Body in the Transept

by Jeanne M. Dams

  “Good grief, you’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “I exaggerate a trifle. But only a trifle, I do assure you. And as he and I are—were—the only ones on the cathedral staff with the remotest knowledge of music, he stood a good chance of getting his point across to the Dean and Chapter.”

  “The dean would never have agreed to outlaw Bach!” I was scandalized. “Mr. Allenby may not be terribly musical, but he has good sense. What about hymns?”

  “I did say I was exaggerating. Bach would probably have survived, although I give you my solemn word our Jonathan thought him too romantic and thrilling. But in any case the canon didn’t deal in actual dates and composers, you see. Of course not. He made statements about modern music being difficult, a trifle ‘advanced’ for our congregation, perhaps not conducive to a spirit of reverence, and they all agreed. The hitch was, they thought he was talking about 1970 music when he really meant 1770, or thereabouts. He’d have got me out in the end, and a man of his own in, who’d have done as Billings liked. So you can see why I’m not wearing a black veil.”

  “I can see why you had an excellent reason for wishing Mr. Billings well away from here,” I said lightly.

  “Oh, but not the best reason,” said Mr. Sayers with a bright little laugh, tilting his head to one side. “Oh, dear me, no. Ask someone about the verger who was dipping into the till.” He looked at his cup with loathing. “I wonder someone didn’t simply poison our canon’s coffee one morning after Matins. He’d never have noticed the taste. Now, my dear, duty calls; no rest for the wicked. Ta-ta.”

  Well! One tiny prod at a rock, and look how much had crawled out! I wondered if it was all spite, or if there was any truth in it. That crack about the verger . . .

  “Morning, Dorothy.” Jane, who had been presiding at one of the tea urns, was now free to enjoy her own cuppa. She dropped into the folding chair with a grunt.

  “Hello. I was just going to find you. I’ve been listening to gossip and I have to tell you . . .” I lowered my voice. “Did you know the choirmaster was about to be fired on account of Billings, and one of the vergers was in trouble over theft? I don’t suppose you know which one?”

  “Wallingford,” she answered promptly. “Discovered some way to steal from the collection. Everyone knows, but there’s no proof. Billings was hot on the trail.”

  “But—if everyone knows, why haven’t the police done anything about it? I mean, that’s surely the best motive.”

  “I told you. There’s no proof. Have to have proof. That’s why they’ve arrested Nigel.”

  I looked at her, dumb. She was in perfect control of herself, but her style became even more telegraphic than usual.

  “Won’t stick. No real evidence. Trying to scare him into confession. Won’t do it.”

  “You think they’ll release him, then?” I said, swallowing and trying to match her composure.

  “Bound to. Soon. He’ll come to me, most likely. His landlady won’t keep him, now. Best be getting home. Cheerio.” She patted me on the arm, gave a reasonably good imitation of a smile, and strode off, back straight and shoulders set. Boadicea must have looked just like her, going into battle against the Romans.

  Admirable, but it had been an unsuccessful battle.

  Left alone, I started chasing stray ideas like a squirrel in a cage. What if Nigel was indeed a murderer? But his motive seemed entirely inadequate, and Jane claimed he just wasn’t that kind of person. I was much happier with the idea of Wallingford as villain. But that was only, I chided myself, because I disliked him heartily. And how awful to think someone a murderer just because he was rude.

  Not that Jeremy Sayers was exactly polite or charming. But he was at least entertaining, and a glorious musician. I didn’t want it to be him, either. Oh, I didn’t want it to be anybody I knew.

  As I tried to organize my thoughts, I found myself walking back into the cathedral. And that was as it should be, I thought. Here in this place was somehow the heart of the problem. And here was also the serenity I needed.

  The choir was practicing for Evensong, sending soothing, muted echoes into the nave. I wandered aimlessly, absorbing the deep, enduring peace, admiring the pools of colored light on the gray stone floor, letting my eye be carried up toward the incomparable roof.

