Laetitia Rodd and the Case of the Wandering Scholar

by Kate Saunders

  ‘A thousand pardons, my dear, but I was too wrought-up to go home,’ he said, when I joined him. ‘I came here directly from a meeting with the Home Secretary – no, not waving a full pardon, but he has agreed to postpone the trial; there’s been another murder!’

  ‘What – who?’

  ‘You’d better sit down and have some brandy.’

  ‘Is it someone I know?’ I dropped into the Windsor chair he had drawn up close to the fire. ‘Who, for pity’s sake?’

  ‘Gerard Fogle,’ said Fred.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Found dead in his bed this morning. Smothered with a pillow.’

  ‘Dear God!’

  ‘I’m sorry, Letty – but isn’t it delicious?’

  ‘No! There’s nothing remotely “delicious” about any murder.’

  ‘But don’t you see?’ my brother demanded. ‘A second corpse at Swinford puts the first in a whole new light! Our defendants cannot possibly have been responsible for this one. Naturally, I tried to convince the Home Secretary to release Barton and Mrs Somers at once, but it is far too soon for anything of that sort. And his hands are rather tied until the coroner has given his verdict.’

  ‘Gerard Fogle! Tell me slowly. When is the inquest?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’ Fred glanced up at the clock on the shelf. ‘I mean, today.’

  ‘How did you hear about it so quickly?’ I rubbed my forehead distractedly, as if this would calm the turmoil in my mind; the murder of such a controversial and celebrated churchman would be an enormous sensation. No wonder Fred was gleeful.

  ‘My chap at Scotland Yard told me, as soon as the news came by express. Never was half-a-crown a week better spent!’

  ‘How can they be sure Mr Fogle was murdered – smothered, you say – and did not die of natural causes?’

  ‘Apparently it was only too obvious,’ said Fred. ‘The man’s eyes and mouth were gaping open, there were livid bruises across his chest and on his hands. And there are some uncanny similarities to last time – I mean, the morning they found Arthur Somers.’

  ‘At what time was Mr Fogle’s body discovered?’

  ‘A quarter past six. He failed to turn up for some ghastly early-morning service in that chapel of theirs. This time, there were a number of weedy young clergymen staying in “cells” at the old stables. One of them ran back to the house and found the body. The doctor who examined it later had no doubt about the cause of death.’

  ‘Do you know who was in the house that night?’

  ‘The house was only sparsely populated – two elderly manservants, one coachman in an outbuilding.’

  ‘Someone could easily have broken in, and killed Fogle without being heard.’

  ‘I daresay, but I don’t know anything more. You must go back to Oxford. Find out who bumped off Fogle. I’d bet any money it’s the same man who did for Arthur Somers.’

  ‘But where is the connection?’

  ‘Oh, come on!’ cried Fred joyfully. ‘Two clergymen found horribly murdered in the same place? That’s enough of a connection for me!’

  Twenty-four

  Two youthful policemen stood in the lane at Swinford, the modern equivalent of angels with flaming swords. They had orders to admit no one, and it was easy to see the sense of this, for the small, dull village was swarming like a hill of ants. My carriage could take me no further than the Red Dragon, the nearest inn of any consequence, more than a mile from the rectory. The inn yard and the surrounding roads were jammed with carriages of every size, the smoky saloon bar was packed with reporters from the newspapers, and all was noise and confusion. This murder had caused a sensation across the country, and I was in the eye of the storm.

  ‘Is Inspector Blackbeard here?’ I asked the policemen. ‘Please inform him that I wish to speak to him. I don’t mind waiting, but I won’t leave until I have seen him.’

  One of the policemen hurried up the lane and reappeared in a few minutes with Blackbeard beside him. ‘So here we are again, Mrs Rodd!’

  ‘Good morning, Mr Blackbeard. You are not surprised to see me.’

  ‘I don’t have any surprise left in me, ma’am.’ He was closely buttoned into a long brown coat, and wore a battered brown hat that was just the right side of respectable. ‘I daresay you want a little peek at the scene of the murder.’

  ‘If you please, Inspector; I promise not to disturb anything.’

