The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

Flavia wakes the next morning with a bad cold. At the breakfast table, Ophelia is startled by the appearance of Pemberton outside the French doors. Flavia opens the door, and Pemberton says he hopes to interview her father about Buckshaw. Flavia replies that her father has been detained.

Pemberton says that he would like to have a “quick” look around. He promises not to disturb anyone. Flavia is trying to think of a polite way to say no when Dogger appears at the end of the lane and heads in their direction. Pemberton suddenly says that he must go.

Dogger and Flavia stand on the porch together, and Flavia thinks back to when Dogger taught her how to pick locks. He had lost the key to the greenhouse during one of his “episodes” and was picking the lock with a bent fork. Flavia had asked where he had learned this skill, but he would not answer.

Flavia goes to her laboratory but she cannot concentrate, as her mind swarmed with recent revelations and discoveries, namely “the deaths of Mr. Twining and Horace Bonepenny” (248). She ponders the cap and gown she found. Both her father and the newspaper stated that Mr. Twining was wearing his gown when he fell to his death.

Flavia is startled by a knock on the door. Dogger is there, looking as if he has just had an episode. Flavia’s gentle teasing helps him relax again, and he enters the room. Flavia brews Dogger some tea in a beaker.

Dogger tells Flavia that sometimes he does things without remembering them later: “I think I might have done something to someone. And now they’ve gone and arrested the Colonel for it” (253). Flavia asks if he means Horace Bonepenny, and Dogger drops his beaker of tea.

Dogger demands to know what Flavia knows about Horace Bonepenny. Flavia gently replies that she knows all about him, that she learned about him from Miss Mountjoy and her father.

Flavia asks Dogger to tell her everything he can remember from the night of the murder. He recounts waking up to the sound of voices and going to the study. A man came out of the study and Dogger hid, then followed him out to the garden. The man was eating something, standing in the cucumber patch, and “then there were the fireworks” (255). Dogger thinks they must have been from a fête in the village, but Flavia knows there was no fête that night. Dogger then thinks he fell asleep, because he woke up lying in the grass. He went to bed, feeling like he had had one of his episodes.

Flavia asks if Dogger thinks he killed Horace during that episode; he glumly nods and touches the back of his head. Flavia examines his head and sees a huge bruise there. She realizes that he was struck unconscious, so it would have been impossible for him to kill Horace.

Dogger returns to his room to rest, and Flavia looks out at Ophelia sunning herself on the lawn. Flavia notes that Ophelia’s complexion still looks normal, but her thoughts are full of Dogger and her father.

Flavia lists possible murder suspects, but none seem likely. Flavia considers the fact that Horace was a diabetic and traveled all day before arriving at Buckshaw late that night. To her knowledge, he did not eat during that time. Upon leaving Buckshaw, Horace took the slice of pie, which may have put him into shock. But if so, then “why would Inspector Hewitt have arrested Father and laid charges against him?” (260-61).

Flavia goes outside to think, but her thoughts are jumbled. When she returns to the house, Flavia sees that her sisters are gone and she is alone. She turns on the wireless to a song from the Mikado and wishes that she and her sisters were as carefree as those characters. When the part with the High Executioner begins, Flavia has an epiphany and knows who Mr. Twining’s murderer was.

Flavia goes to the kitchen and asks Mrs. Mullet about Dogger’s time in the army. Mrs. Mullet explains that Dogger saved her father’s life, first by removing a bullet from his chest, then by killing a shell-shocked soldier who tried to attack the wounded. Flavia excitedly says that her father must believe that Dogger tried to save him again by killing Horace Bonepenny, so he is taking the blame for the murder.

Flavia thanks Mrs. Mullet for the information, then becomes irritated when Mrs. Mullet says to keep this secret between them, “girl to girl.” She thinks, “The ‘girl to girl’ was too much. Too chummy, too belittling” (266). Flavia strikes back by telling Mrs. Mullet that no one in the house likes her custard pies. Mrs. Mullet tells Flavia that she knows. She makes the pies because Harriet told her to, so that she could take them home to her husband Alf.

Flavia calls the telephone operator and asks to be connected to the inn in Doddingsley. She asks the proprietor to speak to Mr. Pemberton, but he says Mr. Pemberton left three days prior. Ophelia catches Flavia using the telephone, which she knows is forbidden.

Ophelia is wearing a scarf around her face, which falls off when she tries to grab Flavia. Ophelia’s lips are swollen and red. Flavia is pleased that her experiment was successful, but she does not have time to write it up in her notebook.

