Death After Evensong

by Douglas Clark

  Barnfelt spoke for the first time. He said: ‘Bless my soul, did Peter actually go back to the house?’

  ‘He did. And he appears not to have told you. I think the reason why will be apparent later.

  ‘Now we come to the murdered man. He had an unenviable reputation; but one that he thoroughly deserved. You told me yourself that as the local doctor you gather information like a magnet attracts iron filings, and that you were well aware of Parseloe’s unsavoury character. Probably you regarded him as a man mentally ill—a paranoiac or schizophrenic.’

  ‘The former,’ said Barnfelt. ‘Delusions of grandeur and a persecution complex. He’d been brought up to believe that the cloth would be a magic vestment that would waft him to unprecedented heights in every walk or facet of life. He worked hard to achieve it, and then found that nowadays both the vocation and its rewards have been devalued. He’d been robbed of his dream and he’d also married a woman who brought no more to the union than an inflated opinion of her own importance and a sense of love and charity that would have disgraced a cold rice pudding. Such men are dangerous. Parseloe was a menace to this community.’

  Masters said: ‘You’re not pulling your punches, doctor.’

  ‘The time for that is past.’

  ‘To go on. Maria Binkhorst found she was pregnant by Parseloe.’

  Barnfelt interrupted again. ‘You may think that strange. A young, lovely girl submitting to an old fiend like Parseloe. But he was as clever as Satan in some ways, you know. With a facile tongue. So many of these men become so. Superficially—after years of preaching. They learn their craft in the pulpit.’

  ‘I understand. Maria came to you for a pregnancy test. I guess that you were so surprised to find Maria—of all people—following what appears to be the accepted course for young women in Rooksby, that you persuaded her to name the father. And that news, I suspect, angered you more than ever against Parseloe.

  ‘By a stroke of luck, without which the best of us sometimes fails, I learned that you and your son, in your private cars, carry radios which work to each other and to a control set in the surgery. The average number of patients on a general practitioner’s list these days is at least two thousand five hundred. Here, in Rooksby, there are too few inhabitants to complete one list, and yet there are two very busy doctors. This must mean that your catchment area covers not only the village, but a large area round about. Large, because it is sparsely populated and would not yield the capitation figures for two of you unless you went far afield. This led me to suppose that your wireless sets have a range of many miles.

  ‘Now you are an able man, doctor. Both in theory and practice. You built your sets and their special power supply to fulfil the needs of a far-flung practice. You could give me all the technical information about those sets except the one fact I really wanted—their range. That was a mistake, doctor. And I knew you were dodging the issue because last Sunday evening you had your control set switched on. Why, I don’t know. Probably you were tinkering, or you habitually keep it switched on—I can’t tell. But I know you heard a conversation that took place somewhere along the road to Peterborough.’

  Barnfelt said: ‘Could I interrupt a moment, please. I am out of cigarettes and should like another packet—and a drink if possible. I see it is now half past five—the witching hour for the Goblin—and as we’ve been virtually sitting on the doorstep, as it were . . .’

  Masters turned to Hill. ‘Would you please get Dr Barnfelt a packet of . . .’

  ‘Twenty king-size, tipped. Any sort,’ said Barnfelt. ‘And a large gin and tonic if that is permissible. I am not yet under arrest and so I believe I’m within my legal rights to ask for sustenance.’ He smiled at Hill. A little, toothy smile. He took a well-worn wallet from his inside pocket and handed over a note. ‘Can I persuade any of you gentlemen to join me?’

  His offer was declined. Courteously by Masters. Somewhat brusquely by Nicholson who showed he thought this way of conducting an interview to be highly irregular.

  When Hill returned he was accompanied by Green who nodded to Masters and sat down beside him.

  Masters said: ‘I should like to go straight ahead, doctor.’

  ‘Please do.’

  ‘The conversation that took place on the road to Peterborough. Between your son and Miss Parseloe. Miss Parseloe has, throughout this case, exhibited a degree of stupidity which surprised me. She told me she left her home at six o’clock on Sunday evening in the hope of thumbing a lift to the station. I refused to believe this for several reasons. First of all, she had a heavy suitcase, and under no circumstances could I envisage her running the risk of having to carry it a mile to the Halt. Which she may well have been forced to do, because it is doubtful whether many cars pass through Rooksby at that time on winter Sunday evenings. Second, her father had a car and enough time to run her to the station and be back in good time for Evensong. And third, if her father had failed her, as a girl earning her own living—an adequate one—she could and would have afforded a taxi from the local garage. So I assumed she had arranged a meeting which she didn’t want me to know about. Surely an odd thing for a young girl to mislead me about during the course of an investigation into her father’s murder?

  ‘At that time I wasn’t sure whom she had met, but you will remember that I saw your son paying her a visit immediately after my first interview with her. I couldn’t understand this. She was perfectly well. I’d been with her for nearly an hour and I’d seen it for myself. And later you told me you had been asked to send him round urgently. From the evidence of this bogus call and for the reasons I have already outlined, I felt justified in supposing that Doctor Peter had arranged to—and, in fact, did—take her to Peterborough.

