“MISSIS MACINTOSH TOO DISTressed … speak on behalf … regret unable … light … Hrumph, chmha … THEREFORE BEG the court … indulgence…. Hrumph, chmha….”
“Speak-up, can’t you?” said someone at the back of the court, mistaking it for a theatrical performance or a political meeting.
The jury turned like one man to the coroner, their questioning eyes beseeching his aid.
Dr. Tordopp was heard acidly saying that he hadn’t all day to spare and had a surgery full of patients waiting for him. The dean eventually leaned over to the solicitors’ table and in a voice like whipped cream persuaded Mr. Flank to lift up his head and open his mouth which Mr. Flank did, greatly to everybody’s relief.
The inquest got nobody anywhere, except it permitted the bishop’s body to be released for interment and gave the police the shelter of an adjournment behind which to pursue their enquiries.
The Deputy expressed his sympathy and condoled with the church in the loss of so eminent a dignitary, and then crossed the road to the courts to defend a farmer who had been watering his milk. The jury went to their offices and shops feeling they had done a good job and grumbling about Mr. Flank. Mr. Flank joined the cathedral undertaker in a sumptuous Rolls-Royce hearse and went off to claim the body. And the dean and venerable archdeacon, having placed Mrs. Macintosh comfortably in a rather small car, got in themselves with great difficulty, one having a verticle struggle and the other a horizontal one, and drove off to the hotel for lunch and to gather luggage.
The bright spot in Littlejohn’s morning was the arrival of Sergeant Cromwell, for whom he had sent, and who met him on the steps of the hotel. Cromwell looked quite in keeping with the ecclesiastical scene for he was dressed, as usual, like a cathedral verger. Behind him, in the hall was the huge suitcase he always carries however short his visit. It is always heavy and only Cromwell and Littlejohn know what the sergeant carries in it. Inter alia, books on police law, forensic medicine and toxicology, domestic medicine, wild birds and celebrated murder cases. Cromwell doesn’t believe in being caught on the hop…. There is a chest-expander, too, and occasionally, two revolvers, ammunition and handcuffs!
Young Michael the page-boy had tried to lift the case and given it up as a bad job. Littlejohn captured Michael and took him aside.
“Now, my lad, what’s your name? Michael? Well, Michael, I want a word or two with you….”
Michael looked ready to panic and flee. The hall-porter had already told him all about Littlejohn and urged him to mind his P’s and Q’s. His knees began to knock, his mouth dried up and his voice completely disappeared.
“Yes, sir,” he finally managed to get out.
“On the night the Bishop of Greyle died, I’ve been told you answered the hotel telephone just before you went off duty. Is that so, Michael?”
Littlejohn was using the lad’s Christian name, otherwise Michael would have expected immediate arrest. He wondered confusedly what crime might lie behind the simple job he usually performed at that time.
“Yes, sir. I did. But I didn’t do nothin’….”
“Nobody’s saying you did, Michael. I’m not trying to blame or frighten you. I’m wanting your help….”
That was better! Michael’s face began to shine and the cloth of his tunic strained at the fourteen little buttons down the front of it.
“Yes, sir. I answered it. For the bishop it was. I wanted to tell you, but the hall porter said it was my place to speak when I was asked and not before. I was to remember my place, sir….”
“Oh, he did, did he? Well, you can tell me about it now, Michael.”
“There’s not much to tell, sir. About a quarter to eleven the ’phone went. It’s my duty to answer it between the hall porter going and the night porter coming on. Then I can go to bed.”
“I see. The ’phone went. Then what … ?”
“It sounded from a ’phone box, sir….”
“Why?”
“Well, we’re not on the automatics here, yet, and I heard the operator say to the bloke … the man who was ringing, ‘Your call, go ahead….’”
“Yes?”
“Then the man spoke to me. ‘Who is that?’ he says. ‘Cape Mervin Hotel,’ I says. ‘Who is speakin’?’ he says. I says the hotel name again. Then he gets mad and shouts, ‘But who is it?’ So I says: ‘The page, who do you want?’”
