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Detective Inspector Jack Robinson always knocks on the front door. Long after he established himself as a friend, long after Constable Collins began entering exclusively through the kitchen door, Inspector Robinson always knocks.
“Good morning, Inspector,” Mr. Butler greets.
Inspector Robinson inclines his head and removes his hat before he enters. It is a warm and rainy morning, and the drizzle soaks into the shoulders of his coat. He shrugs out of it. “Mr. Butler, good morning,” he returns.
“Here for Miss Fisher?”
Inspector Robinson hangs his hat on the bureau hook, folds his coat over his arm, and smiles wanly in his quiet way. “It regards murder, as ever. Though—I’ve interrupted you, have I? I can see myself in. There is no need for an announcement at this early hour, I’m sure.”
Mr. Butler’s apron is dusted with flour; he had been in the kitchen, preparing the day’s bread. “Thank you, Inspector, but it is no bother,” he says.
“Are you certain? I can hear her in the dining room.”
“I think she appreciates the warning,” Mr. Butler says lightly.
Inspector Robinson blinks, taken aback, and says only, “Ah,” before gesturing Mr. Butler to lead the way.
Miss Fisher sits at her favored spot in the corner, where she can see every seat, every entrance. She is folded into the chair indelicately, deep in thought, knees lifted to her chest. She glances at the doorway as Mr. Butler arrives, lowering her teacup and its plate.
“The inspector for you, miss,” he says, with gravity.
“Oh, Jack! I thought I heard your knock,” Miss Fisher calls. She sets her tea down and rises to her feet in one movement, deceitfully graceful to hide her eagerness. “I do hope you’ve brought something sweet to accompany breakfast?”
“The opposite, I’m afraid.” Inspector Robinson produces a folded piece of paper from the inside of his jacket. “Toxicology report.”
Before he can brandish it further, Miss Fisher snatches it from his hand. “You do always know what a woman wants,” she croons, and swivels on her heel, unfolding the report with aplomb. Inspector Robinson inhales softly, steadying himself, and holds his breath as he follows her in, tucking his hands into his pockets.
Mr. Butler brushes the flour from his hands and returns to the kitchen, resisting the urge to call, “Behave!” over his shoulder. He can count on Inspector Robinson to behave if Miss Fisher will not.
He returns to the dining room minutes later with a fresh pot of tea and an extra cup for their visitor. Miss Fisher stands to examine the document at the table, reading closely. Inspector Robinson looks over her shoulder with his hand tented on the table’s edge, so close the lapel of his coat presses into her arm. Both are so engrossed in their discussion they do not notice Mr. Butler’s entrance.
Mr. Butler backs quietly out of the room, and takes the tea to Dorothy upstairs instead.
“Sometimes I wish they’d just get on with it,” Albert says, tapping out his cigarette in the tray at the kitchen table. “It’s exhausting.”
“Are we sure they haven’t?” Cecil rejoins.
Constable Collins leans back in his chair and hesitates, knitting his brow in discomfort, loyal to his inspector to the end. But even he cannot resist saying, “Neither seem the type to kiss and tell, anyway, do they?”
Albert grunts his agreement, begrudgingly; Cecil shrugs, unbothered. Mr. Butler sets out the tray of sandwiches, and all three men abandon the topic and leap upon the food like wolves starved.
Miss Fisher and Inspector Robinson had kissed, in fact—once—undercover, on that awful job with the French painters. That night Miss Fisher had restored her painting to her bedroom and retired to the kitchen to the comfort of a cup of cocoa, her fur blanket wrapped around her shoulders swaddling her entirely. She looked so young, but the voice in which she recounted her day was ancient, laden with the weight of years.
I couldn’t breathe, or think at all, Mr. Butler, she had said, I could only stare, like a deer that’s seen a wolf. Very unbecoming. She paused to sip her cocoa. She clutched the mug with both hands. And Jack kissed me, so I wouldn’t get us all killed, she added, her voice just too careful to be casual, her words just too quick to allow questions, though Bert almost made it a sure thing.
Then…oh, you know how these things go. René’s gun to my head, another hostage crisis I couldn’t talk my way out of. René died on Véronique’s knife, a murderer murdered, and Jack— She paused, and laughed, and bowed her head. Jack just asked if I was all right.
Mr. Butler sat across from her where Cecil sits now. He reached out a hand and Miss Fisher took it, immediately and calmly, with fingers warmed by the heat of the cocoa. And are you? he asked.
I will be. I will. Thank you.
But presently Mr. Butler says nothing. Her secrets and willful omissions are his to keep, one of his many duties as her butler. He smiles as the men change the subject, back to traffic and football and the weather, and keeps her silence, content to watch on.
