The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

Miss Mountjoy tells Flavia about her uncle over tea and biscuits. Mr. Twining worked hard to prepare “his boys” for their future. He organized many groups, including a popular stamp club, which was his downfall, according to Miss Mountjoy: “He made the great mistake of putting his trust in several wretched excuses for boyhood who had wormed themselves into his favor” (70). Some students convinced Mr. Twining to arrange a meeting with the headmaster, who owned a very rare Penny Black stamp. That evening, one of the boys attempted a magic trick with the priceless stamp, destroying it.

Mr. Twining blamed himself for the incident. Flavia assumes he then killed himself, but Miss Mountjoy shrieks that he was murdered. She blames the boys in the stamp club, calling them monsters and saying, “They killed him as surely as if they had taken a dagger into their own hands and stuck him in the heart” (71). Flavia asks if Miss Mountjoy remembers their names. Miss Mountjoy says she remembers one name, and Flavia guesses it is Jacko, the name the deceased stranger had called her father. Aghast, Miss Mountjoy wants to know who Flavia is, but Flavia merely gives her full name and leaves.

Flavia gets back on Gladys, which was Harriet’s bicycle. As she rides home, she pretends that she is the son she imagines her father always wanted. Flavia wonders if, had she been a boy, he would have been kinder to Miss Mountjoy.

Inspector Hewitt is waiting at Buckshaw. He says that he has spoken to Dogger, who reported Flavia woke him about the dead body at 4:00 a.m. Flavia had worried that Dogger would reveal that the stranger had been in her father’s study; she is relieved that he did not.

Mrs. Mullet, complaining about the extra work caused by the police needing refreshments, tells Flavia that they asked her to retrieve the dead bird from the garbage. Ophelia thinks the bird was a love token from Ned, a suggestion from Daphne. Flavia thinks this ridiculous and asks Mrs. Mullet why jack snipes are not seen in England until September. Mrs. Mullet replies that they live further north. Flavia recalls that Inspector Hewitt thought the dead man recently came from Norway.

Flavia rushes back to Bishop’s Lacey, before Mrs. Mullet can return home and begin gossiping: “once [Mrs. Mullet] reached home, news of the murder at Buckshaw would spread like the Black Death. I had until then to find out what I needed to know” (80).

Ned is working in the inn yard as Flavia rides up. He asks about Ophelia, and in turn, Flavia asks if he is “keen” on Ophelia. Flavia suggests that Ophelia would like to see Ned, but her father might not allow it, so perhaps a younger sibling would help. Ned is touched by this. Flavia then tells him that he should not leave dead birds on a loved one’s doorstep, but Ned has no idea what she is talking about.

Flavia asks if Mary Stoker knows Ned fancies Ophelia. Ned says Mary has nothing to do with Ophelia. Flavia admits that she saw Mary kiss him, but Ned says that happened only because Mary needed comforting. Flavia asks if it was because of the person who crept up behind her, and Ned gets extremely angry, saying that Mary does not want that incident to get out.

Mary appears at the inn door and says Ned should tell Flavia what happened. Flavia senses that Mary does not like her:

“Between girls there is a silent and unending flow of invisible signals, like the high-frequency wireless messages between the shore and the ships at sea, and this secret flow of dots and dashes was signaling that Mary detested me” (85).

Mary tells Flavia to come with her and be quiet. They go up to the second floor, and Mary suddenly shushes Flavia, pulling her into a corner. They hear Tully Stoker angrily arguing with someone about horse racing as footsteps move down the corridor. Mary brings Flavia to a guest room and unlocks the door.

Inside, there is old furniture and a cheap steamer trunk. The trunk is covered with stickers of various destinations. Mary comments scornfully that Flavia has probably never seen a room so small and that Ophelia must have sent Flavia with a message for Ned. Flavia assures Mary that Ophelia did not send her and that her comments to Ned were a cover, so that she could ask Mary for help. Flavia says that there was a murder at Buckshaw, and she needs Mary to bring her the register, since the dead man must stayed at the inn. Mary says there is currently only one guest, a Mr. Sanders, and they are in his room.

Mary leaves to get the register. While she is gone, Flavia searches the room. In the steamer trunk, she finds cufflinks with the initials “HB.” Mary returns, saying she could not get the register, and is appalled to find Flavia going through the guest’s luggage. Flavia asks when Mr. Sanders was there last, and Mary says he was there yesterday at noon, when he grabbed her from behind as she made the bed.