“Go on, Michael.”
The boy was standing to attention like a private being questioned on parade.
“Then the bloke says, ‘Now listen. Now listen. I want you to give the Bishop of Greyle a message. Tell him to come to Bolter’s Hole at once where he-knows-who will meet him and show him what he wants to see.’ Just like that, he said it. And then he made me tell him back what he said. So I did. And then he says, ‘Give it him over the telephone in his room and let me hear you do it.’ So I did. It’s easy. Just leave the switch open and speak on another line.”
“You’re a bright lad, Michael. Then what?”
“I told the bishop over his bedroom ’phone. He just said ‘Right’ and hung up, as though he’d been expecting it.”
“And the caller heard you do it?”
“Yes. And when I’d done he says, ‘Good boy,’ he says. ‘Now, if you’ll look at the bottom of the railing just opposite the hotel entrance on the quayside, you’ll find half-a-crown for your trouble.’ Must have been a decent bloke, becos I found the money.”
“H’m. Yes.”
Then Michael suddenly seemed to realise that he might have been giving the murderer a good character and turned pale. He saw himself as an accessory.
“All right, Michael. Don’t worry. You only did your job and you’ve helped me no end. What sort of a voice was it?”
“A man’s, sir. Muffled, it sounded. But well-spoken. That’s all I can say.”
“Did you see the bishop go out?”
“No, sir. Fennick came on then, so I went off for my supper.”
Littlejohn handed Michael another half-crown. The page was so inspired and exhilarated by his co-operation with Scotland Yard, that in a sudden access of strength he seized Cromwell’s bag and, puffing and groaning happily, tumbled it up the two flights of stairs to the second-floor-back where the Sergeant had been given a room usually allotted to chauffeurs and body-servants by the snobbish management.
Littlejohn had arranged to see Mrs. Macintosh before her departure, so after lunch, he went to a private room assigned to her and her friends by the sympathising director. There he found her flanked by the Dean and Chapter, in the form of the Venerable Archdeacon.
Before he entered, Littlejohn could hear the buzz of clerical voices in the room. The dean opened the door in response to his knock and the first thing he saw was Mrs. Macintosh, her face red and swollen, drying her eyes with a handkerchief. There was on the faces of the two clergymen that upset expression, that look of righteous sorrow which follows the giving of a large dose of heart-balm. They had been thoroughly disturbing poor Mrs. Macintosh by sympathy and sentimentality, when they ought to have been taking her mind from her grief.
The bereaved woman was small and fragile, with a tired nervous face and grey hair. She must have been very dainty and beautiful in her young days and probably very vivacious, too. Now she was utterly stricken.
The dean, round, pink and boisterous in normal circumstances, was in a mood for tiptoes, shushing, drawn blinds and comfortable unction. He greeted Littlejohn in a hushed, lathery voice, reduced to a whisper.
“Ah, Inspector. Come in. I trust this interview will not be long and that you won’t distress the widow. This has been a great shock to us all…. The bishop was my best friend….”
“I certainly won’t cause any further grief to Mrs. Macintosh, sir, and assure you I’ll be as brief as possible.”
“Good, good. Come along then.”
The long-limbed, lean archdeacon rose to meet Littlejohn. His voice was terse and rasping, with a strange musical resonance. He was about sixty w
ith a bald head and tufts of white hair over his ears. A fine, scholarly face, perhaps a little coarsened by self-indulgence maybe in food and drink. He, too, spoke softly.
“Good afternoon, Inspector. Pray be brief, so as not to distress the dear lady. A sad loss, we’ve suffered. I was the bishop’s best friend, so if I can help …” he said, whilst the dean’s back was turned as he sought another chair.
An ecclesiastical Codlin and Short!
