The Black Seraphim

by Michael Gilbert

  James settled down on one end of the bench with a contented sigh and said, “You know, I’d be happy just sitting here all day. It’s like being on the bridge of a ship. How I envy you. I saw, by the way, that you’d got the top job now.”

  “Temporarily.”

  “Surely not.”

  “I’m afraid so. The powers that be don’t approve of me.”

  “You mean the Archdeacon? I’d heard something about that.”

  “He’s a bastard,” said Paul. “A clever bastard and a busy bastard, but a bastard nonetheless. You know what he’s got against me? I’ve got the wrong letters after my name. I’m not A.R.C.O; I’m A.R.C.C.O.”

  “That sounds even more impressive.”

  “Not to him. I’m an associate of the Royal Canadian College of Organists. Get the difference?”

  “When you play the way you do, it shouldn’t matter if you were a member of the Timbuktu College of Organists.”

  “I’m not sure that it really does matter all that much. But he uses it as a handle to get at me for other things. You heard what he said just now. None of your modern trash. When we did the Joubert Te Deum – and the choir really sang it beautifully – all he said was: ‘Joubert – South African, isn’t he? Another of your colonial maestros.’”

  “Why does he do it?”

  “What really sticks in his throat is that my promotion was backed by the Dean.”

  “No love lost there,” agreed James.

  “If you searched the ecclesiastical firmament with a powerful telescope,” said Paul solemnly, “I doubt you could find two men further poles apart. You probably think I’m biased. Maybe I am. I happen to like the Dean. He’s not perfect. Far from it. He’s tough and ruthless and devious as all come, but I reckon he puts his faith and his church first. It’s led him into some pretty wild places before he came to roost in this hen run.”

  “So I heard. India and Africa.”

  “His last posting was in Ethiopia. That’s where he got into bad trouble with guerrillas. They broke his leg for him. But he got back at them somehow. There are about six different versions of the story. I’d like to hear the truth sometime.”

  “I must admit,” said James, “that it’s hard to visualise Archdeacon Pawle living a missionary life among savage tribesmen.”

  Paul said, “Let’s be fair. If his idea of religion is a round of boring tea parties, that’s his lookout. No. What I object to is his notion of turning religion into a business proposition. Do you know, he had the nerve to say to me: ‘People like to hear the things they’re used to. That’s what most of them come to church for. If you play all this modern stuff, you’ll never bring in the paying customers.’ Paying customers. Good God! Just as though a cathedral was a stall in a circus and he was outside beating a drum and shouting: ‘Roll up, roll up. You want the old stuff – we’ve got it!’”

  His little beard bristled and he looked so indignant that James couldn’t help laughing. He said, “You mustn’t take it too seriously, Paul. If he’s a musical Philistine, that’s his misfortune. Most people in a place like Melchester would be on your side over a thing like that. They appreciate good music.”

  “Unfortunately, most people don’t have a say in the appointment of the Cathedral organist. The Archdeacon does. And he’s got a nephew at Worcester who’d like the job.”

  “And who has all the appropriate letters after his name?”

  “That’s right.”

  They sat in silence for a few moments. Then James said, “I suppose you couldn’t . . . I mean, people would think it odd if they heard you practicing.”

  “All right,” said Paul resignedly. “What do you want?”

  “The Benjamin Britten Jubilate with all the twiddly bits.”

  “You think a little music would have charm to soothe my troubled breast.”

  “That’s just what I did think.”

  Paul switched on the power and pulled out a few stops, one of which James was delighted to see was labelled claribel flute. If he ever wrote a novel, he thought, that should be the name of the heroine.

  Paul started to play, softly.

  O be joyful in the Lord, all ye lands.

  The gilt angels on top of the far bank of organ pipes, with their golden trumpets to their lips, seemed to be dancing in time with the music.

  Serve the Lord with gladness and come before His presence with a song.

  More than half the attraction of the traditional liturgy lay in its music. Perhaps the Archdeacon was right. Perhaps people did come to church just to hear the things they were used to.

  Be ye sure that the Lord, he is God. It is he that hath made us and not we ourselves.

  That was the Dean speaking. That was the faith that made saints and upheld martyrs. When you had stripped away the overlay of formalism and ceremony and superstition, that was the rock on which the church was built. If you truly believed that, you could go anywhere and dare anything.

  In the times that followed, James sometimes found himself looking back at Paul and himself, together in the organ loft, above the empty Cathedral, in the sunshine which streamed through the east window over the high altar and lit up the dark corners of the clerestory.

  That afternoon, having lunched in the town, James was coming back into the Close with no idea of how to spend the afternoon when he ran into a flock of blue-and-gold caps, shepherded by Peter.

  The pecking order, he observed, was unchanged. A line of senior boys was echeloned on each side of the master who was taking the walk. The two immediately beside him were the black knights, Andrew Gould and David Lyon.

  “Come and join us,” said Peter. “Stretch your legs. Do you good.”

  David Lyon made way for him and he fell in beside Peter. He had evidently interrupted a serious debate.

  “It’s no good fussing about these things,” said Peter. “Everyone has to economise these days. That’s what inflation does to you.”

