"How appropriate!" Grant said, and hung up. "Strange!" he said to Erskine. "If he isn't wanted, why lie low? If he has nothing on his conscience — no, he hasn't a conscience. I mean, if we have nothing on him, I should have thought the same lad would have been in your office by return of post. He'd do almost anything for money. Clay knew where to hurt him when she left him that shilling."
"Lady Edward was a shrewd judge of character. She had, I think, been brought up in a hard school, and the fact helped her to discriminate."
Grant asked if he had known her well.
"No, I regret to say, no. A very charming woman. A little impatient of orthodox form, but otherwise —»
Yes. Grant could almost hear her saying, "And in plain English what does that mean?" She, too, must have suffered from Mr. Erskine.
Grant took his leave, warned Williams to be ready to accompany him next morning to Canterbury, arranged for a substitute in the absence of them both, and went home and slept for ten hours. In the morning, very early, he and Williams left a London not yet awake and arrived in a Canterbury shrouded in the smoke of breakfast.
The accommodation address proved to be, as Grant had expected, a small newsagent in a side street. Grant considered it, and said: "I don't suppose our friend will show up this end of the day, but one never knows. You go across to the pub over the way, engage that room above the saloon door, and have breakfast sent up to you. Don't leave the window, and keep an eye on everyone who comes. I'm going inside. When I want you I'll sign from the shop window."
"Aren't you going to have breakfast, sir?"
"I've had it. You can order lunch for one o'clock, though. It doesn't look the kind of place that would have a chop in the house."
Grant lingered until he saw Williams come to the upper window. Then he turned into the small shop. A round bald man with a heavy black mustache was transferring cartons of cigarettes from a cardboard box to a glass case.
"Good morning. Are you Mr. Rickett?"
"That's me," Mr. Rickett said, with caution.
"I understand that you sometimes use these premises as an accommodation address?"
Mr. Rickett looked him over. His experienced eye asked, Customer or police? and decided correctly.
"And what if I do? Nothing wrong in that, is there?"
"Not a thing!" Grant answered cheerfully. "I wanted to know whether you knew a Mr. Herbert Gotobed?"
"This a joke?"
"Certainly not. He gave your shop as an address for letters, and I wondered if you knew him."
"Not me. I don't take no interest in the people who has letters. They pay their fee when they come for them, and that finishes it as far as I am concerned."
"I see. Well, I want you to help me. I want you to let me stay in your shop until Mr. Gotobed comes to claim his letter. You have a letter for him?"
"Yes, I have a letter. It came last night. But — you police?"
"Scotland Yard," Grant showed his credentials.
"Yes. Well, I don't want no arrests on my premises. This is a respectable business, this is, even if I do a little on the side. I don't want no bad name hanging around my business."
Grant assured him that no arrest was contemplated. All he wanted was to meet Mr. Gotobed. He wanted information from him.
Oh, well, if that was all.
So Grant was established behind the little tower of cheap editions at the end of the counter, and found the morning passing not so slowly as he had feared. Humanity, even after all his years in the force, still had a lively interest in Grant's eyes — except in moments of depression — and interest proved plentiful. It was Williams, watching a very ordinary small-town street, who was bored. He welcomed the half hour of conversation behind the books when Grant went to lunch, and went back reluctantly to the frowsy room above the saloon. The long summer afternoon, clouded and warm, wore away into a misty evening, and a too early dusk. The first lights appeared, very pale in the daylight.
"What time do you close?" Grant asked anxiously.
"Oh, tennish."
There was still plenty of time.
And then, about half-past nine, Grant became aware of a presence in the shop. There had been no warning of footsteps, no announcement at all except a swish of drapery. Grant looked up to see a man in monk's garb.
A high-pitched peevish voice said, "You have a letter addressed to Mr. Herbert —»
A light movement on Grant's part called attention to his presence.
Without a moment's pause the man turned and disappeared, leaving his sentence unfinished.
The apparition had been so unexpected, the disappearance so abrupt, that it was a second or two before mortal wits could cope with the situation. But Grant was out of the shop before the stranger was more than a few yards down the street. He saw the figure turn into an alley, and he ran. It was a little back court of two storey houses, all the doors open to the warm evening, and two transverse alleys leading out of it. The man had disappeared. He turned to find Williams, a little breathless, at his back.
"Good man!" he said. "But it isn't much use. You take that alley and I'll take this one. A monk of sorts!"
"I saw him!" Williams said, making off. But it was no good. In ten minutes they met at the newsagent's, blank.
"Who was that?" Grant demanded of Mr. Rickett.
"Don't know. Never saw him before as far as I know."
"Is there a monastery here?"
"In Canterbury? No!"
"Well, in the district?"
"Not as I knows."
A woman behind them put down sixpence on the counter. "Goldflake," she said. "You looking for a monastery? There's that brotherhood place in Bligh Vennel. They're by way of being monks. Ropes around their middles and bare heads."
"Where is — what is it? Bligh Vennel?" Grant asked. "Far from here?"
