So he didn’t know.

  “Mrs. Mullet,” I said.

  Dogger let out a long, low whistle. I made a mental note to ask him to teach me how to do that. It seemed to me a whistle of immense possibilities: a whistle with many useful functions, like a Boy Scout’s jackknife.

  “What do you think, Dogger?”

  “I had no idea,” he said. “No idea whatsoever.”

  “Nor did I,” I told him.

  “Our Mrs. Mullet is a woman of immense and often unsuspected talents,” he said. “Not that we didn’t know that—of course.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Have the police seen these?” he asked, shuffling again through the sketches, turning them upside down and then right side up again.

  “No,” I said. “At least, not as far as I know. Do you think we ought to hand them over?”

  “Yes,” Dogger said, and my heart sank. “But not until we have squeezed the juices out of them.”

  I leaped to my feet and pulled my pail closer to Dogger’s.

  “And out of Mrs. Mullet,” I added.

  · Twelve ·

  There are moments you know you will remember until the sun and all the stars burn out, and this was one of them. Sometimes we don’t appreciate, or even realize at the time, our most cherished moments, so that when we do, we do so with regret.

  But this time was different. I knew in an instant that the aura of our friendship, as I thought of it, had formed itself already, and I hugged myself.

  We leaned close together over Mrs. Mullet’s sketches.

  Dogger spotted the footprint at once. “Ah, yes,” he said. “U.S. Army issue. Type two. Oval diamond sole. Thirteen studs on the heel rather than hobnails. As were the prints in the wood.”

  “Well done!” I said. “You amaze me, Dogger.”

  “You must bear in mind,” he said, “that I have a great deal of experience with gentlemen’s footwear.”

  I clapped my hands together in delight.

  “You must also bear in mind that this particular pair of boots could have been worn by a magistrate, a pawnbroker, or, for all we know, a charlady.”

  “Or a Minotaur,” I said. It just slipped out and I was immediately sorry.

  “Or a Minotaur,” Dogger echoed, his face giving nothing away.

  Does he know? Does he know?

  Surely, he could hear my thoughts leaking out through my ears—they were that loud.

  “While the boots are certainly suggestive, they are not conclusive,” Dogger said. “One remembers the horseshoes in Sherlock Holmes, made to look like the hooves of cows.”

  “Would anyone actually do that in real life?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes,” Dogger said. “Much more so than in fiction. Characters in fiction must remain believable. It is not so in real life.”

  He turned his attention back to Mrs. Mullet’s sketches. “It is important to notice the very slight rigor of the jaw,” he went on, “and Mrs. Mullet has captured it nicely. Her handling of the light is exemplary. Fifteen or twenty minutes earlier or later and she might have missed the delineation of muscle. We must congratulate her.”

  And with that, he closed the sketchbook.

  “Is there anything more that we have missed?” I asked anxiously.

  “There is much that we have missed.” He smiled. “But I fear my duties to my employers must take priority.”

  I had come to think of Dogger as a member of my family, and the reminder that he was an employee was like a pail of cold water thrown into my face.

  The fact that I was one of his employers made it even worse.

  “It’s all right, Dogger,” I said. “I’ll let you off.”

  “That’s very kind of you, Miss Flavia,” he said, “and I shall remember your offer. But one must always remember that no matter who the employer is, Duty holds the higher rank.”

  I bit my lower lip and let air out between my teeth.

  Just what Father said, I thought. Duty holds all the cards—next to God, who holds the fifth and all succeeding Aces.

  I needed to be alone.

  “Of course,” I said with a sunny smile, which cost me all I had. “I’ll go make ready for Undine and the death cap mushrooms. I’ve been dying to try a new analysis that reacts with all three toxins.”

  Dogger touched his cap, which made me even sadder, and I tried not to run as I made my way to the house and my room.

  I got no farther than the bottom of the stairs before I heard voices from the library. I deadened my footsteps by assuming a sneaking stance, and tiptoed my way to the library door.

  I put my ear against the panel.

