Holy Disorders

by Edmund Crispin

  Garbin rose abruptly from his chair, thrust his long, bony hands into his pockets, and crossed to the window. He turned and faced the other three before he spoke again.

  ‘What was it he saw, when he walked alone about the cathedral? What was it he found there, that no one else has found?’

  Dinner was over. It had not, from the social point of view, been a successful meal. The events of the last two days weighed too heavily on the minds of those present to allow more than sporadic, half-hearted conversation, always carefully directed away from the obsessing thought. Even the normally jovial Peace, who had come over to dinner from the Precentor’s house, where he was staying, seemed affected by the atmosphere, and after opening the proceedings chattily lapsed gradually into a silence from which he emerged only to give occasional startled replies when he was addressed. Frances kept things moving at a rate just clear of open embarrassment and discomfort.

  The Precentor had not put in an appearance, so there were eight of them at the table – Frances, Garbin, Spitshuker, the young clergyman Savernake, whom they had seen in the train, Geoffrey, Fielding, Peace, and the sub-organist, Dutton, an acutely self-conscious young man with a massive white face spotted with orange freckles, and a shock of pale ginger hair, through which he constantly ran his chubby fingers. There was, it appeared, to be some kind of unofficial meeting of cathedral officers after dinner (without the Dean, who would normally have presided, but who was temporarily away) – obviously to discuss the repercussions of the Brooks affair, though this was not made explicit. The Precentor, Frances’ father, whom Geoffrey was curious to meet, would appear for that, and so would the Chancellor, Sir John Dallow. Geoffrey recalled, suddenly, the affair of Josephine and the burning of the Precentor’s manuscript, and wondered why the girl was not with them; a casual question, put to Frances, told him that she had gone back to her own home.

  Geoffrey found himself next to Savernake, but the acquaintanceship made little progress. After a start of recognition when Geoffrey was introduced to him, the young clergyman became taciturn and nervous. Geoffrey, venturing a straightforward reference to the situation, said:

  ‘The police have made a thorough search of the cathedral, I suppose?’

  Savernake nodded. ‘Thorough – very thorough indeed.’ He spoke in that exaggerated drawl which so often passes incorrectly for the Oxford accent. ‘But, of course, it was useless. No one will find – what there is to be found, unless he stays alone there as Brooks did.’

  ‘And then –?’ Geoffrey left the rest of the question unspoken. But Savernake only shrugged, cracked the joints of his long, thin fingers alarmingly, and smiled.

  Garbin and Spitshuker engaged in a private controversy on some obscure theological point, which lasted until dinner was over. Peace, Frances (from whom Geoffrey was regrettably distant), and Fielding carried on a three-cornered argument about a recent London play. Dutton was mostly silent, throwing occasional desperate remarks into such conversation as met his ears. Decidedly, not an inspiring meal.

  Coffee was in the drawing-room. There rose to meet them as they came in, Garbin and Spitshuker still engaged in surreptitious altercation, a little old man of phenomenal thinness, with a sharp nose, small beady eyes which never for more than a moment held your own, and a crown of sparse and wispy white hair – Sir John Dallow, Chancellor of the Cathedral. In speech he alternately gabbled and drawled. His mannerisms were at once like and unlike Spitshuker’s. There were the same incessant gestures, the same dancing and posturing. But whereas in Spitshuker these were signs of energy, in Dallow they appeared more as neurotic excitement. Looking at the two men, Geoffrey could think of no better comparison between them than that Dallow was an angle, and Spitshuker a curve; and probably, he thought with amusement, that was due as much to the difference between their figures as to anything else.

  Dallow rose with conscious affectation as they came in, brushing with the backs of his fingers at an invisible speck of dust on his lapel. He wore no clerical garments of any kind – only a dandified lounge suit and a tie of slightly shocking red. He darted forward to meet Frances as she preceded the others into the room, seized her hand, and held it in a lingering parody of the chivalrous man.

