Body in the Transept

by Jeanne M. Dams

  Would anyone here miss the man? The dean, they said, had been unable to locate any family at all. I couldn’t pretend the cathedral staff would mourn him; his untimely departure already seemed to be improving morale. The dean was genuinely horrified about the manner of his death, certainly, but I couldn’t escape the chilling truth that little sorrow accompanied this death, while someone in the room might well be rejoicing at this moment that his enemy was gone, and he still unsuspected. “But he is in his grave, and oh, the difference to me.” I shuddered. Not quite the sort of difference Wordsworth had in mind.

  My eyes went involuntarily to Wallingford, still pompously taking Mr. Swansworthy’s place; the principal emotion he displayed seemed to be conceit at his temporary elevation in status. I couldn’t see Mr. Sayers up in the organ loft; neither could I forget his catty remark about how much he planned to enjoy playing this service.

  I spent most of the service determinedly looking at my lap, trying to think about the weather. There was no eulogy, for which I was profoundly grateful; the service leaflet contained a brief biography and a few words of gratitude for the canon’s hard work at the cathedral, apparently as much as the dean considered he could say in sincerity. Only a few of the psalms seeped through my barrier of deliberate inattention. Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts . . . if the murderer was present, that would give him something to think about, all right . . . That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us . . . that hadn’t happened for the canon, had it? Or perhaps, in a way, it had . . . he was safe from his enemies now, at any rate . . . and then it was over, thank God, and I walked quickly out of the choir, seeking the best way to escape. I did not feel like talking.

  “Dorothy. Nice to see you again.”

  I looked up angrily, ready to snarl, and saw the pleasant smile die on Alan Nesbitt’s face.

  “Sorry—bad timing?”

  His voice lost its brightness, and I felt even worse than before.

  “No, I’m sorry. It’s just that I hate this sort of thing—funerals, or memorials, or . . .”

  “I don’t care for them much, either. I keep thinking about my wife’s funeral, years ago now.”

  That stripped my defenses bare. “For that long?” I stopped walking and turned to him. “I had hoped . . .” My voice tried to wobble; I bit my lip.

  “Oh, it’s much better than it used to be. Not a sharp pain, just the dull reminder. I’m not sure I’d want to lose that, actually.”

  “What did your wife die of?” It seemed odd to be talking to him this way, but his calm understanding was like gentle sunlight on this gloomy day.

  “Cancer. She was fifty-two. She never saw our first grandchild.”

  His voice was steady and matter-of-fact.

  “We didn’t have any children,” I said. “I think that makes it worse.”

  “I suspect that it does. My family has been a great comfort to me. Dorothy, may I buy you a cup of tea?”

  I had thought I wanted to be alone, but I couldn’t let the sunlight go. Besides, I might be able to find out what the police were doing about the murder. “Bless you. A cup of tea is just what I’ve been wanting.”

  Although the institution of afternoon tea is suffering in an England that grows more American every day, cathedral towns maintain the tradition better than most places. Alan chose the nearest of the available shops, Alderney’s. The Cathedral Close at Sherebury, like that of Exeter, is lined not only with housing for the clergy and cathedral offices, but, oddly enough, with a few businesses: a pub/hotel (the Rose and Crown), an extremely expensive jeweler, a bank, a small gift shop, and at the far end, near the west gate, Alderney’s, in a delightfully rickety Tudor structure with a second story that hangs over the first, exquisite diamond-paned windows, and Tudor roses all over the carved plaster ceiling upstairs in the big tea room.

  It was early for tea, but we weren’t the only ones with the same idea; the place was crowded. Thinking about death is a thirsty business. We squeezed into chairs at a tiny table in a corner.

  “Just tea for me,” I said, mindful of how amply I filled the Windsor chair. “Tell me, how are you coming with the investigation?” I had lowered my voice, but the babble around us made an effective screen.

  “Slowly,” Alan sighed. “There’s plenty of evidence, but evidence has to be matched with something. Even in Sherlock Holmes’s day, the Trichinopoly cigar ash helped only if one of the suspects smoked Trichinopoly cigars. Do you happen, by the way, to know what they are? I’ve never heard of them.”

