Death in Ecstasy

by Ngaio Marsh

  “I don’t think so,” Nigel said slowly. “It so happens that I remember distinctly she took it in both hands, holding it by the stem. I’ve got a very clear mental picture of her, standing there, lit by the torch. She had rings on both hands and I remember I noticed that they reflected the light in the same way as the jewels on the cup. I feel quite certain she held it like that until she drank.”

  “I’ve no such recollection,” declared the doctor.

  “Quite sure, Bathgate?”

  “Yes, quite sure. I—I’d swear to it.”

  “You may have to,” said Alleyn. “Dr. Kasbek, you say you are not one of the elect. Perhaps, in that case, you would not object to telling me a little more about this place. It is an extremely unusual sort of church.”

  He glanced round apologetically. “All this intellectual sculpture. Who is the lowering gentleman with the battle-ax? He makes one feel quite shy.”

  “I fancy he is Wotan, which is the same as Odin. Perhaps Thor. I really don’t know. I imagine the general idea owes something to some cult in Germany, and is based partly on Scandinavian mythology, though as you see it does not limit itself to one, or even a dozen, doctrines. It’s a veritable olla podrida with Garnette to stir the pot. The statues were commissioned by a very rich old lady in the congregation.”

  “An old lady!” murmured Alleyn. “Fancy!”

  “It is rather overwhelming,” agreed Kasbek. “Shall we move into the hall? I should like to sit down.”

  “Certainly,” said Alleyn. “Fox, will you make a sketch-plan of the chancel? I won’t be more than two minutes and then we’ll start on the others. Run a line of chalk round the body and get the bluebottle in there to ring for the mortuary-van. Come along with us, won’t you, Bathgate?”

  Nigel and Dr. Kasbek followed the inspector down to the front row of chairs. These were sumptuously upholstered in red embossed velvet.

  “Front stalls,” said Alleyn, sitting down.

  “There are seven of them, as you can see. They are for the six Initiates and the Chosen Vessel. These are selected from a sort of inner circle among the congregation, or so I understand.”

  Dr. Kasbek settled himself comfortably in his velvet pew. He was a solid shortish man of about fifty-five with dark hair worn en brosse, a rather fleshy and pale face, and small, intelligent eyes.

  “It was founded by Garnette two years ago. I first heard of it from an old patient of mine who lives nearby. She was always raving about the ceremonies and begging me to go. I was called in to see her one Sunday evening just before the service began and she made me promise I’d attend it. I’ve been several times since. I am attracted by curious places and interested in—how shall I put it?—in the incalculable vagaries of human faith. Garnette’s doctrine of dramatised pantheism, if that’s what it is, amused and intrigued me. So did the man himself. Where he got the money to buy the place—it was originally a Nonconformist clubroom, I think—and furnish it and keep it going, I’ve no idea. Probably it was done by subscription. Ogden is Grand Warden or something. He’ll be able to tell you. It’s all very expensive, as you see. Garnette is the only priest and literally the ‘onlie begetter,’ the whole show in fact. He undoubtedly practices hypnotism and that, too, interests me. The service you saw to-night, Mr. Bathgate, is only held once a month and is their star turn. The Chosen Vessel—Miss Quayne on this occasion—has to do a month’s preparation, which means, I think, intensive instruction and private meditation with Garnette.”

  “Odin and Frigga,” said Alleyn. “I begin to understand. Are you personally acquainted with any of the Initiates?”

  “Ogden introduced himself to me some weeks ago and Garnette came and spoke to me the first evening I was here. On the look-out for new material, I suppose.”

  “None of the others?”

  “No. Ogden suggested I should ‘get acquainted,’ but”—he smiled—“I enjoy being an onlooker and I evaded it. I’m afraid that’s all I can tell you.”

  “It’s all extremely suggestive and most useful. Thank you very much, Dr. Kasbek. I won’t keep you any longer. Dr. Curtis may want a word with you before you go. I’ll send him down here. You’ll be subpoenaed for the inquest of course.”

  “Of course. Are you Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn?”

  “Yes.”