They had been treating Mrs. Macintosh like a frail museum specimen not to be roughly handled, but she was having none of it. She rose to greet Littlejohn and he felt a glow of admiration and sympathy as he shook the hand she offered him and looked at the strained, kindly face, full of grace and character.
Mrs. Macintosh was not going to allow the two men to cast her for the part of a helpless, incoherent weakling if she could avoid it.
“Please sit down, Inspector,” she said. “And do not hesitate to question me as fully as you think fit. Vengeance won’t, I know, bring my husband back, but you have a duty to perform and I wish to help you in every way to do it….”
“Thank you, madam. I can’t tell you how much I regret the need for troubling you at a time like this and how much I sympathise with you in your loss and grief. First, may I ask if you knew who rang up your husband and for what purpose?”
“I have not the least idea, Inspector. He didn’t tell me and had not mentioned anything previously which gave me any idea what it was all about. There were parts of his duties which he never discussed with me….”
Somehow, Littlejohn got the impression that though the bishop and his wife might have been comfortably married, there wasn’t a great deal of warmth and intimacy in the relationship. And remembering the austere, frosty look of His Lordship in death, Littlejohn was not surprised. Of course, alive, the bishop might have been warm and genial, but somehow….
The two cathedral dignitaries were sitting near, saying little but nodding, smiling, gesturing to show their interest and desire to help.
The atmosphere of the room was chill and depressing. Carved oak panels covered the walls from top to bottom and the place was very high. It gave you the feeling of sitting at the bottom of a funnel.
“Had he any enemies that you were aware of, Mrs. Macintosh?”
“Certainly not. He was very well-liked by all who knew him and for anyone to wish to do him violence was unthinkable.”
The two clergymen nodded agreement and made noises of concurrence.
“As his best friend and intimately in his confidence, I can assure you on that point, Inspector,” said the dean. The venerable archdeacon nodded, but said nothing.
Codlin’s the friend, not Short, thought Littlejohn.
“Do you think it likely that, unknown to you, madam, and to you two gentlemen, the bishop might have got himself mixed up in something which endangered his life?”
Mrs. Macintosh shook her head, bewildered, and the two clerical escorts vigorously denied it.
“No, no, certainly not.”
“Certainly not. No, no.”
“But it is obvious someone was anxious to see him and even to do violence to him. Surely, he wouldn’t have been called out at that time for a mere trifle….”
“I am utterly at a loss….”
“Did he seem distressed by the message? Or how did he seem, madam?”
“I should say rather excited. Not eagerly so, but … well … he tightened his lips, nodded to himself and got ready to go.”
“Thank you. And now for a rather painful question, which I hesitate to put, but which might be very important….”
Mrs. Macintosh opened her eyes wide and the two clerics leaned forward expectantly.
“The police surgeon found your husband’s body in a very emaciated condition. So much so, that he said he looked famished. Can you explain that … ?”
The three of them looked at one another. The dean raised questioning eyebrows at Mrs. Macintosh and she nodded as though leaving the field to him.
“As one in his confidence, I may be able to explain, although the story is rather a strange one and might seem a little eccentric….”
The archdeacon leaned back in his chair, sank lower in it, crossed his spindleshanks in their spotless gaiters and composed himself to show that he, too, knew what was coming.
“I doubt if you are aware, that the late bishop was also a qualified medical man. He was interested in psychiatry, which he hoped to link with spiritual healing. He had written books on the subject….”
“Yes, sir. I am aware of that.”
The dean looked surprised.
“You have heard? Of late, he has been engaged on a new book and new research. He and a psychiatrist of our town have been working together.”
“Could you give me the name of the other doctor, please?”
“Dr. Mulroy, of Greyle….”
Littlejohn noted it down in his book.
“Yes, sir?”
“The bishop was studying the mystic religions of the East. I am no expert on these matters and can only tell you what he mentioned to me in the course of discussing this new series of experiments. You may or may not be aware that developments in modern psychology deal with the deep unconscious and the relief from fear and tension by deep analysis. This is supposed to lead to a better way of life. Whether or not that is so, I cannot say, I am no expert….”