  ‘My dear Frances,’ he gabbled, ‘you will, I’m sure, forgive my letting myself into the house and settling down in this unconventional way.’ He had a disconcerting trick of thrusting his face close to the face of the person to whom he was talking. ‘I realized that I was a little early, and I he-e-sitated’ – he drawled out the word, and then went on with a rush – ‘to disturb you…at your meal.’ His small eyes looked quickly about the gathering. ‘Garbin, Spitshuker, Dutton – and how are you now my dear fellow? And…?’ He glanced at Peace, Geoffrey, and Fielding. Introductions were made. ‘So pleased,’ murmured Dallow. ‘So pleased.’ He conducted Frances with bird-like movements to a chair, and sat down beside her.

  ‘Butler is not here yet?’ he inquired generally. ‘I hope – indeed I hope – that he will be in time for the meeting. The matter is so urgent – so terribly urgent.’ With a sharp movement, he began feeling in his pockets, and finally produced a large key. ‘I have been to the hospital,’ he said, holding it up, ‘and the police asked me to return you – this.’ He laid it delicately on a table beside him.

  There was a moment’s silence. Then Frances said:

  ‘Is it –?’

  Dallow nodded and grimaced. ‘Exactly. The cathedral key – more properly I should say the key to the door in the north transept. That key which hangs normally’ – he emphasized the word – ‘in the front porch of this clergy-house, for the use of its occupants.’

  ‘My dear Dallow,’ piped Spitshuker in sudden excitement, ‘are you trying to tell us that that – that – is the key which Brooks –’ His voice tailed away.

  Dallow nodded. ‘Precisely that.’ He looked at Frances. ‘You knew it was missing?’

  ‘I? I hadn’t any idea. I never need to use it. Mr Dutton, what about you?’

  The sub-organist shifted. ‘I never go into the cathedral now. Doctor’s orders. Perhaps one of the other two –?’

  ‘But they’ve been away for three days now. Nobody had occasion to notice it was gone. What’s more, anyone could have walked in and taken it.’

  ‘Precisely what I told the police,’ said Dallow. ‘The “C.H.” engraved on it left no doubt of its provenance. They will probably have to ask questions about it. In the meantime, they’ve finished with it, and asked me to bring it back. No finger-prints, I gather.’

  ‘What I can’t understand,’ said Garbin, ‘is why Brooks wasn’t using his own key to get into the cathedral. He’s had one ever since we were authorized to lock the cathedral at seven at nights.’

  Dallow leaned forward. ‘My de-e-ar Garbin. You miss the point. Brooks did use his own key. But whoever was in the cathedral with him – used this one.’ He tapped it slowly. ‘Brooks’ key was found on him. This other, as you know, was found lying on the grass outside the north transept.’

  Fielding looked up. ‘That’s curious.’

  ‘Very curious, Mr Fielding. Why, you would ask, did our intruder not return the key here when he had locked the door behind him?’

  ‘Ah, but our intruder overlooked that. And you must remember that in all probability poor Brooks was left for dead.’

  ‘Still less reason for locking it,’ said Dutton, wedging himself painfully into the conversation. They stared at him with that unanimous surprise which naturally shy people seem always to attract to themselves. You would have imagined that a white mouse was liable to pop out of his mouth at any moment.

  ‘But there was a reason, of course,’ Spitshuker squeaked excitedly. ‘That is – supposing our intruder wanted to keep his crime secret for as long as possible. The police try all doors of the cathedral at least three times during the night. If one of them was found open, naturally they would investigate at once. I understand that the longer a body remains undiscovered, the less easy
it is to fix with precision the time of death, and so to use the method of investigation by alibi.’ He seemed to feel that this statement showed too intimate a knowledge of criminology, for he added: ‘Or so I think I have been told.’

  ‘True – perfectly true, my de-e-ar Spitshuker,’ said Dallow in benign confirmation.

  ‘But that still doesn’t account for the fact that the key was thrown away and not returned,’ Peace interposed.

  ‘I think I can explain that,’ Frances replied grimly. ‘At ten o’clock sharp every night the door of this house is latched. After that time, only the four of us with latch-keys – Notewind and Filts, the two minor canons who live here, Dutton, and myself – can get in. Your criminal would hardly risk breaking into the house simply to return a key.’

  ‘And that means’ – Garbin’s deep voice almost startled them – ‘that those four are thus far freed from suspicion.’

