Where was I to start? He could have put it anywhere. A scroll to begin with, it would probably be flattened out now and sealed between sheets of glass or plastic. It could be anywhere among all these thousands of books.
Helplessly I looked about me. The big desk, the obvious place to start, looked depressingly clean, as though it had been tidied after Billings’s death.
Well, I had to begin somewhere. And I didn’t have all the time in the world. Someone might come in at any moment, and what I intended to do was almost certainly illegal. Praying for privacy, I tiptoed to the desk.
It was the movement that caught my eye. Deep in one shadowed recess between rows of shelves, a form raised a hand and took a flat folder from a shelf. As I watched, suddenly frozen as still as the marble pillar, the hooded monk glanced through the contents and replaced the folder on the shelf. The figure moved again, stooped to a lower shelf deep in the corner, and picked up something that shimmered a little with sullen light.
Fear and curiosity battled for precedence. I couldn’t see what he was doing. He seemed absorbed in something and, thank heaven, oblivious to my presence. If he was a ghost, he was behaving rather strangely; if a man, what was he doing here in the dark, dressed like that?
Well, a ghost couldn’t harm me, and in either case I simply had to see a little better. With infinite care I moved around the pillar, close to the head of the aisle where the dim figure stood.
Now I could see. He—it—stood close to the wall holding something up to what little light there was. Something that looked like a picture without a frame, stiff and shiny. I caught a reflection. Glass? Glass with—yes, two pieces of glass with something between them. My stomach clenched; I thought for a moment I would be sick. As I strained a little closer, my elbow caught the edge of a paper lying on the catalogue chest. It fluttered to the floor with a little sigh, and the sound undid me.
The figure turned toward me with a sharp hiss, and the hood fell back from his face. Even in the dim light I could see, too late, that he was no ghost.
“Hello, George,” I said, moistening lips gone dry. “Going to a costume party?”
He laughed. The sound conveyed no humor at all. “You mean the habit? No, no, just a little joke. I’ve had some fun playing about with this in the cathedral. Scared some of the fools who believe in that old story.”
“So it was you, that day in the clerestory. And at the library door, and at the restoration service?”
George had moved close enough that I could see the look of puzzlement on his face. “I don’t know what you mean. I’ve never attended a service dressed like this. Wouldn’t be right. Here, yes. And I went up to the clerestory level a few days ago, but it’s called a triforium, you know, that walkway. Gave a few tourists a thrill. Were you there, then?”
“Yes,” I said shortly. “You frightened me half to death. But George, I saw you later, too, when the dean and the bishop reconsecrated the side chapel. I suppose they’ll have to do it again,” I added parenthetically, “now that Wallingford has been killed.”
“I tell you I don’t know what you’re talking about,” George insisted. “But what on earth are you doing here?”
I tried to think fast. “That’s just what I was about to ask you, George,” I said, playing for time. “Surely not working, all in the dark. What’s that you’ve found? May I see?” I edged toward the door as George moved closer.
“Oh, I don’t think you would be interested, m’dear,” he said in honeyed tones. He moved forward and picked up a large brass paperweight from the desk, toying with it. “Just an old manuscript. Been here for years, probably.”
“I’d like to see, really, George.” Oh, how I wanted to see! It was small to be of such shattering importance, about the size of a sheet from a legal pad, and closely written. Even though I couldn’t read a word of Greek, just to see it, touch it. . . . “Don’t be selfish, now!” I put out my hand, still backing as unobtrusively as possible toward the door. If only I could get my hands on it! I tried what I hoped was a sweetly sincere smile. “You know I’m so interested in your research!”
“My research!” George snorted. “What makes you think this is part of my research? Just something I found in the library just now. Of no importance, really.” But he held the manuscript clasped firmly under one arm.
I stopped. It would have been better the other way, but if I could startle him into a sudden move there might still be hope. “George.” I tried to make my voice quiet and reasonable and nannylike. “I know what it is. Hadn’t you better put it down? What if you dropped it? You can’t want that.” What did he plan to do with that paperweight?
George stopped too. A wary look came into his eyes, but he played out the bluff. “Nonsense! Don’t know myself what it is. Just a cathedral record of some kind, Middle Ages, probably. Parchment, you can see.”
I shook my head wearily. There was no more point in fencing. “No, George. We both know that isn’t true. It isn’t parchment, it’s papyrus. That’s the letter, George. The one you’ve been looking for, dressed up like that, I suppose, so people wouldn’t stop and question you. It’s the one you say in your book doesn’t exist, the lost letter from St. Paul that Canon Billings found in that earthquake in Corinth. The one you murdered him for.”
The shock that had been growing in George’s face turned to rage. He made a convulsive movement and tripped on the hem of his monk’s robe, and that gave me just the moment’s respite I needed. I dove for the chapter-house door and escaped, George at my heels.
I ran toward the choir, without plan, seeking light and people. There had to be someone about, someone who could help. I had the advantage for the moment; my sneakers and slacks made running easy. George in his robe and sandals was having a harder time of it, stepping on the hem and stubbing his sandaled toes on irregular paving stones.
