The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag

by Alan Bradley

  Click!

  When Rupert first came crashing down, Nialla had leapt to her feet and moved towards the stage, but she then had stopped, hovering in her tracks. Oddly, no one, including me, had gone to her, and now that minutes had passed, she was walking slowly towards the kitchen with both hands cupped over her face. Was it a delayed reaction? I wondered. Or something more?

  PC Linnet came clomping to the front of the auditorium, the rolled-up banner under his arm and the large jackknife with which he had cut its cords still clutched in his hand. He and the vicar made quick work of draping the canvas between two coat trees, and in so doing, blocked our view of the deceased.

  Well, I was assuming that Rupert was deceased. Although Inspector Hewitt must surely have checked for signs of life when he first went backstage, I hadn’t heard him call for an ambulance. No one, as far as I knew, had yet attempted resuscitation. No one, in fact, had seemed anxious to touch the body. Even Dr. Darby had not exactly galloped to the rescue.

  All of this happened, of course, in much less time than it takes to tell about it: In actual fact, it couldn’t have taken more than five minutes.

  Then, as the Inspector had said they might, the lights went out again.

  At first there was that sense of being plunged into what Daffy describes as “Stygian blackness,” and Mrs. Mullet calls “a blind man’s holiday.” Mrs. Mullet, by the way, was still sitting as she had been since the show began, like a waxwork figure with a half smile on her face. I could only assume that she was still smiling zanily into the darkness.

  It was that kind of darkness that seems, at first, to paralyze all of the senses.

  But then one realizes that things are not quite so black as they look, nor are they as silent as they seem. Pinpoints of light, for instance, penetrated the shabby blackout curtains that had been used to cover the windows since before the war, and although there was little daylight left outside, it was enough to create a faint impression of the hall’s larger features.

  From behind the curtains came the sound of deliberate footsteps, and the banner, which had been draped in front of the puppet stage, was suddenly illuminated from behind by a slash of yellow light from a powerful torch.

  Now began the ghastly shadow show. The outline of Dr. Darby was seen to reach down and touch the body, no doubt searching for signs of life. I could have saved him the trouble.

  The shadow shook its head and a great sigh went up from the audience. It seemed clear to me that, with Rupert pronounced dead, Inspector Hewitt would now want to leave things untouched until Detective Sergeant Woolmer arrived from Hinley with his plate camera.

  Aunt Felicity, meanwhile, was rummaging in her purse for more mints, and I could hear her inhaling and exhaling through her nose. To my left, Daffy was whispering to Feely, but since Father, who sat between us, was clearing his throat at regular intervals, as he does whenever he’s nervous or upset, I could not quite make out her words.

  After what seemed like another eternity, the lights suddenly came back on, and again, we were all left blinking.

  Mrs. Mullet was dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief, her shoulders shaking, and I realized that she was quietly crying. Dogger noticed, too. He offered her his arm, which she took without raising her eyes, and he led her off into the kitchen.

  He was back in less than a minute.

  “She’ll be more at ease among the pots and pans,” he whispered to me as he resumed his seat.

  A great flash of light bleached the hall of all color for an instant, and I, along with everyone else, turned round to see that Detective Sergeant Woolmer had arrived. He had set up his bulky camera and tripod on the balcony, and had just captured all of us on film. As the flash fired a second time, it occurred to me that this second exposure would show no more than a sea of upturned white faces. Which, perhaps, was precisely what he wanted.

  “Please—may I have your attention?” Inspector Hewitt had stepped out from behind the black curtains and was now standing center stage. “I’m sorry to have to tell you that there has been an unfortunate accident, and that Mr. Porson is dead.”

  Even though the fact should have been evident, its confirmation caused a wave of sound to break from the audience: a mixture of gasps, cries, and excited whispers. The Inspector waited patiently for it to die down.

  “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to remain in your seats a little longer, until we are able to take names and addresses as well as a brief statement from each one of you. This process will take some time, and for that I must apologize. When you have been interviewed, you will be free to go, although we may wish to speak with you again at some later time. Thank you for your attention.”

