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

"Top secret work?" I gasped. The thought of Grace Ingleby doing anything other than cringing in her dovecote tower, like a captive maiden waiting to be rescued by Sir Lancelot, was almost laughable.

"Of course, she would never breathe a word about it." Miss Puddock lowered her voice, in the way that people often do when they talk about the war. "They're not allowed to, you know. But then, we seldom see her nowadays. Since that tragedy with her little boy — "

"Robin," I said.

"Yes. Since then, she keeps to herself. I'm afraid she's not at all the same laughing girl who used to put Peter the Great in his place."

"Was Gordon a member of Special Operations, too?" I asked.

"Gordon?" She laughed. "Good lord, no. Gordon's 'a farmer born and a farmer he shall die,' as Shakespeare wrote, or was it Harry Lauder, or George Formby, or someone like that? My memory's gone all wormholes, and so will yours, in time."

I couldn't think what to say, and I saw at once she thought she'd offended me.

"But not for many a year, dear. No, I'm quite sure your memory will still be going strong when the rest of us are in our graves and paved over for parking at the bowling palaces."

"Have you seen Mrs. Ingleby recently?" I asked.

"Not since Saturday night at the parish hall. Of course I had no opportunity to chat, what with our little musicale on my mind. The rest of the evening was a nightmare, wasn't it: the death of that poor man — the puppet that was carved with Robin's face? I don't know what Gordon was thinking, bringing Grace there when she's so fragile. But then, he had no way of knowing, did he?"

"No," I said. "I don't suppose he did."

By the time I set out for Buckshaw, it was well past lunchtime. Fortunately, Miss Puddock had wrapped a couple of buttered scones in paper and insisted upon tucking them into my pocket. I nibbled at them absently as I pedaled along the road, lost in thought.

At the end of the high street, the road made a gentle angle to the southwest as it skirted the southern perimeter of St. Tancred's churchyard.

If I hadn't glanced to my right, I mightn't have seen it: the Austin van, with "Porson's Puppets" in gold letters on its panels, parked at the side of the parish hall. Gladys's tires skidded in the dust as I applied her hand brakes and swerved into the churchyard.

As I pulled up, Nialla was stowing odds and ends in the van's interior.

"You've got it running!" I shouted. She gave me the kind of look that you might give to a bit of dog dirt in your porridge, and went on with her packing.

"It's me, Flavia," I said. "Have you forgotten me already?"

"Piss off, you little traitor," she snapped. "Leave me alone."

For an instant, I thought I was back at Buckshaw, talking to Feely. It was the kind of dismissal I've lived through a thousand times — and survived, I thought. I decided to stand my ground.

"Why? What have I done to you?"

"Oh, come off it, Flavia. You know as well as I do. You told the police I was at Buckshaw. They thought I was hiding out, or running away, or whatever you want to call it."

"I did no such thing!" I protested. "I haven't laid eyes on a policeman since I saw you in the coach house."

"But you were the only one who knew I was there."

As it always did when I was angry, my mind burned with crystal clarity.

"I knew you were there, Dogger knew you were there, and so did Mrs. Mullet, to name but three."

"I can hardly believe Dogger would peach on me."

"And nor would Mrs. Mullet," I said.

Good Lord! Was I actually defending Mrs. M?

"She may be a bloody gossip, but she's not mean," I said. "She'd never rat on you. Inspector Hewitt came to Buckshaw — probably to ask me a few more questions about Saturday night — and happened to see you walking from the coach house to the kitchen. There's no more to it than that. I'm sure of it."

I could see that Nialla was thinking about it. I wanted nothing more than to take her by the shoulders and give her a good shaking, but I had to keep in mind the fact that her emotions were being stoked by a storm of hormones: fierce clouds of hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, carbon, and sulfur, combining and recombining in the eternal dances of life.

It almost made me forgive her.

"Here," I said, pulling the butterfly compact dramatically from my pocket and holding it out towards her. "I believe this belongs to you."

I hugged myself in anticipation of a tidal wave of gratitude and praise. But none came.

"Thanks," Nialla said, and pocketed the thing.

Thanks? Just thanks? The nerve! I'd show her: I'd pretend she hadn't hurt me; pretend I didn't care.

"I can't help noticing," I remarked casually, "that you're packing the van, which means that Bert Archer's repaired it and you're about to be on your way. Since Inspector Hewitt is nowhere in sight, I expect that means you're free to go."

"Free?" she repeated, and spat in the dirt. "Free? The vicar's given me four pounds, six shillings, and eightpence from the show. Bert Archer's bill comes to seven pounds ten. It's only because the vicar put in a word for me that he's willing to let me drive to Overton to pawn whatever I can. If you call that free, then I'm free. It's all bloody well and good for Little Miss Nabob, who lives in a country house the size of Buckingham Palace, to make her smart-pants deductions. So think what you like, but don't bloody well patronize me!"

"All right," I said. "I didn't mean to. Here, take this, please."

I dug into my pocket again and pulled out the coin, the one Aunt Felicity had foisted upon Dogger, thinking it was a shilling. Dogger, in turn, had planted it in my pocket, believing, perhaps, that it would soon be spent on horehound sticks at Miss Cool's shop.

I handed it to Nialla, who looked at it with disbelief.

"Fourpence!" she said. "Bloody fourpence!"

Her tears were flowing freely as she flung it away among the tombstones.

"Yes, it is only fourpence," I said. "But it's fourpence in Maundy money. The coins are produced by the Royal Mint, to be handed out by the Sovereign — "

"Blow the Sovereign!" she shouted. "And blow the Royal Mint!"

" — on Maundy Thursday. They're quite rare. If I remember correctly, Bert Archer is a coin collector, and I think you'll find the Maundy fourpence will more than pay for the van."

With all the righteous dignity I could muster, I grabbed Gladys by the handlebars and shoved off for home. When I looked back from the corner of the church, Nialla was already on her hands and knees, scrabbling in the churchyard grass, and I couldn't tell whether the tears she was wiping away were tears of anger or of happiness.

"ALL RIGHT, DOGGER," I SAID, "the jig is up."

I had found him in the butler's pantry, polishing Father's shoes.

Dogger's duties at Buckshaw varied in direct proportion to his present capabilities, his participation in our daily life rising and descending, rather like those colored balls in Galileo's thermometer that float at different levels in a glass tube, depending on the temperature. The fact that he was doing shoes was a good sign. It indicated clearly that he had advanced once again from gardener to butler.

He looked up from his work.

"Is it?" he asked.

"Cast your mind, if you please, back to Saturday evening at the parish hall. You're sitting beside me watching Jack and the Beanstalk when suddenly something goes wrong backstage. Rupert comes crashing down dead, and within minutes you are telling me that you fear we have seen murder. How did you know that? How did you know it wasn't an accident?"

This question had been gnawing away at my subconscious like a rat at a rope, but until that very moment, I had not been fully aware of it.