From Murder To A Cathedral

by John Creasey

  “Only don’t say that in public,” cautioned Hobbs. That was so characteristic of a remark Gideon himself might make that it was like hearing himself speak. Gideon had not fully recovered when there was a tap at the door, and Lemaitre strode in.

  23: SEARCH FOR SIMPLICITY

  Lemaitre was obviously pleased with himself, so much so that even seeing Hobbs did not put him out of his stride. He slapped his hands together loudly, boomed “Good morning, all!” and then his expression changed ludicrously and he stared open-mouthed at Hobbs.

  “What a clot I am,” he gasped.

  Quickly, quietly, Hobbs said, “Let’s take some things as said, Lem.” He smiled quite freely. “And I don’t mean that you’re a clot! The Commander and I have come to the unoriginal conclusion that our only pressing problem is the church outrages. We feel a desperate need for a new approach.”

  Lemaitre swallowed hard, gave Hobbs a sidelong glance, then rubbed his knuckly hands together. “New or old, what does it matter? I’m onto something.”

  Gideon felt a surge of excitement, rare in him. Hobbs stiffened.

  “I’ve been following an angle you mentioned earlier, George. Cranky religious sects, and these chaps are cranks if ever I’ve known one. You know that old boy we saw over at St. Denys’s in Kensington?” Gideon recalled the almost skeletal face of the old man in the damaged church, and remembered the girl Elspeth who had come to him, so soothingly. “Well, I happened to know he’s a bit of a crank himself, very interested in out-of-the-way religions, made a proper study of it. I happened to notice the books on his shelves. That set me thinking. So I went over to see him the next day, and asked him to make out a list of all the off-beat sects in London - England really, but most of them are in London.”

  Gideon thought, why didn’t he tell me? He said, “Nice work, Lem.”

  “I’ll say it was nice work,” Lemaitre crowed. “There are dozens in London, and they range from West Indian voodoo worshipers and Tennessee snake worshipers to the Black Mass boys. We’d find some sun worshipers if we looked hard enough, I dare say. And then we were on the lookout for buyers of dynamite, remember?” He did not pause for comment, but careered on. “Funny thing about that dynamite. I couldn’t understand it. Why dynamite?”

  He paused, not for an answer from the others but in a kind of artistic triumph. Hobbs glanced at Gideon, who was watching Lemaitre intently, and thinking: he had to justify himself, that’s why he’s been keeping all this back. He was astonished that Lemaitre, always bursting to talk, could have been going ahead like this and keeping his own counsel.

  “I mean, why not nitro? Or cellulose nitrate? Or any of a dozen things easier to conceal. Why dynamite? Because it was easy to get hold of, or because it had some kind of significance? Remember the man Bishop, George? He tried to burn London down because his wife and kids were burned to death in a slum fire.”

  “I remember.” It was like being asked if one remembered the Battle of Britain.

  “Anyway, the Vicar of St. Denys’s, Kensington - old Miles Chaplin, you saw him - gave me these lists of sects and their leaders, some of them so obscure hardly anybody knows about them. I had every one checked - just as you said - and had a special eye kept open for one of them who could get hold of dynamite easily. And,” brayed Lemaitre, “I found it.”

  Very softly, Gideon said, “Well done, Lem.”

  “Sect called The Simple Brethren,” Lemaitre said. “Very strict, they even think the Quakers are ritualists. Run by a man named Marriott, Hector Marriott. They call him the Elder Brother. He’s got pots of money, and owns a lot of businesses, and - here’s the significant fact - one of them is for the manufacture of fireworks!”

  “My God!” Hobbs was shaken right out of his usual calm.

  “And they also manufacture dynamite sticks for quarry blasting,” said Lemaitre. “They use the same cardboard, the same paper, the same packing that’s been used in the bits and pieces we’ve found. No doubt about it - look!”

  He took a plastic bag out of his pocket. In this were some tattered scraps of paper, torn cardboard, and a piece of fuse. All of these were blackened and burned. He shook them out onto a sheet of paper on Gideon’s desk, then drew out another plastic bag containing the same kind of thing in an unburned state.

