Free Flavia de Luce 1 - The Sweetness At The Bottom Of The Pie by Alan Bradley Page A

understanding?
    “Hell, no!” I shouted into the wind, and I chanted as we flew along:
    Oomba-chukka! Oomba-chukka
    Oomba-chukka-Boom!
    But I felt no more like one of Lord Baden-Powell's blasted Boy Scouts than I did Prince Knick-Knack of Ali Kazaam.
    I was me. I was Flavia. And I loved myself, even if no one else did.
    “All hail Flavia! Flavia forever!” I shouted, as Gladys and I sped through the Mulford Gates, at top speed, into the avenue of chestnuts that lined the drive at Buckshaw.
    These magnificent gates, with their griffins rampant and filigreed black wrought iron, had once graced the neighboring estate of Batchley, the ancestral home of “The Dirty Mulfords.” The gates were acquired for Buckshaw in the 1760s by one Brandwyn de Luce, who—after one of the Mulfords absconded with his wife—dismantled them and took them home.
    The exchange of a wife for a pair of gates (“The finest this side Paradise,” Brandwyn had written in his diary) seemed to have settled the matter, since the Mulfords and the de Luces remained best of friends and neighbors until the last Mulford, Tobias, sold off the estate at the time of the American Civil War and went abroad to assist his Confederate cousins.
    "A WORD, FLAVIA,” Inspector Hewitt said, stepping out of the front door.
    Had he been waiting for me?
    “Of course,” I said graciously.
    “Where have you been just now?”
    “Am I under arrest, Inspector?” It was a joke—I hoped he'd catch on.
    “I was merely curious.”
    He pulled a pipe from his jacket pocket, filled it, and struck a match. I watched as it burned steadily down towards his square fingertips.
    “I went to the library,” I said.
    He lit his pipe, then pointed its stem at Gladys.
    “I don't see any books.”
    “It was closed.”
    “Ah,” he said.
    There was a maddening calmness about the man. Even in the midst of murder he was as placid as if he were strolling in the park.
    “I've spoken to Dogger,” he said, and I noticed that he kept his eyes on me to gauge my reaction.
    “Oh, yes?” I said, but my mind was sounding the kind of “Oogah!” warning they have on a submarine preparing to dive.
    Careful! I thought. Watch your step. How much did Dogger tell him? About the strange man in the study? About the quarrel with Father? The threats?
    That was the trouble with someone like Dogger: He was likely to break down for no reason whatsoever. Had he blabbed to the Inspector about the stranger in the study? Damn the man! Damn him!
    "He says that you awakened him at about four A.M. and told him that there was a dead body in the garden. Is that correct?”
    I held back a sigh of relief, almost choking in the process. Thank you, Dogger! May the Lord bless you and keep you and make his face to shine upon you, always! Good old faithful Dogger. I knew I could count on you.
    “Yes,” I said. “That's correct.”
    “What happened then?”
    “We went downstairs and out the kitchen door into the garden. I showed him the body. He knelt down beside it and felt for a pulse.”
    “And how did he do that?”
    “He put his hand on the neck—under the ear.”
    “Hmm,” the Inspector said. “And was there? Any pulse, I mean?”
    “No.”
    “How did you know that? Did he tell you?”
    “No,” I said.
    “Hmm,” he said again. “Did you kneel down beside it too?”
    “I suppose I could have. I don't think so. I don't remember.”
    The Inspector made a note. Even without seeing it, I knew what it said: Query: Did D. (1) tell F. no pulse? (2) See F. kneel BB (Beside Body)?
    “That's quite understandable,” he said. “It must have been rather a shock.”
    I brought to mind the image of the stranger lying there in the first light of dawn: the slight growth of whiskers on his chin, strands of his red hair shifting gently on the faint stirrings of the morning breeze, the pallor, the extended leg, the quivering fingers, that last, sucking breath. And that word, blown into my face… “Vale.”
    The