  “Stop in at 22IB Baker Street, and you will undoubtedly be able to consult a monograph on the subject,” I suggested. “So you’re not able to do any matching?”

  “I didn’t quite say that, did I? The trouble is, there were far too many people in the church that night. I can hardly give orders for every single soul in Sherebury to be fingerprinted and drop off a sample of hair or clothing or—oh, tea and biscuits, please.”

  “Earl Grey or Darjeeling?” asked the bored waitress.

  “Darjeeling for me,” I said.

  “For me, too. Are you sure you don’t want anything else, Dorothy?”

  “Sure. I don’t suppose,” I said when the waitress had left, “you can tell me why you arrested Nigel? Or let him go again?”

  “You know why we arrested him,” he said a trifle impatiently. “Motive is our best lead at this point, and his motive is obvious. We had to talk to him. As he wasn’t very cooperative we had to bring him in. There wasn’t enough evidence to charge him, so we sent him home with a flea in his ear. We’re keeping an eye on him.”

  I sat silent, wondering if I should tell him what I had learned about the verger and the choirmaster. Would it help Nigel? Was I betraying any confidences? Perhaps not if everyone knew about them already.

  The waitress came back and plunked down the tea and a plate of assorted biscuits. I absently picked up a chocolate one and started to nibble on it.

  “Then you couldn’t match up his fingerprints, et cetera, to whatever you have?”

  “I can’t tell you that, you know.”

  “No, of course not. Sony.” I finished the chocolate biscuit, picked up a petit beurre, and made up my mind. “You do know about the other good motives? Mr. Wallingford and Mr. Sayers?”

  “Dorothy.” He lifted his hands, let them drop, took a deep breath and let it go. “I would much prefer not to discuss, in a public place, the details of a murder case under investigation.” The necessity for keeping his voice down made the words come out in a hiss. “Generalities, perhaps—to you—and even that is stretching a point, because I trust your discretion. Now can we change the subject, please?”

  Well, I deserved that, I supposed, but it annoyed me all the same. What did he expect me to talk about, the weather and everyone’s health, à la Eliza Doolittle? “The rain in Spain,” I said with a bright smile and precise attention to the vowels, “stays mainly in the plain. In Hertford, Hereford, and Hampshire, hurricanes hardly ever happen.”

  He looked at me blankly for a moment, and then crashed his fist down on the table, threw his head back, and roared with laughter. The people at the next table decided it was time to leave.

  “By God, Dorothy,” he said when he could speak, “you do me good. Stop fiddling with those silly biscuits and have something proper to eat. Waitress!”

  10

  WHICH WAS ALL very well, I thought half an hour later as I headed for home. I’d been jollied into a better mood, but I hadn’t got any forrarder, as Agatha Christie used to put it. And why had Alan invited me to tea if he hadn’t wanted to talk about the murder? Maybe he wanted to ask all the questions. Only he hadn’t asked any, had he? Maybe he simply wanted to cheer me up. Maybe he was just a nice man.

  The fact remained that I knew no more than I had in the morning and curiosity was killing me. What evidence did the police have that they couldn’t “match up” with anyone? Why had they released Nigel? Did he have a real
ly good alibi for the time—good grief, come to think of it, what time period were we talking about? When did they think Billings died? And what nefarious deeds had the man been up to, that he wouldn’t tell anybody what he was working on?

  Oh, I had plenty of questions, including all of those “whereabouts” queries from that silly list I’d made on the train. But nobody seemed willing, or able, to answer them.

  “Aha!” I snapped my fingers, not realizing I had spoken aloud until I saw the glare on the face of the elderly passing clergyman. In his day—a very long time ago, that was—women did not go about getting sudden ideas in the Cathedral Close. It wasn’t done. He sniffed and turned his back.

