2 The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag: A Flavia De Luce Mystery by Alan Bradley Read Free Book Online Page A

been given names: the Eroica, the Pastorale, and so forth. They should have called this one the Vampire, because it simply refused to lie down and die.
    But aside from its sticky ending, I loved the Fifth, and what I loved most about it was the fact that it was what I thought of as “running music.”
    I pictured myself, arms outspread, running pell-mell in the warm sunshine down Goodger Hill, swooping in broad zigzags, my pigtails flying behind me in the wind, bellowing the Fifth at the top of my lungs.
    My pleasant reverie was interrupted by Father’s voice.
    “This is the second movement, now, andante con moto,” he was saying loudly. Father always called out the names of the movements in a voice that was better suited to the drill hall than to the drawing room. “Means ‘at a walking pace, with motion,’” he added, settling back in his chair as if, for the time being, he’d done his duty.
    It seemed redundant to me: How could you have a walking pace without motion? It defied the laws of physics, but then, composers are not like the rest of us.
    Most of them, for instance, are dead.
    As I thought of being dead and of churchyards, I thought of Nialla.
    Nialla! I had almost forgotten about Nialla! Father’s summons to supper had come just as I was completing my chemical test. I formed in my mind an image of the slight cloudiness, the swirling flakes in the test tube, and the thrilling message they bore.
    Unless I was badly mistaken, Mother Goose was pregnant.

• FIVE •
    I WONDERED IF SHE knew it.
    Even before she had risen up weeping from her limestone slab, I had noticed that Nialla was not wearing a wedding ring. Not that that meant anything: Even Oliver Twist had an unwed mother.
    But then there had been the fresh mud on her dress. Although I had registered the fact in some tangled thicket of my mind, I had given it no further thought until now.
    When you stopped to think about it, though, it seemed perfectly obvious that she had piddled in the churchyard. Since it hadn’t rained, the fresh mud on her hem would indicate that she had done so, and hastily, at the northwest corner, away from prying eyes, behind the mound of extra soil that the sexton, Mr. Haskins, kept handy for grave-digging operations.
    She must have been desperate, I decided.
    Yes! That was it! There wasn’t a woman on earth who would choose such an unwelcoming spot (“wretchedly insalubrious,” Daffy would have called it) unless she had no other choice. The reasons were numerous, but the one that leapt immediately to mind was one I had recently come across in the pages of the Australian Women’s Weekly while cooling my heels in the outer chamber of a dentist’s surgery in Farringdon Street. “Ten Early Signs of a Blessed Event,” the article had been called, and the need for frequent urination had been near the top of the list.
    “Fourth movement. Allegro. Key of C major,” Father boomed, as if he were a railway conductor calling out the next station.
    I gave him a brisk nod to show I was paying attention, then dived back into my thoughts. Now then, where was I? Oh, yes—Oliver Twist.
    Once, on a trip to London, Daffy had pointed out to us from the window of our taxicab the precise spot in Bloomsbury where Oliver’s foundling hospital had stood. Although it was now a rather pleasant and leafy square, I had no trouble imagining myself plodding up those long-gone but nevertheless snowdrifted front steps, raising the huge brass door knocker, and applying for refuge. When I told them of my semi-orphan life at Buckshaw with Feely and Daffy, there would be no questions asked. I would be welcomed with open arms.
    London! Damn and blast! I’d completely forgotten. Today was the day I was supposed to have gone up to the City with Father to be fitted for braces. No wonder he was peeved. While I was relishing death in the churchyard and chewing the fat with Nialla and the vicar, Father had almost certainly been steaming and fuming round