Furious Old Women by Leo Bruce

communicant. I don’t think she’s a really bad woman. Just hopelessly compliant. I blame the men of the village.”
    â€œShe seems an amiable soul.”
    â€œThere were one or two others with the right ideas. And several more who would have been all right if the Griggses had left them alone.”
    â€œTell me, what about the other clergyman? Mr Slipper?”
    â€œFather Slipper? Oh, he was all right. Good little chap. Did as he was told. Left all decisions to Father Waddell.”
    â€œWas he—er, High Church or Low? If those are the correct terms.”
    â€œYour education has been neglected, Mr Deene. We don’t speak of High Church. That goes back to Victorian days. As I have told you, we are Car-tholics.”
    â€œIs that what is meant when people speak of Anglo-Catholic?”
    â€œI suppose so but I don’t like the term.”
    â€œAnd Mr Slipper?”
    â€œAll right on most things. All the Sacraments except Extreme Unction. Celibacy of the Clergy, the Assumption, the Immaculate Conception, all sound. A bit shaky on Reservation and Benediction. But his heart’s in the right place.”
    â€œHe organizes things for the youth of the parish?”
    â€œWonderful with boys. Open air, you know. Healthy. Scouting and cycling. Organizes camps in the summer. He has persuaded old Sir Marriott Gibson to let them use the swimming pool in his grounds.”
    â€œAnd in the winter?”
    â€œOh, he has his Club and Scout headquarters. Always arranging something. A play or physical culture. Weight-lifting for the older ones. I hear they’re entering a team for some competition. They all walk about as though they couldn’t forget their shoulders. Waygooze, our organist,gets quite fed up with them flexing their muscles when they ought to be learning the
Kyrie Eleison
. But there’s no doubt Father Slipper does a lot of good.”
    â€œDid Miss Griggs recognize that?”
    â€œI think so. She gave him a subscription whenever he asked for it. It was she who bought new bell tents for them last summer. I gather she has left money in her will both to Father Slipper and his pet causes.”
    Grazia was gathering together the New Hall tea-service and putting it on the old Sheffield plate tray, with a jolly tinkle of beads and bangles.
    â€œOf course from my point of view it’s all very well, this youth organization, but I can’t help feeling that a priest should be a priest and not a physical training instructor or expert on cooking over a fire in the open. I should like to see more catechism and less camp for the boys. But that’s no doubt my old-fashioned point of view. I don’t say Father Slipper doesn’t get many of them to church but if they have to be induced to sing together in the choir by being allowed to sleep in tents, it doesn’t seem to me to be putting first things first.”
    â€œI suppose not.”
    â€œThere’s a great deal of good in it, no doubt. But you know in a small place like this where there is sufficient labour, I’m
not
convinced that their bob-a-job scheme is so good. The boys hang round the cottages willing to lend a hand but most of them have very little to offer. It seems to me that Father Slipper is groping after something but never seems to find what he wants. However you don’t need to hear my views. It’s facts you’re after. What can I tell you?”
    â€œMr Waddell tells me that he called to see you on the evening Miss Griggs died and that you were out.”
    â€œThe silly man! I was nothing of the sort! I may have been having a little snooze—I often do about that time. In fact now I come to think of it I remember waking up and finding I hadn’t yet put on the lights and the tea things were still out.”
    â€œWhat time was that?”
    â€œIt must have been nearly seven. Shocking, wasn’t it? Sloth, one of the Seven Deadly Sins. If Father Waddell had