“And then there’s ‘dead,’” said Georgie, looking out of the window. “I wonder what that means.”
“I’m sure I hope it’s not Lucia,” said Daisy with stoical calmness, “but I can’t think of anybody else.”
Georgie’s eyes wandered over the Green; Mrs. Boucher was speeding round in her bath-chair, pushed by her husband, and there was the Vicar walking very fast, and Mrs. Antrobus and Piggy and Goosie ... nobody else seemed to be dead. Then his eye came back to the foreground of Daisy’s front garden.
“What has happened to your mulberry-tree?” he said parenthetically. “Its leaves are all drooping. You ought never to have pruned its roots without knowing how to do it.”
Daisy jumped up.
“Georgie, you’ve got it!” she said. “It’s the mulberry-tree that’s dead. Isn’t that wonderful?”
Georgie was suitably impressed.
“That’s very curious: very curious indeed,” he said. “Letter from Lucia, and the dead mulberry tree. I do believe there’s something in it. But let’s go on studying the script. Now I look at it again I feel certain it is Riseholme Museum, not Riseholme Mouse. The only difficulty is that there isn’t a Museum in Riseholme.”
“There are plenty of mice,” observed Daisy, who had had some trouble with these little creatures. “Abfou may be wanting to give me advice about some kind of ancient Egyptian trap.... But if you aren’t very busy this morning, Georgie, we might have another sitting and see if we get anything more definite. Let us attain collectedness as the directions advise.”
“What’s collectedness?” asked Georgie.