The Unburied

by Charles Palliser

  Without revealing my astonishment at this remark, I persevered: ‘But the singing-boys are gifted musicians, are they not? They must be rewarding pupils.’

  ‘If the choirmaster knew his business that might be the case. But since he has no understanding of music he chooses boys for anything but their voices and abilities.’ He smiled dazzlingly and added: ‘And bit by bit I find myself adapting to the mediocrity that is all one can expect in a devilish hole of a town like this.’

  At that moment, Austin returned, carrying the drinks. He glanced at his friend – uneasily, I thought – as he caught his last words.

  ‘Have you lived here long?’ I asked.

  ‘About eight or nine years. I first came because I have kin ...’ He broke off and glanced at Austin before saying: ‘I should say, I had kin living here. Only my damnable sloth has kept me here. I’m like a whelk that crawls into the corner of a rock-pool and stays there not because of any affinity with its surroundings but because it’s too bone-idle to move.’

  ‘Are whelks bone-idle?’ I wondered, smiling at the image.

  ‘Do they have bones?’ he parried, and drank from his glass with a grin.

  ‘There are worse places to live than an English cathedral town,’ I ventured.

  ‘And better. Places with laughter, music and sunlight in the streets.’

  ‘You are speaking of Italy?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Do you know it well?’ I asked.

  ‘Not as well as I hope to. I spent the happiest year of my life there. For one thing, the most interesting English people live there. All those, for example, who don’t fit into the neat pigeon-holes that Protestantism imposes upon us – couples which consist of a man who is legally married to a woman. That’s where I met Fickling.’

  ‘Really? I assumed you met here.’

  ‘No, in fact, we first knew each other in Italy. The connection is the other way round for it was Fickling who helped me to obtain my post at the Cathedral. We were introduced by mutual friends in Florence who knew that we both had a connection with this town. You see, I happened to mention that I had just come from a brief and rather unrewarding visit to my relative here. So, as you may imagine, Italy has many happy memories for me. They have such a love of music, the Italians. And such understanding of it. Whereas here I play worse with every day that passes since I play for nobody who is capable of judging well. And because, badly as I play, I never hear anyone play better. I’ve come to hate my own playing.’

  ‘Not as much as the congregation,’ Austin said.

  ‘Then all sides will be equally delighted that the organ won’t be in use for a couple of weeks.’ Then he added softly: ‘Not that I am likely to play it again, anyway.’

  ‘Will it take as long as that to repair it?’ Austin asked.

  ‘Do you know what,’ Slattery said, ignoring that question but favouring Austin with a smile that included me in his confidence; ‘I’ve found out from that idiot, Bulmer, the Surveyor, why the workmen caused all that trouble. On Tuesday evening some meddling visitor to the Cathedral suggested to that tiresome old man, Gazzard, that they would do more damage by following their original intentions than if they adopted the course which has turned out to be so disastrous. Gazzard – be damned to him for an interfering old blockhead – passed that piece of advice to Sisterson since it happened that Bulmer was away burying one of his innumerable siblings. So the Sacrist, like the cursed fool he is, ordered the men to change course and so brought all this trouble down upon his foolish head.’

  ‘I suspect the advice was not followed correctly,’ I said. ‘And to have persevered with the original plan might have had even more unfortunate consequences.’

  ‘It’s hard to imagine how even that dunce, Bulmer, could have created a worse situation. Now they’re having to prop up parts of the floor and the wall in the transept and the devil alone knows where it will all end. They might bring the whole damned edifice crashing about their silly ears. But what do I care now?’

  He laughed and drained a long draught of his ale. I caught Austin’s eye and he looked away.

  ‘Do you have one of those charming houses in the Close, Mr Slattery?’ I enquired, hoping to pilot the conversation into less controversial waters. ‘They are very picturesque.’

  ‘Unfortunately not. Fickling’s miserable hovel is a bishop’s palace compared with mine. I have rooms in a shabby little street near here.’