  They were discussing the American author J. D. Salinger.

  “The Catcher in the Rye?” Daffy was saying. “I’ve read better prose on a pickle bottle—and been provided in the end with something to chew on.”

  I had to agree with her. We’d been forced to read the book for the parish book club. It had been proposed by Fayne Weekley, a pimply young man with delusions about his own intelligence. “It’s an unusually brilliant first novel,” he had argued when the vicar wondered about its suitability. Daffy told me later that Fayne had stolen the quote from a newspaper review, but his earnestness and probably his pimples won the day, and we all wound up reading the meandering plod. I was hoping to be asked for my opinion, but I wasn’t. If I had been, I’d have said that any book of more than two hundred and fifty pages without a single mention of chemistry or poisoning was a wicked waste of time.

  On the other side of the library door, the other voice spoke. It was Carl Pendracka. I recognized him instantly by his accent.

  “It’s a boffo book,” he said. “I read it on the boat coming over. It’s prob’ly the best book I ever read.”

  “Have you read Tristram Shandy?” Daffy asked.

  “No.”

  “I rest my case,” she said.

  I chose that moment to make my presence known, so, like all superior lurkers, I burst into the room as if I had just arrived.

  “Tennis, anyone?” I bellowed in my best games-mistress voice.

  Daffy and Carl leaped to their feet. I had truly startled, perhaps even frightened them.

  “You stupid crack-wit!” Daffy shouted. “You fat-kidneyed chuck-head; you duck-haired mumblecrust!”

  It was almost a pleasure to be insulted by Daffy. She knew words that, when thrown into them, were known to have curdled rivers.

  “What do you mean by bursting in here?” she shouted, getting her second wind.

  “It’s my house,” I said, and planted my hands on my hips for effect.

  It was true: My mother had left Buckshaw to me in a complicated will that was simply awash in “whereas”es and “hereinafter”s. I knew that reminding her of this would hurt Daffy, and it did.

  “You nasty little shite goblin,” she said in a suddenly normal voice, and I could see that she was close to tears.

  Without waiting a heartbeat, I rushed across the room and flung my arms around her., knowing that she hated it. I hated it, too. This was probably the only time since we were almost babies, when we had been made to hug by being forced together with a couple of pillows and a shooting stick by a photographer who was notable for his creative baby photos and his fees.

  I also took into consideration the fact that Carl was watching. I pressed my face into her shoulder and counted to ten, then flung myself down onto the settee in a loose and carefree posture.

  “You missed the fire,” I said.

  “No, I didn’t,” Daffy replied. “I saw the smoke blowing past the window. Thought it was Dogger burning grass.”

  “Did you come in your jeep?” I asked, swiveling toward Carl and watching his face intently.

  “Yup,” he said. “Always do. Always will. Uncle Sam’s Taxis, Inc.”

  “Did you make a diversion round the Visto, along the edge of the woods?”

  “Nope,” Carl said. “Came straight from the gates to the front door. Jeep’s still parked out there. Why?”

  “Oh, no reason. I thought you might have taken the scenic route and thrown a cigarette butt in the grass.”

  “Thanks a lot,” Carl said, crossing his arms and stretching his legs out to their full extent. It couldn’t have been more perfect: I now had an unobstructed and close-up view of the soles of his boots. They were almost in my lap.

  The pattern on his soles was what I expected it to be: thirteen studs on the heels and a sole with a pineapple pattern.

  I looked away quickly. All I needed to do now was to get rid of Daffy. Boredom would do the trick.

  “I was just teasing you, Carl. No hard feelings. Tell me again about the time Babe Ruth kissed you.”

  Even though I knew nothing much about baseball, I knew that Babe Ruth was roughly the equivalent of our Dr. W. G. Grace, the legendary—even godlike—cricket phenomenon.

