It took Kelsey several years to learn to live with and overcome the feeling he had been to blame for his father’s death. One step he took towards dealing with that guilt was to leave the law profession. He had entered it, he eventually came to admit to himself, solely to please his father, not from any love of the law. He had despised every day he spent talking to clients and preparing briefs. He was still a young man. He went to Drexel University in the city and got his degree in library science. His first love had been books and he still loved being around them, feeling them, talking about them, introducing them to others, especially the young.
Now, many years after his father’s death, at peace with himself over that paternal death, nearing middle age himself, Kelsey spent much of his time in the library at Saint Alban’s, the library named for his grandfather, Artemas Quentin, a man who had most probably never read a book in his life.
Kelsey opened the iron gate as he left the property of Saint Alban’s this morning, then gently closed it behind him. He looked up at the church, then at the top floor of the parish house where the sexton, Tom Benson, lived. Finally his eyes moved in a straight line to the upper floor of the rectory to the rooms once occupied by the Reverend Paul Mowbray, who had met a violent death here only the day before. Kelsey was worried. As he walked away, his head lowered, he thought about the murdered man. He had been fond of Father Paul and would miss him.
Kelsey thought, too, of the letter once intended for him which his father had read. It had been a long time since he had thought about the young man he had met in Key West. Why was he suddenly thinking about it today? After all these years? There was good reason. He thought of another, newer, letter--one he saw only a few days ago which had reached the wrong person, the person for whom it was never intended in the first place. He thought to himself: A missive or a missile. A letter or a bullet. They both can be fatal.
“It really was somewhat serious,” he said aloud as he stopped in the middle of the street. “So why…? Why did I get to see it?”
A taxi blew its horn. The driver stuck his head out the window and bellowed, “Hey, ya stupid sonovabitch, get outta the street!”
Kelsey jumped, then hastily walked to the other side. He was frowning. “Maybe. I wonder… I wonder if those two young people Grace Everett says are detectives… what they would think of this more recent letter? I wonder if they would connect it with Paul’s death?”
CHAPTER XI
Pat and Phillis pulled open the large oak gothic door and entered Saint Alban’s church. Inside, they were unable to see at first after leaving the blinding daylight outside. Their eyes gradually became accustomed to the darkness. They passed through the small vestibule which separated the front door from the narthex of the church and pushed open a pair of swinging doors. Sunlight was pouring in through the stained-glass windows, casting multi-colored streaks across the rows of pews. They stopped midway down the aisle. There was now no sign that a crime had been committed there, save for the slightest lighter shade of the slate floor. Obviously it had been scrubbed thoroughly.
“Look at those windows! They’re absolutely magnificent, aren’t they,” Pat said as he looked upwards. “The detail, especially that one, the one with Mary Magdalene washing the feet of Christ. The nuances, not usually found in most stained glass in this country. They’re a combination of stained glass and painted glass. That’s what gives you the fine details. See, in the hem of Christ’s robe, the simple thin line of red, delicate, almost bordering on pink, and in the flesh tones. They’re not your cheap mixture of pink and yellow you ordinarily find. I suspect the artists who created these windows used two thin layers of glass in order to get some of these shades.”
He shifted his view towards the vault overhead. “Who would have thought,” he whispered. “See the vault where it meets the supports of the side aisles? The wood is hand-cut and set into the stonework. You know, Phil, I haven’t seen a church this beautiful since I was in Europe and I’ll even go so far as to say that, apart from the massive cathedrals, like the ones in France and Germany, I didn’t see many that could compare favorably to this one, a perfect Gothic, Anglo-Catholic example, if ever I saw one. I doubt if there are very many churches nicer than this in all of England.”
They began to walk down the aisle towards the sanctuary railing and stopped. Pat put his hand on her arm.
“My God, look at that pulpit! It’s carved from one piece of marble. See, the Apostles around the bottom and above them the symbols of the four Evangelists: The Winged Man, the Lion, the Ox, and the Eagle. And, there! the window behind the main altar. The Final Judgment. It’s… it’s… I’ll be damned if it isn’t… isn’t breathtaking! A veritable glass version of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment.”