  Following a train of thought of my own, I said at a venture: ‘Your wife must regret that your post does not bring with it one of those pretty old houses beside the Cathedral.’

  ‘My wife?’ He smiled in amazement and then raised his head and laughed. ‘La dame n’existe pas.’

  Austin looked down. Had I misunderstood the conversation I had overheard in the bar? Surely they had spoken of Slattery having a wife?

  ‘I know what it is,’ Slattery said, baring his vulpine teeth in a smile. ‘You’ve heard people talking about me. You’ve picked up some of the venomous gossip that this town lives on. What did they say?’

  I rarely make hasty judgements, but I decided that I didn’t like Slattery at all. He had an air of having spent much of his time in public-bars that didn’t appeal to me. He veered between boastfulness and delusions of persecution and gave the impression that he felt entitled to a comfortable living without the necessity of working for it. I had known not a few undergraduates like him – embittered younger sons or scions of families that had lost their wealth. I was saddened that such a man should be an intimate friend of Austin’s.

  ‘Stow it, Martin,’ Austin said.

  ‘Who was it? Did that old woman, Locard, say something? Fickling tells me you’ve become very thick with him.’

  The young man was intolerable. ‘No, I assure you, Mr Slattery, I haven’t discussed you with anyone. Why should I? I hardly knew of your existence until just now.’

  ‘This town is filled with the most poisonous gossips, and you’ve met at least three of them: Locard, his fawning catamite Quitregard, and that babbling brook, Sisterson.’

  ‘People gossip in every enclosed society, and not all such talk is malign,’ I said mildly. ‘But one can ignore that. In fact, one can learn to ignore many things. Don’t you find that one really needs very little to be content? Books, concerts, a few good friends.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, I don’t find that at all. Life should be an affair of drama, excitement. Most people spend their lives half asleep leading an existence devoid of passion, never taking risks. They might as well be dead.’

  Without quite knowing why, I found myself getting angry. ‘I find all the excitement I need in literature, in history, in music.’

  He merely looked at me with what I interpreted as a silent sneer.

  ‘Doesn’t anyone with imagination find enough interest in the most ordinary things in life?’ I went on. ‘The safest life – a life of what to others might seem contemptible ordinariness – can be filled with unperceived drama.’

  ‘Is any life safe?’ he demanded. ‘Surely we are all of us walking along a path in the mist and sometimes a gust of wind sweeps it aside and we see that we are on the knife-edge of a ridge with a fall of hundreds of feet on either side.’

  I looked at him in astonishment. Before I could respond Austin said: ‘You’re saying the same thing, both of you.’

  We turned to him in surprise. ‘You’re saying, Courtine, that there’s excitement and drama beneath the surface of everyone’s life. That’s all that Slattery was pointing out.’

  I was about to respond when there was an interruption. A man hurried into the bar and called out to his friends in the opposite corner: ‘There’s something up across the road at the old feller’s place.’

  He and two of his companions went and stood at the window beside ours. We looked out and saw that there were about a dozen people gathered around the door of a house on the other side of the street, spilling into the carriageway so that they would have obstructe
d passing vehicles if there had been any. Among the crowd were two police-officers, one of whom was hammering at the door with his knuckles.

  ‘I wonder what can be happening,’ Slattery drawled.

  As we watched a man came hurrying up carrying a mallet.

  ‘Stranger and stranger,’ Slattery commented. Then he said to Austin: ‘Isn’t it that queer old bird’s place? What’s his name?’

  Austin shook his head as if he had no idea what his friend was talking about.

  ‘I say,’ Slattery said raising his voice and leaning back in his chair towards the men at the other window. ‘Whose house is that over the way?’

  ‘That’s old Mr Stonex, the banker, sir,’ said one of the three men looking out of the other window.

  ‘That’s the fellow,’ Slattery said to us.

  Of course! It was the street-front of the house we had just come from. I had not recognized it since I had seen it only from the rear. I looked at Austin who took a drink from his glass.

  ‘We were there not an hour ago,’ I said.

