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By Root 452 0

were very few new burials in it. Most of the stones commemorated Victorian burials, and earlier ones–half defaced by lichen and time. The old stones were attractive. Some of them were upright slabs with cherubs on the tops, with wreaths round them. She wandered about, looking at the inscriptions. Warrenders again. Mary Warrender, aged 47, Alice Warrender, aged 33, Colonel John Warrender killed in Afghanistan. Various infant Warrenders–deeply regretted–and eloquent verses of pious hopes. She wondered if any Warrenders lived here still. They’d left off being buried here apparently. She couldn’t find any tombstones later than 1843. Rounding the big yew tree she came upon an elderly clergyman who was stooping over a row of old tombstones near a wall behind the church. He straightened up and turned round as Tuppence approached.

‘Good afternoon,’ he said pleasantly.

‘Good afternoon,’ said Tuppence, and added, ‘I’ve been looking at the church.’

‘Ruined by Victorian renovation,’ said the clergyman.

He had a pleasant voice and a nice smile. He looked about seventy, but Tuppence presumed he was not quite as far advanced in age as that, though he was certainly rheumatic and rather unsteady on his legs.

‘Too much money about in Victorian times,’ he said sadly. ‘Too many ironmasters. They were pious, but had, unfortunately, no sense of the artistic. No taste. Did you see the east window?’ he shuddered.

‘Yes,’ said Tuppence. ‘Dreadful,’ she said.

‘I couldn’t agree with you more. I’m the vicar,’ he added, rather unnecessarily.

‘I thought you must be,’ said Tuppence politely. ‘Have you been here long?’ she added.

‘Ten years, my dear,’ he said. ‘It’s a nice parish. Nice people, what there are of them. I’ve been very happy here. They don’t like my sermons very much,’ he added sadly. ‘I do the best I can, but of course I can’t pretend to be really modern. Sit down,’ he added hospitably, waving to a nearby tombstone.

Tuppence sat down gratefully and the vicar took a seat on another one nearby.

‘I can’t stand very long,’ he said, apologetically. He added, ‘Can I do anything for you or are you just passing by?’

‘Well, I’m really just passing by,’ said Tuppence. ‘I thought I’d just look at the church. I’d rather lost myself in a car wandering around the lanes.’

‘Yes, yes. Very difficult to find one’s way about round here. A lot of signposts are broken, you know, and the council don’t repair them as they should.’ He added, ‘I don’t know that it matters very much. People who drive down these lanes aren’t usually trying to get anywhere in particular. People who are keep to the main roads. Dreadful,’ he added again. ‘Especially the new Motorway. At least, I think so. The noise and the speed and the reckless driving. Oh well! pay no attention to me. I’m a crusty old fellow. You’d never guess what I’m doing here,’ he went on.

‘I saw you were examining some of the gravestones,’ said Tuppence. ‘Has there been any vandalism? Have teenagers been breaking bits off them?’

‘No. One’s mind does turn that way nowadays what with so many telephone boxes wrecked and all those other things that these young vandals do. Poor children, they don’t know any better, I suppose. Can’t think of anything more amusing to do than to smash things. Sad, isn’t it? Very sad. No,’ he said, ‘there’s been no damage of that kind here. The boys round here are a nice lot on the whole. No, I’m just looking for a child’s grave.’

Tuppence stirred on her tombstone. ‘A child’s grave?’ she said.

‘Yes. Somebody wrote to me. A Major Waters, he asked if by any possibility a child had been buried here. I looked it up in the parish register, of course, but there was no record of any such name. All the same, I came out here and looked round the stones. I thought, you know, that perhaps whoever wrote might have got hold of some wrong name, or that there had been a mistake.’

‘What was the Christian name?’ asked Tuppence.

‘He didn’t know. Perhaps Julia after the mother.’

‘How old was the child?’

‘Again he wasn’t sure–Rather vague, the whole thing. I think myself that the man must