The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

The earliest graves, and those of the wealthiest former parishioners, were closest to the church, while back here along the fieldstone wall were those of more recent interments.

There was also a vertical stratum. Five hundred years of constant use had given the churchyard the appearance of a risen loaf: a fat loaf of freshly baked green bread, puffed up considerably above the level of the surrounding ground. I gave a delicious shiver at the thought of the yeasty remains that lay beneath my feet.

For a while I browsed aimlessly among the tombstones, reading off the family names that one often heard mentioned in Bishop's Lacey: Coombs, Nesbit, Barker, Hoare, and Carmichael. Here, with a lamb carved on his stone, was little William, the infant son of Tully Stoker, who, had he lived, would by now have been a man of thirty, and older brother to Mary. Little William had died aged five months and four days “of a croup,” it said, in the spring of 1919, the year before Mr. Twining had leaped from the clock tower at Greyminster. There was a good chance, then, that the Doctor, too, was buried somewhere nearby.

For a moment I thought I had found him: a black stone with a pointed pyramidal top had the name Twining crudely cut upon it. But this Twining, on closer inspection, turned out to be an Adolphus who had been lost at sea in 1809. His stone was so remarkably preserved that I couldn't resist the urge to run my fingers over its cool polished surface.

"Sleep well, Adolphus," I said. "Wherever you are."

Mr. Twining's tombstone, I knew—assuming he had one, and I found it difficult to believe otherwise—would not be one of the weathered sandstone specimens which leaned like jagged brown teeth, nor would it be one of those vast pillared monuments with drooping chains and funereal wrought-iron fences that marked the plots of Bishop Lacey's wealthiest and most aristocratic families (including any number of departed de Luces).

I put my hands on my hips and stood waist-deep in the weeds at the churchyard's perimeter. On the other side of the stone wall was the towpath, and beyond that, the river. It was somewhere back here that Miss Mountjoy had vanished after she had fled the church, immediately after the Vicar had asked us to pray for the repose of Horace Bonepenny's soul. But where had she been going?

Over the lych-gate I climbed once more, and onto the towpath.

Now I could clearly see the stepping-stones that lay spotted among streamers of waterweed, just beneath the surface of the slow-flowing river. These wound across the widening pool to a low muddy bank on the far side, above and beyond which ran a bramble hedge bordering a field which belonged to Malplaquet Farm.

I took off my shoes and socks and stepped off onto the first stone. The water was colder than I had expected. My nose was still running slightly and my eyes watering, and the thought crossed my mind that I'd probably die of pneumonia in a day or two and, before you could say “knife,” become a permanent resident of St. Tancred's churchyard.

Waving my arms like semaphore signals, I made my way carefully across the water and flat-footed it through the mud of the bank. By grasping a handful of long weeds I was able to pull myself up onto the embankment, a dike of packed earth that rose up between the river and the adjoining field.

I sat down to catch my breath and wipe the muck from my feet with a hank of the wild grass which grew in knots along the hedge. Somewhere close by a yellowhammer was singing “a little bit of bread and no cheese.” It suddenly went silent. I listened, but all I could hear was the distant hum of the countryside: a bagpipe drone of far-off farm machinery.

With my shoes and socks back on, I dusted myself off and began walking along the hedgerow, which seemed at first to be an impenetrable tangle of thorns and brambles. Then, just as I was about to turn and retrace my steps, I found it—a narrow cutting in the thicket, no more than a thinning, really. I pushed myself through and came out on the other side of the hedge.

A few yards back, in the direction of the church, something stuck up out of the grass. I approached it cautiously, the hair at the nape of my neck prickling in Neanderthal alarm.

It was a tombstone, and crudely carved upon it was the name Grenville Twining.

On the tilted base of the stone was a single word: Vale!

Vale!—the word Mr. Twining had shouted from the top of the tower! The word Horace Bonepenny had breathed into my face as he expired.

Realization swept over me like a wave: Bonepenny's dying mind had wanted only to confess to Mr. Twining's murder, and fate had granted him only one word with which to do so. In hearing his confession, I had become the only living person who could link the two deaths. Except, perhaps, for Bob Stanley. My Mr. Pemberton.

At the thought, a cold shiver ran down my spine.