  ‘A little later, Inspector Green was looking into the question of the keys of the school. Anybody could have broken into the hall through the makeshift barrier, but the classrooms were locked. The Inspector discovered that there were four master keys. One in possession of the builders; one with the former headmaster; one normally kept on the vestry keyboard; and one normally kept in the vicar’s desk. He established that the church key was the one found on the dead body, and that the one normally kept in the vicar’s desk had been missing at the time of my visit, but had reappeared before his visit. The only other caller, besides myself, at the vicarage so far that day had been your son. It seemed fair to assume that he could have returned the missing key. Called to do so by the bogus request for urgent medical attention.

  ‘But how had Doctor Peter got hold of the key? The vicar had borrowed the church key. As I have reason to believe that he knew, before he left the vicarage that evening, he would be visiting the school after Evensong, it seemed strange that he should not take his own key, unless he intended that it should be handed to whoever was to meet him later. If Doctor Peter had it, only one person could have given it to him. Pamela. For what reason?

  ‘Cora told us that for much of the Sunday afternoon her sister and father had been carrying on an important conversation from which she had been excluded. Important enough to need one daughter out of the way, and serious enough to prevent an avowed believer in siestas from taking his afternoon nap. What were the matters of such moment? I believe them to have been a discussion—probably started by the vicar—about his daughter’s relationship with Doctor Peter. And I believe he instructed his daughter to give the school key to your son and order him to present himself at the school at eight o’clock that evening for a heart to heart talk. And I also believe I know what the talk was to be about.

  ‘The vicar was devious minded. He chose the school for the meeting when his own study was available. He went across to the church early to avoid meeting Maria Binkhorst. I feel free to suppose that it was to avoid meeting Maria on the way back to the vicarage—at an inconvenient moment—that he decided on the school. A typical resolve of a secretive, devious mind.

  ‘And now we come to the radio message. I checked up on Pamela’s time of arrival in Pe
terborough and came to the conclusion that there had been a halt on the way. What happens in a car during a halt on a dark night when two youngsters of opposite sex are alone? On this occasion, probably nothing more than a kiss and a cuddle. But Doctor Peter’s Triumph is cramped quarters, and I believe that some movement depressed the toggle switch of the car radio transmitter and that you, at the control set at home, were an unwitting eavesdropper on an illuminating conversation. I imagine it started amicably enough and then developed along the lines I have already indicated. Pamela Parseloe, so long unsuccessful in finding a suitable husband, intended to marry your son. Her father had pointed out how it could be done. He was to play the part of outraged father of aggrieved and wronged girl, accusing your son of unprofessional conduct. Don’t forget she was technically his patient while he was in attendance on her. So Pamela was instructed to tell Doctor Peter that her father wanted to see him in the school after Evensong, and she gave him the key to let himself in if needs be. Probably Peter scented danger. I suspect he demurred. What did he say? That he was due at a bridge party at the de Hooch house? An excuse which he thought up on the spur of the moment but which you believed? Whatever it was, I suggest your son saw the pit yawning before him and struggled to get out of meeting Parseloe.

  ‘You were listening in. You probably understood better than Peter that Parseloe meant business. You could read his mind like a book. You knew what he had done to Maria and realized that he would stick at nothing to gain his ends. And you saw the alternative facing your son more clearly than he did himself. Marriage to Pamela or a complaint that would result in his being struck off the medical register.

  ‘You decided that neither should happen. You have been described to me as being inordinately proud of your son. Could you let him be struck off? Could you let him marry the village harlot who had probably seduced him deliberately with this end in mind? I think that was the choice you were faced with last Sunday night, doctor.’

  Masters stopped for a moment. Green passed him a sheet of paper. While Barnfelt offered his cigarettes round, Masters skimmed through Pamela’s statement. He then said: ‘I have here Miss Parseloe’s statement, made whilst we have been talking in this room. What she says substantially supports my suggestions about what happened on the journey to Peterborough and the whereabouts of the keys. Incidentally, she believes your son to be guilty of her father’s murder and—reading between the lines—it looks as if she’d had hopes of using this knowledge to force him into marriage.’

  He gave the statement back to Green.

  ‘Now, to get on. As I said, I believe you realized your son’s danger more readily than he did himself. You decided that as he had declared his intention of not meeting the vicar, you would keep the appointment for him. You went along to the school, on foot, and followed Parseloe into the classroom that was being divided into offices. It was not the first time you’d been there.

  ‘Last Thursday morning a workman had cut his hand with a chisel and you had been called in to attend to it. It was just at the time Harry Pieters was using a bolt-setting tool—a masonry gun—for fixing timbers to the walls. As a practical man, a builder of locomotives and radio sets, it would be impossible for you not to be interested in this novelty. As a former medical officer of a front line regiment, well acquainted with firearms, you would be well aware of how it functioned. After watching Pieters in action for a few minutes you would be as capable of using it as he was.

  ‘When you decided to meet Parseloe, what preparations did you make? Did you think the tools would be there in the school over the weekend, or did you play safe and prepare a syringe of, say, bismuth chloride for an intravenous injection?’

