The Fourth Bear полностью

The little village of Obscurity is remarkable only for its unremarkableness. Passed over for inclusion into almost every publication from The Domesday Book to Thirty Places Not Worth Visiting in Berkshire, the hamlet is also a cartographic omission, an honor it shares with the neighboring villages of Hiding and Cognito. Indeed, the status of Obscurity was once thought so tenuous that some of the more philosophically inclined residents considered the possibility that since the village didn’t exist, they might not exist either, and hurriedly placed “existential question of being” on the parish council agenda, where it still resides, after much unresolved discussion, between “church roof fund” and “any other business.”

It was late summer. A period of good weather had followed on from rain, and the countryside was now enjoying a reinvigoration of color and scent. The fields and trees were a vibrant green and the spinneys rich with the sweet bouquet of honeysuckle and dog rose, the hedgerows creamy with cow parsley and alive with cyclamen. In the isolated splendor of Obscurity, the residents enjoyed the season more as they had fewer people to share it with. Few people came this way, and if they did, they were invariably lost.

The Austin Somerset that pulled up outside a pretty brick-and-thatch cottage on the edge of the village was not lost. A dapper septuagenarian bounded from the front garden to greet the only occupant, an attractive woman of slender build in her late twenties.

“Welcome to Obscurity, Miss Hatchett,” he intoned politely.

“Were you lost for long?”

“Barely an hour,” she replied, shaking his outstretched hand.

“It’s very good of you to talk to me, Mr. Cripps.”

“The gravity of the situation is too serious to remain unremarked forever,” he replied somberly.

She nodded, and the sprightly pensioner invited her into the garden and guided her to a shady spot under an apple tree. She settled herself on the bench and tied up her long, blond, curly tresses. These were her most identifiable feature, one that in the past had made her the subject of a certain amount of teasing. But these days she didn’t much care.

“Call me Goldilocks,” she said with a smile, as she caught Stanley Cripps staring at her remarkably luxuriant hair. “Everyone else does.”

Cripps returned her smile and offered her a glass of lemonade.

“Then you must call me Stanley—I say, you’re not the Goldilocks, are you? We have so few celebrities down this way.”

“I’m afraid not,” she replied good-naturedly, having been asked this question many times before. “I think that Goldilocks was a lot younger.”

“Of course,” said Stanley, who was still staring at her hair, which seemed to glisten like gold when the dappled light caught it.

Goldilocks smiled again and opened her notepad.

“Firstly,” she said, taking a sip of lemonade, “I must remind you that I am an investigative reporter for The Toad, and anything you say may well be reported in the newspapers, and you must be aware of that.”