‘That confession, sir,’ said Maxwell, ‘was the confession of his own misdeeds. It was all there, and if you read it through – I have it here to give to you as a souvenir, if that’s the right word – you’ll see that it tells us how he brought about the murder of Mrs Dora Jardine. I think she wrote to him, or communicated with him in some way, asking him to furnish her with a new supplier of drugs.’
‘Why should she do that?’ asked Dora’s husband.
‘Well, of course, sir,’ said Maxwell, ‘she knew who he was, you see. I expect you mentioned his name to her at one time, a very unusual name, and she put two and two together. I think that in her London days she may have obtained drugs from him, which is why she approached him. It was a bold thing to do, but she thought she was safe, because Rachel Noble still held that vital letter. Savident pretended to agree, appointed that tryst in Park End Street, and after giving her drugged brandy, took her out to Cowley, where he murdered her.’
Sergeant Maxwell paused to collect his thoughts. Antrobus thought: having me out of the way had released all Joe’s latent talent. He thoroughly deserves his promotion to Inspector.
Maxwell addressed himself to Anthony Jardine, and his voice was uncharacteristically gentle.
‘It’s early days, yet, sir,’ he said, ‘and there’s a lot of things we have to do at those premises in Beaumont Street. Did you notice a display case with some jewelled daggers in it? We’ve found traces of what we believe is blood on them, and that will almost certainly be confirmed by our chemical analyst. Savident wanted to keep them as trophies, you see, which is why he made up that lie about a steak knife dropped down a drain.’
‘Mr Maxwell,’ said Jardine, ‘how did that fiend murder Rachel Noble?’
‘We think he called openly on her at her house in Oliphant’s Yard, bringing with him a bottle of wine for them to share. No doubt he was very affable, for we know that they did indeed drink a glass of wine together in that ruin of a house. But then – well, perhaps you’d like to hear Mr Antrobus’s account of what may have happened.’
‘I think that Savident suddenly and designedly turned nasty,’ said James Antrobus. ‘Mrs Noble no doubt accepted Ralph Fischbein’s new persona as Count Raphael Savident, and would have placated him by sharing that bottle of wine. Then, without warning, he would have demanded the letter with dreadful threats. Mr Maxwell and I know that she had rushed from that house to rooms that she rented across the Yard, hastily extracted Dora’s letter from its hiding place, and hurried back to deliver it to Savident. Now safe, as he thought, he stabbed her to death, and arranged her body on a sofa in her sitting room. No weapon was found, but you may be quite sure that it was one of those jewelled daggers that Mr Maxwell found in Savident’s house.’
‘Sergeant Maxwell, what happened after you got into that house?’ asked Professor Gorringe.
‘We waited until dinner was being served,’ said Maxwell, ‘and then I crept downstairs and hid in what appeared to be an empty coffin standing in an alcove. The others held themselves in readiness in a room leading off the drawing room. That overreaching man then launched into his performance, giving himself away with every word. Why, he’d even written it all down! You have only to read it through, Mr Jardine, to see that it could not possibly apply to you. That period abroad after the murder of old Mr Fischbein, for instance – you never went abroad in those days. There are other absurdities that you’ll spot when you read it over.’
‘And then you pounced?’
‘I did, Professor. And that, of course, was the end of him. Clever men, sir, dons and suchlike, can be very silly at times. They fancy that they’re much cleverer than us humble folk, with their Latin, and their Greek, but like that man Savident, they’re often deficient in plain common sense.’
Professor Gorringe laughed. Anthony Jardine had the grace to blush.
*
A flash of scarlet at the entrance to the post room at Archbishop’s House told Monsignor Vaux that Cardinal Vaughan had come down from his study to witness the opening of the chest containing the relics of the revered martyr Thomas à Becket.
‘Your Eminence,’ he said, after kneeling to kiss the Cardinal’s ring, ‘Provost Chalmers was as good as his word. I have brought some tools, so that, initially at least, only we two will look upon the hallowed remains.’
