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

thrill of it all!
    “Yes,” I said, “it was devastating.”
    I HAD EVIDENTLY PASSED the test. Inspector Hewitt had gone into the kitchen where Sergeants Woolmer and Graves were busily setting up operations under a barrage of gossip and lettuce sandwiches from Mrs. Mullet.
    As Ophelia and Daphne came down to lunch, I noticed with disappointment Ophelia's unusual clarity of complexion. Had my concoction backfired? Had I, through some freak accident of chemistry, produced a miracle facial cream?
    Mrs. Mullet bustled in, grumbling as she set our soup and sandwiches on the table.
    “It's not right,” she said. “Me already behind my time, what with all this pother, and Alf expectin' me home, and all. The nerve of them, axin' me to dig that dead snipe out of the refuse bin,” she said with a shudder, “. so's they could prop it up and take its likeness. It's not right. I showed them the bin and told them if they wanted the carcass so bad they could jolly well dig it out themselves; I had lunch to make. Eat your sandwiches, dear. There's nothing like cold meats in June—they're as good as a picnic.”
    “Dead snipe?” Daphne asked, curling her lip.
    "The one as Miss Flavia and the Colonel found on my yesterday's back doorstep. It still gives me the goose-pimples, the way that thing was layin' there with its eye all frosted and its bill stickin' straight up in the air with a bit of paper stuck on it.”
    “Ned!” Ophelia said, slapping the table. “You were right, Daffy. It's a love token!”
    Daphne had been reading The Golden Bough at Easter, and told Ophelia that primitive courting customs from the South Seas sometimes survived in our own enlightened times. It was simply a matter of being patient, she said.
    I looked from one to the other, blankly. There were whole aeons when I didn't understand my sisters at all.
    “A dead bird, stiff as a board, with its bill sticking straight up in the air? What kind of token is that?” I asked.
    Daphne hid behind her book and Ophelia flushed a little. I slipped away from the table and left them tittering into their soup.
    "MRS. MULLET,” I said, “didn't you tell Inspector Hewitt we never see jack snipe in England until September?”
    “Snipes, snipes, snipes! That's all I hear about nowadays is snipes. Step to one side, if you please—you're standin' where it wants scrubbin'.”
    “Why is that? Why do we never see snipe before September?”
    Mrs. Mullet straightened up, dropped her brush in the bucket, and dried her soapy hands on her apron.
    “Because they're somewhere else,” she said triumphantly.
    “Where?”
    "Oh, you know. they're like all them birds what emigrate. They're up north somewhere. For all I know, they could be takin' tea with Father Christmas.”
    “By up north, how far do you mean? Scotland?”
    “Scotland!” she said contemptuously. "Oh dear, no. Even my Alf's second sister, Margaret, gets as far as Scotland on her holidays, and she's no snipe.
    “Although her husband is,” she added.
    There was a roaring in my ears, and something went “click.”
    “What about Norway?” I asked. “Could jack snipe summer in Norway?”
    “I suppose they could, dear. You'd have to look it up.”
    Yes! Hadn't Inspector Hewitt told Dr. Darby that they had reason to believe the man in the garden had come from Norway? How could they possibly know that? Would the Inspector tell me if I asked?
    Probably not. In that case I should have to puzzle it out for myself.
    “Run along now,” Mrs. Mullet said. “I can't go home till I finish this floor, and it's already one o'clock. Poor Alf's digestion is most likely in a shockin' state by now.”
    I stepped out the back door. The police and the coroner had gone, and taken the body with them, and the garden now seemed strangely empty. Dogger was nowhere in sight, and I sat down on a low section of the wall to have a bit of a think.
    Had Ned left the dead snipe on the doorstep as a token of his love for Ophelia? She