  And suddenly stopped dead still, my heart thumping erratically. From a clerestory arch, a figure looked down at me. By the light of the great chandeliers, restored to electricity now that Christmas Eve was over, the figure was unmistakable for a moment, until it glided silently into the shadows. Cowled and hooded, gowned in a long robe tied with rope. A faceless, noiseless monk.

  8

  AS I SAT watching the dull winter landscape move past the grimy window of the train, I tried to think coherently about my situation, ghost and all.

  Monday morning having arrived, I had decided to go up to London as planned, though I had trouble mustering any enthusiasm for shopping. Nigel had been released Sunday afternoon, as predicted, and had sought refuge with Jane, also as predicted. She was fully occupied in looking after his creature comforts, and was herself finding considerable comfort in the effort, I noticed. There was nothing useful I could do for either of them at the moment, so off I went. Perhaps I could bring a fresh mind back to Sherebury.

  Right now my mind didn’t want to function at all. It was that kind of day. The varieties of revolting weather England could produce, I thought drearily, were limitless. Yesterday’s brilliant sunshine had been replaced by dismal clouds, not at the moment producing rain, but continuing to threaten. The fields with their hedgerows looked dirty and bleak; the sheep, usually charming in their cotton-ball silliness, were dingy.

  The wheels clacked out their monotonous rhythm. Think. I should think. My eyelids drooped; my head nodded. I jerked it up. Someone murdered the canon. Nigel, the choirmaster, the verger. Verger. Verging on disaster. Master the disaster. Choirmaster ordered a cannon for the “1812 Overture.” Kill the canon with a cannon. Give that man a medal, he killed the canon. Twenty-one-gun salute . . .

  The train boomed its way into a tunnel and I woke abruptly, the entangled images of my dream still filling my head. Odd, I thought, that the ghost had played no part in the web my unconscious mind had spun. Did that mean he was irrelevant?

  Or nonexistent, a corner of my mind whispered.

  At that, however, I shook my head firmly, causing my flowery hat to wobble. The guard, passing through to punch tickets, stared and forgot about my ticket entirely. It was an especially nice hat, a sort of Queen Mum affair in lavender with tiny felt violets all over it. I smiled brightly at the guard, settled the hat more securely, and got back to my thoughts. No, the ghost was real. I knew what I had seen. Either he had nothing to do with the murder, or my subconscious didn’t know what it was talking about.

  It was time, my schoolteacher voice said firmly, to get my thoughts in order. And that meant putting them down on paper; I’m a confirmed list maker. I pulled a pad and pen out of my purse and set to work briskly.

  Under the heading “Suspects,” I listed Nigel Evans, Jeremy Sayers, choirmaster, and Robert Wallingford, verger.

  If my sources were right, there were lots more, virtually everyone who knew the man, in fact, but these three would do for a start. I went back to the list, noting things of importance under each name.

  Nigel Evans. George thinks he did it. Jane says he didn’t. Don’t know him at all myself. Had good reason to dislike Billings, and to fear him, and they were witnessed in a violent quarrel.

  Jeremy Sayers. Don’t know him well. Fine musician. Difficult personality, caustic tongue. Admits he had an excellent reason to kill Billings. Maybe hatred as well as fear of losing job? N.B.: Would he tell me all that if there were really anything to it?

  Robert Wallingford. If rumors are true, best motive so far. Not only would have lost job if Billings found proof of stealing, but would face criminal prosecution. Not a young man, might be desperate.

  The re
freshment trolley passed and I bought a cup of tepid coffee, took a few sips, and turned back to my list. Not a terribly inspired document, I decided. It did look as if Billings had specialized in raising the unemployment rate, but that was the only pattern I could find. And most of what I had written was hearsay, not evidence. I turned to a fresh page and headed it “Action.”

  Find out if choirmaster really might have lost job. Talk to dean? Check whereabouts on Christmas Eve. Find out about verger rumors. (Dean again? Not likely. Who?) Ditto whereabouts. Meet Nigel, size him up. Ditto whereabouts. Query: Was Billings going to fire anyone else?

  And what, if anything, does the ghost have to do with it? I decided not to commit that to paper.

