night, having a cookery class?' 'Oh, please, Aunt Mimi,' I begged. 'I really need to know. I promise that as soon as you tell me I'll tell you everything about last night.' Aunt Mimi was interested. 'Everything?' 'Everything,' I said. 'No secrets.' Aunt Mimi smiled. 'Well, my dear, I hate to tell you this but I didn't make the cake. I bought it.' 'You bought it?' I said, unable to hide the surprise in my voice. 'Where did you buy it?' 'From a little place in the market, the open-air one that takes place twice a week in the park. There's an old lady there who said she used to bake them for her husbands. She had seven of them, would you believe? And they all ate her fruitcakes.' Somehow I wasn't surprised that she had had seven husbands. Not with those fruitcakes. 'Did she say what she put in them?' I asked, hopefully. 'Only that she put in a "special something" that she grew herself,' said Aunt Mimi. 'She wouldn't say what. She told me that she only baked that kind of cake a few times. As a matter of fact, she knew that I was thinking about finding a husband for you. I don't know how she knew but she did. Anyway, this woman who made the cake told me to give it to you and your problems would be over. I didn't believe what she said, but I used to buy the fruitcakes because they were delicious.' I noticed that Aunt Mimi was talking about this old lady as if she wasn't around any more. I feared the worst. Was she dead? 'Can we see this old lady to ask her about it?' I asked. Aunt Mimi looked at me sadly. 'I'm afraid she died last week - I went to her funeral. They say she was over a hundred years old. There were a lot of strangers there, not from around here, all speaking in some kind of strange way. They seemed to think she was important, though nobody ever took much notice of her around here.' 'Except you, Aunt Mimi,' I said. Aunt Mimi smiled. 'Well, you know how I can't mind my own business.' I knew. 'Speaking of which,' she said, moving closer to me, 'it's your turn.' 'My turn?' I asked. 'To tell me everything that happened last night,' she said. And so I did. Everything, just as I had promised. I don't know whether Aunt Mimi believed me or not, but if she didn't she never let it show. She's not a bad old lady, my Aunt Mimi. Not when you get to know her. I n the end I had two days off work. I said I'd been sick and in a way I was: I wouldn't feel well until I knew the truth about the fruitcake. I knew that there was little chance of discovering what actually went into it. I would have to work it out from the small amount I had left in the bottle. I had used up more than I thought the other night. But I was not sure that I wanted to make my fortune from the old woman's secret. Perhaps it was only right that the secret should lie