Pascale Auber & the Ruritanian Riddle

XLVIII Wherein I am Quoted - 1

"I know I should have told you I was quoting you!" Dahlia said, still balancing with her left foot on the ground and her right foot on the bicycle pedal, "but being a government person, I know you wouldn't mind, and I tried to make it as close to being a direct quote as I could, given that the stupidest of the policemen had taken my notebook, and -"

"You quoted me?" I asked. This was not good. This was not good at all. My boss was going to have my head on a platter for this; appearing in a newspaper is hardly maintaining the low profile expected of one in my position.

"Of course I - wait, you haven't read it, have you?"the cub report swung her right leg over the crossbeam of the bicycle so that both feet were on the ground, the bicycle between her and me. "All that about wanting to see the note the perpetrator left for the police, and plying me with food to get information out of me, and you didn't read the article?"

Unfortunately for my composure, I was automatically defensive. "I - yesterday was a very busy day for me, and -"

"I'll bet." Dahlia said, the bicycle still between us.

"Look, is there any way I can see that article? You must have a copy."

"Of course I do,"  she said. "But why should I share it with you? What's in it for me?"

My mind raced. I wasn't sure if she was looking for money or information, but I didn't have enough of either currency to make it worth my while. Considering the effectiveness of half a watercress sandwich and a few cucumber rolls, and reflecting on the only discounted purchase my father's profession permits me, I settled upon an idea.

"What is in it for me?" Dahlia repeated.

I smiled at the young reporter. "Chocolate?

My father is a mechanical genius. When we were children, he built a wind-up pram for my dolls that was strong enough that Blaise and I used it to cart around schoolbooks - and later our baby brother - well into our teens. Rather than use this skill to invent a better mousetrap, or place a chronometer into an ordinary household device, my father decided to opt for steady employment, predictable hours, and a defined-benefit pension plan. Which is to say, he took a job as chief mechanic in a chocolate factory - and then started a trade union. The practical upshot of this is that, as his daughter, I receive a discount on chocolate produced at the said factory.

The young reporter negotiated me into promising her three pounds of assorted, filled chocolates, and forced me to walk a block to buy her said chocolates, before she would lead me into the building and up the stairs to her desk.