‘What do you mean?’
‘There was no blood in the Hall except what we saw drip from his hands,’ said Father Anselm. He turned around and looked at the door-handle. It was very red, and sticky. ‘There is blood on the outside door-handle, but none on the inside. And all this blood out here seems to be coming from the barn.’
Suddenly he seemed to make a decision, and impelled his body into action. He strode towards the barn, and the Bishop, after a moment of irritated hesitation, padded after him. They followed the trail of red, and paused briefly by the daubed sign on the near side wall of the barn: it looked like a crude and lop-sided version of the Cross of Lorraine. There was more blood on the ground in front of the barn. Father Anselm walked ahead resolutely. At the corner of the barn he stopped.
The Bishop of Peckham, who felt he had spent all night trotting after Father Anselm with his heart thumping, came up behind him once more, and once more they stood shoulder to shoulder.
In the long grass, in a little patch of ground immediately beside the corner of the high barn, lay a lamb. Like Brother Dominic and the Bishop of Mitabezi, it had once been white, but was no longer. Its throat had been cut, and a great gash had been made down its stomach, from neck to tail. The ground around it was slushy with blood, like Flanders fields.
There was a long pause. The Bishop shifted from foot to foot. Eventually he looked at Father Anselm, who was looking at the lamb.
‘But if this is what Mitabezi had been at,’ said the Bishop, ‘then who . . . ?’
But he was interrupted by a thunderous knocking at the gate.
CHAPTER VII
CHIEF INSPECTOR PLUNKETT
AS THE FIRST RAYS of sunlight were flooding the distant moors with gold, Father Anselm drew back the bolts of the gate, and opened it to the Law. The first representative of that much-invoked abstraction to meet their eyes was a stalwart police sergeant, all shoulders and stomach, his fist upraised to inflict further punishment on the gate, the expression on his face being more or less equivalent to saying, ‘’Ullo, ’Ullo, what’s all this ’ere then?’
‘Come in, come in,’ said Father Anselm, gesturing them forward with his hands. ‘I’m grateful to you for getting here so quickly. Let me lead the way.’
Enter first, with all the natural dignity of a Victorian beadle, the police sergeant. Enter next someone decidedly higher up the scale, fair, smooth, remote. Enter last, creating his own bustle, something much smaller than either — more wizened, more huddled. Beside the sergeant he looked like a ferret beside a grizzly bear.
‘Show me!’ the figure barked, for all the world as if he were Julie Andrews.
Father Anselm looked as if he wanted to say something, but the police ferret was already marching in the direction of the main building, looking from behind very much like an undersized adolescent playing at being a Hitler storm-trooper. He hardly seemed, at this moment, a character to argue with. Father Anselm sighed, and followed him.
The Bishop’s mind fluttered between two courses. On the one hand, he felt that as one who had witnessed the unepiscopal behaviour of the Bishop of Mitabezi, it was his business to accompany Father Anselm and the two policemen. On the other hand — and how pressingly that other hand always presented itself to the Bishop! — he felt an overwhelming desire to go back to bed. Such conflicts in the Bishop almost invariably resulted in a victory for his overwhelming desires, and such was the case now. He put himself gratefully to bed with the dawn chorus, though not before he had fished from his suitcase a bottle of something and taken a long draught of whatever it was.
Father Anselm did not notice his absence. He led the way to the door of the Great Hall, and let the policemen observe the bloody handle. The door had swung to, and he let them open the door themselves, as best they could, without disturbing the tell-tale stains. Then, unflinching, Father Anselm led the way across the hall, and into the dark corridor leading to the dear departed brother’s bedroom. He stood aside at the door, and let the policemen view the body without commentary on his part. In the dim, religious light he merely observed the three of them from behind hooded lids, and his face gave no indication of what opinion he might have come to.
The senior man advanced into the room, and then walked abruptly twice around the bed. The fair man merged with the long shadows in the corner of the room, but his eyes showed he was taking in every detail of the scene, and committing it to memory. The ferret stood a minute or two in intense meditation, and Father Anselm thought he could see his mouth twitching. Finally he spoke again.
‘Phone!’ he barked. Father Anselm bowed his head — his characteristic gesture — and led the way back to his office.
