Suddenly Soames’ whole personality changed. He was no longer a truculent, surly ex-soldier but a skinny, abject little specimen of the slave class of an effete civilization (so Dick and Bobs had termed such people in their hot Christian Socialist days). Leaving his tray and the broken decanter he sidled up to Dick with that desperate fawning humility which Dick had seen too often in lags in the Settlement and regiment.
“Say, sir, please speak a good word for me. I’m doing my best and I did at the Academy, my last place too, and never set hands on a thing I shouldn’t. I’ve gone straight, but what’s the good of it? Once you’ve been in you’re always up against it. Talk of new starts! Whatever bobby ever let you have a new start?”
“Then you got into trouble in the Service Corps? And again in Civvy street? Pinching, eh?”
“Nothing worth much,” whined Soames. “And me shell shocked for my country, too!”
“Drink? Cigarettes? An odd watch or two and a few pound notes? Well, well,” as Soames nodded miserably, “I’m sure you’ll find any Court would take your health into consideration if you ever came before one. I advise you to tell the police this story straight out when they come. Far better than lying and letting them worm it out as they probably will. Best of all, have a good look round for that bag, for otherwise this case can be no concern of yours. Very easy for you to have put it down somewhere and for gotten it. In this room, for instance, or your bedroom?” He glanced through the half-open door into a littered bedroom which suggested the early stages of a jumble sale in the East End. “Well, I must be getting along.”
The back passage down the old wing to the pantry in the Bridge was very long and narrow and Dick walked slowly. More than ever he was confirmed in his suspicions that the butler had picked up Mr. Ulder’s bag as an unconsidered trifle for his own use this morning. A sneak thief—and Soames bore that stamp openly to Dick—would not let the presence of a corpse baulk him of a job; no doubt Soames had told himself that the reverend gentleman would have no further use for it! The fact of the theft was only important in view of the papers which the bag must contain, for Ulder would never have hoped to extract money from his victims without very definite documents with which to threaten them. Would Soames understand them? Dick thought not. He could not see Soames as either a murderer or blackmailer: he had neither the guts nor any conceivable motive to murder Ulder: he had probably not the guts or education for blackmail. But all the same Dick would give a good deal to get his hands on that bag.
But was Soames so harmless after all? At the door to the hall Dick looked swiftly round, and in that moment had to revise his views about Soames. Never, he thought, had he seen such a malignant look of hatred and suspicion on any face. He might after all be no mere thieving coward but a force to be reckoned with.
“Sue! Do you remember anything about Ulder’s luggage?” It was like Sue to cross the hall just when Dick wanted her, looking like a spring nosegay peeping out of the snow!
“Let me see.” Sue crinkled up her low, wide forehead, pushing aside her pretty, curled pageboy hair. “There was a big, flashy bag, I remember. And I think a shabby, bulgy, black bag, the sort our Nurses used to take milk bottles and sandwiches in on journeys. Doesn’t Soames know?”
“I expect he got muddled with all the traps yesterday—it seems to be missing.”
“Let’s hunt for it,” cried Sue, who had been noted for a passion for hide-and-seek in her youth.
“Later, perhaps! I’m thinking of a spot of Chapel! Yes thanks, I’ve had lots of breakfast.” (Sue was the sort of darling who would think of a man’s bodily needs instead of bothering him with questions.)
“But you must help Father to interview the police when they come. Father sent me to tell you so. He says he must have someone with experience.”
Dick assented politely. He was aware by now that his activities in the war would always seem to outsiders that of a sort of glorified policeman. Nor could he very well explain that till this day he had no experience whatever of suspecting Church dignitaries of murder.
V
THURSDAY MORNING (11-12)
Sergeant Tonks was sitting at the bleak desk of the Evelake Constabulary, a pile of files beside him and the Daily Wail crossword before him when the telephone bell rang. The office was slack, very slack, as was usual before Christmas. Evelake, a backwash of what seems now a forgotten world, depended largely on the Church for its material as well as spiritual activities. Children were regular at school in view of treats: mothers and spinsters of every age had an eye on blankets, coals and Christmas trees. Even poachers were less active as tips flowed freely from squires at the sacred season: publicans were saving their best liquor for Christ mas, and reprobates their money for a burst, now that whisky had reached the appalling price of 12s. 6d. a bottle. Road accidents were few because motors were few, and as for serious crime—“Why, no bobby will ever get experience here,” complained the new Chief Constable when he learnt that the Judges almost invariably received their pairs of white gloves at the Evelake Assize. If the Inspector were here he’d be fussing about forms, but such things, Tonks judged, could wait for the duration of his illness. This was the first glorious dawn of crosswords, when they were an occupation rather than relaxation, and it was a tax on Biblical research and natural history to work out a king of Bashan or ancient city in two, and a bird in three, letters.
