Presently he turned to Hubert.
“Permit me,” he said, “to deplore your association with this man. He has been weighed in the balances and found wanting.”
I can never describe the pain with which he seemed to say this, as though, had it been his affair, he would have forgiven Palin his transgressions, but because he was forced to interpret the laws of God, he had, alas, no choice but to reveal his iniquity Indeed, his whole demeanour was that of one who does not, in fact, belong to this wicked world, but being here, is determined to play out his part and to march and mix with mankind, as though he were of their clay.
His hatchet-face, however, denied such piety.
He was very pale, and, since he was most dark and clean-shaven, his jowl seemed blue. His expression was continually changing with all he said, and his visage was full of the creases of smirks and sneers. His nose was thin and pointed, his mouth was cruel, while the crafty look in his eyes, which were black as sloes, would have condemned the most saintly countenance.
His voice was curiously smooth, and though he spoke very well, his English was stilted, as if he had learned it from books. And here I should say that where I have reported his speech, I have mostly corrected his grammar, the imperfections of which would look glaring in print, for, to do the man justice, in spite of a heavy accent, he spoke our tongue with a dignity which carried off the errors he made.
My cousin was speaking.
“We choose our own friends,” he said shortly. “And now, if you please, we’ll go into the gallery. There’s a good deal to be explained, and we’ve several questions to ask.”
With that, he unlocked the doors and stood to one side.
Father Herman inclined his head.
“I am at your disposal, Mr. Constable.”
“Precisely,” said Hubert, waiting. And then, “D’you mind going in?”
The priest hesitated. He was, of course, reluctant to leave the front door. He could hardly say so, but I fancy his instinct was insisting that he should find some excuse to stay where he was.
“For your information,” said Palin, “the drawbridge is up.”
Father Herman surveyed his tormentor with smouldering eyes. Then, as though to trample an insinuation too foul to be rebutted, he entered the gallery with the air of a cardinal.
Hubert signed to Palin to follow and spoke in my ear.
“Take her round by the postern passage and bring her into the wing. She can sit there within hearing, but out of sight.”
He pressed the key into my hand and entered the gallery.
As the doors closed behind Stiven, I turned to see Olivia at the head of the stairs.
“The father of lies,” she said quietly. “You know it’s a thousand pities you sounded that horn. If he hadn’t heard you coming, you might have caught him at work.”
“At work?”
“At work,” she repeated. “Never mind. You must search him before he goes.”
“Come,” said I, and told her what Hubert had said.
We hastened along the way which I fancy the priest had come and downstairs and past the postern and presently up to the wing.
As I set the key in the lock—
“Olivia,” I said, “he must not dream that you’re here. Whatever you hear him say, you must not—”
“More orders?” said Olivia, smiling.
“Yes,” said I. “Little girls must neither be seen nor heard.”
“You needn’t worry,” said she. “I never ask for trouble, and, if he knew I was here—well, then, to put it mildly, the buttons would come off the foils.”
“I fancy they’re off already.”
Olivia shook her head.
“Uncle Herman’s isn’t,” she said. “When it is—well, his name isn’t Haydn for nothing. He knows how to fight.”
As we entered the wing of the gallery, I heard my cousin’s voice.
“—requires some explanation. A stranger, alone, by night, in somebody else’s house . . . a house which, until to-day, has been in the hands of thieves . . . thieves with whom the stranger has been upon friendly terms . . .”
“Alas,” said Father Herman, “I was most grossly deceived.”
“Go on, beat your breast,” said Palin. “Be a sport.”
Olivia, beside me, began to shake with laughter.
“I am surprised,” said the priest stiffly, “that you should suffer this ribald so to insult your guest.”
“I’m afraid,” said Hubert, “I don’t consider you my guest. I never invited you here.”
“But I came for your sake. As your neighbour. I conceived it my duty to—”
“I know,” said Hubert. “I heard you say so just now. What good did you think you could do here?”
“I came to take care,” said the other. “Servants in haste are careless. If they had left embers unquenched, your castle might have been burned.”
“I see,” said my cousin slowly. “May I have the key the steward gave you?”
I guided Olivia to a deep ‘confessional’ chair. Then I entered the gallery proper and made my way up to the group, ten paces away.
A small Yale key was lying in Hubert’s palm.
“The front-door key,” said my cousin. “I find that strange. The steward would have barred the front door and left by the back.” Father Herman shrugged his shoulders. “Are you perfectly sure that the steward gave you this key?”
“I have said so”—stiffly.
“And the rumours which came to Haydn, some forty miles off. They travelled damned quickly—those rumours. How d’you account for that?”
Father Herman laughed.
“Had you lived in these parts as long as I have, that would not be matter for surprise.”
“Forty miles,” said Hubert thoughtfully: “and never a town between. Never mind. Why did the steward insist that this place was accursed? I mean, he must have given some reason.”
He alleged,” said the priest, “that last night, while the castle slept, the devil entered and carried off two of the men whom he believed to be his masters—your great-uncle’s heirs.” He bowed to Hubert and me, which showed he was aware of my presence, although he could not have heard me and had not looked round. “I should like to felicitate you. It was a remarkable feat. If the steward may be believed, the two you left were as scared as the servants themselves.”
