The Knocker on Death's Door gfaf-10

by Ellis Peters

  “Pity, really, about the Mid-Wales being tomorrow,” Hugh whispered in Dinah’s ear, “we could have fixed him up with a set of phenomena he’d never forget.”

  “Hush!” Dinah whispered back, smiling and frowning. “He really means it, you know. In a way there is something brave about it.”

  “Brave nothing, love! Insensitive and big-headed! It would be gorgeous,” said Hugh, entranced with the prospect, “if he really did see something. I bet you wouldn’t see him for dust! Our Porsche wouldn’t keep his tail-lights in sight!”

  That was what was really occupying his mind, Dinah realised, tomorrow, and the twenty-four-hour rally he had a sporting chance of winning. Ted Pelsall, who was Jenny’s brother and their best mechanic, had withdrawn the car a week ago to his own yard, in the ramshackle ex-farmhouse close to the Abbey, and had been working on it lovingly ever since. He always acted as Hugh’s navigator, and since they had to make such an early start to reach the muster-point on time, Hugh was sleeping at the Abbey tonight, where Ted would pick him up before dawn. At least his mother would be happy to have him in the house, even if she saw him for only half an hour before retiring to bed. Sometimes, since that strained evening in her company, Dinah thought of his mother with a curious compassion, detached and mature, surprising even to herself.

  “We ought to be going soon,” she whispered.

  “Yes, love, I know…” But he went on staring in thoughtful abstraction at the physic researcher, who was standing his ground with an obstinacy so publicly declared that now it could hardly be retracted. Yet to do him justice, he must have meant it from the beginning, since he had come provided with a packet of sandwiches and a small flask of coffee as well as his raincoat and torch. Retreat before his own accusing eyes would have been even harder than retreat in the face of all the mockery and terrorisation “The Sitting Duck” was exercising upon him. And perhaps he was as stupidly big-headed as Hugh had said. Whatever his motives, scientifically pure or humanly stubborn, he meant to go through with it. He would go through with it.

  “Drink up, then, my fond and fair one! Sure you wouldn’t like the other half?”

  “No, really, thanks. We promised Dave we’d cut it short.”

  Hugh held her coat for her, and they withdrew among a chorus of good nights. Everyone who remembered about the rally added fervent good wishes. One or two even had bets on him. They passed close by the earnest stranger, who was also climbing into his coat with slightly defiant resolution. The torch he fished out of a deep pocket was truly formidable in size. Hugh eyed it respectfully in passing.

  “You need that to see the ghosts, or what?”

  “They don’t like light,” said Eb Jennings mysteriously, as if, had he wished, he could have given this amateur a lot of valuable tips.

  “He’s right, you know,” said Hugh seriously. “Much better leave it behind. You’re taking this whole thing too lightly. In for a giggle, in for a thrill, if the monks don’t get you, the devils will!”

  “You’re awful!” said Dinah, as they darted through the rain to the car, the everyday Mini they used for general transport. “You just don’t give a damn for anybody!”

  “Those people burn me up. Coming to a place they know nothing about, and feel nothing about, where if they had sense they’d sit and listen, and put out feelers until they understood at least the language! I can’t stand phoneys!”

  “I’ll drive,” said Dinah, slithering behind the wheel, for she had, in any case, to drive herself home from the Abbey after dropping him. They threaded the roads between autumnal, leaning trees, streaming and gleaming with rain. She drove well; both Dave and Hugh had had a hand in teaching her, and her vision was phenomenally sharp and her reactions naturally rapid and decisive. “Take me as navigator,” she said suddenly, “I mean next time. Ted wouldn’t mind, just for once.”

  “Ted wouldn’t mind anything you suggested, and you know it. Ted dotes. Sometimes I’m downright jealous. You sure you want to run yourself into the ground on a stint like that?”

  “I could do it,” she said confidently. “I bet I can stick out anything you can.”

