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sometimes referred to Saint Peter as “Uncle Pete” and to the Blessed Virgin Mary as “Cousin May.”
    “Flavia, dear,” the vicar said, “I’d be indebted to you if you’d come up and help me deal with the authorities. You’re so much better at this sort of thing than I.”
    It was true. There had been several occasions in the past upon which I had pointed the police in the proper direction when they were hopelessly stumped.
    “I’d be happy to, Mr. Richardson,” I said.
    For now, I’d seen all I wanted to.
    Outdoors, it had rained, and the vicar and I stood waiting side by side in the porch, strangely tongue-tied by what we had just witnessed.
    The police, when they arrived in their familiar blue Vauxhall saloon, were wearing their best poker faces. Inspector Hewitt gave me a curt nod and a fraction of a smile as he stepped from the car. Detective Sergeants Woolmer and Graves were their usual selves: Woolmer like a large and surly dancing bear (the Vauxhall groaned audibly with relief when he hoisted himself ponderously out of it!) while Graves, young, blond, and dimpled, was grinning at me ear to ear. As I have said, Sergeant Graves had a first-rate crush on Feely, and in a number of ways, I hoped he would be the one to march the divine Ophelia (Ha ha! Pardon me if I laugh!) to the altar.
One more detectivein the family would give us something to talk about during the long winter evenings
, I thought.
Guts, gore, and Tetley’s tea
.
    Sergeant Woolmer gave me barely a glance as he hauled his photo kit from the car’s boot. I looked away, and nodded pleasantly at Sergeant Graves, who was carrying a familiar case.
    “Got the dabs organized, have you?” I asked pleasantly, showing him I remembered that his specialty was fingerprints.
    The sergeant colored nicely, even though I was merely Feely’s sister.
    Like Santa Claus in the American poem, they spoke not a word but went straight to their work. They filed into the porch, bound for the crypt, leaving the vicar and me standing alone together at the door.
    “How long has he been missing? Mr. Collicutt, I mean.”
    “Missing?”
    In spite of having telephoned for the police, the vicar still seemed somewhat in a daze.
    “We hadn’t really thought of him as missing. Departed, I should say. Oh dear! No—that’s hardly the correct word, either.”
    I said nothing: a useful tool that I had added to my kit by closely observing Inspector Hewitt at his work.
    “Mrs. Battle said he came down that last morning for breakfast just as he always did. A single slice of toast only. He was always careful of his figure. Needed to keep his waist in shape for the pedal work. Oh dear, I’m gossiping.”
    “When was that, exactly?” I asked, as if I’d known it all along, but forgotten.
    “The Tuesday after Quinquagesima, as I have reason to remember,” the vicar said.
    “About six weeks ago,” I said, counting rapidly backward in my head.
    “Yes. Shrove Tuesday.”
    “Pancake Day,” I said with a dry gulp as I remembered for an instant the plate of rubbery flat tires Mrs. Mullet had set before us on that unfortunate morning.
    “Indeed. The day before Ash Wednesday. Mr. Collicutt was to have picked up Miss Tanty and driven her to Hinley for her ophthalmological examination.”
    Miss Tanty, who sang in the choir, was a retired music mistress whose sheer physical bulk and full-strength spectacles gave her the appearance of an ancient omnibus with enormous acetylene headlamps bearing down upon you in a narrow country lane.
    Hers was the voice that could always be heard rising above the rest of the choir during the
Magnificat:
    “My soul doth mognify the Lord …”
    Everything about Miss Tanty was mognified.
    Both her glorious soprano voice and her bottle-glass gaze were capable of making wet chills ooze down your spine.
    “When he hadn’t arrived by nine-fifteen,” the vicar went on, “she rang up Mrs. Battle, and was told by Florence, the niece, that he had