‘Let’s walk, shall we?’ said Frances. ‘I can’t bear standing about.’ They wandered across a lawn embryonically laid out for putting, towards the orchard.
The subsequent conversation, however, elicited little of value. On the monotonous problem of alibis, it proved that Savernake had one which, barring collusion, was virtually unassailable for six o’clock, having walked with Mrs Garbin to the house where she was dining and playing bridge and stopped there some time with her. He had then gone straight to dinner at the clergy-house, only stopping to leave his bag at the Precentor’s. After dinner he had walked – whither and with what purpose it was not clear. He had, however, met some local worthy and talked to him between 9.45 and 10.20, arriving home just in time to hear the news of Butler’s death.
As for Frances, she had been down shopping in the town until just after six, when she had returned to the clergy-house to find the tail-end of the Josephine disturbance going on and to meet Geoffrey and Fielding as they came in from the train. She had gone to have a drink with them, as they knew, returned, got the dinner, gone to her room with a book afterwards, come down to deal with some problem or other of housekeeping in the kitchen and found the meeting breaking up, gone straight to the kitchen and done what she had to do, become a little anxious about her father, set out to find Fen, Geoffrey, Fielding, and the Inspector and walked back with them; afterwards staying in the kitchen until Geoffrey had come to tell her of her father’s death.
‘Let’s get the movements of this family straight,’ said Fen. ‘What exactly was your mother doing between five and seven?’
‘She was out having tea with a friend, and got back about a quarter past six, meeting Daddy almost at the gate; they found Mr Peace had arrived. By that time Daddy had found out about Josephine and his manuscript, followed her round the clergy-house, spanked her, and returned home.’
‘Does that mean,’ Geoffrey asked, ‘that your father was in the clergy-house when we arrived?’
‘Yes. He must have left just after we set out for the Whale and Coffin.’
‘Ah,’ said Fen obscurely. ‘Is Josephine about? I must see her if it’s humanly possible.’
‘She’s somewhere in the house, I think.’
‘Good,’ Fen seized an apple from off one of the orchard trees, crunched it, and said indistinctly: ‘So far so good. And your account checks up with Peace’s.’
Geoffrey saw Frances exchange a swift glance with Savernake: so did Fen.
‘Don’t hedge,’ he said threateningly through a mouthful of apple. ‘I saw you.’
Frances said: ‘Don’t you think, Mr Fen, that Peace ought to have had the decency to clear out when this happened? – and particularly since he and Daddy got on so badly together.’
‘I see.’ Fen’s tone was guarded. ‘A business matter, wasn’t it?’
‘Business!’ Frances’ eyes blazed suddenly with indignation. ‘He was trying to sponge on Daddy.’
‘My dear girl,’ said Savernake with a sneer, ‘be more realistic. You must expect that sort of thing. Money attracts men of that type like wasps round a jam-pot.’
Fen took another bite from his apple. ‘I think,’ he stated mildly, ‘that there’s probably more than one side to the matter…But don’t let’s talk about that now.’ Manifestly he was impatient to get away from the subject. ‘What really matters is that except for Dallow we’ve now got where everybody was, or say they were, at six o’clock last evening; to wit –
‘Spitshuker was alone in his room, working – unchecked and apparently uncheckable.
‘Garbin was alone in his room – ditto;
‘Dutton was out for a walk – ditto;
‘Peace was hanging about here – ditto;
‘You, Savernake, and Mrs Garbin were together;
‘Dr Butler was smacking Josephine at the clergy-house;
‘You, Frances, were returning from shopping;
‘Your mother was at a friend’s for tea;
‘Geoffrey and Fielding were walking to the clergy-house from the station;
‘And I – what was I doing?’ Fen frowned with concentration. ‘Yes, I have it: I was just going into a pub. I knew there was something familiar about six o’clock. If everybody had had the sense to go into pubs as soon as they opened their doors, this thing wouldn’t have happened. Interesting lack of alibis, isn’t there?’ He finished his apple and threw the core at a bird. ‘Well, no more talking. I must see Mistress Josephine. She’s in the house, is she?’