  “Well,” Carl said, “I was just a baby when it happened. My old man took me with him on the train all the way from Cincinnati to New York City and Yankee Stadium because he couldn’t afford a babysitter. He ran into a guy named Norman Boze that he’d met at the beach when they were just kids. Norman’s dad had been a scout for the Yankees and he knew Babe Ruth personally. Pop was almost speechless for the first time in history when Norman invited him to come and sit in the dugout.”

  Daffy sighed. Carl was just getting into it.

  “There’s a tradition of getting someone famous to osculate your kid. It’s supposed to bring good luck, like finding a four-leaf clover, only better. And to get someone as famous as Babe Ruth to do the honors—well…

  “So, when Norman introduced Pop to the Babe, instead of sticking out his hand, he stuck out his baby: me! And do you know what? Babe Ruth planted a big wet one right in the middle of my forehead.” Carl touched the spot with his forefinger and rubbed it in a circular motion, as if stirring a cauldron of memories.

  “Want to touch it, Daffy?” he asked.

  Daffy slammed her book shut and stood up.

  “Not without surgical gloves,” she said, and walked out of the room.

  Carl looked after her, puzzled. He examined his forefinger and then jammed both hands into his trouser pockets and hunched his shoulders, like a boy in a schoolyard.

  “It’s okay, Carl,” I said. “She’s just testing her tether.”

  “You think so?” he asked, brightening.

  I laid my finger alongside my nose and gave him a knowing look. I’d teach that hag Daffy to call me a fat-kidneyed chuck-head.

  “Actually, I’m glad we’re alone for a minute,” I said. “I wanted to ask you another question.”

  “Fire away,” he said.

  “That sergeant—the one who drove me home. What’s his name?”

  “Could be anyone. Did he have a badge?”

  “I think so,” I said. “Blue and white. Air Police. An eagle and a cloud.”

  “That’ll most likely be Sergeant Malone,” Carl said. “We call him Poker, but not to his face, of course. His name’s Preston. Preston Malone. He’s a one, I’ll tell you. Why do you ask?”

  “Oh, no particular reason,” I said, examining my fingernails—or what was left of them. “Does he actually talk?”

  “Not much,” Carl said. “He used to be a Marine, but he got posted to the Eighth on special assignment.”

  “Meaning what?” I asked.

  “He’s what we call a swabber,” Carl said.

  “And what does a swabber do?” I asked.

  “He swabs.”

  I laughed dutifully but my mind was already shifting into top gear.

  Here was Lewis Carroll again. Could a swabber be one of those seven maids with seven mops?

  “Swabs what?” I asked.

  Carl laughed nervously. “Whatever needs swabbing,” he said. “You know…”

  I thought I did, but I didn’t want to say so.

  “No,” I said. “I don’t know. Tell me.”

  “Well,” Carl said, “wars are messy things, and there are always little details that need cleaning up afterward.”

  “Such as?” I asked.

  Carl scratched his head. “Well,” he said. “You’ve heard of the Nuremberg trials?”

  “Vaguely,” I said.

  If only he knew! Was he saying that Sergeant Malone was an executioner—like Major Greyleigh? Could there possibly be a connection?

  “They say he was at Nuremberg,” Carl said.

  “Then what’s he doing as a driver at Leathcote?”

  “Who knows?” Carl shrugged. “Maybe swabbing—maybe making sure things don’t need swabbing. Who knows?”

  I do, I wanted to say. I’d like to know whose hands I have been in. I’d like to know whose power I have been under—and still may be.

  “Oh, well,” I said. “As Mrs. Mullet puts it: ‘It’s all water under the fridge.’ ”

  I hated to poke fun at Mrs. M but I needed desperately to lighten the situation.

  Carl pulled his hands out of his pockets and rose from his chair. “Well, I’d better be moseyin’ off,” he said.

  “All right,” I told him. “Thanks for the chat.”

  “Tell Daffy,” he said, “I’m sorry I bored her with my baseball story. Next time, I’ll—”

  “Never mind,” I said. “I loved it. Do you think Babe Ruth’s kiss changed your life?”

  “You never know,” Carl said. “That’s the thing about luck: You never know. If you did, it wouldn’t be luck: It would be mere foreknowledge.”