There was no one at all in the choir. Turning my head frantically, I saw a staircase I’d never noticed, apparently leading to the organ loft. George was still around the corner. If I could get up there and hide . . .
There was no other way. If I screamed for help he’d get to me first. He’d think to tuck up his robe soon, or pull it off, and with his longer legs he’d catch up with me if I tried to run very far. Winded, my heart trying to thump its way out of my chest, I climbed the stairs.
It should have worked. I crouched behind the carved oak railings and peered down into the choir. He wasn’t far behind me, but he guessed wrong and, after a quick glance around the deserted choir, started out into the nave. I moved cautiously to the other side of the cramped, dusty space and tried to look between the organ pipes to the crossing far below. The view was narrow and restricted, and I couldn’t see straight down, but after a time I saw George, and what I saw appalled me. The nave, too, was strangely empty. After a searching look in all directions, George deliberately approached the crossing altar where four candles burned in their massive holders. As calmly as in a lecture-room demonstration, he took a pocketknife from under the robe and slit the tape on three sides of the glass sandwich he held. Folding the top glass back on the fourth-side hinge, he took out the priceless manuscript and held it out toward one of the candles.
He couldn’t quite reach it, and stretched farther. My fore-shortened view distorted my perception, and I couldn’t tell by how much the fragile piece of papyrus failed to reach the flame. Was it a foot, or an inch? George laid the glass on the floor and tried again, and I betrayed myself. Without conscious volition, I groaned and uttered a tiny, anguished “No!”
I don’t think I could have helped it, but it was a terrible mistake. Quiet as it had been, it echoed round the nave, resounding brassily from the organ pipes. George looked up, and, as surely as if we had changed places, I saw him catch a glimpse of my bright orange hat.
“Ah, there you are,” he said softly. I ducked and searched desperately for a way out.
I saw only one possibility. The current restoration work on the two great piers to the south o
f the crossing involved a scaffolding. If I could reach it and somehow climb over the edge of the choir screen, perhaps I could reach the other side and the triforium, which was also under reconstruction and unused. I could then get down by another stair. At the west end, preferably, where I could run out into the open. Away from this place.
It was impossible, of course. The scaffolding was at least two feet beyond the far corner of the choir screen, and there were organ pipes in between, and carved wood and stone. And I was feeling my age as I hadn’t in months. I couldn’t do it.
George’s feet sounded on the curved stair to the loft. My own feet, moving without orders from their mistress, scrambled over the pipes and the carving, reached the corner, and mounted the railing.
It was carved in great stone fleurs-de-lis, excruciatingly uncomfortable. Straddling the railing, I looked down—once. Then I hugged the nearest piece of carving. My arms gripped so hard that the marble bit into my flesh, and I nearly cried out again.
He was in the loft now, moving very quietly, but I could hear a board creak now and again. The sound was getting closer. I dared not look around, dared not move.
And then George stumbled into the pipes and set up a fearful clatter, disturbing a mouse. In panic it ran over my foot, and the smaller fear blessedly delivered me from the larger. Shuddering, I left the safety of my railing and launched myself at the frail pipe work of the scaffolding.
My sneakers saved me. Leather shoes would have lost their grip, but the ribbed rubber soles grabbed and held just long enough for my arms to encircle a pipe, and then I was sliding down, down, for what seemed like an eternity until one foot struck a cross member, and I was caught, hanging crazily from the pipes, but safe for the moment.
In fact my position was much better, for I was close to the ladder. By stretching a little I could reach it with one foot, then a hand, then the other hand and the last foot. Ah! I could go where I liked now.
At least I could if I could get my shaking legs to move at all. How ridiculous it was for a woman my age to attempt this kind of exercise when I was so out of shape. With the tendency to the trivial of a mind at the last reaches of stress, I resolved firmly to lose some weight and start walking regularly.
If I survived. I considered the position. Up or down? With all the noise he was making among the organ pipes, George hadn’t heard my terrified leap, so I had the choice. Down meant people, in theory, and help. But there were no people to be seen, and down also meant that huge empty nave, with no place to hide. There was the south transept, though. I could go out that door, if I got lucky, and the clutter of tombs and chantries provided concealment if necessary. I moved down one rung, then another, looked down for a moment, and saw George, now without his robe, emerging once more from the choir into the nave. He had given up on the organ loft and was looking elsewhere.
I went up. Very quietly.
My move across to the triforium railing was nasty, but not so bad as the leap from the organ loft. The scaffolding was much closer to that side, for one thing, and there was only a board where the old railing used to be. It was relatively easy to climb around and over, and then I was in the dark, littered triforium. Now I had to find a stair.
There was one in the corner, leading down to the south aisle. That was out of the question, with George so close. The west end, then. Was there a stair there? I didn’t know, but it seemed likely, and anyway I had no choice.
I was halfway along when I heard the crunch of his feet in the litter of sawdust and stone fragments on the floor. I froze behind a section of carved railing propped up against the wall. I would make just as much noise as he if I tried to move.
He came closer. “You have to be up here, Dorothy,” he said quietly, casually. “There’s nowhere else for you to have gone. And you’ll have to come back this way. You can’t get down at the other end, you know.”
