Murder in a Cathedral

by Ruth Dudley Edwards

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Be reasonable, Jack. They’re busy with Davage. In their scheme of things, a cat is not important.’

  ‘In my scheme of things, she is. Plutarch is a member of my family and therefore under my protection. Her enemy is my enemy. If the police won’t do anything you’d better.’

  ‘What? You want me to wander around Westonbury in the hope of finding somebody with a scratched face?’

  ‘Don’t be so pathetic. Start with the usual suspects. Especially the dean. He’s got the physique. Keep in touch.’

  Feeling like a fool, but glad of something to do, Amiss decided to call on the prime suspect. He was walking across Bishops’ Green when his phone rang. ‘It’s Ellis. The dean’s body has been found at the bottom of the north tower. He seems to have fallen from the top.’

  ‘Is he scratched?’

  ‘Scratched. Of course he’s scratched. And bruised and bloody and battered, poor wretch.’

  ‘I mean Plutarch-scratched.’

  ‘Ah, yes. I’m with you now. I don’t know, but I’ll tell the pathologist to look out for cat scratches. I suppose it would relieve your mind to know who the perpetrator was.’

  ‘It would also stop Jack proceeding on her mission of vengeance. She’s in a very eye-for-an-eye mood.’

  His mind in a spin, Amiss walked up and down Bishop’s Green half a dozen times to gather his wits, until the phone rang once again. ‘Ellis. We’ve found Davage’s suicide note.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘It says he was going to commit suicide because he was afraid of exposure and because of his shame at his failure as treasurer, and that he decided to take the dean with him so as to save the cathedral.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Except for a couple of personal goodbyes to friends.’

  ‘Ellis, this is mad. It doesn’t fit in at all with what he said last night. Cecil was a softy. And a softy with a broken arm, at that. How could he have killed the dean?’

  ‘Anyone could have pushed the dean over the tower at the corner where the masonry is missing.’

  ‘But what about strangling Plutarch?’

  ‘Maybe the dean did that. We don’t know. Anyway I can’t talk any longer. Godson wants me—probably to talk over his problems with his sweet peas.’

  Amiss pressed a button. ‘Get me the mistress,’ he said with an abruptness and abandonment of manners that would have done justice to the lady herself.

  ***

  ‘I hope this is the end,’ said the baroness. ‘Call me a wimp, but this commuting is beginning to wear me out.’

  ‘It’s certainly the end as far as Godson is concerned,’ said Pooley. ‘He’s already put in his report. Burglary by shamans who are still being pursued, the dean murdered by Davage and Davage immolated by himself.’

  ‘Did you talk to him about Plutarch?’

  ‘Godson said it didn’t matter. He admitted Davage couldn’t have strangled her, so said it was probably the dean.’

  ‘But you said the pathologist saw no scratches of the kind administered by a cat.’

  ‘Godson pooh-poohed that. His view was that there was absolutely no reason why there should be any scratches at all.’

  ‘He doesn’t know Plutarch,’ said the bishop, baroness and Amiss in unison.

  ‘I tried to explain that to him, but he was not interested.’

  ‘Back to basics,’ said the baroness. ‘It’s the only thing to do at these times. Either Godson is right or we’re looking for another perpetrator, someone who murdered the dean, strangled Plutarch, did or didn’t hang Flubert and burnt little Davage to death having forced him to write a suicide note and then presumably coshed him to make him quiet.’

  ‘It’s not like that. I can’t see there being any doubt about Davage having committed suicide. He was sitting on a chair, with an empty petrol can beside him. It looks as if he lit a match, doused himself with petrol and just went up in flames.’

  ‘Why would he choose to go in such a horrible way?’

  ‘Most ways are horrible. This one is at least fast, if you use enough petrol. And he was a melodramatic little fellow. Also, it enabled him to die in the cathedral itself to maximum effect; he got the drama of the fire without doing damage to the cathedral. Dumbert’s Chapel, being spartan and Norman, was virtually undamaged, apart from some blackening.’

  ‘I don’t like it,’ said Amiss.

  ‘Maybe not, but I fear you have to lump it. We could speculate over this forever.’

