Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death

by James Runcie

  ‘How stupendous,’ Nigel announced. ‘I think this probably calls for something more than port.’

  ‘Hold on,’ his wife counselled. ‘We do not know what it is yet.’

  Mary Dowland would not wait for the champagne and filled up her own glass with wine. ‘I think we can guess.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say . . .’ Amanda began.

  Guy put a protective hand on her shoulder. ‘Open it.’

  Inside the case was a gold ring with a large ruby surrounded by miniature diamonds.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ said Amanda.

  ‘Try it on.’

  The room was stilled, the candles guttered. Sidney hoped that it was what Amanda wanted. She smiled, nervously, almost embarrassed, at this public demonstration of love and money. ‘I’ve never seen anything quite like it.’

  ‘Can I see it?’ Daphne asked.

  ‘Of course. It’s lovely, isn’t it?’

  The ring was passed round for all to admire. Nigel returned with champagne. ‘There’s more in the fridge. I was saving this for midnight but all it means is that we will have to drink a bit more. If I can just squeeze past . . .’

  Johnny Johnson lifted his chair and was about to tuck it in behind him when Nigel Thompson tripped over the leg and stumbled.

  ‘Bloody hell!’

  The champagne bottle fell from his hand and smashed on the floor.

  ‘Oh . . .’ his wife cried. ‘It’s everywhere.’

  ‘So bloody careless of me . . .’ said Nigel, looking down at the floor.

  ‘Don’t swear!’ his wife cut in, mopping the champagne from her dress. ‘You know how it upsets me.’

  ‘I’m quite happy with the port,’ said Mark Dowland. ‘Goes down a treat.’

  Daphne stood up. ‘Let me get a cloth from the kitchen.’

  Mary joined her. ‘And a dustpan and brush.’

  ‘It’s splashed up all over me,’ Juliette complained. ‘I will have to change.’

  ‘Then go and do so,’ her husband snapped.

  ‘I don’t want to leave everyone. I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘I’ll go with you,’ Amanda offered. ‘There’s no need to make a fuss. We can go upstairs. It’s all right, darling.’

  ‘It’s all such a mess . . . .’

  ‘Soon be midnight,’ Johnny said quietly to Jennifer. ‘We don’t want to miss the bells. Shall we stand outside then?’

  ‘I think we have to stay here. I’m sorry.’

  ‘I was hoping we could be alone.’

  ‘That comes later.’

  They smiled and then looked up to see that Sidney had heard them. Guy stood back in the doorway as Daphne and Mary cleared away the champagne and the broken glass. Nigel went in search of another bottle.

  Mark Dowland drank some more port. ‘This is all going terribly well . . .’ he said, expecting those around him to appreciate his irony. They did not.

  Sidney worried how he was going to get back to his parents’ house in Highgate. There were taxis, of course, but they were expensive. He had assumed that he was going to get a lift with Jennifer and Johnny but they seemed to be going on somewhere else and he couldn’t imagine Amanda and Guy wanting his company on the evening of their engagement. It was curious, however, that Amanda had not technically accepted the proposal of marriage. She had merely admired the ring. If he had been in Guy’s position he would have been looking for a more affirmative answer.

  At last, the guests sat down once more, helping themselves to the stilton and awaiting Juliette and Amanda’s return. Nigel suggested retiring to the drawing room, where they could all see in the New Year in greater comfort and settle down to some charades but he was interrupted by the return of his wife, in a black silk peignoir, and Amanda, who smilingly challenged them: ‘I hope you’ve all been behaving. I’ve been looking forward to some champagne. Who’s got my ring?’

  There was a silence.

  ‘I don’t have it,’ said Mary Dowland. ‘I handed it to Sidney . . .’

  ‘And I gave it to Juliette . . .’

  ‘I can’t remember what happened,’ said Juliette. ‘I can’t remember anything. I think it was in front of me.’

  ‘Well, I haven’t got it,’ said Jennifer.

  ‘Nor I,’ said Daphne.

  ‘Then where the hell is it?’ Nigel asked.

  His wife looked frightened. ‘Don’t swear . . .’

  ‘Perhaps it fell on the floor?’ Sidney suggested.

