The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag

by Alan Bradley

  “Splendid,” Rupert said. “The hall will do splendidly.”

  He stumped across the stage and began clambering awkwardly down the narrow steps, the fingers of one hand splayed out against the wall for support.

  “Careful!” Nialla said, taking a quick step towards him.

  “Get back!” he snapped, with a look of utter ferocity. “I can manage.”

  She stopped short in her tracks—as if he had slapped her in the face.

  “Nialla thinks I’m her child.” He laughed, trying to make a joke of it.

  By her murderous look, I could see that Nialla didn’t think any such thing.

  three

  “WELL, THEN!” THE VICAR SAID BRIGHTLY, RUBBING his hands together, as if the moment hadn’t happened. “That’s settled. Where shall we begin?” He looked eagerly from one of them to the other.

  “By unloading the van, I suppose,” Rupert said. “I assume we can leave things here until the show?”

  “Oh, of course … of course,” said the vicar. “The parish hall’s as safe as houses. Perhaps even a little safer.”

  “Then someone will need to have a look at the van … and we’ll want a place to put up for a few days.”

  “Leave that department to me,” the vicar said. “I’m sure I can manage something. Now then, up sleeves, and to work we go. Come along, Flavia, dear. I’m sure we’ll find something suited to your special talents.”

  Something suited to my special talents? Somehow I doubted it—unless the subject was criminal poisoning, which was my chief delight.

  But still, because I didn’t feel up to going home to Buckshaw just yet, I pasted on my best Girl Guide (retired) smile for the vicar, and followed him, along with Rupert and Nialla, outside into the churchyard.

  As Rupert swung open the rear doors of the van, I had my first glimpse into the life of a traveling showman. The Austin’s dim interior was beautifully fitted out with row upon row of varnished drawers, each one nestled snugly above, beside, and below its neighbors: very like the boxes of shoes in a well-run boot maker’s shop, with each drawer capable of sliding in and out on its own track. Piled on the floor of the van were the larger boxes—shipping crates, really—with rope handles at the ends to facilitate their being pulled out and lugged to wherever they were going.

  “Rupert made it all himself,” Nialla said, proudly. “The drawers, the folding stage, the lighting equipment … made the spotlights out of old paint tins, didn’t you, Rupert?”

  Rupert nodded absently as he hauled away at a bundle of iron tubing.

  “And that’s not all. He cut the cables, made the props, painted the scenery, carved the puppets … everything—except that, of course.”

  She was pointing to a bulky black case with a leather handle and perforations in the side.

  “What’s in there? Is it an animal?”

  Nialla laughed.

  “Better than that. It’s Rupert’s pride and joy: a magnetic recorder. Had it sent him from America. Cost him a pretty penny, I can tell you. Still, it’s cheaper than hiring the BBC orchestra to play the incidental music!”

  Rupert had already begun to tug boxes out of the Austin, grunting as he worked. His arms were like dockyard cranes, lifting and turning … lifting and turning, until at last, nearly everything was piled in the grass.

  “Allow me to lend a hand,” the vicar said, seizing a rope handle at the end of a black coffin-shaped trunk with the word “Galligantus” stenciled upon it in white letters, as Rupert took the other end.

  Nialla and I went back and forth, back and forth, with the lighter bits and pieces, and within half an hour, everything was piled up inside the parish hall in front of the stage.

  “Well done!” the vicar said, dusting off the sleeves of his jacket. “Well done, indeed. Now then, would Saturday be suitable? For the show, I mean? Let me see … today is Thursday … that would give you an extra day to make ready, as well as time to have your van repaired.”

  “Sounds all right to me,” Rupert said. Nialla nodded, even though she hadn’t been asked.

  “Saturday it is, then. I’ll have Cynthia run off handbills on the hectograph. She can take them round the shops tomorrow … slap a few up in strategic places. Cynthia’s such a good sport about these things.”

  Of the many phrases that came to mind to describe Cynthia Richardson, “good sport” was not among them; “ogress,” however, was.

