Arrest the Bishop?

by Peck,Winifred

  “But I must—” Dick stopped. Experience had taught him not to argue with doctors.

  “Mrs. Broome, dear,” he said persuasively, when they were alone together. “There are just two people I want to see, only two!”

  “The doctor said no one and, Dick, it’s no use asking to see the Bishop!” Mrs. Broome sat back in her chair so wan and haggard that Dick’s heart ached. “This is no moment to talk to you about such things but he is at the end of his tether and—though I don’t know how to tell it, he thinks that dreadful Mack believes—and expects the worst!” Most unusual tears ran down the plump lined cheeks suddenly, but she checked herself. “I must not speak of all this. It can’t be true! It is all some terrible nightmare!”

  “You don’t think I’m going to be here while all this is happening, do you?” asked Dick. Dr. Lee was right and he would be sick soon but he must get his way first. “Of course I shan’t and I’ve a clue—I know I had a clue, which will come back when my head’s clearer. There was something I heard or found. I know there was. But I’d never dream of bothering the Bishop. It was Mack I wanted to see!”

  “He’s gone and a good riddance!” replied his hostess in a voice more like her own.

  “Oh damn—sorry! Well, can I see Bobs, and then I do want to see Sue for just a minute. I want to ask her to do something for me! Oh good, here’s Bobs! I’ve a job for him!”

  “By Jove, it’s true what Lee said!” volunteered Dick five minutes later, “I do feel clearer. I’m glad it was you here for this show.” Bobs, removing traces of sickness, was not so sure that he was glad, but it was a relief to see Dick less far away and spent on his pillows. “Bobs, this is all more hanky-panky of Soames, I am sure! He didn’t go to tighten up the treads of those stairs but to loosen them and let me down. As I lay on my back, because I couldn’t get up just then, I thought I saw how he’d done it—a cut on the under side of the top treads with a saw—nothing to show but a certain break under my weight. Have a look first thing, will you, and ring up Mack afterwards and tell him that Mr. Soames is behaving more strangely than ever. You couldn’t call it attempted murder, for the drop wasn’t big enough.”

  “Might have killed you—then it would have been the drop for him,” said Bobs fiercely.

  “Very difficult to prove! But I want to give Soames a good fright, so spread it far and near that I’m in very bad case, will you? I want to be off the map to-morrow. I don’t feel I can quite explain why with this blasted head—indeed I can’t quite remember yet, but I had a big idea, and it may come back!”

  It was such a pale and subdued Sue who crept into the room presently that Dick had to smile and thus dispel her worst fears at once.

  “Sue, I’m almost as glad to see you now as I was an hour—or whatever it was—ago, and that’s saying a lot.”

  “I was glad I came,” replied Sue simply. “Soames didn’t seem to be helping you! Is he mad?”

  “I expect so—anyway bad. Sue, angel, will you take me a motor drive to-morrow? Don’t humour the invalid by saying you can’t drive, because I know you had to learn when your last chauffeur was called up so as to take the Bishop about! Besides you drove me here!”

  “Yes, and I got very tired of all Confirmation sermons—the parsons never would let me stay in the car and read a book. Don’t be a Bishop, Dick! You’ll get so that when you hear ‘Soldiers of Christ, arise!’ you’ll want to sit down for the rest of your life! But I won’t take you anywhere to-morrow. You’ve got to stay in bed, and you’ll miss Sunday, I’m afraid.”

  “Just as well—‘non sum dignus’ indeed. But I must go out to-morrow. Have you heard that things look pretty bad here? For your father, I mean. Oh no, don’t look like that! Of course he’s as innocent as triplets unborn, and Mack can’t prove a thing, I promise you, but the Bishop made—one mistake let’s call it—which may lead Mack to—to make things very unpleasant for him. I’ve the ghost of the ghost of a hope I might be able to get on another line if I paid one or two distant visits to-morrow. I can hop down to the car and sit up all right, you see, and my head’s all right—this bandage is only eyewash. And I shall probably go mad if I lie here doing nothing.”

  “But—but—Dick, Mother—the doctor—everyone will prevent you!”

