Holy Disorders

by Edmund Crispin

  ‘Where are you going first? We don’t want our interviews to clash. What a silly waste of energy,’ said Fen in a pained voice. ‘Interviewing everyone twice. We’re going to Garbin.’

  ‘All right,’ said the Inspector. ‘Then I’ll see Mrs Butler. It doesn’t seem to matter much what order one takes them in.’

  ‘I wish,’ put in Geoffrey, ‘that you could do something about the landlord of the Whale and Coffin.’

  ‘Do something, sir? Do what? Arrest him because he happened to know your Christian name? God love us,’ said the Inspector with feeling, ‘the things people expect one to do.’

  ‘Farewell, Inspector, and God ’ild you,’ said Fen. ‘We meet,’ he added grandiosely, ‘at Philippi.’

  ‘Colney Hatch, more like,’ said the Inspector.

  Parting, however, was not to be yet. They were interrupted by the bustling advent of Canon Spitshuker, greatly out of breath.

  ‘Wanted to catch Mr Vintner,’ he gasped. ‘Music…organist…services.’ He paused to recover himself, and went on more coherently: ‘Since the terrible events of last night, the duties of Precentor have temporarily devolved upon me. Mr Vintner’ – he paused and wiped his forehead with a large purple handkerchief – ‘it will, in view of the circumstances, be said Mattins this morning –’

  The Inspector interrupted. ‘Good heavens, sir,’ he said aghast, ‘you’re not proposing to hold your service this morning as usual?’

  ‘My dear Garratt, of course.’

  ‘But really, sir, after what has happened –’

  A tinge of impatience came into the Canon’s voice. ‘The Church does not suspend the worship of God on any and every pretext. And if ever there was a time when our prayer and praise were needed, surely it is now.’

  ‘Praise!’ The Inspector’s voice was unexpectedly bitter.

  ‘My dear Inspector, I have simply not the time to argue with your doubtless ridiculous notions about God allowing evil, and so forth. Now, Mr Vintner –’

  ‘But look, sir.’ The Inspector was mildly exacerbated. ‘There’s the mess – the confusion…’

  ‘That has all been cleared up.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Our cleaners have dealt with it. There is only the slab to put back.’

  ‘God have mercy,’ said the Inspector. ‘The things people do behind one’s back.’

  Canon Spitshuker looked faintly puzzled. ‘I fear it was done on my authority. Surely…surely I have done nothing wrong?’

  ‘You may have destroyed valuable evidence, sir.’

  ‘It could hardly be left, though, could it, Inspector?…Dear me.’ Spitshuker seemed perturbed. ‘And I never dreamed…Still, what’s done’s done.’

  ‘No use crying over spilt milk,’ put in Fen tediously.

  ‘And now, Mr Vintner: sung Evensong at three-thirty, and the choir will be at your disposal at two. Poor Brooks had his practices in the old chapter house – there is a good piano there. Now let me see.’ He felt in a pocket and produced a bundle of service sheets, among which he scrabbled unsystematically until he found the one he wanted. ‘For this afternoon we have down Noble in B Minor, and Sampson’s Come, My Way. All quite familiar to the boys, I think.’ He thrust the sheaf at Geoffrey. ‘The music for future services is noted here. I leave it to you to make any alterations that you think fit.’ He made movements of hasty departure.

  ‘One moment, sir.’ It was the Inspector. ‘Did you say you’d made arrangements to have the slab put back?’

  Perturbation and alarm again appeared on Spitshuker’s rubicund face. ‘I have, certainly, though if you think it will destroy evidence…’ (Was there a hint of sarcasm in his voice? Geoffrey wondered.) ‘Still, it would hardly be desirable to hold Mattins with the tomb gaping open, would it?’ He smiled innocently.

  ‘If it hasn’t been done already, sir, I should like to be present. There are certain tests I wish to make.’ The Inspector’s manner was markedly stiff and official.

  ‘By all means. By all means.’ Spitshuker looked agitated. ‘I promised to superintend the work myself.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘But we must hurry. Mattins is in less than an hour.’

