Close Quarters (2 page)

The jury had felt strongly that they should assert themselves with a rider, and had toyed with a suggestion that a strong iron fence should be erected to raise the total height of the balustrade to six feet. However, realising that this was very unlikely to recommend itself to the authorities, they had contented themselves with a verdict of accidental death and a vote of sympathy for the children of the deceased.

It was really surprising, reflected the Dean, how quickly the excitement had died down. Canon Whyte was a widower, and most providentially his two children were in any case due to have left Melchester in the near future, and had in fact done so shortly afterwards. The daughter, Joan, to be married, and the son to enter the diplomatic service.

Downstairs in the Dean's study stood a very handsome medieval Italian triptych. This had come to him under Canon Whyte's will. The money, of course, had all gone to the two children, but most of his colleagues had been remembered with some small legacy in kind. Six fine oil paintings had gone to Hinkey, who was – or, who fancied himself to be – a connoisseur of the arts. And to his particular friend, Canon Trumpington, Whyte had left all his books. Not a large library, but some of the volumes were valuable – not the collection of a bibliophile but of a widely cultured man who bought books to read as well as for the pleasure of standing them on shelves. Trumpington had been the natural recipient for these. His friendship with Whyte had started with a common passion for
The Times
crossword puzzle, and ripened when they discovered in each other a mutual admiration for the works of Boswell.

This more pleasant trend to the Dean's thoughts had again made him sleepy. This time he really was on the point of dropping off when it seemed to his drowsy senses that someone had started working on a typewriter. Not a very expert practitioner, thought the Dean drowsily. Tap-tap-tappity-tap. Picking out the letters with one finger. A staccato pattering. The unseen typist was improving now, and the tapping became faster. A very vivid flash of lightning awoke the Dean to the fact that a succession of huge thunder drops were pattering on to the linoleum through his wide open window, and further to the realisation that the storm was on them at last. He climbed out of bed.

Successive flashes were lighting the world outside with the clarity of full day. The rain was pelting down now and the thunder almost continuous. Looking up, he reflected, not for the first time, on the very real extent to which the people of Melchester Close lay beneath the shadow and protection of the Cross – the great bronze cross on the spire of the cathedral, which even now was attracting to itself the lightnings of heaven and conducting them safely to earth.

As he lowered his eyes a particularly bright flash illuminated the whole Close, and the Dean saw a man standing in the road at the corner of the precinct wall, in front of and a little to the right of his front gate. A momentary impression, then darkness again. Impatiently the Dean waited for the next flash. He was moderately certain that he had recognised the figure. The lightning flared out again, but the roadway was empty. A moment after, however, a light went up in the front room of the cottage on his left. He had been right. Verger Parvin was up late.

Leaving a fraction of the window open the Dean turned and made his way back to bed. His feet padded across the linoleum which entirely covered his rather spartan bedroom. He climbed into bed. He suddenly felt very tired. Despite the closing of the window the air was cooler now. But his mind would not rest – like a great dynamo that has been turning at frantic speed, but from which the motive power has been cut off, the process of his troubled thoughts continued of its own momentum but to a rhythm which slackened and grew slower. ‘Something is rotten in the state of Denmark,' said his mind. And then, ‘Something is rotten in the Close of Melchester.' Verger Appledown, Vicar Choral Malthus, Vicar Choral Prynne, and Verger Parvin. Parvin was out late. ‘Men must not walk too late.' Canon Trumpington, Canon Fox, Canon Beech-Thompson, Canon Bloss, and old Uncle Hinkey and all.

Bloss. Thompson. Fox. Trumpington.
Trumpington. Fox. Thompson. Bloss.
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
The wheels were slowing now.

Outside, the rain streamed down and the thunder cracked and slithered about the darkened sky. The last light in the Close went out, and still the lightning flared and danced round the cathedral cross.

The Dean slept.

And as he slept he had a most disquieting dream. Appledown was running. Running for dear life across the wide cathedral lawn. Behind him glided the sinister figure of Canon Bloss, armed only with a huge typewriter on which he was typing a message. Against his will the Dean forced himself to look over Canon Bloss' shoulder, but all he could see was a jumble of figures, numbers, exclamations, and percentage marks. This annoyed him so much that he put his lips quite close to Canon Bloss' left ear and bellowed, ‘What does it all mean?' Upon which Bloss turned into Vicar Choral Prynne and answered slowly, ‘It means anything you can make out of it – take it or leave it.'