  “They’re identical. I’ve had ‘em up in the lab.” He rubbed his hands together as he went on, “Enough to justify a search at the offices of The Simple Brethren, George? They don’t call themselves that to the public. Marriott runs a Bible society - sells Bibles to underdeveloped countries for next to nothing, but old Chaplin says he holds meetings there. He has a flat in Victoria, too, opposite the R.C. cathedral. How about a search warrant for both places?”

  “The quicker the better,” Gideon agreed. “We want the offices closely watched, too.”

  “I’ve had ‘em covered since yesterday morning,” Lemaitre told him jubilantly. “Everyone who goes there is watched and followed, but don’t worry, they don’t know they’re under surveillance.”

  That was the first time Gideon had any real misgivings about Lemaitre’s overconfidence. Nothing would be served by saying so, he could only pray.

  “We want to raid both places at the same time,” he said. “Which one do you want, Lem?” He was already at the telephone, dialling Scott-Marie’s office.

  “The offices.”

  “Right. Alec, you take the other - hullo, sir. Gideon. I’d like search warrants sworn for two places in Victoria, the offices of . . .”

  As he talked, Lemaitre and Hobbs went out together to make arrangements for the raids. There seemed to be a briskness in Hobbs’s movements which hadn’t been evident for weeks.

  Scott-Marie said, “I’ll see to these at once, Commander.” To hear him, one would think that he was promising action on some matter of routine.

  At his desk in the flat, Hector Marriott was reading some tracts which he himself had written when his telephone bell rang. He did not answer it immediately, but finished reading before slowly lifting the instrument.

  “This is Hector Marriott.”

  “Brother Marriott,” a man said, and Marriott recognized Joliffe’s voice. “We are being watched and followed by the police. I have no doubt of it. There are watchers in the street outside your flat now. Will you consider leaving at once?” There was a breathlessness in the usually calm voice.

  Marriott said calmly, “If you are right, yes.”

  “There is no doubt, Brother Marriott,” Joliffe asserted. “Go to the window and see for yourself. There are two men at a manhole; they are police officers.”

  “Your word is enough for me,” Marriott said calmly. “You will also leave, making sure that the names and addresses of the Brothers are not left intact.”

  “I will see to that”

  “Then we will meet after our final acts of atonement,” Marriott said.

  When he replaced the receiver he stepped to the window and looked out. Two men were at a manhole, exactly as Joliffe had said. One of them was looking up at the flat, as if casually. Marriott made no attempt to conceal himself, glancing up and down the street, then drawing back. He picked up a black briefcase, hooked an umbrella over his arm, and put his bowler hat on, very straight. He went out, not toward the lift but toward the stairs. He walked through a doorway marked EMERGENCY EXIT, crossed a landing where the stairs led up and down, crossed to another door, and was now in a different wing of the building. He walked along to the nearest lift, and pressed the “up” button. In two minutes he was in another flat which overlooked the street from a very different angle. He took off his hat, hung it up with his umbrella, and sat at a table on which there was only an inkstand and a writing pad.

  Lemaitre stepped out of his car in Victoria Street and took a quick look round. Several Yard and Divisional men were in sight, everything was going as planned. With two inspectors, a sergeant, and a detective officer, he went into the building where The Simple Brethren had their office. A man in paint
er’s overalls carrying a brush and paint pot said: “Still up there, sir.”

  “Good.” Lemaitre climbed the stairs two at a time, and reached a door marked BIBLES FOR SIMPLE FOLK. He did not waste a second in trying the handle, found the door locked, beckoned another, heavier man, and whispered, “Let’s get it down. Try it with our shoulders first.” They put their shoulders to the flimsy-looking door, drew back, and launched their full weight.

  The door gave way.

  As they staggered in, a sheet of flame shot out from a steel filing cabinet in a corner where a man was standing, working furiously. In another room, two men were ripping paper across and across.

  “Stop ‘em!” Lemaitre roared. He rushed to the filing cabinet, pushed the man aside, pulled out the drawer in which papers were burning, and emptied it with quick deliberation on to the floor. Fire licked at his hands and face but he took no notice, methodically treading the flames out. Other policemen had come in, and the two men from the inner room were already handcuffed.