  The easiest items to check were those whereabouts. That’s why the police had almost certainly already done so. I was sure that was why they’d let Nigel go; he must have been able to prove he was someplace innocent during the relevant time. Or at least his story must have been convincing enough to create a reasonable doubt.

  The trouble with my other two suspects was, of course, that Sayers and Wallingford were probably exactly where they should have been on Christmas Eve, in and around the cathedral, which still left them with ample opportunity to take a little break and bash the canon on the head. He might actually have been killed in some place that could implicate the murderer—the verger’s office, say, or the organ loft—which would explain why the body had been moved. What on earth could I do about that, look for bloodstains? I wouldn’t know a bloodstain if it appeared on my kitchen floor; besides, the police were surely doing all that.

  In fact, the police were doing everything that needed to be done, and I knew it perfectly well. I was simply—what? Playing cops and murderers? No, conducting an exercise in logic, my mind replied with dignity.

  Then what about the ghost, said the skeptical voice. Where’s your logic with him?

  I considered. I didn’t really believe in him—did I? But if not a ghost, then someone was playing games in the cathedral, and why? I sighed loudly and crossed out both pages.

  If my list had no other virtues, it had occupied me into town; the train was pulling into Victoria Station. I stuffed notebook and pen back into purse, put on coat and resettled hat as I walked down the aisle, darted back to get my umbrella, and stepped out into the glorious bustle of London.

  I wouldn’t want to live in London. It’s dirty and wildly expensive, and all those people in a perpetual hurry are wearying after a while. But for a day or two I find it enormously exhilarating to be a part of that vast stream of humanity, treading the streets that Dickens once trod, and Churchill and Shakespeare and Christie and Sayers and Elizabeth I and almost everyone I admire. I love the Houses of Parliament and the fish-and-chip shops, the flower stalls and Piccadilly Circus, even the smell of the double-decker red buses. Inhaling a deep breath of London, I plunged into the horde battling its way toward the Underground.

  When I surfaced again at Knightsbridge the rain was pelting down. Umbrella firmly clutched, I made a run for Harrod’s, getting there just as the doors opened and hundreds of bargain hunters surged inside. Gird your loins, Dorothy, this is the world of The Christmas Sales!

  Three hours later I emerged in my usual post-shopping condition: exhausted, heavily laden, extremely pleased with several bargains, already beginning to wonder what on earth I was going to do with two or three impulsive purchases, and ravenous. No point in trying to get into any of Harrod’s own restaurants; they were as crowded as the rest of the store. No, I had a much better idea: pub lunch!

  And I knew just the pub. The Museum Tavern, across the street from the British Museum. Good, cheap food, good beer, and after I was rested and refreshed I could wander over to explore the BM for a while before tea. It was a straight shot by Underground, but with parcels to carry I was going to indulge in a taxi. One of England’s finest contributions to civilization, the London taxi is as big as a parlor, and as comfortable. Or maybe I feel that way because I allow myself the luxury only when I’m too tired to walk.

  At lunch I confined myself to beer and a salad, mindful of a luxurious tea to come. The pub wasn’t crowded, fickle London apparently preferring, today, the exotic delights of commerce to the esoteric ones of learning, so I took time to inventory my purchases. I’d paid too much for the suit and the electric blanket, but the black hat was a bargain—smart, but not too conspicuous for the funeral tomorrow.

  I didn’t have to think about that now. As for the earrings and the calendar and the teapot, if I didn’t like them when I got them home, I could always give them away. And I had, at last, bought a large box of Christmas crackers. Not Harrod’s best, but good ones; they’d be fun next year.

  If I were still here next year.

  I didn’t need to pursue that thought, either. Gathering up my parcels with some difficulty, I staggered across the street to the museum.

  “Not got a bomb in any of that lot, ’ave you, madam?” asked the cloakroom attendant with a broad accent and a broader wink. Apparently I didn’t look much like a terrorist.

  “I don’t think they sell bombs at Harrod’s,” I replied gravely, “although I’m not sure, they have everything else.”