Mr. Butler speaks with Inspector Robinson now and then as they wait in the foyer. He is well-spoken and quiet, his sense of humor as dry and sure as the beating sun. They are equally likely to chat about some interesting tidbit or another as they are to wait in companionable silence. He can be awkward or impatient, particularly when Miss Fisher gives him the run-around, but with Mr. Butler, the inspector always speaks with charm belied by his august face.
Miss Fisher is an explosion of color and swishing hems, fashionable in a way Mr. Butler had only ever read about in novels; Inspector Robinson is straight lines and dark fabrics, professional and reliable, otherwise unremarkable but for his sharp mind and tongue. Yet she does not drown him out, and he does not drag her down: they complement one another.
Mr. Butler likes Inspector Robinson. He is steady without inflexibility, principled without insensibility. And he always lets himself out quietly, never lingers, however late the nighttime discussions with Miss Fisher might run. He takes care to turn the knob before it shuts, and releases it slowly before he steps off the porch, so the latch does not click.
Mr. Butler recruits Dorothy and Jane to help him tend the roses. The bush beneath the parlor’s bay window is getting unruly and must be weeded—and within, Inspector Robinson has stopped in to discuss an arson with Miss Fisher. She sits in the window seat while Inspector Robinson paces the room, their voices just barely audible on the other side of the glass.
The conversation lulls, and into it, Jane says suddenly, “It’s like they’re playing a game.”
When Dorothy and Mr. Butler look over at her, Jane flicks her eyes to the window as indication. “You know, them. It’s like a game, and they’re both losing it.”
“I think the game is the whole point,” Dorothy says wisely.
“Cat-and-mouse can’t be fun forever, can it? Though I think—”
She pricks her thumb on a thorn on one of the roses, withdrawing her hand with a hiss. Dorothy reaches for her immediately, but Jane promptly sticks her thumb in her mouth. She grins around it, her teeth bloodied. “I think Miss Fisher is the cat,” she says, undeterred.
They all laugh at that, even Mr. Butler.
“I think so!” Dorothy says. “Only, I don’t think the inspector is a mouse, not at all. He’s maybe—maybe a bird? Something fast...and out of reach.”
“Neither is prey to the other,” Mr. Butler says thoughtfully. “It is more…as two foxes yip at each other across the moors, circling and circling. It’s a game of territory, but neither is playing to win, as you said so succinctly, Miss Jane.”
Within the parlor, the two foxes bark. Inspector Robinson’s chuckle is a rumbling undertone to the bell chime of Miss Fisher’s laugh. She gets up from the window seat, her voice dimming as she moves closer to him.
“That’s the truth of it, Mr. Butler,” Dorothy says with a smile. “Foxes yipping.”
“Shall we interrupt their game?” Mr. Butler says. He takes Jane’s hand and inspects the still-bleeding cut. “Let us bandage this finger, miss, and see what they are on about.”
Nightcap? Miss Fisher asks, her voice lilted with a smile.
Perhaps another time, at a less dangerous hour, Inspector Robinson says, low, in a less lethal dress.
Another few heartbeats pass, each held in their throats; another few steps trod down the runner in the foyer, however reluctantly. The front door opens with a creak and closes almost silently. The knob turns quietly back into place.
Mr. Butler emerges from behind the parlor door where he had retreated. Miss Fisher remains on the stairs, her hand resting on the railing, half-turned towards the door. She swivels to face the door and leans against the wall, rumpling the skirt of that lethal dress. One hand is lifted to her chest, playing with the jeweled lace draped about her throat. He looks up at her, eyebrows raised expectantly, and she returns his glance evenly.
“Come then, Mr. Butler,” she drawls, “let’s have it.”
Mr. Butler takes a moment. He tracks Miss Fisher’s gaze to the door, then back.
“He’s a good man, miss,” is all Mr. Butler says.
“The best,” she agrees, and sighs.
Mr. Butler is obliged to keep Miss Fisher’s secrets. There is one he keeps from her, as well:
There is a moment, every time, when he steps into the doorway of the parlor—the dining room—the kitchen—the garden. Miss Fisher looks up in anticipation of his announcement.
“The inspector for you, miss,” Mr. Butler says.
It brings him great pleasure to see her reaction, which lingers only for the span of a breath. Each time she lights up, a glitter in her eyes, a spark like fever. It is delight, and satisfaction, and the mildest touch of surprise—that dour Inspector Robinson still shows up at her door when once he was so wary, and still allows himself to be presented when he has long since been welcomed.
Business will follow. But for that first breath, she glows.
Then Inspector Robinson will nod his thanks to Mr. Butler and sweep briskly into the room. He will launch into business, and Miss Fisher will engage him, pushing tea or sandwiches or whiskey into his hands, a habit of hospitality.
Mr. Butler fades back to the background. By trade he must always stay close enough to listen, to enjoy the repartee of two matched combatants, two foxes on the moors, from the other side of the wall.