The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag

Without another word, Sally clambered up onto the tractor's seat and engaged the starter. The engine caught at once, roared briefly, then settled into a steady ticking hum.

"I've said too much," she told me. "I don't know what I was thinking. Mind you keep your promise, Flavia. I'm going to hold you to it."

Her eyes met mine, and I saw in them a kind of pleading.

"I could get into a lot of trouble, you know," she said.

I bobbed my head but didn't actually say yes. With any luck, I could wedge in one last question.

"What do you think happened to Robin and to Rupert?"

With a toss of her head, Sally clenched her jaw, let in the clutch, and lurched away across the field, clods of black mud flying up from the tractor's tires before falling back to the ground like shot birds.

* TWENTY *

I RETRIEVED GLADYS FROM behind the hedge where I had left her, removed the cucumber sandwiches from her carrier, and sat on a grassy bank to eat and think about the dead.

I pulled the notebook from my pocket and flipped it open to Meg's drawing: There was Robin, hanging by the neck from the gnarled timbers of the old scaffold. The expression on his face was that of a child sleeping peacefully, a slight smile at the corner of his lips.

Something in my mind went click! and I knew that I could put it off no longer: I would have to pay a visit to the village library--or at least the Pit Shed, the outbuilding where the back issues of newspapers were stored.

The Pit Shed was a long-defunct motorcar repair shop, which stood, surrounded by weeds, in Cow Lane, a short and rather neglected pathway that ran from Bishop Lacey's high street down to the river. The sudden recollection of my recent captivity in that moldering mausoleum gave me goose bumps.

Part of me (my quieter voice) was saying, Give it up. Don't meddle. Go home and be with your family. But another part was more insistent: The library isn't open until Thursday, it seemed to whisper. No one will see you.

"But the lock," I said aloud. "The place is locked."

Since when did a locked door ever stop you? replied the voice.

The Pit Shed, as I have said, was easily reached from the riverbank. I re-crossed the water on the stepping-stones behind the church (still no sign of police cars) and followed the old towpath, which took me quickly, and with little risk of being seen, to Cow Lane.

There was no one in sight as I tried to walk nonchalantly up the path to the entrance.

I gave the door a shake, but as I had expected, it was locked. A new lock, in fact--one of the Yale design--had recently been fitted, and a hand-lettered sign placed in the window. Positively no admittance unless accompanied by the Librarian it said. Both the sign and the lock, I thought, had likely been put in place because of my recent escapades.

Although Dogger had given me several tutorials on the art of lock picking, the intricacies of the Yale required special tools that I did not have with me.

The door's hinges were on the inside, so there wasn't a chance of removing the pins. Even if that had been possible, it would have been foolhardy to attempt such a thing in full view of anyone passing in the high street at the end of the lane.

Round the back I went. In the long grass, directly beneath a window, lay a monster piece of rusty scrap metal, which looked as if it might have seen better days as a motor in a Daimler. I climbed on top of the things and peered in through the dirt-fogged glass.

The newspapers lay stacked in their wooden bunks as they had done for eons, and the interior had been cleared of the wreckage caused by my last visit.

As I stood on tiptoe, my foot slipped, and I nearly pitched headfirst through the windowpane. As I clutched at the sill to steady myself, something crumbled beneath my fingertips and a river of tiny grains trickled to the ground.

Wood rot, I thought. But wait! Hang on a minute--wood rot isn't gray. This is rotten putty!

I jumped down and within seconds was back at the window with an open-end wrench from Gladys's tool kit in my hand. As I picked away at the edges of the glass, hard wedges of putty broke off with surprisingly little effort. It was almost too easy.

When I had chipped my way round the pane, I pressed my mouth hard against the glass, and sucked for all I was worth to create a vacuum. Then I pulled my head slowly back.

Success! As the pane came free of its frame and leaned out towards me, I grasped the glass by its rough edges and lifted it carefully to the ground. In less time than it takes to tell, I had wiggled through the frame and dropped to the floor inside.