The Norfolk Mystery (The County Guides) (11 page)

‘The town, with its little red-roofed cobble cottages. Marvellous, aren't they, Sefton? The pantiled dormers, with their gentle slopes like the curves … like the curves of a woman's body, eh? Actually, strike that, Sefton. Do you know the domes of Burma and India?'

‘Not personally, Mr Morley, no.'

‘Things of incomparable beauty. I'm a great fan of Indian architecture. All that copper and gold on the temples and the mosques. Sort of oriental versions of the roof of Westminster Hall, I always think. Don't you?' I did not answer: it did not matter. ‘Which of course – I think – is the biggest oak roof of its kind in England. We'll need to check that. Timbers fashioned from oak which were saplings when the Romans ruled the land.' He glanced at the roofs around him. ‘But these? They are like an Italianate city. Italianate, wouldn't you say, Sefton? The alleyways and what have you?'

‘Yes.'

‘Florentine,' he mused. ‘Yes. There we are. “Blakeney: The Florence of East Anglia.” That'll do. Make a note.' And on. And on.

Miriam soon made her excuses and took herself off to the Blakeney Hotel down on the quayside, where, she informed us, she hoped to procure coffee, smoke cigarettes and, if at all possible, scandalise the natives – an objective, I fancied, that might not take more than a quarter of an hour. Morley and I meanwhile walked up through the streets, bidding good morning to the occasional passer-by, Morley noting both out loud and in his notebook some of the more notable roofs, gables and architectural features that took his fancy. Eventually we made it to the top of the village, a slight breeze coming up behind us, splitting the fog, and a church rising before us like a …

‘Galleon on the high seas,' said Morley, who as usual was several steps ahead.

As we approached the church I noticed a pair of owls were busy around an old alder.

‘Owls,' said Morley. ‘Note.' Which I already had. ‘And the arched roofs of the alder, gabled like porches,' he added. Which I had not. He was always able to find and describe the unexpected, even among the unexpected. ‘And so, Sefton,' he continued, striding through the graveyard, spreading his hands before him as if introducing a fairground attraction, or a troupe of music-hall performers, ‘as if coming to announce itself to us: the mystery of the church at Blakeney.'

‘The mystery?'

‘Indeed.' He stopped in his tracks and turned to face me, the church looming behind him. ‘There is mystery all about us, Sefton, if only we would open our eyes and perceive it. Is this not the lesson taught to us by all the great mystics?'

‘Perhaps,' I agreed.

‘Look at these headstones, for example. Hundreds and hundreds. And each one with a story to tell if only we would let them tell it, eh?' He knelt down by a gravestone. ‘The
joie de vivre
of the English stonemason, Sefton. Quite extraordinary. Humbling.' He traced the words on the stone with his fingers. ‘Traditional English letter forms, Sefton. Quite unlike their continental counterparts: bolder strokes, thinner strokes; the abrupt transition from thick to thin. See? Inspiring, isn't it?'

‘Yes,' I said, trying to sound inspired.

He stood up. ‘Now, what is it that strikes you about the church, Sefton?'

I gazed up at what appeared to me to be simply … a church. A faded board outside announced that it was St Nicholas, Blakeney, with service times at 8 a.m., 10 a.m.,4 p.m. and 6 p.m. on Sundays and matins during the week.

‘A typical example,' Morley continued. ‘I would say – wouldn't you say, Sefton? – of fifteenth-century Perpendicular architecture. Though of course with one very peculiar and distinguishing feature.' He paused. ‘Which is?'

I gazed along from the west tower to the—

‘Two towers,' he exclaimed.

‘Ah.'

‘Indeed. Like an aft-mast and a main mast, aren't they?'

I agreed that indeed they were.

‘Now, note, Sefton.' I took out my notebook and began to write. ‘The chancel tower, the east tower, is believed by many to have been a lighthouse.'

‘Really?'

‘Yes. But does it look like a lighthouse to you, Sefton?'

I looked up again. ‘It could be a lighthouse, I suppose.'

‘Hmm. But what is it lacking, would you say, in its potential capacity as a lighthouse?'

‘Lights?' I suggested.

‘Of course. But it is not night. And even now without, lights it once might have had. Lights there may have been.' He pointed up to the top of the tower. ‘So, the lack of lights, we are agreed, is hardly a sufficient reason for what we suspect to have once been a lighthouse indeed to have been such. Is that correct?'

The mystery of the church at Blakeney

‘I suppose.'

‘Good. So, to return to the question: what is the
other
essential condition of a lighthouse functioning as a lighthouse, Sefton? Not only light, but …'

‘I'm sorry, I don't know.'

‘Think about it.'

‘Sorry, I don't—'

‘Don't give up! A lighthouse needs …' He stood on his tiptoes, and stretched his hands high above his head.

‘Height?' I said.

‘Height!' said Morley. ‘Exactly! Yes! Indeed. There we are. So if you were building a lighthouse, might you not have made the east tower here a taller tower?'

‘Yes, I suppose I would,' I agreed.

‘Or simply installed your light in the west, the taller tower, which clearly predates the other?' The west, taller tower, I could confirm, looked older.

‘So why didn't they make it taller?'

‘You see, you see.
That
, Sefton, is the mystery of the church at Blakeney. Make a note now. Come, come. Let's venture in.'

But just as I was about to write down this latest insight, a woman came rushing out of the church and out of the fog towards us, like a wraith or a demon.

‘Oh! Oh!' she cried when she saw us, grabbing hold of Morley's arm. ‘Oh, oh!' she continued to wail.

‘What seems to be the problem?' said Morley. ‘Madam. Are you all right?'

