A Red Herring Without Mustard

It had not always been this way. When I was younger, for instance, and Father had recruited Daffy to hear my bedtime prayers, she had taught me to recite them in Pig Latin, and we had rolled among the down-filled pillows, laughing until we nearly split.

“Od-gay ess-blay Ather-fay, Eely-fay, and Issis-may Ullet-may. And Ogger-day, oo-tay!”

But over the years, something had changed between my sisters and me.

A little hurt, I reached for a volume that lay on top of the others: A Looking Glasse, for London and Englande. It was a book, I thought, that would appeal to Feely, since she was mad about mirrors. Perhaps I would purchase it myself, and store it away against the unlikely day when I might feel like giving her a gift, or a peace offering. Stranger things had happened.

Riffling through its pages, I saw at once that it was not a novel, but a play—full of characters’ names and what each of them said. Someone named Adam was talking to a clown:

“… a cup of ale without a wench, why, alas, ’tis like an egg without salt or a red herring without mustard.”

What a perfect motto for a certain someone, I thought, glancing across to where Ned was now grazing away at my sister’s neck as she pretended not to notice. On more than one occasion I’d seen Ned sitting at his chores in the courtyard of the Thirteen Drakes with a tankard of ale—and sometimes Mary Stoker, the landlord’s daughter—at his elbow. I realized with an unexpected shock that without either ale or a female within easy reach, Ned was somehow incomplete. Why hadn’t I noticed that before? Perhaps, like Dr. Watson on the wireless in A Scandal in Bohemia, there are times that I see, but do not observe. This was something I needed to think about.

“Your handiwork, I suppose?” Daffy said suddenly, putting down a book and picking up another. She gestured towards the small knot of villagers who stood gawking at the smoking ruins of the Gypsy’s tent. “It has Flavia de Luce written all over it.”

“Sucks to you,” I said. “I was going to help carry your stupid books home, but now you can jolly well lug them yourself.”

“Oh, do stop it!” she said, clutching at my sleeve. “Please desist. My heartstrings are playing Mozart’s Requiem, and a fugitive tear is making its way to my right eye, even as we speak.”

I wandered away with a careless whistle. I’d deal with her insolence later.

“Ow! Leave off, Brookie! You’re ’urtin’ me.”

The whining voice was coming from somewhere behind the shove ha’penny booth and, when I recognized it as belonging to Colin Prout, I stopped to listen.

By flattening myself against the stone wall of the church and keeping well back behind the canvas that draped the raffle booth, I could eavesdrop in safety. Even better, I was pleased to find that I had an unexpectedly clear view of Colin through the gaps in the booth’s raw lumber.

He was dancing at the end of Brookie Harewood’s arm like a great spectacled fish, his thick eyeglasses knocked askew, his dirty blond hair a hayrick, his large, damp mouth hanging open, gasping for air.

“Leave off. I didn’t do nothin’.”

With his other hand, Brookie took hold of the seat of Colin’s baggy trousers and swiveled him round to face the smoking remains of the Gypsy’s tent.

“Who did that, then, eh?” he demanded, shaking the boy to accentuate his words. “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Where there’s fire, there’s matches. And where there’s matches, there’s Colin Prout.”

“ ’Ere,” Colin said, trying to ram a hand into his pocket. “Count ’em! You just count ’em, Brookie. Same number as I had yesterday. Three. I ain’t used a one.”

As Brookie released his grip, Colin fell to the ground, rolled over on his elbows, dug into his trouser pocket, and produced a box of wooden matches, which he waved at his tormentor.

Brookie raised his head and sniffed the air, as if for guidance. His greasy cap and India rubber boots, his long moleskin coat and, in spite of the hot summer weather, a woolen scarf that clung like a scarlet serpent to his bulldog neck made him look like a rat catcher out of Dickens.

Before I could even wonder what to do, Colin had scrambled to his feet, and the two of them had ambled away across the churchyard, Colin dusting himself off and shrugging elaborately, as though he didn’t care.

I suppose I should have stepped out from behind the booth, admitted I was responsible for the fire, and demanded that Brookie release the boy. If he refused, I could easily have run for the vicar, or called for any one of the other able-bodied men who were within earshot. But I didn’t. And the simple reason, I realized with a little chill, was this: I was afraid of Brookie Harewood.

Brookie was Bishop’s Lacey’s riffraff.