  “I remembered your face. I saw you at the Theodore Roberts Trial.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “The case interested me. You see I’m an alienist.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Alleyn again with his air of polite detachment.

  “I was glad they brought in a verdict of insanity. Poor Roberts, I suppose in a case of that sort the police do not push for the—the other thing.”

  “The police force is merely a machine. I must fly I’m afraid. Good night. Bathgate, will you let Dr. Kasbek out when he has spoken to Curtis?”

  Alleyn returned to the top of the hall. The divisional surgeon joined Kasbek and the two doctors, walked down the aisle with that consultation manner, heads together, faces very solemn, like small boys in conference. Nigel followed sheepishly at a tactful distance. The word cyanide floated at intervals down the aisle. At last Dr. Curtis said: “Yes. All right. Good night.” They shook hands. Nigel hurried up to wrestle with the elaborate bolts and lock that secured the double doors.

  “Oh, thank you very much,” said Kasbek. “You’ve made yourself quite invaluable this evening, Mr. Bathgate.”

  “To tell you the truth, sir,” said Nigel, “I am surprised at my own initiative. It was the smell that did it.”

  “Oh, quite. I was just going to say no one must leave when you spoke up. Very glad of your support. Can you manage? Ah—that’s done it. I see there’s a constable outside. I hope he lets me out! Good night, Mr. Bathgate.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A Priest and Two Acolytes

  THE CONSTABLE had arrived with the mortuary-van. A stretcher was brought in. Nigel, not wishing to see again that terrible figure, hung back at the entrance, but after all, try as he would, he could not help watching. The group up in the chancel looked curiously theatrical. Alleyn had turned on all the side lamps but they were dull red and insignificant. The torch flickered confusedly. At one moment it threw down a strong glare, and at the next almost failed, so that the figures of the men continually started to life and seemed to move when actually they were still. Alleyn drew the brocaded satin away from the body and stood contemplating it. The body, still in its same contracted, headlong posture, looked as though some force had thrown it down with a sudden violence. Dr. Curtis said something. His voice sounded small and melancholy in the empty building. Nigel caught the words “rigor mortis—rapid.” Alleyn nodded and his shadow, starting up on the wall as the torch flared again, made a monstrous exaggeration of the gesture. They bent down and lifted the body on to the whitish strip of the stretcher. One of the men pulled a sheet up. Curtis spoke to them. They lifted the stretcher and came slowly down the aisle, black silhouettes now against the lighted chancel. They passed Nigel heavily and went out of the open door. The constable stayed in the entrance, so Nigel did not relock the doors. He returned to the chancel.

  “I’m glad that part is over,” he said to Alleyn.

  “What? Oh, the body.”

  “You appear to be lost in the folds of your professional abstraction,” remarked Nigel tartly. “Pray, what are you going to do next?”

  “Your style is an unconvincing mixture of George Moore and Lewis Carroll, my dear Bathgate. I am about to interview the ladies and gentleman. I dislike it very much. This is a beastly place. Why did you come to it?”

  “I really can’t tell you. I was bored and I saw the sign swinging in the rain. I came in search of adventure.”

  “And I suppose, with your habitual naïveté, you consider that you have found it. Fox, have you made your plan?”

  “Not quite finished, sir, but I’ll carry on quietly.”

  “Well, give an ear to the conversation. When we get to
M. de Ravigne, you may like to conduct the examination in French.”

  Fox smiled blandly. He had taken a course of gramophone lessons in French and now followed closely an intermediate course on the radio.

  “I’m not quite up to it as yet, sir,” he said, “but I’d be glad to listen if you feel like doing it yourself.”

  “Bless you, Fox, I should make a complete ass of myself. Got your prints, Bailey?”

  “I’ve been over the ground,” said Detective-Sergeant Bailey guardedly.

  “Then call in the first witness. Find out if any of them are particularly anxious to get away, and I’ll take them in order of urgency.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  Bailey, with an air of mulish indifference, disappeared through the altar door. In a moment he came back.

  “Gentleman just fainted,” he grumbled.

