The Black Seraphim

by Michael Gilbert

  Eleven

  The room was clean and bleak and cold. The smell of formaldehyde battled with the smell of corruption. Dr Brian Barkworth, in his white butcher’s overall, was giving a final edge to a knife, using a small oilstone which he kept in his top pocket.

  “A hearty eater, I should guess,” he said, glancing down at the body of the Archdeacon on the slab in front of him with as little interest as a butcher would have looked at a side of beef.

  “I believe so,” said James shortly. In the absence of Dr Barkworth’s regular assistant, he had volunteered to act as note taker and had already decided that he disliked the doctor. This was nothing to do with his attitude toward the dead, which was professional and to be expected. His dislike was instinctive and probably quite unfair.

  Dr Barkworth made the first incisions with practiced speed, exchanged the knife for a saw and started to cut away the rib cage.

  “Can you tell me,” he said, “had he been in contact with anyone down here lately?”

  James thought about it. He said, “I think I was told that he had been visiting in the port area. It was part of his pastoral duty.”

  “Ye-e-s. I thought he might have been.”

  Dr Barkworth had worked one of the lungs free and was holding it in his hand.

  “A beautiful colour. You can see that he spent most of his life in nice clean country vicarages. I had a docker in here not long ago. His lungs were so black with coal dust I wondered how he managed to breathe at all. Ah! I thought as much. Look there.”

  He poked a rubber-covered finger into the lung. “And there. Just what I was expecting. Massive edema.”

  The fluid in the lung tissue was apparent to the naked eye.

  “I don’t think we have to look very much further.” The satisfaction in Dr Barkworth’s voice was apparent. It was clear that he had made his diagnosis before he started the autopsy.

  “I suppose,” said James deferentially, “that we ought to have some of the other organs.”

  “That’s just like you youngsters from the London hospitals. You want to prove everything three times over. When there’s a clear case, why blur the edges?”

  “Professional caution, I suppose,” said James apologetically. He didn’t feel like apologising, but realised that he was in no position to command.

  “I suppose you’ll be suggesting next that we open the skull and take a look at his brain.”

  James would indeed have liked to suggest it, but saw that it was going to be counterproductive. He said, with a smile, “I’d be happy with less than that.”

  Dr Barkworth glanced at his watch. James thought that he was weighing the claims of a game of golf against the carrying out of a routine procedure which he had decided was unnecessary. Routine won. He sighed and picked up his knife again.

  He said, “Will you be satisfied with heart, liver and kidneys?”

  “That would be splendid,” said James. “And I can do the sections, if that would help.”

  “As long as you don’t want the brain,” said Dr Barkworth. “Most of the time it doesn’t prove a damn thing. When you’ve transcribed your notes, could you write me out a short report? I’ll have to bring the Health Authorities in on this. We don’t want an epidemic starting up. Though how they’re going to stop it, God knows.”

  “They’d have to isolate that area of the docks, I suppose.”

  “That’s their job, not mine,” said Dr Barkworth. He sounded more cheerful. It was someone else’s job.

  James got back to the Close at nine o’clock. He had snatched a meal on the way, and he was feeling spiritually empty and mentally depressed. It was a relief to sink back into the homely comfort of the Brookeses’ drawing room.

  It was the sort of room, he thought, that should have been lit by oil lamps. It was full of odd items of old furniture, many of them shabby but most of them good. Handed down, James guessed, from generation to generation. There was a mixed lot of dim family portraits and framed samplers on the walls, and on the shelf over the fireplace, among the photographs and china dogs, a pair of famille rose bowls.

  James, who knew something about china, was examining them when Dora Brookes came in with two cups of coffee. She said, “Aren’t they lovely? Henry gave them to me on one of the few occasions that he pulled off a really good property deal. I’m afraid he wasn’t cut out for commercial life. That’s why I was so pleased when we found our niche here. All the same—” she looked at her watch “—they seem to be working him overtime tonight. The Dean called an emergency meeting for seven o’clock, which gave Henry just time to bolt half his supper.”

  “I imagine they’ve got a good deal to talk about,” agreed James. “First Tom Lister and now the Archdeacon.”

  “Yes,” said Dora. There was a question she wanted to ask, but felt some hesitation about asking it. “They’ll be very short-handed until they can get two new Canons installed.” She stopped and listened. “I think that’s him now. I’ll get another cup of coffee.”

  The Chapter Clerk came in carrying a bundle of papers which he dumped on a side table. He looked tired. He said, “I’m not going to bother about business any more tonight. The Dean’s taken it all in his stride. He’s a wonderful man. I suppose the sort of life he’s led has made him more accustomed to crises than most of us.”

  Dora put her head around the door to say, “Do you want the rest of your supper?”

  “Certainly not. A cup of coffee and then bed.”

  “The Dean and Canon Humphrey are carrying on on their own, then?” said James.

  “With Canon Maude.”

  “Yes, of course. I’d forgotten Canon Maude.”

  “People tend to forget him,” said Brookes with a smile. “But I think he’s being as helpful as he can. It will mean double shifts of duty, of course, but some of the minor Canons will be brought in to help with the services.”

