The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag

''Let him be, Rupert,' the man with the shotgun said. 'He's just had a bad crash.'

'Before the other man could respond, there was a high-pitched screaming in the sky, and the Spitfire shot past, lifting at the end of the field into a victory roll.

'I watched it climb straight up into the blue air, and then I said:

''He rises and begins to round,

''He drops the silver chain of sound.'

'The two men looked at me as if I had suddenly fallen into shock--and perhaps I had. Not until later would it come crashing home to me that poor Wolfgang was dead.

'George Meredith,' I told them. ''The Lark Ascending.''

'Later, at the police station in the village, the Spitfire pilot paid me a visit. He was with a squadron based at Catterick, and had taken his machine up to check the controls after the mechanics had made a few adjustments. He had not the slightest intention of getting into a scrap that day, he told me, but there we were, Wolfgang and I, suddenly in his gunsights over Haworth. What else could he do?

''Hell of a prang. Bad luck, old chap,' he said. 'Damned sorry about your friend.'

'All of that was six years ago,' Dieter said with a sigh. 'The tall man in the field with the shotgun, as I was to find out later, was Gordon Ingleby. The other one, the man with the pitchfork, as perhaps you have already guessed, was Rupert Porson.'

* EIGHTEEN *

RUPERT PORSON? BUT HOW could the man with the pitchfork have been Rupert?

My mind was spinning like a painted tin top.

The last place on earth I had ever expected Dieter's tale to end was in Jubilee Field at the Ingleby farm. But one thing now became perfectly clear: If Rupert had been at Culverhouse Farm six years ago, during the war, it would explain, at least in part, how the wooden face of his puppet Jack had come to be carved in the image of Robin Ingleby.

Father let out a sigh.

'I remember it well,' he said. 'Your machine was brought down in Jubilee Field, just below Gibbet Wood.'

Dieter nodded. 'I was sent for a short time to a prisoner-of-war camp with thirty or forty other Luftwaffe officers and men, where our days were spent ditching and hedging. It was backbreaking work, but at least I was still in England. Most German pilots who were captured were sent abroad to camps in Canada, where there was little hope of escape.

'When I was offered a chance to live and work on a farm, I jumped at it; although it was not compulsory, many of us did. Those who did not called us traitors, among other things.

'But the war was moving towards its end, and a lot of us knew it. Better to begin paving my own personal road to Oxford, I thought, than to leave my future to chance.

'No one was more surprised than I was to find I had been assigned to the Inglebys' farm. It amused me to think that Gordon, who only a short time before had had me at the end of a shotgun, was now helping Grace fry my kippers in the farmhouse kitchen.'

'That was six years ago, you say--in 1944?' I asked.

'It was.' Dieter nodded. 'In September.'

I couldn't help it. Before I could stifle the words, I found myself blurting, 'Then you must have been at Culverhouse Farm when Robin was found hanging in Gibbet Wood.'

'Flavia!' Father said, putting his cup and saucer down with a clatter. 'We will have no gossiping about the grief of others.'

Dieter's face went suddenly grim, and a fire--could it have been anger?--came into his eyes.

'It was I,' he said, 'who found him.'

You who found him? I thought. Impossible! Mrs. Mullet had made it perfectly clear that it was Mad Meg who had discovered Robin's body.

There was a remarkably long silence, and then Feely leapt to her feet to refresh Dieter's teacup.

'You must excuse my little sister,' she said with a brittle laugh. 'She has rather an unhealthy fascination with death.'

Full points, Feely, I thought. But although she had hit the nail on the head, she didn't know the half of it.

The rest of the afternoon was pretty much a thud. Father had made what I admit was a noble attempt to switch the conversation to the weather and the flax crops, while Daffy, sensing that little else was worthy of her attention, had crawled back into her book.

One by one, we made our excuses: Father to tend to his stamps, Aunt Felicity to have a nap before supper, and Daffy to the library. After a while, I grew bored with listening to Feely prattle on to Dieter about various balls and outings in the country, and made my escape to the laboratory.

I chewed on the end of my pencil for a while, and then I wrote:Sunday, 23rd of July, 1950WHERE IS EVERYONE? That is the burning question.WHERE IS NIALLA? After spending the night at Mrs. Mullet's cottage, she simply disappears. (Does Inspector Hewitt know she's gone?)WHERE IS MAD MEG? After erupting at the afternoon performance of Jack and the Beanstalk, she is taken to rest on the vicar's couch. And then she vanishes.WHERE IS MUTT WILMOTT? He seems to have slunk off sometime during the fatal performance.WHAT WAS RUPERT DOING AT