‘Chief Inspector Plunkett here,’ the policeman said in his Field-Marshal Montgomery voice as soon as he got through. ‘Right! I want photographers. I want fingerprint men. I want doctors. I want the whole caboodle. Right? Got that? At once.’
He banged the phone down.
‘You didn’t tell them where to,’ the police sergeant said.
Chief Inspector Plunkett glared at him, picked up the phone again, and barked: ‘We got cut off. Are you getting me? Right. We’re at the — ’ he paused, and seemed somehow to be clenching his teeth — ‘the Community of St Botolph’s. Right? I’ll send Forsyte to the gate. Right.’
During all this, Father Anselm had been getting a better look at Chief Inspector Plunkett. He was not an impressive figure, nor even a prepossessing one. For a start he was small — perhaps not absolutely small, but as policemen go. Perhaps, just as American Presidents are said to grow into their job, he had shrunk out of his. His uniform fitted badly, his complexion was like yesterday’s porridge, and he was losing his hair unevenly — in some places it had decided to put up a brave display of growth, in other places it had dispiritedly given up the struggle. His face was hollow, baggy, with eyes that sometimes seemed withdrawn in abstract contemplation, at other times to assume a look of rodent-like cunning.
The call over, Chief Inspector Plunkett despatched Sergeant Forsyte to the gate (‘Got that? Right. Be off!’) and threw himself down into Father Anselm’s chair behind the desk. As an afterthought he motioned Father Anselm himself towards the other chair in the room. After a moment of hesitation, Father Anselm sat down. His manner was becoming frosty, the line of his lips thinner. As he sat he gave Plunkett the sort of look that would have sent the Bishop of Peckham, in his current state of mind, off into a fit of hysterical apologetics. The look had no effect on Chief Inspector Plunkett.
‘His name?’ he snapped, with something of the parade-ground still in his manner.
‘Brother Dominic,’ answered Father Anselm, in his deep-frozen voice.
Chief Inspector Plunkett allowed a pause of a couple of seconds, then said in a voice that made no attempt to be pleasant: ‘I presume he had a real name?’
Father Anselm furrowed his brow. ‘I believe his name in the world was Denis Crowther,’ he said finally.
At this phrase ‘in the world’ Chief Inspector Plunkett licked his tongue round his lips like a lizard. Then he said: ‘And his position?’
‘He was my personal assistant.’
‘I see.’
‘And my probable successor.’
‘No ordinary brother, then.’
Father Anselm shot him a look. Plunkett was making no attempt to be soothing, or conciliatory: what was odder, there seemed something not far from a sneer in his voice. To let him know that he registered it, Father Anselm paused, before replying: ‘We do not make distinctions here.’
‘Really?’ said Plunkett. ‘But nevertheless you had marked him out as your successor?’
‘His was one of the names I have mentioned to the Bishop of Leeds. It is the Bishop who has the ultimate responsibility of nominating the head of the Community. He almost invariably takes the advice of the previous incumbent of the position, if it is available. The usual method in the Community is therefore to mention a few names as possibilities, perhaps changing t
hem periodically every three or four years, if for example death has intervened. This method prevents confusion in the event of the sudden death of the head of the Community. If, on the other hand, I decided to surrender office during my lifetime, I would of course discuss the matter in great detail with the Bishop.’
This long speech had not been made directly at Chief Inspector Plunkett. It seemed as if Father Anselm preferred not to look at him. At the end of it, Plunkett leaned forward in his desk, his eyes on the crucifix on the cupboard at the far end of the room, and seemed about to ask a question. But after a long silence, in which the small gold cross seemed to hold his eyes with a magnetic attention, Plunkett shook himself and seemed to try to drag his mind back to the matter in hand.
‘Who sleeps in this part of the building?’ he asked.
‘I myself, and then any guests we have. They sleep upstairs in the guest wing.’
‘But you sleep down here, do you?’ Plunkett leaned back in his chair. ‘Where? Next to him?’
‘That is so,’ said Father Anselm.
‘Hmmm. Why?’
‘He was my personal assistant,’ said Father Anselm, whose austerity of manner hadnow reached Crippsian proportions.
