The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

by Alan Bradley

  "'Ah, Bonepenny,' Mr. Twining said, 'what an unexpected delight. What brings you back to these humble chambers?'

  "'My feet!' Bony shouted, and most of us laughed.

  "And then suddenly he dropped the pose. In an instant he was all schoolboy again, deferential and filled with humility.

  "'I say, sir,' he said, 'I've been thinking all during the hols about what a jolly treat it would be if you could persuade the Head to show us that freakish stamp of his.'

  "Mr. Twining's brow darkened. 'That freakish stamp, as you put it, Bonepenny, is one of the crown jewels of British philately, and I should certainly never suggest that it be trotted out for viewing by such a saucy scallywag as yourself.'

  "'But, sir! Think of the future! When we lads are grown. have families of our own.'

  "At that we grinned at one another and traced patterns in the carpet with our toes.

  "'It will be like that scene in Henry the Fifth, sir,’ Bony went on. ‘Those families back in England home abed will count themselves accursed they were not at Greyminster to have a squint at the great Ulster Avenger! Oh please, sir! Please!’

  "'I shall give you an alpha-plus for boldness, young Bonepenny, and a goose egg for your travesty of Shakespeare. Still.'

  "We could see that Mr. Twining was softening. One corner of his mustache lifted ever so slightly.

  "'Oh please, sir,' we all chimed in.

  "'Well.' Mr. Twining said.

  "And so it was arranged. Mr. Twining spoke to Dr. Kissing, and that worthy, flattered that his boys would take an interest in such an arcane object, readily assented. The viewing was set for the following Sunday evening after Chapel, and would be conducted in the headmaster's private apartments. Invitation was by membership in the Stamp Society only, and Mrs. Kissing would cap the evening with cocoa and biscuits.

  "The room was filled with smoke. Bob Stanley, who had come with Bony, was openly smoking a gasper and nobody seemed to mind. Although the sixth-form boys had privileges, this was the first time I had seen one of them light up in front of the Head. I was the last to arrive, and Mr. Twining had already filled the ashtray with the stubs of the Wills's Gold Flake cigarettes which, outside of the classroom, he smoked incessantly.

  "Dr. Kissing was, as are all of the truly great headmasters, no mean showman himself. He chatted away about this and that: the weather, the cricket scores, the Old Boys' Fund, the shocking condition of the tiles on Anson House; keeping us in suspense, you know.

  "Only when he had us all twitching like crickets did he say, 'Dear me, I had quite forgotten—you've come to have a look at my famous snippet.'

  "By now we were boiling over like a room full of teakettles. Dr. Kissing went to his wall safe and twirled his fingertips in an elaborate dance on the dial of the combination lock.

  "With a couple of clicks the thing swung open. He reached in and brought out a cigarette tin—an ordinary Gold Flake cigarette tin! That fetched a bit of a laugh, I can tell you. I couldn't help wondering if he'd had the cheek to pull out the same old container in front of the King.

  "There was a bit of a hubbub, and then a hush fell over the room as he opened the lid. There inside, nestled on a bed of absorbent blotting paper, was a tiny envelope: too small, too insignificant, one would say, to hold a treasure of such great magnitude.

  "With a flourish Dr. Kissing produced a pair of stamp tweezers from his waistcoat pocket and, removing the stamp as carefully as a sapper extracting a fuse from an un-exploded bomb, laid it on the paper.

  "We crowded round, pushing and shoving for a better view.

  "'Careful, boys,' said Dr. Kissing. 'Remember your manners; gentlemen always.'

  "And there it was, that storied stamp, looking just as one always knew it would look, and yet so much more . so much more spellbinding. We could hardly believe we were in the same room as the Ulster Avenger.

  "Bony was directly behind me, leaning over my shoulder. I could feel his hot breath on my cheek, and thought I caught a whiff of pork pie and claret. Had he been drinking? I wondered.

  "And then something happened which I will not forget until my dying day—and perhaps not even then. Bony darted in, snatched up the stamp, and held it high in the air between his thumb and forefinger like a priest elevating the host.

  "'Watch this, sir!' he shouted. 'It's a trick!'

