The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

Flavia rides to the Free Library in Bishop’s Lacey, which is housed in a former motorcar showroom, the original library having burned down. More books are kept in decaying outbuildings behind the library. The door is locked, so Flavia goes to find the librarian, Miss Pickery, at her home.

As she passes the Thirteen Drakes Inn, Flavia hears Ned Cropper, Ophelia’s crush, arguing with Mary Stoker, whose father owns the inn. A male guest got familiar with Mary, and Ned thinks she should have fought back. Tully Stoker, the innkeeper, yells for Mary, and she runs off, giving Ned a quick kiss first.

Flavia finds Miss Pickery’s cottage, but no one is home, so Flavia returns to town and sees someone entering the library. Flavia enters and meets Miss Mountjoy, the retired librarian renowned for her fiery temper. Flavia asks to see the newspaper files, and Miss Mountjoy directs her to the Pit Shed.

The Pit Shed stands farthest away from the main library; “[t]ottering precipitously on the river’s bank, it was a conglomeration of weathered boards and rusty corrugated tin, all overgrown with moss and climbing vines” (63). There Flavia finds newspapers from 1920, covered in dust and nibbled by rats. She looks for papers from Hinley, the town near her father’s school, Greyminster.