Alan Bradley - The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag

Mrs. Ingleby was staring at me with horror.

"No!" she said. "No! I couldn't do that."

"Perhaps you and Mr. Ingleby could both come, and — "

"No!"

She scrambled to her feet, raising a thick cloud of chaff, and for a few moments, as the stuff swirled round us, we stood perfectly still, like figures in a snow-globe paperweight.

"You'd better go," she said suddenly, in a throaty voice. "Please go now."

Without a word I groped my way to the opening, my eyes streaming from the dust. With surprisingly little effort, I found myself able to drop down onto the wooden vane, and begin the long climb down.

I have to admit that Jack and the Beanstalk crossed my mind.

The farmyard was deserted. Dieter had gone down the lane with Rupert and Nialla to the river, and by now they had probably already made camp. If I was lucky, I might be just in time for a cup of tea. I felt as if I'd been up all night.

What was the time, anyway?

God blind me with a fish fork! Aunt Felicity's train was due to arrive at five past ten and I'd completely forgotten about her! Father would have my guts for garters.

Even if Aunt Felicity wasn't already fuming on the platform and frothing at the mouth, how on earth was I ever going to get to Doddingsley? It was a good six miles from Culverhouse Farm, even as the crow flies, and as far as I knew, I wasn't about to sprout wings.

Down the lane I ran, windmilling my arms as if that could propel me to a greater speed. Fortunately, it was downhill all the way, and at the bottom, I could see Rupert's van parked beneath the willows.

Dieter had the Austin's hood open and was poking around in its innards. Nialla was hanging a shirt on the bushes to dry. Gordon Ingleby was nowhere in sight, nor was Sally Straw.

"First chance I've had to break out the old Sunlight," Nialla told me. "Dieter's having a peek at the motor. Whatever took you so long?"

"What time is it?" I pleaded.

"Search me," she replied. "Rupert's the only one who owns a watch, and he's taken himself off somewhere."

As he always does . She did not actually speak the words, but her meaning was as clear as if she'd shouted them from the top of Big Ben.

"Dieter?" I asked.

Dieter shook his head. "Sorry. It was for such a long time forbidden to possess one...."

"Excuse me," I interrupted, "but I have to meet a train."

Before they could answer, I was off along the towpath at top speed. It was an easy run along the old embankment, which skirted the southern edge of Jubilee Field, and within surprisingly few minutes, I was leaping across the stepping-stones to the churchyard.

The clock on the church tower showed twenty minutes to four, which was impossible: The stupid thing had probably stopped in the reign of Henry the Eighth and nobody had cared enough to set it going again.

Gladys, my trusty BSA, was exactly where I had left her at the side of the parish hall. I pushed off for Buckshaw.

As I raced past the corner of Spindle Lane, the clock set into the wall of the Thirteen Drakes showed that the time was either noon or midnight. I'm afraid I let slip rather a rude word.

Out of the village I went like the wind, south west-wards towards Buckshaw, until I came at last to the Mulford Gates, where Clarence Mundy sat waiting, perched on one of the wings of his taxicab, dragging thirstily at a cigarette. By the snowfall of butts on the road, I could tell that it was not his first.

"Hullo, Clarence," I said. "How's the time?"

"Ten hundred hours," he said, glancing at his elaborate military wristwatch. "Better climb aboard."

He let in the clutch as I did so, and we were off like a skyrocket.

As we tore along through lanes and hedgerows, Clarence worked the gear stick like a snake charmer grappling with a wilful cobra, seizing its head every few seconds and shoving it to some new quarter of the compass. Outside the windows, the countryside streamed past in an ever-accelerating blur of green, until I wanted to scream "Yarooh!" — but I restrained myself.

During the war, Clarence had flown the jumbo-sized Sunderland flying boats, endlessly patrolling the vast Atlantic for German U-boats, and, as we fairly flew along between the pressing hedgerows, he seemed still to imagine himself at the controls of one of these behemoths. At any moment, I thought, he would pull back on the steering wheel and we would lift off into the air. Perhaps, during our ascent into the summer sky, we might even catch a glimpse of Harriet.

Before she had married Father, Harriet had piloted her own de Havilland Gipsy Moth, which she had named Blithe Spirit , and I sometimes imagined her floating alone up there in the sunshine, dipping in and out of the puffy valleys of cumulus, with no one to answer to except the wind.

Clarence skidded to a stop at one end of the Doddingsley railway platform as the train steamed in at the other.

"Ten-oh-five," he said, glancing at wristwatch. "On the dot."

As I knew she would be, the first passenger to step down from the carriage was Aunt Felicity. In spite of the heat, she was wearing a long, light-colored motoring coat and a great solar topee, which was tied under her chin with a broad blue ribbon. Various bits protruded from her person in all directions: hatpins, umbrella handles, rolled-up magazines, newspapers, shooting sticks, and so forth. She looked like a walking bird's nest, or, rather, more like an ambulatory haystack.

"Fetch my luggage, Clarence," she said, "and mind the alligator."

"Alligator?" Clarence said, his eyebrows shooting up.

"The bag," said Aunt Felicity. "It's new from Harrods, and I won't have it ruined by a clumsy rustic on some godforsaken railway platform.

"Flavia," she said, "you may carry my hot-water bottle."

DOGGER MET US AT the front door. He fished a cloth change purse from his pocket and raised his eyebrows at Clarence.

"Two bob," Clarence said, "going and coming — including the wait."

As Dogger counted out the coins, Aunt Felicity leaned back and ran her eyes over the facade of the house.

"Shocking," she said. "The place grows shabbier before one's very eyes."

I did not feel it my place to tell her that, when it came to expenses, Father was nearly at his wit's end. The house had actually belonged to Harriet, who had died young, unexpectedly, and without troubling to make a will. Now, because of what Father called "complications," it seemed unlikely that we would be able to remain at Buckshaw for much longer.

"Take my bags to my room, Dogger," Aunt Felicity said, returning her gaze to earth, "and mind the alligator."

"Yes, Miss Felicity," Dogger said, a wicker hamper already under each arm and a suitcase in each hand. "Harrods, I believe."

"Aunt Felicity's arrived," I said, slouching into the kitchen. "I'm suddenly not very hungry. I think I'll just have a lettuce sandwich and eat it in my room."

"You'll do no such thing," Mrs. Mullet said. "I've gone and made a nice aspic salad, with beets and that."

I pulled a horrid face, but when she glanced at me unexpectedly, I remembered Nialla's dodge and cleverly transformed my grimace into a yawn, covering my mouth with my hand.

"Sorry. I was up early this morning," I said.

"So was I. More's the pity."

"I was at Ingleby's farm," I volunteered.

"So I heard," she said.

Petrify the woman! Was there nothing that escaped her ears?

"Mrs. Richardson told me you was helpin' them puppet people, her with her Judas hair, like, and him with his gampy leg."

Cynthia Richardson. I should have guessed. Obviously, the presence of the puppeteers had loosened the purse-string mouth.

"Her name's Nialla," I said, "and his is Rupert. She's quite a nice person, actually. She makes scrapbooks — or she used to, at least."