Unnatural Death by Dorothy L Sayers

"I know thou art religious, And hast a thing within thee called conscience, With twenty popish tricks and ceremonies Which I have seen thee careful to observe. " Titus Andronicus

Thursday, June 23rd, was the Eve of St. John. The sober green workaday dress in which the church settles down to her daily duties after the bridal raptures of Pentecost, had been put away, and the altar was white and shining once again. Vespers were over in the Lady Chapel at St. Onesimus -- a faint reek of incense hung cloudily under the dim beams of the roof. A very short acolyte with a very long brass extinguisher snuffed out the candles, adding the faintly unpleasant yet sanctified odour of hot wax. The small congregation of elderly ladies rose up lingeringly from their devotions and slipped away in a series of deep genuflections. Miss Climpson gathered up a quantity of little manuals, and groped for her gloves. In doing so, she dropped her office-book. It fell, annoyingly, behind the long kneeler, scattering as it went a small pentecostal shower of Easter cards, bookmarkers, sacred pictures, dried palms and Ave Marias into the dark corner behind the confessional.