That might be true and it might not. I stayed where I was, and George came closer.
“You can’t possibly get away, you know. And you do understand why I have to kill you. I’m sorry about that, Dorothy. I tried to distract you, but you persisted. You’d ruin my book, all my chances. You’d tell them about the letter. You have to be destroyed, just as it does. I wanted to keep it, of course. Pity. Perhaps I’ll go to Corinth one day and try to find more.”
He was moving all the while, slowly, searchingly. He was—here. Perhaps he would go on past, get far enough away that I could make it to the southeast stair before he caught up with me. I tensed, ready to turn and run, but his footsteps stopped. I closed my eyes, afraid my stare would somehow attract his, until I felt his hand touch mine. . . .
“May I help you up?”
I stood, unsteadily. We were very quiet.
“George. There is a way out of this. Tell them about the manuscript. Tell them you found it, and you realize you were wrong. Write a new book; it will be even better.”
It was foolish, and I knew it was. George knew it too. He took the paperweight out of his pocket. It was very large, with sharp corners.
“And what about murder, m’dear? Shall I tell them about that, too? Our beloved canon, who wouldn’t wait to tell the world about his wonderful discovery until my book came out, and I had the Clarendon Chair? It would have been all right then. Can’t blame a man for making a mistake when all the evidence isn’t in. But he wouldn’t do it. He was going to tell the dean. Came out to my office on Christmas Eve to tell me first; scholarly courtesy, he called it, but he came to sneer at me. ‘I’ve actually found it, you see. I have it, in my possession. Of course you can’t publish your book now.’ I saw red. Pleaded with him first, and then I picked up that big brass flowerpot, and . . .”
“Why did you bring his body back to the cathedral, though?” Keep him talking; I might think of something.
“Had to get it away from my office, didn’t I? Planned to leave it in his house, but his cleaner was still there, so I came across the Close, used his key, and slipped him inside the door.” The man preened himself.
“And Wallingford?” I said quietly. I looked at the distance between us and the railing. Could I slip past, if I could distract him for a moment?
“He heard something Billings said to the dean, and put two and two together. First time in his stupid life he ever got a sum right. Blackmailed me on the strength of it, right here in the cathedral, and used the money to buy his way out of his own trouble. Shameful. Fool enough to turn his back on me, though. Of course I had planned to burn down Billings’s house, to destroy any notes he might have made; it was brilliant, I thought, to put Wallingford’s body in the fire. Just bad luck the fire was found so quickly.”
And Emmy? I thought that, but didn’t say it; I knew the answer to that one. I had the right man all along, but the wrong motive. I’d seen that dented pot on his desk and that frightened him badly, that and his book—though I hadn’t understood about the pot, nor read a page of the book. And for that he nearly killed my cat. I thought of her lying there on the cold steel table; soft and still and helpless, and the thought gave me my anger back, and my courage. I fixed my eyes on the crossing altar, said a quick prayer, and screamed, “Dean! Help!”
It worked. George turned, startled, and I ran like a deer, coat flapping, hat askew. It was only a tiny chance. George was as out of shape as I, but his legs were longer, and he had the strength of desperation. I was nearly at the stair when I tripped, and went down, and in one last urgent attempt I picked up a piece of masonry and threw it.
It fell just ahead of George. But in swerving to avoid it, he struck the side railing, hard. The single, temporary plank held, but it bowed out and George missed his footing. Scraps of stone fell to the floor of the nave, forty feet below. He swore, scrabbled, grasped the plank once more.
This time it broke, with all his weight against it. As he fell, screaming, he clutched the manuscript fiercely with both hands, as if it could provide a handhold. It crumbled to bits. As I watched, paralyzed, the one large piece drifted
down to a candle of the crossing altar and then, burning, wafted to the floor to join its destroyer.
THE DEAN WAS there, speechless with horror. Nigel was there. The police were there. Alan was there, finally, mercifully, to cut short the questions and explanations and let me go home. I didn’t want any company. Later, when I stopped shaking and started crying, I would want people. Not now. I walked away from them down the echoing aisle of the south choir transept. In the gloom I thought I saw a cowled figure preceding me, but when I got to the door no one was there.
I opened the door on much more light than I had expected, and stepped out into a world transformed. From the heavy clouds snow was falling at last, thick, white, beautiful snow, blanketing, softening, cleansing. At the gate I turned back. The cathedral, huge, gray, and serene, brooded on its smooth white cloud and folded its protective wings over Sherebury.
20
“. . . SO THAT’S REALLY all the news from here. No one can say it hasn’t been an eventful Christmas! Love, Dorothy.”
That was nearly all of my Christmas correspondence done, thank goodness. It had been tedious writing a slightly different version of murder and mayhem to all the friends and relations, but the thought of mass-producing a “Christmas letter” made me quail. Not that I mind them, but I could not see beginning one with, “Well, the holidays are over and all our murders are solved. . . .”
The doorbell rang; Emmy stirred and stretched and went back to sleep.
“Alan, come in. The rest will be along shortly, I expect.”
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