The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag

"I was tempted to keep them for myself," I said, eyes downcast, "but it's Sunday, and I really am trying hard to be a better person."

Eager hands outstretched, Feely rose to the bait like a shark to a swimmer's foot.

* FIFTEEN *

WITH FATHER AND AUNT FELICITY leading the way, and Dogger in the rear wearing a black bowler hat, we straggled, as we always did, single file across the fields like ducks to a pond. The green countryside in which we were enfolded seemed as ancient and as settled in the morning light as a canvas by Constable, and I shouldn't have been a bit surprised to find that we were really no more than tiny figures in the background of one of his paintings, such as The Hay Wain, or Dedham Vale.

It was a perfect day. Bright prisms of dew glittered like diamonds in the grass, although I knew that, as the day went on, they would be vaporized by the sun.

Vaporized by the sun! Wasn't that what the universe had in store for all of us? There would come a day when the sun exploded like a red balloon, and everyone on earth would be reduced in less than a camera flash to carbon. Didn't Genesis say as much? For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. This was far more than dull old theology: It was precise scientific observation! Carbon was the Great Leveler--the Grim Reaper.

Diamonds were nothing more than carbon, but carbon in a crystal lattice that made it the hardest known mineral in nature. That was the way we all were headed. I was sure of it. We were destined to be diamonds!

How exciting it was to think that, long after the world had ended, whatever was left of our bodies would be transformed into a dazzling blizzard of diamond dust, blowing out towards eternity in the red glow of a dying sun.

And for Rupert Porson, the process had already begun.

"I doubt very much, Haviland," Aunt Felicity was saying, "if they'll go ahead with the service. It seems hardly right in view of what's happened."

"The Church of England, Lissy," Father replied, "like time and tide, waits for no man. Besides, the fellow died in the parish hall--not in the church proper, as it were."

"Perhaps so," she said with a sniff. "Still, I shall be put out if all this walking is for nothing."

But Father was right. As we walked alongside the stone wall that ran like a tightened belt round the banked-up churchyard, I could see the hood of Inspector Hewitt's blue Vauxhall saloon peeking out discreetly at the end of the lane. The Inspector himself was nowhere in sight as we stepped onto the porch and entered the church.

Morning Prayer was as solemn as a Requiem High Mass. I know that for a fact because we de Luces are Roman Catholics--we are in fact, virtually charter members of the club. We have seen our share of bobbing and ducking. But we regularly attend St. Tancred's because of its proximity, and because the vicar is one of Father's great friends.

"Besides," Father says, "it is one's bounden duty to trade with local firms."

This morning, the church was packed to the rafters. Even the balcony beneath the bell tower was filled to overflowing with people from the village who wanted to be as close as possible, without being unseemly, to the Scene of the Crime.

Nialla was nowhere in sight. I noticed that at once. Nor were Mrs. Mullet, or Alf, her husband. If I knew our Mrs. M, she would, at this very moment, be bombarding Nialla with sausages and questions. "Plying and prying," Daffy called it.

Cynthia was already on her knees, front and center, praying to whatever gods she wanted to bribe before the service began. She was always the first to kneel and always the first to spring to her feet again. I sometimes thought of her as St. Tancred's spiritual coxswain.

For once, because it would be about someone I had known personally, I was quite looking forward to the sermon. The vicar, I expected, would deliver something inspired by Rupert's demise--tasteful but instructional. "In the midst of life we are in death," was my guess.

But when he climbed up into the pulpit at last, the vicar was strangely subdued, and it wasn't entirely due to the fact that Cynthia was running a white-gloved forefinger along the wooden rack that held scattered copies of the Hymnary and the Book of Common Prayer. In fact, the vicar made no reference to the matter at all, until he had finished the sermon.

"In view of the tragic circumstances of last evening," he said in a hushed and solemn voice, "the police have requested that the parish hall be made available to them until their work is complete. Consequently, our customary refreshments, for this morning only, will be served at the vicarage. Those of you who wish to do so are cordially invited to join us after the service. And now may God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost ..."