The Executioner Makes House Calls (‘Oy, Rodney’)

[If that ain’t the best headline I ever wrote, I’ll eat my hat.]

“Dear reader,” says Violet Crepuscular, introducing Chapter DCLXXXIII (No, we do not know what happened to Chapter DCLXXXII) of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney, “you may have heard that confession is good for the soul. But Willis Twombley could tell you that sometimes it’s not too good for the rest of you!” [You have no idea how hard it was to restrain her from stretching this sentence out to the fringes of the solar system. You want to be an editor!? I could’ve been a tire salesman…]

It turns out that Parliament has just passed a law forbidding anyone to feed cat food to a Church of England vicar. That is exactly what Willis Twombley has done, and word of it has spread like yogurt. (Don’t ask!) The new law carries a death penalty, although in this case the victim can receive the treatment at home.

“Hadn’t you better move on, old chap, before the traveling executioner gets here?” asks Lord Jeremy Coldsore.

“What–and miss the wedding?” Both men are to be married to Lady Margo Cargo, who believes them to be one and the same person. “Anyhow, there ain’t nothin’ easier than bribin’ an executioner to say he did the job when he didn’t.”

But what if this executioner doesn’t take a bribe?

“Tune in next week to find out!” writes The Queen of Suspense. “The day you can’t bribe a traveling executioner with a box of toothpaste sandwiches… well, it’s the day the music dies!”