Death on the Air

by Ngaio Marsh

  He threw himself back with an air of triumph and sipped his sherry. Troy turned over the heavy bulk of pages to the first marker. ‘Second of Samuel, one, ten,’ Mr Bates prompted, closing his eyes.

  The verse had been faintly underlined.

  ‘So I stood upon him,’ Troy read, ‘and slew him.’

  ‘That’s Stewart Shakespeare Hadet’s valedictory,’ said Mr Bates. ‘Next!’

  The next was at the 50th chapter of Jeremiah, verse 24: ‘I have laid a snare for thee and thou are taken.’

  Troy looked at Mr Bates. His eyes were still closed and he was smiling faintly.

  ‘That was Naomi Balbus Hadet,’ he said. ‘Now for Peter Rook Hadet. Ezekiel, seven, six.’

  The pages flopped back to the last marker.

  ‘An end is come, the end is come: it watcheth for thee; behold it is come.’

  Troy shut the Bible.

  ‘How very unpleasant,’ she said.

  ‘And how very intriguing, don’t you think?’ And when she didn’t answer, ‘Quite up your husband’s street, it seemed to me.’

  ‘I’m afraid,’ Troy said, ‘that even Rory’s investigations don’t go back to 1779.’

  ‘What a pity!’ Mr Bates cried gaily.

  ‘Do I gather that you conclude from all this that there was dirty work among the Hadets in 1779?’

  ‘I don’t know, but I’m dying to find out. Dying to. Thank you, I should enjoy another glass. Delicious!’

  He had settled down so cosily and seemed to be enjoying himself so much that Troy was constrained to ask him to stay to lunch.

  ‘Miss Hart’s coming,’ she said. ‘She’s the one who bought Crabtree House from the Wagstaffs. If there’s any gossip to be picked up in Copplestone, Miss Hart’s the one for it. She’s coming about a painting she wants me to donate to the Harvest Festival raffle.’

  Mr Bates was greatly excited. ‘Who knows!’ he cried. ‘A Wagstaff in the hand may be worth two Hadets in the bush. I am your slave forever, my dear Mrs Alleyn!’

  Miss Hart was a lady of perhaps sixty-seven years. On meeting Mr Bates she seemed to imply that some explanation should be advanced for Troy receiving a gentleman caller in her husband’s absence. When the Bible was produced, she immediately accepted it in this light, glanced with professional expertise at the inscriptions and fastened on the Wagstaffs.

  ‘No doubt,’ said Miss Hart, ‘it was their family Bible and much good it did them. A most eccentric lot they were. Very unsound. Very unsound, indeed. Especially Old Jimmy.’

  ‘Who,’ Mr Bates asked greedily, ‘was Old Jimmy?’

  Miss Hart jabbed her forefinger at the last of the Wagstaff entries. ‘William James Wagstaff. Born 1870. And died, although it doesn’t say so, in April, 1921. Nobody was left to complete the entry, of course. Unless you count the niece, which I don’t. Baggage, if ever I saw one.’

  ‘The niece?’

  ‘Fanny Wagstaff. Orphan. Old Jimmy brought her up. Dragged would be the better word. Drunken old reprobate he was and he came to a drunkard’s end. They said he beat her and I daresay she needed it.’ Miss Hart lowered her voice to a whisper and confided in Troy. ‘Not a nice girl. You know what I mean.’

  Troy, feeling it was expected of her, nodded portentously.

  ‘A drunken end, did you say?’ prompted Mr Bates.

  ‘Certainly. On a Saturday night after Market. Fell through the top landing stair rail in his nightshirt and split his skull on the flagstoned hall.’

  ‘And your father bought it, then, after Old Jimmy died?’ Troy ventured.

  ‘Bought the house and garden. Richard De’ath took the farm. He’d been after it for years – wanted it to round off his own place. He and Old Jimmy were at daggers drawn over that business. And, of course, Richard being an atheist, over the Seven Seals.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Mr Bates asked.

  ‘Blasphemous!’ Miss Hart shouted. ‘That’s what it was, rank blasphemy. It was a sect that Wagstaff founded. If the rector had known his business he’d have had him excommunicated for it.’

  Miss Hart was prevented from elaborating this theory by the appearance at the window of an enormous woman, stuffily encased in black, with a face like a full moon.

  ‘Anybody at home?’ the newcomer playfully chanted. ‘Telegram for a lucky girl! Come and get it!’