  Barnfelt grinned his little grin, showing his teeth. He said: ‘I told you you are not a man to be underestimated.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Ah, six o’clock. Time for my surgery. I hope Peter has it in hand.’

  Masters gazed at him fixedly for a moment. Then went on: ‘You did prepare an injection? Never mind. I can see the objections to bismuth chloride. It’s lethal, and untraceable in the urine, stomach contents or blood, but it takes three or four hours to work. Had you used it, you’d have had to keep Parseloe prisoner for that time or he could have got away and told somebody.

  ‘When you arrived at the school—it had to be after Parseloe—what did you do? Keep him talking? Listen to him while he thought you were pottering about with the workmen’s tools? You were in the dark—half dark, anyway—so merely in the light from the windows he didn’t really see what you were doing. He knew you as a practical man so it wouldn’t surprise him, whatever you were doing, until you turned and threatened him. Forced him back, taking care to see he was carefully placed in front of one of the timbers. Then—well, we all know the rest. You cocked the gun by forcing the safety shield against his heart, and then you fired. The masonry pin went through his body and the wood, into the wall. Unfortunately, unlike Harry Pieters, you hit a fillet of mortar instead of the middle of a brick.

  ‘After that, you collected the spent cartridge—probably using a torch for light—put away the tools—well wiped, no doubt—and left. You were careful to leave the door open—to leave the field wide open, as it were. Unfortunately, your son had come back to Rooksby and run his car on to the garage apron. I believe he went in to consult you, found you weren’t there—probably thought you were out on a case—and decided he had better go to the school and placate Parseloe until such time as he could decide what to do.

  ‘He, too, went on foot, because I suppose he didn’t want his car to be seen in Church Walk. He approached the school—and here, quite frankly, I am deducing—from the back. He was late. The constable said his car entered Rooksby just after eight, so it could have been twenty past when he reached the school. As he drew close, he saw a figure leaving the building, rather stealthily I should imagine. Peter must have drawn back in the shadows to remain unseen—in case it was Parseloe. But he recognized it as you as you passed. I should think it was at that moment that he remembered he had found his transmitter switched on, and realized what you could have overheard. That is why he didn’t speak to you. Instead, when you had gone, he went into the school. He found Parseloe. There was nothing he could do for him, so he withdrew, and for some unknown reason, used the key Pamela had given him to lock the door behind him. I think it was a reflex action. An effort to lock away, out of sight, the proof of his father’s deed. But whatever it was, it left us to find a locked door, with the dead man’s key still in his pocket. And that helped.’ He turned to Green. ‘That was why I had to ask you to make a special point of key chasing. It was important.

  ‘When Pamela came back to Rooksby, she believed Peter had killed her father. It was a natural supposition, but I don’t believe she cared a scrap, beyond wanting that key back. Hence her urgent call for medical attention.’

  Masters pulled out his pipe and began to fill it.

  ‘Now you, doctor, as I said, tried to mislead me twice. You were very helpful over the wound. Being an intelligent man you obviously realized that it would be wiser to appear helpful, because I could get the same information elsewhere if needs be. But you really did make a mistake when you suggested that the bruise had been made by a prod with the end of a piece of squared timber. I put it down as the suggestion of somebody who had not seen the wound, and as an impossible suggestion from a knowledgeable physician who had made a thorough inspection and taken measurements.

  ‘The second time you tried to mislead me was when, by refusing to tell me what was wrong with Maria, you tried to suggest there was some quite serious ailment. In fact, it was plain to see that the girl was blooming—literally. And even my limited knowledge of such things includes the fact that when she is expecting a baby a girl may suffer headache, flatulence and dyspepsia at night, and sickness in the morning. I wondered why you had tried to pull the wool over my eyes—because in order to attempt it you must have known the true story—and decided that you could have learned it from your son that mo
rning or, equally likely, you could have known of it before your son.’

  Masters struck a match to light his dead pipe. ‘That’s the summary of my efforts these last three or four days, doctor. I haven’t yet had your son’s confirmatory statement, but he will be held as an accessory until he makes it. After that, the warrant will be squashed.’

  ‘If I make a statement later—and this is a promise you can record—can my son go to attend to our patients? You can always get him back again if necessary.’

  ‘I appreciate your concern for your son and your patients. The efforts you made on Cora’s behalf—to get the arrangements completed before this meeting could happen—also weigh with me. With Superintendent Nicholson’s permission your son can be allowed to take surgery.’

  Nicholson agreed reluctantly, and Green left to tell Peter Barnfelt he was free, temporarily. Masters turned to Frank Barnfelt and said: ‘To support my case, doctor, I sent Inspector Green to London with the masonry pin for scrutiny. The report is that it still has traces of blood on it. Also, I asked him to consult our archivist to discover whether there are any previous deaths known to have been caused by masonry guns. There is one. The account was written up by the doctor who was called in. It was an accident. In an office building. The joiner concerned misjudged the thickness of an internal wall. It was too thin. The pin went through it and passed through the body of a man working in the next office. He died. The report appeared some years ago in The Aesculapian. The journal’s publishing office has told us that at that time you were on its screening panel, and were one of three doctors who read the article for medical accuracy before publication. So probably the idea was not entirely new to you.’