The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag

'Hold it, Harry! Back ... back ... back. No ... you've lost it. Back t'other way ...'

At that very moment, Father had walked into the room, planning, I think, to heap scorn upon the entire operation, when his eye was taken by something on the snow-blown screen.

'Stop!' he shouted, and his word was passed along in ever-diminishing echoes by the mechanics, out the window and up onto the ramparts.

'By George,' he said. 'It's the 1856 British Guiana. Back a little!' he shouted, waving his hands to illustrate.

Again his instructions were carried aloft in a verbal bucket brigade, and the picture cleared a little.

'Just as I thought,' he said. 'I'd know it anywhere. It's coming to auction. Turn up the sound.'

As Fate would have it, the BBC was at that moment transmitting a program on the topic of stamp collecting, and a moment later, Father had pulled up a chair, fastened his wire-framed spectacles on the end of his nose, and refused to be budged.

'Quiet, Felicity!' he barked, when she tried to intervene. 'This is of the utmost importance.'

And so it was that Father had allowed the One-Eyed Beast to sit in his drawing room.

At least for the time being.

And now, as the hour drew near for Rupert's inhumation (a word I had heard Daffy trot out for Mrs. Mullet's benefit), Dogger drifted off to the foyer to admit the vicar who, even though he was not conducting the funeral, nevertheless felt the professional necessity of wringing the hands of each of us as he came into the room.

'Dear, dear,' he said. 'And to think that the poor chap expired right here in Bishop's Lacey.'

No sooner had he taken a seat on the sofa than the doorbell sounded again, and a few moments later Dogger returned with an unexpected guest.

'Mr. Dieter Schrantz,' he announced at the door, slipping effortlessly back into his role as butler.

Feely sprang to her feet, and came floating across the drawing room to greet Dieter, hands outstretched, palms down, as if she were walking in her sleep.

She was radiant, the vixen!

I was praying she'd trip on the rug.

'Draw the drapes, please, Dogger,' Father said, and as Dogger complied, the light vanished from the room and left all of us sitting together in the gloom.

Into view on the little tube, as I have said, floated the wet pavement of Portland Place in front of Broadcasting House, as the hushed and solemn voice of the BBC announcer took up the tale (it may have been Richard Dimbleby, or perhaps it was just someone who sounded like him):

'And now, from every corner of the realm, come the children. They are brought here today by their mothers and fathers, their nurses, their governesses, and some few, I daresay, by their grandparents.

'They have been standing here in Portland Place for hours in the rain, young and old, each patiently waiting his or her turn to bid a last, sad farewell to the man who captivated their hearts; to pay their respects to Rupert Porson, the genius who kidnapped them every afternoon at four from their everyday lives and, like the Pied Piper, led them away into his Magic Kingdom....'

Genius? Well, that was stretching things a bit. Rupert was a brilliant showman; there was no doubt about it. But genius? The man was a scoundrel, a womanizer, a bully, a brute.

But did that disqualify him from being a genius? I don't suppose it did. Brains and morals have nothing to do with one another. Take myself, for instance: I am often thought of as being remarkably bright, and yet my brains, more often than not, are busily devising new and interesting ways of bringing my enemies to sudden, gagging, writhing, agonizing death.

I am quite firm in my belief that poisons were put upon the earth in the first place to be discovered--and put to good use--by those of us with the wits, but not necessarily the physical strength, to ...

The poison! I had completely forgotten about those doctored chocolates!

Had Feely actually eaten them? It seemed unlikely; if she had, she wouldn't be sitting here with such maddening calm as Dieter, like a horse breeder admiring his filly over a paddock fence, gazed appreciatively upon her better points.

The hydrogen sulfide I had injected into the sweets was not sufficient to kill, at any rate. Once inside the body--assuming that anyone was stupid enough to swallow it--it would oxidize to hydrogen sulfate, in which form it would be eliminated eventually in the urine.

Was it such a crime, this thing that I had done? Dimethyl sulfide was dumped by the boatload into artificially flavored sweets, and no one, to the best of my knowledge, had yet been hanged for it.

As my eyes became accustomed to the dimness of the drawing room, I was able to have a quick look round at the faces illuminated by the television's glow. Mrs. Mullet? No, Feely wouldn't have wasted her chocolates on Mrs. Mullet. Father and Dogger were out of the question, too, as was the vicar.

There was a remote possibility that Aunt Felicity had scarfed them, but if she had, her outraged trumpetings would have made even Sabu's elephant bolt for the hills.

Therefore, the chocolates must still be in Feely's room. If only I could slip away, unnoticed in the semidarkness ...

'Flavia,' Father said, with a wave towards the little screen, 'I know how difficult this must be for you, in particular. You may be excused, if you wish.'

Salvation! Off to the poisoned chocolates!