  The bishop came in hesitantly. ‘I’m probably being very silly, but I have to say that often when in doubt I go back to the primary source. I am, as you know, also keen on exegesis. Could you remind me once again exactly what poor Cecil said in his note?’

  ‘I have a photocopy here.’ Pooley reached for his briefcase and tossed a piece of paper to the bishop. He read it closely. ‘That seems very straightforward, don’t you think so, Jack?’

  She perused it swiftly, nodded and passed the paper to Amiss, who read it and shouted, ‘Eureka!’

  He gazed uncomprehendingly around the group. ‘What’s the matter with you? Haven’t you understood the last paragraph? The gutsy little bugger found a way to tell us someone else murdered the dean and who it was.’

  ‘What? How?’

  ‘It reads, “Please tell Elinor I was sorry to hear about Nora and ask her to take care of Myrtle.”’

  ‘Do you know who these people are?’ asked Pooley. ‘We assume they must be family but we haven’t yet located them.’

  ‘Family? You’re missing the whole point! Don’t you remember that Cecil in true camp style referred to those in his immediate vicinity by girls’ names?’

  ‘Not to me, he didn’t,’ said Pooley.

  ‘Nor to me,’ agreed the bishop and the baroness.

  ‘Well, he always did to me.’

  ‘So who is Elinor?’

  ‘You, Ellis. He called you after Elinor Glyn because of your red-gold hair and his fantasies about seeing you on a tiger-skin rug.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  The bishop came in helpfully. ‘She was a fashionable novelist and a lady of fast reputation, Ellis, about whom a well-known verse was written—I think in the 1930s. It was popular among some of my fellow ordinands for some reason I never understood, but perhaps now am beginning to. Do you remember it, Jack? “Would you like to sin…”’

  ‘With Elinor Glyn

  On a tiger skin?

  Or would you prefer

  to err

  with her

  On some other fur?’

  ‘I suppose I should feel flattered. Who is Nora?’

  ‘The dean. Cecil thought it funny to give him what he said was an Irish maidservant’s name.’

  Pooley’s whole body went taut. ‘Now for the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. Who is Myrtle?’

  ‘The Rev. Bev.’

  ‘But he hardly knew him.’

  ‘He hated him on sight when they met at David’s consecration. And Cecil was a good hater.’

  ‘Oh, my God. We never gave the Rev. Bev any thought. Why should we? The dean was his benefactor.’ He punched some numbers into his mobile phone.

  ‘We must pray,’ said the bishop, ‘that all will become clear in the fullness of time.’

  ‘It’s all right for you,’ said Pooley, as he waited for an answer, ‘you don’t have to confide to a senior officer that a dead, gay canon wanted to sin with you on a tiger-skin rug.’

  Chapter 21

  Amiss entered the kitchen to find the baroness and the bishop lying on the floor tending to Plutarch, who was lying on a bed of cushions. They were taking it in turns to finger-feed her with jellied beef consommé while crooning at her encouragingly.

  ‘I swear I heard one of you say “Coochy, coochy, coo.”’

  ‘So what?’ said the baroness stoutly. ‘If you were recovering from being strangled, you might want to be coochy-coochy-cooed.’

  ‘One
of Plutarch’s few virtues in the days before she became the Pamela Anderson of the feline world was that she rarely attracted outpourings of sentimental drivel.’

  ‘Bugger off. She’s a brave girl, and a clever girl, and we don’t care who hears us say it, do we, David?’

  ‘Certainly not. Without her, it would have been impossible to prove that that awful man was in the cathedral that morning.’

  ‘I admit I would hate to have been the copper trying to construct a case based purely around the Myrtle business.’ Amiss inspected Plutarch and patted her gingerly. ‘How’s she looking?’

  ‘Definite improvement.’ The baroness emitted an agonized yowl that caused the bishop and Amiss to jump and even Plutarch to quiver and held out her index finger for inspection. ‘Look at this. She bit me. Isn’t that encouraging?’

  ‘Biting the hand that feeds her? That’s my girl. Definitely the old Plutarch.’

  ‘What do you think, David?’ asked the baroness. ‘Is she on course to try mashed-up salmon this evening?’