‘Yes. July, be a dear and show Mr Fen into the house and find Josephine for him.’ Savernake consented with an ill grace, and the two went off together. Geoffrey and Frances walked into the vegetable garden. Geoffrey felt that his moment had come.
Bachelorhood was engaged in a tour of his defences, but without much confidence in their efficacy; it resembled more the last, sentimental walk round a long-familiar dwelling, now for ever to be abandoned. Staring with exaggerated interest at a row of radishes, Geoffrey meditated subtleties; and it was his inability to think of any rather than a sense of fitness which led him to ask at last, quite simply:
‘Are you engaged to be married?’
She shook her head; the question seemed quite natural.
‘Then would you marry me?’
She stopped and gasped. ‘But Mr Vintner – Geoffrey…We’ve hardly met.’
‘I know,’ he said unhappily. ‘But I can’t help it. You see, I’m in love with you.’
The admission sounded so dismal that she burst out laughing. Geoffrey stared harder than ever at the radishes. Brutish roots! What did they know of the agonies of a middle-aged bachelor proposing marriage? He said, ‘I’m sorry,’ less because he felt it than because he could think of nothing else.
She stopped laughing quickly. ‘That wasn’t very civil of me; I didn’t mean to hurt you.’ Her eyes were soft. ‘But – well, do you think this is quite the time –?’
‘No. I’m a tactless creature. I shouldn’t have said anything.’
‘It’s so sudden: that’s the funny thing about it. I – well, it just took me aback.’
‘Will you think about it?’
‘Yes,’ she said with real seriousness, ‘yes, I’ll think about it. And’ – hesitating a little – ‘I think you’re sweet.’
‘No, I’m not sweet, really. You ought to know the sort of bargain you’d be getting.’ Bachelorhood was contriving rather a cunning oblique counter-attack. ‘I’m fussy and old-maidish and selfish, and fixed in my habits and disagreeable at breakfast and –’
‘Don’t!’ She laughed a little breathlessly. ‘After all, I’m not such a prize-ticket as all that.’ She hesitated. ‘We must talk things over – soon.’
‘What about Savernake?’
‘Oh, you know how it is: one drifts into an understanding without really wanting it. But don’t worry. All that is – would be – my side of the business.’ She paused. ‘Look, I must go in and see Mummy now, but let’s walk – and bathe – tomorrow before breakfast. All right?’
‘Lovely.’
‘I shall be sleeping at the clergy-house again, and I’ll wake and bang on your door. We’ll go really early, so that there won’t be a lot of people about. Then’ – she smiled – ‘well, we shall see.’
They looked at one another in silence for a moment. Deepset, darkest, raven hair, blue eyes, red lips, and the body of a goddess. But banal! Our loves are separate and incommunicable; not all the poets who ever wrote begin to express what we feel. And yet it’s only something pleasant and quite simple. And it doesn’t cloud the vision, or how could one observe the radish-tops, caught in a momentary breeze, nodding their pygmy approval? Ecstasy is simplicity itself. O my America, my new-found-land!
Then she was gone, the glory departed. Even the radishes settled again to their vegetable loves, dull roots merely. Edible roots, however; Geoffrey pulled one out of the ground, wiped it clean, and ate it.
Fen and Josephine sat opposite one another in the bi
g, gloomy library, he serious and not very talkative, she sullen and even less so. Her tousled hair fell over her eyes, unnaturally bright and with the pupils dilated. Beneath the black frock, her body was thin, and she trembled now and again, very slightly, crouching back in the armchair as though she were glad of its pressure against her back.
‘Why did you burn the manuscript?’ he said quietly.
The child stirred. ‘I don’t see why I should tell you.’
‘Nor do I, really. But I could help you a lot if you did.’
She considered; this seemed reasonable if it was true, but then it mightn’t be true. ‘How could you help me?’
‘I could get you the things you like.’
‘I don’t know…whether it’s one of the things I’m allowed to tell. I felt sick suddenly, and giddy, after I’d – after…My head went all sort of funny and I didn’t know what I was doing. Then he beat me. I’d rather have died than let him lay a finger on me.’ She wiped her nose with the back of her hand.
‘And who gave you the message?’
‘A policeman.’ The reply was automatic.
‘That isn’t true.’