  “If only it hadn’t got so damned professional these days, we’d do the Monte together. I’d love it! Dinah, Dinah…”

  “Hey, cut it out!” protested Dinah, unexpectedly kissed behind the left ear and—by mistake on a curve—in the left eye. “You’ll have us in the hedge!”

  They turned into the Abbey drive. There were lights in the drawing-room.

  “Good, Mother’s still up.” It was not much after nine o’clock. “She’s got a bit of a cold, Rob said, but it probably won’t be much. Anyhow, I’ll go and give her your love, shall I?”

  “Yes,” said Dinah, “do that.” It wasn’t love she felt, but it was something outgoing and grievous and urgent, and the word love would do for want of one more exact. She was sorry for everyone who was old and lonely, and narrow, and cold.

  Hugh kissed her, now with a more assured aim, and at leisure. “See you some time Tuesday morning, then.”

  “Give me a ring when the results are out, I’ll be waiting to hear how you got on.”

  He promised, and disentangled himself reluctantly.

  “And go to bed as soon as she does,” ordered Dinah, as he got out of the car, “or you’ll be dropping tomorrow.”

  He mouthed one more promise and blew a kiss back to her, and was gone. Dinah turned the car in the broad stretch of unkempt gravel before the door, and drove back home. The rain continued, steady, soft-voiced and impersonal, a curtain of pearl-textured sound against the stillness of the night.

  The Saturday night dances in Comberbourne ended, in deference to the English sabbath, at midnight, but in practice no one actually left before half past twelve, even if the extra half hour was spent in gossiping and finishing up the last drinks after the band had gone. Consequently it was regularly after half past one in the morning when Brian Jennings roared back into Mottisham, accompanied by the hearty curses of all the residents he disturbed in passage. Brian considered he was entitled to one anti-social moment in his week, and this was it. He admitted he could have made his machine quieter if he’d cared to, but he just loved the music it made. At about twenty to two on this particular Sunday morning Dave, whose bedroom overlooked the road, heard him thunder by on his way home. About ten minutes later the offence was aggravated by a second disturbance, just as Dave was drifting into sleep again. A handful of gravel rattled sibilantly down the window. Dave rolled out of bed and flung up the sash. “What the hell do you think…”

  “Don’t shoot, Dave! It’s me, Brian Jennings…” There was the slender black figure, anonymous as a skin diver in the P.V.C. overalls he wore over his good suit. As if he felt the need to identify himself beyond question, the boy hurriedly hauled off helmet and goggles, and tilted upwards a tense, wide-eyed face.

  “Let me in, will you, please, I’ve got to use the ’phone. Honest, it’s urgent. I didn’t want to knock up the Rev., and there’s no copper there tonight…” His voice was a strenuous whisper, and conveyed just enough of shock and excitement to restrain Dave from argument. Reactions were quick in Mottisham these days.

  “What’s happened now?”

  He kept his voice down, too. Dinah slept on the other side of the house, no need for her to be disturbed.

  “There’s another one copped it,” said Brian tersely. “Only this one isn’t dead—not yet…”

  “I’ll come down,” said Dave, and vanished from the window.

  Brian was pressed against the jamb of the door by the time Dave reached it, and slid inside as soon as it was opened. He was quivering gently, but more with a terrier’s excitement in the hunt than with superstitious alarm. “Sorry about this, I’d have gone straight to the police, but this is the one night there’s nobody there… I’d better get the doctor first…”

  “Who is it?” asked Dave, steering him towards the office.

  “One of those new chaps—the spook-hunters�
��”

  “In the porch, like the other one?” Dave hoisted the telephone from its rest. “Here you are, go ahead, it’s your story.”

  “Right up against the door on his face, just like the first…” Brian’s hard young finger dialled rapidly and without error. Somewhere distant at the other end of the line a furious but controlled voice addressed him. Doctors are used to being called out at night, and used, moreover, to making the rapid decision as to whether to come or not on the evidence given, On public business Brian talked with the efficiency and authority of one sure of his ground.

