The Lily Hand and Other Stories by Ellis Peters

I could. Everything in the High Street was quiet as the grave, I was thankful to see.
    Next day I didn’t get up until nearly dinner time, and then I went straight down to Nora’s, same as usual on Sundays. Lije had gone out to the Black Horse to fetch some beer, and when he came back with the jug he was fairly busting with news.
    â€˜What d’you think!’ he says, his eyes bulging. ‘Old Eb Langley popped off in the night! True as I’m standing here! They found him dead this morning in his bed!’
    â€˜No!’ says Nora, dropping the tablecloth she was just unfolding. ‘What was it, his heart?’
    â€˜They reckon so. Seemingly he must have jumped up in bed, some time in the night, and just gone out like a light. Joss says to look at his face you’d think he’d been frightened to death – looked as if he’d woke up and seen the devils coming for him.’
    Lucky Nora was there to do the talking, because I couldn’t have said a word. I was watching Lije to see if he was thinking what I was thinking, but his face was as smooth as a baby’s.
    â€˜He must have been took awful sudden,’ says Nora. ‘And he never had time to call to anybody? Nobody heard anything in the night?’
    â€˜Who was there to hear anything, when you come to think of it. His missus was in the next room, but she’s deafer than the wall.’
    â€˜Of course, that’s right!’ says Nora. ‘She wouldn’t even hear Gabriel’s horn! And when you think what I said when you went off yesterday – I said I hoped the old so-and-so would die of spite when he heard the news! How awful! I never thought he’d go and do it!’
    I was still watching Lije, and I still didn’t know what to think. ‘Just imagine!’ I said, staring at him, ‘it could have happened just about the time we were walking past down the street—’
    â€˜Did we walk down the street?’ he says. ‘The head I’ve got on me this morning, I’m damned if I know how I did get home. Last thing I remember was that bloke with the long hair trying to swop me his harp for my double-B. What happened after that?’
    But I didn’t tell him, I just changed the subject. If he didn’t know, I reckoned I’d best let well alone. And if he did know, all the more reason why I should keep my mouth shut. And if any of the folks who live near the Black Horse heard any funny noises in the night, all I can say is, they’re keeping pretty quiet about it, too.
    After all, everybody seems satisfied. We’ve got the trophy, we’re getting our clubroom back next year because Mrs Langley doesn’t much like having the place bunged up with sale junk, and nobody can fetch old Eb back, even supposing they wanted to. His missus looked ten years younger at the funeral. She had a nice new black costume, and a hearing-aid, and a smart hat on her new perm. They say Ben Barclay’s beginning to cast an eye in her direction. Yes, on the whole I reckon things have worked out pretty well.

The Man Who Met Himself
    If I hadn’t known Frank Willard for four years without ever really knowing the first thing about him, I might not have felt so deeply involved. I’d played in the same cricket club for two seasons, and lifted my hat to him and his wife after church almost every Sunday morning since I’d come into the district; and yet when they fetched me to the police station that evening, it was as though I saw him for the first time.
    He was sitting on an upright chair, with his hands slack between his knees, staring straight ahead of him with blank blue eyes in a stunned face, as though memory and mind had left him altogether.
    When I walked into his line of vision he looked through me. His well-polished black shoes and rather worn grey suit were as neat as ever, but the man inside them had stopped functioning. The doctor said he was in a state of