Something caught her eye, something odd.

Arabella scraped at the brown spots with one gloved finger, but they didn’t come off. It wasn’t mud or pudding splotch, as she thought, but rather a particularly untidy script.

Someone had gone to the trouble of writing on the inside of the muslin wrapper. Whoever it was had used a brown ink that, when the pudding was wrapped, would not show through the fabric. The message was written in uneven letters, slightly smeared now with pudding goo, but still legible. Legible and... French? Arabella squinted at the muslin. Yes. French.

“Mr. Fitzhugh?” she said sharply.

Looking somewhat sheepish, her rescuer bounded to his feet. “All right there?” he asked solicitously. “Feeling quite the thing?”

“Mr. Fitzhugh,” she said, dangling the muslin in front of him. “Were you aware that your pudding speaks French?”

Mr. Fitzhugh blinked at her, confused but game. “My puddings generally don’t speak to me a’tall,” he said, before adding gallantly, “But if a pudding were to speak, can’t see why it wouldn’t parle the Français, if it took the mind.”

The thief looked at him as though he were quite crazy. In fact, he looked at both of them as though they were quite crazy. Arabella couldn’t blame him.

“Forgive me,” she said hastily. “That’s not what I meant. What I meant was that there seems to be a message written inside your pudding. And it’s in French. See?” She thrust the muslin towards him.

Instead of taking it from her, Mr. Fitzhugh bent over her shoulder to peer at the muslin. “I say! You’re quite right! Can’t think why that should be there.”

“It’s not for you, then?” said Arabella.