Flavia goes into the village and runs into Maximilian. She asks him if he attended Greyminster. He replies that he did not, but his cousin was a student there. Flavia asks if Dr. Kissing is still alive; he is in a private hospital called Rook’s End.

Flavia rides Gladys to Rook’s End and is greeted by an old man sitting in a sun room: “‘Hello, Flavia,’ he said. ‘I’ve been expecting you’” (275). Their initial conversation does not go well, as Dr. Kissing speaks condescendingly to Flavia, saying he does not care for “little girls.” He comments that Flavia is not at all like her father, and when Flavia replies that she favors her mother, Dr. Kissing calls her death a great tragedy. Dr. Kissing says that he reads newspapers regularly to keep up on events in the area.

As Dr. Kissing engages with Flavia, he sees that she is very intelligent and treats her less patronizingly. Abruptly he asks her to show him his Ulster Avenger. Flavia is surprised. Dr. Kissing heard about her investigations from Miss Mountjoy and deduced much on his own.

Flavia takes the envelope of stamps from her pocket and hands it to Dr. Kissing, who is shocked to see that she also has the AA stamp that belongs to the king. He whispers, “‘Greetings, my old friends,’ […] as if I weren’t there. ‘It’s been far too long a time’” (279).

Dr. Kissing asks Flavia if her father knows she is visiting him. Flavia reports that her father was arrested for Horace’s murder. Dr. Kissing helps Flavia solidify her thoughts about her investigation, and she recognizes what an outstanding teacher he must have been.

Dr. Kissing asks Flavia what she would have done with the TL stamp if she had discovered that he was dead. She would have given it to her father. Dr. Kissing says that she may decide what to do with the AA stamp, because it does not belong to him. He hands it back to her, and Flavia carefully wraps it in her handkerchief. Flavia expects Dr. Kissing will enjoy putting the TL stamp back in his album, but he replies that his stamp collection was sold long ago to pay for his stay in the hospital.

Flavia says that the Ulster Avenger must be worth a fortune, but Dr. Kissing says that it is too late. He puts the tip of his lit cigarette to the priceless stamp and burns it to ashes.

Flavia leaves Rook’s End and lays in the grass nearby, thinking about the case. She reviews all she has learned, searching for what she has missed. Flavia suddenly remembers a quote from a witness to Mr. Twining’s death: “‘He looked just like a falling angel,’ one of the Greyminster boys had said. […] And Father had compared Mr. Twining, just before he jumped, to a haloed saint in an illuminated manuscript” (288).

Flavia rides back to the library in Bishop’s Lacey to review more newspaper articles about the police investigations following the death. The library is closed, but Flavia heads to the Pit Shed and finds the door unlocked. She goes through yellowed newspapers and finds Mr. Twining’s obituary, which does not say where he is buried.

Flavia looks through the Pit Shed shelves and finds yearbooks for Greyminster. In the 1942 annual, there is a picture of Mr. Twining.

Flavia also sees a picture of her father, Horace Bonepenny, and Robert Stanley. Flavia thinks her father looks happier and more carefree than she has ever seen him. Seeing the photo of Horace gives Flavia a chill, like she is looking at his corpse again; “in the photograph, his flaming red curls had registered on the film as a ghostly pale aura round his head” (293). Flavia senses that she has seen the third young man in the picture.

Flavia realizes that Bob Stanley is the man she has known recently as Mr. Pemberton, and that “it was he who had murdered Horace Bonepenny in the cucumber patch at Buckshaw. I’d be willing to stake my life on it” (293).

Flavia hurries to the churchyard, where she searches for Mr. Twining’s grave. She finds it on the other side of the church hedge; “Vale!” is engraved on his tombstone.

Flavia pictures Mr. Twining in his grave wearing his master’s cape, then remembers she had found a gown in the tower. Yet both her father and the witness in the newspaper article reported that Mr. Twining had worn his gown when he fell. Suddenly, “the rest of the truth rushed in upon me like a wave of nausea: It had been Horace Bonepenny up there on the ramparts” (300).

All the pieces fall into place in Flavia’s mind. Bonepenny and Stanley must have lured Mr. Twining up to the tower and killed him, then Bonepenny had pretended to be Mr. Twining on the ramparts. Stanley had pushed the body through the drainage hole, where it plummeted to the ground.

Flavia hears the voice of “Frank Pemberton” behind her: “I see you’ve found him” (301).