Death in Holy Orders (34 page)

Father Martin said gently, “We cannot know, Father, what spiritual state the Archdeacon was in when he died.”

His companion went on, “I thought it a little insensitive of Dalgliesh to send his juniors to interview the priests. It would have been more appropriate had he spoken to us all himself. Naturally I co-operated, as I am sure did everyone else. I could wish that the police seemed more open to the possibility that someone outside the college is responsible, although I’m reluctant to believe that Inspector Yarwood had anything to do with it. Still, the sooner he is able to speak the better. And I’m naturally very anxious that the church should be reopened. The heart of the college hardly beats without it.”

Father Martin said, “I don’t suppose we shall be let back until the
Doom
has been cleaned, and perhaps that won’t be possible. I mean, it may be needed in its present state as evidence.”

“That, of course, is ridiculous. Photographs have no doubt been taken and they should be sufficient. The cleaning does, however, present a difficulty. It will be a job for experts. The
Doom
is a national treasure. We could hardly let Pilbeam loose on it with a can of turpentine. And then there must be a service of rehallowing before the church can be used. I’ve been to the library to look at the canons, but they offer remarkably little guidance. Canon F15 deals with the profaning of churches but gives no direction for resanctification. There’s the Roman rite, of course, and we could perhaps adapt that, but it is more complicated than seems appropriate. They envisage a procession led by a cross-bearer followed by the Bishop with mitre and pastoral staff, concelebrants, deacons and other ministers in proper liturgical vestitures processing before the people into the church.”

Father Martin said, “I can’t envisage the Bishop wishing to take part. You have, of course, been in touch with him, Father?”

“Naturally. He is coming over on Wednesday evening. He very considerately suggested that any time earlier might be inconvenient both for us and for the police. He has, of course, spoken to the trustees, and I have little doubt what he will tell me formally when he arrives. St. Anselm’s will close at the end of this term. He is hoping that arrangements can be made to accommodate the ordinands in other theological colleges. It is expected that Cuddesdon and St. Stephen’s House will be able to help, although not, of course, without difficulty. I have already spoken to the principals.”

Father Martin, outraged, cried out in protest, but his old voice could produce only a humiliating quaver. “But that’s appalling. It gives us less than two months. What about the Pilbeams, Surtees, our part-time staff? Are people going to be thrown out of their cottages?”

“Of course not, Father.” There was a trace of impatience in Father Sebastian’s voice. “St. Anselm’s will close as a theological
college at the end of this term, but the resident staff will be kept on until the future of the buildings has been settled. That will apply also to the part-time staff. Paul Perronet has been on the telephone to me and will come over with the other trustees on Thursday. He’s adamant that nothing of value should be removed at present from either the college or the church. Miss Arbuthnot’s will was very clear as far as her intentions are concerned, but undoubtedly the legal position will be complicated.”

Father Martin had been told the provisions of the will when he became Warden. He thought, but didn’t say, We four priests will become rich men. How rich? he wondered. The thought horrified him. He found that his hands were shaking. Looking down at the veins like purple cords and the brown splotches which seemed more like the marks of a disease than the signs of old age, he felt his meagre store of strength ebbing away.

Looking at Father Sebastian, he saw, with a sudden illuminating insight, a face pale and stoical but a mind already assessing its future, wonderfully impervious to the worst ravages of grief and anxiety. This time there could be no reprieve. Everything Father Sebastian had worked and planned for was going down in horror and scandal. He would survive, but now, perhaps for the first time, he would have welcomed an assurance of it.

They sat opposite each other in silence. Father Martin longed to find the appropriate words but they wouldn’t come. For fifteen years he hadn’t once been asked for his advice, his reassurance, his sympathy or his help. Now, when they were needed, he found himself powerless. His failure went deeper than this moment. It seemed to encompass his whole priesthood. What had he given to his parishioners, to the ordinands or St. Anselm’s? There had been kindness, affection, tolerance and understanding, but those were the common currency of all the well-intentioned. Had he, during the course of his ministry, changed a single life? He recalled the words of a woman overheard when he was leaving his last parish. “Father Martin is a priest of whom no one ever speaks ill.” It seemed to him now the most damning of indictments.