  It was after all Cynthia, with her rodent features, who had once caught me teetering tiptoe on the altar of St. Tancred’s, using one of Father’s straight razors to scrape a sample of blue zafre from a medieval stained-glass window. Zafre was an impure basic arsenate of cobalt, prepared by roasting, which the craftsmen of the Middle Ages had used for painting on glass, and I was simply dying to analyze the stuff in my laboratory to determine how successful its makers had been in the essential step of freeing it of iron.

  Cynthia had seized me, upended me, and spanked me on the spot, making what I thought to be unfair use of a nearby copy of Hymns Ancient and Modern (Standard Edition).

  “What you have done, Flavia, is not worthy of congratulation,” Father said when I reported this outrage to him. “You have ruined a perfectly good Thiers-Issard hollow-ground blade.”

  I have to admit, though, that Cynthia was a great organizer, but then, so were the men with whips who got the pyramids built. Certainly, if anyone could manage to paper Bishop’s Lacey from end to end in three days with handbills, it was Cynthia Richardson.

  “Hold on!” the vicar exclaimed. “I’ve just had the most splendid idea! Tell me what you think. Why not present two shows rather than one? I don’t claim to be an expert in the art of the puppet theater, by any means—knowing what is possible and what is not, and so forth—but why not put on a show Saturday afternoon for the children, and another Saturday evening, when more of the grownups would be free to attend?”

  Rupert did not reply at once, but stood rubbing his chin. Even I could see instantly that two performances would double the take at the box office.

  “Well …” he said at last. “I suppose. It would have to be the same show both times, though …”

  “Splendid!” said the vicar. “What’s it to be, then … the program, that is?”

  “Open with a short musical piece,” Rupert said. “It’s a new one I’ve been working up. No one’s seen it yet, so this would be a good chance to try it out. Then Jack and the Beanstalk. They always clamor for Jack and the Beanstalk, young and old alike. Classic fare. Very popular.”

  “Smashing!” the vicar said. He pulled a folded sheet of paper and the nub of a pencil from an inner pocket and scribbled a few notes.

  “How’s this?” he asked, with a final flourish, then, with a pleased look on his face, read aloud what he had written:

  “Direct from London!

  “I hope you’ll forgive the small fib and the exclamation point,” he whispered to Nialla.

  “Porson’s Puppets

  “(Operated by the acclaimed Rupert Porson. As seen on the BBC Television)

  “Program

  “I. A Musical Interlude

  “II. Jack and the Beanstalk

  (The former being presented for the first time on any stage; the latter declared to be universally popular with old and young alike.)

  Saturday, July 22nd, 1950, at St. Tancred’s Parish Hall, Bishop’s Lacey.

  Performances at 2:00 P.M. and 7:00 P.M. sharp!

  “… Otherwise they’ll just dawdle in,” he added. “I’ll have Cynthia dash off a sketch of a little jointed figure with strings to put at the top. She’s an exceedingly talented artist, you know—not that she’s had as many opportunities as she’d like to express herself—oh, dear, I fear I’m rambling. I’d best away to my telephonic duties.”

  And with that he was gone.

  “Peculiar old duck,” Rupert remarked.

  “He’s all right,” I told him. “He leads rather a sad life.”

  “Ah,” Rup
ert said, “I know what you mean. Funerals, and all that.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Funerals and all that.”

  But I was thinking more of Cynthia.

  “Which way to the mains?” Rupert asked suddenly.

  For a moment I was dumbfounded. I must have looked particularly unintelligent.

  “The mains,” he repeated. “The current. The electrical controls. But then I don’t suppose you’d know where they are, would you?”

  As it happened, I did. Only weeks before I had been press-ganged into standing backstage with Mrs. Witty, helping to throw the massive levers of the antique lighting control panel, as her first-year ballet students tripped across the boards in their recital of The Golden Apples of the Sun, in which Pomona (Deirdre Skidmore, in insect netting) wooed the reluctant Hyas (a red-faced Gerald Plunkett in improvised tights cut from a pair of winter-weight long johns), by presenting him with an ever-growing assortment of papier-mâché fruit.

  “Stage right,” I said. “Behind the black tormentor curtains.”