‘Hmmm,’ said Plunkett again.
• • •
Walking along the tree-lined path with the assembled technicians, Sergeant Forsyte said to no one in particular: ‘There’s going to be trouble with this case.’
‘What do you expect?’ said the fingerprint man. ‘Murder’s not a parking offence.’
‘There’s going to be trouble with Plunkett. We’re not going to be able to cover up for him this time.’
‘Why should there be trouble? I know they keep him off cases with blacks, but there won’t be any of them here.’
‘Religion,’ said Sergeant Forsyte gloomily. ‘It’s one of the bees in his bonnet. If we’re not careful there’ll be an almighty stink.’
‘What’s the matter, Forsyte? Are you embarrassed for the credit of the force?’ said the doctor, with a little guffaw, for it was well-known that Sergeant Forsyte, if not exactly bent, was hardly ideally straight.
‘I’m afraid of scandal,’ said Forsyte. ‘And where does that leave us? Subjects of scrutiny, that’s what. If he goes down, others may go down with him. We’ll have to get Croft to pass the word on higher up.’
‘Ah well, Plunkett’s Last Case,’ said the doctor. ‘Let’s hope it’s a good ’un.’
• • •
By this stage of the interview Father Anselm was standing up. He towered over Chief Inspector Plunkett, glooming, gaunt, and disapproving. If he hoped to gain thus a moral advantage, or to intimidate the policeman, he seemed for once to have failed. Plunkett hardly seemed to notice him, being wrapped in contemplations of his own, from which questions occasionally emerged, but ones which needed some sort of key, if their rhyme or reason was to be discovered. Father Anselm felt he was beginning to have a notion of what that key was.
‘If you have nothing more to ask me,’ said Father Anselm, after an unusually long period of silence, ‘I shall go to my bed.’
Plunkett turned his head in his direction, blinked for a few seconds as if trying to remember who he was, then said, ‘Not on your life.’ He dragged a packet of cigarettes from his pocket, and lit one with hands that were not quite steady. Father Anselm (who, if the truth were known, would very much have liked a smoke himself) remained immovable, and tried to conceal his strong feelings of distaste.
‘That blood on the door-handle,’ said Chief Inspector Plunkett, after a couple of draws. ‘How did it get there?’
‘I have reason to believe,’ said Father Anselm, ‘that it came off the hands of the Bishop of Mitabezi.’
‘Mitter-whatsit?’ said Chief Inspector Plunkett.
‘Mitabezi,’ said Father Anselm, quite naturally. ‘It’s a province in Central Africa, I believe.’
‘Africa.’ Plunkett darted his tongue around his lips in a now familiar manner. ‘And would this . . . er . . . Bishop of Mitabezi be a . . . coloured gentleman?’
‘He is an African, yes,’ said Father Anselm.
A dreadful smile came over Chief Inspector Plunkett’s face, more terrible than any of his previous expressions, because it revealed his teeth, like two semi-circles of druidical stones which had not been taken under the protection of the Department of the Environment. ‘Well,’ he said, expanding into geniality and almost rubbing his hands, ‘I suppose that’s pretty conclusive. If you know the blood is his, the case is as good as closed. Eh? I’ll just collect Forsyte and Croft, and then you can take us to him. Right?’
‘I fear not,’ said Father Anselm slowly.
‘Why not? Don’t tell me the bird has flown.’ Chief Inspector Plunkett turned round as the door opened and Inspector Croft came in, quiet, cat-like as usual. ‘The blood belongs to some black bishop,’ said Plunkett to Croft. ‘And they’ve let him go.’
At the mention of a black bishop, Father Anselm thought he saw a flicker of apprehension pass over Croft’s face. It was the first sign of human emotion he had discerned.
‘I did not say we had let him go,’ he explained. ‘I meant that it’s not as simple as that. The blood came from the Bishop of Mitabezi’s hands, but it is not, I think, the blood of Brother Dominic.’
‘God in heaven, man,’ said Chief Inspector Plunkett with pardonable exasperation. ‘How many corpses have you got lying around here tonight?’
