Image Description (cover image): A warm, richly textured illustration shows a glowing Family Circle biscuit tin floating at the centre of a swirling vortex. Around it spin various baked goods — jam tarts, bread rolls, cinnamon buns, shortbread fingers — all being drawn into the jamline spiral. The colours are rich reds, oranges and golden yellows, with a nostalgic, storybook feel. At the top, the words “Something’s Wrong with Time” appear in cream lettering. At the bottom, the title reads: “A Crumble in Time.”
The Biscuit Detectives – Volume Four – A Crumble In Time – Chapter Ten – All Crumbs Lead To Home
The tin landed with an elegant thump on cool stone tiles.
For a moment, there was silence.
Then the lid creaked open, and Lady Biscotti, Sir Dunkalot, Biggie, and Indy stepped out — not into a grand hall or a market square, but back into their own kitchen.
Or so it seemed.
The room looked the same. But the air… was wrong. The clock ticked backwards. The biscuits on the shelf had no names. And the kettle whistled in reverse.
Sir Dunkalot frowned. “We’ve landed home… but not quite.”
Lady Biscotti approached the table, where the Family Circle tin now sat, closed and quiet. “Time’s been bent in both directions. Every place we visited… every bake we restored… all of it’s looped back here.”
On the wall where her photographs usually hung were now blank frames.
Biggie whined softly.
Indy sniffed the floor, then barked — once, sharply.
Beneath the table, tucked where no light should have reached, lay a tiny bundle of crumbs. Not biscuit crumbs. Something denser. Richer.
Lady Biscotti leaned down and picked them up carefully.
“A fruit bun,” she whispered. “But it’s not from our time.”
Sir Dunkalot tilted his head. “Then whose is it?”
A light flickered across the biscuit tin’s surface.
The jamlines shimmered, just for a moment — revealing flashes of all they’d seen: the chocolate gears at Chapelfield, the rye rebellion at Blickling, the erased custard factory, the vanished Co-op bakery…
Lady Biscotti stared at the tin. “It’s been trying to show us all along. The jamlines weren’t just broken — they were testing us.”
“Testing us?” Sir Dunkalot asked.
“To see if we’d preserve the stories,” she said. “All of them. Not just the famous ones. The forgotten buns, the background loaves, the recipes lost under dust.”
A gentle hum rose from the tin, like a sigh of relief.
One by one, the photos on the wall blinked back into existence — but now, there were new ones too.
A crusty soldier raising a baguette. A vanished baker in King’s Lynn holding a shortbread scroll. And others from their time travels.
Biggie padded over to the tin and gave it a proud nudge.
Indy flopped beside it and let out a weary but contented snore.
Sir Dunkalot poured the tea.
Lady Biscotti sat, crumbling the fruit bun gently into her hand. “It’s not just biscuits anymore,” she murmured.
“It never was,” Sir Dunkalot said.
The kitchen clock ticked forward again. Just once.
And the jamlines… were still.
For now.
Blind Man Makes 