Alan Bradley - The Weed That Strings the Hangmans Bag

"Mother! Mother! Fetch the axe!" Jack shrieked, and the old lady came hobbling round from the garden — oh, so slowly! — with the hatchet in her hand.

Jack threw himself at the beanstalk with all his might, the axe flying fast and furious, the beanstalk shrinking back again and again as if in agony from the wickedly glinting blade.

And then, as it had done before, the beanstalk sagged, and crumpled to the ground.

Jack seemed to be looking up as, with a sound like thunder, the giant came crashing down from the sky.

For a few moments, the monster lay twitching horribly, a trickle of ruby blood oozing from the corner of its mouth, its ghastly head and shoulders filling the stage with flying sparks, as smoke and little flames rose in acrid tendrils from its burning hair and goatee. But the blank eyes that stared out unseeing into mine were not those of the hinged giant, Galligantus — they were the glazed and dying eyes of Rupert Porson.

And then the lights went out.

* THIRTEEN *

PLUNGED SUDDENLY INTO DARKNESS, the audience sucked in a collective breath and released a collective gasp.

In the kitchen, someone had the presence of mind to switch on a flashlight, and after a moment brought it out, like a darting will-o'-the-wisp, into the main part of the parish hall.

How quick-witted it was of the vicar to think of closing the curtains! At least, that was what he was trying to do when he was stopped in his tracks by a loud, commanding voice: "No! No! Stand back. Don't touch anything."

It was Dogger. He had risen to his feet and was blocking the vicar's way, his arms fully extended, and seeming to be as surprised as the rest of us at his own boldness. Nialla, who had jumped up and taken a single step towards the proscenium, froze abruptly in her tracks.

All of this took place in the moving beam of the flashlight, making the scene seem like some ghastly drama played out during an air raid, illuminated by a raking searchlight.

A second voice came out of the darkness at the back of the hall: the voice of Inspector Hewitt.

"Stand still, everyone — please stay where you are. Don't move until I tell you to move."

He walked quickly to the front of the auditorium and vanished backstage as someone near the door vainly flicked a few switches, but the incandescent bulbs in their frosted glass wall sconces remained dark.

There were a few grumbles of protest until Constable Linnet — out of uniform for the evening — came to the front row of chairs, holding a hand high in the air for attention. He had brought a second flashlight, which he shone upwards upon his own face, giving him an appalling and cadaverous look.

"Please do as the Inspector says," he told the audience. "He's in charge here now."

Dr. Darby, I noticed, was already shoving his way up the crowded side aisle towards the stage.

Nialla, when I caught a glimpse of her, seemed rooted to the spot; she had not moved a muscle. Her tall Mother Goose hat was askew and, had the situation not been what it was, I might have laughed out loud at the sight of her.

My first reaction, of course, was to go to her, but I found I was being restrained by one of Father's hands, heavy on my arm.

As Rupert's body crashed to the stage, both Daffy and Feely had leapt to their feet. Father was still motioning them to sit down, but they were too excited to pay him any attention.

The Inspector reappeared in the doorway at the left of the stage. There were two of these hallways — one on either side — each leading to an exit and a short set of steps up to the stage. It was in these pens that choirs of giggling angels were usually marshaled for St. Tancred's annual Christmas Pageant.

"Constable Linnet, may I have your flashlight, please?"

PC Linnet handed over his five-cell Ever Ready, which looked like one of the sort that you see being used to search the foggy moors in the cinema. He had probably brought it along to illuminate his way home through the lanes after the show, never thinking it would come in so handy.

"May I have your attention, please," Inspector Hewitt said. "We are making every attempt to restore the lights, but it may be some time before we're able to turn them back on permanently. It may be necessary, for safety's sake, to switch the current on and off several times. I would ask you to resume your seats, and to remain there until such time as I am able to give you further instructions. There is absolutely no cause for alarm, so please remain calm."

I heard him say quietly to Constable Linnet, "Cover the stage. That banner on the balcony will do." He pointed to a wide swath of canvas that stretched across the front of the balcony, above the main door: St. Tancred's Women's Institute, it said, with a red and white Cross of St. George, One Hundred Years of Service 1850-1950.

"And when you've done that," the Inspector added, "ring up Graves and Woolmer. Give them my compliments, and ask them to come as quickly as possible."

"It's their evening for cricket, sir," said PC Linnet.

"So it is. In that case, give them my compliments and my regrets. I'm sure the vicar will permit you the use of the telephone?"

"Dear me!" said the vicar, looking round the hall in puzzlement. "We do have one, of course ... for the use of the Ladies' Auxiliary and the Women's Institute, you know ... but I fear we've been forced to keep it in a locked cupboard in the kitchen ... so many people making long-distance calls to their friends in Devon — or even Scotland, in one instance."

"And the key?" asked Inspector Hewitt.

"I handed it to a gentleman from London, just before the performance — from the BBC, he said he was — needed to make an urgent call ... said he'd reimburse me from his own pocket as soon as the central operator rang back with the charges. How odd, I don't see him here now.

"Still, there's always the vicarage telephone," he added.

My first impulse was to offer to pick the lock, but before I could say a word, Inspector Hewitt shook his head.

"I'm sure we can have the hinges off with no damage."

He crooked a finger at George Carew, the village carpenter, who was out of his chair like a shot.

Aside from the occasional dull glow from the backstage flashlight, we sat in darkness for what seemed like an eternity.

And then suddenly, the lights came back on, causing us all to blink and rub our eyes, and to look round at one another rather foolishly.

And there was Rupert, his dead face, frozen in a look of surprise, still occupying center stage. They would soon be covering his body with the banner, and I realized that if I were to remember the scene for future reference, I needed to make a series of indelible mental snapshots. I wouldn't have long to work.

Click!

The eyes: The pupils were hugely dilated, so much so that if I had been able to get a bit closer, I was quite sure I should have been able to see myself reflected in their convex surfaces as clearly as Jan van Eyck was reflected in the bedroom mirror in his painting of the Arnolfinis' wedding day.

Not for long, though: Rupert's corneas had already begun to film over and the whites to lose their luster.

Click!

The body was no longer twitching. The skin had taken on a milky bluish tinge. The corner of the mouth seemed to have stopped bleeding, and what little blood was still visible now appeared very slightly darker and thicker, although the red, green, and amber bulbs of the footlights might be influencing my color perception.

Click!

On the forehead, just below the scalp, was a dark discoloration the size and shape of a sixpence. Although the hair was still smoldering, filling the hall with the acrid odor one would expect whenever the sulfur-rich amino acid keratin is burnt, it was not enough to account for the smoke that was still gathering — still hanging heavily — about the lights. I could see that the curtains and the scenery were quite intact, so it must be something else that was still combusting backstage. Judging by the smell of burning grass, I guessed that it was linen — probably seersucker.

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.