Amanderella and the Mystery of the Disappearing Vicar Chapter 6.

Chapter 6.

 

Strange disappearances.

 

Rev. Lollop nodded, though he clearly had no idea what that “something else” might be.

“Well,” he said, rallying, “the east window is rather good.”

He coughed nervously. “There seems to be a lot of mysteries in Lower Wobbleford,” he added. “I mentioned the Rev. Trogbotter. He… disappeared,” he said, lowering his voice. “Oh, not in my time, of course. Goodness, no. A long time ago. A century or more.”

Amanderella’s attention intensified.

“Well… the strange thing is,” he went on, “he wasn’t missed at once.”

Amanderella looked at him, attentive.

“Oh no,” Rev. Lollop continued, “not until the following Sunday. You see, he took Evensong as usual, perfectly ordinary service, nothing out of the way, and then he walked out of the vestry door afterwards, as he always did.”

He smoothed the corner of a prayer-book that was already perfectly flat. “And that was the last anyone saw of him.”

Amanderella waited.

Rev. Lollop warmed to the story in spite of himself.

“Now, in those days, the vicar wasn’t expected to be visible every day. He lived in the old vicarage, of course, but he often visited parishioners, or walked the marsh paths, or went to the outlying farms. Perfectly standard. So, when he wasn’t seen on Monday, no one thought anything of it. Nor Tuesday. Nor Wednesday.”

He gave a small, apologetic shrug.

“It wasn’t unusual.”

Amanderella’s expression remained calm.

“But on Sunday morning,” Rev. Lollop said, lowering his voice, “when he didn’t appear for the early service… well… that was different.”

He paused.

“The churchwarden went to fetch him. Found the vicarage empty. Bed unslept in. Fire cold. No sign of him at all. And no one had seen him since the previous Sunday evening.”

Amanderella’s gaze sharpened.

“A full week,” she said quietly.

“Yes,” Rev. Lollop replied. “A full week. And no one realised until he failed to appear for Matins. It was in the spring, you know. Lambing season. People remembered because it was such a busy time. No one thought anything of it when he wasn’t seen for a few days, everyone was out on the farms or up half the night.”

He sighed, the soft, helpless sigh of a man who disliked unsolved things.

“It caused quite a stir at the time. But nothing was ever found. No body. No belongings. No footprints. No note. Nothing.”

Amanderella folded her hands.

“And this was… when?”

“Oh, about a century ago,” Rev. Lollop said. “In Lady Maudy’s husband’s great‑grandfather’s time. Around the same year as all those smuggling troubles. People coming and going. People disappearing. The marsh was wilder then.”

Amanderella felt the unmistakable click of two pieces sliding together.

The timing was too close to ignore.

The same valley.

The same silence in the records.

Rev. Lollop, oblivious to her shift in focus, added:

“And when I saw your name in the register, I thought, well, perhaps you had come to look into that.”

Amanderella’s voice was very calm.

“No,” she said. “I am not here about Rev. Trogbotter as such.”

Rev. Lollop deflated politely.

“Oh. I see. Quite. Of course.”

Amanderella added, with perfect precision:

“But I am very interested in the week he vanished.”

Rev. Lollop blinked.

“The… week?”

“Yes,” Amanderella said. “Very much so. Lady Spruckmedder has asked me to look into a man mentioned in some of her family documents who also disappeared. He is only referred to as ‘G.’”

Rev. Lollop’s face changed at once, not dramatically, but in the small, involuntary way of a man who has just stepped on a loose floorboard he thought he knew well.

“Ah,” he said. “Oh dear. Oh… that.”

He gave a tiny, embarrassed cough.

“Well, now… the thing is… ‘G’ is one of those… er… local notions.”

He fluttered a hand vaguely, as though trying to waft the subject into a less awkward shape.

“Old stories. Marsh talk. Nothing one ought to take seriously.”

Amanderella watched him with polite interest.

Rev. Lollop pressed on, flustered by his own evasiveness.

“People here have a habit of… well… giving initials to things they don’t want to name. Perfectly ordinary country habit. Perfectly harmless. And ‘G’, well, it’s just one of those letters that gets attached to… er… shadows.”

He realised how that sounded and coloured slightly.

“I don’t mean actual shadows, of course. Goodness, no. Just… old tales. A figure on the marsh paths. Someone who appears and disappears. Utter superstition. I’ve always said so.”

