Death After Evensong

by Douglas Clark

  Wessel grinned: ‘So you’ve come over here to see what you can glean from us?’

  ‘If you’ve anything of interest to tell me.’

  ‘I’m the local lawyer. I get paid to keep my lips sealed.’

  ‘Pity. However, my main reason for approaching you is to ask Mr Beck for a short character study of the late vicar. I like to know something about the people whose deaths I investigate, and as I’ve heard Mr Beck was a churchwarden at one time, I thought I might get a factual picture from him—if he’d care to help me.’

  Beck said: ‘What sort of thing do you want to know, Mr Masters?’ It was like the sound of joyous bells to Masters to hear somebody say that. It was as if Beck had said: ‘I know a lot that will be of help to you. You can have it all if you’ll start me off at the right place and then let me keep going.’ Masters knew the importance of the right question. Beck sounded sure of himself. Knew he had knowledge to impart, but was not aware which bits would be wheat and which chaff. Masters said: ‘I’ve heard that the late vicar was not as well thought of in Rooksby as he might have been. This may be at variance with your own opinion—as his churchwarden. It may even be coloured by the fact that he was not a native of Rooksby. Would you care to put me right?’

  Beck said: ‘De mortuis . . .’

  Masters said: ‘That as good as confirms that he wasn’t well thought of.’

  ‘You’re quick to draw conclusions.’

  ‘Shall we say I notice straws in the wind?’

  ‘And are adept at verbal fencing.’ Beck was portly. A soft face, full and pink, that seemed to run back over his bald head. The hair still left at the sides was clean-white and soft. The eyes were big and kind. The shirt was of soft material, not firm enough to hold the collar in shape, but comfortable looking. At least the large knot of a Cambridge blue tie nestled snugly between the rounded ends. Beck was, Masters thought, prosperous, kindly, and pretty sharp. Just the chap for a churchwarden. Could put his hand in his pocket, could help people, and couldn’t be bamboozled. This thought made Masters pause. Beck was obviously not a great admirer of Parseloe. Had the vicar tried to bamboozle him? It was worth a shot.

  ‘May I know your business or profession, Mr Beck?’

  ‘I’m an accountant.’

  Masters grinned. He said: ‘And as such you weren’t prepared to have the financial wool pulled over your eyes? Or am I completely off net?’

  ‘You’re bang on net. Financial wool! I like that.’

  ‘Golden Fleece,’ murmured Wessel. ‘I’m taking a lesson in something. I don’t know what. Probably semantics. But I could have sworn I was seeing the art of second sight practised.’

  Masters said: ‘Could I know what worried you, Mr Beck?’

  ‘Worried me?’

  ‘I’m assuming that you were so dissatisfied with some of the financial dealings of either the church or its vicar that you resigned as churchwarden.’

  ‘That’s right. I did. But I wasn’t worried. I was downright angry.’

  ‘Would you please tell me the cause of your anger?’

  Beck shrugged. ‘You’ll think it unimportant, I daresay. But the church is like anything else. Once you become closely connected with it, particularly in a responsible position like that of warden, you find lots of time to devote to it that you didn’t know you had before. This is a sure sign that you are, in the modern idiom, becoming integrated. Or as I would put it, involved and interested.’

  Masters said: ‘So that a relatively minor matter assumes the proportions of a major issue?’

  ‘Correct. What seemed important to me may seem trivial to you.’

  ‘Perhaps you would let me be the judge.’

  ‘Willingly. It was this way. I was responsible for the church accounts. There are several funds, but the amounts going through them in my day were so small they were easy to keep straight just as long as the system was adhered to.’ While Beck was speaking Green had called for refills. When Beck paused to acknowledge his Guinness, Masters said: ‘What system?’

  ‘There’s a church hall. It’s hired out for dances, Girl Guide meetings, Mothers’ Union teas—you know the sort of thing. Any private person or any club in Rooksby can hire it whether they are affiliated to the church or not. The hiring, or should I say the diary, was kept by the vicar, as he was usually available to make the bookings. But payment was supposed to be made to me as treasurer. For the most part this was understood by people who were in the habit of hiring the hall regularly, but once or twice, people unfamiliar with the system paid the vicar direct.’