“No,” said the venerable archdeacon and the dean gave him an astonished look.
“In the East, however, certain practices, such as yoga, have long been in use and, I gather, have a close relationship with this deep unconscious and knowledge of it. So, you see, what our occidental scientists regard as new ground to be explored, has, by other routes, been already traversed by the mystics of the orient….”
Everybody looked bewildered. The dean himself seemed a bit out of his depth and chose his words carefully.
Littlejohn was wondering what it all had to do with the bishop and his famished body.
“… Dr. Macintosh was experimenting in the oriental methods of contact with the deep unconscious.”
The dean beamed as though it were all as plain as a pikestaff.
The archdeacon cleared his throat. He wasn’t going to be left out of it, and plunged in at the deep-end.
“You see, Inspector, all these practices are extremely dangerous. In the hands of the inexpert and unwary they may result in the complete overthrow of the balance of the mind.”
“You’re not meaning to say, gentlemen, that the bishop’s mind was unbalanced at the time of his death?”
“Certainly not,” interposed Mrs. Macintosh and looked disgustedly at her two friends.
“I think what they are going to tell you is that my husband was experimenting in certain Eastern mystical practices which necessitated a measure of fasting for their success. In spite of my entreaties, he insisted in going on with them, limiting his meals to a mere minimum, and finally almost breaking down his health. That is why he had to take a holiday. He became very debilitated….”
“I see. And were his experiments successful?”
“I think so, for the most part. He seemed pleased with them, although he never mentioned their nature fully.”
The dean interrupted.
“I gathered they concerned the nature of halucinations and perhaps revelations arising from the state of fasting. Dr. Mulroy will know more than we do. He collaborated….”
“I see. And do you think this … this series of experiments has anything to do with the case we now have in hand?”
“It is extremely unlikely.”
“How long have you been staying here, Mrs. Macintosh?”
“Ten days, Inspector. We came for a month.”
“And have you noticed anything whilst you’ve been here which seems connected with the crime?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Were you always together?”
“No, Inspector. My husband was a man who liked a measure of soli
tude in which even I did not share. He went for walks alone….”
“Did he ever mention anything untoward or interesting which happened on such walks?”
“No. Except perhaps to remark on the pleasure they gave him, or the weather. But never of any encounters on the way.”
“Was the bishop a wealthy man?”
“Not very. He rose from comparatively humble beginnings. He has saved, of course….”
“You are the full beneficiary under his Will, I presume, madam?”
The two clergymen looked astonished at the impertinence, but Mrs. Macintosh didn’t seem to mind.
“Yes, Inspector.”
“Excuse the apparent curiosity and perhaps the liberty, but this is very important. Who is the beneficiary after you, Mrs. Macintosh?”
“The bishop’s family, who live in Glebeshire. But as I have survived my husband, the estate is at my complete disposal….”
There was a tap on the door and the hall-porter entered.
“Excuse me, madam, the maid has finished packing, the bags are down and the car is waiting….”
“In that case, I’m sure you’ll excuse us, Inspector,” said Mrs. Macintosh. “Is there anything more?”
“No thank you, madam. I shall probably be in Greyle myself very soon and may take the liberty of calling on you there.”
“Please do….”
“And thank you all for your help and courtesy….”
“Not at all….”
The party filed out, Littlejohn making up the rear. They all shook hands with the Inspector, the archdeacon last.
“And I do hope you succeed in finding the perpetrator of this dreadful outrage quickly, Inspector,” said the Venerable. “He was my best friend and I feel I owe it to him….”
And with that he pattered off to join the others.
CHAPTER VII
CRANAGE FARM
LITTLEJOHN wanted further background about the dead bishop so decided to go to Greyle to get it. Luckily the train passed within a few miles of Medhope, Macintosh’s native place; the Inspector called there first.
The Case of the Famished Parson (An Inspector Littlejohn Mystery) Page 5