  Rupert blinked once or twice, shot me a barbed look, and clattered back up the narrow steps to the stage. For a few moments we could hear him muttering away to himself up there, punctuated by the metallic sounds of panels being opened and slammed, and switches clicked on and off.

  “Don’t mind him,” Nialla whispered. “He’s always nervous as a cat from the minute a show’s booked until the final curtain falls. After that, he’s generally as right as rain.”

  As Rupert tinkered with the electricity, Nialla began unfastening several bundles of smooth wooden posts, which were bound tightly together with leather straps.

  “The stage,” she told me. “It all fits together with bolts and butterfly nuts. Rupert designed and built it all himself. Mind your fingers.”

  I had stepped forward to help her with some of the longer pieces.

  “I can do it myself, thanks,” she said. “I’ve done it hundreds of times—got it down to a science. Only thing that needs two to lift is the floor.”

  A rustling sound behind me made me turn around. There stood the vicar with rather an unhappy look on his face.

  “Not good news, I’m afraid,” he said. “Mrs. Archer tells me that Bert has gone up to London for a training course and won’t be back until tomorrow, and there’s no answer at Culverhouse Farm, where I had hoped to put you up. But then Mrs. I doesn’t often answer the telephone when she’s home alone. She’ll be bringing the eggs down on Saturday, but by then it will be far too late. I’d offer the vicarage, of course, but Cynthia has quite forcibly reminded me that we’re in the midst of painting the guest rooms: beds taken down and stowed in the hallways, armoires blockading the landings, and so forth. Maddening, really.”

  “Don’t fret, Vicar,” Rupert said from the stage.

  I nearly jumped out of my skin. I’d forgotten he was there.

  “We’ll camp where we are, in the churchyard. We’ve a good tent in the van, with wool rugs and a rubber ground-sheet, a little Primus stove, and beans in a tin for breakfast. We’ll be as cozy as bugs in a blanket.”

  “Well,” the vicar said, “if it were solely up to me, I—”

  “Ah,” Rupert said, raising a finger. “I know what you’re thinking: Can’t have gypsies camping among the graves. Respect for the dear departed, and all that.”

  “Well,” said the vicar, “there might be a modicum of truth in that, but—”

  “We’ll set up in an unoccupied corner, won’t we? No desecration, that way. Shan’t be the first time we’ve slept in a churchyard, will it, Nialla?”

  Nialla colored slightly and became fascinated with something on the floor.

  “Well, I suppose it’s settled then,” the vicar said. “We don’t really have a great deal of choice, do we? Besides, it’s only for one night. What harm can there be in that?

  “Dear me!” he said, glancing at his wristwatch. “How tempus does fugit! I gave Cynthia my solemn promise to return straightaway. She’s preparing an early supper, you see. We always have an early supper on Thursdays, because of choir practice. I’d invite you to join us for potluck, but—”

  “Not at all,” Rupert interrupted. “We’ve imposed enough for one day, Vicar. Besides, believe it or not, Nialla’s a dab hand with bacon and eggs over a churchyard bonfire. We shall eat like Corsican bandits and sleep like the dead.”

  Nialla sat down far too gently on an unopened box, and I could see that she was suddenly exhausted. Dark circles seemed to have formed under her eyes as quickly as storm clouds blow across the moon.

  The vicar rubbed his chin. “Flavia, dear,” he said, “I’ve had the most splendid idea. Why don’t you come back bright and early tomorrow morning and lend a hand? I’m sure Porson’s Puppets would be most grateful to acquire the services of an eager assistant.

  “I have home visits for the sick and shut-ins tomorrow, as well as Altar Guild,” he added. “You could serve as my locum tenens, so to speak. Offer our guests the freedom of the parish, as it were, besides serving as general factotum and all-round dogsbody.”

  “I’d be happy to,” I said, making an almost imperceptible curtsy.

  Nialla, at least, rewarded me with a smile.

  Outside, at the back of the churchyard, I retrieved Gladys, my trusty bicycle, from the long grass, and moments later we were flying homewards through the sun-dappled lanes to Buckshaw.

  four

  “HELLO, ALL,” I SAID TO FEELY’S BACK, AFTER I HAD drifted inconspicuously into the drawing room.