  ‘Well, seeing as you’ve come all this way … ’ said Blackbeard.

  He nodded at the two policemen, who immediately stood aside to let me pass. Blackbeard and I walked together towards the rectory – woefully turned inside-out, as I saw from across the small village green, with windows agape and two more policemen at the front door.

  ‘I’ll be candid with you,’ said Blackbeard. ‘I haven’t a single suspect; not one.’

  ‘Did you receive the letter I sent you about Mr Rivers?’

  ‘I received it, and I have read it.’

  ‘Well – what do you make of it?’

  ‘Not much, ma’am,’ said Blackbeard. ‘But Mr Rivers did indicate a possible motive; there’s been some funny doings here that any number of folks might want covered up. I’d like to know what Fogle knew.’ A glint of humour briefly appeared in the depths of those hard, suspicious grey eyes of his. ‘I must say, I’m thankful you didn’t come right at me with “I told you so”!’

  This made me smile in spite of myself. ‘I shall take that as an admission that you’ve changed your view of Mr Barton and Mrs Somers.’

  ‘They ain’t off the hook yet, Mrs Rodd. They’re still in the picture where Somers is concerned. But this is a different kettle of fish. If you’re looking for a motive, half the country was against that man.’

  ‘That is perfectly true,’ I said. ‘I have been studying the newspapers. One Low Church bishop is even claiming that Mr Fogle was struck down by Heaven, as punishment for his High Church opinions. And one publication this morning has called it the “First Oxford Movement Murder”. But ecclesiastical squabbles don’t get people murdered, Inspector – or the nation’s clergy would all have killed each other years ago.’

  Before we entered the rectory, Mr Blackbeard asked one of the policemen, ‘Where are the vicars – still praying in the stables?’

  ‘Yessir.’

  ‘Best place for them,’ said Blackbeard. ‘Keep them out of my way for as long as you can.’

  ‘Yessir.’

  ‘Five vicars, Mrs Rodd! All shrieking and shivering like wet hens! And that’s only the vicars who were present on the fateful night. At least twenty more vicars turned up this morning, to pray over Fogle’s coffin.’

  ‘So the coroner released the body,’ I said. ‘I would very much like to see it, if you would permit me.’

  ‘Not possible, ma’am; I told ’em to put the lid on.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I had to,’ said Blackbeard. ‘You wouldn’t credit what they wanted to do with that corpse!’

  ‘What do you mean, Mr Blackbeard?’

  ‘The vicars wanted him left open, clutching his beads in his fingers, and I don’t know what.’

  ‘Mr Fogle had a great fondness for the rituals of the Roman Catholic Church, and took great comfort from them,’ I said. ‘Let us not be prejudiced.’

  ‘Hmm,’ the inspector said shortly. ‘I have nothing against Catholics, I assure you. They’re often Irish and can’t help it. I’ll tell you what’s rubbing me up the wrong way – some of them vicars are making out that the corpse was a saint.’

  ‘Surely not!’

  ‘One of them says to me that Fogle’s body was so holy, it didn’t give off a bad smell! I said they couldn’t smell anything in that place on account of all the smoke.’

  ‘Smoke? Oh, you mean incense.’

  ‘Whatever they call the stuff, Mrs Rodd, it’s another obstruction put in my way.’

  ‘This talk of saints is very silly,’ I said. ‘But only to be expected, when Gerard Fogle had such a devoted foll
owing. My impression of the man was that he was only too human.’

  ‘I was present at the inquest,’ said Blackbeard. ‘And I can assure you, ma’am, that he smelt just like any other corpse, when it’s in a crowded room on a warm day.’

  ‘I can quite believe it, Inspector.’

  We walked into the red-brick rectory through the open door. Here I was once more, in the bare and gloomy hall where I had first met the murdered man. The tiled floor was now criss-crossed with muddy footprints. The solemnity of the atmosphere took hold of us both; we walked upstairs in silence and Blackbeard removed his hat.

  Mr Fogle’s bedchamber, on the first floor, was white and empty, and of a penitential plainness. There was a narrow bed, with a crucifix nailed to the wall above it, and a prie-dieu before a sort of shrine in one corner, where there were spent candles and a small brass Calvary. An open door showed a dressing room with a large tin bath in the middle of the floor.

