by Ellis Peters
‘We could scare him off with a ghost,’ this diminutive genius offered brightly. Three suppressive voices at once opined that of all people, Rainbow would be the last to believe in ghosts, since he didn’t believe in anything he couldn’t buy, sell or boss. ‘Besides, he’s been in the house more than four months now, where’s this ghost been all that time? He’d laugh his head off!’
‘He wouldn’t if everybody else was laughing,’ said Bossie thoughtfully. ‘Laughing at him! That’s the one thing he wouldn’t be able to stand. He can’t be all that sure of his ground, he’s always been a townie until now, this is a new venture for him. We’ve let it go on too long, but it’s still new. Once shake him, and he won’t think it worthwhile fighting it out, he’ll make off to the town again. But it’s got to be a real shocker to prise him loose. After all, he can sell the house, can’t he? It’s all done up beautifully, he needn’t lose on it, it’s a walk-in job, ready for occupation. He’d realise and get out. If we can make him a laughing-stock.’
He had them all eating out of his hand by this time, as he usually could do at need, if only by reason of his overwhelming vocabulary. Bossie was twelve years old, only child of a marriage between a classically-educated intellectual and a shrewd, practical farmer’s daughter, brains on both sides of his parentage, and an insatiable thirst for knowledge in the product. He was relatively small for his age, but compact and tough, as plain as the plainest pike-staff that ever carried a deadly pike, with corrective glasses to eradicate the infant consequences of what is technically termed a lazy eye. His colouring was nondescript brown, with thick dun-coloured hair that grew in all directions, and unnerving hazel eyes enlarged unequally behind their therapeutic lenses, which in a few years he would discard, to become disarmingly human. Altogether, a walking time-bomb, propelled by precocious intuitions and abilities, and restrained by a classical and liberal education. He knew he was formidable, but he didn’t know how formidable.
‘And how do we do that?’ wondered Ginger, reserving judgement.
‘Well, he’s a dealer in antiques, isn’t he? That’s how he’s made his money, and that’s his weakness, because you can’t know everything about everything, and antiques is practically everything. So if we hooked him on an antique that would get him foaming at the mouth, thinking he’d cornered a fortune, and then show him up either as a cheat who was pinching something belonging to someone else, or a fool who’s fallen for a common forgery – you think he’d stand up to that? I don’t! He’s got a reputation to lose in the trade. He’d spread his wings and fly, as fast and quietly as he could, and hope nobody outside here would ever hear of it.’
They mulled that over in silence for some moments, and found but one fault in it. Ginger dispiritedly put it into words. ‘That sounds all very well. But we haven’t got an antique to shove under his nose, real or fake. And even if we had, we wouldn’t know how to set about it.’
‘But I have,’ said Bossie portentously, sinking his voice to hollow depths of conspiracy. ‘And I DO!’
‘Dad,’ demanded Bossie, emerging with knitted brows from behind an enormous book containing full-page illustrations from the Stonyhurst Gospels, ‘how late did they go on writing in uncials?’
Sam barely looked up from his desk, and showed no excitement or curiosity whatever at this sudden enquiry. No question from Bossie, on any subject from Egyptian hieroglyphs to nuclear physics, could surprise his parents. He was an insatiable sponge for knowledge of all kinds.
‘Oh, it petered out round about the eighth to the ninth century, I suppose.’
‘Pity!’ said Bossie. ‘It’s easy to read. How did they write after that, then?’
‘It got more and more loose and cursive, and a lot harder to read, you’re right there.’
‘Where can I find a copy, say about late thirteenth century?’
Sam got up good-naturedly, and reached down a book almost as large, and opened it for him at one of the facsimile plates. ‘There you are, probably rather a better script than most, it’s out of a Benedictine chartulary, thirteenth century. They were letting out some land at farm. That’s a fair sample.’ He went back to his work without further question.