Father Anselm explained, in a level, passionless tone, the appearance of the Bishop of Mitabezi at the hall door, the blood, the chanting, the putting him to bed — and the finding of the slaughtered lamb immediately before the police knocked at the gate. Plunkett listened avidly, his lizard tongue sometimes flitting out to wet his lips, his pitted brown hands now quite obviously shaking. At the end of the narrative he cast off some of his hard-boiled shell, and let it become clear that he had been impressed.
‘So what you’re saying is, there was some sort of ritual sacrifice of this lamb, eh?’
Father Anselm nodded.
‘It doesn’t surprise me,’ said Plunkett, with something close to relish. ‘If you’d seen the things I’ve seen, eh, Croft?’ Inspector Croft made no response, and looked as if he would infinitely rather not have been consulted. Plunkett pulled himself away from the contemplation of what he had seen, or thought he’d seen, and tried to focus his mind on the business in hand. ‘So what it boils down to is this: last night, for some reason no doubt connected with some disgusting tribal custom, he slaughtered a poor, innocent lamb, and then — what? — then he went on and slaughtered your Mr Denis Crowther? Eh?’
Father Anselm sighed, and it was not for Plunkett’s determined secularization of Brother Dominic. ‘That is for you to prove, of course,’ he said.
‘Exactly! Won’t take much proving either.’
‘But I should have thought that so far we have proof only that the Bishop killed the lamb. And of course, as for that business, the Community will not press charges.’
‘So I presume you don’t think he also killed your secretary-valet, eh?’ asked Chief Inspector Plunkett in a bellicose manner. ‘Why, may I ask?’
‘The blood around the bam. He made no attempt to hide it — from what we observed, he was in no condition to do so: he was completely in a trance. There would certainly have been some blood leading from Brother Dominic’s room, if he had murdered him in the same state. But as you will have observed, there was none.’
Chief Inspector Plunkett muttered something in Croft’s direction that sounded suspiciously like ‘Father Brown’. Then he said: ‘I suppose you also know who it was, if it wasn’t the black.’
It went through Father Anselm’s mind that the Chief Inspector’s manner had passed beyond the limits of allowable police rudeness, and that he ought to complain to his superiors and get him taken off the case — and preferably off any case. Then it struck him that it was hardly up to the suspects to choose their own detective — an
d anyway . . . He merely answered: ‘I have no idea.’
‘Anyone could have got into his room?’
‘There are no locks on the door — none on any of the doors to the cells. However, the outside door, which you came through, is locked, and the door into the brothers’ sleeping wing. For purposes of security. Therefore it does seem certain that whoever it was was someone from this central part of the building.’
‘Meaning either you, or one of the guests.’
‘Precisely,’ said Father Anselm, this time not bothering to proclaim his own innocence. Inspector Croft seemed about to ask a question, but he cast a look at his superior, and seemed to think better of it. Plunkett sat in meditation, his mouth screwed up with effort, or distaste.
‘Who are these guests, then?’ he asked finally.
‘They are delegates to a sort of symposium-cum-retreat. The subject is “The Role of the Church in the Modern World”.’
‘You mean a sort of discussion group?’
‘Exactly. We try to keep these groups small, in order not to destroy the atmosphere of St Botolph’s. Some of the delegates are English — priests of the Church of England, and the Bishop of Peckham — some are from abroad: America, Africa and Norway.’
‘How long have they been here?’
‘Two nights.’
‘And were any of them acquainted with this . . . Denis Crowther before they came?’
‘Not as far as I am aware.’
‘Someone seems to have taken an instant dislike then, don’t they? Well, I’m going to have to see them all at some time. Have to see how the scientific boys are getting along first. They may have it all tied up. You got any questions, Croft?’
‘I presume you’ve been over how the body came to be found, have you, sir, and what — ’
‘Yes. Been over all that,’ barked Plunkett cavalierly. He waved his hand in Father Anselm’s direction. ‘You can go.’
Dismissed from his own office, Father Anselm stood for a moment outside the door. That had been a near thing. For Plunkett had not in fact asked him how he came to go to Brother Dominic’s room and find the body in the middle of the night. Definitely he would not yet complain to this man’s superiors about his conduct of the case.
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