Mr. Calder & Mr. Behrens

by Michael Gilbert

  “I was to ask if you’d care for anything before you turned in, sir. Some biscuits, or a nightcap?”

  “Certainly not,” said Mr. Calder. “Not after that lovely dinner. Did you cook it yourself?”

  Stokes looked gratified. “It wasn’t what you might call hote kweezeen.”

  “It was excellent. Tell me, don’t you find things a bit quiet down here?”

  “No, sir. I’m used to it. I was born here.”

  “I didn’t realise that,” said Mr. Calder.

  “I saw you looking at the smithy this afternoon. Enoch Covering’s my first cousin. Come to that, we’re mostly first or second cousins. Alsops and Stokes and Vowles and Claverings.”

  “It would have been Enoch who cut down the fence at Snelsham Manor?”

  “That’s right, sir.” Stokes’ voice was respectful, but there was a hint of wariness in it. “How did you know about that, if you don’t mind me asking? It hasn’t been in the papers.”

  “The colonel told me.”

  “Oh, of course. All the same, I do wonder how he knew about Enoch cutting down the fence. He wasn’t with us.”

  “With you?” said Mr. Calder. “Do I gather, Stokes, that you took part in this – this enterprise?”

  “Well, naturally, sir. Seeing I’m a member of the Parochial Church Council. Would there be anything more?”

  “Nothing more,” said Mr. Calder. “Good night.”

  He lay awake for a long time, listening to the owls talking to each other in the elms.

  “It’s true,” said Colonel Faulkner next morning. “We are a bit inbred. All Norfolk men are odd. It makes us just a bit odder, that’s all.”

  “Tell me about your Rector.”

  “He was some sort of missionary, I believe. In darkest Africa. Got malaria very badly, and was invalided out.”

  “From darkest Africa to darkest Norfolk. What do you make of him?”

  The colonel was lighting his after-breakfast pipe, and took time to think about that. He said, “I just don’t know, Calder. Might be a saint. Might be a scoundrel. He’s got a touch with animals. No denying that.”

  “What about the miracles?”

  “No doubt they’ve been exaggerated in the telling. But—well—that business of the bells. I can give chapter and verse for that. There only is one key to the bell chamber. I remember what a fuss there was when it was mislaid last year. And no-one could have got it from Penny’s cottage, opened the tower up, rung the bells and put the key back without someone seeing him. Stark impossibility.”

  “How many bells rang?”

  “The tenor and the treble. That’s the way we always ring them for an alarm. One of the farmers across the valley heard them, got out of bed, spotted the fire, and rang through for the brigade.”

  “Two bells,” saidMr. Calder thoughtfully. “So one man could have rung them.”

  “If he could have got in.”

  “Quite so.” Mr. Calder was looking at a list. “There are three people I should like to meet. A man called Smedley.”

  “The Rector’s Warden. I’m people’s Warden. He’s my opposite number. Don’t like him much.”

  “Miss Martin, your organist. I believe she has a cottage near the church. And Mr. Smallpiece, your village postmaster.”

  “Why those three?”

  “Because,” said Mr. Calder, “apart from the Rector himself, they are the only people who have come to live in this village during the past two years – so Stokes tells me.”

  “He ought to know,” said the colonel. “He’s related to half the village.”

  Mr. Smedley lived in a small dark cottage. It was tucked away behind the Viscount Townshend public house, which had a signboard outside it with a picture of the Second Viscount looking remarkably like the turnip which had become associated with his name.

  Mr. Smedley was old and thin, and inclined to be cautious. He thawed very slightly when he discovered that his visitor was the son of Canon Calder of Salisbury.

  “A world authority on monumental brasses,” he said. “You must be proud of him.”

  “I’d no idea.”

  “Yes, indeed. I have a copy somewhere of a paper he wrote on the brasses at Verden, in Hanover. A most scholarly work. We have some fine brasses in the church here, too. Not as old or as notable as Stoke d’Abernon, but very fine.”

  “It’s an interesting village altogether. You’ve been getting into the papers.”

  “I’d no idea that our brasses were that famous.”