  He beckoned to someone behind me, and I saw that it was Detective Sergeant Graves. I wondered if the sergeant would remember me. I had first met him at Buckshaw during the police investigation into the death of Father’s old school chum Horace Bonepenny. I kept my eyes fixed on his face as he came to the front of the hall, and at last I was rewarded with an ever-so-slight but distinct grin.

  “Schoolboys!” Aunt Felicity huffed. “The police recruiters are ransacking the cradles of England.”

  “He’s extremely experienced,” I whispered. “He’s already a detective sergeant.”

  “Poppycock!” she said, and dug for another mint.

  Since the corpse had been hidden from view, there was nothing left for me to do but study the people around me.

  Dieter, I noticed, was staring fixedly at Feely. Although he was sitting with Sally Straw—whose face was a petulant thundercloud—he was gazing at my sister’s profile as if her hair were an altar of beaten gold.

  Daffy had noticed it, too. When she saw the look of puzzlement on my face, she leaned over in front of Father and whispered, “The phrase you’re fishing for is ‘reverent infatuation.’” Then she leaned back and resumed not speaking to me.

  Father paid us no attention. He had already retreated into his own world: a world of colored inks and perforations-per-inch; a world of albums and gum arabic; a world where our Gracious Majesty, King George the Sixth, was firmly ensconced on both the throne and the postage stamps of Great Britain; a world in which sadness—and reality—had no place.

  At last the interviews began. As Inspector Hewitt and Sergeant Woolmer took on one side of the hall, Sergeant Graves and Constable Linnet attended to the other.

  It was a long and weary old process. Time, as they say, hung heavily on our hands, or, to be more exact, on our behinds. Even Aunt Felicity was shifting uneasily on her more-than-ample padding.

  “You may stand up and stretch,” Inspector Hewitt had said at one point, “but please do not move from your places.”

  It was probably no more than about an hour before they got round to us, but it seemed to take forever. Father went first, to the corner where a plain wooden table with a couple of chairs had been set up. I could not hear what the Inspector asked him, nor could I hear any of his responses, which seemed to consist mainly of shaking his head in the negative.

  It was not so very long since Inspector Hewitt had charged Father with the murder of Horace Bonepenny, and although Father had never said it in so many words, he still felt a certain coolness towards the constabulary. He was quickly back, and I waited patiently as Aunt Felicity, then Feely, then Daffy went up to speak quietly with the Inspector.

  As each one returned to their seat, I tried to catch their eye, to get some hint of what they had been asked or what they had replied, but it was no use. Feely and Daffy both had that smarmy, sanctimonious look they get after partaking of Holy Communion, their eyes downcast and hands clasped at their waists in humbug humility. Father and Aunt Felicity were inscrutable, too.

  Dogger was another matter.

  Although he had borne up well under the Inspector’s grilling, I noticed that he went back to his seat like a man walking a tightrope. A twitch had appeared at the corner of one eye, and his face had that strained yet vacant look that invariably prec
eded his attacks. Whatever it was that had happened to Dogger during the war, it had left him with an inability to be confronted close-up by any sort of officialdom.

  Damn the consequences! I got up from my chair and knelt at his feet. Although Inspector Hewitt glanced in my direction, he made no move to stop me.

  “Dogger,” I whispered, “have you seen what I’ve seen?”

  As I slipped into the chair beside him vacated by Mrs. Mullet, he looked at me as if he’d never seen me before in his life and then, like a pearl diver fighting his way slowly back to the surface from some great depth, he re-entered the real world, nodding his head in slow motion.

  “Yes, Miss Flavia. Murder—I fear we have seen murder.”

  AS MY TURN AT THE TABLE approached, I suddenly became aware of my own heartbeat. I wished that I were a Tibetan lama, so that I could control its racing valves.

  But before I could think about it further, Inspector Hewitt beckoned me. He was messing about with a stack of papers and forms, waiting until I had seated myself. For an idle instant, I found myself wondering where the blank forms had come from. Woolmer and Graves must have brought them, I decided. The Inspector certainly hadn’t been carrying a briefcase before the performance.