  ‘We can try her with a little. We’ve got more consommé in reserve.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Amiss. ‘I’ll buy a tin later on.’

  The baroness exuded outrage. ‘A tin? A tin? I’m not having that heroine fed with tinned salmon. It must be not just fresh, but wild.’

  ‘As you wish. As long as you buy and cook it. Now, I’ve got good news. Ellis has just reported that Bev has ratted on Tilly so they’re off to clap her in irons. He expects to be able to tell us all at dinner.’

  The baroness scrambled to her feet. ‘Excellent. We’ll have a proper celebration. You can make it, can’t you, David?’

  The bishop looked depressed. ‘I can’t. When I get home from the Intra-Church Symposium, I’ll only have time to change and go straight out to the Lord Lieutenant’s banquet.’

  ‘Sod the Lord Lieutenant. Robert, ring him up and say David has urgent family business tonight.’

  Amiss looked enquiringly at the bishop. ‘Oh dear, oh dear. I don’t know what to do.’

  Amiss stood up. ‘Then do what Jack tells you. I’ll go and ring the old boy’s secretary now.’

  ***

  ‘I love this,’ said Pooley unexpectedly, as he sat back in his armchair and accepted a glass of champagne. ‘All my childhood I fantasized about being the Great Detective explaining to his awe-struck admirers how he had solved the case.’

  ‘But you didn’t,’ pointed out the baroness. ‘Robert did.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Jack,’ expostulated Amiss. ‘It was a team effort. Even you made a contribution—although I still haven’t worked out if it was negative or positive.’

  ‘And there was Plutarch. And poor Cecil,’ proffered the bishop.

  ‘A fine team,’ said Pooley. He put the tips of his fingers together. ‘I wonder, Watson, if you have ever observed that—’

  ‘Ellis, stop farting about and get on and tell us what happened today.’

  Reluctantly, Pooley reverted to his everyday efficient persona. ‘Beverley Johns and Tilly Cooper have been charged with the murders of Norman Cooper and Cecil Davage.’

  ‘Not Jeremy?’

  ‘No. I’m afraid he committed suicide, Robert. Tilly had the note all right; she’d kept it in case she was ever under suspicion for murdering him.’

  ‘How did she get it, for heaven’s sake?’

  ‘She visited Trustrum after talking to Flubert and took a short cut through the cathedral when she left him. Flubert was already dead, so she looked for a note and found it on the organ.’

  ‘Took some nerve.’

  ‘Clearly she’s got plenty of that.’

  ‘What did Jeremy say?’

  ‘That he hoped that by killing himself so dramatically, he would wreck the dean’s plans to destroy a great musical tradition and expose his wife’s ruthlessness and immorality in trying to win consent through blackmailing him with a twenty-year-old conviction.

  ‘He saw no point in staying alive when his choice was either to watch the ruin of everything he had spent his life building up, or to be humiliated by the press for yielding many years previously to an overwhelming temptation.’

  Amiss gazed miserably at the carpet.

  ‘There was a message for you, Robert. After sending his thanks and blessings to his colleagues and friends, he asked that his new and valued friend, Robert Amiss, should be given as a memento the armchair which he liked so much and in which he had sat so companionably.’

  Amiss looked up. ‘That makes me feel both better and worse. Press on, and take my mind off Jeremy.’

  ‘The Rev. Bev and Tilly each accuse the other of being the prime mover. What seems beyond dispute is there was terrific sexual chemistry between them. Tilly was a bank clerk when she met Cooper. She says she married him on the rebound and regretted it shortly afterwards, especially when she realized he was a manic-depressive—though according to Johns she was to turn that to her advantage by controlling Cooper’s drug intake: when it suited her, she replaced with placebos the lithium that kept him relatively stable.’

  The baroness snorted. ‘I bet it’s balls about marrying him on the rebound. A bit of clerical rough would have been right up that little tart’s street. And she’d have enjoyed making him a slave. Tough on him that the attraction wore off.’

  ‘Johns arrived at their church as curate within a couple of months of the wedding. He’s half American and had spent some months in the Deep South with an evangelical church picking up ideas which Tilly found intoxicating. Their affair began almost immediately. He says that, like Cooper, he was sexually in thrall to Tilly.’