  "We were all of us too numb to move. Before anyone could bat an eye, Bony had pulled a wooden match from his pocket, flicked it alight with his thumbnail, and held it to the corner of the Ulster Avenger.

  "The stamp began blackening, then curled; a little wave of flame passed across its surface, and a moment later, there was nothing left of it but a smudge of black ash in Bony's palm. Bony lifted up his hands and in an awful voice, chanted:

  'Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,

  If the King can't have you, the Devil must!’

  "It was appalling. There was a shocked silence. Dr. Kissing stood there with his mouth open, and Mr. Twining, who had brought us there, looked as if he had been shot in the heart.

  "'It's a trick, sir,' Bony shouted, with that charnel-house grin of his. 'Now help me get it back, all of you. If we all join hands and pray together—'

  "He grabbed my hand with his right, and with his left, he seized Bob Stanley's.

  "'Form a circle,' he ordered. 'Join hands and form a prayer circle!'

  "'Stop it!' Dr. Kissing commanded. 'Stop this insolence at once. Return the stamp to its box, Bonepenny.'

  "'But, sir,' Bony said—and I swear I saw his teeth glint in the light of the flames from the fireplace—'if we don't pull together, the magic can't work. That's how magic is, you see.'

  "'Put. the. stamp. back. in. the. box,' Dr. Kissing said, slowly and deliberately, his face like one of those ghastly things one finds in a trench after a battle.

  "'All right then, I'll have to go it alone,' Bony said. 'But it's only fair to warn you it's much more difficult this way.'

  "Never had I seen him so confident; never had I seen him so full of himself.

  "He rolled up his sleeve and held those long white pointed fingers upright in the air as high as he could reach.

  'Come back, come back, O Orange Queen,

  Come back and tell us where you've been!’

  "At this, he snapped his fingers, and suddenly there was a stamp where no stamp had been a moment earlier. An orange stamp.

  "Dr. Kissing's grim face relaxed a little. He almost smiled. Mr. Twining's fingers dug deeply into my shoulder blade, and I realized for the first time that he had been hanging on to me for dear life.

  "Bony reeled the stamp in for a closer look until it was almost touching the tip of his nose. At the same time he whipped an indecently large magnifying glass from his hip pocket and examined the newly materialized stamp with pursed lips.

  "Then suddenly his voice was the voice of Tchang Fu, the ancient Mandarin, and I swear that even though he wore no makeup, I could clearly see the yellow skin, the long fingernails, the red dragon kimono.

  "'Uh-oh! Honabuh ancestahs send long stamp!' he said, holding it out to us for our inspection. It was an ordinary Internal Revenue issue from America: a common Civil War vintage stamp which most of us had aplenty in our albums.

  "He let it flutter to the floor, then gave a shrug and rolled his eyes heavenward.

  'Come back, come back, O Orange Queen—'

  he began again, but Dr. Kissing had seized him by the shoulders and was shaking him like a tin of paint.

  "'The stamp,' he demanded, holding out his hand. 'At once.'

  "Bony turned out his trouser pockets, one after another.

  "'I can't seem to find it, sir,' he said. 'Something seems to have gone wrong.'

  "He looked up each of his sleeves, ran a long finger round the inside of his collar, and a sudden transformation came over his face. In an instant he was a frightened schoolboy who looked as if he'd like nothing better than to make a bolt for it.

  "'It's worked before, sir,' he stammer
ed. 'Lots and lots of times.'

  "His face was growing red, and I thought he was about to cry.

  "'Search him,' Dr. Kissing snapped, and several of the boys, under the direction of Mr. Twining, took Bony into the lavatory where they turned him upside down and searched him from his red hair to his brown shoes.

  "'It's as the boy says,' Mr. Twining said when they returned at last. 'The stamp seems to have vanished.'

  "'Vanished?' Dr. Kissing said. 'Vanished? How can the bloody thing have vanished? Are you quite sure?’

  "'Quite sure,’ Mr. Twining said.

  "A search was made of the entire room: The carpet was lifted, tables were moved, ornaments turned upside down, but all to no avail. At last Dr. Kissing crossed the room to the corner where Bony was sitting with his head sunk deeply in his hands.