After a moment he got up and Father Sebastian followed. He said, “Would you like me, Father, to take a look at the Roman rite to see if it can be adapted for our use?”

Father Sebastian said, “Thank you, Father, that would be helpful,” and moved back to his chair behind the desk as Father Martin left the room and quietly closed the door behind him.

T
he first of the ordinands to be formally interviewed was Raphael Arbuthnot. Dalgliesh decided to see him with Kate. Arbuthnot took some time responding to the summons, and it was ten minutes before he was shown into the interview room by Robbins.

Dalgliesh saw, with some surprise, that Raphael hadn’t recovered himself; he looked as shocked and distressed as he had during the meeting in the library. Perhaps even this short lapse of time had brought home to him more forcibly the peril in which he stood. He moved as stiffly as an old man and refused Dalgliesh’s invitation to sit. Instead he stood behind the chair, grasping the top with both hands, his knuckles as white as his face. Kate had the ridiculous notion that if she put out her hand to touch Raphael’s skin or the curls of his hair, she would experience only unyielding stone. The contrast between the blond Hellenic head and the stark black of the clerical cassock looked both hierarchic and theatrically contrived.

Dalgliesh said, “No one could have sat at dinner last night, as I did, without realizing that you disliked the Archdeacon. Why?”

It wasn’t the opening that Arbuthnot had expected. Perhaps, thought Kate, he had mentally prepared himself for a more familiar academic gambit, innocuous preliminary questions about a candidate’s personal history leading on to the more challenging inquisition. He stared fixedly at Dalgliesh and was silent.

It seemed impossible that any reply could come from those rigid lips, but when he spoke his voice was under control. “I’d rather not say. Isn’t it enough that I disliked him?” He paused,
then said, “It was stronger than that. I hated him. Hating him had become an obsession. I realize that now. Perhaps I was deflecting onto him the hatred I couldn’t admit to feeling for someone or something else, a person, a place, an institution.”

He managed a rueful smile and said, “If Father Sebastian were here he’d say I’m indulging my deplorable obsession with amateur psychology.”

Kate said, her voice surprisingly gentle, “We do know about Father John’s conviction.”

Was it his imagination, Dalgliesh wondered, that the tension in Raphael’s hands relaxed a little? “Of course. I’m being obtuse. I suppose you’ve checked on all of us. Poor Father John. The recording angel has nothing on the police computer. So you now know that Crampton was one of the chief prosecution witnesses. It was he, not the jury, who sent Father John to prison.”

Kate said, “Juries don’t send anyone to prison. The judge does that.” She added, as if afraid that Raphael was about to faint, “Why don’t you sit down, Mr. Arbuthnot.”

After a moment of hesitation, he took the chair and made an obvious effort to relax. He said, “People one hates ought not to get themselves murdered. It gives them an unfair advantage. I didn’t kill him, but I feel as guilty as if I did.”

Dalgliesh said, “The passage of Trollope you read at dinner yesterday, was that your choice?”

“Yes. We always choose what to read.”

Dalgliesh said, “A very different archdeacon, another age. An ambitious man kneels beside his dying father and asks forgiveness for wishing him dead. It seemed to me that the Archdeacon took it personally.”

“He was intended to.” There was another silence, then Raphael said, “I’d always wondered why he pursued Father John so vehemently. It isn’t as if he was gay himself and suppressing it, terrified of exposure. Now I know he was vicariously purging his own guilt.”

Dalgliesh said, “Guilt for what?”

“I think you had better ask Inspector Yarwood.”

Dalgliesh decided not to pursue that line of questioning for the moment. This wasn’t the only question that he needed to
ask Yarwood. Until the Inspector was fit to be interviewed he was groping in the half-light. He asked Raphael exactly what he had done after Compline was finished.

“First of all I went to my room. We’re supposed to keep silence after Compline, but the rule isn’t invariably obeyed. Silence doesn’t mean not speaking to each other. We don’t act like Trappist monks, but we do usually go to our rooms. I read and worked on an essay until half-past ten. The wind was howling—well, you know, sir, you were here—and I decided to go into the house to see if Peter—that’s Peter Buckhurst—was all right. He’s recovering from glandular fever and he’s far from well. I know he hates storms—not the lightning or thunder or heavy rain, just the howling of the wind. His mother died in the room next door to him in a night of high wind when he was seven and he’s hated it ever since.”

