And Simon Ark… Well, I never saw him again after that night, but I have the feeling that he’s still around somewhere. …
THE HOUR OF NONE
“SOMETIMES,” SIMON ARK TOLD me one night, “the greatest evil is found in the midst of the greatest good. Perhaps Satan is never more successful than when he gains control of a truly holy man.”
I lit a cigarette and peered off into the darkness around us. “But isn’t that a contradiction, Simon?” I objected. “If a man is really holy, he will never fall under the devil’s power.”
“ ‘Holy’ means ‘dedicated,’ and is not always a sure guide to the goodness of a dedicated person. No, sometimes the holy are turned aside from goodness without foreswearing their dedication… If you are free this weekend, I would like you to accompany me to the monastery of Saint John of the Cross, in West Virginia.”
“A monastery? You mean with monks and everything?”
“Yes,” Simon smiled in the darkness, “with monks and everything.”
“You know I’m not a Catholic, Simon; they wouldn’t even let me in the place.”
“The monastery is open on weekends for those wishing to visit and pray there. They do not ask your religion.”
I thought about it and blew smoke into the darkness. “What’s up, Simon? I know you well enough by this time to be mighty suspicious of these casual weekend trips you suggest.”
“I do not really know myself,” he replied. “I only know that there is something very evil at the monastery of Saint John of the Cross, and I am needed there.”
I was hooked again, and I knew it. Whatever the evil was at a monastery in West Virginia, I knew I would be with Simon Ark when he confronted it. …
The monastery, when we reached it early Saturday afternoon, consisted of a half-dozen sprawling stone buildings, linked together by covered passages that converged on the central structure, a small but detailed replica of a Spanish mission church. It was surprising to find such architecture this far east, and somehow the whole thing appeared incongruous, nestled as it was in a green valley of the Allegheny Mountains.
We were not too far from the town of Mount Storm, just south of the Maryland state line, and the rolling peaks of the mighty Alleghenies were beautiful to behold in the late August sunlight. I thought as I looked upon them that here was truly summertime—the summertime of Shakespeare and Gershwin.
The fat little monk who met us at the door seemed to blend perfectly with the setting. He was the embodiment of all the Friar Tucks and Father Browns who had ever walked the pages of literature, and somehow he belonged here among the gently waving of trees and the rounded mountain peaks.
“Good morning,” he said, with a voice that fitted his body perfectly. “I am Brother Richard. Welcome to Saint John of the Cross.”
We introduced ourselves and followed him down a long, arched hallway, and somewhere in the distance I could hear the low murmur of many voices raised in a hymn to God. This was a world that was foreign to me and even the cool, faintly musty odor of the air seemed to press in on all sides.
Presently, our guide paused before a thick oak door which swung open at his touch. “Father Michael, we have visitors.”
The man called Father Michael rose from behind a cluttered desk and held out a hand in greeting. “Visitors are always welcome here. Do you intend to remain long?”
“Only for the weekend, Father,” Simon Ark replied. “We come in search of inner peace.”
“I hope you have come to the right place,” the monk said. “There are many here seeking the same thing.”
“You have other visitors?”
“No, only the priests and brothers of the order. But we always have room for more. Brother Richard will show you to your room.” He spoke with such an air of absolute kindness that my former misgivings all but vanished. Certainly these people seemed friendly enough, and they were not trying to convert me to their religion—at least, not yet.
The guest room to which we were led was in an adjoining building. It was well, if plainly, furnished with twin beds and straight-backed chairs. I doubted if the monks themselves had things as good, and the thought brought back familiar pictures of ancient priests copying books by hand in tiny cell-like rooms.
Brother Richard turned at the door and gave us a final smile. “If you wish, you may join us for None.”
I puzzled over this for a time and finally asked Simon, “What did that mean?”
“Just a group of prayers that are said in the early afternoon. Various religious communities have different rules, but this one apparently follows the Rule of Saint Benedict.”
I grunted and slipped off my suit coat. “Well,” I sighed, “I guess a couple of days of prayers won’t hurt me too much. But I wish you’d tell me the real thing that brought you here.”
“First I must locate a Brother Ling. It is he I really came to see.”
“Ling? Chinese?”
“Yes. The Order maintains several mission schools in China, or did so before the coming of the Communists.”
“How do you know this man Ling is here?” I glanced around for some sign of an ash tray and found none. For a moment I hesitated, and then lit a cigarette anyway.
“He wrote me a letter,” Simon Ark said, very slowly.
“A letter…?”
From the distance came the slow tolling of a bell, and Simon rose from the bed. “Come,” he said. “It is the Hour of None.”
I followed him out of our little room. Already in the distance we could see the cowled figures of the monks gathering near the central chapel. They said hardly a word as we moved among them, and I wondered if they were allowed to talk. Brother Richard and Father Michael had spoken to us, though, so I decided that they could.
Above us, the sun was still high in the sky, though it had shifted to the west and gave promise of soon starting its slow decent. Somehow the brightness of its rays seemed to contrast with the drab hooded figures who were now all around us. Already they were beginning to move into the house of worship, and Simon and I must have stood out in our wrinkled summer suits.