  ‘I haven’t let them touch the bed,’ said Mr Blackbeard. ‘It’s near enough like when he was found.’

  I turned my attention to Mr Fogle’s bed, a disordered tangle of sheets and blankets; a place of violent struggle and death. I said a short prayer to myself for the repose of his soul.

  ‘I have read a rather imperfect account of the inquest,’ I said. ‘Who discovered the body?’

  ‘One of the vicars, a young chap named Yates,’ said Blackbeard. ‘It was before dawn and pitch dark. Mr Yates knocks and gets no response. So he goes in with his candle and sees Mr Fogle lying there with a pillow over his face.’

  ‘And the servants heard nothing?’

  ‘Not a squeak, ma’am. But they’re both elderly and hard of hearing.’

  ‘Were there any signs of a break-in?’

  ‘None that I could see – which is not to say that it didn’t happen. They don’t lock doors or windows here like they should.’

  ‘I see. Thank you, Mr Blackbeard.’

  We left the room in silence. When we were halfway down the stairs, the sound of singing suddenly broke out from the direction of the old stables; a mournful chant in medieval plainsong. Mr Blackbeard said nothing, but seemed to harden all over with disapproval.

  I could quite see how the torrent of piety was hampering his investigation. The patch of green outside the old stables was dark with clergymen, all kneeling, hands clasped in prayer, and all droning out some dismal Latin incantation. Even in the open air, the reek of incense (Mowbray’s ‘Rosa Mystica’) from the chapel was overpowering.

  ‘No wonder they can’t smell him,’ said Blackbeard. ‘You couldn’t smell a crate of bad fish in there.’

  I was a little shocked by my desire to smile at this dour observation, and we retreated into the house. The door to Mr Fogle’s study stood open and I asked the inspector’s leave to take a rapid look around it before I left.

  The room was exactly as I remembered, yet the atmosphere had changed somehow and there was a great serenity. I had a vivid sense of the sweetness that is true holiness, when all wickedness, all sorrow has been shed away; I believe that such a thing as a ‘state of grace’ exists, and this was what I felt here.

  The desk was bare, save for a tidy pile of paper in the middle of the blotter.

  ‘Sermon,’ said Blackbeard. ‘You can read it if you like, ma’am. I couldn’t get through it.’

  I picked up the unpreached sermon and read the heading: ‘For I Acknowledge My Transgressions and My Sin is Ever Before Me; The Holy Sacrament of Confession.’

  I folded the papers carefully and stowed the bundle in my pocket; Mr Blackbeard did not appear to know the value of what he had given me. This was nothing less than the saint’s last sermon; the chanting clergymen outside would be outraged to see the precious document in my unhallowed hands.

  There were six sheets, closely written on both sides, and I was not at all surprised that Mr Blackbeard had been unable to finish it. Fogle’s style was flowery, dense with scholarship, and of a medieval severity that must sometimes have puzzled his parishioners.

  Love must be without flesh, for all flesh is of the earth, and in flesh resides our downfall.

  I read it over the little fire in my private parlour at the Mitre, after an excellent supper of beefsteak pie, and nearly nodded off at several points. There were no great revelations; he had not known that this sermon would be his last.

  Redemption will only come with true and wholehearted contrition. And contrition will be incomplete, unless the sinner surrenders every atom of self-will. He can never justify his sinful actions, even if the outcome of those actions appears to be a good one. Human creatures may ‘make allowances’ when judging their imperfect fellow-humans. God, in all his stern perfection, will not.

  It was a very solemn thing, to remember that the author of these implacable words now stood himself in the light of that ‘stern perfection’. I said a prayer for his soul and stowed his last sermon carefully in my glove-box.

  Twenty-five

  The following afternoon, as I was finishing a long letter to Fred, a waiter came to the door of my little upstairs parlour at the Mitre, to inform me that Mrs Watts-Weston requested an interview.

  Before I could instruct him to show her up, the lady herself pushed him aside and swooped into the room.