  An inspector said, “I’ll do that, sir.”

  Lemaitre nodded gratefully and rushed to the other room. Here papers had been taken out of drawers and piled up for burning; others had been torn to shreds. Lemaitre went to one filing cabinet which was untouched so far and began to go through it. Suddenly he sprang round, snatched up a telephone, and dialled the Yard.

  “Gimme Commander Gideon!” He was almost exulting. “Hurry, hurry, hurry! . . . Hallo, George! . . . We’ve got their names and addresses and a marked list of churches—”

  “And some dynamite sticks,” a man whispered in his ear.

  “And dynamite!” Lemaitre roared. “If Alec’s got his man we’re home and dry.”

  Hobbs, less ostentatious in every way, was just as decisive. He examined the lock of the door at Marriott’s flat, a Yale which would take time they did not have to force. He stood aside and beckoned to men who held jimmies. They started on the door, levering at it vigorously, as Hobbs pressed the bell. He heard nothing except the crunching wood and the occasional sound of metal on metal. As the door swung open he was the first to step inside, and he moved very quickly. It took him less than thirty seconds to discover that the flat was empty.

  Within an hour, arrests were being made all over London.

  From their homes, their offices, their shops, the Simple Brethren were taken by the police, and all premises were searched. In each there was a quantity of dynamite. In some were cards bearing the name of a church, apparently the next to be attacked. In three there were marked lists of churches, and the police set the three men who had these lists aside for special interrogation - men named Joliffe, Abbotsbury and Dennison.

  Nowhere was there any mention of Marriott, or of the Committee of Three, nothing more leading than tracts and instructions declaring the purpose of The Simple Brethren - worship without ritual and without dogma of any kind.

  By mid-afternoon, Gideon’s desk was piled high with papers.

  “If only one of them would talk,” Lemaitre said helplessly.

  Gideon was at his most forbidding. “And if only we hadn’t let Marriott get away.”

  “We can’t expect everything,” Lemaitre protested.

  “We need this man because of what he might do,” Gideon said ponderously.

  “Can’t do more than we are doing.” Lemaitre, secure in the greatness of his triumph, was sitting on a corner of the desk. “There’s a general call out, every paper and every television channel will carry his photograph. We can’t be long finding him.”

  Gideon, inwardly more disturbed than he allowed Lemaitre to see, turned over some papers as a telephone bell rang. He picked up the receiver.

  “Gideon . . . Oh, yes . . . Yes, Brixton . . . Who? . . . Yes, I don’t see why not.” He put down the receiver and said, “Entwhistle’s changed his tune up to a point. He’s asked if he can get in touch with his employers, to get them to fix legal aid for him.”

  “Suits us if it suits him,” Lemaitre agreed. “Can’t be much of a firm if they haven’t already done something about it off their own bat. Pity we can’t hang all murdering baskets,” he added. “Well, I’ll see what else I can do.”

  He went out.

  Gideon made a note in the Entwhistle case file.

  Geoffrey Entwhistle, quite sober and very frightened now, told a middle-aged, obviously sceptical solicitor the simple truth, as they sat in his remand cell at Brixton Jail. At that very moment, Eric Greenwood was standing by Bessie Smith’s desk, saying that it looked as if the police had caught the sacrilegious devils. In the hospital at Tottenham, Dalby was standing over his daughter, who looked pale and drawn, her eyes darkly shadowed.

  “I understand, Sally, I understand, and everything will be all right. We’ll let your mother go on thinking that you’ve been away for a holiday.”

  A policewoman sitting in a corner said quietly, “The important thing is that your daughter should remember everything she can, Mr. Dalby. There are so many other girls we have not yet traced.”

  “I am sure she will help in every way,” Dalby said. He bent down and kissed his daughter’s forehead.

  At Scotland Yard, Rollo was trying to make Toni Bottelli talk, but Bottelli had sunk into a sullen silence. Golightly was looking through the photographs in the cellar at Tottenham, and all the papers found on the premises, but no trace of the other missing girls had yet been found.

