The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag

by Alan Bradley

  Sometimes I came here to brood. I would climb aboard this palace on wheels, and in its comforting interior, I would sit in creamy leather, pretending I was Harriet, just about to engage the gears and drive off to a better life.

  I took hold of the door handle and turned it quietly. If Dogger was nearby, I knew he’d be alerted by the slightest sound, and would come running to see who was burgling the coach house. God bless the good ship Rolls-Royce, and all who sail in her, I thought as the heavy door swung open in utter silence, and I hauled myself up into the driver’s seat.

  I inhaled the plush motorcar scent, as Harriet must once have done, and prepared to curl myself up into a ball. With any luck, and the near-darkness, I’d be asleep in less than a minute. There would be time enough later to think about murder.

  As I stretched luxuriously, my fingers touched something: the skin of a human leg, by the feel of it. Before I could let out a scream, someone clapped a hand tightly over my mouth.

  “Keep still!” a voice hissed into my ear.

  My eyes rolled like a horse’s in a slaughterhouse. Even in that dim light I could see the face of the person who was stifling me.

  It was Nialla.

  My first inclination was to bite off one of her fingers: I have a phobia about being physically restrained, and there are times when my reflexes are faster than reason.

  “Don’t make a sound!” she whispered, giving me a little shake. “I need your help.”

  Damn! She had given the female password—spoken those magic words that stretched back through the mists of time to a bond made in some primordial swamp. I was in her power. I went instantly limp and nodded my head. She removed her hand.

  “Are the police looking for me?” she asked.

  “I—I don’t think so. I don’t know,” I said. “I’m not exactly one of their confidantes.”

  I was still a little miffed at being seized and shaken.

  “Oh, come off it, Flavia,” she said. “Don’t go all shirty on me. I need to know. Are they looking for me?”

  “I haven’t seen the police since Saturday night, right after Rupert was—after Rupert—”

  Although I have no qualms about the word, I couldn’t bring myself to say it to Nialla’s face.

  “Murdered,” she said, falling back into her seat. “Nor have I. That Inspector simply wouldn’t stop asking me questions. It was horrid.”

  “Murdered?” I spat out the word as if the thought had never crossed my mind. “What makes you think Rupert was murdered?”

  “It’s what everyone thinks: the police, and now you. You just said ‘right after Rupert was—’ That implies something, doesn’t it? Murdered … killed, what difference does it make? You certainly weren’t about to say ‘right after Rupert died,’ and don’t pretend you were. I’m not a fool, Flavia, so please don’t keep treating me as if I were.”

  “Perhaps it was an accident,” I said, stalling to get my thoughts organized.

  “Would the police have spent half the night grilling the audience, if they thought it was an accident?”

  She had a point.

  “What’s worse,” she went on, “is they think I did it.”

  “I can see why,” I said.

  “What? Whose side are you on, anyway? I told you I needed help and suddenly you’re accusing me of murder!”

  “I am not accusing you of murder,” I said. “I’m merely stating the obvious.”

  “Which is?”

  She was becoming angrier by the minute.

  “Which is,” I said, taking a deep breath, “that you’ve been in hiding, that Rupert had been beating you, that there was Another Woman, and that you’re pregnant.”

  In these waters, I was well in over my head, but still, determined to swim like a dog tossed off the end of a pier. Even so, the effect of my words on Nialla was quite remarkable. I thought for an instant that she was going to slap my face.

  “Is it that obvious?” she asked, her lip trembling.

  “It is to me,” I replied. “I can’t speak for anyone else.”

  “Do you think I did it? Killed Rupert, I mean?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I shouldn’t have judged you capable of such a thing, but then I’m no Spilsbury.”

  Although Sir Bernard had been a dab hand at fingering murderers, including those two great poisoners Dr. Crippen and Major Armstrong, he had, oddly enough, taken his own life by gassing himself in his laboratory. Still, I thought, if Spilsbury were alive, he would be the first to point out that Nialla had the means, the motive, and the opportunity.