Mary reveals that Mr. Sanders has a leather case full of vials. She guesses that they are poison, but Flavia realizes that they are insulin. Flavia asks if Mr. Sanders has red hair, and Mary asks how she knew. Flavia replies that it was a wizard guess.

Mary realizes with alarm that she forgot to empty the wastebasket, which is full of pie crust remains. Flavia puts some of the mess into a newspaper and sticks it in her pocket, thinking it might be evidence. At the very bottom of the wastebasket is a feather covered with pastry.

Flavia thinks that a bird was in the pie crust: “If the feather had fallen on the pastry in the wastepaper basket, it wouldn’t be attached” (94). Flavia suspects that the stranger came from Norway with a jack snipe hidden in a pie, to get it past a customs inspector. Flavia deduces that the stranger stayed at this inn, therefore “Mr. Sanders” is the dead man.

Mary’s father yells for her again, so she tells Flavia to wait five minutes, then leave down the back stairs. Alone in the room, Flavia runs her fingers over the labels on the steamer trunk. One label says Stavanger, and as Flavia touches it, she notices it is not pasted down smoothly like the others. Flavia gets a razor blade out of the trunk and makes a slit along the bottom of the label. A glassine envelope falls out, containing two postage stamps. Flavia is disappointed that they are both Penny Blacks, though orange in color. Seeing no point in putting them back, since their owner is dead, she thinks, “They might come in handy someday when I need to barter my way out of a scrape with Father, who is incapable of thinking stamps and discipline at the same time” (98).

Flavia slips out of the room and down the back stairs, but she hears Tully Stoker yelling as he comes up the stairs. Flavia hurries back up, then through the corridor and down the main stairs. As she passes through the lobby, she sees the guest register lying open. The only guest listed is “F.X. Sanders.” A taxicab pulls up outside, and Flavia hears Stoker say that Mr. Pemberton has arrived. Flavia runs out the door and jumps into the back of a lorry before Stoker can see her. The lorry drives off, and Flavia ponders what would happen if she never returned to her family, thinking she would probably be blamed for the murder. When the lorry pauses at an intersection, Flavia jumps out and walks home.

Flavia arrives home and hears Ophelia playing the piano. She sees her father through the window of his study, intent on his stamps. As Flavia walks by, Ophelia asks where she has been, but Flavia says it is none of her business and asks where their father is. Daphne answers that he has not been seen all day.

Flavia suddenly remembers that she left Gladys at the inn, where the police could see it. She heads back to town and approaches the inn from the rear. From behind a wall, she hears Stoker speaking to Inspector Hewitt, telling him that Mr. Sanders had never stayed with him before. Flavia is very pleased that she identified the dead man before the police.

Flavia grabs Gladys and rides away. At home, Dogger meets her at the door and tensely asks to speak with her. He leads her to the greenhouse. Inside, Dogger asks Flavia what she told the police. Flavia admits she wondered the same of Dogger, so he says he told Inspector Hewitt that Flavia woke him when she found the dead body and led him to the garden. Flavia assures Dogger that she already reported this to Inspector Hewitt, and that she did not say anything about the quarrel in her father’s study. Dogger urgently tells her that she must never tell anyone about that. Flavia wonders who Dogger might be protecting, so she asks why. He says, “There are things […] which need to be known. And there are other things which need not to be known” (111). Flavia asks what those might be, but he refuses to answer.

In her laboratory, Flavia opens the newspaper and finds that her “evidence” has crumbled. She takes the feather and hides it among letters belonging to her great-uncle Tar de Luce. Looking at the mutilated pie crust, Flavia is reminded that she has not eaten all day. She also remembers that Mrs. Mullet asked her how she enjoyed the custard pie, which she had not eaten. Flavia recalls the missing piece of custard pie and wonders who took it.

Flavia goes down to the kitchen and finds that the pie is gone. She wonders if Mrs. Mullet took it home to her husband and wishes she could call her on the telephone, but her father forbids anyone to the phone except in case of emergency. Flavia remembers, “Ophelia once told me that even when news had come of Harriet’s death, it had to be sent by telegram because Father refused to believe anything he hadn’t seen in print” (113).