  ‘And he pocketed the dibs?’

  ‘Just so. And gave no receipts and conveniently forgot to forward them. Once or twice I was embarrassed through asking for payment from some organization or for some function, only to be told that the fees had been paid and that I hadn’t forwarded a legal receipt. This was not only distasteful to me, but distinctly bad from a personal business point of view.’

  ‘The vicar may have just been forgetful.’

  ‘That is the charitable view, Mr Masters. The view I took in the first few instances. But it happened too often—in fact, always—for me to hold that view for long. Remember I’m a sceptic about forgetfulness when it is of financial benefit to the one who forgets. I had such trouble in prising the money out of him on a number of occasions that I had special leaflets printed. They were given to every organizer who hired the hall and told them to pay me and me only.’

  Masters said: ‘Padre Parseloe wouldn’t like that.’

  ‘He didn’t. But, you know, I believe he had such a tip about himself that he thought I’d swallowed his explanations whole. At any rate under me the funds were solvent and that must have saved him some trouble.’

  They sat silent for a moment or two, until Wessel said: ‘The Chief Inspector ought to have the rest, Arn.’

  Masters jerked to attention. ‘I’m sorry. I was just digesting what you’d told me. Contrary to your belief, I found it most interesting and important.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Mr Beck, people are usually murdered for some reason. Oh, I know there are some killings we call motiveless, but there is always a reason—either in the character of the victim or of his murderer. I don’t know the murderer in this case—yet. Don’t you think it’s logical for me to concentrate on the victim whose identity I do know? There’s at least a fifty-fifty chance of the reason for his murder lying within his own character.’

  ‘That’s how you work, is it?’ Beck sounded more interested. Wessel leaned forward over the small table, full of empty glasses and white cardboard mats. ‘You make it sound easy. It isn’t, I’m sure. But I can see your ploy.’

  ‘You get a nose for it in our game,’ Green said. ‘If somebody talks, you’ve got facts. If somebody refuses to talk, you’ve got grounds for suspicion. And if somebody tells lies it’s like reading mirror writing, but you’ve got the message even if it is all arsey-tarsey. The witness I don’t like’s the half-and-halfer. Half fact, half fiction. Sorting one of them out’s a work of art—and that’s where your nose comes in. You smell your way from lie to truth like a dog sniffing out trees from lamp-posts in Quality Street. And it’s just as nasty, I can tell you.’

  Beck smiled. His cheeks dimpled. He looked like a cherub. He said: ‘So you’d like to know why I resigned?’

  Masters said: ‘Please.’

  ‘I don’t know how much you know about the church, but you’ve probably heard it’s pretty short of parsons in some areas. Or it was, a few years ago. Perhaps the situation is better now. I don’t know. But at the time I was warden, quite a number of the small villages round here, all poor livings, were without incumbents. The Bishop did the obvious thing. He gave the vicars of more fortunate parishes the responsibility for arranging services in churches where there were no parsons.’

  ‘I don’t see how even God-botherers could be in two places at once.’

  ‘That’s just the point, Mr Green,’ Beck said. ‘The
y couldn’t. So unless the churches concerned were so close that a parson could get from one to the other with no loss of time, an alternative way had to be found. And the alternative was to use lay preachers.’

  ‘Was Parseloe given a second church?’ Masters asked.

  Beck replied: ‘Three more. Two where he was supposed to arrange one service each Sunday, and another where he had to have a service once a fortnight. Now this was extremely fortunate for him because it meant that one lay preacher could work up one sermon each week and deliver it in one church in the morning and in the other in the evening. A second lay preacher was only required once a fortnight for the other church, so this was fairly easy to arrange. But the first man was quite hard worked, as you can imagine.’

  ‘Parseloe found a volunteer?’

