The Pigeon Pie Mystery (26 page)

The maid squinted at both.

Mink turned to her. “The next time you decide to leave the house open to all and sundry I would be grateful if you would first make sure that your ornithology was up to scratch,” she said, returning to her desk. “They were pigeons you used, weren’t they?”

Pooki nodded, closing her eyes. “Yes, ma’am. I know a pigeon when I see one. They are grey.”

“That’s one thing at least,” said the Princess with a sigh, reaching for her pen.

There was a pause.

“Unless they were doves, ma’am.”

LATER THAT MORNING MINK STRODE
towards Trophy Gate against the tide of excursionists, bracing herself for the mangled melody. But the organ grinder was nowhere to be seen, having been paid by the sentry to stay away for the day because of his urge to throw himself into the Thames. Neither were the ladies plying their musky trade, lying instead on picnic rugs in Bushy Park, the sun reaching into the shadowy depths of their cleavages.

The Princess walked across the bridge, past trippers nibbling bunches of watercress as they watched the antics on the river below. Arriving in East Molesey, she looked for Vine Road in the hope that Silas Sparrowgrass would be able to tell her something of interest that the General had said as he was dying. She eventually found number five, the only terrace house surmounted by a weather-cock. When there was no reply, she pushed open the door with her fingertips. Such was the stench of elderly fish, she was momentarily lost for words, and stood staring at the homeopath.
Wearing his beadle’s coat, he was absorbed in perfecting a magic trick with a duck that had flown into his garden and refused to keep quiet in the depths of one of his coat pockets. At the sight of the Princess, he hastily set the creature on the floor and flicked rabbit droppings off a chair, which scattered noisily across the floor like beads. He then offered her the seat and peered at her with his good eye.

“Mr. Sparrowgrass,” she said, a hand against her cheek. “There’s something dreadfully wrong with me, and only a man of your considerable talents can help. I’m not at all convinced of the merits of a certain local general practitioner, mentioning no names.” She turned her eyes slowly in the direction of the practice on Hampton Court Green.

The homeopath smiled, revealing a missing front tooth that had been knocked out during his pursuit of Gertrude at the inquest. “Not to worry, Your Highness, you’ve come to the right place. Silas Sparrowgrass, a man of infinite subtlety, is at your service. What is the nature of your ailment, if I may be so bold?”

Hunting for inspiration, the Princess looked around the room, as cluttered as a pawnbroker’s warehouse. A coiled snake lay in a cage on a pile of empty orange boxes, brooms with worn-out bristles stood in a coalscuttle, and a tailless stuffed fox in permanent mid-step balanced on top of a broken mangle. Sitting on the summit of a mound of handkerchiefs, a number of which had been doctored in the pursuit of magic, was Gertrude, her nose furiously twitching. Raising her eyes, the Princess noticed a row of smoked mackerel nailed to the beams by their tails.

“I’ve lost my sense of smell,” she said brightly.

Silas Sparrowgrass frowned and cocked his head to one side.

“I assumed they’d cleared away the pile of manure at Trophy Gate, as I could no longer smell it. But then I saw it, as high and fresh as ever, and realised something must be wrong with me,” Mink continued.

The homeopath’s squint spiralled round the room. “You can’t detect a slight hint of … fish, perhaps?”

Mink raised her eyebrows. “Fish, Mr. Sparrowgrass?”

Silas Sparrowgrass stood beside her, his hands clasped together. “The street fishmonger is currently lodging with me, Your Highness, on account of his new wife having just thrown him out. He made the mistake of telling her she would get used to the smell. She says it’s got into the walls and beams, and she can’t get it out. Apparently her bonnet stank of old turbot when she went to visit her sister and a crowd of cats followed them round the park. She has my sympathies. My sister married a cobbler and can still smell boots in bed at night.” He shook his head. “Needless to say, it’s a childless marriage.”

The homeopath then raised his nose and sniffed twice. “There’s a load of herrings in the bath in the kitchen going cheap on account of the colour they’re turning. The constable came round this morning, as the neighbours were convinced there was a dead body in here. Are you sure you can’t smell anything?”

Mink inhaled deeply. “I would have sworn the flower seller had moved in. I can smell roses,” she said.

He stared at her with his good eye. “If I may be so bold to enquire, Your Highness, what did you smell when you were at Trophy Gate?”

The Princess looked over his shoulder, and noticed a tin on an overcrowded shelf. “Butterscotch,” she said.

“And what does that smell of?” he asked, pointing to a bucket of pig’s swill.

The Princess walked over, bent down, and sniffed. “Coal,” she declared, and returned to her seat.

Silas Sparrowgrass caressed his Newgate fringe. “It’s not the loss of smell that’s afflicting you, Your Highness, but the perversion of it.

“Odoratus perversus, odoratus perversus,” he muttered as he
picked up his snake-charmer’s basket, bought, complete with contents, in an auction of items left in railway carriages. Placing it on the table, he removed the duck that had settled on top of it.

“What we need is monkshood in a low dilution,” he concluded, lifting the lid as the animal walked around the table.

