Alan Bradley - The Weed That Strings the Hangmans Bag

But Grace was fighting me; I could see that. Some part of her was so dead set on dying that she was keeping the stuff in her mouth, refusing to swallow.

With the little finger of my right hand, I began prodding at her gullet, like a seabird digging in the sand.

We must have looked like Greek wrestlers: she with her head locked tightly in the crook of my arm, me bending over her, trembling with the sheer physical effort of trying to keep her from spitting out the nauseating mixture.

And then, just before she went limp, I heard her swallow. She was no longer resisting. I carefully pried open her mouth. Aside from a faint and distasteful glistening of foreign matter, it was empty.

I raced to the window, leaning out as far as I could into the sunshine.

My heart sank. The farmyard was still empty.

Then suddenly there was a noise of machinery in the lane, and a moment later, the gray Fergie came clattering into view, Sally bouncing at the wheel and Dieter dangling his long legs over the gate of the trailer.

"Sally! Dieter!" I shouted.

At first they didn't know where my voice was coming from. They were looking everywhere round the yard, perplexed.

"Up here--in the dovecote!"

I dug in my pocket, fished out Alf's willow whistle, and blew into it like a demented bobby.

At last they spotted me. Sally gave a wave.

"It's Grace!" I hollered. "She's taken poison! Telephone Dr. Darby and tell him to come at once."

Dieter was already dashing for the farmhouse, running full tilt, the way he must once have done when scrambling for his Messerschmitt.

"And tell him to make sure he's got amyl nitrite and sodium thiosulfate in his bag!" I shouted, in spite of a couple of wayward tears. "He's going to need them!"

* TWENTY-EIGHT *

"PIGEON DROPPINGS?" INSPECTOR HEWITT said, for perhaps the third time. "You're telling me that you concocted an antidote from pigeon droppings?"

We were sitting in the vicar's study, sizing one another up.

"Yes," I said. "I had no other choice. Pigeon guano, when it's left outdoors in the sunlight, is remarkably high in NaNO3--sodium nitrate--which is why I had to scrape it from the outside perch, rather than using the older stuff that was in the chamber. Sodium nitrate is an antidote to cyanide poisoning. I used the whites of pigeons' eggs to produce the suspension. I hope she's all right."

"She's fine," the Inspector said, "although we're seeking an opinion about whether to charge you with practicing medicine without a license."

I studied his face to see if he was teasing, but he didn't seem to be.

"But," I protested, "Dr. Darby said he couldn't have done better himself."

"Which isn't saying much," the Inspector said, looking away from me and out the window.

I saw that I had him beaten.

Inspector Hewitt had flagged me down on my way back to Buckshaw, and asked me to account for my presence at Culverhouse Farm.

A hastily fabricated story about fetching eggs for Mrs. Mullet, who wanted to make an angel food cake, seemed to have got me off the hook. At least for now.

The Inspector had assured me that Grace Ingleby was still alive; that she had been taken to the hospital at Hinley.

He did not say that my antidote had saved her life. I supposed only time would tell.

The vicar, having given up his desk and chair to Inspector Hewitt, stood like a black stork in the corner, rubbing at his eyeglasses with a linen handkerchief.

As Detective Sergeant Woolmer stood at one of the windows, pretending to polish an anastigmat lens from his precious camera, Detective Sergeant Graves glanced up from his notes just long enough to give me a beaming smile. I'd like to think that the almost imperceptible shake of his head that came with it was a sign of admiration.

And even though they're not yet aware of one another, I also like to think that Sergeant Graves will one day marry my rotten sister Ophelia and carry her off to a vine-covered cottage just far enough from Buckshaw that I can drop in whenever I feel like it for a good old gab about murder.

But now there was Dieter to take into account. Life was becoming so complicated.

"Just begin at the beginning," Inspector Hewitt said, suddenly back from his reverie. "I want to make sure we haven't missed anything."

Was I detecting a note of sarcasm? I hoped not, since I really liked the man, although he could be somewhat slow.

"Mrs. Ingleby--Grace--was having an affair with Rupert Porson. Rupert had been coming to Culverhouse Farm for years because ... Gordon supplied him with marijuana. It eased the pain of his polio, you see."

He must have sensed my hesitation.

"No need to worry about betraying him," he said, "Mr. Ingleby has been most frank with us. It's your version I want to hear."