  Frances shrugged indifferently. ‘If we haven’t been talking nonsense – as we probably have – I suppose it does.’

  ‘It seems very important,’ said Geoffrey, ‘because from what I’ve heard so far it seems as if the thing may have happened at any time. What time did the choir-practice finish, by the way?’

  ‘It has to be over by a quarter to nine,’ said Spitshuker, ‘because the boys must be back at their homes by nine. And if I remember, one of the Decani altos, who was the last to leave, said he got home about ten past. Brooks merely told him that he proposed practising for a while – which I suppose he may have done. But he was nowhere near the organ when they found him.’ Spitshuker turned to the Chancellor. ‘How was he, by the way?’

  ‘He is dead.’

  It was a new voice that had spoken. Simultaneously they turned towards the door. The Precentor, Dr Butler, stood there looking at them with the coldest eyes Geoffrey had ever seen in a human being. He had the frame and height of a giant, and hair the colour of dirty ice. His face, where the bones showed so prominently, was tanned a dark brown. He was about fifty, prematurely grey.

  Frances jumped up. ‘Daddy…’

  The Precentor advanced towards Geoffrey. ‘Mr Vintner? It was kind of you to come.’ He turned back to the others. ‘Yes, Brooks is dead. About three hours ago he recovered his reason.’

  ‘Recovered!’

  ‘Yes. He woke from a long and merciful sleep and asked quite coherently to see the police. Of course, the officer was by his side in a moment, but he seemed so exhausted that he could utter only a few unintelligible words before he went to sleep again. A short while after it was time for him to take some medicine – a solution of caffein, I believe. It was prepared in the dispensary by one of the nurses, and taken out, with other equipment, on a trolley. The foolish girl then left it in the entrance-hall of the hospital while she was called away to another patient. The entrance-hall is unwatched, and open to all comers.’

  He paused, and again the cold eyes glanced round the gathering. His self-possession was almost intolerable.

  ‘She returned,’ he went on ‘and took the medicine in to him. It was criminal negligence, was it not, to leave the glass untended in that way? They roused him, and in front of two nurses and a police officer he drank the caffein solution together with a fatal quantity of atropine. Ten minutes later – rather over two hours ago – he died, in extreme and violent agony.’ Butler paused again, and again looked round. ‘And the irony of it is that they thought it was only a return of his delirium. For five minutes before they saw something was seriously wrong, they held him down and allowed the poison to do its work.’

  There was dead silence. No one moved a muscle.

  ‘And now, gentlemen,’ said the Precentor without emotion of any kind in his voice, ‘we will proceed with our meeting.’

  5

  Conjectures

  Here’s a wild fellow.

  SHAKESPEARE

  Geoffrey ordered another pint and began to see matters in a more rosy light. He even withdrew himself momentarily from morbid questioning and looked about him. The bar of the Whale and Coffin was crowded – crowded with people who knew nothing, he reflected, of what he and the others had heard in the clergy-house drawing-room hardly more than half an hour ago. They chattered with stoic resignation about the state of the war, the quality of the beer, and the minor inconveniences of being alive. They drank, if not with gusto, at least with the appearance of enjoyment – most of them men, though in one corner sat a plump, well-dressed, painted woman of middle-age sipping in a tolerant, lady-like manner at a glass of oily-looking stout, while in another a pale, anaemic, characterless shop-girl drank silently in the company of an equally pale, anaemic, characterless young man. There was not riotous enjoyment, but there was at least peace.

  The appearance of peace, thought Geoffrey. What is peace? An ice-cream cornet in the sun? Certainly there was no peace in Tolnbridge, no serenity. Beneath the placid, quotidian ritual of the cathedral town lurked unknown forces which were moving ponderously, devastatingly to the surface. Beneath the familiar mask of any of these people hatred and murder might lie. The landlord Geoffrey had not seen after his first visit – a fact which caused him both annoyance and relief: annoyance because he had returned here determined to confront the man and demand an explanation of his behaviour earlier on, and relief because he had not looked forward to the encounter with any special confidence. The blessings of enforced procrastination! On his left, a soldier was engaged in an interminable narrative about some minor mishap of Army life.

