“… a cup of ale without a wench, why, alas, ’tis like an egg without salt or a red herring without mustard.”

What a perfect motto for a certain someone, I thought, glancing across to where Ned was now grazing away at my sister’s neck as she pretended not to notice. On more than one occasion I’d seen Ned sitting at his chores in the courtyard of the Thirteen Drakes with a tankard of ale—and sometimes Mary Stoker, the landlord’s daughter—at his elbow. I realized with an unexpected shock that without either ale or a female within easy reach, Ned was somehow incomplete. Why hadn’t I noticed that before? Perhaps, like Dr. Watson on the wireless in A Scandal in Bohemia, there are times that I see, but do not observe. This was something I needed to think about.

“Your handiwork, I suppose?” Daffy said suddenly, putting down a book and picking up another. She gestured towards the small knot of villagers who stood gawking at the smoking ruins of the Gypsy’s tent. “It has Flavia de Luce written all over it.”

“Sucks to you,” I said. “I was going to help carry your stupid books home, but now you can jolly well lug them yourself.”

“Oh, do stop it!” she said, clutching at my sleeve. “Please desist. My heartstrings are playing Mozart’s Requiem, and a fugitive tear is making its way to my right eye, even as we speak.”

I wandered away with a careless whistle. I’d deal with her insolence later.

“Ow! Leave off, Brookie! You’re ’urtin’ me.”

The whining voice was coming from somewhere behind the shove ha’penny booth and, when I recognized it as belonging to Colin Prout, I stopped to listen.

By flattening myself against the stone wall of the church and keeping well back behind the canvas that draped the raffle booth, I could eavesdrop in safety. Even better, I was pleased to find that I had an unexpectedly clear view of Colin through the gaps in the booth’s raw lumber.