When the Dean woke next morning it was bright and cool. He remembered that he had had a disturbed night, but the details were blurred. He knew from experience that he would pay for his broken rest by an overwhelming lassitude at three o'clock that afternoon, but at the moment his mind felt particularly clear and vigorous. He viewed his troubles and found that they had shrunk.

This cheerfulness lasted him over his solitary breakfast, and it was a summer morning's face that he turned on the house-maid when she came to clear away the plates, and volunteered the information that “‘Ubbard was in the ‘all and would like to see ‘im.” William Lovejoy Hubbard, the Dean's gardener and factotum, was a man of parts – a massive north-countryman and a native of the most phlegmatic county in England. He appeared to be faintly upset.

Without a word he led the Dean out of the front door and across the lawn. A mellow wall, of the same grey stone as had made the cathedral, separated the Dean's front garden on the east from that of Doctor Mickie, the organist. When he had reached the wall and adjusted his spectacles, the Dean fully understood his gardener's distress. For painted on it, in great red letters nearly two feet high, was the legend:

WHO FORGOT TO LOCK THE CLOISTER DOOR?
APPLEDOWN, OF COURSE.

Master and man digested this surprising sight in silence for some seconds.

‘It'll take a deal of getting out,' said Hubbard morosely.

‘Has anyone seen this?' asked the Dean.

‘Not yet,' said Hubbard. ‘They will, though. I don't see ‘ow they can ‘ardly miss it.'

The Dean thought rapidly.

‘You must do your best to scrape it off,' he said finally. ‘Cover it up for the moment as well as you can.'

In his guilty haste he felt almost as if they were two Eugene Arams disposing of an unwanted body.

‘What a scandalous thing!' Absent-mindedly he ran a finger over one of the vivid letters. The wall was still wet from the rain of the night, but the colouring was dry and set.

With a profound sigh the Dean returned to the house and shut himself in his study. He acknowledged the crisis. Gently but very firmly had fate lain on the last straw.

The foreboding of the night before, which had vanished for a moment at the touch of the morning sun, were back again now with a vengeance. Where was it going to end? asked the Dean. But all the time he had a most disquieting notion of how it
might
end.

Appledown was an old man, and old people were at the same time more susceptible to the barbed shafts of this poisonous sort of persecution and more ready to take the easy way out. Illogically, perhaps, but unpleasantly, the Dean here thought of Canon Whyte's crumpled body lying on the flagstones. He felt that action was demanded, and for the first time he faced the unpleasant thought of the police. They would have to be brought in – perhaps they should have been brought in before.

His hand was actually stretched for the telephone when he had an inspiration. Bobby Pollock! Bobby was the Dean's nephew, the youngest son of his youngest (and favourite) sister. Bobby had joined the Metropolitan Police Force, and not through the pleasant portals of Hendon College either. The Dean had not seen him for some years, but had heard that he was attached to Scotland and doing well.

A lack of knowledge of police procedure caused the Dean a moment's hesitation. Could one call in Scotland Yard over the heads of the local police? The Chief Constable of Melchester, the Dean remembered vaguely, was an ex-regular, with strong ideas on the importance of his own position and the necessity of closing licensed premises on the stroke of ten. He did not imagine him to be the sort of man who would take kindly to any usurpation of authority.

But stay – why make it an official matter at all? Why should not Bobby take two or three days' holiday and stop with his uncle? A discreet inquiry by a trained man would quickly settle the affair, and if not, at least it would frighten the practical joker, and it could all be extremely unofficial. The Dean reflected that he possessed at least one influential connection at the Home Office. He felt confident that the matter could be arranged.

Leaving the telephone, therefore, he sat down to compose three letters. Firstly, an official invitation to Bobby to visit Melchester for a few days, which could, if necessary, be shown to inquisitive superiors. Secondly, a less official one, setting out for Bobby's edification alone, the true facts of the case. Thirdly and lastly, a highly official one to Sir Marmaduke Felling, O.B.E., one of His Majesty's Undersecretaries of State for Home Affairs.

‘And that,' said the Dean, ‘shelves the matter for twenty-four hours at least.'