He made a small, unnecessary correction to a hymn book’s position.

“No one sensible believes in that sort of thing.”

Amanderella’s expression did not change.

Rev. Lollop added, in a smaller voice,

“Though people do lower their voices when they mention him. If they mention him at all.”

He rallied, attempting a brisk, clerical tone.

“But really, Lady Gottsnobbler, it’s nothing. A village fancy. A story that has grown legs, er, metaphorically speaking.”

He gave a hopeful, apologetic smile.

Amanderella let him finish his fluttering explanation, then said, very mildly:

“Local stories are often embroidered, yes. But this is not a story, Reverend. He is mentioned repeatedly in the Spruckmedder papers.”

Rev. Lollop paused mid‑gesture, fingertips resting on the edge of a hymn book that needed no attention at all.

“Mentioned… in papers?” he repeated, the pitch of his voice lifting as if the word itself were slightly vulgar.

Amanderella nodded.

“By someone who kept meticulous records. Every cart. Every barrel. Every payment. Every route. And always the same initial. ‘G.’ Never a full name. Never an explanation. But always essential.”

Rev. Lollop’s polite colour faded a shade.

“Oh,” he said. “Oh dear. That does sound rather more… concrete.”

Amanderella continued, her tone still calm, still courteous, but with the quiet precision of someone laying down facts like stepping stones.

“He appears in the accounts for months. Then the references stop. Quite suddenly. Without explanation.”

Rev. Lollop swallowed.

“That is… very much like the Trogbotter business,” he admitted reluctantly. “Here as usual, and then quite suddenly… gone. No trace. No reason. Just… silence.”

Amanderella gave a slow, deliberate nod, “Exactly.”

Rev. Lollop looked at her with a mixture of unease and dawning comprehension, as though he had just realised he was standing rather closer to a mystery than he had intended.

“So, you see,” Amanderella said gently, “I am not here about legends.”

She paused, letting the quiet gather between them. “I am here to investigate a real person who disappeared without trace.”

Rev. Lollop hesitated, then asked, with the careful politeness of a man who feared he might be prying:

“And… what exactly do the papers say about this ‘G’? If I may ask.”

Amanderella opened the bundle on her lap.

“They mention him frequently,” she said. “Always by initial. Never a full name. But always in connection with essential tasks.”

She read a few lines:

“‘G. to see to the wagons.’ ‘G. says the excise men are restless. ‘G. will handle the inland route.’”

She closed the papers again.

Rev. Lollop blinked rapidly.

“Oh,” he said. “Oh my. That does sound rather more… organised… than the usual village tales.”

Amanderella inclined her head.

“It is not a legend, Reverend. It is bookkeeping.”

Rev. Lollop coloured faintly, then rallied.

“Well, I can assure you it was not Rev. Trogbotter. The accounts of him all agree he was-“

He ticked the qualities off on his fingers.

“Soft‑spoken. Observant. Patient. Trusted by everyone. And very, very good at walking the marsh paths. Knew every shortcut, every hollow, every place where the fog pooled.”

He gave a small, apologetic shrug.

“People joked he could ‘disappear into the mist’, but only because he moved quietly and knew the land. Normal for a country vicar. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

Amanderella’s gaze narrowed.

“And he visited parishioners at odd hours,” she said gently. “Because that was when they needed him.”

“Yes,” Rev. Lollop agreed. “Exactly so.”

“And he wore a deep‑hooded cloak.”

“Well, the wind on the marshes is vicious.”

Amanderella waited until he had finished, then added, almost as an afterthought:

“There is one more detail in the Spruckmedder papers. A practical one. ‘G’ always carried a lantern.”

Rev. Lollop blinked.

“A lantern?”

“A very particular sort,” Amanderella said. “Small. Brass. Hooded. The kind used on the marshes to keep the wind from blowing the flame sideways. It is mentioned several times, G. to bring his lantern’, ‘G. says the lantern will serve’, ‘G. to signal with the lantern at the bend’.”

Rev. Lollop frowned, thinking.

“I don’t recall hearing that Trogbotter carrying anything like that. A vicar of his day would have carried an ordinary parish lamp, of course, but nothing… distinctive.”

Amanderella inclined her head. “Then you see the difficulty. Everything you have just described is also exactly what appears in the Spruckmedder papers.”

Rev. Lollop froze.

“Oh,” he said again, much more quietly.