  “Stop prattling on like that,” she snapped. “Do you think I murdered Rupert?”

  “Did you?” I shot back.

  “I can’t answer that,” she said. “You mustn’t ask me.”

  I was no stranger to such female sparring: Eleven years under the same roof as Feely and Daffy had made me quite immune to that sort of ducking and dodging.

  “All right,” I persisted, “but if you didn’t, then who did?”

  By now, I had become accustomed to the dusky light of the coach house, and I watched as Nialla’s eyes widened like luminous twin moons.

  There was a long, and rather unpleasant, silence.

  “If it wasn’t you,” I said at last, “then why are you hiding out here?”

  “I’m not hiding out! I needed to get away. I told you that. The police, the Mullets—”

  “I understand about the Mullets,” I told her. “I’d rather spend a morning in the dentist’s chair than listen to an hour of Mrs. Mullet’s rattling on.”

  “You mustn’t say things like that,” Nialla said. “They were both very sweet, especially Alf. He’s a lovely old gentleman—puts me in mind of my grandfather. But I needed to get away somewhere to think, to pull myself together. You don’t know what it’s like to come flying apart at the seams.”

  “Yes, I do. More than you might think. I quite often come here myself when I need to be alone.”

  “I must have sensed that. I thought of Buckshaw at once. No one would ever think to look for me here. The place wasn’t actually that hard to find.”

  “You’d better get back,” I said, “before they notice you’re gone. The Inspector wasn’t at the church when I came past. I expect they had rather a late night. Since he’s already questioned you, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be taking a long walk in the country, is there?”

  “No …” she said, tentatively.

  “Besides,” I added, getting back to my usual cheerful self, “no one but me knows you were here.”

  Nialla reached into the side pocket on the door of the Rolls-Royce and pulled something out. It came free with a rustle of wax paper. As she opened it out into her lap, I couldn’t help noticing the razor-sharp creases in the paper.

  “No one knows,” she said, handing me a cucumber sandwich, “… but you—and one other person. Here, eat this. You must be famished.”

  twenty-two

  “GO ON! GO ON!” Dogger growled, his hands trembling like the last two leaves of autumn. He did not see me standing there, in the doorway of the greenhouse.

  With one blade of his pocketknife opened at a near right angle, he was clumsily trying to hone it on a whetstone. The blade skittered crazily here and there, making ghastly grating noises on the black surface.

  Poor Dogger. These episodes came upon him without warning, and almost anything could trigger them: a spoken word, a smell, or a drifting snatch of melody. He was at the mercy of his broken memory.

  I backed away slowly until I was behind the garden wall. Then I began whistling softly, only gradually increasing the volume. It would sound as if I were just coming across the lawn towards the kitchen garden. Halfway to the greenhouse, I broke into song: a campfire ditty I had learned just before I was excommunicated from the Girl Guides:

  “Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong,

  Under the shade of a coolibah tree,

  And he sang as he watched and waited t
ill his billy boiled,

  ‘Who’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?’”

  I strolled square-shouldered into the greenhouse.

  “G’day, mate!” I said, with a hearty, Down-Under grin.

  “McCorquedale? Is that you?” Dogger called out, his voice as thin and wispy as the wind in the strings of an old harp. “Is Bennett with you? Have you got your tongues back?”

  His head was cocked to one side, listening, his wrist held up to shield his eyes, which were turned blindly up to the glare of the greenhouse glass.

  I felt as if I had blundered into a sanctuary, and the flesh crawled on the back of my neck.

  “It’s me, Dogger—Flavia,” I managed.

  His brows knitted themselves into a look of puzzlement. “Flavia?”

  My name issued from his throat like a whisper from an abandoned well.

  I could see that he was already fighting his way back from whatever had seized him, the light in his eyes coming back only warily from the depths to the surface, like golden fish in an ornamental pool.

  “Miss Flavia?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, taking the knife from his shaking hands. “Have I broken it? I borrowed it yesterday to cut a bit of twine, and I might have jammed the blade. If I did, I’ll buy you a new one.”