The Cardinal assented, and for a few minutes Vaux busied himself with opening the crate. Then he wrenched the wooden lid away, revealing the contents.
Both men gazed in silence for a while, and then Cardinal Vaughan pronounced his judgement.
‘Hunting guns,’ he said, ‘Purdey’s best, by the look of them, but hardly a fit item for a reliquary. I rode a lot in my youth, but never did much shooting.’
‘What does it mean?’ cried Vaux, unable to match the Cardinal’s sangfroid. ‘Surely Chalmers has not betrayed us?’
‘No, not Chalmers. I know a little of his background, and can vouch for his being a gentleman. No, this is some mean-spirited Protestant plot to deprive us of the opportunity of having Becket’s bones here in our new cathedral as a counterblast to Edward the Confessor’s relics in Westminster Abbey.’ It was cold in the post room, and the Cardinal drew his scarlet cloak around him. ‘Get rid of these things, Vaux. Have them sold, and the proceeds given to the poor. I have no further interest in the matter.’
The two priests left the post room, and went upstairs into the Cardinal’s study, where a cheerful fire was burning.
‘You have taken the matter well, Your Eminence,’ said Vaux.
‘Well, Vaux, I did my reputation no favour when I prepared to bring the bones of St Edmund here to England. I was too precipitate, but thank goodness Sir Ernest Clark’s report on the bones convinced me that they were not genuine. The same thing might have happened with these relics of St Thomas. People like Clark might have clamoured to examine them, and who knows what scandal might have ensued? If God values the relics of Becket, he will keep them safe from harm. And so I take no further interest in the matter.’
Cardinal Vaughan picked up a document from his desk, and held it up for Monsignor Vaughan to see.
‘Besides, he said, ‘I have a confidential minute here from the Theological Committee that I set up to look into the validity of Anglican Orders. They tell me that they will conclude that those Orders are “absolutely null and utterly void”. They will finish their deliberations after Christmas, and then will submit their report to Pope Leo. I don’t usually indulge in colloquialisms, Vaux, but on this occasion I will say that their decision is one in the eye for Benson!’
*
A week later, Provost Chalmers received a letter from the Archbishop of Canterbury.
My dear Chalmers (it ran),
I confess that I was rather amused that you included no accompanying letter with the goods that you despatched to me on Friday last. Perhaps such secrecy was necessary in case the Jesuits found out what it was that you had sent me! A decent interment according to the Anglican rite was carried out yesterday in a quiet little country churchyard far from London or Canterbury. Please accept my grateful thanks. You may wish to destroy this letter, rather than filing it.
‘My little children, keep yourselves from idols’. 1 John 5:21
Edward Cantuar
What on earth was Benson talking about? Perhaps it would be judicious not to ask him. St Gabriel’s had been too much in the news of late. It was time to return to something like normality. Let sleeping bones lie.
*
In the ancient Tudor Grange of Shenstone Hall, Mrs Napier sat at the table in her favourite room, the crooked panelled chamber that served as the family’s dining room. In front of her was an old calf-bound missal, its pages open at the Mass for 29 December, the Commemoration of St Thomas of Canterbury. It was very quiet in the ancient house, as everybody, both family and servants, knew what was being do
ne in the secret vault which lay beneath the library and the adjacent Great Chamber. She was not very proficient in Latin, so read aloud the Collect for the day in the English translation:
O GOD, for the sake of whose Church the glorious Bishop Thomas fell by the sword of ungodly men: grant, we beseech Thee, that all who implore his aid, may obtain the good fruit of their petition.
Even as she read, she knew that her husband and son were consigning the remains of St Thomas to the deep stone-lined pit that already contained other physical relics of the saint. They would then seal the vault, and hide the entrance under heavy paving that had lain waiting to be used for over two centuries. Early in the new year, they would brick up the secret entrance to the vault behind the panelling in the library.
She closed the missal, and smiled to herself. The nineteenth century was drawing to its close, and Catholics had been free of official persecution for over sixty years. During those years, the Catholic Church in England had become more and more Papalist in its beliefs and practices, particularly under Cardinal Wiseman, and now with Cardinal Vaughan.