  To get from Alderney’s to my house, one must either go all the way round the far south side of the Close or cut through the cathedral to the cloister door and across the cemetery. The fog still being thick and disagreeable, I chose the shorter way, which took me right past the Rose and Crown, the best pub in Sherebury. A higgledy-piggledy pile of brick and stone and half-timbering, the Rose and Crown was the pride and joy of the Endicotts. Inga was at this moment probably serving at the bar or doing something about dinner in the kitchen. Why hadn’t I thought to ask Inga?

  I turned in.

  After the cathedral, the Rose and Crown is my favorite place in town, and the Endicotts some of my favorite people. We met years ago, the first time Frank and I came to Sherebury on vacation. Frank hadn’t yet learned to drive on the wrong side of the road, so we arrived by train, late and exhausted. Naturally it was raining, with not a bus or a taxi in sight. By the time we’d bought a town map and walked to the Rose and Crown (highly recommended by the sympathetic woman at the newsstand), we were soaked, our luggage seemed to weigh a thousand pounds, and I at least was close to tears from cold and hunger and fatigue.

  And the inn was full.

  “I can’t understand it,” the stunning blond woman at the desk kept saying apologetically. “We’re never booked up except at holidays. There must be something on at the university, or the cathedral. We can put you up starting tomorrow, but not tonight. You say you walked from the railway station? But that’s a frightfully long way!”

  She was literally wringing her hands in distress when a large, scrubbed-looking, pink-cheeked man walked in, looked us over, and said to her, “Why don’t you ring up the George, darling?”

  In five minutes she had called an inferior but more expensive hostelry and obtained a room at the Rose and Crown’s rate by mendaciously claiming a reservation gone astray. The pink-cheeked man had whisked us there in his car. “No bother, no bother at all, delighted.”

  The charming man and wife were, of course, Peter and Greta Endicott. She, we found out, was German; he was as English as the wonderful food he served in the pub. They had an engaging, grave-faced little girl of about three, Inga, who looked likely to turn out as beautiful as her mother. The first time we saw her she was sitting splay-legged in front of the parlor fire, cradling a minute gray kitten in her arms like a baby and crooning to it. She staggered to her feet, came over to me, put the kitten against her cheek, and then held it out to me, saying, “Soft. Feel the kitty?” I was her slave for life.

  That kitten was the first of a long line of prize British Blues at the Rose and Crown. Max, the present incumbent, was a lazy rake who spent his days on the mantel of the huge bar fireplace and his nights prowling the neighborhood siring yet more descendants. My Emmy was one of Max’s casual offspring; Inga gave her to me with a little speech of welcome when I moved into my house so many years later.

  Now, full of my bright idea, I walked in the door. There was no one at the reservations counter in the little hall, only Max, sleepily supervising operations from a cozy nest on a pile of papers as a change from the mantel. He acknowledged my respectful greeting with a wide yawn and stretch as I spotted my quarry. Inga, lovely, leggy, blond Inga, was indeed behind the crowded bar, serving with Peter.

  “Dorothy!” Peter boomed when he saw me. “Where’ve you been keeping yourself, then? We’ve missed you.”

  I smiled affectionately at him. “Peter, you old smoothie, you say the same thing every time I walk in here.”

  “Well, you always stay away too long, don’t you?” He turned his head toward an altercation at the end of the bar, cocked an amused eyebrow at me, and walked over to the combatants. “Now, then, how about a nice cup of coffee all round before you go out into the cold, eh?” He firmly removed their glasses and stretched his arms out wide, leaning on the counter. “Had about enough of that lot, haven’t you? No coffee, then? Sure? Ah. Well, then, see you next time.” There had been no hint of anything but genial courtesy in his manner, but Peter seldom needed force to get rid of troublemakers. There was something about his look when he leaned toward them. . . .

  “Dorothy, I’ve something to show you.” Inga, free for a moment, dived under the bar. “Look what I made!” She held it out, her face lighting up in a smile that must certainly, I thought, have already broken a number of hearts. Oh, Nigel, take care!

  I squeezed up closer, between the balding man in baggy tweeds and the redhead in the almost nonexistent black miniskirt. “Oh, my. But it’s beautiful!” It was a pale pink rose, perfectly modeled, its thin, fragile petals folding into points, the color softly shaded. “What’s it made of, china?”