  It was Mrs Simpson, the village postmistress. Miss Hart said, ‘Well, really!’ and gave an acid laugh.

  ‘Sorry, I’m sure,’ said Mrs Simpson, staring at the Bible which lay under her nose on the window seat. ‘I didn’t realize there was company. Thought I’d pop it in as I was passing.’

  Troy read the telegram while Mrs Simpson, panting, sank heavily on the window ledge and eyed Mr Bates, who had drawn back in confusion. ‘I’m no good in the heat,’ she told him. ‘Slays me.’

  ‘Thank you so much, Mrs Simpson,’ Troy said. ‘No answer.’

  ‘Righty-ho. Cheerie-bye,’ said Mrs Simpson and with another stare at Mr Bates and the Bible, and a derisive grin at Miss Hart, she waddled away.

  ‘It’s from Rory,’ Troy said. ‘He’ll be home on Sunday evening.’

  ‘As that woman will no doubt inform the village,’ Miss Hart pronounced. ‘A busybody of the first water and ought to be taught her place. Did you ever!’

  She fulminated throughout luncheon and it was with difficulty that Troy and Mr Bates persuaded her to finish her story of the last of the Wagstaffs. It appeared that Old Jimmy had died intestate, his niece succeeding. She had at once announced her intention of selling everything and had left the district to pursue, Miss Hart suggested, a life of freedom, no doubt in London or even in Paris. Miss Hart wouldn’t, and didn’t want to, know. On the subject of the Hadets, however, she was uninformed and showed no inclination to look up the marked Bible references attached to them.

  After luncheon Troy showed Miss Hart three of her paintings, any one of which would have commanded a high price at an exhibition of contemporary art, and Miss Hart chose the one that, in her own phrase, really did look like something. She insisted that Troy and Mr Bates accompany her to the parish hall where Mr Bates would meet the rector, an authority on village folklore. Troy in person must hand over her painting to be raffled.

  Troy would have declined this honour if Mr Bates had not retired behind Miss Hart and made a series of beseeching gestures and grimaces. They set out therefore in Miss Hart’s car which was crammed with vegetables for the Harvest Festival decorations.

  ‘And if the woman Simpson thinks she’s going to hog the lectern with her pumpkins,’ said Miss Hart, ‘she’s in for a shock. Hah!’

  St Cuthbert’s was an ancient parish church round whose flanks the tiny village nestled. Its tower, an immensely high one, was said to be unique. Nearby was the parish hall where Miss Hart pulled up with a masterful jerk.

  Troy and Mr Bates helped her unload some of her lesser marrows to be offered for sale within. They were observed by a truculent-looking man in tweeds who grinned at Miss Hart. ‘Burnt offerings,’ he jeered, ‘for the tribal gods, I perceive.’ It was Mr Richard De’ath, the atheist. Miss Hart cut him dead and led the way into the hall.

  Here they found the rector, with a crimson-faced elderly man and a clutch of ladies engaged in preparing for the morrow’s sale.

  The rector was a thin gentle person, obviously frightened of Miss Hart and timidly delighted by Troy. On being shown the Bible he became excited and dived at once into the story of Old Jimmy Wagstaff.

  ‘Intemperate, I’m afraid, in everything,’ sighed the rector. ‘Indeed, it would not be too much to say that he both preached and drank hellfire. He did preach, on Saturday nights at the crossroads outside the Star and Garter. Drunken, blasphemous nonsense it was and although he used to talk about his followers, the only one he could claim was his niece, Fanny, who was probably too much under his thumb to refuse him.’

  ‘Edward Pilbrow,’ Miss Hart announced, jerking her head at the elderly man who had come quit
e close to them. ‘Drowned him with his bell. They had a fight over it. Deaf as a post,’ she added, catching sight of Mr Bates’s startled expression. ‘He’s the verger now. And the town crier.’

  ‘What!’ Mr Bates exclaimed.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ the rector explained. ‘The village is endowed with a town crier.’ He went over to Mr Pilbrow, who at once cupped his hand round his ear. The rector yelled into it.

  ‘When did you start crying, Edward?’

  ‘Twenty-ninth September, ’twenty-one,’ Mr Pilbrow roared back.

  ‘I thought so.’

  There was something in their manner that made it difficult to remember, Troy thought, that they were talking about events that were almost fifty years back in the past. Even the year 1779 evidently seemed to them to be not so long ago, but, alas, none of them knew of any Hadets.

