The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag

'I can hardly believe Dogger would peach on me.'

'And nor would Mrs. Mullet,' I said.

Good Lord! Was I actually defending Mrs. M?

'She may be a bloody gossip, but she's not mean,' I said. 'She'd never rat on you. Inspector Hewitt came to Buckshaw--probably to ask me a few more questions about Saturday night--and happened to see you walking from the coach house to the kitchen. There's no more to it than that. I'm sure of it.'

I could see that Nialla was thinking about it. I wanted nothing more than to take her by the shoulders and give her a good shaking, but I had to keep in mind the fact that her emotions were being stoked by a storm of hormones: fierce clouds of hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, carbon, and sulfur, combining and recombining in the eternal dances of life.

It almost made me forgive her.

'Here,' I said, pulling the butterfly compact dramatically from my pocket and holding it out towards her. 'I believe this belongs to you.'

I hugged myself in anticipation of a tidal wave of gratitude and praise. But none came.

'Thanks,' Nialla said, and pocketed the thing.

Thanks? Just thanks? The nerve! I'd show her: I'd pretend she hadn't hurt me; pretend I didn't care.

'I can't help noticing,' I remarked casually, 'that you're packing the van, which means that Bert Archer's repaired it and you're about to be on your way. Since Inspector Hewitt is nowhere in sight, I expect that means you're free to go.'

'Free?' she repeated, and spat in the dirt. 'Free? The vicar's given me four pounds, six shillings, and eightpence from the show. Bert Archer's bill comes to seven pounds ten. It's only because the vicar put in a word for me that he's willing to let me drive to Overton to pawn whatever I can. If you call that free, then I'm free. It's all bloody well and good for Little Miss Nabob, who lives in a country house the size of Buckingham Palace, to make her smart-pants deductions. So think what you like, but don't bloody well patronize me!'

'All right,' I said. 'I didn't mean to. Here, take this, please.'

I dug into my pocket again and pulled out the coin, the one Aunt Felicity had foisted upon Dogger, thinking it was a shilling. Dogger, in turn, had planted it in my pocket, believing, perhaps, that it would soon be spent on horehound sticks at Miss Cool's shop.

I handed it to Nialla, who looked at it with disbelief.

'Fourpence!' she said. 'Bloody fourpence!'

Her tears were flowing freely as she flung it away among the tombstones.

'Yes, it is only fourpence,' I said. 'But it's fourpence in Maundy money. The coins are produced by the Royal Mint, to be handed out by the Sovereign--'

'Blow the Sovereign!' she shouted. 'And blow the Royal Mint!'

'--on Maundy Thursday. They're quite rare. If I remember correctly, Bert Archer is a coin collector, and I think you'll find the Maundy fourpence will more than pay for the van.'

With all the righteous dignity I could muster, I grabbed Gladys by the handlebars and shoved off for home. When I looked back from the corner of the church, Nialla was already on her hands and knees, scrabbling in the churchyard grass, and I couldn't tell whether the tears she was wiping away were tears of anger or of happiness.

* TWENTY-SIX *

'ALL RIGHT, DOGGER,' I SAID, 'the jig is up.'

I had found him in the butler's pantry, polishing Father's shoes.

Dogger's duties at Buckshaw varied in direct proportion to his present capabilities, his participation in our daily life rising and descending, rather like those colored balls in Galileo's thermometer that float at different levels in a glass tube, depending on the temperature. The fact that he was doing shoes was a good sign. It indicated clearly that he had advanced once again from gardener to butler.

He looked up from his work.

'Is it?' he asked.

'Cast your mind, if you please, back to Saturday evening at the parish hall. You're sitting beside me watching Jack and the Beanstalk when suddenly something goes wrong backstage. Rupert comes crashing down dead, and within minutes you are telling me that you fear we have seen murder. How did you know that? How did you know it wasn't an accident?'

This question had been gnawing away at my subconscious like a rat at a rope, but until that very moment, I had not been fully aware of it.

Dogger breathed on the upper of one of Father's regimental half-wellingtons before he answered, giving the glassy black surface a final loving rub with his shirtsleeve.

'The circumstances spoke against it,' he said. 'Mr. Porson was a perfectionist. He manufactured all his own equipment. A puppeteer works in the dark. There's no room for error. A frayed electrical wire was out of the question.'

'It wasn't frayed,' I said. 'I spotted it when I was backstage with Inspector Hewitt. The insulation was scraped away.'

'I should have been surprised if it wasn't,' he said.