  ‘I didn’t see it there,’ said Mary. ‘And we cleared up quite carefully, didn’t we, Daphne?’

  ‘You couldn’t have swept it into the bin?’ Mark Dowland asked his wife. He had not moved from his chair for the whole evening.

  ‘No, of course not. Do you think this is funny?’

  ‘Or could it have fallen between the floorboards?’ Sidney asked.

  ‘Not a stone that big,’ Guy said quickly.

  Nigel Thompson got down on to his hands and knees. ‘It can’t just have disappeared.’

  Sidney tried to be reassuring. ‘Well, we should all look. It must be here somewhere.’

  The guests stood up and paced around the room, looking into the table decoration, under plates and mats, on the sideboard, across the floor and down the backs of chairs. The ring was nowhere to be found.

  Guy Hopkins began to lose his temper. ‘This is ridiculous.’

  Amanda tried to calm him down. ‘It must be here somewhere, darling.’

  ‘But where?’

  The doorbell rang. ‘That will be my taxi,’ said Daphne Young.

  Her host was surprised. ‘You’re going?’

  ‘It must be early . . . .’

  ‘Have we missed the bells?’ Mark Dowland asked.

  ‘I asked it to come for a quarter past midnight,’ Daphne explained. ‘I am expected elsewhere on the half-hour.’

  Mary Dowland was unable to resist the opportunity for sarcasm. ‘Then it was good of you to stay with us so long.’

  Guy pressed closer. ‘And you’re sure you don’t have my fiancée’s ring?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course I don’t,’ Daphne replied. ‘What do you take me for? You can look in my bag if you like.’

  ‘That won’t be necessary,’ said Nigel.

  ‘It will,’ Guy replied. ‘We have to find the ruddy thing.’

  Daphne opened her bag and emptied its contents on to the dining-room table without a word. Inside had been a compact, perfume, a handkerchief, a set of keys, a little diary, an address book and a small purse which she opened in front of all the other guests. Sixpences, threepenny bits and a ten-shilling note scattered across the table.

  ‘You can look all you like,’ she said. ‘You won’t find it there.’

  ‘Amazing,’ said Johnny Johnson. ‘I’ve never seen inside a woman’s handbag before, Daphne.’

  As Guy scattered the objects of the handbag across the table, examined them and then put them back, piece by piece, Daphne returned to her place, picked up her stole, and finished her glass of port.

  ‘Happy?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s not here,’ Guy complained.

  ‘It is very bad form to look into a lady’s handbag.’

  ‘I’m sorry for the intrusion. I was upset.’

  ‘It’s positively boorish,’ Daphne continued. ‘Now if you don’t mind, I will say goodbye to my host and hostess.’

  Johnny Johnson held up his glass of water. ‘Happy New Year, Daphne.’

  ‘I am sure the ring will turn up in the morning,’ said Sidney.

  ‘The morning?’ Guy exploded. ‘I’m going to search this room and everyone in it.’

  ‘If you’ll excuse me.’ Daphne edged past. ‘Would you like a lift, Canon Chambers? I believe I may be going in your direction.’

  ‘Perhaps I should stay, Jennifer . . .’

  ‘It’s all right, Sidney,’ his sister reassured him. ‘I’m sure the Thompsons won’t mind.’

  ‘I would not want to take you out
of your way, Miss Young. You’ve been delayed already this evening, I’m sure.’

  Daphne Young accepted his refusal with alacrity. ‘Indeed, Canon Chambers. A Happy New Year to you.’

  Nigel and Juliette Thompson accompanied Daphne into the hall, where they said their goodbyes. A further, fruitless, search around the room ensued, and after everyone had ostentatiously opened their pockets and satisfied Guy Hopkins that they were not thieves, Jennifer and Johnny left too. They asked if Sidney wanted to come along to a jazz club with them and although her brother was tempted, he thought it better if everyone calmed down and went home.

  ‘I suppose I’ll be doing the driving,’ Mary Dowland said to her drunk husband.

  ‘Despite my celebratory consumption, I am perfectly capable of driving a car,’ her husband explained. ‘There is nothing to it. And, on a night such as this, what more can possibly go wrong?’