  ‘A very good man. One of the County’s travelling librarians. Not a well paid man, but well read, and a keen churchgoer. Parseloe used him good and proper. This man used to borrow a little car each Sunday to get to the churches, but he had to provide the petrol himself. After a time he approached me and said that the cost of the petrol was becoming a burden, so as treasurer I made him a grant of a few shillings a week to cover the cost. He was extremely grateful.’ Beck smiled. ‘But I’m a business man, Mr Masters. I didn’t see why our church here should bear this cost and so I approached the treasurers of the other churches concerned.’ He suddenly looked like an indignant cherub. ‘Imagine my surprise when I was told by these men that they were already paying our vicar three guineas a week each for providing the services.’

  Green whistled. Masters’ face settled heavily. He began to fill a pipe ponderously. He gritted: ‘Go on, Mr Beck.’

  ‘I was on to Parseloe like a bailiff. I asked why he was keeping the money himself—it was seven and a half guineas a week altogether—and not giving any of it to the man who was doing the work, even for buying petrol. Do you know what he told me?’

  Masters said dryly: ‘That he, as incumbent, was legally entitled to the money and in no way bound to pay the lay preachers.’

  ‘Right. Christian-like, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Many parsons have treated people like that,’ Masters said.

  ‘Maybe they have. But I didn’t believe him. I went to see the Rural Dean. Parseloe was legally right and I could do nothing to force him to pay up. I urged him to do so of his own free will. I succeeded in getting him to agree to five shillings a week for petrol. Having done that I resigned. And I think you’ll find that with me out of the way he didn’t even pay that.’

  ‘I hear lots of things I don’t like in my job,’ Masters said. ‘This is one of them. Have we time for another to wash our mouths out?’

  ‘You were too interested in Arn’s story to hear,’ Wessel replied. ‘Binkhorst called time five minutes ago.’

  ‘We’re resident,’ Green said.

  ‘But we’re not, and I’m a lawyer,’ Wessel retorted. ‘I don’t want to appear in one of your courts on a drinking-after-hours charge.’

  ‘With us present? Be your age,’ said Green. ‘Can you honestly see Constable Crome bursting in here at the moment?’

  Wessel said: ‘Come to think of it, I can’t. But as I live barely a minute’s walk away, would you care to come with me for a nightcap?’

  Masters said: ‘I’ve got some writing to do, but if you gentlemen are going to be here tomorrow night . . .?’ He turned to de Hooch, who had joined them: ‘And you, sir, I shall be very pleased to see you again . . .’

  The room cleared very quickly.

  Masters and Binkhorst were the last two in the bar. The publican came back from bolting the main door. He went behind his counter. There was nothing for him to do. His wife had cleaned up. He stood looking at Masters, who had his back to the dying fire, filling his pipe. Masters said: ‘Have a drink with me, landlord?’

  Binkhorst said: ‘I don’t want one. You can have one if you like.’

  It was an ungracious reply. Masters wondered what the reason was. He said: ‘You’d better join me. Just a short one, because I’d like a word or two with you.’

  Binkhorst looked back at him, stolidly. ‘Why?’

  ‘Since I hope we’ll both be truthful, I’ll tell you candidly. I’ve got the impression that you don’t like my being here, but at the same time you’d rather have me here where you can keep an eye on me than anywhere else. So I want to know why. Do you dislike policemen?’

  ‘No more than anybody else.’

  ‘That’s a pretty ambiguous answer. Have you ever been in trouble with the police? Been inside?’

  ‘I’ve never had anything to do with any policeman except the locals when they look in here trying to catch me serving after hours.’

  ‘Have they ever caught you?’

  ‘They couldn’t, could they, seeing as I never serve after hours?’

  ‘In that case you’ve no cause to dislike policemen in general or me in particular. Why don’t you want me here?’

  ‘I never said I didn’t.’

  Masters said: ‘Come on, have a whisky. We both know. I can sense these things—hostility, uneasiness, dislike and all the rest. Just as easily as you can tell a drop of good beer.’ Binkhorst gave in. He poured two whiskies. They both added water. Masters said: ‘Cheers!’ and sipped a little. ‘Now, where were we? Oh, yes. We were disagreeing. Let’s try something else.’