  “We’ve got a bad case of inquiry here at the church at Mottisham, I think it could be a fractured skull—head injuries, anyhow, and he’s unconscious. Should I call the ambulance or leave it to you? No, it wasn’t an accident, it looks like the last time. I know, I am getting on to Sergeant Moon as soon as this line’s clear…If you think I’m fooling, I’ll give you Mr. Cressett to talk to if you like. —Right, thanks, I’ll be standing by till you come.” He held down the rest and began to dial again, flashing a fiery glance at Dave. “They don’t trust anybody, do they? ‘Is this a hoax, young fellow?’ ” he mimicked savagely. “If you’re under twenty they think you’re missing on one cylinder.”

  He misdialled ip his haste, and swore, and started over again. The sergeant’s voice, only slightly furred with sleep, came over the line.

  “Brian Jennings, here, Sergeant, speaking from Cressett’s garage.” Brian had tensed from head to toes in concentration. “There’s another casualty here at the church, same place, same style—I found him about six minutes ago. He isn’t dead—at least, he wasn’t—I’ve called the doctor, he’s on his way. It’s one of those chaps from London, the psychic research blokes… And, sergeant—I saw the chap who hit him—only a glimpse, it was raining, and black as a bag there, but I saw someone dive out of the porch and make off in the trees. Look, you’re not going to like this,” said Brian apologetically, “and I don’t know that I care for it much myself, but it’s gospel—What I saw looked for all the world like somebody in a long brown habit, like those old monks used to wear.”

  CHAPTER 6

  « ^ »

  History had repeated itself with phenomenal exactitude. The position of the prone body was a copy of Gerry Bracewell’s position when found, one hand crumpled down from the sanctuary ring. The second absentee from the now gap-toothed border of white stones along the edges of the grass had been dropped in almost identically the same place as the first. Under the unconscious man lay a large torch, glass and bulb broken, instead of a battered briefcase. By all appearances he had been examining the door at close quarters when he had been hit from behind. It was certainly proving very unhealthy to show too much interest in that door.

  The bald skull was lacerated and bleeding, but Brian had made no mistake; the man was alive. The doctor, kneeling over him while the ambulance attendants stood by with stretcher and blankets, pronounced it as his opinion that the victim was in no danger of dying, and that the attack must have been made only very recently, which confirmed Brian’s story of interrupting it at the crucial moment, and suggested both to George and Sergeant Moon, though neither of them said a word, that the boy’s arrival had in fact prevented the completion of this duplication of death. The victim laid out helplessly, the stone coolly positioned for the second and final blow, and suddenly Brian running across the road from the vicarage, an apparition in black P.V.C. He might look like one of Cocteau’s demons, but he had been a guardian angel to this harmless, intrusive crank whose name, according to the papers he had on him, was Herbert Charles Bristow.

  Unless, of course, George thought, unobtrusively studying Brian’s interested, impassive face, unless Brian himself had been the one who picked up the stone and laid out the inquisitive stranger at the foot of the door. No apparent reason why he should, but then there were no apparent reasons as yet why anyone should. A cool young card, this boy, and the timing would fit perfectly, in addition to the great convenience of not having to believe, in that case, in the elusive figure of someone in a long brown coat or robe, like a monk, who had vanished at speed among the trees. But if Brian had both provided the tableau and instantly reported it, then there had been no intention to murder, but only to remove the intruder from the scene without being identified.

  Concussion, probably fairly bad, the doctor said. Don’t expect to get anything much out of him for two or three days, and don’t expect him to know much about whoever hit him even when he is coherent again. That was fairly obvious advice. Nothing was more certain than that the victim’s attention had been concentrated avidly on what he was examining, and the victim’s back solidly turned on the world. If he had heard steps and turned, even at the last moment, the blow would not have been positioned so accurately at the very back of his head.