  ‘Were you indeed? Well, I’ll be damned. Do you have any idea what it can be about?’

  ‘Not the least in the world.’

  There was a sudden loud noise and I saw that one of the officers was attempting to break down the street-door with the mallet under the instructions of the other who, I now noticed, was a sergeant.

  ‘Don’t you think we should make ourselves known to the officers?’ I asked Austin. ‘We might be able to help.’

  He shook his head to indicate doubt or the lack of any view. But Slattery said: ‘I believe you should. It would look deuced rum to come forward later.’

  Leaving our glasses of beer unfinished, we went out into the street and crossed over to where a small crowd was gathered. I pushed my way through the onlookers and approached the Sergeant who was watching the constable’s efforts to smash through the door. I explained to the Sergeant that Austin and I had been in the house less than an hour before and he was very interested. I turned to beckon forward my two companions and introduced them. The officer nodded and said: ‘I know Mr Fickling, of course. And I had the honour of making your acquaintance last Tuesday night, did I not, Mr Slattery?’

  Slattery bowed deeply and gave the officer a charming smile: ‘The honour was entirely mine, Sergeant, although the occasion was less happy than could have been desired.’

  ‘It was at Canon Sheldrick’s,’ the officer explained to me. ‘There was an unfortunate incident in which a number of miniatures were stolen.’

  ‘I heard about that,’ I remarked to Austin who turned away.

  ‘Have they been recovered, Sergeant,’ Slattery asked, ‘as a consequence of your impressive professional endeavours?’

  The officer looked at him coldly and said: ‘As a matter of fact, Mr Slattery, they have not. Though I have a shrewd suspicion as to what happened to them.’

  ‘Shrewdness is what I would expect of you,’ Slattery said with his most charming smile.

  The conversation was punctuated by the regular crash of the mallet.

  ‘Where is Mr Stonex?’ I asked.

  ‘That’s the question, sir,’ the Sergeant replied.

  An old woman who had been standing beside him all the while began to speak: ‘I’ve never knowed nothing like it. The gentleman is so regular in his ways.’

  ‘This is Mrs Bubbosh,’ said the Sergeant. ‘She comes every day to cook and clean.’

  ‘And I come as usual just now to cook the old gentleman’s supper but he didn’t answer the door, even though I hammered and hammered until my fist hurt. That ain’t never happened before.’

  ‘What time was that?’ the Sergeant asked.

  ‘Why, just a few minutes before six, as always. So I wondered if something had come up sudden at the Bank and he’d been sent for so I went down there and spoke to Mr Wattam’ – nodding at a neatly-dressed man standing beside her – ‘but he said no.’

  ‘Mr Stonex has never failed to return to the Bank at a few minutes after six in my entire experience,’ said the man. ‘And that goes back nearly thirty years. I’m Mr Wattam, gentlemen, and have the honour to be the managing-clerk at the Thurchester and County Bank.’

  The Sergeant and the three of us shook hands all round and Mr Wattam continued: ‘I was so alarmed by what this good woman told me that I came back here. We banged on the door for some time and then went round to the back-door but found that it also was locked. Then we sent a boy to the station-house for the officers.’

  As we were speaking the crowd was increasing and by now there were about twenty gawping onlookers.

  ‘Now you know as much as I do, sir,’ the Sergeant said to me.

  At that moment the constable swinging the mallet succeeded in breaking through one of the panels of the door. He kicked it until he had made enough space to permit access. The Sergeant stooped and went in through the gap, giving instructions to his colleague that nobody else should enter until he had returned.

  ‘This is very strange,’ I said to my companions. ‘He was in perfect health when we took leave of him. Was he not, Austin?’

  My friend nodded gravely.

  Slattery smiled. ‘I dare say he was called away on sudden business. When he gets back and finds his house broken into and a crowd of idle busybodies blocking the road, I venture to suggest that even his legendary good humour will falter.’

  ‘Is he reputed so good-humoured?’ I began, when I realized that he was being ironic. And yet the old gentleman had seemed perfectly amiable that afternoon.

