With thanks to all of you reading and/or reviewing. I'm enjoying the chance t write lighter, shorter pieces for a spell.

January, 1924

When the telephone rang, Jem was walking the floor with Helen. Faith had fed her half an hour prior, so that wasn't the problem. Jem had padded the gas out of her afterwards, so it wasn't that, either. And he knew she was dry, because he'd checked. Several times. But she was fussing, and Faith had a long day looming, so Jem was walking the floor with her, and trying not to wake Christopher, when the telephone rang.

Jem glanced at the clock, but of course it was too dark to read it, which meant it was Late. Also, the telephone had succeeded where so far Helen had failed, because now a slipper-shod Christopher materialised before him, scrubbing at his eyes with two balled fists. The phone rang again, and Jem made a dive for it with a free hand he didn't have, because the last thing this late-night caller needed was Christopher's sleepy salutation. Never mind if it went on much longer Faith would wake up again, and that would undermine the whole point of the operation he was supposed to be heading.

'Gladstone 1-,' said Jem automatically, over a grousing Helen. 'Larkrise – Do you require the doctor or the police?'

'Ah, Jem,' said the familiar voice of Chief Inspector Geordie Carlisle, 'sorry to wake you. You appear to be attempting to avert Armageddon.'

'Something like that,' said Jem. 'You never answered the question, by the way.'

Helen jabbed an exploratory finger at the bridge of Jem's nose. Christopher tugged at his arm.

'I talk Un'ca Geordie?' he now demanded groggily. Jem attempted to shrug in the direction of the stairs, whence Christopher had materialised from. That he failed monumentally was evidenced by Christopher's continued tenure as an appendage to Jem's elbow.

'Sorry,' said Geordie from his side of the line, obviously apologetic. 'Look, I wouldn't bother you but something's come up that needs your attention.'

'Now?' said Jem, with another glance at the clock. He still couldn't read it. Christopher was trying to climb Jem's knees. Helen had moved on from his nose and was scrutinizing his eyelids. This caused his eyes to spasm under her ministrations, but at least she had stopped her girning.

'As I say,' said Geordie, 'it's rather urgent. Teddy rang it in…'

'Did he indeed,' said Jem, largely ignoring the latter half of the other man's sentence. Drat Teddy Lovall. Well, not really. Normally Jem had a great deal of affection for the boy. But then, normally he wasn't trying to preserve his eyes from prying fingers, reroute a recalcitrant gremlin bed-ward, all while trying to sustain a coherent conversation over the telephone.

'There's some question about exact cause,' said Geordie. 'I mean, it looks like it's one for our books, but it might be Reid Albert did it himself, in which case….'

'Whole set of questions about burials crops up,' said Jem around his children, one of which was now leaping like an eel while the other half-fell out of his embrace. 'Right. I see. I'll come as soon as I can.'

'Of course,' said Geordie, and rang off. That at least, took care of the issue of the telephone. It did nothing about the body even now in the police surgery, or Helen's fussiness, or Christopher's midnight perambulations of the house. Well, first things first.

He righted Helen, got Christopher in hand – awkward because Helen was still cuddled against his left side – and made to marshal him upstairs. They had got as far as the third stair when Christopher began to drag his feet.

'Can't,' he said, and went limp on Jem's arm.

'Something wrong?' asked Jem, his heart launching itself into the vicinity of his throat. The little boy looked all right, but there was no telling…

'Not tired,' said Christopher. Oh. Well. If that was all.

'Rotten luck, isn't it,' said Jem, and tried to manoeuvre Christopher further up the stairs. It went badly. Helen's deadweight on his arm meant he was deprived of at least half the weight necessary to leaver a boneless boy upstairs. Of course, he could always wake Faith. He should wake Faith. But the term was resuming in the morning, and she had things to do, a surgery to run, and none of that was going to be helped by ministering to nocturnal gremlins.

'You no sleep,' said Christopher.

'No,' said Jem, shuffling Helen a little to reprieve his arm. 'I'm supposed to be sleeping. But work came up.'

'Me too!' said Christopher, triumphant. Jem considered this. Weighed the merits of arguing the point rationally against a two-year-old's logic. He thought it was probably a lost cause.

'Right,' he said, 'you go find your shoes. I'll just settle Helen and we'll…'

Actually, Jem wasn't sure what they'd do, but taking them with him at least guaranteed Faith got a chance to sleep. It was a mostly solid plan. Except for the part where Helen wouldn't sleep. He tucked her under the covers. He took the covers off. He walked up and down the length of the nursery. He sat with her in the rocker. He made faces. He sang what he could remember of that lullaby of Mums's I saw three ships come sailing in…

Then Christopher appeared in the door. 'Un'ca Geordie,' he said. 'He need us?'