  In the cathedral they found a group of men gazing at the fallen slab without enthusiasm, under the eye of the Verger. For the first time Geoffrey was able to examine properly the tomb of St Ephraim. From the space beneath the spire, where the transepts joined the main body of the cathedral, a short flight of steps led up into the chancel; but the stalls of the choir, and of the cathedral officers, were placed some way further to the east, beginning just below the organ-loft. Beneath the Bishop’s Gallery, hollowed from the wall, was the cavity of the tomb. The fallen slab normally filled it. In its edges were embedded iron rings, corresponding with others in the edges of the slab, so that when this was in position a large padlock could be passed through each pair to hold it firm. The cavity, though quite shallow, was about ten feet in length and six in height, and the slab was proportionately thick. Amid a good deal of premonitory groaning, it was hoisted upright, and eventually, with titanic efforts, lifted into its cavity. It fitted quite loosely, Geoffrey noticed, the lower edge between two and three feet from the ground, the upper some six feet higher. The Inspector had a chair brought and stood on it, motioning the men away with one hand and holding the slab in position with the other. Then with infinite slowness and caution he withdrew his hand. As yet unanchored by its padlocks, the slab swayed ever so slightly, delicately poised on its narrow base; but it showed no sign of falling of its own accord. The Inspector grunted.

  ‘Wouldn’t take much to topple that out,’ he said. He got down from the chair.

  Fen had been unwontedly silent and attentive during these proceedings. Geoffrey stepped back and spoke to him. ‘Explosive charge inside?’ he asked. ‘Even though the slab doesn’t fit exactly, the tomb would be pretty well air-tight.’

  Fen shook his head. ‘There’d be obvious traces. Any sort of mechanism’s out of the question for the same reason.’

  Geoffrey glanced up to the Bishop’s Gallery above. ‘Could it be pushed out, by a long pole or something from there?’

  Again Fen shook his head, and pointed. ‘That projection would stop it. And besides, think of the complications. Very unlikely. And you’d still have to account for how the person concerned got out of the cathedral. The wall between the Bishop’s Gallery and the organ is solid brick, remember.’

  ‘I think I know,’ said Geoffrey, ‘how someone could have got out of the cathedral.’ Mentally, he fondled his cherished Idea. Fen gazed at him kindly.

  ‘You mean Peace, of course. Just after the crash we find him wandering on the other side of the cathedral. Why shouldn’t he just have come out, locking the door after him, and throwing away the key in case anyone should take it into his head to search him? Why indeed? The only snag is that it doesn’t fit in with anything else we know about the case.’

  Geoffrey was peeved at having his thunder stolen; he made obstinate mental reservations, highly unwilling to have his Idea thus facilely disposed of. But he made no comment, since the Inspector was about to make another experiment. The group of men who had hoisted the slab into position, and who had been hanging about since exhibiting that gentle, inane interest in the goings-on of others which is one of the mainstays of the English character, showed as he explained his intentions stupefaction and gloom. He was proposing, in fact, to allow the slab to fall out again.

  This, however, was a more difficult operation than at first appeared, chiefly because the slab rested quite flat in its cavity and offered no projection by which it could be pulled. Eventually, the Inspector inserted a steel ruler into one side, and standing as far clear as he could, used it as a lever. Slowly the great stone moved, toppled. They watched in frozen silence. The fall at first was slow, rapidly gathering a tremendous momentum. Just before it reached the horizontal, Geoffrey noted, the lower edge came away from the shelf on which it rested. And the terrifying, s
tealthy silence of it! In a moment it lay flat on the ground, the chair which had been left beneath it crushed to splinters.

  The noise of the impact was shattering, and yet…Somehow, Geoffrey thought, it was different from what he had heard the previous evening. The deadening effect of walls and doors might account for the disparity, but it was not exactly that. Perplexed, he watched the herculean heavings and groanings begin anew; perplexed, he saw the six padlocks inserted to hold the slab in position, and the remnants of the chair cleared away. The Inspector, apparently satisfied, made off on his own. Fen and Spitshuker, engaged in conversation, were walking towards the door. After a last look round Geoffrey joined them.

  ‘…A few questions,’ Fen was saying as they came out into the sunlight, ‘which I hope you won’t regard as impertinent.’ The apology was conventional, and sounded it. ‘And I think you ought to know,’ he added, with an unwonted spasm of honesty, ‘that I’m no longer collaborating with the police.’