“Yet, when you heard our car, you believed that they had returned.”
“I feared the worst,” said the priest. “Your telegram said that you would be here to-morrow—not to-night.”
“Quite so,” said my cousin. “The steward showed you our wire: but he didn’t mention the letter we left behind.”
“No,” said the other boldly. “I cannot tell why, but he made no mention of that.”
“Yet he gave you the key.”
The priest’s eyelids flickered. Father Herman was out of his depth.
My cousin continued musingly.
“He must have received the letter. We pushed it under those doors, and it isn’t there now. Besides, it was the letter that scared him—not the disappearance of Harris.”
Father Herman cleared his throat.
“They are sorely secretive, these people,” he said with a sigh. “Had he shown me the letter—”
“He should have,” said my cousin. “He should have—to be consistent. And that’s what I don’t understand. You see, in that letter we particularly warned him against you. Why, in the face of that warning, do you think he gave you the key?”
There was an electric silence.
The priest stood still as an image, except for his eyes. Beneath the droop of their lids, I could see these shifting sharply from side to side.
Then—
“I will retire,” he said thickly, and turned to the door.
“You will—in due course,” said my cousin. “But not just yet. I want you to hear my theory of how you come to be here. Just try that seat, will you?”
Father H
erman hesitated. Then he lifted his eyes and raised his false hands to heaven, as though to hail some vision we could not see.
“My calling,” he said, “does not arm me against the darts of the wicked. I fear your ears have been poisoned by one that saw fit to bite the hand that fed him—”
“If you mean,” said Palin, “that I told them what you were fit for, you’re perfectly right.”
“You would dare!” cried the priest, glaring.
“Kindly sit down,” said I. “You heard what my cousin said.”
In a silence big with emotion Father Herman moved to the chair . . .
“This ‘rumour’ business,” said Hubert. “I suggest that you received no rumours, but downright, definite news—brought you by two of the impostors this afternoon. The servants left here this morning: but Bunch and Bugle remained—until the telegram came. This they couldn’t read: so they cleared out and drove to Haydn, to show it to you. You’ve never set eyes on the steward—since yesterday afternoon. Bunch and Bugle told you all that had happened: and Bunch and Bugle it was that gave you the key. Maybe you stole it from them. In any event, you got it—and came here, fully expecting to have the place to yourself. And then we came twelve hours too early and spoiled your game.”
Now whether the priest was shaken I do not know, but I was quite confounded by my cousin’s brilliant exposure of what I now saw to be the truth. And Palin later confessed that before such a masterly perception he had felt like a boy at school.
I was still staring at Hubert, when our prisoner got to his feet.
“I came in charity,” he said, “and in charity I will depart. Do not think that I blame you. You have suffered enough to suspect your own father’s son.” He raised his black eyes to heaven. “I too, have suffered, my friends. I have been mocked and betrayed—led into the false position in which I stand.”
“Then sit down,” said Palin. “Besides, it’s no good your going. The skunk-house is closed.”
The priest started forward, pointing a shaking finger.
“That man,” he cried, “is an outcaste. Dismissed from my brother’s service for stealing goods. I warn you, unless—”
“Take back that lie,” said I.
The fellow swung round, snarling.
“Go on,” said I. “Take it back—as a matter of form.”
Father Herman inclined his head.
“You are my host,” he said.
“Don’t you believe it,” said I. “But this is my house. And now beg that gentleman’s pardon and take back the words you said.”
With his eyes on the ground—
“My brother,” said the priest, “the tongue is an unruly member. You were dismissed for violence, and not for theft. I ask pardon for my mistake.”
“As a matter of fact,” said Palin, “I took my leave. I admit you didn’t press me to stay, but, to tell you the truth, I don’t like that word ‘dismissed’.”
With a manifest effort—
“I withdraw it,” said the other, slowly.
“That’s better,” said my cousin. “And now let’s conclude this inquiry. This fellow Harris, whom you believed to be John Ferrers, my great-uncle’s heir—had you ever seen him before?”
“A thousand times no!” cried the priest excitedly. He lugged a crucifix from his cassock and held it up in the air. “By this most blessed symbol, I never set eyes upon the villain till three days ago. That is the head of my offending. I was beguiled.”
“Then why,” said Hubert, “why did you tell my steward that you were at Oxford with Harris some years ago?”
The words might have been an incantation, such was the change they wrought.
His earnest demeanour fell from the priest as the garment a man lets fall. His face, transfigured with passion, began to work: he seemed to lose stature, crouching instead of standing and hunching his shoulders and bringing his chin to his chest: his fingers writhed upon the crucifix as though they would twist the silver into some other shape; and he breathed deep and noisily, the air whistling in his nostrils, because his mouth was tight shut.
It was, I think, his sudden realization that ever since his capture we had been playing with him that over-rode the instinct of self-control, while the bitter knowledge that by this lapse he had given himself away stung the man to a frenzy of mortification and rage. Be that as it may, the mask was off, and he knew it, and never with any of us did he seek to employ it again.