Bossie studied the page before him critically, and jutted a thoughtful lip. ‘What’s this word here? Look! “p’tin suis, et terra Fereholt cu’ p’tin’ suis.” ‘P’tin’isn’t a proper word.’ His Latin was good, but he had not so far been called upon to cope with unextended mediaeval examples.
‘Those are the contractions the clerks made,’ Sam reassured him absently. ‘With all the copying they had to do, they adopted a method of shorthand. They could understand and translate it, even if their bosses couldn’t. And probably a lot of their bosses couldn’t read, anyway, so they had to leave it to the clerks. “P’tin’ suis,” is “its appurtenances.” They were farming out some piece of land you didn’t name,“with its appurtenances, and the land of Fereholt with its appurtenances.” ’
‘Not a bad idea, shortening everything like that,’ Bossie approved, with a purposeful gleam in his eye, as though he had seen a short cut round a laborious chore. ‘Can I borrow this for tonight?’
‘Sure! Bring it back when you’ve done. Want the Latin dictionary? Or shall I extend the whole page for you, so you can read it yourself?’ And he pushed back his chair, and was really looking at his son now, willing to ditch his own current labours to assist in whatever Bossie was grappling with.
‘No, thanks, that’s all right.’ Bossie sensed that his disclaimer had been a shade hasty, which might indicate an undertaking on the suspect side. But he knew all the words calculated to intimidate parents, and was adroit in using them. ‘It’s all right for me to ask,’ he explained generously, ‘but I mustn’t let you help me.’ And drawing breath for the coup de grâce, ‘It’s for a SPECIAL PROJECT!’ he said with enormous dignity, and bore the chartulary of the Benedictine brothers away to his own room.
During the week following these curious activities of Bossie Jarvis, Arthur Everard Rainbow came home from choir practice somewhat later than usual, and instead of dropping his music-case casually on the hall table, carried it through to his own sacred study, clasped under his arm with jealous fondness. His wife, who had sailed out from her drawing-room to meet him, letting out with her floating skirts the murmur of voices and the sound of well-produced string music, noted his passage with mild interest, went back to her friends with a shrug and a private smile, and said, without any particular intent, and without paying much attention to the words she used:
‘Arthur’ll be in in a few moments. He must have discovered an unknown Bach score, I should think, he’s hugging his music-case with a lover’s gleam in his eye. You never know where you’ll strike gold in our business, do you? Even at choir practice it can happen.’
There were at least a dozen people in the room at the time. He liked her to stage her musical evenings when he was due to be missing for most of the time, it gave a relaxed atmosphere in which tongues might be loosened and defences lowered. That way she gathered more information, as they dropped their guard. Drinks had little effect upon her, he was pretty sure her guests never got much in return for their own advances.
She knew, in any case, that they were always on the alert.
‘Turn up the volume, Colin,’ she mimed across the room. ‘Just a little!’ And she sat down again in her old place, diplomatically between Charles Goddard and John Stubbs, neither of whom had a directly profitable interest in antiques, whatever their private passions, and closed her eyes to listen seriously to Schubert. She never even noticed when her husband came in, discreet, hushing comment with a finger on his lips because of the music, and on those lips, half-concealed, a rapt, anticipatory smile that had nothing whatever to do with Schubert, and exulted in the ignorance of his guests and colleagues.
It was precisely eight days after this that the Reverend Stephen Baines received a telephone call at the early hour of seven in the morning.
‘This is B
arbara Rainbow, vicar. I’m sorry to worry you at this hour, but…’ She sounded curiously hesitant, dubious of her own wisdom in telephoning at all. ‘I’m probably troubling you over nothing, but I do wonder – did my husband, by any chance, say anything last night about going on somewhere else after practice? Something could have come up suddenly, he has been known to run off somewhere on business without remembering to let me know.’ Her voice was picking its way with distaste, reluctant to expose the more arid places of the Rainbow marriage. But not a doubt of it, she was seriously worried. ‘He didn’t come home,’ she said flatly. ‘That could happen, and of course he’s perfectly capable of looking after himself. But I’ve still had no word, and I did rather expect him to phone before now. I won’t say I’m alarmed, there’s probably no cause to be. But I just wondered if he’d mentioned any further plans when practice ended.’ And she added, as though she had already taken thought to cover all eventualities: ‘His car is here, you see. He walked to church, he usually does.’