  ‘My dear Mrs Rodd, how splendid to see you!’ She righted her eternally lopsided bonnet. ‘I ran here the very moment I heard you had come back to Oxford. I know you have come because of the murder at Swinford; I have always maintained that there was something sinister about that place.’

  Well, I had not expected to keep the Gorgon out of my affairs for long, and at that moment I was very glad to have her company. I told the waiter to bring us some tea and invited her to sit down beside the fire.

  It was some time before I could seize hold of the conversation. First I had to hear her denunciations of the Catholic revival in general and Swinford in particular.

  ‘My husband says Gerard Fogle had a baleful influence upon his young followers, but you’ll find many people who venerate his supposed “holiness”. The news of the murder divided the whole of Oxford; we are all back in our factions, Mrs Rodd, and the atmosphere is simply savage; High Church set against Low Church, liberals against conservatives, and countless dinner parties ruined! My husband and I consider ourselves to be “Broad Church” and above petty sectarianism, but that doesn’t do us any good; it simply means that we annoy everyone.’

  I made the tea, thinking how I had missed Mrs Watts-Weston’s rattling powers of conversation, quite content to listen to her.

  ‘My husband is to preach the sermon in the University Church this coming Sunday, Mrs Rodd; it will be widely reported and he is anxious to strike a note of reconciliation.’

  ‘Very proper,’ I said.

  ‘He feels that the Church must show a united front. He utterly refuses to speculate about the murder, and is peevish with me when I speak of it. My belief is that it was a robbery, although I’m sure there is nothing in that dreary house worth stealing. The one bright spark in the whole business is that it calls into question the guilt of Barton and Mrs Somers; you must be very happy about that.’

  ‘As happy as I dare to be. They have not yet been exonerated. I have actually reached the point of praying for witnesses.’

  ‘Something will turn up,’ said Mrs Watts-Weston. ‘In the meantime, a fresh murder has stirred up all the stories about Sir Christopher Warrender, and set me wondering if I could possibly have been wrong.’

  I had to hide a smile; she presented the notion that she might have been wrong about something as such a tremendous novelty. ‘You now think he could have been murdered?’

  ‘I wouldn’t go quite so far as murder; but I am curious to know how the last of the Warrenders met his end. If you’re free tomorrow morning, Mrs Rodd, you must come with me to Shotton Barrow; I’m visiting old Humphrey Collins and he has spent a lifetime tracing the lines of all the great families in the neighbourhood.’

  �
��I am calling at Shotton Barrow with a particular purpose,’ Mrs Watts-Weston told me next morning. ‘It has nothing to do with old murders. The living is in the gift of our college and poor old Collins can’t last much longer. I want to take a quick look at the place, in order to assess its suitability; I’m determined to bag the living for Edward Rivers, so that he is able to marry my niece before they both go grey. You may feel free to condemn me for plotting and scheming, but it’s what everyone else will do.’

  I was amused by her cheerful lack of contrition. ‘I won’t condemn you; I’ve done plenty of plotting and scheming myself in my time.’

  It was one of those still, cold, autumnal mornings, with bright sunlight that dazzles without warming. The Warden’s elegant closed carriage drove us through brown fields and hedgerows heavy with blackberries, while Mrs W-W speculated about the number of bedrooms in the rectory, and the state of the drains.

  When we reached the little village, she stood in front of the queer, quaint old house, stared in silence for a few moments, then said, ‘Too near the road!’ She tugged vigorously at the bell. ‘Such a shame that it was so cut up; now there is scarcely room for a family. And those old casements must make it very dark inside.’

  The heavy door was opened by a housekeeper, most civil and respectful, with a rosy, weather-worn face and a bunch of keys at her waist. She introduced herself as Mrs Potter, and said that we had chosen a good time to call.

  ‘Mr Collins is sharpest in the mornings; there’s nothing ails him but old age. Last month he turned ninety-four!’

  ‘Ninety-four!’ echoed Mrs Watts-Weston. ‘This situation must be more wholesome than it looks.’

  The interior of the old house, all smoke-blackened beams and woodwormed panelling, was decidedly charming.

  ‘You’ll find him sitting up in his book-room,’ said Mrs Potter.