  "'Explain yourself, Bonepenny,' he demanded.

  "'I—I can't, sir. It must have burned up. It was supposed to be switched, you see, but I must have. I don't. I can't.'

  "And he burst into tears.

  "'Go to bed, boy!' Dr. Kissing shouted. 'Leave this house and go to bed!'

  "It was the first time any of us had ever heard him raise his voice above the level of pleasant conversation, and it shook us to the core.

  "I glanced over at Bob Stanley and noticed that he was rocking back and forth on his toes, staring at the floor as unconcernedly as if he were waiting for a tram.

  "Bony stood up and walked slowly across the room towards me. His eyes were rimmed with red as he reached out and took my hand. He gave it a flaccid shake, but it was a gesture I found myself unable to return.

  "'I'm sorry, Jacko,' he said, as if I, and not Bob Stanley, were his confederate.

  "I could not look him in the eye. I turned my head away until I knew that he was no longer near me.

  "When Bony had slunk from the room, looking back over his shoulder, his face bloodless, Mr. Twining tried to apologize to the headmaster, but that seemed only to make matters worse.

  "'Perhaps I should ring up his parents, sir,' he said.

  "'Parents? No, Mr. Twining. I think it is not the parents who should be brought in.'

  "Mr. Twining stood in the middle of the room wringing his hands. God knows what thoughts were racing through the poor man's mind. I can't even remember my own.

  "The next morning was Monday. I was crossing the quad, tacking into the stiff breeze with Simpkins, who was prattling on about the Ulster Avenger. The word had spread like wildfire and everywhere one looked knots of boys stood with their heads together, hands waving excitedly as they swapped the latest—and almost entirely false—rumors.

  "When we were about fifty yards from Anson House, someone shouted, 'Look! Up there! On the tower! It's Mr. Twining!'

  "I looked up to see the poor soul on the roof of the bell tower. He was clinging to the parapet like a tattered bat, his gown snapping in the wind. A beam of sunlight broke through between the flying clouds like a theatrical spotlight, illuminating him from behind. His whole body seemed to be aglow, and the hair sticking out from beneath his cap resembled a disk of beaten copper in the rising sun like the halo of a saint in an illuminated manuscript.

  "'Careful, sir,' Simpkins shouted. 'The tiles are in shocking shape!'

  "Mr. Twining looked down at his feet, as if awakening from a dream, as if bemused to find himself suddenly transported eighty feet into the air. He glanced down at the tiles and for a moment was perfectly still.

  "And then he drew himself up to his full stature, holding on only with his fingertips. He raised his right arm in the Roman salute, his gown fluttering about him like the toga of some ancient Caesar on the ramparts.

  "'Vale!' he shouted. Farewell.

  "For a moment, I thought he had stepped back from the parapet. Perhaps he had changed his mind; perhaps the sun behind him dazzled my eyes. But then he was in the air, tumbling. One of the boys later told a newspaper reporter that he looked like an angel falling from Heaven, but he did not. He plummeted straight down to the ground like a stone in a sock. There is no more pleasant way of describing it.”

  Father paused for a long while, as if words failed him. I held my breath.

  "The sound his body made when it hit the cobbles," he said at last, "has haunted my dreams from that day to this. I've seen and heard things in the war, but nothing like this. Nothing like this at all.

  "He was a dear man and we murdered him. Horace Bonepenny and I murdered him as surely as if we had flung him from the tower with our own hands."

  "No!" I said, reaching out and touching Father's hand. "It was nothing to do with you!"

  "Ah, but it was, Flavia."

  "No!" I repeated, although I was a little taken aback by my own boldness. Was I actually talking to Father like this? "It was nothing to do with you. Horace Bonepenny destroyed the Ulster Avenger!"

  Father smiled a sad smile. “No, he didn't, my dear. You see, when I got back to my study that Sunday night and removed my jacket, I found an oddly sticky spot on my shirt cuff. I knew instantly what it was: While joining hands to form his distracting prayer circle, Bony had pushed his forefinger inside the sleeve of my jacket and stuck the Ulster Avenger to my cuff. But why me? Why not Bob Stanley? For a very good reason: If they had searched us all, the stamp would have been found in my sleeve and Bony'd have cried innocence. No wonder they couldn't find it when they turned him inside out!