  “Not if we sneak out when they’re mostly in Chapel. I heard Mrs. Broome order my breakfast at eight—she’s afraid to leave invalids too long, after poor Ulder, I expect! Could you have a snack with your early tea, sneak out and get the car and smuggle me down? I don’t want anyone to know that we’ve gone—that’s important—no one, none of the servants—just leave a note for Mrs. Broome—we should be back by tea. Be a sport, Sue!”

  That childhood’s appeal, combined with the unknown horrors hanging over the house was too much for Sue. She was not the maternal type which fusses to protect men from themselves, but the super-maternal which sits back while men make fools of themselves, waiting to pick up the bits.

  “Unless you’re very feverish to-morrow,” was her only proviso, “and Mother sends for Dr. Lee again!”

  “I won’t be! Then two more things, Sue, and one will seem idiotic. Could you go to Moira’s room and find out the name written in pencil under Moira? In the Bible we were looking at when the light went back on us, and don’t ask me why for my head’s so muddled I can’t quite remember, but I know I meant to look.”

  “I’ll get it if you don’t bother your poor head about anything till to-morrow! Promise!”

  “All right. Look here, write it on a bit of paper and I swear I won’t look at it till to-morrow. My head is a bit muzzy!”

  His brain was curiously dull and stupid indeed, though now and again sudden flashes of illumination seemed to strike across it, only in such uncorrelated glimpses that they made no sense. Never mind, he told himself, the good old subconscious will get to work on it! But not yet, not till Sue came.

  “There you are, Dick!” She was in the room. “I’ll put it by your bed. I don’t believe you could read it anyway!”

  “See any one while you were in there?” Dick forced the question from the waves of sleep sweeping over him.

  “Only Soames, snooping about as usual!”

  “Oh!” The waves receded for a moment. “Sue, will you please lock my door behind you and keep the key or give it to your mother. Please!”

  He was asleep almost before she left the room, secure in the knowledge that Sue was perhaps the only woman in the world who would do what she was asked without questions.

  Did Soames pay him any further attentions that night? That was of course Dick’s fear, though the butler’s schemes and methods were still inexplicable. If he did, he only over reached himself, and unknowingly did Dick, a service. For when Dick heard, or fancied he heard, a stealthy pull at the door handle and a creak of woodwork he switched on his bed lamp, thankful that he was protected by the lock against intrusion. Beneath the lamp lay Sue’s bit of paper and he picked it up and read it. Though the letters seemed to dance about a bit, it read certainly … Kilkelly … Kilkelly … where had he heard that name recently? Yes, yes, it was coming back! Now he remembered! It was the name which Herriot had given him on the telephone, the name which confirmed the vague suspicions he had felt for some time about the strange tie between the superior house keeper and the inefficient, offensive little butler. Now indeed he could go to sleep.

  He awoke next morning, when Mrs. Broome stole in with a cup of tea, with an extraordinary sense of lightheartedness, quite unjustified by the pains and aches of his body. A wedding bouquet on a hearse I feel like, he thought, even while Mrs. Broome was telling him how he must lie quiet all day and not dream of getting up. Evidently she was relieved not to receive a grand remonstrance, and left him lying with his eyes dutifully closed in apparent obedience.

  But as soon as she had gone Dick rolled over very gingerly and as he put it to himself, told all his bones. Head much better, shoulder still hurting like fun but not crippling. His ankle was decidedly not too good
, but then the latest treatment for sprained ankles was to walk on them at once: he could just manage to get himself into old grey bags and a loose tweed coat, and as for his head, well, fresh air and Sue’s company would do wonders for that, and the old brain seemed to be functioning all right.

  “But it’s mad, Dick, mad,” said Sue anxiously when she saw him limping down the main staircase. The house was very still save for that faint sound of chanting which Dick had come to look upon as Ulder’s funeral dirge. The hall dark and mysterious with its overwhelming scents of azalea and hyacinths, might suggest a mourning procession of flowers in some crowded cemetery chapel, but the octagon vestibule was full of sunshine and the two truants stepped out into a world where the gale had hushed itself into a soft west wind, and, if spring were very far away, red holly berries in wet, sharp, sparkling leaves and golden yews mocked winter gloom; where sparrows twittered and robins sang as if they could hold their own orchestra without waiting for any faraway migrant birds.

