Holy Disorders
Page 25
‘You might be able to explain these people’s psychology to us,’ Fen suggested.
‘Not any longer,’ said Peace firmly. ‘I’m giving all that up and going into the Church.’
They stared. ‘The Church!’ they all exclaimed.
Peace seemed mildly hurt at their incredulity. ‘It seems the best way out of my doubts,’ he explained. ‘And I confess I’ve always thought the life attractive.’
So there was no more to be said about that. But Fen was still worrying the question of psychology.
‘James one can understand,’ he said. ‘He had a purely mercenary motive. Savernake, too – he was the superficially clever type to whom Fascism makes an immediate appeal. But Frances…she was in Germany, of course, but that doesn’t mean anything. I suppose we shall never know now.’
For the first time, Dallow spoke. ‘Isn’t it possible, my de-ear Professor, that there may have been something in the blood?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She was of Tolnbridge blood on her father’s side – a very old family in these parts. And there were real witches here – they were not all Elizabeth Pulteneys. I always think’ – he glanced apologetically at Peace – ‘that psychology is wrong in imagining that when it has analysed evil it has somehow disposed of it.’
‘Then she was—’
‘Witches ally themselves with the forces of the Devil wherever, and however, they appear. It isn’t just a matter of participating in the rites of Walpurgis Night, nor of killing the neighbour who has slandered you. There is political evil as well.’
‘She made her sister a witch,’ said Geoffrey.
‘It has always been done. The mother initiates her daughter; neighbours, sisters each other…’
There was a long silence.
‘One thing struck me,’ said Fen at last, turning to Geoffrey. ‘Do you remember when she met us, just after seeing her own father killed?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did anything particular strike you about her?’
‘I thought she seemed happy.’
‘Yes. I think she was.’
There was again silence. From the lawn below, where Garbin and Spitshuker were pacing together, fragments of argument floated up.
‘It seems to me that when you insist on regarding the Old Testament simply as a historical record of the search of the Jewish people for God you are falling into the Marcionite heresy. Marcion…’
‘You’ve made no attempt to answer my point about the literal interpretation of Genesis…’
‘My dear Garbin…’
Towering beyond the garden stood the cathedral, restored again to quiet and worship, abandoned to the ghosts of Bishop John Thurston and Elizabeth Pulteney – requiescant in pace! The sky was clouding over, and a fresh wind presaged a gale later. But it was a clean, strong, cool wind.
Fen, who had finished packing, put on his raincoat and his extraordinary hat.
‘Come on, Geoffrey,’ he said. ‘We’ve got to catch this train, and we must look in on Fielding on the way. How is he, by the way?’ he inquired of the Inspector.
‘Better,’ said the Inspector. ‘That C.I.D. chap Phipps has been talking to him, and I think promised to try and get him some routine office job connected with the counter-espionage. He’s not well enough to bounce about with joy yet, but he would if he could.’
‘Some people,’ said Fen, ‘simply never learn from experience.’ He moved towards the door.
‘I still think,’ said Geoffrey, following him, ‘that as detection this business simply won’t do.’
Fen turned in the doorway. ‘It wouldn’t but for one thing.’
‘Well?’
‘You remember Spitshuker told us about Butler picking a four-leaf clover at the gate from the clergy-house garden into the cathedral grounds? After Butler had decided to go up to the cathedral, Frances, according to her own account, went straight up to her room. Even if she had looked out she couldn’t have seen at that distance what her father was doing. And we know that he wasn’t in the habit of wearing four-leaf clovers in his buttonhole. So when she met us and told us he was wearing one, do you see, that rather gummed up the works. If she knew he was wearing it, she must have been at the cathedral. And if she was at the cathedral she must – mustn’t she? – have seen him die.’
About the Author
Robert Bruce Montgomery was born in Buckinghamshire in 1921. After graduating from St John’s College, Oxford in 1943 he was a member of a famous literary circle including Kingsley Amis and Philip Larkin. Under the pseudonym Edmund Crispin, he wrote nine detective novels and forty-two short stories. In addition to his reputation as a leader in the field of mystery genre, Montgomery was a successful concert pianist and composer, most notably penning the score for the well-known Carry On series.
Montgomery became a regular crime-fiction reviewer for the Sunday Times from 1967, contributing to many periodicals, newspapers and edited science-fiction anthologies. After the golden years of the 1950s he retired from the limelight to live in Totnes in Devonshire until his death in 1978.
Also in this series
The Moving Toyshop
Love Lies Bleeding
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Footnotes
Chapter 5: Conjectures
fn1 This is outrageous – tantamount to accusing me of invention. The knot does of course exist, is known as the sheet bend, and is much used in climbing. – E.C.
Chapter 14: In the Last Analysis
fn1 See pp. 154 and 211.
fn2 See p. 5.
fn3 See pp. 107 and 138.
Chapter 15: Reassurance and Farewell
fn1 Vain hope. – E. C.