"No. 'Bout two streets. Less as the crow flies, but that won't be much good to you in Canterbury. It's in the lanes behind the Cock and Pheasant. I'd show you myself, if Jim wasn't waiting for his smoke. A sixpenny packet, Mr. Rickett, please."
"After hours," said Mr. Rickett, gruffly, avoiding the detective's eye. The woman's confidence was a conviction in itself.
She looked surprised, and before she should commit herself further Grant pulled his own cigarette case from his pocket. "Madam, they say a nation gets the laws it deserves. It is not in my weak power to obtain the sixpenny packet for you, but please let me repay your help by providing Jim's smoke." He poured his cigarettes into her astonished hands, and dismissed her, protesting.
"And now," he said to Rickett, "about this brotherhood or whatever it is. Do you know it?"
"No. There is such a thing, now I remember. But I don't know where they hang out. You heard what she said. Behind the Cock and Pheasant. Half the cranks in the world has branches here, if it comes to that. I'm shutting up now."
"I should," Grant said. "People wanting cigarettes are a nuisance."
Mr. Rickett growled.
"Come on, Williams. And remember, Rickett, not a word of this to anyone. You'll probably see us tomorrow."
Rickett was understood to say that if he never saw them again it would be too soon.
"This is a rum go, sir," Williams said, as they set off down the street. "What's the program now?"
"I'm going to call on the brotherhood. I don't think you had better come along, Williams. Your good healthy Worcestershire face doesn't suggest any yearning after the life ascetic."
"You mean I look like a cop. I know, sir. It's worried me often. Bad for business. You don't know how I envy you your looks, sir. People think 'Army' the minute they see you. It's a great help always to be taken for Army."
"Considering all the dud checks on Cox's, I find that surprising! No, I wasn't considering your looks, Williams, not that way. I was just talking 'thoughtless. It's a one-man party, this. You'd better go back to the aspidistra and wait for me. Have a meal."
They found the place after some search. A row of first
-storey windows looked down upon the alley, but the only opening on the ground floor was a narrow door, heavy and studded. The building apparently faced into a court or garden. There was neither plate nor inscription at the door to give information to the curious. But there was a bell.
Grant rang, and after a long pause there was the sound, faint through the heavy door, of footsteps on a stone floor. A small grill in the door shot back, and a man asked Grant's business.
Grant asked to see the principal.
"Whom do you wish to see?"
"The principal," said Grant firmly. He didn't know whether they called their Number One abbot or prior; principal seemed to him good enough.
"The Reverend Father does not give audience at this hour."
"Will you give the Reverend Father my card," Grant said, handing the little square through the grill, "and tell him that I shall be grateful if he would see me on a matter of importance."
"No worldly matter is of importance."
"The Reverend Father may decide differently when you have given him my card."
The grill shot back with an effect which might in a community less saintly have been described as snappish, and Grant was left in the darkening street. Williams saluted silently from some paces' distance and turned away. The distant voices of children playing came clearly from adjoining streets, but there was no traffic in the alley. Williams's footsteps had faded out of hearing long before there was the sound of returning ones in the passage beyond the door. Then there was the creak of bolts being drawn and a key turned. (What did they shut out? Grant wondered. Life? Or were the bars to keep straying wills indoors?) The door was opened sufficiently to admit him, and the man bade him enter.
"Peace be with you and with all Christian souls and the blessing of the Lord God go with you now and for ever, amen," gabbled the man as he shot the bolts again and turned the key. If he had hummed a line of "Sing to Me Sometimes" the effect would have been exactly similar, Grant thought.
"The Reverend Father in his graciousness will see you," the man said, and led the way up the stone passage, his sandals slapping with a slovenly effect on the flags. He ushered Grant into a small whitewashed room, bare except for a table, chairs, and a Crucifix, said "Peace be with you," and shut the door, leaving Grant alone. It was very chilly there, and Grant hoped that the Reverend Father would not discipline him by leaving him there too long.
But in less than five minutes the doorkeeper returned and with great impressiveness bowed in his principal. He uttered another of his gabbled benedictions and left the two men together. Grant had expected the fanatic type; he was confronted instead with the successful preacher; bland, entrenched, worldly.
"Can I help you, my son?"
"I think you have in your brotherhood a man of the name of Herbert Gotobed —»
"There is no one of that name here."
"I had not expected that that was the name he is known by in your community, but you are no doubt aware of the real names of the men who enter your order."
"The worldly name of a man is forgotten on the day he enters the door to become one of us."
"You asked if you could help me."
"I still wish to help you."
"I want to see Herbert Gotobed. I have news for him."
"I know of no one of that name. And there can be no 'news' for a man who has joined the Brotherhood of the Tree of Lebanon."
"Very well. You may not know the man as Gotobed. But the man I want to interview is one of your number. I have to ask that you will let me find him."
"Do you suggest that I should parade my community for your inspection?"
"No. You have some kind of service to which all the brothers come, haven't you?"
"Certainly."
"Let me be present at the service."
"It is a most unusual request."
"When is the next service?"
"In half an hour the midnight service begins."
"Then all I ask is a seat where I can see the faces of your community."