  “Oh, Lord!” apostrophised Alleyn. “Have a look, will you, Curtis? Which is it, Bailey?”

  “One of those affairs in purple shirts, the dark one.”

  “My oath,” said Alleyn.

  Dr. Curtis uttered a brief “Tsss!” and disappeared. Bailey emerged with Father Garnette.

  “I’m extremely sorry to have kept you waiting, sir,” said Alleyn, “but you will understand that there were several matters to deal with. Shall we go down into the chairs there?”

  Garnette inclined his head and led the way. He seated himself unhurriedly and hid his hands in his wide sleeves. Fox, all bland detachment, strolled to a near-by pew and seemed to be absorbed in his sketch-plan of the chancel and sanctuary. Nigel, at a glance from Alleyn joined Inspector Fox and took out his notebook. A shorthand report of the interviews would do no harm. Father Garnette did not so much as glance at Nigel and Fox. Alleyn pulled forward a large faldstool and sat on it with his back to the flickering torch. The priest and the policeman regarded each other steadily.

  “I am appalled,” said Father Garnette loudly. His voice was mellifluous and impossibly sorrowful. “Ap-PALL-ed.”

  “Unpleasant business, isn’t it?” remarked Alleyn.

  “I am bewildered. I do not understand as yet, what has happened. What unseen power has struck down this dear soul in the very moment of spiritual ecstasah?”

  “Cyanide of potassium I think,” said Alleyn coolly, “but of course that’s not official.”

  The embroidery on the wide sleeves quivered slightly. “But that is a poison,” said Father Garnette.

  “One of the deadliest,” said Alleyn.

  “I am appalled,” said Father Garnette.

  “The possibility of suicide will have to be explored, of course.”

  “Suicide!”

  “It does not seem likely, certainly. Accident is even more improbable, I should say.”

  “You mean, then, that she—that she—that murder has been done!”

  “That will be for a jury to decide. There will be an inquest, of course. In the meantime there are one or two questions I should like to ask you, Mr. Garnette. I need not remind you that you are not obliged to answer them.”

  “I know nothing of such matters. I simply wish to do my duty.”

  “That’s excellent, sir,” said Alleyn politely. “Now as regards the deceased. I’ve got her name and address, but I should like to learn a little more about her. You knew her personally as well as officially, I expect?”

  “All my children are my friends. Cara Quayne was a very dear friend. Hers was a rare soul, Inspector—ah?”

  “Alleyn, sir.”

  “Inspector Alleyn. Hers was a rare soul, singularly fitted for the tremendous spiritual discoverahs to which it was granted I should point the way.”

  “Oh, yes. For how long has she been a member of your congregation?”

  “Let me think. I can well remember the first evening I was aware of her. I felt the presence of something vital, a kind of intensitah, a—how can I put it?—an increased receptivitah. We have our own words for expressing these experiences.”

  “I hardly think I should understand them,” remarked Alleyn dryly. “Can you give me the date of her first visit?”

  “I believe I can. It was on the festival of Aeger. December the fifteenth of last year.”

  “Since then she has been a regular attendant?”

  “Yes. She had attained to the highest rank.”

  “By that you mean she was a Chosen Vessel?”

  Father Garnette bent his extraordinary eyes on the inspector.

  “Then you know something of our ritual, Inspector Alleyn?”

  “Very little, I am afraid.”

  “Do you know that you yourself are exceedingly receptive?”

  “I receive facts,” said Alleyn, “as a spider does flies.”

  “Ah.” Father Garnette nodded his head slowly. “This is not the time. But I think it will come. Well, ask what you will, Inspector.”

  “I gather that you knew Miss Quayne intimately—that in the course of her preparation for tonight’s ceremony you saw a great deal of her.”

  “A great deal.”

  “I understand she took the name of Frigga in your ceremony?”

  “That is so,” said Father Garnette uneasily.

  “The wife of Odin, I seem to remember.”

  “In our ritual the relationship is one of the spirit.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Alleyn. “Had you any reason to believe she suffered from depression or was troubled about anything?”