“I must say, Mr. Sparrowgrass, I so much enjoyed your performance at the inquest,” said Mink, as he searched through his bottles. “What a man of many talents you are. How unfortunate the General wasn’t well enough to enjoy your gift for magic during his final hours. It sounds as though you were very fond of him.”

“I couldn’t bear the man,” he admitted, his head still buried. “He’s been my patient for a year, and never once did he want to see Gertrude appear in my top hat. I take that as an insult. Have you ever seen anything more beautiful than her? Once I treated him before luncheon and he said he fancied rabbit stew. I had to lie down for the rest of the afternoon.”

“I imagine he talked to you, his entrusted medical man, about his private life,” she said.

“Not a sausage,” he replied holding a bottle up to his good eye and returning it to the basket again. “I like a little chat with my patients. You never know what you’ll discover and be able to pass on to an interested party. But he never said anything to me beyond his symptoms. Still, I’m sorry to see him go. He always paid promptly. You’d be surprised how many carrots that rabbit gets through.”

“Come, come, Mr. Sparrowgrass,” coaxed the Princess. “He must have divulged something to you, the soul of discretion, when you treated him after the picnic. Did he mention anyone’s name, perhaps?”

The rummaging continued. “He didn’t say much, on account of his bouts of retching,” came the muffled reply. Suddenly the homeopath raised his head from his basket. “Hold on. You’re right, Your Highness, he did say something.”

“What?” asked the Princess, holding her breath.

“He said how relieved he was not to have called Dr. Henderson,” he said, his squint sliding across the room.

SHORTLY AFTER LUNCHEON, MINK SAT
at her desk, still irritated at having got nowhere with Silas Sparrowgrass. She stared at her list of suspects, which had grown longer now that she knew Pooki had left the back door open when she disappeared for her mysterious walk. Anyone could have opened the door in the garden wall, snuck across the lawn, and into the house. Pooki had seen both Lady Montfort Bebb and the Keeper of the Maze in the vicinity that morning. Was it the keeper? After all, he had been interested enough in the General’s death to attend the inquest. As she considered him, she was suddenly struck by the silence in the house. She raised her head and listened. There had been none of the usual sounds of Pooki moving around, nor had she come in with the post. Wondering what she was up to, she went down to the kitchen, but all she found was Victoria stalking a beetle. After searching the house, she climbed the unfamiliar attic stairs to the servants’ quarters. Pushing open a door, she found Pooki sitting on the edge of a single iron bed. Underneath was a pile of old newspapers, used as extra blankets. She was holding a photograph of her mother, so worn from sea crossings that the woman’s image was scarcely visible. Next to her was an open suitcase containing bundles of letters from India tied with string, a pair of sandals, some books, a crucifix, and the Maharaja’s visiting card showing him dressed in his father’s gold robes and pantaloons, an ornamental dagger tucked into the waistband. The Princess thought of the last time she had seen him wearing it: lying in his coffin with the waxy pallor of death. She stared at the only person left to her. “You’re not leaving, are you?” she asked, horrified.

The servant looked at her, the hollows under her eyes even
more pronounced. “I am getting my things ready for when they take me away, ma’am. Will you send the case to my mother when I am gone? She is not a Christian, but she might be able to sell my crucifix. And while it will be hard to find a woman with feet as large as mine, I would like her to have my sandals nonetheless.”

“But nobody’s going to take you away,” the Princess protested.

“Ma’am,” she said quietly. “They are going to hang me.”

The Princess swallowed, suddenly realising how much she loved her for all that she was: stubborn, superstitious, and as loyal as a mother.

“They’ll have to hang me before they hang you,” Mink said, her voice uneven.

They continued to look at each other until Mink dropped her gaze and headed for the door. “Put that suitcase away,” she said. “You’re not going anywhere. I’ll find out who poisoned the General and put a stop to this nonsense.”

WITH POOKI’S SUITCASE BACK UNDER
the bed, the two women headed for Hampton Court Green.

“It is very good of you to offer to take me to the fair, ma’am,” the maid said, her mood already lifted. “I know how much you dislike such things.”

“I’ll grit my teeth, given the circumstances,” replied Mink, hoping she would bump into one of her suspects.

It wasn’t long before the full gaiety of the Easter carnival hit them. Into the resolutely blue sky rose a colourful helter-skelter, down which shrieking children slid. Women sat side-saddle on a steam-powered merry-go-round, the trimmings on their hats fluttering as the horses dipped and rose, their red nostrils flaring. Above the sound of the blind fiddlers and hurdy-gurdy players came shouts from the showmen, shiny rings on their fingers, luring visitors to the coconut shies, the shooting galleries, and the
ghost show, the carved winged demons on its ornate frontage casting sinister shadows.

The Princess and the maid stood watching a group of men in boating costumes throw sticks at the clay pipe of an Aunt Sally, a wooden figure of a woman. Moving on, they came across a sea-on-land roundabout, where ships pitched and dipped as if travelling a wild ocean. Pooki immediately asked whether she could have a ride, and they sat next to each other in a vessel with a white sail. Mink clung on, hoping that no one would see her, while the servant sat with her hands in her lap, remembering her time as an ayah.