There was now no more to be said. The man stood confessed as hostile as Harris himself, and Hubert told Stiven to fetch a strap from the Rolls.
At this our prisoner started and moistened his lips.
“My cloth is sacred,” he hissed.
To this impudent declaration my cousin vouchsafed no reply, but Palin felt unable to let the occasion pass.
“The violence we do,” he said gravely, “we shall do in charity. I’m sure you’ll find that a very comfortable thought. As for the sanctity of your calling, I can’t help feeling that you might have thought of that before. Convicted of the most filthy treachery, your lips still wet with the slime of a hundred lies, you beg to remind us that you are a man of God.” He expired violently. “Of course, you know, you’re wasted in this rude world: you ought to make away with yourself: you’d have a peach of a show in Hell. Why they’d dub you Knight Commander of the Whited Sepulchre before your body was cold.”
That was as much as I heard, for I strolled back to Olivia—in truth, to take her instructions, for the man was her blood relation, and I felt that, since she was present, it was for her only to say how he should be used.
She was not where I had left her, and the gallery’s wing was empty, so far as I saw. In some uneasiness, I stepped to the door which gave to the square, stone hall . . .
She was standing with her hands behind her leaning against the wall. Her head was up, and her eyes were fast on the naked electric light. As I shut the door behind me, I saw how pale she was.
“Beware of me,” she said quietly. “He and I—we have the same blood in our veins.”
“Olivia, I beg you—”
“Put yourself in my place. Lie upon lie, interlarded with holy saws. My father’s brother, snuffling before four strangers. . . . And I could have borne all that. But, when he was caught, I heard him plead his calling—remind you that he was a priest, to save his skin.”
“Don’t call us strangers,” I said. “He’s stranger to you than we are. I simply cannot regard him as being your kin.”
“How would you feel in my place?”
“The case is different,” said I. “But as long as I had your friendship, I wouldn’t care.”
She took her hands from behind her, to hold them against her breast.
“I don’t mind your knowing, John. And Andrew will understand . . . But your cousin and Stiven—I don’t know how to face them, I’m so ashamed. I could bear the lies, but the man’s a coward—he’s said so: he’s stuck the white feather in his cap.”
She was halfway to tears, and I had no comfort to give. What was more, I could not wait. I had to get back.
I came and stood before her and took her small hands in mine.
“We’ll thrash this out later,” I said, “before you meet them again. But tell me, what shall we do? Are there any questions to ask him? And shall we keep him here or put him out on the road?”
With a manifest effort she brought her mind to the point.
“Search him,” she said, “and confine him. And mind you search him well. Take every scrap of paper upon him—for me to look through.”
As she spoke I saw the truth of the matter as clear as day.
“Olivia,” I cried.
For the first time she met my eyes.
“What is it?”
“He’s not a coward at all. We’ve done him wrong. He pleaded his cloth because he didn’t want to be searched.”
The smile that swept into her face I shall see as long as I live.
“Well done, John,” she sa
id quietly, and put her hands to my lips . . .
If proof were needed of my theory, we had it almost at once.
I found Stiven strapping behind him the prisoner’s wrists: the fellow made no protest, but stood like a rock.
“And now,” said Hubert.
I lifted my voice.
“He urged that his cloth was sacred. I think that means that if he were searched, we might find something upon him he doesn’t want us to see.”
“I’ve no doubt you’re right,” said my cousin. . . .
These words were the prologue to a truly shocking affair.
Father Herman said never a word, but he fought like a beast: and if his resistance was vain, it made an odious duty by far the most loathsome to which I have ever subscribed. Such was his violence, he very soon burst his bonds; and the four of us had to compel him, before we could have our way. My tussle with Harris had been unpleasant enough, and our handling of him and Punter was hardly a pleasant charge: but this encounter seemed to make me lose caste and to rank me with the common hangman of bygone days.
For all that, our search was fruitful.
The priest had upon him our passports, with Harris’ and Punter’s photographs stuck in the place of ours, our copy of my great-uncle’s Will and the affidavit of which I have spoken before. I imagine that of their negligence Bunch and Bugle had left these things behind. But he had something else upon him, to keep which inviolate I make no doubt that he would have sold his soul. This was a set of tracing-paper plans of the castle, each floor on a separate sheet. His watch and purse and breviary made up the ugly tale.
When the search was done, we released him, and Hubert bade him get to his feet.
“Under lock and key,” I said shortly. “What about a room in the passage that leads to the postern door?”
“What could be better?” said Palin. “Stiven and I’ll take him down. And while we’re gone, you might open one or two windows. You know. Just to change the air.” He turned to Stiven. “Down to the postern, by way of the entrance hall. If you lose your way, ask this gentleman. He’ll put you right.” He turned to Father Herman. “Kindly follow Mr. Constable’s servant. I’m going to walk behind you, and, unless you want to be damaged, I advise you to play no tricks.”
Safe Custody and Laughing Bacchante Page 11