The Napiers, and her own family, the Inglebys of Ripley, belonged to an older tradition, that of the Recusants, Catholic gentry who practised their Faith modestly and without pomp in the days of persecution. Ultramontane excesses held no appeal to them. Becket belonged to the old Catholic England, and it was vulgar to display his relics in some gaudy shrine dreamed up by Cardinal Vaughan and his friends in the Roman Curia.
The door opened, and her husband and son, looking dirty and dishevelled, came into the room. They were uncharacteristically subdued, sobered by the act of devotion that they had just carried out.
‘Is all well?’ she asked.
‘All is well, my dear,’ said Mr Napier. ‘Thanks to our brave son Harry, the relics of St Thomas à Becket rest in holy peace for all time.’
‘Harry,’ said Mrs Napier, ‘you must bring those friends of yours to stay early next year. You could take them shooting in the woods again. They seemed to like that.’
‘It all depends, Mother,’ said Harry Napier, ‘on my persuading Father to buy me a set of guns at Purdey’s. Mine seem to have gone astray on the railway.’
‘There will be no difficulty about that, my boy,’ said his father, laughing. ‘I think you deserve a very special Christmas present. But come, we look quite disreputable and cobwebby. Let’s go and clean ourselves up.’
As they left the room, Mrs Napier murmured softly: ‘Blessed Thomas, pray for us.’
*
By the third week in December, James Antrobus was feeling decidedly better. He was breathing more easily, and found that with the aid of a stick he could walk into town from his lodgings in Osney Town. On the twenty-second, which was a Sunday, Detective Inspector Maxwell called to see him.
‘I take it, Guvnor,’ said Maxwell, ‘that you’ll be spending Christmas Day with me and the missus, as usual? Good. Now, I’ve come here today to tell you a few things that I found out after that man Fischbein was taken from us by tramcar No. 52 on the turning out of Beaumont Street into St Giles’. The hypodermic syringe that I took from him contained a solution of scopolamine, which would certainly have proved fatal for Mr Jardine had it been injected. The bottle of Médoc had been contaminated with chloral hydrate, which seems to have been a favourite soporific of Fischbein’s – he used it on Dora, as you’ll recall. Incidentally, the stains on those stilettos were indeed the stains of blood. They were the murder weapons.’
‘You told me about a Eurasian servant. What role did he play in all this?’
‘I think he was the kind of man who’d perform his master’s bidding without question. In the tussle with Savident we lost him, and I don’t propose to go after him. Savident had a chef, too, a man called Luigi. He’s entirely innocent of any crime, and I’m glad to say he’s secured a very nice billet with Sir Malcolm Sheridan at Boar’s Hill.’
‘Did you find out anything of interest about Fischbein’s early career? By all accounts, he was a very learned man.’
‘After he murdered his uncle, he went abroad, and lived very comfortably off the proceeds of the theft of old Mr Jacob Fischbein’s bearer bonds. He took his mother’s name, and as I suspected, adopted the name “Raphael”. He lived in Paris for a while, and was accepted into the university there. Later, he surfaced in Vienna, and then in Munich, where he became a kind of intimate of mad King Ludwig of Bavaria in the early eighties. Do you remember that card that he sent to Dora, saying that he would always be at her service? He had never ceased to harbour a lurking fear of her, and perhaps that wasn’t the only sinister little reminder that came her way.
‘He travelled to the East, and only recently visited the Emperor of Abyssinia, who wished to thank him for his interpretation of some early Christian scrolls that had come to light there.’
‘He really was a clever man, wasn’t he, Joe? He wasn’t a charlatan at all.’
‘Yes, sir, he was a very clever man, but you and I know that cleverness and moral rectitude don’t always go together. We’ve met some right beauties who’ve had strings of letters after their name. Savident also worked in the Vatican archives for three years, with such success – I don’t know what he actually did, but the Pope seemed to have been very impressed – that for his pains he was made a Papal Count. And that Guvnor, is the whole history of Count Raphael Savident, scholar, murderer and madman.’