  “Not your brasses. Your Rector. He’s been written up as a miracle worker.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “Oh, why?”

  Mr. Smedley blinked maliciously, and said, “I’m not surprised at the ability of the press to cheapen anything it touches.”

  “But are they miracles?”

  “You’ll have to define your terms. If you accept the Shavian definition of a miracle as an act which creates faith, then certainly, yes. They are miracles.”

  It occurred to Mr. Calder that Mr. Smedley was enjoying this conversation more than he was. He said, “You know quite well what I mean. Is there a rational explanation for them?”

  “Again, it depends what you mean by rational.”

  “I mean,” said Mr. Calder bluntly, “are they miracles, or conjuring tricks?”

  Mr. Smedley considered the matter, his head on one side. Then he said, “Isn’t that a question which you should put to the Rector? After all, if they are conjuring tricks, he must be the conjurer.”

  “I was planning to do just that,” said Mr. Calder, and prepared to take his leave. When he was at the door, his host checked him by laying a clawlike hand on his arm. He said, “Might I offer a word of advice? This is not an ordinary village. I suppose the word which would come most readily to mind is – primitive. I don’t mean anything sinister. But being isolated, it has grown up rather more slowly than the outside world. And another thing—’’ Mr. Smedley paused. Mr. Calder was reminded of an old black crow, cautiously approaching a tempting morsel and wondering whether he dared to seize it. “I ought to warn you that the people here are very fond of their Rector. If what they regarded as divine manifestations were described by you as conjuring tricks, well – you see what I mean.”

  “I see what you mean,” said Mr. Calder. He went out into the village street, took a couple of deep breaths, and made his way to the post-office. This was dark, dusty and empty. He could hear the postmaster, in the back room, wrestling with a manual telephone exchange. He realised, as he listened, that Mr. Smallpiece was no Norfolkman. His voice suggested that he had been brought up within sound of Bow Bells. When he emerged, Mr. Calder confirmed the diagnosis. If Mr. Smedley was a country crow, Mr. Smallpiece was a Cockney sparrow.

  He said, “Nice to see a new face around. You’ll be staying with the colonel. I ‘ope his aunt gets over it.”

  “Gets over what?”

  “Called away ten minutes ago. The old lady ‘adder fit. Not the first one neither. If you ask me, she ‘as one whenever she feels lonely.”

  “Old people are like that,” agreed Mr. Calder. “Your job must keep you very busy.”

  “Oh I am the cook and the captain bold and the mate of the Nancy brig,” agreed Mr. Smallpiece. “I work the exchange – eighteen lines – deliver the mail, sell stamps, send telegrams and run errands. ‘Owever, there’s no overtime in this job, and what you don’t get paid for you don’t get thanked for.” He looked at the clock above the counter which showed five minutes to twelve, pushed the hand on five minutes, turned a card in the door from ‘Open’ to ‘Closed’, and said, “Since the colonel won’t be back much before two, what price a pint at the Viscount?”

  “You take the words out of my mouth,” said Mr. Calder. As they walked down the street, he said, “What happens if anyone wants to ring up someone whilst you’re out?”

  “Well, they can’t, can they?” said Mr. Smallpiece.

  When the colonel retur
ned – his aunt, Mr. Calder was glad to learn, was much better – he reported the negative results of his enquiries to date.

  “If you want to see Miss Martin, you can probably kill two birds with one stone. She goes along to the rectory most Wednesdays, to practise the harmonium. You’ll find it at the far end of the street. The original rectory was alongside the church, but it was burned down about a hundred years ago. I’m afraid it isn’t an architectural gem. Built in the worst style of Victorian ecclesiastical red brick.”

  Mr. Calder, as he lifted the heavy wrought-iron knocker, was inclined to agree. The house was not beautiful. But it had a certain old-fashioned dignity and solidity. The Rector answered the door himself. Mr. Calder had hardly known what to expect. A warrior ecclesiastic in the Norman mould? A fanatical priest, prepared to face stake and faggot for his faith? A subtle Jesuit living by the Rule of Ignatius Loyola in solitude and prayer? What he had not been prepared for was a slight nondescript man with an apologetic smile who said, “Come in, come in. Don’t stand on ceremony. We never lock our doors here. I know you, don’t I? Wait! You’re Mr. Calder, and you’re staying at the Manor. What a lovely dog. A genuine Persian deerhound of the royal breed. What’s his name?”