  Spitshuker clucked simultaneous dismay and assent. ‘But my dear fellow…of course. The police have thrown over your offer of assistance?’ He made clicking noises with his tongue. ‘Scandalous, scandalous.’ This, too, seemed a trifle less than sincere. ‘Of course I will answer any questions. If you wish, I will walk with you towards Garbin’s house. I am “in residence” at the moment, so I have to say Mattins, but that is not for half an hour yet.’ He gathered his short coat about his portly little figure, and walked down the cathedral hill with them.

  ‘Mainly about times,’ said Fen. ‘Six o’clock, and ten to ten-fifteen yesterday evening.’

  Spitshuker looked up quizzically. ‘You are trying to establish alibis,’ he stated with evident enjoyment. ‘I have none for six o’clock. I was alone in my room, working, at that hour. My housekeeper was in the house, but she cannot possibly vouch for me.’ He seemed to regard this as a matter for some pride. ‘Between ten and a quarter-past I was talking to the Inspector in the clergy-house drawing-room. About seven I had set out with Garbin to dine at the clergy-house, and after dinner, when Dallow had given us the terrible news about poor Brooks, we held our little conclave – Dallow, Garbin, Butler, and myself.’

  ‘Ah, yes.’ Fen was pensive. ‘I’m interested in this meeting.’

  ‘Unofficial. A purely unofficial affair. Of course the Dean and the Bishop have been communicated with, and are returning at once.’ The parenthesis confused the Canon, and he paused doubtfully. ‘The meeting was called when there was, as yet, no question of murder, merely this…accident which had occurred to Brooks, and which necessitated a little rearrangement among ourselves. We had intended, as it were, to clear the ground a little before the Dean returned. I fear that nothing very useful was said. The greater part of the meeting was taken up by a squabble between Dallow and Butler about the legal and financial position of the resident organist, and by some unavailing attempts at armchair detection on the part of Garbin.’

  ‘Not a very brotherly affair, in fact?’

  ‘There was, perhaps, a slight undercurrent of unfriendly feeling.’ Spitshuker hesitated, himself somewhat taken aback, one fancied, by this flagrant understatement. ‘Nothing, of course, was decided – about anything.’ He smiled faintly. ‘The upshot of it was Butler’s announcing that fatal intention of going up to the cathedral and stopping there alone. Had we not been in such a te— had we considered a little, I should say, we should probably not have allowed him to go.’

  ‘The meeting ended at what time?’

  ‘About ten to nine, I should say. Yes, that would be it.’

  ‘And did anyone else in the house know of Dr Butler’s intention?’

  ‘Everyone, I fancy. He met Frances in the hall, talking to Peace on some trivial matter, as he went out, and informed them. Dutton, I think, was lurking about, too.’

  ‘I thought he went early to bed,’ Geoffrey interposed.

  ‘Dutton, I suspect, does not go to bed without extensive preliminary reconnoitring.’ Spitshuker nodded his approval of this cryptic comment. ‘At all events, there he was. I remember noticing him when Butler was arranging to meet Peace up at the cathedral –’

  ‘When what?’

  Spitshuker was all mild-eyed innocence. ‘You didn’t know? To discuss some business matter, I think it was. Butler suggested that Peace should follow him in about twenty minutes’ time and Peace agreed, but I fear we sat so long talking together that it was close on ten o’clock before he –’

  ‘Oh, my dear paws!’ Fen exclaimed. ‘Oh, my fur and whiskers! I knew it. I knew something of the sort –’ He checked himself, and asked urgently: ‘What happened to everybody after the meeting broke up?’

  Spitshuker considered. ‘Dallow and Garbin, as far as I know, went straight home, Butler to the cathedral. I think Frances went to her room with a book. Dutton somehow faded out of the picture. I walked with Butler as far as the gate which leads from the clergy-house garden on to the cathedral hill. I thought he seemed moody, depressed, and a little nervous. I remember that as we stood chatting at the gate he picked a four-leaf clover to put in his buttonhole, which surprised me, because he was always inveighing against such superstitions. But as I say, he appeared nervous. Then I went back and talked to Peace.’