Mrs Hardy had brought them tea and buttered muffins, and for a while Inspector Maxwell munched away in silence. He’d something else to tell the Guvnor, but he wasn’t sure how he’d take it.
‘Mr Antrobus,’ he said, do you recall that private detective from London, who helped us over that Jerusalem Hall business? His name was Guy Lombardo.5 Well, I took the liberty of visiting him in London last week, and I told him how you were placed at the moment. He was very sorry to hear how ill you’d been, and wondered whether you’d ever considered becoming a registered private investigator yourself. He’d be more than happy to come here to Oxford to tell you how to go about it.’
James Antrobus sat up in his chair. His eyes gleamed. This was Joe’s doing. He’d asked Lombardo out straight whether he’d interest himself in his situation of enforced idleness. Bless him! But it would be best to continue the pretence that it was all Lombardo’s idea.
‘That’s a wonderful idea, Joe! I’d be like that chap in the Strand Magazine: a consulting detective! Yes, I’d very much like to meet Mr Guy Lombardo.’
‘I’m glad you like the idea, sir. And I will be here to smooth your path with the police authorities, and you’d have your own personal physician and surgeon to bring you back to life from time to time – meaning, of course, Miss Sophia Jex-Blake.’
‘She was here yesterday, Joe, to say goodbye. She’d been staying with a friend in Merton Street, but now she’s going home to London. I tried to thank her for saving my life, but she said that was part of her vocation, and that if ever I was at death’s door again, to send for her, and she’d come!’
Inspector Maxwell stood up. It was time to go.
‘I’m glad that Mr Anthony Jardine’s come out bloody but unbowed from his ordeal,’ he said. ‘You liked him, didn’t you, sir?’
‘Yes, Joe, I liked him, even when I suspected that he was a villain, and knew for certain that he was a scamp. I believe that all the gossip’s dying down, and that soon he’ll be back safe and secure in St Gabriel’s College. I wish him well.’
*
On Christmas Eve Anthony Jardine and Elodie Deschamps visited St Gabriel’s College, which Elodie was seeing for the first time. There were scabs of snow on the grass in the first quad, but the air was brisk and clean, and the sky a pure blue.
They walked slowly around the shale paths, and he stopped to explain the wondrous intricacies of the gilded medieval clock. They heard its various mechanisms moving into place, and
watched as the fingers positioned themselves to strike, and the enamel moon with its cheerful face sprang to the left, revealing another moon with a sad face which told a different phase. Then, at last, the clock struck eleven on its own set of tuneful bells.
Elodie clapped her hands in appreciation. Anthony looked at her, admiring her mauve silk dress, and its matching hat with a delicate veil. She wore doe-skin gloves, secured at the wrist with little golden buttons.
‘You must see the hall,’ he said. ‘It’s one of the grandest in Oxford.’
They stood before the high table, and he watched her as she looked at the many old portraits on the panelled walls. The great painting of Edward III was still wreathed in garlands, to commemorate the day of his death on 13 November 1377.
The thirteenth of November… His eyes filled with tears. Dora had been murdered on the thirteenth of November.
‘You love this place, don’t you?’ said Elodie. ‘This college, its grandeur, and its history.’
‘I do,’ he assented. ‘And I love my work here. I’m not a great scholar, Elodie, not like Arthur Collingwood. But I am a good teacher, and that is what I relish about St Gabriel’s: my young men, who respond so well to me, and raise my heart and spirits even when things are looking black. And the Senior College here – they’re all decent, sound men.’
They had walked into the second quad, and Anthony pointed out the high-roofed chapel, a gift from Philippa of Hainault, wife of King Edward III, who, he told her, had established St Gabriel’s in thanksgiving for his victory at Crécy in 1346.
She admired in silence the gilded and painted college coat of arms wrought in stone, above the entrance to the library, and read the college motto written beneath it: Fortis in Fide. She turned to Anthony, and laid a gloved hand on his arm.
An Oxford Scandal Page 22