Nothing for it, thought Jem grimly, bundling Helen into her sling. It was hardly likely to be the strangest parental decision he made this side of eternity. After all, he had once solved the case of the hour by trying to talk Christopherto sleep. It seemed ages ago.

'Come on,' he said, taking Christopher in hand. 'We're the Three Musketeers tonight. All for one, and one for all!'

'Oneforall!' said Christopher, gleeful, and shot his free hand skyward. From her sling, Helen cooed what Jem took for her seconding of the motion.

It was entirely too far to the station house to walk with Christopher in tow. He had also wasted entirely too much time trying to persuade his children out of this adventure to lose any more to mucking about with details like transportation. Jem hoisted little Christopher up onto his shoulders, coat flannel pajamas and all, and so encumbered, started off on the long walk to the station house.

It was dark when Jem arrived at the police surgery, a fact which, he reflected, as he set Christopher down on the ground, would have deterred just about any other child in Christendom. Well, he thought ruefully, probably not himself, or a young Faith either, but that was beside the point. Christopher ran gleefully ahead, eschewing tree roots and stones with all the deftness of a two-year-old on a mission. Jem had to navigate around him to turn up the wicks of the lights, and only then wondered if perhaps he had done the right thing bringing Christopher along. The body of Reid Albert was respectfully shrouded in the usual sheet, a faint scent of tobacco radiating from it.

'Hello,' said Jem amicably, beginning his usual circuit of the body. 'Now whatever happened to you?'

'Musk Ear look, too!' said Christopher. He made a game effort to leap to table-height, but it was no good. The table was too high, and he was too short. Briefly Jem toyed with lifting him up, before realising what he was thinking and shaking his head. In any event, his arms were still protesting their long stint as bearer of Christopher to the surgery.

'Not fair, is it, old chap,?' said Jem sympathetically. 'Tell you what, though, there's some bits and pieces I'll need from that cupboard, there – you see the one? Can you fetch them for me?' Christopher nodded and went off at a tear that Jem suspected was supposed to be a solemn procession. To Reid Albert he said, 'Now, let's have a look at you.'

There was a bruise on the collarbone that Jem wanted to let sit for a bit. And his knuckles were grazed; he'd want to know how that had happened. A job for Geordie, that. Or Teddy. Speaking of Teddy…He had appeared in the doorframe, looking rather hesitant, sometime between Christopher's reappearance with scalpel and impedimenta, and the end of Jem's first, cursory examination of the body.

'Doc,' said Teddy, 'you're here.' Then, noticing one or both of the children, 'And you brought gremlins?'

If Jem had to guess, he didn't think Teddy had intended it for a question.

'Tree Musk Ears!' said Christopher by way of elucidation. Teddy, caught unawares, did what Jem took to be the only sensible thing under the circumstances and raised both eyebrows in inquiry.

'Three Musketeers,' said Jem for clarity, gesturing at himself, Christopher and Helen as he did so. 'They're helping me with the autopsy, you see?'

'Yes,' said Teddy. 'Quite. Er…why are they helping, Doc?'

'Not everyone,' said a voice from behind Teddy, 'has your distaste for blood, Sergeant. I take it,' this to Jem with a smile in the voice, 'sleep was elusive?'

'Armageddon got the better of me,' Jem said.

'Tree Musk Ears!' said Christopher again. 'We Tree Musk Ears, Un'ca Geordie!'

'That's – ' began Teddy, but Geordie had got ahead of him.

'Three Musketeers. I heard. Quite right, too. Any luck with our corpse, Jem?'

'Well,' said Jem, who was presently evaluating the contents of Reid Albert's stomach, Christopher leaping at his elbow, 'I don't think the family will have much trouble about the burial. I mean, it doesn't look like – '

'I'll just borrow the gremlins, shall I?' said Teddy, suddenly, intervening. For a moment Jem stood blinking perplexity. Then Teddy gestured to Helen, and it suddenly came home to him that Teddy didn't want words like suicide batted around her infantine ears. Teddy probably had a point. Easily Jem lifted Helen out of her sling and handed her over. Christopher, though, hung back, stubborn. He had stopped leaping. Now he said for emphasis, 'Tree Musk Ears!'

Teddy wavered. Jem waved him and the baby off.

'It's all right,' he said. 'I can mind Christopher. He's keeping me on task, aren't you, little fellow?'

'Tree Musk Ears,' said Christopher solemnly. Geordie, Jem saw, was trying not to laugh. Teddy abated.

'Right,' he said, 'well. Helen and I will just be outside, won't we darling? We'll be Musketeers together. What are your feelings on helping Teddy poke around in the files?'