“How did you enter the house?”

“The usual way. My room is Number Three in the north cloister. I went through the cloakroom, across the hall and up the stairs to the second floor. There’s a sick-room there, at the back of the house, and Peter has been sleeping in it for the last few weeks. It was obvious to me that he didn’t want to be alone, so I said I’d stay there all night. There’s a second bed in the sick-room, so I slept there. I had already asked Father Sebastian’s permission to leave college after Compline—I’d promised to attend the first Mass of a friend in a church outside Colchester—but I didn’t like to leave Peter, so I decided to leave early this morning instead. The Mass isn’t until ten-thirty, so I knew I could make it.”

Dalgliesh asked, “Mr. Arbuthnot, why didn’t you tell me this when we were in the library this morning? I asked if anyone had left his room after Compline.”

“Would you have spoken? It would have been pretty humiliating for Peter, wouldn’t it, letting the whole college know that he’s frightened of the wind?”

“How did you spend the evening together?”

“We talked, and then I read to him. A Saki short story, if you’re interested.”

“Did you see anyone other than Peter Buckhurst after you entered the main building at about half-past ten?”

“Only Father Martin. He looked in on us at about eleven o’clock but he didn’t stay. He was worried about Peter too.”

Kate asked, “Was that because he knew Mr. Buckhurst was frightened of high winds?”

“It’s the kind of thing Father Martin gets to know. I don’t think anyone else at college knew except the two of us.”

“Did you return to your own room at any time during the night?”

“No. There’s a shower-room attached to the sick-bay if I wanted to shower. I didn’t need pyjamas.”

Dalgliesh said, “Mr. Arbuthnot, are you absolutely certain that you locked the door to the house from the north cloister when you went in to your friend?”

“I’m absolutely sure. Mr. Pilbeam usually checks the doors at about eleven, when he locks the front door. He’ll be able to confirm that it was locked.”

“And you didn’t leave the sick-bay until this morning?”

“No. I was in the sick-bay all night. Peter and I put out our bedside lights at about midnight and settled down to sleep. I don’t know about him, but I slept soundly. I woke just before six-thirty and saw that Peter was still asleep. I was on my way back to my room when I met Father Sebastian coming out of his office. He didn’t seem surprised to see me and he didn’t ask why I hadn’t left. I realize now that he had other things on his mind. He just told me to ring round everyone, ordinands, staff and guests, and ask them to be in the library at seven-thirty. I remember I said, ‘What about Morning Prayer, Father?’ and he replied, ‘Morning Prayer is cancelled.’ ”

Dalgliesh asked, “Did he give you any explanation for the summons?”

“No, none. It wasn’t until I joined everyone else in the library at seven-thirty that I knew what had happened.”

“And there’s nothing else you can tell us, nothing at all that could have any bearing on the Archdeacon’s murder?”

There was a long silence, during which Arbuthnot gazed down at the hands clasped in his lap. Then, as if he had reached a decision, he raised his eyes and looked intently at Dalgliesh. He said, “You’ve been asking a lot of questions. I know that’s your job. May I ask one now?”

Dalgliesh said, “Certainly, although I can’t promise to answer it.”

“It’s this. It’s obvious that you—the police, I mean—believe that someone who slept in college last night killed the Archdeacon. You must have some reason for believing that. I mean, isn’t it far more likely that someone from outside broke into the church, perhaps to steal, and was surprised by Crampton? After all, this place isn’t secure. He’d have no difficulty in getting into the courtyard. He probably wouldn’t have much difficulty in breaking into the house and getting a key to the church. Anyone who’s ever stayed here could know where the keys are kept. So I’m just wondering why you’re concentrating on us—I mean, the priests and the ordinands.”

Dalgliesh said, “We’ve an open mind on who committed this murder. More than that I can’t tell you.”

Arbuthnot went on, “You see, I’ve been thinking—well, of course, we all have. If anyone in college killed Crampton, it has to be me. No one else would or could. No one hated him as much and, even if they did, they aren’t capable of murder. I’m wondering whether I could have done it without knowing. Perhaps I got up in the night and went back to my room, then saw him entering the church. Isn’t it possible I could have gone after him, quarrelled violently with him and killed him?”