  Sidney spent what, on a clergy stipend, was a small fortune on a cab and stayed the night with his parents. It was strange to be back in his childhood home. No matter how often he tried to explain the nature of his vocation and the daily routine of his job, Alec and Iris Chambers regarded their son with an air of amused perplexity. They couldn’t seem to understand how they could have produced a child who had become a priest.

  They found it easier to talk to him as if he was still a diligent seventeen-year-old over whom they still had a measure of control. Whenever Sidney came to stay he was expected to fit in with their daily lives as if he had neither left nor grown up, assisting his father with The Times crossword and his mother with the preparation of the vegetables. Iris Chambers had hinted more than once that it was about time that she was a grandmother, but since neither Sidney, nor Jennifer, nor their brother Matthew, had made any progress in this area of life the three siblings were treated as children every time they came home.

  Matthew was considered to be something of a night owl, and always excused himself from the family gatherings at lunchtime, but Jennifer was expected and she arrived late and in something of a state. She threw down her bags in the hall and exchanged half-hearted New Year greetings with her mother.

  Alec came out of his study to greet her. He had put on his new Christmas jumper and still had his pipe in his right hand. ‘What on earth is the matter?’ he asked.

  ‘Has Sidney not told you about last night?’

  ‘Told us what?’

  ‘As far as I can see,’ Sidney replied, ‘there is nothing, so far, to report. A misplaced ring is bound to turn up.’

  ‘Well it hasn’t,’ Jennifer answered forcefully, before throwing herself down on the sofa. ‘The whole thing is a disaster . . . .’

  Her mother sat down in a neighbouring armchair. ‘You will have to explain, dear.’

  ‘Sidney can do it. I am too upset.’

  There was a small pause in which her mother stood up again and began to head towards the kitchen. ‘Perhaps then, Sidney, you would like to finish laying the table and tell me what happened?’

  Alec Chambers was having none of it. ‘But then I don’t get to hear the story!’

  Jennifer interrupted. ‘It’s very simple. Amanda was given an engagement ring last night.’

  ‘By whom?’ her father asked.

  ‘Guy Hopkins.’

  ‘And who might he be?’

  ‘So Amanda is engaged?’ her mother cut in.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘That is not the point.’

  ‘I would have thought that is very much the point.’

  ‘You never let me finish,’ Jennifer complained.

  Alec Chambers was trying to understand his daughter’s story. ‘Is this the ring that is missing?’

  ‘What was it like?’ Iris asked.

  ‘It doesn’t really matter what it’s like. The fact is that it’s gone. Amanda passed it round the table for everyone to admire. She never got it back. The whole evening was a fiasco. Champagne everywhere.’

  ‘Was it very expensive?’ her mother asked.

  Her father would not let Jennifer answer. ‘You mean to say that the ring was lost in a welter of champagne?’

  Sidney tried to reassure everyone. ‘I am sure there is a perfectly innocent explanation. It must have either fallen through the floorboards or someone has been absent-minded and misplaced it when the champagne bottle was smashed.’

  ‘What a profligate waste,’ Iris tutted.

  ‘An accident, I hope?’ Alec asked.

  Jennifer ploughed on. ‘Johnny thinks someone’s stolen it.’

  ‘Does he, indeed?’

  ‘But you were amongst friends,’ her mother cut in. ‘Surely that’s impossible?’

  Alec continued. ‘I presume you searched everywhere, including the bathroom? Perhaps Amanda took it off in an absent-minded moment?’

  Jennifer explained. ‘She hardly had it on in the first place. We looked everywhere. Although some of those present weren’t at their sharpest.’

  ‘Ah! I assume drink had been taken?’

  ‘It was New Year’s Eve, Daddy.’

  ‘It sounds ghastly,’ said Iris. ‘But I am sure it will sort itself out. Besides, it’s time to carve the joint, Alec. After we have eaten I thought that you both might like to help me with the Christmas thank-you letters. Some of your father’s patients have been exceedingly generous of spirit.’

  Jennifer made her way to the table. ‘Well, I wish some of that generosity of spirit had been in evidence last night.’