Then, as we were on the very steps of the chapel, there came a shouted voice from above, crashing through the silence like a pistol shot.
“Simon Ark!” the voice shouted clearly.
Simon and I looked up quickly, and several of the monks did likewise.
High above us, in the tower of the chapel, a single-robed figure stood. At first he seemed to be actually standing on air, and then I realized with horror that he wasn’t standing at all; he was falling.
He was falling out of the tower, directly over our heads. There was a scrambling as we rushed to escape his falling form. Then we heard the low moan, that wasn’t quite a scream, escape from the plunging man’s lips, and suddenly cease as his body hit the steps.
We were around him at once, but already it was too late and several of the priests were murmuring the words of the last rites of the church.
Next to us someone whispered, “It’s Brother Ling. …”
I looked at Simon’s face, but I could tell he already knew. He had found the man he was seeking. …
“He was murdered,” Simon Ark was saying, an hour later, as we sat with the Abbot General of the order in a small office in one of the buildings. “He was pushed from the tower by one of your order.”
The Abbot General was a big man, well past his middle years, who sat and listened to Simon’s words with an expression of immense sadness. “I am an old man,” he replied at last, “and these people are like my sons. I know each of them as I do the back of my own hand. I know their strengths, and I know their little weaknesses. But they are men of God. They would not—could not—kill another human being.”
“Perhaps not,” Simon Ark agreed, “but Brother Ling wrote to me because he feared for his life, and that fear had its roots in this monastery.”
The three of us were alone in the Abbot General’s office. In another part of the monastery, the ho
oded men were praying for the departed soul of Brother Ling; but here we were discussing the immediate results of the death. Simon Ark’s offer of his services had not been at once accepted by the Abbot General, but when Simon mentioned the letter from Brother Ling he could not be turned down.
“Why would he write to you?” the Abbot General asked.
“We met once, many years ago, in China. He apparently heard I was in New York and wrote that he wished me to visit him.”
The old man across the desk shook his head. “If he had a problem, he would have taken it to me, or to one of the other priests. He would not consult an outsider.”
“Perhaps, for this problem, an outsider would have been better,” Simon replied. “And Brother Ling knew that I was a priest of sorts at one time.”
The Abbot General frowned. “You, a priest? What do you mean, at one time? Either you are now, or you never were.”
“It is a very long story, Father,” Simon Ark sighed. “Too long to tell even in any of our lifetimes. And, you would most likely not believe it anyway.”
“If you told me the truth, I would believe it.”
Simon Ark closed his eyes, and somehow it seemed that he was seeing further than anyone had ever seen before. “Would you believe it if I told you I walked the sands of Africa with Augustine, and talked with Aquinas on the road to Naples, and visited John of the Cross in the monastery at Ubeda?”
The priest’s face broke into a slight smile. “No, I suppose I wouldn’t. But I will believe what you tell me about Brother Ling. Show me this letter.”
Simon Ark hesitated and then dropped his hands to a pocket. “Here. I received it a few days ago in New York.”
The Abbot General took the letter in hands that seemed to shake slightly. “I recognize the writing. It came from Brother Ling all right. ‘My dear Simon Ark— It has been many years since we shared those days in Hong Kong, and you may be surprised to learn that I am now in your country (your adopted country, at least). In fact, I am very close to being ordained a priest in the Order of Saint John of the Cross. I wish, Simon Ark, that you could visit me here this weekend. There is something here I do not understand, or perhaps understand too well. It may be that your old enemy Satan is walking among us, in the mind of one of my friends. My own life is very possibly in danger. I will tell you more when I see you…’ ” His voice trailed off as he reached the letter’s ending.
Simon Ark took back the letter and folded it carefully. “Will you help me now?”
The Abbot General rose from his chair and walked over to the tall narrow window that looked out into the central patio. “You believe the devil is here?” he asked, without looking at us.
“Brother Ling believed it.”
“You believe that one of my priests is actually possessed of the devil?” His voice had dropped almost to a whisper, and I could tell he was being greatly moved by the tormenting thoughts of his mind.
“Holy men have been tempted before,” Simon Ark replied. “The temptation of Saint Anthony has been the subject of scores of paintings, and Satan once appeared to Saint Ignatius in the guise of a snake with multiple eyes. Even Christ Himself was tempted by the devil.”
The old man turned to face us. “As Shakespeare wrote, ’Tis one thing to be tempted, another thing to fall.’ I said that I knew my priests, and I do. None of them, not one, could be tempted to the point of committing murder.”
“Father, do you know what an energumen is?” Simon asked.
“An energumen? That was a name used during the Middle Ages for those possessed of evil spirits.”
“Correct. There have been many other names for such people down through the pages of history. They are the lost ones, the damned ones. They are always with us, but they are not so easily recognized in the modern world. In the Middle Ages, possession was quite often linked to insanity, and madmen were thought to have the devil within them.”
“But I repeat,” the Abbot General said, “that none of these are either mad or possessed.”