  ‘We know about all that,’ said Fen. ‘Savernake?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. He disappeared immediately after dinner, I fancy.’ Spitshuker looked at his watch. ‘You must forgive me if I turn back now. I hope I have been of assistance.’ He smiled and, suddenly, was gone.

  Fen seemed little inclined to talk as they walked on; conceivably he was reflecting on what he had heard. Geoffrey, too, reflected, but without much enlightenment, and fell to wondering at the general lack of extreme distress over the Precentor’s death. If Spitshuker had been labouring under a burden of emotion, he had not shown it.

  ‘Curious,’ said Geoffrey, ‘that all the Butler family should have been in Germany before the war.’

  ‘It has its interest,’ Fen replied. ‘But for all we know, everyone here may have been in Germany. Spitshuker was instructive, don’t you think?’

  Geoffrey frowned ponderously. ‘Possibly,’ he said with judicial caution. ‘He went off in a hurry. Were you going to ask him anything else?’

  ‘One or two things,’ said Fen non-committally. ‘Whether he was an accomplished church musician, for one.’

  ‘Good heavens, why?’

  Fen grinned. ‘That surprises you? It’s half a shot in the dark, so I don’t wonder. By the way, you might scribble down what people say they were doing at crucial times. It’ll be useful for reference. I don’t think it’s much use trying to pry into alibis on the night Brooks was attacked in the cathedral. If people weren’t in bed alone all night, then they ought to have been.’ He frowned puritanically.

  Garbin’s house and garden were pervasively humid and melancholy. The first characteristic, in view of the unexampled brilliance of the weather, it was difficult to account for; but no other word would describe the listless, damp impression made by the overgrown flower-beds and drooping foliage which greeted Fen and Geoffrey as they turned in at the gate. In this riot of greenery, through which struggled an occasional misguided and feeble blossom in search of the light, Niobe must surely have wandered, all tears. Even the singing of the birds was without spirit, a mere dejected gurgle.

  And the house was no better. Its grey walls seemed to sweat dampness. Large; Victorian, and ugly, its windows stared upon the world with frank misanthropy. Were it not attached to his prebend, surely Garbin would not live in it. And yet a subtle affinity existed between the man and the house, a fundamental dull seriousness of outlook, and behind this a complacent if melancholy resignation to things as they were. So at least it appeared; but Geoffrey reminded himself that, here and now, no appearance could be trusted.

  Mrs Garbin opened the door to them, dressed in a suit of drab chocolate-brown. If she was surprised to see in Geoffrey her travelling companion of the day before, she gave no si
gn of it. Her husband, she said, was working; not, one gathered from her tone, at anything that was ever likely to be the slightest use to anyone, even himself. No doubt he would be delighted to see them; it was one of the penances of a clergyman’s life that he must always be available to anyone who chose to call; fortunately, he had nothing else to occupy him.

  To this underhanded series of attacks, Fen replied mono-syllabically. Before they were taken into Garbin’s study he did, however, stop to say:

  ‘You must feel Dr Butler’s death as a great loss.’

  The woman paused. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘A very great loss indeed – to ourselves. It is possible that others may not be so greatly affected.’

  ‘A popular man, I thought.’

  ‘A man of strong personality, Professor. And you know what is commonly meant by personality – an obstinate blindness and lack of consideration. There were, of course, antagonisms.’

  ‘Serious antagonisms?’

  ‘That, of course, it is hardly my business to say.’ She paused. ‘The Romish practices of Canon Spitshuker –’

  ‘And the scholarly rivalry of your husband…’

  She put a hand on the banisters. The pallor of her face was perhaps a little accentuated. ‘You had better go in now.’

  Garbin’s study was a large room, unpleasantly panelled in dark pine. Massive mahogany furniture and bookcases added to the gloom. A dark brown carpet was on the floor. There were worn armchairs and a rack of pipes and a pallid bust of Pallas – or more probably of some dead ecclesiastic, since both sex and features were indistinguishable in the crepuscular light – in a niche above the door. And there, great heavens – Geoffrey felt the sense of unreality which one has immediately on waking from a vivid dream – was a raven. It perambulated the desk with that peculiar gracelessness which walking birds have, ruffled its feathers, and stared malignantly at the intruders.