  This was sheer fantasy—I hadn’t touched the thing—but I have learned that under certain circumstances, a fib is not only permissible, but can even be an act of perfect grace. I took the knife from his hands, opened it fully, and began rubbing it in smooth circles on the surface of the stone.

  “No, it’s fine,” I said. “Phew! I’d have been in big trouble if I’d jiggered your best knife, wouldn’t I?”

  I snapped the blade shut and handed it back. Dogger took it from me, his fingers now much more sure of themselves.

  I turned over an empty pail and sat on it as we shared a silence.

  “It was good of you to think of feeding Nialla,” I said, after a while.

  “She needs a friend,” he said. “She’s—”

  “Pregnant,” I blurted.

  “Yes.”

  “But how did you know that? Surely she didn’t tell you?”

  “Excessive salivation,” Dogger said, “… and telangiectasia.”

  “Tel-what?”

  “Telangiectasia,” he said in a mechanical voice, as if he were reading from an invisible book. “… Spider veins in proximity to the mouth, nose, and chin. Uncommon, but not unknown in early pregnancy.”

  “You amaze me, Dogger,” I said. “How on earth do you know these things?”

  “They float in my head,” he replied quietly, “like corks upon the sea. I’ve read books, I think. I’ve had a lot of time on my hands.”

  “Ah!” I said. It was the most I’d heard him say in ages.

  But Dogger’s former captivity was not a topic for open discussion, and I knew that it was time to change the subject.

  “Do you think she did it?” I asked. “Killed Rupert, I mean?”

  Dogger knitted his eyebrows, as if thinking came to him only with the greatest effort.

  “The police will think that,” he said, nodding slowly. “Yes, that’s what the police will think. They’ll soon be along.”

  As it turned out, he was right.

  “IT IS A WELL-KNOWN FACT,” Aunt Felicity trumpeted, “that the Black Death was brought into England by lawyers. Shakespeare said we ought to have hanged the lot of them, and in light of modern sanitary reform, we now know that he was right. This will never do, Haviland!”

  She stuffed a handful of papers into a dusty hatbox and clapped the lid on. “It’s a perfect disgrace,” she added, “the way you’ve let things slide. Unless something turns up, you’ll soon have no option but to sell up Buckshaw and take a cold-water flat in Battersea.”

  “Hello, all,” I said, strolling into the library, pretending for the second time in less than half an hour that I was oblivious to what was going on.

  “Ah, Flavia,” Father said. “I think Mrs. Mullet requires an extra pair of hands in the kitchen.”

  “Of course,” I said. “And shall I then be allowed to go to the ball?”

  Father looked puzzled. My witty repartee was completely lost on him.

  “Flavia!” Aunt Felicity said. “That’s no way for a child to speak to a parent. I should have thought that you’d outgrown that saucy attitude by now. I don’t know why you let these girls get away with it, Haviland.”

  Father moved towards the window and stared out across the ornamental lake towards the folly. He was taking refuge, as he often does, in letting his eyes, at least, escape an unpleasant situation.

  Suddenly he whirled round to face her.

  “Damn it all, Lissy,” he said, in a voice so strong I think it surprised even him. “It isn’t always easy for them. No … it isn’t always easy for them.”

  I think my mouth fell open as his closed.

  Dear old Father! I could have hugged him, and if either of us had been other than who we were, I think I might have.

  Aunt Felicity went back to rummaging among the papers.

  “Statutory legacies … personal chattels,” she said with a sniff. “Where will it all end?”

  “FLAVIA,” FEELY SAID, AS I passed the open door of the drawing room, “a moment?”

  She sounded suspiciously civil. She was up to something.

  As I stepped inside, Daffy, who had been standing near the door, closed it softly behind me.

  “We’ve been waiting for you,” Feely said. “Please sit down.”

  “I’d rather not,” I said. They had both remained standing, putting me at a disadvantage when it came to sudden flight.