  “It’s rather a long drive, I’m afraid, chauffeur,” said Dick when he had mastered the considerable pain of getting into the car. “Have you ever been to Dorbury? I want to go to the Orphanage there!”

  “Oh!” Sue was evidently surprised but asked no question, after a glance at her companion. “It’s a good thing I filled my tank up and took spare tins. Fifty miles and I expect the roads over the hills will be under snow still! You’d better fill up Dick! There’s a flask of brandy just in front of you and I’ve got a thermos and sandwiches for lunch.”

  I wish, thought Dick, I could tell her that she’s better than any brandy! It was precisely at that moment he realized that Sue was the one essential person in the world to him and that he could never let her go. Unmanned by pain, that’s what I am, he told himself. Nearly proposing to a girl when I’m (a) crippled, (b) on the job of saving her father from arrest, and (c) acting as if love sprang up from her sound ideas of food and drink, (d) just going to be ordained priest and work on twopence a year, (e) realizing that she deserves a king at least, though I expect most of them are dull dogs!

  “What are you thinking about, Dick?” asked Sue, catching his odd grimace in the driving mirror.

  “You,” answered Dick simply. Sue made no reply but the car swerved so violently that there must clearly be no more sentiment on this important expedition. He must not look at Sue. He must not even try to enjoy the patchwork of the winter countryside, the black, silver-fringed hedges, the red earth of ploughed land, the purple tangled mats of frosted roots in fields, the rust gold of fallen beech leaves, the sad green clumps of plantations. He must not look up to the line of glinting chalk hills which they approached, or the faint hyacinth blue of the freshly washed sky. He must close his eyes and do some really hard thinking.

  There are days when everything goes wrong, when human nature and inanimate things seem equally to combine against us. After a full experience of this at the Palace, Dick realized triumphantly that nothing would or could go wrong to-day, that this was a sample of the opposite number, one of those rare delightful days when everything goes right. What did it matter if he felt like a badly set jelly in an earthquake? Everything would be all right because Sue was with him.

  He was justified in this optimism in their first call at the Orphanage at Dorbury.

  He had left a note asking Bobs to ring up and fix an interview at twelve, but how easily the car might have broken down, the head of the establishment been absent on business or, worst of all, that it had been run on such unbusinesslike lines that any work of research would be out of the question! But his luck held good in every respect. Sue drew the car up to the building which looked like a barracks outside, but sounded like a jolly nursery party within, punctually at twelve o’clock. The Head’s wife carried Sue off to a cup of tea while the Head took Dick to his office, and waved proudly to neat rows of car indexes.

  “About 1895 you think? Here is the register. You are not sure of the name under which the child was entered—that happens only too often in the case of an illegitimate union. Boy or girl? Excuse me, the boys are this side. The name might be Soames—Sullivan—Kelly or Kilkelly you think? A wide choice but they are all in strictly alphabetical order. Kilkelly! I have heard the name recently!”

  “You must do a wonderful work here, sir.” Dick was glad to let loose a flood of description and reminiscence, partly because he really wished to please this kind old gentleman with the huge beard and small twinkling eyes, partly because he preferred to work unaided. Though he could not forget his bruises and sprains they hardly seemed to matter in his excitement. There was no luck among the Soames and Sullivans—he hadn’t expected it. He grew anxious when the Kellys were no more rewarding. But he was rather excited than surprised when the Head waved to him from an old index marked K.

  “Yes, this is the case. Someone was enquiring about it, that is why it struck a chord in my memory!”

  “Was that only yesterday, sir?”

  “No, no, a few weeks ago I should say. Some lawyer or detective agent I fancy—filling up some dossier. I did not enquire for of course this entry was here before my time. I fear my predecessor was not business-like. Here you see is all he wrote: Kilkelly—Edward—1895. Sept. 1st—two years old. Unmarried mother Moira Kilkelly. Father’s name withheld. Birth registered Addsey, 1893. Left 1910 aged 17—not satisfactory. No more than that! You will find under my entries weight, height, colouring, history of parents and wherever possible in these cases the name of the putative father.”