  ‘By all means,’ the rector invited Mr Bates, ‘consult the church records, but I can assure you – no Hadets. Never any Hadets.’

  Troy saw an expression of extreme obstinacy settle round Mr Bates’s mouth.

  The rector invited him to look at the church and as they both seemed to expect Troy to tag along, she did so. In the lane they once more encountered Mr Richard De’ath out of whose pocket protruded a paper-wrapped bottle. He touched his cap to Troy and glared at the rector, who turned pink and said, ‘Afternoon, De’ath,’ and hurried on.

  Mr Bates whispered imploringly to Troy, ‘Would you mind? I do so want to have a word—’ and she was obliged to introduce him. It was not a successful encounter. Mr Bates no sooner broached the topic of his Bible, which he still carried, than Mr De’ath burst into an alcoholic diatribe against superstition, and on the mention of Old Jimmy Wagstaff, worked himself up into such a state of reminiscent fury that Mr Bates was glad to hurry away with Troy.

  They overtook the rector in the churchyard, now bathed in the golden opulence of an already westering sun.

  ‘There they all lie,’ the rector said, waving a fatherly hand at the company of headstones. ‘All your Wagstaffs, right back to the sixteenth century. But no Hadets, Mr Bates, I assure you.’

  They stood looking up at the spire. Pigeons flew in and put of a balcony far above their heads. At their feet was a little flagged area edged by a low coping. Mr Bates stepped forward and the rector laid a hand on his arm.

  ‘Not there,’ he said. ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘Don’t!’ bellowed Mr Pilbrow from the rear. ‘Don’t you set foot on them bloody stones, Mister.’

  Mr Bates backed away.

  ‘Edward’s not swearing,’ the rector mildly explained. ‘He is to be taken, alas, literally. A sad and dreadful story, Mr Bates.’

  ‘Indeed?’ Mr Bates asked eagerly.

  ‘Indeed, yes. Some time ago, in the very year we have been discussing – 1921, you know – one of our girls, a very beautiful girl she was, named Ruth Wall, fell from the balcony of the tower and was, of course, killed. She used to go up there to feed the pigeons and it was thought that in leaning over the low balustrade she overbalanced.’

  ‘Ah!’ Mr Pilbrow roared with considerable relish, evidently guessing the purport of the rector’s speech. ‘Terrible, terrible! And ’er sweetheart after ’er, too. Terrible!’

  ‘Oh, no!’ Troy protested.

  The rector made a dabbing gesture to subdue Mr Pilbrow. ‘I wish he wouldn’t,’ he said. ‘Yes. It was a few days later. A lad called Simon Castle. They were to be married. People said it must be suicide but – it may have been wrong of me – I couldn’t bring myself – in short, he lies beside her over there. If you would care to look.’

  For a minute or two they stood before the headstones.

  ‘Ruth Wall. Spinster of this Parish. 1903–1921. I will extend peace to her like a river.’

  ‘Simon Castle. Bachelor of this Parish. 1900–1921. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.’

  The afternoon having by now worn on, and the others having excused themselves, Mr Bates remained alone in the churchyard, clutching his Bible and staring at the headstones. The light of the hunter’s zeal still gleamed in his eyes.

  Troy didn’t see Mr Bates again until Sunday night service when, on her way up the aisle, she passed him, sitting in the rearmost pew. She was amused to observe that his gigantic Bible was under the seat.

  ‘We plough the fields,’ sang the choir, ‘and scatter—’ Mrs Simpson roared away on the organ, the smell of assorted greengrocery rising like some humble incense. Everybody in Little Copplestone except Mr Richard De’ath was there for the Harvest Festival. At last the rector stepped over Miss Hart’s biggest pumpkin and ascended the pulpit, Edward Pilbrow switched off all the lights except one and they settled down for the sermon.

  ‘A sower went forth to sow,’ announced the rector. He spoke simply and well but somehow Troy’s attention wandered. She found herself wondering where, through the centuries, the succeeding generations of Wagstaffs had sat until Old Jimmy took to his freakish practices; and whether Ruth Wall and Simon Castle, poor things, had shared the same hymn book and held hands during the sermon; and whether, after all, Stewart Shakespeare Hadet and Peter Rook Hadet had not, in 1779, occupied some dark corner of the church and been unaccountably forgotten.

  Here we are, Troy thought drowsily, and there, outside in the churchyard, are all the others going back and back–

  She saw a girl, bright in the evening sunlight, reach from a balcony toward a multitude of wings. She was falling – dreadfully – into nothingness. Troy woke with a sickening jerk.

