Just a few feet ahead, an ancient oak squatted comfortably on the lawn as if it had been resting there since the days of Robin Hood. As I reached out to touch it (home free!), an arm shot out from behind the trunk and grabbed my wrist.
'Ow! Let go! You're hurting me!' I yelped automatically, and my arm was released at once, even as I was still spinning round to face my assailant.
It was Detective Sergeant Graves, and he seemed every bit as surprised as I was.
'Well, well,' he said with a slow grin. 'Well, well, well, well, well.'
I was going to make a cutting remark, but thought better of it. I knew the sergeant liked me, and I might need all the help I could get.
'The Inspector'd like the pleasure of your company,' he said, pointing to a group of people who stood talking in the lane where I had left Gladys.
Sergeant Graves said no more, but as we approached, he pushed me gently in front of him towards Inspector Hewitt like a friendly terrier presenting its master with a dead rat. The torn sole of my shoe was flapping like Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp, but although the Inspector glanced at it, he was considerate enough to keep his thoughts to himself.
Sergeant Woolmer stood towering above the blue Vauxhall, his face as large and craggy as the Matterhorn. In his shadow were a sinewy, darkly tanned man in overalls and a wizened little gentleman with a white mustache who, when he saw me, jabbed at the air excitedly with his finger.
'That's him!' he said. 'That's the one!'
'Is it, indeed?' Inspector Hewitt asked, as he lifted the cap from my head and took the gown from my shoulders with the gentle deference of a valet.
The little man's pale blue eyes bulged visibly in their sockets.
'Why, it's only a girl!' he said.
I could have slapped his face.
'Ay, that's her,' said the suntanned one.
'Mr. Ruggles here has reason to believe that you were up in the tower,' the Inspector said, with a nod at the white mustache.
'What if I was?' I said. 'I was just having a look round.'
'That tower's off limits,' Mr. Ruggles said loudly. 'Off limits! And so it says on the sign. Can't you read?'
I gave him a graceful shrug.
'I'd have come up the ladders after you if I knew you were just a girl.' And he added, in an aside to Inspector Hewitt, 'Not what they used to be, my old knees.
'I knew you were up there,' he went on. 'I made out like I didn't so's I could ring up the police. And don't pretend you didn't pick the lock. That lock's my business, and I know it was locked as sure as I'm standing here in Fludd's Lane.
'Imagine! A girl! Tsk, tsk,' he remarked, with a disbelieving shake of his head.
'Picked the lock, did you?' the Inspector asked. Even though he acted like he wasn't, I could see that he was taken aback. 'Wherever did you learn a trick like that?'
I couldn't tell him, of course. Dogger was to be protected at all costs.
'Long ago and far away,' I said.
The Inspector fixed me with a steely gaze. “There might be those who are satisfied with that kind of answer, Flavia, but I am not among them.”
Here comes that old “King George is not a frivolous man” speech again, I thought, but Inspector Hewitt had decided to wait for my answer, no matter how long it was in coming.
'There isn't much to do at Buckshaw,' I said. 'Some times I do things just to keep from getting bored.'
He held out the black gown and cap. “And that's why you're wearing this costume? To keep from getting bored?”
'It's not a costume,' I said. 'If you must know, I found them under a loose tile on the tower roof. They have something to do with Mr. Twining's death. I'm sure of it.'
If Mr. Ruggles's eyes had bulged before, they now almost popped out of his head.
'Mr. Twining?' he said. 'Mr. Twining as jumped off the tower?'
'Mr. Twining didn't jump,' I said. I couldn't resist the temptation to get even with this nasty little man. 'He was—'
'Thank you, Flavia,' Inspector Hewitt said. 'That will do. And we'll take up no more of your time, Mr. Ruggles. I know you're a busy man.'
Ruggles puffed himself up like a courting pigeon, and with a nod to the Inspector and an impertinent smile at me, he set off across the lawn towards his quarters.
'Thank you for your report, Mr. Plover,' the Inspector said, turning to the man in overalls, who had been standing silently by.
Mr. Plover tugged at his forelock and returned to his tractor without a word.
'Our great public schools are cities in miniature,' the Inspector said, with a wave of his hand. 'Mr. Plover spotted you as an intruder the instant you turned into the lane. He wasted no time in getting to the porter's lodge.'