  I twisted round for a look at his wife, Antigone. Yes, there she was, sitting quietly among the villagers in her seat, radiant in spite of the situation.

  “She’s very beautiful,” I whispered.

  “Thank you,” he said, not looking up from his papers, but I could tell by the corners of his mouth that he was pleased.

  “Now then—name and address?”

  Name and address? What was the man playing at?

  “You know that already,” I said.

  “Of course I do”—he smiled—“but it’s not official until you say it.”

  “Flavia de Luce—Buckshaw,” I replied rather icily, and he wrote it down.

  “Thank you,” he said. “Now then, Flavia, what time did you arrive this evening?”

  “Six-forty,” I said, “on the dot. With my family. In a taxicab. Clarence Mundy’s taxicab.”

  “And you were in the hall the whole evening?”

  “Of course I was. I came over and spoke to you—don’t you remember?”

  “Yes. Answer the question, please.”

  “Yes.”

  I must admit that the Inspector was making me quite cross. I had hoped to be able to collaborate with him: to provide him with a richly described, minute-by-minute account of the horror that had taken place—almost in my lap—this evening. Now I could see that I was going to be treated as if I were just another gawking spectator.

  “Did you see or speak to Mr. Porson before the performance?”

  What did he mean by that? I had seen and spoken to Mr. Porson on several occasions over the past three days. I had driven with Mr. Porson to Culverhouse Farm and had overheard his quarrel with Gordon Ingleby in Gibbet Wood. And that was not all that I knew about Rupert Porson. Not by a long chalk.

  “No,” I said.

  Two could play at this game.

  “I see,” he said. “Well, thank you. That will be all.”

  I had just been checkmated.

  “You’re free to go,” he added, glancing at his wristwatch. “It’s probably past your bedtime.”

  The nerve of the man! Past my bedtime indeed! Who did he think he was talking to?

  “May I ask a question?”

  “You may,” he said, “although I might not be able to answer it.”

  “Was Rupert—Mr. Porson, I mean—electrocuted?”

  He looked at me narrowly, and I could see that he was thinking carefully about his reply.

  “There is that possibility. Good night, Flavia.”

  The man was fobbing me off. Rupert had fried like a flounder, and the Inspector knew it as well as I did.

  Flashbulbs were still going off behind the puppet stage as I rejoined Father in the front row. Feely and Daffy were nowhere in sight.

  “Mundy has already taken them home,” he said.

  “I’ll be ready in a jiff,” I said, walking towards the W.C. No one, anywhere, at any time in history, has ever stopped a female en route to the Baffins.

  At the last moment, I changed direction and slipped into the kitchen, where I found Mrs. Mullet in full command. She had made a huge pot of tea, and had placed steaming cups in front of Nialla and Sergeant Woolmer, who sat at a side table.

  Nialla saw me before the sergeant did, and her eyes flashed—but only for an instant—like a startled animal. She gave me an almost imperceptible shake of the head, but its meaning was clear.

  Women’s wireless at work. I rubbed my nose casually to let her know that the message had been received.

  “Thank you, Miss Gilfoyle,” the sergeant said. “You’ve been most helpful.”

  Gilfoyle? Was that Nialla’s name? It was the first time I’d heard it.

  Sergeant Woolmer drained his cup in a single draught, with no apparent ill effects.

  “Champion tea, Mrs. Mullet,” he said, closing his notebook. He gathered his papers, and with a pleasant nod in my direction, walked back out into the auditorium.

  The man must have a stomach like a ship’s boiler, I thought.

  “Now then, dear, as I was saying,” Mrs. Mullet said, “there’s no use you goin’ back to Culverhouse Farm tonight. It’s rainin’ cats and dogs—has been for an hour or more. The river will be mortal high—not safe to cross. ‘Sides, no one would expect you to sleep in a tent in a wet field with the situation bein’ what it is, if you take my meanin’. Alf’s brought a brolly that’s big enough for the three of us, and we’re just across the way. Our Agnes’s room hasn’t been slept in since she left home to take up Pitman shorthand six years ago come November thirteenth. Alf and me have kept it a kind of a shrine, like. Has its own hot plate and a goose-down mattress. And don’t say no, ’cause I won’t hear you.”