  ‘I can’t see we’ve anything to talk about.’

  ‘We have. A lot. But don’t worry about your wife. I’ll explain I kept you.’

  ‘There won’t be any explaining to do.’

  ‘No? I’d have said she wore the trousers.’

  ‘Would you?’

  ‘Yes. You looked as though she’d told you off tonight for not telling me I definitely couldn’t have a meal at half past eight.’

  ‘Oh, in little things, perhaps . . .’

  ‘Not only in little things. What’s your religion? C of E?’

  Binkhorst nodded.

  ‘And your wife’s a Catholic. I’ll bet your daughter was brought up Catholic, too.’

  ‘She was as a nipper. But she changed to C of E.’

  ‘Did she? I’ve never heard of that before. When did she change?’

  ‘When she was about nineteen.’

  ‘Before coming of age? Why did you persuade her to do that? Or are you a keen churchgoer?’

  ‘How can I run a pub and go to church? I haven’t been near one for years. I’m in here, Sundays. Dinner time and nights.’

  ‘Then why did you persuade your daughter to change her religion?’

  ‘I didn’t. I couldn’t have cared less which church she went to.’

  Masters sipped his whisky. Then he said: ‘That story won’t hold water.’

  ‘What won’t?’

  ‘I know enough about Catholics to know that the children of mixed marriages are brought up in the Catholic faith. If your daughter tried to change before she came of age, while she was still legally under her mother’s care, her mother would have stopped it, unless you, as the father, put your foot down.’

  ‘I tell you I wasn’t interested. Her mother did it.’

  ‘So she does wear the trousers.’

  ‘How d’you make that out?’

  ‘She said what had to be done. There must have been some serious reason for it. And yet you say you weren’t interested. What was the reason?’

  ‘There wasn’t one.’

  ‘I said we’d tell the truth, didn’t I? What caused the change of religion?’

  ‘You’ve no right . . .’

  ‘I’ve every right to ask what I like. What caused it?’

  ‘Nothing much. All her friends were Church of England. She didn’t like being different.’

  ‘Kids don’t. But she’d been different for nineteen years. Why the sudden need for change?’

  Binkhorst didn’t answer. He downed the last of his whisky and rinsed the glass. Masters said: ‘It was when she was old enough to have serious boy friends, wasn’
t it? What happened? Did your wife have her eye on some suitable young chap for Maria? Somebody she thought wouldn’t want a mixed marriage? Was that it?’

  Binkhorst said: ‘Something of the sort. These women all think a lass is on the shelf if she’s not married before she’s old enough to say her A.B.C.’

  ‘You married your wife when she was only seventeen.’

  Binkhorst said: ‘Don’t I know it.’

  ‘You mean you wish you hadn’t?’

  ‘Well—you know how it is. Not like you read about. A man proposing an’ all that. These girls, all they want is a ring on their finger. You don’t hardly get to know them before they’re asking for one. If you can only afford a couple of quid for one they say that’ll do fine—till after they’re married. Then it’s a different business. They want a replacement costing forty quid and an eternity ring and God knows what besides.’

  ‘Are you still trying to tell me your wife doesn’t wear the pants? Never mind. What about this young man of Maria’s?’

  ‘What about him? I can’t even remember his name. He had a bit of brass, I know that. But it never came to nowt. It never does when mothers stick their noses in. Frightens fellers off. And Gina’s always been so dead set on getting Maria wed she’s tried too hard. Now look at the lass!’

  Masters relit his pipe. Then he asked: ‘Is she a worry to you?’

  ‘She’s not. It’s her mother. Making her think that getting wed’s the only thing for a girl. That’s the Italian side coming out, you know. They’re great believers in marriage.’

  Masters looked at Binkhorst and said: ‘And they’re pretty strict about no hanky panky outside marriage, aren’t they?’