  It had stopped raining soon after two o’clock, so on the paths, and especially in the places where the gravel had worn thin and mud had gathered, there might be a chance of discovering the most recent footprints. But the wet grass would show them nothing, and according to Brian the assailant had fled among the trees and so to the rear of the church, which meant grass most of the way. They would have to go over every inch. He might have left some trace behind. Trees in the dark are scratchy, aggressive beings, retaining stray threads and bits of wool pile never missed by their owners. There was a whole day of the finicky, meticulous work policemen hate most in store for them; and the day, heaven help them, was Sunday. You can’t keep a church congregation from pursuing its Christian rites on the sabbath day, not even for the sake of a murder investigation. But with the vicar’s help they might be confined to one approach.

  They lifted the injured man carefully, swathed him in blankets and carried him away to the ambulance. The doctor took his car and followed his patient. The stone was shrouded in polythene and dispatched, with the broken torch, to the forensic laboratory. The plainclothes and uniformed men available dispersed to patrol the entire surroundings of the church. And in the temporary office in the vicarage Dave and Brian put their evidence formally on record. Until then there had been no time for the finer details, but they were sure of their times, and they had their statements clear in their minds.

  “He must have heard me coming through with the bike,” Brian said, and was momentarily disconcerted by his own words, and stopped short.

  “That’s the understatement of the year,” confirmed Sergeant Moon emphatically. “He must have if he wasn’t stone-deaf.”

  “What I mean,” persisted Brian sturdily, “is that anybody who lives around here knows my bike, they’d know that about two or three minutes after the racket stopped—no, it takes longer than that, I always switch off and bring her quietly on account of the Rev.—say about like five or six minutes after—I should be walking across home. Not always through the churchyard, sometimes I go round, but still I should be somewhere around, and might see something.”

  “You have a distinct point there,” said George with interest. “So you think this was somebody who didn’t know the habits of everybody around here. Somebody who might even think you’d driven straight through.”

  “Or else somebody very cool,” said Brian, feeling his way visibly with every word. “Because, you see, it was raining, and I must have taken less time than usual over putting the bike away. I shoved her in the vicarage shed, where he lets me keep her, and ran for it as soon as I’d locked the door. Really ran, all down the drive and across the road and up the path, to get round to the lodge by the south porch. I reckon I cut at least two and a half minutes off the course. Maybe he was counting on these two and a half minutes, and didn’t have them. Maybe he’d forgotten about me until he heard me go rocketing through, and then he thought, all right, what does it matter, I know that chap’s timing to the second. Only this time he didn’t. Maybe he took a shade too long over hitting him again, and all of a sudden I was pelting up the path like a greyhound, and he had to cut his losses and drop his rock and get
out. Either it’s somebody who doesn’t know at all,” said Brian with great care, “or somebody who knows absolutely, to the minute. Somebody right inside, or right outside.”

  “And then, of course,” said Sergeant Moon amiably, “that still leaves one more person—you, laddie.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Brian, gazing back at him steadily and not visibly disturbed by the suggestion, “I thought of that, too. I suppose I could have. There’s nothing I can say about that, except that I didn’t. I didn’t even know he was there. Sure I could have picked up the stone and bashed him, and then dropped it and run back to the garage and knocked up Dave—only I’m not green enough to suppose that would give me an alibi, so if I had knocked him out I should just have gone home and said nothing. Dad would probably have been the one to find him, this being Sunday. Also he’d probably have been dead, after a night out in the rain and cold.”

  “I’m doing you the favour of supposing that you never wanted him dead,” said Sergeant Moon reasonably.

  “If I was desperate enough to want him knocked flat, I’d be desperate enough to prefer him dead rather than talking,” pointed out Brian, and smiled, a genuine if rather cagey smile.

  The sergeant, unruffled, cast a glance at George. “You want him anymore, sir?”

  “This figure you saw,” said George, thoughtfully, “could it possibly have been a woman?”

  The boy, so little capable of surprise in other directions, was ingenuously astonished by this, a thought which had never for a moment occurred to him. Belligerent modern as he was, he had delightfully old-world ideas about women. He thought about it, and visibly the very possibility disturbed him. George put away for good the suspicion that there had been no elusive brown figure, and with it the faint reserve he might otherwise have felt about Brian himself.