The thought was premature.

A letter came for the Dean that night. It was in a plain, un-addressed, rather cheap envelope, and an unknown hand pushed it through his letter-box some time after seven in the evening. It was written in a thin, unformed hand on cheap fined paper, and stated simply:

Mr. Busybody Appledown has lived too long. Someone will get him soon if he doesn't look out.

But unlike the other effusions this one was signed with a bold “J.B.”

2

CLEARING THE GROUND

The evidence of vice and virtue are not confined to famous accomplishments: Often some trivial event, a word, a joke, will serve better than great campaigns as a revelation of character.
P
LUTARCH
.

‘Even a straw,' concluded the Dean, ‘will show you which way the wind is blowing. And as there's never smoke without fire—'

‘Nor bricks without straw,' agreed Sergeant Pollock of the Criminal Investigation Department pleasantly. ‘Let's have all the facts.'

Uncle and nephew faced each other across the table in the Dean's library-cum-study. It was a pleasant room – tolerant, not over-academic. Marcus Aurelius and Jeremy Bentham looked down from adjacent shelves. Benjamin Disraeli, the Dean's large black cat, reclined across the round patch of sunlight which fell on the carpet and watched the two men with a deceptive leer.

He was a knowing animal, incredibly wise in the ways of mankind, and he realised that these two beings – apparently addressing themselves briskly to the work in hand – were really engaged in the age-old pursuit of summing each other up, as he himself had summed up many a possible ally or potential rival in his moonlight rhodomontades and dark witches' sabbaths.

How the lad had grown, thought the Dean. The power of the young to grow was a constant source of surprise to him. It seemed a very short time ago that he had been visiting him at school with a half-sovereign. A few years in London had not only added inches to his stature – they had hardened him and refined him into something which looked to the Dean uncommonly like a man. He seemed competent. Not officious, exactly, yet very efficient. For a moment the Dean experienced the touch of disquiet. Here was no kindly nephew who would ask a few questions for his uncle and then retire discreetly, but a modern police officer. The sort of man who probably delighted in leaving no stone unturned. And underneath stones – large flat stones – even the stones of Melchester, there lived all manner of slimy things. Would it not perhaps be better to send him back – now, immediately? Laugh the matter off. A foolish old uncle, making mountains out of molehills. It could be done. It would be so easy to say that the culprit had confessed, that the Chapter had decided, in the best interests of the cathedral, to hush the matter up. Give the boy a few days of real holiday. The Dean, had he known it, held a good deal of human happiness and unhappiness in his hands at that moment.

Sergeant Pollock secretly approved of his uncle. Indeed, he admired in him several most worldly qualities which that cleric would have been the first to disclaim, but he was determined not to be put down by him. This was to be an ordinary routine job, quite uncomplicated by any considerations of affinity.

It was going to be awkward enough without anything of that sort. Anonymous letters! Broadsheets! Unknown sign-painters and comic flags! The thing was miles removed from an honest job of police work. He was not even sure what particular crime or misdemeanour any of the incidents amounted to. Obscenity? Threats with intent to procure … what? That was the question. There must be some reason behind the silly business. Criminal libel? On the whole, it would be better to pin it to the letters. “Misuse of His Majesty's mails” covered a multitude of sins. However, there were consolations. It should prove a respite. A real and badly needed holiday after that rather beastly affair which had been occupying his attention for the last two months. Melchester would prove a decided contrast to Kentish Town. Of course, even in that affair Hazlerigg had done the real work. Good old Hazlerigg. He was the man to have behind you on a nasty case. As solid as the Tower of London, with a first-rate brain behind that deceptively sanguine façade. The finest chief inspector at the Yard. Well, he could manage a little case like this off his own bat, thank you. As a dabbler in amateur psychology he had already classified the affair as “spontaneous social combustion,” the result of a community thrown too much into its own company. It would have been difficult for him to have been more completely wrong.

The Dean consulted his diary.