"Rupert and Grace arranged to meet at the seaside, years ago," I said. "Robin saw them there together. He stumbled upon them again, later, in the dovecote. Rupert made a grab for him, or something like that, and Robin tumbled down the central shaft and broke his neck. It was an accident, but still, Robin was dead. Rupert cooked up the idea of having Grace take his body, after dark, to Gibbet Wood, and hang it from a tree. Robin had been seen by several people playing with a rope.

"It was Rupert, too, who invented the story that Robin had been playing out the scene between Punch and Jack Ketch--that he had seen it at the seaside puppet show. Punch and the hangman's tale is one that's known to every child in England. No one would question the story that Robin had accidentally hanged himself. It was just bizarre enough to be true. As a well-known puppeteer, Rupert couldn't afford to have his name linked in any way with the death of a child. He needed to erase himself from the scene of Robin's death. No one but Grace knew he had been at the farm that day.

"That's why he threatened her. He told her that if she didn't do as he wanted, he would spill the beans to Gordon--sorry, I mean that he would inform Gordon that he'd been carrying on an affair with his wife. Grace would lose both her son and her husband. She was already half mad with grief and fear, so it was probably quite easy to manipulate her.

"Because she's so small, she was able to put on Robin's rubber boots to carry his body up to Gibbet Wood. She's remarkably strong for her size. I found that out when she hauled me up into the dovecote chamber. After she'd hung Robin's body from the tree, she put the boots on his feet, and went home the long way round, barefoot."

Inspector Hewitt nodded and scribbled a note in his microscopic handwriting.

"Mad Meg came upon the body hanging there, and thought it was the Devil's work. I've already given you the page from my notebook, so you've seen the drawing she made. She's quite good, actually, don't you think?"

"Um," the Inspector said. It was a bad habit he was picking up by associating too much with Dr. Darby.

"That's why she was afraid to touch him, or even tell anyone. Robin's body hung there in Gibbet Wood until Dieter found it.

"Last Saturday at the church hall, when Meg saw Robin's face on Jack, the puppet, she thought the Devil had brought the dead boy back to life, shrunk him, and put him to work on the stage. Meg has her times very badly mixed up. You can tell that from the drawing: The Robin hanging from the tree is a sight she saw five years ago. The vicar taking his clothes off in the wood is something she saw last Thursday."

The vicar went beet red, and ran a finger round the inside of his clerical collar. "Yes, well ... you see--"

"Oh, I knew you had come a cropper, Vicar," I said. "I knew it the instant I saw you in the graveyard--the day you met Rupert and Nialla, remember? Your trouser leg was ripped, you were covered with chalky smudges from the road at Culverhouse Farm, and you'd lost your bicycle clip."

"So I had," the vicar said. "My trousers got caught up in the ruddy chain and I was catapulted into the ditch."

"Which explains why you went in among the trees of Gibbet Wood--to take off your clothes--to try to clean them up. You were afraid of what Cynthia would say--sorry, Mrs. Richardson, I mean. You said as much in the churchyard. Something about Cynthia having you on the carpet."

The vicar remained silent, and I don't think I ever admired him more than I did in that moment.

"Because you've been going to Culverhouse Farm at least once a week since Robin died five years ago, Cynthia--Mrs. Richardson, I mean--had somehow got the idea that there was more in your meetings with Grace Ingleby than met the eye. That's why you've recently been keeping your visits secret."

"I'm not really at liberty to discuss that," the vicar said. "The wearing of the dog collar puts paid to any tendency one has to be a chatterbox. But I must put in, in her defense, that Cynthia is very loyal. Her life is not always an easy one."

"Nor is Grace Ingleby's," I pointed out.

"No, nor is Grace's."

"At any rate," I went on, "Meg lives in an old shack, somewhere in the depths of Gibbet Wood. She doesn't miss much that goes on there."

Or anywhere else, I wanted to add. It had only just occurred to me that it was almost certainly Meg that Rupert and Nialla had heard prowling round near their tent in the churchyard.

"She saw you taking your trousers off beside the old gallows at the very spot where she had seen Robin hanging. That's why she drew you into her picture."

"I see," said the vicar. "At least, I think I see."

"Meg picked up your trouser clip in the road, meaning to use it for one of those dangling sculpture things of hers, but she recognized it as yours, and--"

"It has my initials on it," the vicar said. "Cynthia scratched them on."

"Meg can't read," I said, "but she's very observant. Look at the detail in her drawing. She even remembered the little Church of England pin in your lapel."

"Good heavens," the vicar said, coming round to peer over Inspector Hewitt's shoulder. "So she did."