The woman had the look about her of someone who was not at all all right, and who was indeed so not all right that she was about to collapse and become very un-all right indeed. Sensing that this might be the case, Morley promptly produced a bottle of smelling salts from his waistcoat pocket; he never travelled without it, regarding it as an essential pick-me-up. (If I ever saw him begin to fade – and it happened, perhaps, no more than half a dozen times during the course of our long association – he would instantly produce the smelling salts, take a sniff, and straight away be off again to a fresh start.)

‘The reverend … is …' the woman began, momentarily revived by the first whiff of the smelling salts. But she was unable to finish the sentence, as if caught by the throat by an invisible hand.

‘Yes?' said Morley, waving the bottle now more vigorously beneath her nose.

The woman took in deep breaths, and again the smelling salts seemed to have a momentary effect.

‘The reverend … He's …' But again she seemed about to go under.

‘Goodness,' said Morley, taking the woman gently by the arm. ‘A three-sniff problem, Sefton,' he said to me. ‘Come and sit down here,' he instructed the woman, brushing some moss from a gravestone – Arthur Cooke, Surgeon of Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, 1868–1933, R.I.P. He set her gently down. ‘There. I'm sure Mr Cooke won't mind.'

The woman looked dazed.

‘Now. Are you sick?' asked Morley. ‘Unwell?'

‘No. No. The reverend.'

‘He's sick?'

‘He's not sick, no!' the woman said, before losing the power of words again. ‘He's …' She pointed towards the door of the church.

‘Yes, you said. Now what's your name, my dear?' asked Morley.

‘Snatchfold,' she said. ‘Snatchfold.'

‘Right, well. If you can tell us what's wrong, Mrs Snatchfold, we might be able to help.'

‘He's …'

Mrs Snatchfold was clearly going to be unable to tell us anything further.

‘Well, how about we go and see the reverend, shall we?' said Morley, taking charge of the situation. ‘Is he here in the church?'

‘Yes, yes. In the church.'

‘Very well. Come on, Sefton. Something's up. Let's not dilly-dally. Would you rather stay here, my dear?'

‘No!' she said. ‘Don't leave me!' At which she sprang up from her sitting position and held on tight to Morley's arm.

‘Very well, then,' said Morley, glancing at me, perturbed. ‘Clearly a serious business. Lead on.'

As she led us into the church I was surprised to see another woman, standing by the font, her hands folded, almost in the pose of Mary at the foot of the Cross. She had her back to us.

‘Hannah,' said Mrs Snatchfold. ‘This is Mr …'

‘Morley,' said Morley. ‘Swanton Morley.'

‘And I'm Sefton,' I said. ‘Stephen Sefton.'

‘Hello,' said Hannah, who did not turn fully towards us, but merely looked over her shoulder, as if in fear or contempt. She seemed about to speak further, but then thought better of it and bit her lip. She nodded towards the altar.

Mrs Snatchfold led us through the nave. The church was much larger than I had expected, almost a small cathedral, and Morley, even in the midst of this unexpected adventure, could not help himself from remarking as he went. ‘Ah yes,' he said, rubbing his hands together, speaking only to himself, ‘font, octagonal; nave – one, two, three, four, five, six bays; chancel with a rib vault; seven-lancet east window; grand Victorian pulpit; extraordinary rood screen; angels up in the hammerbeam, I think; and Nativity figures, altar … Oh.'

We had duly proceeded into the chancel at the east end of the church, and then through a curtain by the altar, up a steep, tight spiral staircase, and into a room where we discovered the cause of Mrs Snatchfold's distress.

The reverend was hanging by the neck from a bell-rope, his features horribly distorted, his face staring up at nothingness, his lips pulled back in a grimace – an expression that Morley later remarked reminded him of a Barbary ape that he had once seen on his travels in the Atlas Mountains. A trail of phlegm-like liquid stained the front of his dog collar. Mrs Snatchfold stood by the door, shaking, but Morley strode towards the dangling body, peered at it, removed his spectacles, glanced around the room, andpeered again.

‘Is he … dead?' asked Mrs Snatchfold fearfully.

‘I think we can safely assume so, madam, from the evidence,' said Morley. ‘What do you think, Sefton?'

I had stayed unwittingly by the door myself, not so much from fear but from surprise. I had seen so much of death in Spain, but this was in some way much worse: it was the incongruity. Morley waved me forward.

‘Come, come, second opinion please. Sefton. Quickly.'

I stepped forward.

‘Dead?' said Morley.

I nodded.

Nonetheless, Morley reached up and tried to find a pulse on the reverend's wrist. There was nothing.

‘Skin still warm,' Morley said, stepping back and standing up straight. ‘What do you think? Suicide?'

Mrs Snatchfold gave out another wail, and then promptly fainted. I rushed over towards her.

‘Leave her,' commanded Morley, not turning round.

‘But, what about the smelling salts?'

‘What about them?'

‘Shouldn't we—'

‘You've never seen a woman faint before?'

‘Yes, but …'

‘Yes but nothing, Sefton. We've got work to do. Come on, we need to move fast and take notes while the scene is fresh. Priorities, Sefton. We have a dead body here. We can deal with our fainting lady in due course.'

Morley had already produced one of his German notebooks from his jacket pocket and was surveying the scene. He leaned forward and sniffed at the chalice on the table, touched the back of his fingers to the side of it. He consulted the time on his pocket-watch. Consulted the time on his wristwatch. And his other wristwatch. Scribbled something in his notebook. Then he turned his eyes from the body, looking carefully around the rest of the room, his eyes roaming over every detail, taking careful note of what he saw.