  “He’s called Rasselas.”

  “Rasselas,” said the Rector. He wasn’t looking at the dog, but was staring over his shoulder, as though he could see something of interest behind him in the garden. “Rasselas.” The dog gave a rumbling growl. The Rector said, “Rasselas,” again, very softly. The rumble changed to a snarl. The Rector stood perfectly still, and said nothing. The snarl changed back into a rumble.

  “Well, that’s much better,” said the Rector. “Did you see? He was fighting me. I wonder why?”

  “He’s usually very well behaved with strangers.”

  “I’m sure he is. Intelligent too. Why should he have assumed that I was an enemy. You heard him assuming it, didn’t you?”

  “I heard him changing his mind, too.”

  “I was able to reassure him. The interesting point is, why should he have started with hostile thoughts. I trust he didn’t derive them from you. But I’m being fanciful. Why should you have thoughts about us at all. Come along in, and meet our organist, Miss Martin. Such a helpful person, and a spirited performer on almost any instrument.”

  The opening of an inner door had released a powerful blast of Purcell’s overture to Dido and Aeneas, played on the harmonium with all stops out.

  “Miss Martin. MISS MARTIN.”

  “I’m so sorry, Rector. I didn’t hear you.”

  “This is Mr. Calder. He’s a war-time friend of Colonel Faulkner. Curious that such an evil thing as war should have produced the fine friendships it did.”

  “Good sometimes comes out of evil, don’t you think.”

  “No,” said the Rector. “I’m afraid I don’t believe that at all. Good sometimes comes in spite of evil. A very different proposition.”

  “A beautiful rose,” said Miss Martin, “can grow on a dunghill.”

  “Am I the rose, and Colonel Faulkner the dunghill, or vice-versa?”

  Miss Martin tittered. The Rector said, “Let that be a warning to you not to take an analogy too far.”

  “I have to dash along now, but please stay, Miss Martin will do the honours. Have a cup of tea. You will? Splendid.”

  Over the teacups, as Mr. Calder was wondering how to bring the conversation round to the point he required, Miss Martin did it for him. She said, “This is a terrible village for gossip, Mr. Calder. Although you’ve hardly been down here for two days, people are already beginning to wonder what you’re up to. Particularly as you’ve been – you know – getting round, talking to people.”

  “I am naturally gregarious,” said Mr. Calder.

  “Now, now. You won’t pull the wool over my eyes. I know better. You’ve been sent.”

  Mr. Calder said, trying to keep the surprise out of his voice, “Sent by whom?”

  “I’ll mention no names. We all know that there are sects and factions in the church who would find our Rector’s teachings abhorrent to their own narrow dogma. And who would be envious of his growing reputation.”

  “Oh, I see,” said Mr. Calder.

  “I’m not asking you to tell me if my guess is correct. What I do want to impress on you is that there is nothing exaggerated in these stories. I’ll give you one instance which I can vouch for myself. It was a tea party we were giving for the Brownies. I’d made a terrible miscalculation. The most appalling disaster faced us. There wasn’t enough to eat. Can you imagine it?”

  “Easily,” said Mr. Calder with a shudder.

  “I called the Rector aside, and told him. He just smiled, and said, ‘Look in that cupboard, Miss Martin.’ I simply stared at him. It was a cupboard I use myself for music and anthems. I have the only key. I walked over and unlocked it. And what do you think I found? A large plate of freshly cut bread and butter, and two plates of biscuits.”

  “Enough to feed the five thousand.”

  “It’s odd you should say that. It was the precise analogy that occurred to me.”

  “Did you tell people about this?”

  “I don’t gossip. But one of my helpers was there. She must have spread the story. Ah, here is the Rector. Don’t say a word about it to him. He denies it all, of course.”

  “I’m glad to see that Miss Martin has been looking after you,” said the Rector. “A thought has occurred to me. Do you sing?”

  “Only under duress.”