The Reverend Father was reluctant, and mentioned the inviolability of the holy house, but Grant's casually dropped phrases on the attractive but obsolete custom of sanctuary and the still-surviving magic of King's Writ, made him change his mind.
"By the way, will you tell me — I'm afraid I'm very ignorant of your rules and ways of life — do the members of your community have business in the town?"
"No. Only when charity demands it."
"Have the brothers no traffic with the world at all then?" Herbert was going to have a perfect alibi, if that were so!
"For twenty-four hours once every moon, a brother goes into the world. That is contrived lest the unspottedness of communal life should breed self-righteousness. For the twelve hours of the day he must help his fellow beings in such ways as are open to him. For the twelve hours of the night he must meditate in a place alone: in summer in some open place, in winter in some church."
"I see. And the twenty-four hours begin — when?"
"From a midnight to a midnight."
"Thank you."
Chapter 21
The service was held in a bare chapel, candlelit and white-washed, very simple except for the magnificence of the altar at the east gable. Grant was surprised by the appearance of the altar. Poor the brothers might be, but there was wealth somewhere. The vessels on the white velvet cloth, and the Crucifix, might have been a pirate's loot from a Spanish American cathedral. He had found it difficult to associate the Herbert Gotobed he knew by reputation with this cloistered and poverty-struck existence. Being theatrical to no audience but oneself must soon pall. But the sight of that altar gave him pause. Herbert was perhaps running true to form after all.
Grant heard no word of the service. From his seat in the dim recess of a side window he could see all the faces of the participants; more than a score of them; and he found it a fascinating study. Some were cranks (one saw the faces at «anti» meetings and folk-dance revivals), some fanatics (masochists looking for a modern hair shirt), some simple, some at odds with themselves and looking for peace, some at odds with the world and looking for sanctuary. Grant, looking them over with a lively interest, found his glance stayed as it came to one face. Now what had brought the owner of that face to a life of seclusion and self-denial? A round sallow face on a round ill-shaped head, the eyes small, the nose fleshly, the lower lip loose, so that it hung away from his teeth as he repeated the words of the service. All the others in that little chapel had been types that fitted easily into recognized niches in the everyday world; the principal to a bishopric, this one to a neurologist's waiting room, this to a depot for unemployed. But where did that last one fit?
There was only one answer. In the dock.
"So that," said Grant's otherself to him, "is Herbert Gotobed." He could not be sure, of course, until he had seen the man walk. That was all he had ever seen of him: his walk. But he was ready to stake much on his judgment. The best of judges were at fault sometimes — Gotobed might turn out to be that lean and harmless-looking individual in the front row — but he would be surprised if Gotobed were any but that unctuous creature with the loose lower lip.
As the men filed out after midnight, he had no more doubt. Gotobed had a peculiar walk, a gangling, shoulder-rotating progression which was quite his own.
Grant followed them out and then sought the Reverend Father. What was the name of the last man to leave the chapel?
That was Brother Aloysius.
And after a little persuasion Brother Aloysius was sent for.
As they waited Grant talked conventionally of the Order and its rules and learned that no member could own any worldly property or have communication for worldly purposes with human beings. Such trivial worldlinesses as newspapers were, of course, not even thought of. He also learned that the principal intended in about a month's time to take over a new Mission in Mexico, which they had built out of their funds, and that the privilege of electing his successor lay entirely with
him.
A thought occurred to Grant.
"I don't want to be impertinent — please don't think this idle curiosity — but would you tell me whether you have decided in your mind on any particular person?"
"I have practically decided."
"May I know who it is?"
"I really do not know why I should tell to a stranger what I am not prepared to tell to the brothers of my own Order, but there is no reason to conceal it if I may trust your secrecy." Grant gave his word. "My successor is likely to be the man you have asked to see."
"But he is a newcomer!" Grant said before he thought.
"I am at a loss to know how you knew that," the Reverend Father said sharply. "It is true Brother Aloysius has been with us only a few months, but the qualities necessary for the priorship" (so he was a prior!) "are not developed with length of service."
Grant murmured agreement, and then asked which of their community had been on an errand in the streets this evening.
None of them, the prior said firmly; and the conversation was brought to an end by the entrance of the man Grant wanted.
He stood there passively, his hands folded within the wide sleeves of his dark brown gown. Grant noticed that his feet were not sandaled but bare, and remembered that there had been no warning of his approach when he had presented himself in the newsagent's. The looker-on in Grant wondered whether it was an appearance of humility or the convenience of a noiseless tread which appealed so greatly to Herbert.
"This is Brother Aloysius," the prior said, and left them with a blessing, a much more poetic performance than the doorkeeper's.
"I am from Messrs. Erskine, Smythe, and Erskine, the lawyers in the Temple," Grant said. "You are Herbert Gotobed."
"I am Brother Aloysius."
"You were Herbert Gotobed."
"I never heard of him."
Grant considered him for a moment. "I'm sorry," he said. "We're looking for Gotobed about a legacy that has been left him."
"Yes? If he is a brother of this Order, your news will be of little interest to him."
A Shilling for Candles ag-2 Page 17