“Drat that telephone,” Tonks said, relinquishing his pursuit of a fabulous bird. He was a middle-sized, middle-aged, respectable family man who had looked like a grocer when he was acting as verger, and a verger when serving behind the counter. Such had been his avocation before the war led him into the police force—as its junior members volunteered for service—and as the Palace dealt with the shop, now carried on by his wife, and his respect for ecclesiastical authority was profound, he was, as he told Mrs. Tonks, knocked all of a heap when he took the message from the Palace.
This was no case for him, was his first reaction. Sudden death at the Palace was bad enough, but suicide! “And there may be more to it!” the voice on the telephone had added almost in a whisper. Now indeed Tonks regretted Inspector Jay’s absence. For Jay, if not one of those quick, attractive know-alls you read about, had had long experience in London, that sink of iniquity, as Mrs. Tonks called it, and could and did stand up to the new Chief Constable, Major Mack, as man to man. And Mack would be in on this from the word “Go”, thought Tonks, his hand already on the telephone. Clearly he must ring up the Major at once and ask for help in the job. For he’d have to take Simon and perhaps Lace as well, and that would mean leaving Corn in the office, Corn who’d never yet taken a telephone message without muddling it! And ten to one Mack would take on the Palace case himself, short handed as they were, for how he’d rejoice at anything like a scandal in the Church! (Fair wild he’d been when that choir-boy proved an alibi for a mere theft of apples!) He’d never stop to think it wasn’t his place, nor mind demeaning himself, as Mr. Verlaine would never have dreamt of, by turning to ordinary police work again. Why should he, when it was just the regular police work he had grown up in? But what a fuss he’d make over it all, and if there was one thing Tonks couldn’t abide it was fuss!
“I’ll be with you in ten minutes.” The Chief Constable’s vigorous Scottish burr on the telephone, the excitement in his hasty answer, justified all Tonks’ fears. “Have you chains on the police car?”
“Yes, sir. I had Corn put them on this morning.”
“Good. We must take him with us, or send him on at once on his bike or tell Lace to follow later.”
“He’d be quicker in the car, sir, it’s a good three miles. That leaves Simon in the office, sir, and he’s not too—”
“Office be damned. This case is urgent. That remark about ‘may be more to it’ shows they’ll be at work hushing things up already. Trust a surplice to conceal a cassock! I’ll be round at once.”
The constabulary car was a roomy old Humber, but it seemed restricted enou
gh to Tonks as he sat beside the burly Chief Constable. Mack was indeed one of those Scotsmen who occupy a good deal of space in the world. He had a prominent chin and equally pronounced convictions. Prejudices bristled about him, like his wiry hair, in all sorts of unexpected places, including prelacy, pacifism, the modern girl and all foreigners except the Dutch. He had a sound education and little culture: someone has said that Scotsmen may be divided between good shots and good fishermen, that is to say, men of action or philosophers, hard or sentimental, bellicose or pacific according to the type to which they belong. Mack belonged emphatically to the former category, and was, therefore, elated to-day. In Tonks’ view he was hardly a suitable guest, at the best of times, to roll through the majestic lodge gates and up the lime avenue of the Palace, nor did his mighty pull at the iron chain of the bell strike Tonks as seemly. He could not tell that the motto, “Neminem averto”, carved in stone above the door, reminded Mack grimly that his wife had not, apparently, been considered good enough for an invitation to the Diocesan Garden Party. That imagined slight weighed down the scales of Mack’s distrust of prelacy and parsons more heavily than he realized, for Mrs. Mack referred to it far more frequently than Mack himself reflected on theology, nor could the husband and wife know that Mrs. Broome for months had meant to atone by an invitation to dinner, an attention, alas, delayed too long, and unknown, of course, to the predestined guests.