  “Recite, perhaps? We are getting up a village concert. Miss Martin is a tower of strength in such matters—”

  “It would appear from his reports,” said Mr. Fortescue, “that your colleague is entering fully into the life of the village. Last Saturday, according to the East Anglia Gazette, he took part in a village concert in aid of the RSPCA. He obliged with a moving rendering of the ‘Wreck of the Hesperus’.”

  “Good gracious,” said Mr. Behrens. “How very versatile.”

  “He would not, however, appear to have advanced very far in the matter I sent him down to investigate. He thinks that the Rector is a perfectly sincere enthusiast. He has his eye on three people, any one of whom might have been planted in the village to work on him. Have you been able to discover anything?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Mr. Behrens. “I’ve made the round of our usual contacts. I felt that the IBG was the most likely. It’s a line they’ve tried with some success in the past. Stirring up local prejudice, and working it up into a national campaign. You remember the school children who trespassed on the missile base at Loch Gair and were roughly handled?”

  “Were alleged to have been roughly handled.”

  “Yes. It was a put-up job. But they made a lot of capital out of it. I have a line on their chief organiser. My contact thinks they are up to something. Which means they’ve got an agent planted in Hedgeborn.”

  “Or that the Rector is their agent.”

  “Yes. The difficulty will be to prove it. Their security is rather good.”

  Mr. Fortescue considered the matter, running his thumb down the angle of his prominent chin. He said, “Might you be able to contrive, through your contact, to transmit a particular item of information to their agent in Hedgeborn?”

  “I might. But I hardly see—”

  “In medicine,” said Mr. Fortescue, “I am told that when it proves impossible to clear up a condition by direct treatment, it is sometimes possible to precipitate an artificial crisis which can be dealt with.”

  “Always bearing in mind that if we do precipitate a crisis, poor old Calder will be in the middle of it.”

  “Exactly,” said Mr. Fortescue.

  It was on the Friday of the second week of his stay that Mr. Calder noticed the change. There was no open hostility. No-one attacked him. No-one was even rude to him. It was simply that he had ceased to be acceptable to the village. People who had been prepared to chat with him in the bar of the Viscount Townshend
now had business of their own to discuss when he appeared. Mr. Smedley did not answer his knock, although he could see him, through the front window reading a book. Mr. Smallpiece avoided him in the street.

  It was like the moment, in a theatre, when the iron safety-curtain descends, cutting off the actors and all on the stage from the audience. Suddenly, he was on one side. The village was on the other.

  By the Saturday, the atmosphere had become so oppressive that Mr. Calder decided to do something about it. Stokes had driven the colonel into Thetford on business. He was alone in the house. He decided, on the spur of the moment, to have a word with the Rector.

  Although it was a fine afternoon, the village street was completely empty. As he walked, he noted the occasional stirring of a curtain, and knew that he was not unobserved, but the silence of the early autumn afternoon lay heavily over everything. On this occasion he had left a strangely subdued Rasselas behind.

  His knock at the rectory door was unanswered. Remembering the Rector saying, “We never lock our doors here,” he turned the handle and went in. The house was silent. He took a few steps along the hall, and stopped. The door on his left was ajar. He looked in. The Rector was there. He was kneeling at a carved prie-dieu, as motionless as if he had been himself part of the carving. If he had heard Mr. Calder’s approach, he took absolutely no notice of it. Feeling extremely foolish, Mr. Calder withdrew by the way he had come.

  Walking back down the street, he was visited by a recollection of his days with the Military Mission in war-time Albania. The mission had visited a remote village, and had been received with the same silent disregard. They had usually been well received, and it had puzzled them. When he returned to the village some months later Mr. Calder had learned the truth. The village had caught an informer, and were waiting for the mission to go before they dealt with him. He had heard the details of what they had done to the informer, and although he was not naturally queasy, it had turned his stomach.

  That evening Stokes waited on them in unusual silence. When he had gone, the colonel said, “Whatever it is, it’s tomorrow.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’m told that the Rector has been fasting since Thursday. Also that morning service tomorrow has been cancelled, and Evensong brought forward to four o’clock. That’s when it’ll break.”