“You’ll do,” he said at last. “See Miss Trodd in the morning.”

The telephone rang in its cubicle beneath the stairs, and, although I couldn’t see him, I heard Dogger’s measured footsteps coming through from the kitchen to answer it. After a muffled conversation, he came out into view and spotted me on the stairs.

“That was the vicar,” he said. “Miss Felicity rang him to say that Colonel de Luce will be staying the night in London.”

It must be snowing like stink! I thought, rather uncharitably.

“Odd that Aunt Felicity didn’t telephone here,” I said.

“She’s been trying for more than an hour, but the line was engaged. She rang up the vicar instead. As it happens, he’s driving over to Doddingsley in the morning to pick up some extra holly for the church decorations. He’s kindly offered to meet Colonel de Luce and Miss Felicity at the railway station there and bring them to Buckshaw.”

“The holly and the ivy,” I caroled loudly, not caring that I was a little off-key.

“When they are both full grown,

Of all the poisons that are in the wood,

The holly wears the crown.”

Probably, I thought, because it contained theobromine, the bitter alkaloid that is also to be found in coffee, tea, and cocoa, and was first synthesized by the immortal German chemist Hermann Emil Fischer from human waste. The theobromine in the berries and leaves of the holly was just one of the cyanogenic glycosides, which, when chewed, release hydrogen cyanide. In what quantities, I had yet to determine, but just the thought of such a delicious experiment made the hairs on my forearms stand up in pleasure!

“You’re thinking of the ilicin,” Dogger said.

“Yes, I’m thinking of the ilicin. It’s an alkaloid in the holly leaves, and it causes diarrhea.”

“So I believe I have read somewhere,” Dogger said.

I could use the same batch of holly I’d dragged home to make the birdlime!