  “This isn’t inflation,” said David. “It’s deflation.”

  Evidently a student of economics.

  “How do you make that out?”

  “Three boys in a car don’t use up any more petrol than one boy.”

  “It depends how heavy they are. Three like Piggy . . .” He indicated a fat boy waddling ahead of them. The fat boy turned his head and grinned. James realised that most of the boys had arranged themselves so that they could hear what was being talked about. It was a sort of ambulatory parliament.

  “Is this a problem in mathematics?” he said. “Like if two men dig a well in four hours, how long would three men take?”

  “It’s more practical than that. Last term when we went to away matches, parents who were spectating used to come in the school bus. The—” Peter had been going to say Archdeacon, but changed it at the last moment “—the Finance Committee decided that they ought to pay their own fares, so three of them who had cars got together and offered to take the whole team, provided the school paid for their petrol. The Finance Committee is still trying to work out whether they’ll save money on it or not.”

  “What they could do is get Canon Maude to take some in his car.

  Everyone within earshot seemed to think this was a terrific joke.

  “They’d never get there,” said Andrew. “He’s a terrible driver.”

  “He’d spend all his time patting them on the head and telling them his corny jokes,” said the fat boy.

  “We all know who he’d want sitting beside him,” said a boy out on the flanks. “He’d want Bottle.”

  “He couldn’t have Bottle. He isn’t in the team.”

  “Who on earth are we talking about?” said James.

  Andrew gave a shrill whistle, like a shepherd calling in a sheepdog, and a small boy came trotting back. His hair, James noticed, was almost the same colour as Amanda’s. He had the guileless face which fills old ladies with sentiment and experienced schoolmasters with suspicion.

  “This is Bottle,” said Andrew.
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  “Funny asses.”

  “Real name Anstruther.”

  “It’s not fair. Just because Aunt Maude—”

  “Canon Maude,” said Peter.

  “Sorry, sir. Canon Maude said I was like a Botticelli cherub and they’ve been calling me Bottled Cherry ever since.”

  “All right,” said Andrew. “You’ve said your piece. Back you go. He pretends to be annoyed about it,” he explained to James. “But he isn’t really. It boosts his personality.”

  “Inflates his ego,” explained David.

  Later, as the disorganised army ambled out of the River Gate and into the road leading out of Melchester and into the countryside, the conversation turned to the agreeable topic of murder.

  “That’s what you do, isn’t it?” said the fat boy. “Mr Fleming told us. You examine dead bodies to find out who killed them.”

  “You’re cutting a few corners there,” said James. “I do carry out autopsies – post-mortems – in routine cases. And I’ve helped the pathologist at Guy’s once or twice in criminal cases. Not necessarily murders.”

  “When you do a – what did you call it? – an autopsy, does that mean cutting the chap open?”

  “You have to do that sooner or later, yes.”

  “Tell us about that.”

  “Well,” said James doubtfully. The boys seemed to be genuinely interested. “It would depend what you were looking for.”

  “Suppose it was poison.”

  “Then you’d concentrate first on the abdominal cavity. That’s the bit just under your ribs. It’s got your stomach in it and one or two other things, like the liver and the kidneys and the spleen.”

  The fat boy patted himself thoughtfully.

  “You’d have to take them out separately to examine them. The stomach is the most important. You tie up each end before you remove it.”

  “Anyone under thirteen,” said Peter, “will withdraw out of earshot.”

  This had the effect of thickening the crowd around them considerably. Fortunately, they had reached a fairly empty piece of road.

  “Then what?” said David.

  “Then you cut the lining of the stomach into small pieces and put them into a jar, along with the contents. Probably a number of separate jars, some for the liquids, some for the solid bits. Then you can begin to test for different types of poison. The first thing is to find out if it’s acid or alkaline or neutral—”

  James forgot after a bit that he wasn’t addressing a class of medical students. He was in the middle of Marsh’s Test for arsenic when an angry hooting notified them that a motorist wanted to get past.

  “For goodness sake,” said Peter, who had been listening as interestedly as anyone, “get on the pavement, or we shall have one or two more corpses for Dr Scotland to examine.”

  When they got back to the school, Andrew said, “That was a super walk. It’s only four o’clock. Why don’t we go round again?”

  Peter vetoed this and the school dispersed. He said, “I suppose you realise that most of that will go into their next letters home. Come in and join us for tea.”

  James had tea at the school and his supper at a café in the market square which served meals at a moderate price. At about nine o’clock he strolled across to meet Peter at the Black Lion, which competed with the White Swan for the respectable drinking trade. Peter preferred it because it was the headquarters of the Melchester Rugby Club. The Selection Committee met in a small room at the back on Tuesday evenings through the season.

  “Not that anyone ought to be playing rugger in this weather,” said Peter. “Die of heat apoplexy. Two pints of bitter, please, Charming.”

  “The name’s Charmian, Mr Fleming.”

  “I was using it as a description, love. Not a name.”

