years condemned. Instead, he had become zealous in the pursuit of truth. Sir Branwell, on the other hand, was all for truth, provided it didnât get in the way.
Their disagreement was profound but polite. They had been friends for ever and differences of opinion could not change that. Neither of them wished it. When the apology of a pudding had been cleared away, coffee â weak and tepid â appeared in a pot, along with minute cups, and a carafe of acceptable port began to circulate steadily among the four of them.
It was ever thus.
âNo question of cancelling the festival?â asked Bognor.
âGood grief, no,â said his host, slurping port like the late Keith Floyd, whom in some respects he resembled.
âSebastian wouldnât have wished it,â said his hostess with enviable certainty. âHe would have wanted the show to go on.â
âThen why kill himself?â asked Lady Bognor, going to the heart of the matter with predictable shrewdness.
âThatâs why I think someone else did him in,â said Bognor. âThe late Reverend was not a boat-rocker. He wouldnât have thrown the entire event into jeopardy, even if he were depressed.â
âI donât want bloody journalists sniffing around,â said Sir Branwell. He pronounced the offending word âjawnalistsâ, as in âjaw-jaw, not war-warâ. He didnât like the press, referring with contempt to âthat little creep Evansâ and âthat foreign republican Murdochâ. The Bognors agreed in the particular, but not the general. They were for a free press, which, in general terms, they felt the British no longer had. Discuss.
âYou and I are always going to see things differently. If someone killed the reverend, then thatâs wrong, and they should be made to pay for it.â
âWonât bring him back though,â said Fludd, not unreasonably, âand trying to find the murderer is going to break a whole nest of eggs without, as it were, making an edible omelette.â
âBrannieâs right,â said Lady Fludd. âA whole lot of journalists crawling all over the place, smuggling themselves into the house in laundry baskets, lives exposed to ridicule or worse, coals raked over, and to no avail whatever. Absolutely no avail whatever.â
âQuite,â said her husband.
The port circulated.
âNot necessarily,â said Bognor.
âNot necessarily what?â countered Fludd, in the manner of an Apocrypha tutor picking up a woolly argument and exposing it for the moth-eaten cardigan it really was.
âAvail,â said Bognor. âNot necessarily to no avail. The truth availeth and all that. Iâm not saying the process will be easy, or even pleasant. These things seldom are. But at the end of the day, we will have a result. Nothing will have been swept under the carpet.â
âI rather resent the idea that I am sweeping Sebastian under the carpet. I am letting him rest in peace, as he so plainly wished.â
âIâm not sure thatâs what the vicar would have wished. If someone else killed him, then he certainly didnât. If you really want to know, I think thatâs as good a proof as anything that he was murdered. If it were suicide, heâd have chosen almost any other day of the year. He certainly wouldnât have created a vacuum at the beginning of the festival.â
âI still think we should avoid undue fuss,â said Sir Branwell.
âWe donât do fuss,â said his wife. They didnât, either. It was something that Hitler and other would-be invaders didnât understand about a certain sort of Briton. You didnât mess with people like the Fludds. They did team teas for the cricket, commanded the Home Guard and didnât do fuss. Period. Not to be roused. Slow to be so, but dangerous when done. An ancient cliché, but true nonetheless.
âI think,â
Their disagreement was profound but polite. They had been friends for ever and differences of opinion could not change that. Neither of them wished it. When the apology of a pudding had been cleared away, coffee â weak and tepid â appeared in a pot, along with minute cups, and a carafe of acceptable port began to circulate steadily among the four of them.
It was ever thus.
âNo question of cancelling the festival?â asked Bognor.
âGood grief, no,â said his host, slurping port like the late Keith Floyd, whom in some respects he resembled.
âSebastian wouldnât have wished it,â said his hostess with enviable certainty. âHe would have wanted the show to go on.â
âThen why kill himself?â asked Lady Bognor, going to the heart of the matter with predictable shrewdness.
âThatâs why I think someone else did him in,â said Bognor. âThe late Reverend was not a boat-rocker. He wouldnât have thrown the entire event into jeopardy, even if he were depressed.â
âI donât want bloody journalists sniffing around,â said Sir Branwell. He pronounced the offending word âjawnalistsâ, as in âjaw-jaw, not war-warâ. He didnât like the press, referring with contempt to âthat little creep Evansâ and âthat foreign republican Murdochâ. The Bognors agreed in the particular, but not the general. They were for a free press, which, in general terms, they felt the British no longer had. Discuss.
âYou and I are always going to see things differently. If someone killed the reverend, then thatâs wrong, and they should be made to pay for it.â
âWonât bring him back though,â said Fludd, not unreasonably, âand trying to find the murderer is going to break a whole nest of eggs without, as it were, making an edible omelette.â
âBrannieâs right,â said Lady Fludd. âA whole lot of journalists crawling all over the place, smuggling themselves into the house in laundry baskets, lives exposed to ridicule or worse, coals raked over, and to no avail whatever. Absolutely no avail whatever.â
âQuite,â said her husband.
The port circulated.
âNot necessarily,â said Bognor.
âNot necessarily what?â countered Fludd, in the manner of an Apocrypha tutor picking up a woolly argument and exposing it for the moth-eaten cardigan it really was.
âAvail,â said Bognor. âNot necessarily to no avail. The truth availeth and all that. Iâm not saying the process will be easy, or even pleasant. These things seldom are. But at the end of the day, we will have a result. Nothing will have been swept under the carpet.â
âI rather resent the idea that I am sweeping Sebastian under the carpet. I am letting him rest in peace, as he so plainly wished.â
âIâm not sure thatâs what the vicar would have wished. If someone else killed him, then he certainly didnât. If you really want to know, I think thatâs as good a proof as anything that he was murdered. If it were suicide, heâd have chosen almost any other day of the year. He certainly wouldnât have created a vacuum at the beginning of the festival.â
âI still think we should avoid undue fuss,â said Sir Branwell.
âWe donât do fuss,â said his wife. They didnât, either. It was something that Hitler and other would-be invaders didnât understand about a certain sort of Briton. You didnât mess with people like the Fludds. They did team teas for the cricket, commanded the Home Guard and didnât do fuss. Period. Not to be roused. Slow to be so, but dangerous when done. An ancient cliché, but true nonetheless.
âI think,â
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