‘We'd better take the letters first,' he said. ‘I'm afraid most of the recipients destroyed them as soon as they got them, but I've collected two for you. And mine makes a third. As a matter of fact it was only when the business became public property that I discovered about some of them. As far as I can make it out the sequence was as follows; Canon Hinkey, our Precentor, got the first – it came on the morning of September the ninth. Two days later Canon Bloss got one. Then Parvin got one, on the fourteenth. A very unpleasant little letter accusing Appledown of consorting with Mrs. Parvin. He naturally brought it to me, and actually that was the first one I saw. I advised him to burn it and forget about it. I'm afraid,' added the Dean parenthetically, ‘that a good deal of valuable evidence was destroyed in that sort of way, but I suppose that's always the way at the beginning of an affair like this.'

He referred again to his diary.

‘Canon Trumpington got one on the fifteenth, and Canon Fox got one the day after. Neither of them said anything to me at the time, and I'm fairly certain that both letters were destroyed. Mrs. Judd was the next. She was very upset about it and brought the letter over immediately. It was then that I made inquiries and found out about the earlier ones. There was a lull after that, but I have a note that Canon Prynne showed me one he had received on the morning of Monday the twentieth. He seemed rather pleased about it than otherwise and proposed publishing it in the Diocesan Gazette. However, I dissuaded him from such an unseemly course, and he handed it over to me. That was the last letter.'

Pollock checked over the notes he had made.

‘Before we go on,' he said, ‘I had an idea that you had only four canons at Melchester.'

‘That is correct,' agreed the Dean.

Pollock looked puzzled, and referred again to his notes.

‘You have already mentioned five,' he said.

‘I might have mentioned eight,' said the Dean kindly. ‘Let me explain. We have four principal canons. But the Precentor in this foundation is a minor canon, as are also the three vicars choral. They are all referred to as canons indiscriminately.'

‘I see,' said Pollock guardedly, ‘then which are your four canons-in-chief?'

‘Canons residentiary,' corrected the Dean gently. ‘Bloss, Trumpington, Beech-Thompson, and Fox. Hinkey is Precentor and minor canon. Prynne, Malthus, and Halliday are the vicars choral and minor canons also. Their job is to sing the services. They are on duty for a fortnight at a time – or are supposed to be,' he added, as the defection of Canon Malthus crossed his mind.

Pollock did not accept the gambit, but simply remarked: ‘That doesn't sound as if they were overworked.'

‘Of course, they have other jobs as well – chaplaincies in the town. Prynne and Halliday both teach at the choir school.'

‘Choir school,' said Pollock, looking up sharply, ‘I didn't know you kept schoolboys in the Close. You don't think perhaps that they may have been responsible—'

‘Certainly not,' said the Dean firmly. ‘The tone of some of the letters! Most improbable. You'll understand when you read them.'

‘Still, it's a possibility,' persisted Pollock, who worked in a district of London where “small boy” was synonymous with all the dirtier and more tiresome types of mischief. ‘Please go on.'

‘The headmaster, Dr. Smallhorn, has a house next to the school. The boys sleep in the school building itself. There are only sixteen boarders – all choristers – besides a few day boys. A most respectable type of lad,' he added severely, for Pollock's unworthy suspicions still rankled. ‘Many of them sons of the clergy of the diocese. Canon Fox's eldest son has just entered the school,' he went on, in the tone of one who plays a trump card.

‘Masters?' suggested Pollock, with a vague idea of an irresponsible undergraduate element in the Close.

‘Only a visiting master who comes in the morning,' said the Dean, ‘and, as I said, Prynne and Halliday help with the teaching. The musical side is run by our organist, Dr. Mickie – he has the house next to mine, by the way. I'll take you out and point out the lie of the land in a moment. The vergers, Appledown, Parvin, and Morgan, all have cottages.'

The Dean paused, and Pollock, who had been scribbling desperately but methodically, looked up.

‘By the way, who was that massive warrior who saluted me at the gate when I came in?'

‘Sergeant Brumfit,' said the Dean. ‘The Close constable. A most reliable man. I am sure he'll give you any help you want. Anything that he can do, that is,' he added more doubtfully. Somehow, excellent though he was with hawkers, canvassers, and circulars, he did not see Sergeant Brumfit tracking an anonymous letter-writer to his lair. ‘He has a cottage just inside the gate – and that completes the roster. No—wait a moment; I'm sure I've missed somebody. Oh, yes. Scrimgeour. He's the chapter clerk. A real old-fashioned solicitor. He has the little house next to Mickie's, and that really is the lot.'

