Flavia de Luce 1 - The Sweetness At The Bottom Of The Pie by Alan Bradley Read Free Book Online Page B

know what I mean, but in another way, not like that at all.”
    “A stamp, Mrs. Mullet? What sort of stamp?”
    “A postage stamp, sir—but not like the ones you sees nowadays. Oh no—not like them at all. This here stamp had the Queen's head on it. Not Her Present Majesty, God bless her, but the old Queen. the Queen what was. Queen Victoria. Leastways she should have been on it if that bird's bill hadn't been stickin' through where her face ought to have been.”
    “You're quite sure about the stamp?”
    “Cross my heart and hope to die, sir. Alf had a stamp collection when he was a lad, and he still keeps what's left of it in an old Huntley and Palmers biscuit tin under the bed in the upstairs hall. He doesn't take them out as much as he did when both of us were younger—makes him sad, he says. Still and all, I knows a Penny Black when I sees one, dead bird's bill shoved through it or no.”
    “Thank you, Mrs. Mullet,” said Inspector Hewitt, helping himself to a seed biscuit, “you've been most helpful.”
    Mrs. Mullet dropped him another curtsy and went to the door.
    "'It's funny,' I said to Alf, I said, 'You don't generally see jack snipes in England till September.' Many's the jack snipe I've turned on the spit and served up roasted on a nice bit of toast. Miss Harriet, God bless her soul, used to fancy nothing better than a nice—”
    There was a groan behind me, and I turned just in time to see Father fold in the middle like a camp chair and slither to the floor.
    I MUST SAY THAT Inspector Hewitt was very good about it. In a flash he was at Father's side, clapping an ear to his chest, loosening his tie, checking with a long finger for airway obstruction. I could see that he had not slept through his St. John Ambulance classes. A moment later he flung open the window, put first and fourth fingers to his lower lip, and let out a whistle I should have given a guinea to learn.
    “Dr. Darby!” he shouted. “Up here, if you please. Quickly! Bring your bag.”
    As for me, I was still standing with my hand to my mouth when Dr. Darby strode into the room and knelt beside Father. After a quick one-two-three examination, he pulled a small blue vial from his bag.
    “Syncope,” he said to Inspector Hewitt; to Mrs. Mullet and me, “That means he's fainted. Nothing to worry about.”
    Phew!
    He unstoppered the glass, and in the few moments before he applied it to Father's nostrils, I detected a familiar scent: It was my old friend Ammon. Carb., Ammonium Carbonate, or, as I called it when we were alone together in the laboratory, Sal Volatile, or sometimes just plain Sal. I knew that the “ammon” part of its name came from ammonia, which was named on account of its being first discovered not far from the shrine of the god Ammon in ancient Egypt, where it was found in camel's urine. And I knew that later, in London, a man after my own heart had patented a means by which smelling salts could be extracted from Patagonian guano.
    Chemistry! Chemistry! How I love it!
    As Dr. Darby held the vial to his nostrils, Father gave out a snort like a bull in a field, and his eyelids flew up like roller blinds. But he uttered not a word.
    “Ha! Back among the living, I see,” the doctor said, as Father, in confusion, tried to prop himself up on his elbow and look round the room. In spite of his jovial tone, Dr. Darby was cradling Father like a newborn baby. “Wait a bit till you get your bearings. Just stay down on the old Axminster a minute.”
    Inspector Hewitt stood gravely by until it was time to help Father to his feet.
    Leaning heavily on Dogger's arm—Dogger had been summoned—Father made his way carefully up the staircase to his room. Daphne and Feely put in a brief appearance: no more, really, than a couple of blanched faces behind the banisters.
    Mrs. Mullet, scurrying by on her way to the kitchen, stopped to put a solicitous hand on my arm.
    “Was the pie good, luv?” she asked.
    I'd forgotten the pie until that