  Nialla’s eyes were suddenly brimming with tears, and for the life of me, I could not tell if they were tears of grief or joy.

  I’D HAVE GIVEN A GUINEA to know what words passed between Father and Dogger in the backseat of the taxicab, but the simple truth is that I dropped off. With the heater turned full up against the chill of the cold night rain, and the windscreen wipers making their quiet swish-swash in the darkness, the urge to sleep was irresistible. Not even an owl could have stayed awake.

  When Father roused me at the door of Buckshaw, I stumbled into the house and up the stairs to bed—too tired even to bother undressing.

  I must have fallen asleep with my eyes open.

  fourteen

  THE SUN WAS STREAMING SPLENDIDLY IN AT MY casement window; the birds in the chestnuts were singing their little throats out. The first thought that came flashing into my mind was of Rupert’s face: his lips pulled slightly back, his teeth showing obscenely.

  I rolled over onto my back and stared at the ceiling. I always find that a blank screen helps clarify one’s thoughts marvelously; helps bring them into focus.

  In death Rupert had looked, I decided, remarkably like the dead dog I had once almost stepped on in a field behind the Thirteen Drakes, its fog-filled eyes staring, its yellowed fangs bared in a frozen grimace. (Although with Rupert, there had been no flies, and his teeth were quite presentable, actually.)

  Somehow, the dog reminded me of something—but what?

  Of course! Mutt Wilmott! The Thirteen Drakes! Mutt Wilmott would be staying at the Thirteen Drakes!

  If Mrs. Mullet were to be believed, it had begun raining shortly after the evening performance began. Mutt had been there at about six-forty—say, six forty-five—I had seen him with my own eyes. He would hardly have set out for London in such a downpour. No, had he planned to leave, he would have done so before the show. It seemed obvious that he still had business to conclude with Rupert.

  Ergo: He was, at this very instant, eating bacon and eggs at the Thirteen Drakes, Bishop Lacey’s sole hostelry.

  F
ortunately, I was already dressed.

  There was a cryptlike silence in the house as I crept down the east staircase. Last night’s excitement had drained everyone of their energy and they were, I guessed, still snoring away in their respective rooms like a pack of convalescent vampires.

  As I was slipping out the kitchen door, however, I came to an abrupt halt. On the wooden stand beside the door, tucked between the two full bottles the milk float had left on our doorstep at dawn, was a package.

  It was a pustulent purple color, with projecting top and bottom rims. The clear cellophane in which it was wrapped had protected it from last night’s rain. On the lid, in gold letters, were the words Milady Chocolates—Finest Assorted—2 lb. Duchess Selection. Wrapped around it lengthwise was a ribbon the color of a faded red rose. The label was still attached like the Mad Hatter’s hat: 10/6.

  I had seen this box before. In fact, I had seen it just a few days ago in the flyblown window of Miss Cool’s confectionery shop cum post office in the high street, where it had languished since time immemorial—perhaps since the war, or even longer. And I realized at once how it had made its way to the back door at Buckshaw: Ned Cropper.

  Ned earned £7 a week doing chores for Tully Stoker at the Thirteen Drakes, and he was smitten with, among others, my sister Ophelia. Even though he had accompanied Tully’s daughter, Mary, to Jack and the Beanstalk last night, it had not kept him from leaving his midnight love token on our doorstep, as an adoring tomcat drops a mouse at its owner’s feet.

  The chocolates were so old, I thought, they were most likely full to bursting with countless varieties of interesting molds, but unfortunately there was no time to investigate. Reluctantly, I returned to the kitchen and stuffed the box in the top compartment of the ice cabinet. I would deal with Feely later.

  “NED!”

  I gave him a smile, and a wave with my fingers spread generously apart, the way royalty is taught to do. With his sleeves rolled up and brilliantined hair like a wet haystack, Ned was high atop the steep-pitched roof of the Thirteen Drakes, his heels braced against a chimney pot, using a brush to slather hot pitch onto tiles that looked as if they’d been up there since King Alfred burned the cakes.