“Would one final bit of proof convince you?”
“What is it?”
“I found this clutched in the right hand of Brother Ling. It’s a tassel such as you all wear at the end of the white cords around your waist. Apparently he pulled it from the robe worn by his killer.”
The old man studied the tassel carefully. “All right,” he sighed finally. “What do you want to know?”
“How many monks do you have here?”
“Thirty-nine priests at the present time, and sixteen lay brothers. Of course the figure sometimes varies from week to week.”
“No other visitors?”
“None.”
“Did any of them know Brother Ling before he came here?”
The Abbot General hesitated for a moment. “No, except for the three who returned from China with him.”
Simon Ark’s eyes sharpened. “Which three?”
“It was in all the newspapers. Three of our order were captured by the Chinese Communists some six years ago. They were held prisoner, tortured somewhat—the usual things. Recently, with the change in Communist policy, they were released and returned home. Brother Ling met them in Hong Kong and accompanied them on the trip.”
“All three of them are here now?”
The Abbot General smiled through wrinkled lips. “We are not a large order in this country, sir. This is our only monastery in the United States. They are here.”
Simon Ark frowned and gazed at the cold stone walls of the little room. “Where were these three at the time Brother Ling…fell from the tower?”
“That is difficult to say. You noticed, of course, the cowls our people wear over their heads. When they were entering the chapel these unfortunately serve as almost a mask. It is impossible to place anyone definitely on the steps or in the chapel at the time of the tragedy.”
Simon Ark continued frowning and I knew that he was faced with a delicate problem. “How long do we have before the police arrive?”
“The state police? I called them only as a matter of routine, to report a death. Since I didn’t specify a murder, they might take an hour or longer to get here. We’re quite isolated, you know.”
“Perhaps the whole thing can be handled in a quiet manner,” I offered. “I know you wouldn’t want it known. …”
The Abbot General smiled. “I have yet to be fully convinced that one of my people is responsible. If it proves to be true, I am sure the Church will be able to withstand the bad publicity.”
Simon Ark gave me a sideways glance. He seemed to hesitate before proceeding. Finally he said, “My friend, you are not a Catholic, and this whole thing might be difficult for you to understand, but there is one point I must raise with the Abbot General.”
“Don’t worry about me,” I told him. “I’m neutral when it comes to religion.”
“Neutral?” the Abbot General asked, puzzled.
“It doesn’t mean anything to me,” I explained. “I can take it or leave it. I don’t commit sins, so I don’t need to go to church; so go ahead and talk.”
Simon and the priest exchanged glances, but I could not read the meaning of it. Presently Simon sighed and began to talk. “Well, unless I’m mistaken, all of your priests will have to celebrate Mass tomorrow morning, and all the lay brothers will receive Holy Communion. …”
“That’s right!” I said. “It’s Sunday tomorrow.”
The Abbot General smiled. “At a monastery, every day is Sunday. Mister Ark’s point is that the guilty person will have to go to confession, or commit still another serious sin.”
“I hardly think that would bother him now,” I remarked.
“It might,” the Abbot General said, “but I can’t see how that would help us. He might go to any one of thirty-nine priests for confession, and of course they could not reveal his identity.”
I frowned at this. “I’ve heard a lot about the seal of the confessional and all; but certainly in a case like this, involving priests,
some exception would be made.”
“Hardly,” the Abbot General replied briefly. “Some other method must be found to identify the guilty person.”
Simon Ark pointed to the tassel that rested on the desk in front of us. “Perhaps we could see who is missing one of those.”
The Abbot General agreed and rose from his desk. “It’s worth a try.”
We followed him out of the office and into the long, shadowed hallway. Presently we were on a balcony looking down at the assembled monks, and Simon Ark asked, “Who are the three from China?”
“One is Father Michael, whom I believe you met when you arrived today. The others are Father Joseph and Father Mark. Here’s Father Joseph now. …”
A tall, thin monk was approaching us; he had a worried look on his face. My eyes sought out the tassels of his white cord, but they were both in place.
“Is it true what they are saying about Brother Ling?” he asked the Abbot General, ignoring our presence. “They say he might have been pushed from the bell tower.”
The Abbot General introduced us before replying, and then answered the question. “It is a possibility. Simon Ark here has kindly consented to investigate it.”
“Father Joseph, I understand you knew Brother Ling in China,” Simon said.
“That is true. After the Communists…released us, we met Brother Ling in Hong Kong and returned here with him.”
“I would like to speak to you privately about that, if the Abbot General will excuse us.”
“Certainly,” the old man replied. “Use my office. I must go now and speak to the others.” I watched him walk away from us, like a shepherd hurrying to tend his flock. He was a good man, I realized, and good men are not often met these days, especially by people like me who spend most of their waking hours in the steaming jungles of Manhattan.
Simon Ark and Father Joseph entered the little office together, and I hesitated, wondering if I should follow. Finally, Simon motioned me in, and I closed the door behind me.
“Tell me, Father,” Simon began, “just what happened over there in China?”
“You mean when we met Brother Ling?”
The Judges of Hades Page 3