  “I was wondering what would happen,” said James. “I’m sure it won’t arise, but suppose, for instance, the Dean and Francis Humphrey were involved in a car smash so that there was no one left really capable of running things.”

  “Oddly enough, that was one of the matters we were discussing. The diocesan clergy could handle the services, but someone would have to be appointed as administrator to look after the financial side. The difficult question is who would make the appointment. The Archbishop would be the logical person, but I suggested that it might be the Bishop, in his capacity as Visitor of the Cathedral.”

  “A somewhat irregular visitor,” said James. “He never seems to be here.”

  “He’s a splendid person,” said Brookes loyally, “but he does spend a good deal of his time in travel round the Dominions.”

  “If he’d spent more of his time in the diocese,” said his wife, coming back with the coffee, “the Archdeacon wouldn’t have had to do so much of the pastoral visiting. What has been fixed about the funeral?”

  “The Archbishop has agreed that it would be appropriate to hold a joint service, followed by interment in the cloisters. That would be in accordance with tradition, you know. For many years now – unless, of course, there were objections from the family – Deans and Canons have been buried there.”

  James visualised the limited space available in the centre of the cloisters and was about to say something when Brookes, reading his thoughts, said, “Naturally, it is only the ashes that are interred nowadays. The bodies are cremated first.”

  His wife said, “Was anything else arranged?”

  “A number of routine matters, yes. The Dean is taking over the administrative functions of the Archdeacon for the time being. In which case I think we can regard any question of summoning the Greater Chapter to discuss the sale of Fletcher’s Piece as a dead letter.”

  “Excellent,” said Dora. “What about our friends, the Friends of the Cathedral?”

  The Saturday meeting had been abortive. The Dean had announced the death of the Archdeacon and had said that he felt certain that it would
be the wish of all concerned that the meeting should be adjourned. One or two people had looked as though they would have liked to say something, but the Dean had cut short the meeting by leaving the Chapter House.

  “The meeting stands adjourned.”

  “Indefinitely, I hope,” said Dora and picked up a piece of embroidery. It had been occupying her spare moments for the last two years. Brookes sipped his coffee. Silence fell. It was a silence which contained a question which, as James realised, both of them were now longing to ask.

  In the end it was Brookes who took the plunge. He put down his empty cup and said diffidently, “I wouldn’t want you to tell us anything if it was confidential or anything like that, but did your post-mortem examination give any possible explanation – any indication – of the cause of the Archdeacon’s death?”

  Dora’s needle had stopped moving through the tapestry.

  James said, “First I ought to explain that it wasn’t my post-mortem. I was only there as a spectator. However, I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t know what will be public knowledge soon enough, though you’d better not say anything until Dr Barkworth’s report is out. It’s his view that the Archdeacon died of influenza.”

  “Flu!” said Brookes. “But surely that’s most unusual. I mean—it was so rapid.”

  “When you talk about it as flu,” said James, “I agree that it sounds fairly harmless. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, all you’re talking about is a bad cold, with perhaps a bit of fever on top of it. But in the hundredth case, virus influenza can be quick and very deadly. You get a heavy discharge of fluid into the lungs and – to put the matter simply – you drown. We had a case last winter. A woman brought her children up from the country to take them to the zoo. She was perfectly all right until she got back to London Bridge station, when she collapsed. They got her into the emergency ward at Guy’s. She died that night.”

  Dora said, “I can remember my father – he was a warrant officer in the RAMC – talking about that epidemic they called Spanish flu. It killed hundreds of thousands of soldiers just after the end of the Great War. More than died in the trenches, they said. He told me that a man would come on parade in the morning completely fit and be dead before lights-out.”

  “But,” said Brookes, “this is terrible. How did it start? However did the Archdeacon come to catch it?”

  “There doesn’t seem to be much doubt about that. There have been three cases already, two of them sailors in a ship which had come from Singapore and one of them a docker who’d been unloading the ship. The Archdeacon had been down at Westport visiting the Dockland Settlement and talking to the men.”

  “Then it could be the start of a serious epidemic?”

  “If you mean another Spanish flu epidemic, no. We’re armed with antibiotics which weren’t available in 1918. In any event, forewarned is forearmed. The Medical Officer of Health has been alerted and he may be able to isolate the outbreak.”

  Dora said, “I’ll make you one prediction: people are going to feel sorry for some of the things they’ve been saying about the Archdeacon. He was a man who didn’t shirk his job. In fact, you might say that he died doing it.”

  “I’m afraid it won’t change the Dean’s opinion of him,” said Brookes sadly.

  Lately James had been sleeping well. That night he knew that sleep would not come easily. His mind was far too active. The instinct which guides a doctor, more surely than reason, told him that something was wrong. Certainly there had been fluid in the lungs. Certainly that suggested virus influenza. But there were a lot of things that didn’t fit into that diagnosis. However, was it any concern of his? He was not the doctor in charge of the case. He would not have to sign the death certificate. In fact, he had no official status in the matter at all. He felt an unaccountable desire to talk the whole thing over with Amanda. She had a clear and dispassionate way of looking at things. Even if he didn’t always agree with her conclusions.