  “I am certain of the contrarah. She was in a state of tranquilitah and joy.”

  “I see. No worries over money?”

  “Money? No. She was what the world calls rich.”

  “What do you call it, sir?”

  Father Garnette gave a frank and dreadfully boyish laugh.

  “Why, I should call her rich too, Inspector,” he cried gaily.

  “Any unhappy love affair, do you know?” pursued Alleyn.

  Father Garnette did not answer for a moment. Then he said sadly:

  “Ah, Inspector Alleyn, we speak in different languages.”

  “I didn’t realize that,” said Alleyn. “Can you translate my question into your own language, or would you rather not answer it?”

  “You misunderstand me. Cara Quayne was not concerned with earthly love; she was on the threshold of a new spiritual life.”

  “And apparently she has crossed it.”

  “You speak more faithfully than you realise. I earnestly believe she has crossed it.”

  “No love affair,” said Alleyn, and wrote it down in his notebook. “Was she on friendly terms with the other Initiates?”

  “There is perfect loving kindness among them. Nay, that does not express my meaning. The Initiates have attained to the third place where all human relationships merge in an ecstatic indifference. They cannot hate for there is no hatred. They realise that hatred is maya—illusion.”

  “And love?”

  “If you mean earthlah love, that too is illusion.”

  “Then,” said Alleyn, “if you follow the idea to a logical conclusion, what one does cannot matter as long as one’s actions spring from one’s emotions for if these are illusion—or am I wrong?”

  “Ah,” exclaimed Father Garnette, “I knew I was right. We must have a long talk some day, my dear fellow.”

  “You are very kind,” said Alleyn. “What did Miss Wade mean when she said: ‘All that sort of thing should have been kept out’?”

  “Did Miss Wade say that?”

  “Yes.”

  “I cannot imagine what she meant. The poor soul was very distressed no doubt.”

  “What do you think Mrs. Candour meant when she said she knew something dreadful would happen and that she had said so to M. de Ravigne?”

  “I did not hear her,” answered Father Garnette. His manner suggested that Alleyn as well as Mrs. Candour had committed a gross error in taste.

  “Another question, Mr. Garnette. In the course of your interviews with Miss Quayne can you remember any incident or re
mark that would throw any light on this matter?”

  “None.”

  “This is a very well-appointed hall.”

  “We think it beautiful,” said Father Garnette complacently.

  “Please do not think me impertinent. I am obliged to ask these questions. Is it supported and kept up by subscription?”

  “My people welcome as a privilege the right to share in the hospitalitah of the Sacred Flame.”

  “You mean they pay the running expenses?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was Miss Quayne a generous supporter?”

  “Dear soul, yes, indeed she was.”

  “Do you purchase the wine for the ceremony?”

  “I do.”

  “Would you mind giving me the name of this wine and the address of the shop?”

  “It comes from Harrods. I think the name is—let me see—‘Le Comte’s Invalid Port.’”

  Alleyn repressed a shudder and wrote it down.

  “You decant it yourself? I mean you pour it into the silver flagon?”

  “On this occasion, no. I believe Claude Wheatley made all the preparations this evening.”

  “Would you mind telling me exactly what he would have done?”

  “Certainly. He would take an unopened bottle of wine from a cupboard in my room, draw the cork and pour the contents into the vessel. He would then make ready the goblet.”

  “Make ready—?”

  Father Garnette’s expression changed a little. He looked at once mulish and haughty.

  “A certain preparation is necessarah,” he said grandly.

  “Oh, yes, of course. You mean the flame that appeared. How was that done? Methylated spirit?”

  “In tabloid form,” confessed Father Garnette.

  “I know,” cried Alleyn cheerfully. “The things women use for heating curling-tongs.”

  “Possiblah,” said Father Garnette stiffly. “In our ritual, Inspector Alleyn, the goblet itself is holy and blessed. By the very act of pouring in the wine, this too becomes sacred—sacred by contact with the Cup. Our ceremony of the Cup, though it embraces the virtues of various communions in Christian churches, is actually entirely different in essentials and in intention.”