The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

"It was tragic," she said. "My uncle had been housemaster of Anson House forever—or so it seemed. He took great pride in his house and in his boys. He spared no pains in urging them always to do their best; to prepare themselves for life.

"He liked to joke that he spoke better Latin than Julius Caesar himself, and his Latin grammar, Twining's Lingua Latina—published when he was just twenty-four, by the way—was a standard text in schools round the world. I still keep a copy beside my bed, and even though I can't read much of it, I sometimes like to hold it for the comfort it brings me: qui, quae, quod, and all that. The words have such a comforting sound about them.

"Uncle Grenville was forever organizing things: He encouraged his boys to form a debating society, a skating club, a cycling club, a cribbage circle. He was a keen amateur conjurer, although not a very good one—you could always see the ace of diamonds peeping out of his cuffs with the bit of elastic dangling down from it. He was an enthusiastic stamp collector, and taught the boys to learn the history and the geography of the issuing countries, as well as to keep neat, orderly albums. And that was his downfall."

I stopped chewing and sat expectantly. Miss Mountjoy had slipped into a kind of reverie and seemed unlikely to go on without encouragement.

Little by little, I had come under her spell. She had talked to me woman-to-woman, and I had succumbed. I felt sorry for her… really I did.

"His downfall?" I asked.

"He made the great mistake of putting his trust in several wretched excuses for boyhood who had wormed themselves into his favor. They pretended great interest in his little stamp collection, and feigned an even greater interest in the collection of Dr. Kissing, the headmaster. In those days, Dr. Kissing was the world's greatest authority on the Penny Black—the world's first postage stamp—in all of its many variations. The Kissing collection was the envy—and I say that advisedly—of all the world. These vile creatures convinced Uncle Grenville to intercede and arrange a private viewing of the Head's stamps.

"While examining the crown jewel of this collection, a Penny Black of a certain peculiarity—I've forgotten the details—the stamp was destroyed.”

"Destroyed?" I asked.

"Burned. One of the boys set it alight. He meant it to be a joke."

Miss Mountjoy took up her tea and drifted like a wisp of smoke to the window, where she stood looking out for what seemed like a very long time. I was beginning to think she'd forgotten about me, but then she spoke again:

"Of course, my uncle was blamed for the disaster."

She turned and looked me in the eye. “And the rest of the story you've learned this morning in the Pit Shed.”

"He killed himself," I said.

"He did not kill himself!” she shrieked. The cup and saucer fell from her hand and shattered on the tile floor. “He was murdered!”

"By whom?" I asked, getting a grip on myself, even managing to get the grammar right. Miss Mountjoy was beginning to grate on my nerves again.

"By those monsters!" she spat out. "Those obscene monsters!"

"Monsters?"

"Those boys! They killed him as surely as if they had taken a dagger into their own hands and stuck him in the heart."

"Who were they, these boys. these monsters, I mean? Do you remember their names?"

"Why do you want to know? What right have you coming here to stir up these ghosts?"

"I'm interested in history," I said.

She passed a hand across her eyes as if commanding herself to come out of a trance, and spoke in the slow voice of a woman drugged.

"It's so long ago," she said. "So very long ago. I really don't care to remember. Uncle Grenville mentioned their names, before he was—"

"Murdered?" I suggested.

"Yes, that's right, before he was murdered. Strange, isn't it? For all these years one of their names has stuck most in my mind because it reminded me of a monkey. a monkey on a chain, you know, with an organ grinder and a little round red hat and a tin cup."

She gave a tight, nervous little laugh.

"Jacko," I said.

Miss Mountjoy sat down heavily as if she'd been pole-axed. She stared at me with goggle eyes as if I'd just materialized from another dimension.

"Who are you, little girl?" she whispered. "Why have you come here? What's your name?"

"Flavia," I said as I paused for a moment at the door. "Flavia Sabina Dolores de Luce." The "Sabina" was real enough; "Dolores" I invented on the spot.

UNTIL I RESCUED HER from rusty oblivion, my trusty old three-speed BSA Keep Fit had languished for years in a toolshed among broken flowerpots and wooden wheelbarrows. Like so many other things at Buckshaw, she had once belonged to Harriet, who had named her l'Hirondelle: "the swallow." I had rechristened her Gladys.