Bobs was standing in the hall as Soames flung open the door of the outer hall (making a dash to cover afterwards in the pantry) and Bobs, looking more flushed and school-boyish than ever, in his efforts to combine the appearance of the police with the solemnity of an Ordination, annoyed the Constable by his first word.
“The Chief Constable? We are glad to see you so soon, sir. We did not expect you yet with the roads in this state. The Bishop is conducting a service in the Chapel for the Ordination candidates, and asked me to excuse him if you did arrive, and take you upstairs.”
“But I must see him at once!”
“He’ll be out in a few minutes!” Bobs was too well accustomed to impatient interview-seekers to resent Mack’s imperious voice. “Dr. Lee is still upstairs, waiting for the ambulance for an invalid in the house. His car’s stuck and he hopes for a lift back with her. Here is Mrs. Broome who was first to—to view the tragedy, and can tell you more than the Bishop.”
“Indeed I will. I’ll do all I can. It is such a relief to see you!” Mack looked more belligerent than ever as the Bishop’s wife came across the hall, trim and composed, a sheaf of lilies in her hand. Did these idle rich have nothing better to do, with corpses and invalids on the premises, than to pluck nosegays? “I do hope so much the formalities will soon be over, for it is all so trying for my poor husband.”
“Yes, I expect he wants everything smoothed over!” Mrs. Broome started at the undisguised hostility in Mack’s voice. “He had some practice at that with this wretched fellow Ulder before, I remember!” Of course, Mrs. Broome also remembered now the report that the Chief Constable, then newly on duty at Evelake, had resented bitterly the compromise which had saved Ulder from the arm of the law. “But you can’t evade public enquiries on this occasion, you know. Please fetch the Bishop,” he turned to Bobs, “I must have this story first hand.”
“Of course! So fetch Mabel, please Bobs. She made the discovery. And please get a message into Chapel to ask Dick to join us at once. He was with me and the doctor, you see,” she went on, turning to Mack, “and such a help! The Bishop did not come up from Chapel till some time later. And indeed from first to last I am responsible, for it was to me that Dr. Lee entrusted a dose of morphia for this poor man! Judith, what are you doing?”
Mrs. Broome and the two guardians of the law were in the dark, old passage when the exclamation broke from the worried lady. Before them, radiant in her scarlet frock, the eerie snow sunlight making a gold wreath of her lovely hair, stood Judith, her hand still on the handle of St. Ursula’s door.
“I thought Dick was still here and meant to take him down for some breakfast!” (Such thoughtfulness was indeed unusual, but perhaps the shock has roused the child to think of others, thought the optimistic stepmother.) “But the door’s locked, and no one answered. Hullo, Tonks! Fancy you here! You’ve always been so sweet about winking when I was driving dangerously that I’m sure you’ll soon settle everything. The Chief Constable, Mother? Oh, how grand! I never met one before. Don’t give Tonks a black mark for what I said, will you? I’m sure you’d do the same for me.”
But charm is only too often wasted on the North British and Mack moved on indignantly. Mrs. Broome was pausing at the door, her former dread and pity taking refuge in a silent prayer for the vanished soul, but to Mack her agitation seemed only as inexplicable as Judith’s apparition. “Very queer goings-on here,” he had decided even before he entered the shaded room.
“No, not on the bed, please, Mrs. Broome.” The doctor came bustling in and greeted Mack. “Yes, yes, leave the lilies here and I’ll see to them later.” (Lilies for the police indeed! Flowers for the Judge! thought Mack, who had recently enjoyed a brilliant novel by that title.) “Ah, and here’s the maid who found the—the corpse, Chief Constable. I’m sure when she and Mrs. Broome have told their stories you’ll let them leave us. I want some words with you alone—unless, indeed, we can have Dick up, Mrs. Broome.” (And who’s this nosey parker, Dick? wondered Mack privately.)
The doctor fidgeted impatiently as Mabel and Mrs. Broome repeated the well-known story, only patting Mrs. Broome’s shoulder reassuringly as she grew agitated over her mistake in leaving the bottle in the invalid’s room.
“Quite natural, quite natural, what every home nurse of my patients does.”
