“I am doing it because there is blood on the handle,” he told her, “and I do not wish to soil my fingers.”
“Blood!” Cranshaw said with dismay.
“Blood!” Veronica said with delight.
“Or perhaps only cherry juice,” Alice countered. “A good agent does not jump to conclusions.” Touching a fingertip to the knife, then to her tongue, she grimaced. “Blood. Ugh. Ugh.” She rubbed the heel of her hand against her tongue. “Can someone get me a glass of water? Ugh!”
As Veronica rushed to do so, Daniel passed the knife to Cranshaw, handkerchief and all. The butler took it gingerly.
“Do you have any suggestions as to suspects?” Daniel asked.
Cranshaw exhaled a laugh through his nostrils. “Boy, we are in a kitchen surrounded by double agents, in a castle filled with pirates. Everyone is a likely suspect.”
“Hm,” Daniel said. As a professional courtesy, he did not assassinate the butler for calling him “boy.”
“It seems unlikely a person could destroy a cake of this size, to this degree, without being observed,” Alice pointed out.
“We were all distracted,” Cranshaw explained, “watching the fireworks.”
Alice and Daniel blinked. “Fireworks?” Daniel asked.
“Yes, there was just now a fireworks show outside.” He paused, but the agents’ expressions remained vacant. “Lots of flashing light and noise? People cheering? You must have noticed!”
Alice and Daniel carefully did not look at each other. “We were busy,” Daniel murmured.
Cranshaw’s eyebrows rose in silent eloquence as he turned away to brush at a few raisins. Veronica returned with a glass of water, and while Alice gargled, Daniel surveyed the kitchen and its occupants.
“Nothing else was damaged? No actual—I mean noothersuspicious incidents?”
“None.”
“Very well. Inform us if you have any further concerns.”
“Is that all?” Cranshaw practically vibrated with outrage. “Someone intends harm!”
“Trust us, sir. We will find the culprit.”
“So long as she isn’t standing in front of a fireworks display,” the butler muttered facetiously, but Alice and Daniel had already moved away. Veronica followed them back across the kitchen.
“What do you think?” she asked, her voice skipping like a little girl.
“I think we just wasted our time,” Alice said.
“Oh.” Now Veronica’s voice became a teenager in a black-walled bedroom listening to Leonard Cohen on the record player. “Mr. Cranshaw seemed so convinced.”
Daniel gave her a kind smile. “Perhaps, but we are the experts. Good night, V-2.”
They turned to the stairs.
“Hi-yah!”
A man dressed in black leaped wildly from the shadows, handsraised like weapons. Veronica yelped in shock. Daniel took a quiet step back, exasperation lining his brow. And Alice, being nearest, caught hold of the assailant, twisting his arm to restrain him.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
“Ow!” he squealed. “I’m Hakim Evans, underfootman and junior A.U.N.T. agent. Ow, you’re hurting me!”
“Evans, are you mad?” Veronica whispered, jerking her head toward where the kitchen staff were watching in fascination.