‘A policeman.’ She smiled suddenly and foolishly. ‘It was a policeman.’
‘Who gave it to you?’
‘I’m not allowed to tell, or I won’t be given what I want.’
‘And that is?’
‘I’m not allowed to tell.’
Fen sighed, and with infinite gentleness and patience tried again. ‘Why did you mind so much having your father beat you?’
‘It wasn’t fair…I felt sick, I didn’t know what I was doing.’ She suddenly buried her head in her hands.
‘Poor kid,’ said Fen. He leaned over and touched her on the shoulder, but she flared up at him.
‘Don’t touch me!’
‘All right.’ Fen sat back again. ‘You ought to have had a doctor if you didn’t feel well.’
‘I was told I wasn’t to allow Mother to get a doctor. I had to pretend I wasn’t ill.’
‘Who told you?’
‘It was –’ Her eyes suddenly shone with childish cunning; for a moment the extended pupils seemed enormous. ‘You’re trying to catch me out. I’m not allowed to tell.’
‘Very well.’ Fen seemed indifferent. ‘But you still haven’t said why you so hated your father beating you.’
‘It was a’ – she struggled over the word – ‘a desecration. Only one man is allowed to do that sort of thing.’ The spasm of shivering caught her again.
‘Who is that one man?’
‘The Black Gentleman.’
Fen sat up. Understanding was beginning to come to him. ‘Apollyon,’ he said.
‘You know.’
‘Yes, I know,’ he answered. ‘Maledico Trinitatem sanctissimam nobilissimamque, Patrem, Filium, et Spiritum Sanctum. Amen. Trinitatem, Solher, Messias, Emmanuel, Sabahot, Adonay, Athanatos, Jesum, Pentaqua, Agragon…’
‘Ischiros, Eleyson, Otheos,’ she said, her voice rising shrill above his own, ‘Tetragrammaton, Ely Saday, Aquila, Magnum Hominem, Visionem, Florem, Originem, Salvatorem maledico…Pater noster, qui es in coelis, maledicatur nomen tuum, destruatur regnum tuum…’
So the monotonous stream of foolish blasphemy went on, until at last there was a pause, and Fen said:
‘You see, I’m one of you. You can trust me.’ He pulled a cigarette-case from his pocket. She looked at it greedily and he glimpsed her expression. ‘You’d like one?’
‘Yes, give me one – quickly.’ She snatched a cigarette and put it in her mouth. He lit it for her, and watched in silence while she smoked, inhaling deeply. But after a minute she threw it away with a cry of disgust, almost of desperation.
‘It’s not the right kind!’
Fen stood up. ‘No,’ he said, and his voice was hard. ‘It’s not the right kind. The Black Gentleman gives you the right kind, doesn’t he?’ She nodded. ‘I came only to test your faith. In nomine diaboli et servorum suorum.’
‘My faith is strong.’ The child’s voice was confident, but hysteria lay beneath. ‘My father died in the bad faith.’
At the door Fen turned. ‘I am one of you. Tell me who is your director.’
For a moment all hung upon a thread of gossamer. Josephine hesitated, shivered again. Then she looked up at him and smiled.
‘I’m not allowed to tell.’
Fen met Geoffrey at the gate, and his eyes were cold with rage.
‘You’ve seen Josephine?’ Geoffrey asked.
Fen nodded. ‘She has been systematically drugged,’ he said deliberately. ‘Probably with marihuana – a form of hashish; at any rate with something in cigarette form. She must be taken to a hospital for treatment at once – I’m going to phone the Inspector about it now.’ He paused. ‘And it’s got nothing to do with the murders at all – except that the same person is responsible: mere gratuitous devilry, corruption for the sake of corruption. And it’s not only her body, it’s her mind. There’s something else.’
‘What?’
‘She’s a witch.’
Geoffrey stared. ‘A witch!’
‘In Tolnbridge, it seems, the old tradition dies hard. Yes, by ordinary definition Josephine is a witch. She burnt the book of Christian theology her father was writing. She wished to keep herself pure from his hands, for what beastliness we shall, I hope, never know. She told me he died in the bad faith. She has seen the Devil and taken the Black Mass.’