  The Cathedral clock had struck two by the time he reached this point in his thinking and fell asleep.

  Twelve

  Next morning James walked over to the Deanery. He reached it as Penny Consett was coming out.

  She said, “If you’re looking for Amanda, you’re out of luck. She’s gone to Winchester.”

  “Shopping?”

  “I expect she’ll do some shopping, but it’s duty, really. She tries to go over most weeks to visit Nanny Hawkes. Not her nanny. Her father’s. She’s nearly a hundred, and as tiresome as they come. I went over with Amanda once and the old witch spent half the time complaining and the other half telling us what a nasty little boy Matthew had been.”

  It took a moment for him to realise that she was talking about the Dean. It was difficult to think of him as a nasty little boy called Matthew.

  Penny had fixed him with an artless blue eye. She said, “I don’t mind betting that if Amanda had been here, you’d have suggested that you went out and had a cup of coffee. Right? Well, as she isn’t here, suppose you suggest it to me.”

  James was on the point of inventing a plausible excuse when it occurred to him that Peter had been wrong. Penny wasn’t a man-snatcher. She was simply young and friendly. He said, “Let’s do that. Where shall we go?”

  “One thing Melchester isn’t short of is coffee shops. Let’s try the Busy Bee.”

  Since it was eleven o’clock, the Busy Bee was living up to its name, but they managed to find themselves a table. Unlike the Brookeses, Penny expended no finesse in getting to the point. She said, “You did the post-mortem on the Archdeacon, didn’t you? Don’t tell me any of the gruesome details, but did you find out why he died, or is it a state secret?”

  “It’s not exactly a state secret, no.”

  “But you don’t want to tell me because you think I’d repeat it all round the Close and probably get it wrong.”

  “That’s right,” said James.

  “Well, I don’t mind, because, whatever the answer is, I’m sure it’s much duller than what I was hearing at breakfast.”

  James tried not to look startled. He said, “Hearing from who?”

  “The boys, of course.”

  “And what is their view of the matter?”

  “You sounded a bit stuffy when you said that.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “They are quite certain that the Dean and Amanda organised the whole thing between them. The Dean put a drop of something in the Archdeacon’s coffee and Amanda handed it to him.”

  “I see. And have they any grounds for this startling idea?”

  “Naturally. The Dean has spent half his life in darkest Africa and India. He’d be certain to have come across one of those poisons unknown to science that you read about in books.”

  At this point the coffee arrived and the interruption allowed James to get his breath back. He said, “Do they actually believe this story?”

  “It’s difficult to say. Quite often, of course, they make up stories which sound exciting, but they don’t really believe them. This time I’m not sure. Mind you, this isn’t an anti-Dean platform. They much preferred him to the Archdeacon.”

  “Of course they did. He’s a romantic character. The virtues of the Archdeacon would have been less likely to appeal to them.”

  “I suppose he had some virtues, or are you just saying that because he’s dead?”

  “Certainly he had virtues. The main one was that he did his job. It’s all very well people telling us what nice men Dean Lupton and Archdeacon Henn-Christie were. If they’d been in charge of things a few years longer, the Cathedral would have been bankrupt.”

  “I suppose so,” said Penny doubtfully. “Oh, God! Here she comes.”

  James had his back to the room and was wedged so tightly behind the table that it was difficult to turn around. He said, “Who?”

  “That nasty little creep Rosa.”

  “Rosa Pilcher?”

  “That’s right. She’s pure poison. Amanda loathes her. And the
Dean hasn’t got much use for her either.”

  “Then why do they employ her?”

  “If they could get anyone else, they wouldn’t. For God’s sake! Look at that get-up! She might be the Archdeacon’s widow.”

  Rosa was in elaborate mourning. Her dress was black, her shoes and stockings were black and her hat had a black veil, thrown half back, under which a pair of malevolent eyes peeped out.

  It looked as though she was heading for their table, but at the last moment she saw two of her cronies and diverted her course toward them.

  “Do you think she saw us?” said James.

  “Of course she did. She’s got panoramic vision. Like a horse. She’s not only seen us, she’s already turning the information over in her nasty little mind to see whether she can make something out of it.”

  “You mean I’ve compromised you?”

  “That’s right,” said Penny.

  She didn’t seem to be worried.

  “I expect you’re giving Raymond Pawle a splendid obituary in your column,” said Sandeman. He managed to say this in a way which suggested, at the same time, that he didn’t care one way or the other about the Archdeacon now that he had been thoughtless enough to die and could, therefore, be no further use to them; and that he didn’t think much of the Melset Times either.

  “I’ve already written it,” said Driffield.

  “A handsome funeral oration?” suggested Gloag.

  “Plus a few facts. Did you know that before he was ordained, he actually qualified as an accountant?”

  “All clergymen should be trained as something else first,” said Gloag. “Broaden their minds. One heart.”

  Driffield said, “What were you trained as, Gerry?”

  “I broadened my mind by joining Her Majesty’s Territorial Forces,” said Gloag with dignity. “Are you saying anything?”

  “On these cards? Certainly not. No bid.”

  “In that case,” said Sandeman, “I shall venture to bid three no trumps.”