  He ran his scanner across the bags rather casually and stowed them away, and relieved of my burden I wandered happily. I went first to greet old friends, the Elgin Marbles, the Portland Vase, the Rosetta Stone. I was caught and held once more, as I always am, by that relatively small piece of stone whose inscription, repeated in Greek, demotic Egyptian, and hieroglyphs, gave scholars the key to ancient Egyptian language and civilization. Such an unassuming little rock to mean so much. Imagine finding it—soldiers are tearing down a wall when they see that one of the stones has writing on it. An officer sees it—but that is Greek! He knows Greek . . . what if the other two languages repeat the same message? Could be interesting, important even. He calls other officers; work comes to a stop as they excitedly pore over the Greek and speculate. . . .

  How lucky they had some idea what they had found. It could have been broken up for gravel. I shivered, wondering how much the world had lost through carelessness, or, worse, sloppy scholarship.

  After a while I headed for the Egyptian rooms and browsed among the antiquities there, marveling once more at the preservation of artifacts so many hundreds and thousands of years old. Moving from the mummies, which have always held me in a kind of horrified fascination, to the papyri, I was studying one dimly lit display case when a hand on my shoulder made me jump a foot.

  “Dorothy Martin, for pete’s sake. How are you? Haven’t seen you for ages. What are you doing here? Oh, sorry, did I scare you?”

  “Startled me, that’s all, Charles.” I exhaled and removed my hand from my heart, whose efforts to leap out of my chest were slowing down. “I was a couple of millennia away; thought you were a mummy come to life. How lovely to see you! I’m up for the sales, but I got tired of bargains and came here for a breather. What are you doing out of your cell?”

  For Charles Lambert, an archivist from Frank’s university in Hillsburg, was researching ancient manuscripts in England, and spent a good deal of his time in a tiny carrel lent him by the museum.

  “Oh, I come up for air every now and then. I’m headed for some coffee. Want some?”

  “I’m having tea in an hour or so, but I’d love to sit down and talk. You know, the rest of me doesn’t seem so old, but my feet are about eighty-five.”

  “So what’s going on in your part of the world? I haven’t been there for ages,” said Charles when we had found a table in the coffee shop. “Nothing exciting, I’ll bet. The charm of a little backwater like Sherebury is that nothing ever happens.”

  “No, nothing much,” I agreed. “Except battle and murder and sudden death.”

  “Say what?” He blinked.

  “Sorry, I was quoting the Book of Common Prayer. Apparently you don’t read the papers, Charles. We’ve had a spectacular murder, hadn’t you heard?”

&
nbsp; “Are you kidding?”

  “I wish I were. I’m trying to be flippant about it because I’m involved, in a way, and it’s actually rather horrid. A canon of the cathedral was murdered, and I found the body. You can see why I’m past being scared by you.”

  “Good Lord, that’s terrible! Who killed him, and why?”

  “That’s just what nobody knows, you see. I’m concerned about it, not only because of finding him, but because one of Jane Langland’s young friends seems to be the chief suspect. You remember Jane?”

  “No one who’s met Jane could ever forget her. Who’s the kid?”

  “A boy named Nigel Evans. Jane is sure he had nothing to do with it, and she’s probably right, but it’s certain that Nigel hated the canon. In which, I may say, he was not alone. Jonathan Billings had a real talent for making enemies.”

  “Billings! Do you mean to say that’s who got killed? But I know him! I saw him just the other day, here.”

  “Here! What was he doing here?”

  “I don’t know for sure, and I wondered about it at the time. See, I met him when I was in Sherebury that time—you remember—working in the cathedral library.”

  “Of course. I’d forgotten. Doing something about medieval manuscripts, weren’t you?”

  “And old Billings didn’t make it any easier, let me tell you. He has—had—that good old librarian’s idea that all the books ought to be left nice and safe on the shelves. It took the dean to finally convince him I really did need to see some of the stuff. Anyway, I ran into him, oh, a month or so ago, I guess, in the Reading Room. He wanted a book I was using, and he got downright nasty about it. Said he was just in London for the day, whereas I could get it anytime. Implied that he was English and I was a damned foreigner and he had a better right to it than I did.”

  I sighed. “That sounds like him, all right. Arrogant, demanding, rude. What a description of a priest!”