  ‘—on stony ground,’ the rector was saying. Troy listened guiltily to the rest of the sermon.

  Mr Bates emerged on the balcony. He laid his Bible on the coping and looked at the moonlit tree tops and the churchyard so dreadfully far below. He heard someone coming up the stairway. Torchlight danced on the door jamb.

  ‘You were quick,’ said the visitor.

  ‘I am all eagerness and, I confess, puzzlement.’

  ‘It had to be here, on the spot. If you really want to find out—’

  ‘But I do, I do!’

  ‘We haven’t much time. You’ve brought the Bible?’

  ‘You particularly asked—’

  ‘If you open it at Ezekiel, chapter twelve. I’ll shine my torch.’

  Mr Bates opened the Bible.

  ‘The thirteenth verse. There!’

  Mr Bates leaned forward. The Bible tipped and moved.

  ‘Look out!’ the voice urged.

  Mr Bates was scarcely aware of the thrust. He felt the page tear as the book sank under his hands. The last thing he heard was the beating of a multitude of wings.

  ‘—and forevermore,’ said the rector in a changed voice, facing east. The congregation got to its feet. He announced the last hymn. Mrs Simpson made a preliminary rumble and Troy groped in her pocket for the collection plate. Presently they all filed out into the autumnal moonlight.

  It was coldish in the churchyard. People stood about in groups. One or two had already moved through the lychgate. Troy heard a voice, which she recognized as that of Mr De’ath, ‘I suppose,’ it jeered, ‘you all know you’ve been assisting at a fertility rite.’

  ‘Drunk as usual, Dick De’ath,’ somebody returned without rancour. There was a general laugh.

  They had all begun to move away when, from the shadows at the base of the church tower, there arose a great cry. They stood, transfixed, turned toward the voice.

  Out of the shadows came the rector in his cassock. When Troy saw his face she thought he must be ill and went to him.

  ‘No, no!’ he said. ‘Not a woman! Edward! Where’s Edward Pilbrow?’

  Behind him, at the foot of the tower, was a pool of darkness; but Troy, having come closer, could see within it a figure, broken like a puppet on the flagstones. An eddy of night air stole round the church and fluttered a page of the giant Bible that lay pinned beneath the head.

  It was nine o’clock when Troy heard the car pull up outside the cottage.
She saw her husband coming up the path and ran to meet him, as if they had been parted for months.

  He said, ‘This is mighty gratifying!’ And then, ‘Hullo, my love. What’s the matter?’

  As she tumbled out her story, filled with relief at telling him, a large man with uncommonly bright eyes came up behind them.

  ‘Listen to this, Fox,’ Roderick Alleyn said. ‘We’re in demand, it seems.’ He put his arm through Troy’s and closed his hand round hers. ‘Let’s go indoors, shall we? Here’s Fox, darling, come for a nice bucolic rest. Can we give him a bed?’

  Troy pulled herself together and greeted Inspector Fox. Presently she was able to give them a coherent account of the evening’s tragedy. When she had finished, Alleyn said, ‘Poor little Bates. He was a nice little bloke.’ He put his hand on Troy’s. ‘You need a drink,’ he said, ‘and so, by the way, do we.’

  While he was getting the drinks he asked quite casually, ‘You’ve had a shock and a beastly one at that but there’s something else, isn’t there?’

  ‘Yes,’ Troy swallowed hard, ‘there is. They’re all saying it’s an accident.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘And, Rory, I don’t think it is.’

  Mr Fox cleared his throat. ‘Fancy,’ he said.

  ‘Suicide?’ Alleyn suggested, bringing her drink to her.

  ‘No. Certainly not.’

  ‘A bit of rough stuff, then?’

  ‘You sound as if you’re asking about the sort of weather we’ve been having.’

  ‘Well, darling, you don’t expect Fox and me to go into hysterics. Why not an accident?’

  ‘He knew all about the other accidents, he knew it was dangerous. And then the oddness of it, Rory. To leave the Harvest Festival service and climb the tower in the dark, carrying that enormous Bible!’

  ‘And he was hell-bent on tracing these Hadets?’

  ‘Yes. He kept saying you’d be interested. He actually brought a copy of the entries for you.’

  ‘Have you got it?’

  She found it for him. ‘The selected texts,’ he said, ‘are pretty rum, aren’t they, Br’er Fox?’ and handed it over.