Schumann.

WHENEVER SHE WAS THINKING ABOUT NED, Feely played Schumann. I suppose that's why they call it romantic music. Once when she was playing a Schumann sonata with an excessively dreamy look on her face, I had remarked loudly to Daffy that I simply adored bandstand music, and Feely flew into a passion—a passion that wasn't helped by my stalking out of the room and returning a few minutes later with a Bakelite ear-trumpet I had found in a closet, a tin cup, and a hand-lettered sign tied round my neck with a string: “Deafened in tragic piano accident. Please take pity.”

Feely had probably forgotten that incident by now, but I hadn't. As I pretended to push past her to look out the window, I had a fleeting close-up of her face. Drat! Nothing for my notebook again.

'You're probably in trouble,' she said, slamming down the lid on the keyboard. 'Where have you been all day?'

'None of your horse-nails,' I told her. 'I'm not in your employ.'

'Everyone's been looking for you. Daffy and I told them you'd run away from home, but no such bloody luck by the look of it.'

'It's bloody poor form to say 'bloody,' Feely; you're not supposed to. And don't puff out your cheeks like that: It makes you look like a petulant pear. Where's Father?'

As if I didn't know.

'He hasn't stuck his nose out all day,' Daffy said. 'Do you suppose he's upset about what happened this morning?'

'The corpse on the premises? No, I shouldn't say so—nothing to do with him, is it?'

'That's what I thought,' Feely said, and lifted the piano lid.

With a toss of her hair, she was off into the first of Bach's Goldberg Variations.

It was slow, but lovely nonetheless, although even on his best days Bach, to my way of thinking, couldn't hold a candle to Pietro Domenico Paradisi.

And then I remembered Gladys! I had left her at the Thirteen Drakes, where she could be spotted by anyone. If the police hadn't been there already, they soon would be.

I wondered if by now Mary or Ned had been made to tell them of my visit. But if they had, I reasoned, wouldn't Inspector Hewitt be at Buckshaw this very moment reading me the riot act?

Five minutes later, for the third time that day, I was on my way to Bishop's Lacey—this time on foot.

BY KEEPING TO THE HEDGEROWS and skulking behind trees whenever I heard the sound of an approaching vehicle, I was able to make my way, by a devious route, to the far end of the High Street which, this late in the day, was deep in its usual empty sleep.

A shortcut through Miss Bewdley's ornamental garden (water lilies, stone storks, goldfish, and a red lacquered footbridge) brought me to the brick wall that skirted the inn yard of the Thirteen Drakes, where I crouched and listened. Gladys, if no one had moved her, was directly on the other side.

Except for the hum of a far-off tractor, there wasn't a sound. Just as I was about to venture a peek over the top of the wall I heard voices. Or, to be more precise, one voice, and it was Tully's. I could have heard it even if I'd stayed home at Buckshaw with earplugs.

'Never laid eyes on the bloke in my life, Inspector. His first visit to Bishop's Lacey, I daresay. Would have remembered if he'd stopped here before: Sanders was my late wife's maiden name, God bless 'er, and I'd have