  I laughed out loud and clapped my hands together.

  “What did they feed you in Cincinnati?” I asked.

  “Toenails,” he said.

  Blast you, Undine, I thought. Her baleful influence is everywhere.

  Where was she? She ought to have been back with the mushrooms ages ago.

  The easiest way to find out was to head straight to her destination: the woods on the far side of the Visto. After a quick recce around the house, I went out the kitchen door and set out toward the east.

  I was made immediately filthy by the ashes of the grass fire, which were still warm in places. Little tendrils of smoke arose here and there and within fifty feet my shoes were black with soot. I trudged on, keeping my eyes fixed on the woods beyond, alert for any signs of motion.

  As I drew closer to the tree line, I fancied I heard a kind of faint mewing. Had a cat, or a kitten, been caught by the fire? I sent up a quick prayer begging that it not be so.

  It wasn’t myself that I feared for: I had stalked through today’s grassfire without hesitation, even though it felt as if my feet were about to burst into flames. But now, at the thought of a helpless animal being injured, my blood ran cold.

  Animals are so vulnerable when it comes to fire. I had been taken as a child to see the film Bambi, and the blazing forest had terrified me so much that I had to be removed, screaming, from the cinema.

  Smoke still hovered above the Visto. The wind had died, and I noticed for the first time that the light was beginning to fade. I felt an almost overwhelming urge to call out to Undine, but some ancient wisdom told me not to draw attention to myself. Better to approach quietly whatever was making the noise, which, as I neared the edge of the wood, was slowly growing louder.

  Caution told me to move slowly from tree to tree, peering carefully round each one before slipping to the next. I had now reached the spot where we had earlier seen the tire tracks.

  It is amazing how quickly we revert to our primitive selves when we are alone among the trees. The senses are instantly shifted up into a higher gear, allowing us to smell the bark, the leaves, and the sap, as well as to hear the mushrooms growing and the sound of our own breath.

  I had just steadied myself by placing my left hand on the trunk of an old oak and was about to peer around the trunk when my right shoulder was seized in an iron grip and a large hand clamped over my mouth.

  “Don’t make a sound,” a voice hissed into my ear. “If you do, I’ll slit your throat.”

  The feel of cold steel at my neck told me this was no idle threat.

  “Now walk slowly,” the voice said, pushing me toward the heart of the woods—and away from Buckshaw.

  I did as I was told.

  Why hadn’t I told anyone where I was going? Would anyone even think of searching this lonely wood on the outer edge of our estate? What could I do to leave a trail?

  I began by pressing the soles of my shoes deeper into the ground to make my footprints easier to track.

  “Stop that,” said my captor, uncomfortably close to my ear. Although I could feel his hot breath on my neck, I hadn’t yet seen him.

  On we went, through dead leaves and mold. I tried to step on fallen twigs to leave a trail of broken wood.

  “Stop that,” he said again, and again something cold and metallic touched the side of my throat.

  Could I learn anything from the tone of his voice? It was worth a try.

  “Where are you taking me?” I asked.

  But he did not answer.

  Here among the trees, a smoky mist was rising from the ground, creating a false darkness that had the sharp, sour smell of burnt grass.

  I had now lost my bearings. We had twisted and turned, and I no longer knew in which direction lay the Visto and the house. Even if I were suddenly free, I wouldn’t know which way to run.

  My captor seized my elbow and jerked me roughly round the end of a fallen tree, and there before me, suddenly and unexpectedly, was a jeep.

  And sitting in the back seat, her eyes as wide as saucers, was Undine. A broad leather belt wrapped round her head held a piece of khaki cloth across her mouth, and as soon as she saw me, she began making the pitiful mewling noise that I had heard, rising now in volume and strength. She was frightened out of her wits. She half leaped to her feet but fell back heavily into the seat, and I could see that her wrists were in handcuffs looped through the tubular metal of the jeep’s front seat. As she turned, I saw that she had a gash above one eye. Blood was dripping from her brow.