10
Night Thoughts
Hatred and vengeance, my eternal portion,
Scarce can endure delay of execution.
COWPER
For Geoffrey, the afternoon was spent first in taking a choir practice, and then in playing Evensong. The choir was as well-trained, and the organ as excellent, as he had expected, and no special difficulties arose. The moments of respite afforded by lessons and collects he occupied in considering the account Fen had given him of his interview with Josephine. Even at second-hand, it seemed an appalling business. And Fen had said it was actuated by pure malice and had nothing to do with the murders – though how he could know this, Geoffrey was unable to imagine. There remained Dallow to be seen – the affected, slightly epicene little Chancellor who was an expert on witchcraft. What was it Frances had said? – ‘takes rather more than a scholarly interest in the subject’. There should, at all events, be something of interest and importance here.
Dinner was over before they set out for his house. Fen had spent the afternoon meandering about the countryside in search of insects, and was in high spirits. He walked at his usual exhausting pace, talking incessantly all the while. Josephine had been taken away from Tolnbridge for expert treatment, he said, out of harm’s way.
‘She’ll recover all right,’ he added. ‘Though she won’t enjoy herself for the first few weeks. But I shall be interested to discover which of all these people has the sort of mentality which regards the systematic drugging of a child of fifteen as an entertainment.’
Sir John Dallow lived in one of the new, large, expensive villas overlooking the estuary. And no sooner had the servant opened the door than the extreme and depressing fastidiousness of the man became apparent. There was something more, too: the study into which they were shown exhibited tastes so depressingly morbid as to be almost incomprehensible outside a madhouse. A repellent little vampire-sketch by Fuseli hung on one wall; beyond it, an elaborate drawing by Beardsley of the fifth circle of the Dantean inferno; and dominating the whole room, over the fireplace, a meticulous, distorted painting of a torture-scene by an early German master. A bad reproduction of Dürer’s Melancholia, which completed the decorations, did, however, contrive to lend this miniature chamber of horrors a respectable, even a conventional air. The bookshelves were loaded, and as Sir John had not yet put in an appearance, Fen and Geoffrey inspected them fairly thoroughly, and with a growing sense of depression. Certainly there was an almost unparalleled collection of works on witchcraft: the Daemonolatreia of Ni
cholas Rémy in the original edition of 1595; a modern private printing of the Malleus Maleficarum; Cotton Mather’s Wonders of the Invisible World; the Sadducismus Triumphatus; and inevitably, all the standard textbooks on the subject. But there were also other books which suggested a propensity to enjoy as well as to study the night-side of Nature: Toulet’s scabrous study of sadism, Monsieur du Paur; de Sade’s Justine; and many other recondite volumes of perverted semi-pornography. Fen regarded them thoughtfully.
‘At least he doesn’t keep them in cupboards,’ he said. ‘And I somehow fancy that people who enjoy that sort of thing in books never do much harm in real life. The fact that they go to books at all suggests something very like impotence. Still, one never knows.’
In another minute Dallow minced into the room, his wispy white hair straggling chaotically all over his head. ‘My de-ear Professor! And Mr Vintner! But this is charming! And I cannot apologize too much for my disgraceful negligence in not being here to greet you. I have been toying – toying – with the most depressing cheese soufflé you ever saw. Nothing more important than that. My foolish woman didn’t tell me you were here. But you must make yourselves at home.’
The furniture was modern and luxurious. Geoffrey sank with some relief into an armchair. Dallow gabbled on:
‘But you’ve no idea the life I lead here – so lonely. Visitors are really a treat to me. Mr Vintner, how did you find the choir?’
‘Admirable, thank you,’ said Geoffrey. ‘No difficulties at all.’
‘Good. Good.’ Primly, Dallow folded his hands. ‘The boys are not what they were in the days when there was a choir-school, of course.’
Probably not, thought Geoffrey, with a headmaster whose reading was de Sade; but perhaps Dallow had been different then.
Fen roused himself from a sort of stupor to say: ‘We’re making an unofficial inquiry into Butler’s death. Would you care to cooperate?’
‘But of course – delighted.’ None the less, Dallow’s tone was more guarded now. ‘How can I help?’
‘It’s about your movements.’
Holy Disorders Page 16