  ‘…So there ’e was in the front o’ the lorry, see, and the ’ill full of ruddy ’oles like a sieve, and ’im bumpin’ up an’ down like a ruddy marionette, see…’

  The voice faded to a trite memory. A tall, heavily-built man came in and elbowed his way to the bar. Evidently he was a person of some consequence, for conversation wavered on his arrival, and the drinkers regarded him with curiosity and interest. They appeared to be anticipating from him some oracular pronouncement. But he only ordered a bitter and a packet of Players, and the talk became general again.

  ‘…There ’e was, see, the ruddy ’ill pitted with ’oles, an’ the grenades dancin’ about in the back like peas in a saucepan…’

  Civilized people, thought Geoffrey, react oddly to the news of violent death. No one had screamed, or drawn in his breath with an alarming hiss; very little had been said, even, the party having broken up almost immediately, to allow the Chapter to get on with their meeting. Frances, refusing an invitation to drink, had gone to her room with a book; Fielding, whose reactions to the proximity of the sea were conventional, had announced his intention of going down to the rocks to potter; Dutton had gone to bed; and Peace had vanished, no one knew whither. An obscure irritation haunted Geoffrey that none of these people had felt the need of alcohol as he had; he felt morally weak. It was true that he had resisted the temptation for ten minutes when he had made a cursory and uninspiring examination of the garden, but still, it had mastered him in the end – that and a pressing desire, he added to himself in hasty and unconvincing extenuation, to see the landlord of the Whale and Coffin again. He, however, was plainly not here, or else was lurking in some other corner of his establishment.

  The evening was warm, and not conducive to thought; the drinkers lunged out ineffectually at the flies which sailed past their noses. There were not, in any case, sufficient data to make an examination of events. Geoffrey thought first of his fugue and then, becoming bored with this, as is the way of artists with their own works, mentally pigeon-holed it, and thought of Frances instead. The beer slowly toppled him to the edge of a swamp of maudlin sentiment. Intellect stood aside and informed him of this fact. He ignored it, abandoning himself to the luxury, and helping it on its way by more beer. He categorized, by comparison, the charms of his liking, his true love, his sweeting. – ‘Sweeting’, charming word, said Intellect, vainly endeavouring to divert him into a discussion of the degeneration of language: pity it’s gone out of use. Lips like – like what? Coral? Cherr
ies? No, no; trite, conventional. That sort of thing, said Intellect, still trying to stem the tide, went out with Jacobean literature. My mistress’ eyes, it quoted, are nothing like the sun. Coral is far more red than her lips’ red; If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head… Emotion replied indignantly with Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? but being uncertain as to how the poem went on, was forced to fall back on peevish mumblings.

  Intellect’s victory, however, was only temporary. What, thought Geoffrey, if I were to ask her to marry me? Bachelorhood, complacent in a hitherto indefeasible citadel, was startled into attention and began to peer anxiously from behind its fortifications. Discomfort, it whispered persuasively: inconvenience. All your small luxuries, your careful arrangements for peace of mind, would go by the board if you got married. Women are contemptuous of such things, or if she should turn out not to be, why marry her at all? Why have a mirror to reflect your own fads, to flatter your face? Pointless and silly. You’d much better remain as you are. Your work, too – a wife would insist on being taken out just when you were struggling with a particularly good idea. And what would become of your Violin Concerto with a baby howling about the house? You’re an artist. Artists shouldn’t get married. A little mild flirtation, perhaps, but nothing more.

  Before the undoubted common sense of these remarks, all that Emotion could do was to mutter gloomily but doggedly: I love her. And at this a real panic broke out in the citadel. Windows were banged, the portcullis closed, the drawbridge lowered…

  ‘I wonder if you can give me a light?’

  Geoffrey started back to consciousness of his surroundings. The tall man who had just come in was flourishing an unlighted cigarette questioningly before him.

  ‘Ever since Norway,’ said the man, ‘matches have been getting scarcer and scarcer.’

  The fact was unquestionable, and seemed to provide little opportunity for comment. Geoffrey produced a lighter and jabbed viciously at it with his thumb. At the twelfth attempt the man smiled, a little sadly. ‘Tricky things,’ he said.