  Golightly began to go through the stock of the shop itself, while the old crone who looked after it protested sibilantly. He found a section under one counter filled with envelopes marked:

  Cigarettes Direct from the Manufacturers

  Best Virginian and Turkish Tobacco Only Used

  He opened one of these to see what literature was enclosed - and found some of the most obscene photographs he had ever come across. His cheeks became tinged with red.

  “My God, what a swine,” he muttered. He tossed them across to another man who was taking sample packets of branded as well as “privately manufactured” cigarettes; these were going for analysis to the Yard, and if any contained drugs there would be another charge against Bottelli.

  “We might find something from the suppliers of the tobacco, or drugs if there are any,” Golightly remarked. “Keep at it.”

  While all this was going on, bands of voluntary workers were clearing up the debris in the churches, newspapers had more photographs than they could hope to cope with, headlines screamed news of The Simple Brethren and the mass of arrests, and every newspaper seemed to heave a sigh of relief, as if the worst was over.

  Gideon did not feel so sanguine. Lemaitre did, with ample excuse. Hobbs preferred not to commit himself.

  That evening Hector Marriott sat studying photographs of St. Paul’s Cathedral. At the same time he made frequent references to a detailed plan of the main body of the church, the transepts, the galleries, and, particularly, the Whispering Gallery. He concentrated more and more on the Whispering Gallery and the various parts of the church which could be seen from it, including the inner dome with the Thornhill cartoons, the High Altar, and the baldachin. After a while he marked a spot on the Gallery with an X. From there the choir stalls and the High Altar would be clearly visible.

  Finished, he moved into an adjacent bedroom and, kneeling, he prayed silently for a few minutes before rising and opening a drawer. He took out what looked like a camera, removed the lenses, and examined them. They were not in fact lenses, but containers of a particular kind of firework - nor was it a camera, but a light type of pistol.

  He fitted in two cartridges. They would be fired simultaneously and would explode on contact with any hard object. He put the “camera” down on a table and took a suit out of the wardrobe. It was very different from the suits he usually wore, being of greenish-red tweed, the jacket belted over bulky knickerbockers. There was also a Tyrolean hat with a feather tucked in the narrow band, and a pair of brown shoes with thick rubber soles.

  He contemplated these sartorial
aberrations with a satisfied eye before again sinking to his knees in an attitude of prayer. After a long, long silence, his voice rose in supplication: “When shall it be, O Lord? Grant me the vision that I may do Thy will on the appointed day.”

  24: THE WHISPERING GALLERY

  On Sunday evening, with no further progress made, Gideon flew to Paris.

  On Monday morning there was a message from Dean Howcroft; would Commander Gideon be good enough to attend an emergency meeting of the Council of Advisers? The message reached Hobbs, who had come in after an early-morning cremation service at the Hampstead Crematorium. He rang for Lemaitre, who came in as promptly as he would have had Gideon been there.

  “What’s on?” he asked.

  Hobbs said, “Dean Howcroft wants one of us at a Council of Advisers. Are you free to go?”

  Lemaitre stared. “I’m free enough, but you’re Gee-Gee’s stand-in.”

  Hobbs said stiffly, “Do you want to go, or don’t you?” Lemaitre, still oversensitive, drew himself up and answered sharply, “Naturally I want to go. Any idea what they’re after?”

  “No,” Hobbs said. “It’s for three o’clock this afternoon.”

  “Right. I’ll be there.” Lemaitre went off, and Hobbs stared out the window, wondering whether it was wise to send Lemaitre to such a meeting. He was not thinking as clearly as he liked; in at least one way he had sent Lemaitre because he himself did not feel able to cope.

  Helen’s death hurt more, infinitely more, than he had expected; the anguish of his loss, the emptiness of wasted years, was almost greater than he could bear.

  Lemaitre, very self-conscious and for once unable to cover nervousness with an air of boisterous bonhomie and cocksureness, entered the room where the Council of Advisers was already waiting. He recognized all of them. There was something almost forbidding about each as they sat together round the table. They made him welcome and yet he had the feeling that they were acutely disappointed at Gideon’s absence.