  “Splendid!” said Dick heartily. “I’d have given a lot for that last in this case. No more in the Addsey register either, I expect?”

  “No, I formed the impression, but only the impression, mark you, that the enquiry was being instigated by the father’s side, but I could not pursue enquiries as Kilkelly had not been in my care.”

  “And you know no more of him?”

  “Let me see! If there is anything it will be on the back of the card. Ah yes—applications for references 1912, 1913, 1914—too many for a good character I fear. And those crosses refer, alas, to short-term sentences in prison. But we must trust he made good in the army, poor fellow. We do what we can for our charges, and are often richly rewarded, but one sometimes feels that the secrecy and hatred and shame which surround such a child’s birth live on in him. Ah, by the way, here is a last entry which will interest you.” It was all Dick could do not to tear the bit of pasteboard from the Head’s hands. “‘Enquiry from Army Records Office on enlistment 1916. … Enlisted as Edward Sullivan—Sent full details—unacknowledged.’ Yes, yes, of course I remember. I had much correspondence over more than one of my pupils, and I cannot say they gave me a high respect for the organization of that army department!”

  “Dick, did you get what you wanted?” asked Sue. Bidding farewell and tucking Dick back into the car had been a lengthy business, and they had only evaded a pressing invitation to the children’s dinner with difficulty, but as Sue looked at her companion, now that they were on the road again at last, she knew he was rewarded.

  “Did you have a good time?” countered Dick.

  “Yes, indeed, the sweetest, happiest children, and the nicest Mrs. Head and Matron—but terribly strong sugary tea, I admit. But about your job—no, I won’t ask! Where are we to go? Straight home?”

  “No, Sue, please to Addsey! I wasn’t going to break it to you till we saw a cross-roads, but that’s well to our east.”

  “Addsey! Well, we’ll stop and have lunch soon anyway, because it’ll be fifteen miles through ugly flat mining country. Here’s a nice stretch and we can park by this bridge. Addsey! Oh dear! ‘Childe Roland to the dark tower came,’ Dick!” Sue implored as she busied herself with sandwiches and cups—“You can tell me just a little, I suppose? Have you found what you want?”

  “Yes, I have, and I’ll tell you this, because you’ve been such an angel—and also everyone will know it soon. Sue, did you ever guess that Moira was Soames’ mother?”

&n
bsp; “Oh Dick! Soames’ mother! I can’t believe it! When—why—how—what made you think of it? It can’t be true!” And yet because Sue already believed, and would believe in the future, that Dick was always right, she exhausted such comments reasonably soon, “Though how you thought of it or found out, Dick!”

  “I didn’t think of it till we looked at Moira’s Bible, and then Herriot gave me Soames’ original name. We hadn’t deciphered Moira’s name, so it was only your remark about her shortening her name long ago and then the slip of paper which made me hopeful. I’d meant to go to Dorbury in the hope of any sidelines on Soames and it would have been an utter flop if that name had never reached the Orphanage. But I wondered at the connection between Soames and Moira from the first. Why did a first-class old-fashioned servant like Moira ever suggest him to your mother, and how could she tolerate him when he came? That story about ‘Our Boys’ was pretty thin when you think of our Soames’ career! And would a little pip-squeak like that show such real attachment to a funny, strict old housekeeper? For I do believe he was and is really anxious and unhappy about her, and I’m sure it’s a relief to think the little wretch has some natural feelings!”

  “It’s almost harder for me to think Moira ever had a past or a child, or could care for him now or any one but Judith,” meditated Sue. “I wonder if the old Bishop knew all that his wife would, I suppose, but she was dead, and Mummy was only too glad to take Moira on with the Palace as housekeeper! Not that she kept house much at first, for she made herself into Ju’s nurse, Mother says. My nurse adored me and hated Judith, you remember?”

  “Naturally! She was and is what nurses call a madam!”

  “Moira wouldn’t let you say so. And what was odder still Judith adored her. I think she liked to feel there was some one she could tell everything to—”

  “I didn’t ever notice that she was sparing of her confidences!” put in Dick.