'That's so, dear,' she said. 'My Alf says I ought not to have let it slip. But we mustn't ever speak of it. Poor Dogger's nerves are all in tatters.'
'How do you know that? About the prison, I mean?'
'My Alf was in the army too, you know. He served for a time with the Colonel, and with Dogger. He doesn't talk about it. Most of 'em don't. My Alf got home safely with no more harm than troubled dreams, but a lot of them didn't. It's like a brotherhood, you know, the army; like one man spread out thin as a layer of jam across the whole face of the globe. They always know where all their old mates are and what's happened to 'em. It's eerie—psychic, like.'
'Did Dogger kill someone?' I asked, point-blank.
'I'm sure he did, dear. They all did. It was their job, wasn't it?'
'Besides the enemy.'
'Dogger saved your father's life,' she said. 'In more ways than one. He was a medical orderly, or some such thing, was Dogger, and a good one. They say he fished a bullet out of your father's chest, right next to the heart. Just as he was sewin' him up, some RAF bloke went off his head from shell shock. Tried to machete everyone in the tent. Dogger stopped him.'
Mrs. Mullet pulled tight the final knot and used a pair of scissors to snip off the end of the string.
'Stopped him?'
'Yes, dear. Stopped him.'
'You mean he killed him.'
'Afterwards, Dogger couldn't remember. He'd been having one of his moments, you see, and—'
'And Father thinks it's happened again; that Dogger has saved his life again by killing Horace Bonepenny! That's why he's taking the blame!”
'I don't know, dear, I'm sure. But if he did, it would be very like the Colonel.'
That had to be it; there was no other explanation. What was it Father had said when I told him Dogger, too, had overheard his quarrel with Bonepenny? “That is what I fear more than anything.” His exact words.
It was odd, really—almost ludicrous—like something out of Gilbert and Sullivan. I had tried to take the blame to protect Father. Father was taking the blame to protect Dogger. The question was this: Whom was Dogger protecting?
'Thank you, Mrs. M,' I said. 'I'll keep our conversation confidential. Strictly on the q.t.'
'Girl to girl, like,' she said, with a horrible smirking leer.
The “girl to girl” was too much. Too chummy, too belittling. Something in me that was less than noble rose up out of the depths, and I was transformed in the blink of an eye into Flavia the Pigtailed Avenger, whose assignment was to throw a wrench into this fearsome and unstoppable pie machine.
'Yes,' I said. 'Girl to girl. And while we're speaking girl to girl, it's probably as good a time as any to tell you that we none of us at Buckshaw really care for custard pie. In fact, we hate it.'
'Oh piff, I know that well enough,' she said.
'You do?' I was too taken aback to think of more than two words.
''Course I do. Cooks know all, they say, and I'm no different than the next one. I've known that de Luces and custard don't mix since Miss Harriet was alive.”
'But—'
'Why do I make them? Because Alf fancies a nice custard pie now and again. Miss Harriet used to tell me, 'The de Luces are all lofty rhubarbs and prickly gooseberries, Mrs. M, whereas your Alf's a smooth, sweet custard man. I should like you to bake an occasional custard pie to remind us of our haughty ways, and when we turn up our noses at it, why, you must take it home to your Alf as a sweet apology.' And I don't mind sayin' I've taken home a goodly number of apologies these more than twenty years past.'
'Then you'll not need another,' I said.
And then I fled. You couldn't see my bottom for dust.
twenty-one
I PAUSED IN THE HALLWAY, STOOD PERFECTLY STILL, and listened. Because of its parquet floors and hardwood paneling, Buckshaw transmitted sound as perfectly as if it were the Royal Albert Hall. Even in complete silence, Buckshaw had its own unique silence; a silence I would recognize anywhere.
As quietly as I could, I picked up the telephone and gave the cradle a couple of clicks with my finger. “I'd like to place a trunk call to Doddingsley. I'm sorry, I don't have the number, but it's the inn there: the Red Fox or the Ring and Funnel. I've forgotten its name, but I think it has an R and an F in it.”
'One moment, please,' said the bored but efficient voice at the other end of the crackling line.
This shouldn't be too difficult, I thought. Being located across the street from the railway platform, the “RF,” or whatever it was called, was the closest inn to the station and Doddingsley, after all, was no metropolis.
'The only listings I have are for the Grapes and the Jolly Coachman.'
'That's it,' I said. 'The Jolly Coachman!'
The “RF” must have bubbled up from the sludge at the bottom of my mind.
'The number is Doddingsley two three,' the voice said. 'For future reference.'
'Thank you,' I mumbled, as the ringing at the other end began its little jig.
'Doddingsley two three. Jolly Coachman. Are you there? Cleaver, here.' Cleaver, I assumed, was the