Phillis had to admire the window also. Unlike Pat, she was less impressed with such things. He had been the one who had traveled across Europe studying churches, visiting museums, going to art galleries, planning on becoming an architect. She realized she couldn’t appreciate these things as much as he did, but she could enjoy watching him enjoy them.
They stood studying the window which ran level with the top of the main altar to the pitch of the sanctuary, some forty-five or fifty feet overhead.
They were there for several minutes when Pat finally spoke. “Shall we?” He pointed to a door on their left, past a small altar with a statue of Saint John over it. He opened the door, which led to a long corridor of stone walls with gothic leaded windows and flagstone floor running parallel to the nave of the church. They stepped out into this cloister, then turned right and went up three steps into a room lined with shelves and overhead cabinets. In the middle of the counter was a sink.
“This, in case you did not know it, dear sister, is what is known as a sacristy,” Pat announced.
“You don’t have to be patronizing. You know, I attended catholic school in Texas for a while. My aunt sent me there hoping the nuns would be able to do something with me. I was there for only a short time, until I got into trouble with one of the nuns and was thrown out. I have seen a sacristy before today.”
“Sorry, didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. There’s a chapel in back. Let’s take a look.”
They walked over to the arched doorway of the chapel and stopped dead in their tracks. Straight ahead of them was an altar with reredos completely covered with gold.
“Phil! That’s not gold leaf we’re looking at, do you know that?” Pat asked. “It’s gold! Real gold. Hammered and applied to every inch of that altar. Do you have any idea what that must be worth? Not to mention you probably couldn’t have it reproduced, even if you could afford it. And that window behind it. Every bit as magnificent as the one in the main church. It’s the Blessed Virgin surrounded by saints. And…” Here, he spun around in a complete circle, “…those frescoes. Look!” He walked to the nearer side, his left, to get a better look at them. “They’re all titled. This one is ‘The Annunciation,’ then ‘The Visitation,’ and ‘The Nativity of Jesus,’ and ‘The Presentation in the Temple.’ The workmanship is stunning. I’m not so sure Michelangelo’s frescoes are that much better. Over here, on the other side, ‘The Losing of Jesus in the Temple,’ and ‘The Wedding Feast at Cana,’ and ‘The Crucifixion’ and ‘The Pieta.’ Not to mention the ceiling, ‘The Assumption into Heaven.’ I won’t insult your intelligence, sister dear, but we are standing in what is known as the Lady Chapel. But, I suppose you know that.”
“Sarcasm again,” she mumbled.
“You know, I’d like to come back here and study this place a lot more. I had no idea a church this beautiful existed in Philadelphia.”
They retraced their steps through the cloister and back into the main church.
“There’s a door over there,” Phillis said and pointed to a mate to the one through which they had just come. They walked over to it and tried it. It opened onto what seemed to be a garden. They stepped out and into the shade of a large oak tree.
“This is no garden,” Pat said
. “It’s a cemetery. Look at those old tombstones,” he added as he walked to the nearest one.
“Watch where ya step!” a voice growled at them. Pat immediately jumped back.
The voice was encased in a short, rotund woman’s body wrapped in a blue denim apron, with ruddy face equally round, head covered with a once-yellow straw hat to which had been attached a solitary once-pink silk rose, but was now accompanied by wilted lilac, daisies, and a single sprig of Italian parsley. “Don’t walk on that there grass,” the lecture continued. “It’s new. No need ta kill it ‘fore it’s time, I a’ways says. Who’re you?”
She had been sitting under the oak tree and it was evident to both Phillis and Pat that they had interrupted her mid-morning nap. She rolled over onto her side, then onto her knees, and managed to get to her feet. She stood facing them with a turned-in wrist on each hip.
Pat was briefly taken aback, a feeling he rarely felt and did not like. “If it’s any business of yours, we’re visiting Saint Alban’s as guests of Father Sieger. You take care of this cemetery?”