So saying, he slipped out of the surgery and into the hall.

The trouble was, Teddy reflected afterwards, that Helen's feelings to files were deeply adverse. Which Teddy understood, right enough, some of those files were plain dull, but it was doing nothing to advance his progress. And the thing that he couldn't get over was that when the Doc had had her, she had seemed to be asleep. Or at least settled. Perhaps he should have taken the sling for good measure. Not that Teddy had ever had a problem settling Helen before now. He couldn't even remember her needing to be close to a person's heartbeat, particularly. Not at all like Olly. Now Olly…

Teddy was brought out of this reminiscence of brotherly bonding by a perfunctory wail.

'Hungry, are you?' he asked Helen. More wailing, so he padded towards the kitchen in search of milk. He was sure there must be some in there he could heat up. After all, they weren't due to change the bottle for another couple of days, and there should just be enough…Helen didn't want the milk. Never mind that Teddy had got the stuff out of the milk pantry and heated it to exactly the right temperature, or that it smelled pleasantly sweet and creamy. Teddy had even tested it against his elbow, so it wasn't that it was too hot. But Helen wasn't having it. She wasn't having milk-softened biscuit, either.

Accordingly, Teddy padded back down the hall with her, crooning a bit of a lullaby. No good. Surreptitiously, he checked her napkin, but no, that was dry. So much for that. At this point in the proceedings an overtired Benwick poked his nose round a corner and said, grinning, 'Pull the short straw, did you?'

'Hardly,' said Teddy. 'She's quite an easy baby as a rule, aren't you, Miss Helen?'

Helen mewled, a kittenish disavowal of Teddy's testimony.

'Well,' said Benwick, 'I'll leave you too it,' and bounced off, presumably before Teddy could recruit him to the task. As if Teddy would trust the likes of Benwick with one of the Larkrise gremlins.

'I think I'll have that milk, if you won't,' said Teddy to a still snuffling Helen. It had been a long day, and what he really wanted was tea, if only to keep him awake. Sleep, preferably, but since any chance of that had vanished when the call of Reid Albert's body had come in…Teddy shrugged, diffidently. He'd take what he could get. Besides, he was hardly likely to nod off with Helen whimpering in his ear. Especially not with her little fingers giving it exploratory pokes and prods.

'I know,' said Teddy, walking the hall with her, 'I don't like it much either, tell you the truth.' Noticing her audience, Helen increased the volume of her disgruntlement.

'Yes, quite,' said Teddy. 'But I needed work, didn't ? And the Inspector happened to be short-handed. There was a war on. All very unofficial, but who was there to notice?' Somehow, he managed to shrug around Helen's downy head. She smelled of milk, talc and that indefinable something else so singular to young children, almost sweet. She was also working up to a good sobbing fit, Teddy could see that much. He patted her back, and retraced their steps to the surgery.

'We'll have a wee look in on them, shall we?' he said as he went. 'You can see your Dad still exists. He thinks the world of you, you know. Everybody does.' This testimony did nothing to lessen the grievance of the hour.

They were back in the vicinity of the surgery by then. Teddy knew this because notwithstanding the dark of the hall, he could smell the unmistakable smell of ethanol, blood, and…other things Teddy wasn't thinking all that hard about. How the Doc stood it was anyone's guess. Rather him than Teddy any day, though. At least Helen's tears seemed to be ebbing. Now she was mostly hiccoughing and snuffling her anguish into Teddy's uniform.

'Want me to take her for a spell?' said the Doc, poking his head around the surgery door and proving Helen's unhappiness wasn't as diminished as all that. Teddy was about to object, but Helen was reaching for her father, and before Teddy had time to blink, the Doc had got her back in his sling, and was saying conversationally, 'Your brother and I were just going over the bloodwork. Very interesting. You see, if you look closely…'

The strangest part, to Teddy's way of thinking, was that Helen had stoppedher tantrum. In fact, she was jabbering some Helen-strand of nonsense apparently perfectly intelligible to knowing parties. Teddy was not one. He watched the Doc lift her to the microscope and shook his head.

'There!' squealed Christopher, and pointed. He had acquired a chair in the interval Teddy and Helen had been away, and now stood on it, hugging it's back, the better to be level with the table.

'Three cheers for the Musk Ears, eh?' said the Inspector with a grin. Teddy shook his head.

'I tried everything, sir,' said Teddy, at a loss.

'I'm sure you did,' he said evenly. 'I told you before. Not everyone is as squeamish as you are about blood.'

Teddy shook his head. Looked again at the tableau at the surgery table. The Doc was bent now so that Helen could direct her little fingers at the unsuspecting nose of Reid Albert. Now there was a turn the bloke would never have expected. 'Obviously not,' Teddy said.