‘I see,’ said the Reverend Stephen rather blankly. ‘No, all he did say was that he was staying to try over some new music he’d brought, so he would lock up for the night. Nothing about going on anywhere else afterwards. I wonder – you didn’t try contacting anyone last night?’ He was not sure himself whether he meant the police or some of Rainbow’s business associates.
‘No. I’m used to occasional abrupt departures, after all. He works on an opportunist basis at times. And one doesn’t start an alarm in the middle of the night without feeling sure it’s necessary, and I didn’t – I don’t feel sure of that at all. But now… You left him alone there at the church, then?’
‘Yes, at about half past eight, the usual time. I heard him playing when I left, I think all the choir had already gone home. Would you like me to…? Do you think we should notify…?’
‘No, don’t worry,’ said Barbara. ‘I expect it’s perfectly all right. I’ll call the shops, and see if he’s been in touch there.’ Rainbow had two shops, one in Birmingham, one in Worcester, where carefully selected manageresses looked after his interests. ‘He’s probably gone haring off after treasure trove somewhere.’ He might, for instance, have felt an urge to resort to the society of the Birmingham manageress, who was an efficient and accommodating blonde, appreciated as a mistress of long standing, but not socially equipped to figure as his wife. But that Barbara refrained from saying. ‘Thanks, anyway! Don’t worry about it!’
But the Reverend Stephen, once he had hung up, immediately began to worry, all the same, and there was nothing to be done but go and look for himself in the church and the organ-loft, to see if by any chance Rainbow had left his music there, or some other sign of his presence. Even healthy-looking men in their prime have been known to succumb to heart attacks without warning. He didn’t really expect anything of that kind. He was not, in fact, expecting to find, as he did, the church door unlocked. Rainbow’s music-case lying unfastened on the organ-bench, and a new voluntary still in place on the stand. That jolted him slightly. It was out of character for Rainbow to leave any of his possessions lying about. But there was no sign of the man himself anywhere in the church.
The vicar hardly knew why he found it necessary to walk all round the paths of his churchyard, since there was no reason whatever why even a Rainbow suddenly overtaken by illness should be lying helpless among the graves, when his music was still withindoors. But the Reverend Stephen was a thorough man, and circled his church conscientiously by the grassy path that threaded its way close to the walls. Under the tower the oldest gravestones clustered like massive, broken teeth, upright headstones leaning out of true, solid table-tombs grown over with moss in their lettering, and deep in long grass bleaching to autumn, because in such a huddle it was almost impossible to mow or even to scythe. The vicar turned the corner of the tower, and clucked mild annoyance, because somebody had thrown down what looked like some old, dark rags among the long grass, or else the wind had blown them there, or some playful pup dragged them in. Dogs were not frowned upon in St Eata’s churchyard. The Reverend Stephen looked upon them as among the most innocent and confiding, if rowdy, of God’s creatures.
He went aside from the path to remove the offence, and froze after two paces. The dark rags had gained a distinct shape, had matter within them, had sprayed the table-tomb and surrounding stones with a sparse, blackened rain. The shape was grotesque, as if someone had loosed a heavy press at speed upon a human form, and squashed it into fragments, as some nut-crackers reduce a walnut to splintered pulp. But there was still a discernible, even a recognisable, head. There was a face, upturned, open-mouthed, open-eyed. The fall that had shattered all other bones had left this identifying countenance unmarked, the back of the skull lolling in the thick verdure beneath it.
Rainbow had had every reason for absenting himself from his somewhat equivocal connubial couch. He stared at the October sky past the Reverend Stephen’s head, and seemed almost immune to the ruin of his body. There was even a look of desperate eagerness left glaring from his fixed features, as though he had died with his eyes upon the crock of gold.