She stared at him, brushed away a slip of white hair that had blown down onto her blotchy red face, looked down at his shoes, then ran her eyes up past his broad shoulders to his face with its fine features, his jet black hair and dark brown eyes. She took a deep breath and finally answered him. “I do. And do a damn good job of it, if ya aks me. There’s those who don’t like the way I do things, but they can all kiss me ass, all I care, let me tell ya. If you don’t like it, you can do the same, too!”
“I was asking only because it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a garden kept this well,” he said to her, realizing she was the mysterious Beatrice they wanted to meet. He was using his best smile few could resist.
It worked. Her face lit up brighter than the sun shining all around them and reflecting off the white stone bed around the base of the oak tree behind her. “Father Sieger, he pays me t’work here and take care a’ the place. I don’t take charity from no one; that you can put in your hat. No sir, Beatrice Mulrooney nee O’Brien--that nee is French, means me maiden name, in case ya don’t know it--don’t take no handouts.” She sat down again on one of the benches, wiped her forehead with the back of her forearm, and began fanning herself with her hat.
He stepped closer to her. “Tell me something, Beatrice. You like Father Sieger, don’t you?”
She turned a suspicious eye towards him. “What’s that s’pose to mean?”
“Just that I think you’d like to help him, if he needed help, right?”
“He’s been good ta me.”
“Right. And that’s why we’re here, to help him, too. With Father Mowbray’s death, he needs help now more than ever before.”
Her face was set straight ahead, but her eyes were glaring at him from their corners. “So?” she growled.
“So, we were talking to the police, Detective Worton, a few minutes ago. He told us you saw someone come to visit Father Mowbray yesterday afternoon, about the time he was killed. A young man by the name of Sherrill Rothe. We’d like you to tell us something about him: what you know about him, how often he came here, where he and Father Mowbray went. Things like that.”
She leaned back, suspicion stretched across her face. She looked at both of them. “You cops? If you are….”
They immediately assured her they had no connection with the police.
“We are friends of Father Sieger’s,” Phillis told her. “We just want to find out what the police won’t tell us, and you’re the only one we can turn to right now. We need your help, Beatrice.”
“I seen him,” she said after thinking about it for several seconds. “He got here ‘bout half afta two, maybe a bit earlier. I know the time ‘cause I go by the clock in the bank near City Hall. It rings nice and clear, ya know. It rang two as a real fancy lady got outta a cab an’ went inta the church. Don’t know who she was, but I seen her before. Somethin’ about her face was real familiar, if ya know what I mean. Anyways, a while later, maybe twenty, thirty minutes later, that Rothe lad, he came round that corner down that end.” She pointed towards the gate to the church grounds on Sycamine Street, the gate which opened onto the path leading up to the rectory door.
“Was he alone?” Pat asked.
“Alone, all right. And dressed like he was goin’ someplace importan’, a fancy ball ya might say. Anyway, he struts up there and knocks on the rect’ry door and I see it open a few seconds later. And that young one goes inside.”
“Describe him to us, would you?” Phillis asked.
“Won’t see twenty-five again,” she said and chuckled. “Good lookin’ one, let me tell ya. The kind that useta be afta me when I was young. I was pretty, ya know. All the boys useta be afta me. He reminded me a’ Johnny Thorndike, he did. His father was president of a bank and belonged to that stuffed-shirt Union League. He wanted me to go out with him one evenin’ but his old man, he got wind and put his foot down. I weren’t good nuff for his son, don’t ya know.”
“I suppose you see a lot of things, working here in this garden,” Phillis said.
“I see ‘nuff. There’s plenty I see, that people don’t know I see, and know what people do, what they don’t know I know, let me tell ya. Let them police find out what they needs ta know themselves, they thinks they’re so damn smart. Only told them ‘bout that Rothe fella in the first place on accounts right’s right and no one has the right to murder no one. Not that I had a great love for Father Paul, no sirree. ‘Count of him, I ain’t got no home no more.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Phillis asked.