"She came here on Saturday afternoon to return the trouser clip, and while she was looking for you, she happened to wander into the parish hall during Rupert's performance. When she saw the shrunken Robin on the stage, she went into a right old squiff. You and Nialla carried her off to the vicarage and tucked her in on your couch in the study. That's when the clip--and Nialla's compact--fell out of her pocket. I found the compact on the floor behind the couch the next day. I didn't find the bicycle clip because Grace Ingleby had already picked it up the day before."

"Hold on," the Inspector said. "No one's claiming to have seen Mrs. Ingleby anywhere near the vicarage--or the parish hall--on Saturday afternoon."

"Nor did they," I said. "What they did say was that the egg lady had been there."

Had Inspector Hewitt been the sort of man whose mouth was prone to falling open when astonished, he'd have been gaping like a gargoyle.

"Good Lord," he said flatly. "Who told you that?"

"Mrs. Roberts and Miss Roper," I said. "They were in the vicarage kitchen after church yesterday. I assumed you had questioned them."

"I believe we did," Inspector Hewitt said, cocking an eyebrow at Sergeant Graves, who flipped back through the pages of his notebook.

"Yes, sir," said Sergeant Graves. "They both gave in statements, but there was nothing said about egg ladies."

"The egg lady was Grace Ingleby, of course," I said helpfully. "She came down from Culverhouse Farm late on Saturday afternoon with eggs for the vicarage. There was no one else around. Something made her go into the vicar's study. Perhaps she heard Meg snoring, I don't know. But she found the bicycle clip on the floor, picked it up, and pocketed it."

"How can you be so sure?" asked Inspector Hewitt.

"I can't be sure," I said. "What I can be sure of, because he told me so, is that the vicar lost his bicycle clip last Thursday ..."

The vicar nodded in agreement.

"... on the road at Gibbet Hill ... and that you and I, Inspector, found it on Sunday morning clamped to the rail of the puppet theater. The rest is mere guesswork."

The Inspector scratched at his nose, made another note, and looked up at me as if he had been shortchanged.

"Which brings us neatly back to Rupert Porson," he said.

"Yes," I replied. "Which brings us neatly back to Rupert Porson."

"About whom you are about to enlighten us."

I ignored his twitting and went on. "Grace had known Rupert for years. Perhaps since even before she met Gordon. For all I know, she might even have traveled with him at one time as his assistant."

I knew by the sudden closed look on Inspector Hewitt's face that I had hit the nail on the head. Bravo, Flavia! I thought. Go to the head of the class!

There were times when I surprised even myself.

"And even if she hadn't," I added, "she'd certainly attended some of the shows he put on round the countryside. She'd have paid particular attention to the electrical rigging. Since Rupert manufactured all of his own lighting equipment, I can hardly believe that he wouldn't have taken the opportunity to show off the details to a fellow electrician. He was rather vain about his skills, you know.

"I expect Grace took the keys from the vicarage and walked straightaway through the churchyard, to the parish hall. The afternoon performance was over by that time; the audience had gone, and so had Rupert. There was little chance of her being seen. Even if she had been spotted, no one would have paid her the slightest attention, would they? After all, she was just the egg lady. Besides, she and her husband are parishioners of St. Tancred's, so no one would have given her a second look.

"She went into the hall, and using the corridor to the left, and locking the door behind her, went up the two short flights of steps to the stage.

"She climbed up onto the bridge of the puppet stage, and scraped away the insulation from the wiring, using the bicycle clip as a kind of spoke-shave. Then she slipped the clip over the wooden framework of the stage, touching the bared electrical wire on the one side and the metal rod that released Galligantus on the other. Bob's your uncle! That's all there was to it. If you've had a close look at the clip, you've likely already found a small abrasion mark on the inside center--and perhaps slight traces of copper."

"S'truth!" Sergeant Woolmer let slip, and Inspector Hewitt shot him a look.

"Unlike most of the other suspects--except Dieter, of course, who built wireless sets as a boy in Germany--Grace Ingleby had the necessary electrical training. Before the war, before marrying Gordon, she worked in a factory installing radio sets in Spitfires. I've been told that her IQ is nearly equal in number to the Psalms."

"Dammit!" Inspector Hewitt shouted, leaping to his feet. "Sorry, Vicar. But why haven't we found these things out, Sergeant?"

He glared from one of his men to the other, including both in his exasperation.

"With respect, sir," Sergeant Woolmer ventured, "it could be because we're not Miss de Luce."

It was a bold thing to say, and a rash one. If what I'd seen in the pictures at the cinema were true, it was the sort of remark that could result in the sergeant becoming a road-mender before sunset.