  "Of course, he retrieved the stamp as he shook my hand before leaving. Bony was a master of prestidigitation, remember, and because I had once been his accomplice, it stood to reason that I should have been so again. Who would ever have believed otherwise?”

  "No!" I said.

  "Yes." Father smiled. "And now there's little more to tell.

  "Although nothing was ever proved against him, Bony did not return to Greyminster after that term. Someone told me he had gone abroad to escape some later unpleasantness, and I can't say I was surprised. Nor was I surprised to hear, years later, that Bob Stanley, after being ejected from medical school, had ended up in America where he had set up a philatelic shop: one of those mail-order companies that place advertisements in the comic papers and sell packets of stamps on approval to adolescent boys. The whole business, though, seems to have been little more than a front for his more sinister dealings with wealthy collectors.

  "As for Bony, I didn't see him again for thirty years. And then, just last month, I went up to London to attend an international exhibition of stamps put on by the Royal Philatelic Society. You might remember the occasion. One of the highlights of the show was the public display of a few choice items from our present Majesty the King's collection, including the rare Ulster Avenger: AA—the twin of Dr. Kissing's stamp.

  "I gave it little more than a glance; the memories it brought back were not pleasant ones. There were other exhibits I wished to see, and consequently the King's Ulster Avenger occupied no more than a few seconds of my time.

  "Just before the exhibit was to close for the day, I was at the far side of the exhibition hall examining a mint sheet to which I thought I might treat myself, when I happened to glance across and catch a glimpse of shocking red hair, hair that could belong to only one person.

  "It was Bony, of course. He was holding forth for the benefit of a small crowd of collectors who had gathered in front of the King's stamp. Even as I looked on, the debate became more heated, and it seemed that something Bony had said was agitating one of the curators, who shook his head vehemently as their voices rose.

  "I didn't think that Bony had seen me—nor did I want him to.

  "It was fortuitous that an old army friend, Jumbo Higginson, happened along at that very moment and dragged me off for a late dinner and a drink. Good old Jumbo. it's not the first instance where he's turned up just in the nick of time."

  Something came over Father's eyes, and I saw that he had vanished down one of those personal rabbit holes which so often engulfed him. I sometimes wondered if I would ever learn to live with his sudden si
lences. But then, like a jammed clockwork toy that jerks abruptly back to life when it's flicked with a finger, he went on with his story as if there had been no interruption.

  "When I opened the newspaper on the train home that night, and read that the King's Ulster Avenger had been switched for a counterfeit—this apparently done in full view of the general public, several irreproachable philatelists, and a pair of security guards—I knew not only who had carried off the theft, but also, at least in general terms, how the thing had been accomplished.

  "Then, last Friday, when the jack snipe turned up dead on our doorstep, I knew at once that Bony had been there. ‘Jack Snipe’ was my nickname at Greyminster, ‘Jacko’ for short. The letters at the corner of the Penny Black spelled out his name. It's very complicated.”

  "B One Penny H," I said. "Bonepenny, Horace. At Greyminster, he was called Bony and you were Jacko, for short. Yes, I figured that out quite some time ago."

  Father looked at me as if I were an asp which he was torn between pressing to his breast and flinging out the window. He rubbed his upper lip with his forefinger several times, as if to form an airtight seal, but then went on.

  "Even knowing that he was somewhere nearby did not prepare me for the dreadful shock of seeing that white cadaverous face which appeared suddenly from out of the darkness at the window of my study. It was after midnight. I should have refused to speak with him, of course, but he made certain threats.

  "He demanded I buy both of the Ulster Avengers from him: the one he had stolen recently and the one he had made to vanish years ago from Dr. Kissing's collection.

  "He had it in his head, you see, that I was a wealthy man. 'It's the investment opportunity of a lifetime,' he told me.

  "When I replied that I had no money, he threatened to tell the authorities that I had planned the theft of the first Ulster Avenger and commissioned the second. And Bob Stanley would back up his claim. After all, it was I who was the stamp collector, not he.