  Without turning away from the mirror in front of which she was regarding herself, Feely glanced up at my reflection in the time-rippled glass.

  “You’re in for it this time,” she said. “Father’s been looking for you all afternoon. He’s just got off the telephone with Constable Linnet, in the village. I must say he seemed rather disappointed to hear that they hadn’t fished your soggy little corpse out of the duck pond.”

  “How do you know they didn’t?” I countered shrewdly. “How do you know I’m not a ghost come back to haunt you into the grave?”

  “Because your shoe’s untied and your nose is running,” Daffy said, looking up from her book. It was Forever Amber and she was reading it for the second time.

  “What’s it about?” I had asked her on the first go-round.

  “Flies in sap,” she had said with a smug grin, and I had made a mental note to put it on my reading list. I adore books about the Natural Sciences.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me where I’ve been?” I said. I was simply dying to tell them about Porson’s Puppets and all about Nialla.

  “No,” Feely answered, fingering the point of her chin as she leaned in for a closer look at herself. “No one is the slightest bit interested in what you do. You’re like an unwanted dog.”

  “I’m not unwanted,” I said.

  “Oh yes you are!” she said with a hard laugh. “Name one person in this household who wants you and I’ll give you a guinea. Go ahead—name one.”

  “Harriet!” I said. “Harriet wanted me, or she wouldn’t have had me.”

  Feely whirled round and spat on the floor. She actually spat!

  “For your information, Spot, Harriet fell into a profound mental bog immediately after you were born.”

  “Ha!” I said. “I’ve got you there! You told me I was adopted.”

  It was true. Whenever Daffy or Feely wanted to aggravate me beyond endurance, they would renew that claim.

  “And so you were,” she said. “Father and Harriet made an agreement to adopt you even before you were born. But when the time came, and your natural mother delivered you, you were given out by mistake to someone else—a couple in east Kent, I believe. Unfortunately they returned you. It was said to be the first time in the two-hundred-year history of the foundling hospital that anyone had returned a baby because they didn’t like it.

  “Harriet didn’t care for you, either, once she got you home, but the papers were already signed, and the
Board of Governors refused to take you back a second time. I’ll never forget the day I overheard Harriet telling Father in her dressing room that she could never love such a rat-faced mewling. But what could she do?

  “Well, she did what any normal woman would do in those circumstances: She fell into a deeply troubled state—and one from which she probably never recovered. She was still in the grip of it when she fell—or was it jumped?—off that mountain in Tibet. Father has always blamed you for it—surely you must realize that?”

  The room went cold as ice, and suddenly I was numb from head to toe. I opened my mouth to say something, but found that my tongue had dried up and shriveled to a curled-up flap of leather. Hot tears welled up in my eyes as I fled the room.

  I’d show that bloody swine Feely a thing or two. I’d have her so tied up in knots they’d have to hire a sailor to undo her for the funeral.

  There is a tree that grows in Brazil, Carica digitata, which the natives call chamburu. They believe it to be such deadly poison that simply sleeping beneath its branches will cause, first of all, ever-festering sores, followed sooner or later by a wonderfully excruciating death.

  Fortunately for Feely, though, Carica digitata does not grow in England. Fortunately for me, fool’s parsley, better known as poison hemlock, does. In fact, I knew a low and marshy corner of Seaton’s Meadow, not ten minutes from Buckshaw, where it was growing at that very moment. I could be there and back before supper.

  I’d recently updated my notes on coniine, the active principle of the stuff. I would extract it by distilling with whatever alkali was handy—perhaps a bit of the sodium bicarbonate I kept on hand in my laboratory against Mrs. Mullet’s culinary excesses. I would then, by freezing, remove by recrystallization the iridescent scales of the less powerful conhydrine. The resulting nearly pure coniine would have a deliciously mousy odor, and it would take less than half a drop of the oily stuff to put paid to old accounts.

  Agitation, vomiting, convulsions, frothing at the mouth, horrendous spasms—I ticked off the highlights on my fingers as I went.