  “As you wish,” Feely said, sitting down behind a small table and putting on her eyeglasses. Daffy stood with her back pressed against the door.

  “I’m afraid we have some rather bad news for you,” Feely said, toying with her spectacles like a judge at the Old Bailey.

  I said nothing.

  “While you’ve been gadding about the countryside, we’ve held a meeting, and we’ve all of us decided that you must go.”

  “In short, we’ve voted you out of the family,” Daffy said. “It was unanimous.”

  “Unanimous?” I said. “This is just another of your stupid—”

  “Dogger, of course, pleaded for leniency, but he was overruled by Aunt Felicity, who has more weight in these matters. He wanted you to be allowed to stay until the end of the week, but I’m afraid we can’t permit it. It’s been decided that you’re to be gone by sundown.”

  “But—”

  “Father has given instructions to Mr. Pringle, his solicitor, to draw up a Covenant of Reversion, which means, of course, that you will be returned to the Home for Unwed Mothers, who will have no option but to take you back.”

  “Because of the Covenant, you see,” Daffy said. “It’s in their Constitution. They can’t say no. They can’t refuse.”

  I clenched my fists as I felt the tears beginning to well up in my eyes. It was no good waiting upon reason.

  I shoved Daffy roughly away from the door.

  “Have you eaten those chocolates yet?” I demanded of Feely.

  She was somewhat taken aback by the harshness in my voice.

  “Well, no …,” she said.

  “Better not,” I spat. “They might be poisoned.”

  As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew I’d done the wrong thing.

  Blast it! I’d given myself away. All that work in my laboratory wasted!

  Flavia, I thought, sometimes you’re no brighter than a lightning-struck lizard.

  Angry with myself for being angry, I stalked out of the room on general principles, and nobody tried to stop me.

  I TOOK A DEEP BREATH, relaxed my shoulders, and opened the kitchen door.

  “Flavia,” Mrs. Mullet called, “be a dear and fetch me a glass of sherry from the pantry. I’ve gone all-over strange. Not too much, mind, or else I shall be ti
psy.”

  She was stretched full length in a chair by the window, her heels on the tiles, fanning herself with a small frying pan.

  I did as I was bidden, and she gulped down the drink in a flash.

  “What is it, Mrs. M?” I asked. “What’s happened?”

  “The police, dearie. They gave me such a turn, comin’ for that young woman like they did.”

  “What young woman? You mean Nialla?”

  She nodded glumly, waggling her empty glass. I refilled it.

  “Such a dear, she is. Never done nobody no harm. She rapped at the kitchen door to thank me, and Alf, of course, for puttin’ her up the night. Said she was movin’ on—didn’t want us to think she was ungrateful, like. No more the words were out of her mouth than that there Inspector whatsis—”

  “Hewitt,” I said.

  “Hewitt. That’s ‘im—that’s the one …’E shows up in the doorway right behind ’er. Spotted ’er comin’ across from the coach house, ’e did.”

  “And then?”

  “’E asked if ’e might have a word outside. Next thing I knows, poor girl’s off in the car with ’im. I ’ad to run round the front to get a good look. Proper fagged me out, so it did.”

  I refilled her glass.

  “I shouldn’t ought to, dearie,” she said, “but my poor old heart’s not up to such a muddlederumpus.”

  “You’re looking better already, Mrs. M,” I told her. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “I was just about to put them things in the oven,” she said, pointing to an array of dough-filled pans on the table, and heaving herself to her feet. “Open the oven door for me—that’s a good girl.”

  Much of my life was given over to holding the oven door of the Aga as Mrs. M fed heaps of baking into its open maw. Hell, in Milton’s Paradise Lost, had nothing to compare with my drudgery.

  “Clean out of pastries, we were,” she said. “When it comes to dainties, that young man of Miss Ophelia’s seems to have a bottomless stomach.”

  Miss Ophelia’s young man? Had it come to that already? Had my rambles round the village caused me to miss some sensational scene of courtship?