“Never mind. Take my word for it, that’s all.” Beatrice looked down at her feet. “That priest, ‘stead of helpin’ people, he was the reason I ain’t got no home, no place to stay.”
“Did that Rothe fellow come here often, Beatrice?” Pat asked, convinced they weren’t going to get any more details for the moment why she blamed Father Paul for having her evicted from her home.
“Often nuff.” She was still addressing her feet.
“How do you know his name?” Phillis asked.
Beatrice’s indignation took over. She raised her head and glared at Phillis. “You callin’ me a liar? I don’t tell no lies. Aks anybody. Anybody ‘cept that Leslie Victory. He wouldn’ say a nice thing ‘bout his own mother, that one. I know the name. One day, them two, Father Paul and that young man, they was standin’ right there near the iron fence no more’n ten feet away and Father Paul--he could be the perfect gent when he wanted t’be, for a priest, that is--he calls me over ta the fence and induces me to his friend. Says I take care a this here garden, real nice like he says it, and tells his friend how fond he was a me. That wasn’t no more’n a few weeks before he gets me thrown out onta the streets. An’ that there young man, know what he done? The next day?”
Pat shook his head.
“He went and sent me a note, that’s what he done. A real note, all typewritten and all. Here, I carry it with me all the time. A poem, they tell me. Don’t know zactly what it means, but they tell me it’s real pretty. A lim’rick, that’s what they calls it. Who wouldda thought someone who could write a poem would go an’ kill someone?” She took out a small piece of paper and handed it to him.
Pat took the paper, now so blackened with handling that the typewritten words were barely visible, and read aloud:
There once was a church gardener name Beatrice
Who tended its cemetery in our Metropolis..
As she guarded the headstones,
And protected the old bones,
Said, ‘I guess you can call me the Necropolice.’
He gave it back to her, then said, “Have you been here long, at Saint Alban’s?”
“Long before you was born. I useta come here with me grandmother when I was no bigger’n that there new sprig of holly bush over there. Ah, those were the days round here. Father Lowell, he was rector back in those days. He knew how ta run a church, let me tell ya! Ah, not that Fa
ther Sieger don’t do a good job of it. He does, I guess, but… well, there’s things, let me tell ya, go on round here that would turn a body’s hair white in a minute, if ya know what I’m talkin’ ‘bout. There’s those who ain’t right, shouldn’ be here, ya know. A church ain’t for ev’rybody, let me tell ya. I learned that from my grandmother, the self-same who useta bring me here. She a’ways useta say, ‘No sirree, the church ain’t for ev’rybody, me darlin’ Beatrice, and there’s those who have no business bein’ in it.’ She’da said as much ‘bout that there organist they have here nowadays. Thinks he’s better’n ev’ryone, with all them hymns he’s playin’ allatime.”
“I gather you’re not fond of hymns, Beatrice,” he said teasingly.
She became indignant. “Why ya say that? I like a good hymn much as the next person. I just don’t think they belongs in church. There be places for all that singin’, but not in a church, that’s what I say!”
“And you’ve been taking care of this garden since you were a young girl?” Phillis asked.
“Me? Not on ya life! I had a career in show business, sorta. It weren’t ‘til a couple a years ago that I come back here. That’s when Father Sieger offered me this position, as gardener. He--”
The church door which led onto the cemetery opened. Father Sieger came out. “I see Beatrice has been showing you our cemetery,” he said to his guests. “It’s quite a historical place. The first three rectors of Saint Alban’s are buried here, as well as the founding fathers. One of Philadelphia’s most famous sons of the Civil War is also with us. It’s sort of a mini-history of the city in the past two centuries.”
“Father, that phone call you just got, it was from someone named Leslie,” Pat said.
“Leslie Victoire. He’s my nephew. Lives nearby on Rittenhouse Square.”
“There was a letter in Father Mowbray’s desk addressed to someone also named Leslie. Could be a coincidence, but I don’t usually like coincidences. Could it be the same Leslie?”
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