Phyllida couldn’t hear Mr. Panson’s response, but when his wife turned back, she saw the confirmation on her face. “That cake did not come from here,” she said. Her eyes blazed. “Who on earth would use our box and our delivery boy and claim a cake was ours? Why, that’s—that’s—fraud!” Her face was turning an alarming shade of purple.

“Someone must have simply reused one of your boxes, then. The cake was a gift to Father Tooley for all of his work with the Murder Fête,” she said. “May I speak with Benny? I wonder when that person put the cake in his delivery lorry. Perhaps he saw who it was.”

“I’ll be speaking with Benny,” said Mrs. Panson flatly. “We pay for him to deliver our orders, and now we got someone hijacking our lorry driver! Benny!” she bellowed, opening the side door to reveal a narrow alley.

A moment later, a short, skinny man stumbled into the bakery from the side door. “Yes, Mrs. Panson?” he said, his eyes wide with trepidation.

“You let someone put a box on your lorry yesterday that warn’t from here.” Mrs. Panson was shaking a finger at him. “Don’t you be charging us for those extra deliveries, now, and you’d best be watching more careful!”

“Wh-what? I . . . I don’t know what you’re talking ab-bout.”

Phyllida decide to intervene, simply in the interest of keeping the little man from expiring from terror. “Mr.—er—Benny,” she said kindly, “it appears that you delivered a Panson’s box to the rectory for Father Tooley yesterday morning at approximately half ten. The dessert inside did not come from the bakery, and so we are trying to determine who might have—er—camouflaged a cake in one of the boxes. Do you know how the box came to be placed in your lorry?”

Benny wasn’t trembling quite so much now, and he removed his cap to scratch his head—an event that made Phyllida wince at the thought of stray hairs and heaven knew what else being disseminated into the bakery and its offerings. Fortunately, he was standing away from the counter—and from Phyllida—and her tarts had already been safely packaged up.

“It were just there in the truck, ma’am,” he said, darting a glance at Mrs. Panson. “I thought as how Mrs. Panson musta put it on when I were in the back talking to Mr. Panson—”

“Of course I didn’t put it on,” snapped the baker’s wife. “Have I ever in the five years you been delivering for us put a box on your lorry?”

“N-no, ma’am, you ain’t. I shoulda asked you about it when I saw it, but it was right there and the rectory was just over across the way and I thought I’d take it there first.” He replaced his cap and gnawed on his lower lip.