  “Sugar.” She laughed at my expression, quiet silvery laughter as lovely as the rest of her. “Fooled you, didn’t I? Right, one G and T and a lager.” She dealt briskly with the orders, still watching my reaction with delight.

  “But how on earth did you do it? It’s absolutely perfect.” I turned it admiringly. “Here, you’d better take it back. My hands are damp and I don’t want to melt it.”

  “It’s all right, this one is lacquered. I wouldn’t, of course, if it were going on a cake. I’m taking a sugar class up at the university, and we learned to make these this morning.”

  “You mean this is a cake decoration? It’s much nicer than the ones we have at home, more real. They’re soft.”

  “Oh, yes, that’s just icing sugar. This is pulled sugar, and it’s much better; you can get finer detail, but it’s tricky to work with, and quite hot!” she said, looking ruefully at her reddened fingers. “Oh, Dad, we’re running short of limes, could you—thanks. Yes, sir, large whiskey. Soda or water?”

  “I’ve always wanted to learn how to do those amazing things with spun sugar, birds’ nests and baskets and things like that,” I said idly when she could talk again.

  “Oh, those are quite easy, actually, we learned them in the first lesson.” She leaned across the bar eagerly. “I can teach you, if you’d like. I do them here occasionally, when our pastry cook has the day off. Oh, sorry, would you like a beer or something?”

  “Not right now, thanks. I just stopped in to see if you’re booked up for dinner.” This was obviously no time to try to talk to the poor girl; she was run off her feet. And the Rose and Crown is famous for its food.

  “Tonight?” She consulted the reservation book behind the bar. “We’re quite full, actually, but we could fit you in early—or late.”

  “Late, I think, I had a substantial tea.” Besides, at the end of the evening she might have some time to sit down and talk, if she weren’t ready to fall into bed.

  “Right. Nine? Nine-thirty?”

  “Nine will be just right.”

  “Super! See you then!”

  That child works, I thought as I went through the cathedral, quiet except for the hum of a place where many people are going about their jobs. On her feet all day at the pub, yet somehow finds time to take a continuing ed class to make her an even better cook. No wonder her parents are dubious about Nigel, who’s bright enough, and charming when he wants to be, but doesn’t have a splendid record for dependability. But give him a chance, I willed. He’ll be all right; give him a chance.

  I DRESSED UP for my meal. Good food deserves to be honored. Pink wool jersey and pearls rather flattered my gray hair, I t
hought, so I wore nothing on my head except a filmy silver scarf to keep it dry. Pleased with myself, I put on my best coat, told Emmy to be good, and set off.

  Greta was on duty at the front desk when I arrived. “Lovely to see you again, Dorothy. Don’t you look splendid!” She was simply dressed in a dark suit and a pale, soft silk blouse, her now-silvering hair swept back from high cheekbones, silver-rimmed glasses perched on a perfect nose. At fortysomething she swept every woman in the place out of the competition, except possibly Inga. I laughed.

  “I do my best to keep the tone up, but I must say next to you I look like a refugee from a rummage sale.”

  “Nonsense, you know quite well you look very nice indeed. We’ll put you at the front table and show you off.”

  Inga seated me in the small bow window where I could see everyone, and took my order. I did go rather well with the dining room, I thought complacently. The pink-shaded candles on each table and the paler pink tablecloths went nicely with my dress, and the sprigs of mistletoe, nestled in evergreen branches, matched my pearls. Greta always made sure her Christmas decorations were simple and tasteful and set the right mood; here in the elegant dining room, with its pale green Jacobean paneling and carved ceiling, they were subdued, while across the hall in the bar the red and gold suited the huge open fire, the low, ancient beams, and the jovial spirit.

  Trade was brisk in both rooms. From the bar an occasional loud laugh broke through to our more decorous retreat. In the dining room one or two tables were beginning to empty this late in the evening, but Inga and her staff were still extremely busy. She found time, though, for a typically graceful gesture; when she brought me my soup she paused to nestle her sugar rose in my hair. “I knew it would look super there. Enjoy your meal!”