One of Pollock's chief assets was an almost photographic memory.

‘Mrs. Judd?' he suggested, without apparent reflection.

‘I was coming to her,' said the Dean reluctantly. Rather in the manner of one who dis-cupboards a tiresome skeleton. ‘Her position here is really most irregular. We are not a residential Close, in the sense of Canterbury or Salisbury. We are not large enough. The accommodation is very limited, and the houses are allocated by rule. Mrs. Judd is the relict of old Canon Judd. You may have heard of him. A great scholar. His life's work was the translation of the
Book of Common Prayer
into the Eskimo tongue. When his publishers complained that it would have a very limited sale in England he did a re-translation into English to accompany it – a distinct improvement on the original in many places, I believe. Well, when he died there happened to be a cottage vacant and we allowed Mrs. Judd to move in – just for a few weeks, whilst she looked round, you know. That was twelve years ago. We tried everything short of force, but she just wouldn't go. She's a very determined old lady, though getting a bit shaky now.'

Pollock conducted a rapid mental roll-call.

When he had found all present and correct he asked a question which the Dean had been expecting for some time.

‘Is there any reason,' he said, ‘for confining our attention to the inhabitants of the Close?'

The Dean smiled complacently; this was naturally a point to which he had devoted a good deal of thought, and he was not averse to a little disquisition.

‘In the first place,' he said, ‘you will concede that it would be natural to look for the author of such an attack amongst Appledown's – I won't say friends – nearer acquaintances. Some of the letters show that the writer was quite familiar with his private affairs, and you may have noticed that many of the attacks are directed against him in his official capacity, imputing failure to do his duty as a verger.'

‘Not quite the usual anonymous dirt,' agreed Pollock.

‘But there are far stronger reasons,' went on the Dean. ‘Reasons which, taken together, amount to a certainty. First, the flag which was tampered with. It's kept in a locker with several other flags and pennants in a shed in the school yard. The shed is not locked, so I suppose it's just conceivable that a stranger might have got hold of it, but less likely that he should have known where it was kept.'

‘When was that particular flag used last?' asked Pollock.

That the Dean could not tell him. He passed on to the anthem incident.

All the music was kept in cupboards in the vestry. Any visitors to the cathedral might have slipped in and inserted the offending notices, but the Dean implied that he thought the contingency most unlikely, and Pollock was inclined to agree with him.

A thought struck him.

‘Surely,' he said, ‘no outsider would know in advance what anthem was going to be sung at any particular service.'

‘I'm afraid that won't do,' said the Dean regretfully. ‘A list of the anthems and services is made up a week in advance and posted in the porch; it also appears in the local paper.

‘But,' he went on, ‘there is a third point which is, I think, decisive. After seven o'clock it is impossible to get in or out of the Close unobserved.'

He waited complacently for some expression of incredulity, but Pollock contented himself with saying, ‘Surely you mean very difficult – not impossible.' He had observed the high smooth stone walls and the massive gate. Also, he knew something of the medieval regime of a Close.

‘Nothing is impossible,' agreed the Dean, ‘but I suggest that entry to this Close after dark is so nearly impossible that you may rule it out of your considerations altogether.'

‘I was impressed by your walls,' agreed Pollock, ‘but even for twelve-foot walls you only need a twelve-foot ladder – and a little luck.'

‘It's more complicated than that, I fear,' said the Dean. ‘On the east of the Close lies the Bishop's palace. The Bishop, by the way, is at the moment in Switzerland – for his health.' (The Dean's explanation was not entirely unsatirical.) ‘The palace is shut up. That is the most inaccessible side, since an intruder would not only have to climb two walls – the outer Close wall and the palace garden wall – but at the foot of the outer wall runs the river, which is both swift and deep at that point owing to the constriction of the water between the wall and an embankment on the other side. I think we may rule out the south approach. To the north and west and south the walls give on to well-lighted public roads. This is the residential quarter, and innumerable front parlour and bedroom windows overlook every inch of the perimeter. All three roads are patrolled regularly by the police. To my mind it is quite inconceivable that anyone could come along, plant a ladder against the wall, climb up, and pull the ladder up after them, unobserved. And if he
had
been observed you may be very sure we should have heard about it the very next morning – with embroideries and additions.'