  At that moment the Sergeant’s face – distinctly pale now – emerged rather incongruously at about the height of my waist as he crawled through the broken panel. He got to his feet and dusted his knees. The constable came up to him as if awaiting orders but the Sergeant seemed to be ignoring him as he glanced around at us. Almost by accident, as it seemed, his gaze fell on Mr Wattam. ‘Send for a surgeon,’ he stammered to him in a low voice. The clerk stood hesitating as if wondering whether to ask a question. ‘Quickly, man,’ the Sergeant said softly, and Mr Wattam hurried away.

  ‘Is the old gentleman unwell?’ I asked.

  The Sergeant merely shook his head. He took a deep breath and sat down very abruptly on the doorstep. As if to conceal his superior’s incapacity, the constable began to wave the onlookers away from the door. ‘Move along, please,’ he urged. ‘Don’t block the carriageway.’

  Unwillingly the crowd of mainly men and boys shuffled off and stood on the pavement a few yards away trying to look as if they had quite unrelated reasons for happening to be there. After a moment the Sergeant beckoned the other officer over. They conferred briefly in whispers. I saw the younger man’s face slacken and his mouth hang open. Then he knelt down and began to crawl through the smashed panel.

  ‘Dick,’ the Sergeant called out softly. ‘First thing of all, go and check the back-door is still locked.’ The constable nodded and disappeared through the gap.

  ‘Is there just them two doors?’ the Sergeant asked Mrs Bubbosh – his grammar deteriorating in his state of shock. She nodded.

  Mrs Bubbosh caught my eye and I seemed to see in her face the sudden realization that this was more serious than the rather enjoyable experience which had briefly made her the centre of attention. Austin had put his hands over his face and turned away. I noticed that Slattery had gripped his arm and seemed to be shaking him while he whispered in his ear.

  At that moment two young constables came up and one of them shouted out: ‘We got your message, Sarge, and come as soon as we could.’

  The words faded on his lips as he caught sight of his colleague who rose unsteadily to his feet and beckoned both officers aside.

  The crowd – now consisting of about thirty people – was talking loudly, perhaps resenting their exclusion. On the other hand, those of us in the little group nearest the door who felt we had some sort of semi-official status – Mrs Bubbosh, the man who had brought the mallet, Slattery, Austin and
myself – stayed silent as we watched the three officers, straining to catch their low-voiced conversation. I was just about to demand that we be told what was happening when the constable who had been addressed as Dick crawled through the door. As he joined his colleagues I heard him say: ‘The back-door’s locked, Sergeant. And I can’t find none of the keys.’

  The Sergeant nodded and said to the man who had lent the mallet: ‘Smash down the rest of it, for God’s sake, will you?’

  The man took up the implement and began to swing it against the remaining parts of the door. The frame gave way before the panels eventually splintered.

  At that moment a thin young man carrying a black bag hurried up with Mr Wattam and spoke for a moment to the Sergeant. Then the two of them entered the house while the three constables were left to guard the door. The Sergeant reappeared a minute later and sent one of the younger officers to the railway-station to dispatch a telegram.

  When he had hurried off the Sergeant took Mrs Bubbosh by the elbow and began to lead her towards the door. As he did so he turned to the rest of us: ‘Would you come in too, please, gentlemen.’

  ‘All of us?’ I asked.

  ‘If you please. You three gentlemen appear to have been the last visitors to the house.’

  ‘Not this gentleman,’ I said, indicating Slattery who had shown no sign of resolving the misunderstanding.

  ‘You weren’t in the house with the other gentlemen this afternoon, Mr Slattery?’ the Sergeant asked.

  ‘Indeed I was not.’

  ‘Where were you, sir?’

  ‘Let me think. I was playing the piano at choir practice from about half-past four until five o’clock. And then the Cathedral organ for three-quarters of an hour. Rather a large number of people heard me on both occasions.’

  ‘Oh yes, you were playing at the ceremony for the new organ,’ the Sergeant said.