  Charmian sighed. She was an intelligent girl and it sometimes seemed to her that the hardest part of her job was listening to male drinkers trying to be gallant. She didn’t mind Peter. He could be amusing, in a schoolmasterly sort of way. But some of the others! And the jokes she had to listen to, all of which she had heard dozens of times before. And the language, particularly toward closing time. Since it was Sunday, closing time would be ten o’clock, thank goodness. She’d soon be tucked up in bed with a cup of cocoa and a book.

  “I was up in the organ loft having a gossip with Paul Wren this morning,” said James. “Like a lot of people in the Close, he seems to be crossing swords with the Archdeacon. A pity, because I thought the musical part of the service went particularly well.”

  “It certainly goes better now that we’ve got a Vicar Choral with a decent voice.”

  “Agreed. Who is he?”

  “Openshaw. Quite a sound type. A bit out of place in a cathedral close. What he really wants to be doing, he told me, is slogging it out in a slum parish. Oh, God! Look who’s here now.”

  The door had been pushed open and two men had come in. James, his mind still running on anthropomorphism, decided that the one in front was a fox. The rufous hair, the sharp nose, even the predatory teeth when he smiled, as he was doing now at Charmian. The man behind had a vaguely military look about him. A lion? A tired and unconvincing lion. Too young to have been in the war. Possibly he had joined the Territorials in order to earn the right to be called the Major by his cronies.

  “Two large Scotches, darling,” said the first man, “and don’t drown them with soda.”

  The second conclusion which James came to was that both men had been drinking and, while not drunk, were well on the way there.

  When he had got his drink and downed a lot of it, the first man looked around and caught sight of Peter. He said, “What ho, the usher. Naughty boy. Shouldn’t be down here boozing. Should be tucking the boys up in bed.”

  Peter said, “About time you were tucked up in bed, isn’t it, Leo? I only hope you’re not driving.”

  “Are you implying that I am the worse for drink?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Then allow me to say that I don’t give a twopenny fart what you think.”

  “Fine,” said Peter. “You don’t care what I think and I don’t care what you think. So suppose we both stop thinking and get on with our drinking.”

  The second man, who had retired to a seat in the corner, was adopting this excellent advice. James thought, for a moment, that his friend was going to join him. Evidently, however, he considered that it would be more suitable to his dignity if he had the last word. He turned to the girl and said, “You’re allowing the place to go downhill, darling. Letting in young tearabouts from the Close. They’re wild men, all of them. Before you know where you are, you’ll find their Dean coming in here, drinking up all your whiskey.”

  Charmian thought it safe to laugh at this.

  “It’s no laughing matter, darling. He’s a real baddy. You’d have to keep your blouse buttoned up if he was around.”

  Peter had evidently been meaning to be good, but at this point he lost his temper. He said, addressing his remarks pointedly to James, “You know why this character goes round blackguarding the Dean, don’t you?”

  James shook his head. He thought there was going to be a fight soon and he had no love for saloon bar brawls.

  “It’s because he made Mr Sandeman look bloody stupid. Has your hat recovered yet, Leo?”

  This was clearly a barbed question. Leo Sandeman swung backward and forward, heel to toe, for a few moments, considering his riposte. Then he turned to the girl. “There’s one thing to be said for allowing schoolmasters in here, darling. I don’t suppose they give you a lot of trouble. Not with all those lovely choirboys to occupy their affections, eh? You know the old rhyme? ‘His height of desire was a boy in the choir, with a bum like a jelly on springs.’”

  James knew the limerick about the young fellow from Kings and had laughed when he first heard it, but there was something particularly unpleasant about it as spoken by Leo Sandeman. It might have been because the speaker had a slight lisp and the words came
out as “chelly on shprings”.

  On this occasion only Sandeman laughed. Even his friend in the corner said nothing. Peter, who had been going red in the face, got slowly to his feet and said, “Just say that little rhyme again.”

  “Why? Didn’t you hear it the first time?”

  “I’d like you to say it once more. Then I’m going to punch your nose through the back of your face.”

  Sandeman took a step back, but was brought up sharply by the bar counter. Charmian said, “Gentlemen, please,” but made no attempt to interfere. She thought that a good punch might improve Mr Sandeman’s nose. His friend said, “Stop it, old man. You can’t brawl in here.”

  “Go on,” said Peter. “We’re all listening.”

  At this moment there was an interruption. Two more men came into the bar. Both were young. One was large and had red hair. The other had fair hair and was smaller.

  The redhead said, “Hullo, Peter. What’s this? A fight? Can I join in?”

  “No, Bill, you can’t.”

  Sandeman said, “Now you’ve got two supporters, I suppose you’ll be very brave.”

  “Good heavens!” said the redhead. “If it isn’t Leo. What a man for trouble. You want to watch it, or someone will tread on your hat again.”

  Sandeman said, “Funny man.”

  “Don’t let the odds worry you,” said the redhead. “There are six of us here. That makes it three all. I’ll fight Gerry. You can take on this character, Philip. I’m afraid I don’t know your name, sir.”

  “Scotland,” said James politely.

  But the steam had gone out of the situation. The military type who had been sitting quietly got up, took Sandeman by the arm and said, “I think we’ll finish our drinks in more agreeable company, Leo. Leave these louts to get on with it.”

  He went out, followed – not unwillingly, James thought – by Sandeman.