  ‘Hah,’ interjected the baroness, ‘I told you so.’

  ‘She seems to have led them both by the nose…’

  ‘Surely you’re getting your organs mixed up?’

  ‘Shut up, Jack. She persuaded Cooper to swallow the whole born-again agenda and let Johns do what he liked. So Cooper’s church, which had been doing well because of his genuine and effective evangelical efforts, turned into a wildly successful rave centre and more and more Cooper confined himself to pastoral work and presiding over low-profile services.’

  The bishop looked confused. ‘Was this woman a genuine believer or a hypocrite?’

  ‘Both. She wouldn’t be the first moral inadequate who confused the razzmatazz of born-againery with the substance—for a time, anyway. However, if the Rev. Bev is to be believed, Jesus didn’t have a look-in once she decided she wanted to marry Bev and get rich by setting up their own church in the Bible Belt. This made it necessary to get rid of Cooper: born-agains don’t like divorced preachers.’

  The bishop looked anguished. ‘Surely Johns resisted this?’

  ‘He claims he did at first. He went on about Eve giving Adam the fruit of the forbidden tree.’

  The bishop shook his head. ‘The oldest excuse of men: “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.” I fear I have little sympathy with that line of defence.’

  ‘Money was the problem. Tilly took out as much life insurance on Cooper as she dared—about a hundred and fifty thousand pounds—and while she was looking out for possibilities of getting more, there was a stay of execution on her husband. When he was offered the deanery she encouraged him to take it in the hope there would be rich pickings. Specifically, she was hoping there would be some way of getting her hands on some of Reggie Roper’s legacy. She was very peeved when she realized that was not going to be possible. According to Bev, through sheer temper, she then made an attempt to kill the dean.’

  ‘The highly polished pulpit steps?’

  ‘Precisely, Jack. Well spotted.’

  ‘She and Bev then reverted to plan A, which was to stir up the canons to such an extent that one of them would either murder the dean or be given the blame when the lovers did the deed. According to Johns, Tilly had donned a disguise and paid a private eye to dig up whatever dirt there was on the chapter.

  ‘They also turned their
attention to the treasury and decided to rob it at a propitious moment. Meantime, the Coopers went off on their long-awaited visit to Born-Again Land and Tilly came back mad with lust for the power and money acquired by successful preachers. She decided to bring forward the murders of the dean and Davage, who had been selected as the most obvious fall guy.

  ‘Last Saturday, Tilly tipped off Johns that the coast would be clear. He broke into Davage’s house and took his huge bunch of keys, which are numbered by case and which included a key clearly marked “alarm.” The police would have known that simply by hanging around the cathedral for a few days any professional burglar could have cased the joint, spotted Davage with the keys and even seen him disable the alarm, so no suspicion could legitimately fall on any insider.’

  Amiss looked sadly around his friends. ‘I’m afraid Cecil was right when he said he was careless.’

  ‘Maybe “innocent” is a better word,’ said the bishop. ‘One cannot always be on the watchout for venality amongst one’s fellows. One question, if I may, Ellis. Did the wretched man attack the dean that night?’

  ‘He says no and Tilly says yes, which leads me to suppose that she did.’

  ‘But she was as pissed as a newt.’

  ‘Not really, Robert. I’m sure that performance with me had as much to do with her strategy of keeping the dean jealous as to alcohol-related indiscretion.’

  The baroness snorted. ‘I was watching. Your trouble, Ellis, is that you’re too modest.’

  ‘At all events, she wasn’t as pissed as the dean. Remember, he was a genuine teetotaller, while she was a fake. Johns says she drank plenty on the quiet—and had developed a taste for cocaine. My guess is that she wound up the dean to go and attack the memorial in the hope that he would injure himself and bleed to death, that when he didn’t return she investigated and found him passed out from his exertions and that she hit him on the back of the head with the axe and left him there for a few hours hoping he’d die. Acting the concerned wife, she raised the alarm early in the morning. But that’s academic, since she arranged for Johns to kill him a couple of days later.’

  ‘How did they get the dean to go up the north tower at night?’