“I never even dreamt of his trying to get out of bed,” said Mrs. Broome, almost tearfully.
“No, no, of course not! Now you should go and lie down a bit, I think: it’s all been too much for you. If you’ve no more questions for the moment, Major Mack?” And it seemed to Dr. Lee that the catechism which the two women had already undergone was even longer than the so-called Shorter Catechism of the Major’s native land. One thing was that Mack could hardly question the veracity of the Bishop’s wife, for her story proved only too conclusively what a focus of interest this room had been last night. All these clerical visitors to Ulder: her daughter at his door, and the Bishop’s visit the last she knew of: the whisky glass brought in against orders: the missing bag. Nor did she even try to disguise the dismay of the party at Ulder’s arrival, and their dislike of his activities. A nasty tale, the doctor reflected almost incredulously, as Dick appeared and Mrs. Broome rustled away.
“Well, what are you doing here, sir?” Mack turned scowling at the sight of yet another parson in place of the recalcitrant bishop.
“Mrs. Broome sent for me, sir, but as you’ve finished—” Dick turned back to the door at once but Dr. Lee intervened.
“Nonsense! You must stay, Dick. Major Mack, this is Major—well, Mr. Marlin now, late of the Intelligence Department and Secret Service. He helped me to make an examination of things here this morning and I’d like him to eke out my information.”
“Never heard of you,” said Mack gruffly.
“Naturally not, sir. As a matter of fact I heard a good deal about you when I was in the 2nd Royal Scots mess for a few months. The Colonel told us yarns about your doings in the Boer War and the name stuck in my mind because I recognized it. You wouldn’t remember an English family at the hotel at Auchenfoyle in 1902—no, 1903 it was, I think? You played golf with my father once, over at Nairn, and beat him, though he was a three handicap. The only time you took a rod you brought home a round dozen of two-pounder trout, and when you went off to shoot or stalk on Echinore with the game-keeper I used to hang about that porch with the fuchsia bushes round it hoping you’d offer to take me too! And at the very end you did take me, and it was on the day you brought down a royal.”
“By Jove, so I did. My last day on Echinore. And, of c
ourse, I remember your name, sir! How’s that charming mother of yours? I remember telling my missus that if all English ladies had families like hers I’d tolerate the Southerners.”
“She died, sir, just before this war. I can feel glad for her sake now at times, for two of my brothers didn’t come back, but it’s a hard job for my father to carry on.”
“And what are you doing in this show?” asked Mack, as after a grunt of deep sympathy he looked with disfavour on Dick’s clerical collar. “After the Army too! What were you in?”
“I got a commission in the Evelake Yeomanry and was knocked out. When I wasn’t passed fit for active service I was put into Intelligence. Now I’m going on with the commission which the war interrupted—in another militant army, you might say!”
“Church militant, eh? Well, there’s plenty of the militant side in this extraordinary business. Look here, now I come to think of it, weren’t you mixed up in another Ulder business some years ago?” Memories of a Jesuitical curate who had managed to extricate the Church from any exposure of its laxity and dispose of Ulder from the Theological College returned to Mack and he began to bristle fiercely again. “What a show that was! What a scandal that the Bishop—”
“Put yourself in his place, sir. Think of the countless critics and enemies of the Church, and their joy over such a titbit of scandal!”
“No use going back on that now,” said the doctor impatiently.
“No, indeed, since they managed between them to put an end to the scandal once and for all! At least my man gathered that from you. I suppose, Marlin, that it’s not a clear case of suicide. Now then, let’s go into it all. I’ve got the main plot from Mrs. Broome and I must say she didn’t seem to be holding anything back. Correct me where I’m wrong. Ulder arrived, pretty drunk, and had a heart attack. Lee who was on the spot for another case handed out a tube of morphia with strict injunctions to give one dose only and no alcohol. Ulder recovered enough to insist on an interview with the Bishop, another with that Canon Wye, a Jesuit in disguise if ever there was one, and Chancellor Chailly as you call him, though why Chancellor when he’s just an incompetent old family lawyer beats me. One or two servants including the butler were about; that fly-by-night daughter of the Bishop seems to have popped in. What’s at the bottom of all this? Why was Ulder here at all?”
Arrest the Bishop? Page 8