  Her mother served out the roast beef while her husband poured from a bottle of claret. ‘By the way, Sidney, I found the last clue in the crossword – “Boar’s head and all man? Yes.” It’s Hogmanay.’

  ‘Very good; hog, man, aye.’

  ‘Are you going to say grace?’

  ‘I will,’ Sidney replied. It was important to keep the family up to his standards even though his father had been positively agnostic of late.

  ‘Mensae caelestis participes faciat nos Rex gloriae aeternae.’

  After the ‘Amen’ his father turned to Jennifer. ‘When are we going to meet this chap of yours?’

  ‘I’m not sure he’ll want to see me again after last night. It was so embarrassing.’

  ‘Is Nigel Thompson’s wife all right these days?’ Iris asked her daughter.

  ‘Juliette? I’m not at all sure. We all think she was the last to be seen with the ring in her hand but it can’t have been her. She was the hostess, for goodness sake.’

  ‘She has always had a nervy disposition.’

  ‘Now be careful, Iris,’ Alec cautioned. ‘We must not jump to conclusions.’

  ‘I’m sorry, darling, but poor dear Juliette is often her own worst enemy in life. I seem to remember . . . .’

  Alec Chambers doled out the claret. ‘I hope no one cast any aspersions . . . .’

  ‘Have the Thompsons called the police?’ Sidney asked.

  Jennifer rested her knife and fork on her plate and gave her brother one of her steady sisterly stares. ‘They don’t want this to become public knowledge. Nigel’s not been an MP for long and he doesn’t want anything to damage his prospects. You know how ambitious he is.’

  ‘Our future Prime Minister,’ Alec smiled.’ I expect Churchill’s got something to say about that.’

  ‘He can’t go on for ever, Daddy.’

  ‘You know that Gladstone formed his last administration at the age of eighty-three?’

  ‘But that was not a success.’

  Sidney felt they were straying from the point. ‘So they plan to sort out this ring business amongst themselves?’

  ‘That’s the idea.’

  ‘And how are they going to do that, Jenny?’

  ‘I told them that you would come back and help.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes, my dearest brother, you.’

  ‘I am not sure how I can be of any assistance.’

  Jennifer looked at her brother as if he was slow to und
erstand. She had, since she was ten, spoken to him about serious matters in emphatic italics, never quite believing that he was giving her his full attention. She employed this tactic now. ‘You can help look for the ring and then, if it is still missing, you can find out what went wrong, without causing a scene.’

  ‘A scene has already been made, I recall.’

  ‘Nigel was going to telephone you . . .’

  ‘You suggested it?’

  ‘I told him that I would talk to you in person first. Juliette’s taken to her bed, and Amanda is apparently alternating between rage and tears. Nigel is one of your oldest friends. I promised I’d pop you round this afternoon. You were there at the time and you are the only one everyone trusts.’

  ‘But I have to get back to Grantchester . . .’

  ‘There are no services tonight or tomorrow, are there?’

  ‘No, Jennifer, but that is not the only thing I do. I lead quite a full life and need to be back tomorrow evening. I am never really off duty.’

  ‘And that’s precisely why you can be on duty now.’

  ‘It’s not even my parish. It’s St John’s Wood, for goodness sake. Haven’t they got a vicar of their own?’

  ‘Of course they have.’

  ‘Then why can’t they ask him?’

  ‘Because he wasn’t present at the time and their vicar is not a detective.’

  ‘Neither am I.’

  ‘You are going to have to become one. I have brought my car.’

  Sidney looked to his father for support but found none. ‘You don’t appear to have much of a choice, old boy.’

  It was hard for Sidney to retain his cheerfulness. Here he was, surrounded by the possibility of deceit, theft and betrayal, and now bullied into taking an unwilling part in an investigation into events at a party he had never been that enthusiastic in attending. He felt ethically compromised. He always liked to give people the benefit of the doubt and yet now, here he was, on the verge of questioning the lives and morals of his friends and acquaintances.

  He saw already that if a crime had been committed he would have to look dispassionately at every member present, even his own sister, who could, he supposed, if he thought objectively, have stolen the ring out of some misguided jealousy. And yet it made him sick to be so suspicious.