CHAPTER THREE
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The Reverend Stephen was a conscientious soul who knew all about the citizen’s duty where murder or mayhem were in question, or even the self-violence that could hardly be associated with Rainbow. He drew back from the appalling wreckage among the graves with great care, marking his path in case some other, less innocent, had also trodden here during the night, and went to call the police, whose job this clearly was. But he was so far adopted into the tribal structure of Middlehope that it never occurred to him to call anyone but Sergeant Moon.
Homicide might live in Comerbourne. Here in Middlehope Sergeant Moon was the official guardian of the tribe’s peace, to be trusted absolutely, and turned to in all emergencies. The Reverend Stephen never for one moment entertained the idea of notifying Barbara Rainbow of her husband’s present whereabouts and present state. Nor did it occur to him that he was treating her as a woman of the tribe, not an alien from the outer world. Middlehope had spread a wing over her from that moment, whether she knew it or not.
‘Oh, yes, quite dead,’ said the vicar simply, at ease with the man to whom he spoke. ‘He’s broken to pieces, you see. He must have come off the tower, he couldn’t have been shattered like that any other way. Yes, it was his wife who rang me, fretting about him not coming home. I think he sometimes didn’t, but this time she hadn’t any clues, and she was troubled.’ A good Biblical word, troubled. ‘I haven’t told anyone, and nobody’s likely to go through there, not close. I thought better let well alone rather than mount a guard. No, I haven’t said a word to her.’
‘All right, sir,’ said Sergeant Moon briskly, ‘you go and just keep a discreet eye on the place, and fend people off it if need be, and I’ll be with you in ten minutes.’
‘She mustn’t see him, you know,’ said the vicar, and blushed to hear himself giving advice to an old hand like the sergeant. But after all, he had seen what was left of Rainbow, and as yet Sergeant Moon hadn’t. ‘I suppose it’s properly my job to tell the widow…?’
‘We’ll take care of all that,’ said Moon imperturbably, and cleared the line in order to get through direct to headquarters at Comerbourne.
‘Oh, no!’ protested George, confronted with this altogether too apt confirmation of the sergeant’s forebodings. ‘You’ll have to give up prophecy. Jack, you’re too unnerving.’
‘Could be accident,’ said Moon, without much confidence. ‘Sounds as if he fell from the church tower. I’m on my way, and I’ve called the doc.’
‘Right, we’ll be with you in twenty minutes.’
In the event it took the squad a full half-hour to reach Abbot’s Bale, since the morning rush was in full swing, and the roads congested. But within an hour the whole grisly apparatus connected with sudden and suspect death had arrived, and was grouped about all that remained of Arthur Everard Rainbow.
The police doctor, confronted with this wreckage, shrugged his helplessness, testified unnecessarily to the fact that life was extinct, opined that it had been extinct for many hours, almost certainly all night, and left it to the pathologist to go into detail, since this was now obviously his affair. The photographer shot a great deal of film, and the forensic scientist, arriving last, looked down at the body, looked up at the tower, looming close over the spot, and wondered whether he was needed at all.
‘Not much doubt where he fell from, is there?’ he observed mildly. ‘Pretty plain case of accident, wouldn’t you say?’ He had not, so far, taken a close look at the set-up.
‘On the face of it, yes,’ agreed George, ‘except that I don’t much like its face. There are grazes on his palms, and the balls of his fingers, for one thing, white marks of what looks like stone-dust, and the same under his finger-nails, as well as what I think you may find to be fragments of moss. And since he can hardly have done any scrabbling about on the stones here after he hit, if I’m right the debris is from up there.’
‘He’d try to grab hold and save himself if he found himself falling,’ suggested the devil’s advocate, already interested.
‘Why should he find himself falling? There doesn’t seem to be a large chunk of masonry that’s come down with him, or anything like that. And though I haven’t been up there, I wouldn’t mind betting that parapet is breast-high. You don’t overbalance over a barrier like that. Not to mention the question of what he was doing up on top in the first place.’