THREE

The Mystery of the Black Priest

The next morning Coombes fell suddenly into one of his more and more frequent fits of depression. He slept late, no longer wheeled his barrow of books through the streets of Hay, no longer darted his eyes from object to object or lightly leapt from topic to topic in our conversations. In fact, he hardly spoke. He sat in front of the fireplace in his slippers and robe, and stared. Occasionally he rolled his eyes dreamily up in his head. This went on for several days, and then got worse. One morning, after having refused my offer of breakfast, he said, ‘What I need, Watson . . .’

‘Wilson . . .’

‘. . . is a syringe of cocaine and a pipe of tobacco. My doctor allows me the cocaine but refuses to allow me the tobacco. I promised him I would abstain, but I fear I cannot stand this much longer. When I have no problems to solve, life has lost its meaning.’ He looked frightful and distracted as he said this. He did not look healthy.

‘Let me get you some tea,’ I said.

‘Thank you.’

‘Or maybe some gin might do you good.’

‘I have never used spirits,’ he cried, ‘but I may need to try them.’ He flung himself on to the couch and put his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling.

Beethoven’s Für Elise suddenly began to play somewhere in the room, and I looked about, wondering. Coombes began digging in his sport coat pocket and, to my surprise, he pulled out a mobile phone. He struggled to open it. But Für Elise played on. I hurried to him and showed him how to manipulate the telephone. Awkwardly he held it to his ear. I discreetly withdrew to the kitchen, but I could not help but hear his end of the conversation. I gathered from some fragmentary words that he was speaking to someone in London. I really don’t know if I can wait until our appointment, that’s a week away. . . . I’ve already lived longer than anybody else, which ought to guarantee me a few privileges, doctor . . . not so sure we should have undertaken this experiment . . . I don’t need medicine, I need work . . . yes, by all means tell my contact at Scotland Yard . . . he is a kind man but I doubt he can help; chance provides more cures than kindness . . . do my best, of course . . . only the leg is a problem . . . and my mind, my mind . . . goodbye.

I emerged from the kitchen with his cup of tea. I set it beside him but he didn’t even see it. He stared into the fire. I threw another log into the flames and left him to his reveries while I fixed myself a small lunch and then went out for the afternoon.

When I returned home in the evening, Coombes sat just as he had been sitting when I left him. This worried me considerably. The tea was cold beside him.

‘I say, Coombes, could you do for a little supper?’

No answer.

He seemed almost in a catatonic state or – if I wanted to characterize it a little more cheerfully – a state of deep meditation.

Eventually I climbed the stairs and went to bed, and for a while I lay awake listening for his footsteps. Then light rain began to fall on the roof, and lulled me to sleep, and I dreamt I was riding in a coach with Mr Pickwick who kept spilling his cake.

In the morning I was gratified to see that Coombes had moved during the night. The tea cup was in the kitchen sink. Cake crumbs on the counter indicated he had at last eaten something. I found him sitting on the little patio behind the house, all muffled up in his robe and jacket and slippers, watching the day bloom. Leaves occasionally skittered and flittered by his feet.

‘Good morning, Coombes,’ said I, looking as cheerfully unconcerned as possible. Then I walked up the street, bought a newspaper, and read it while sipping coffee in my favourite little restaurant. An hour or two later I returned to Cambrai and found Coombes still on the patio.

‘Autumn days are the same in every century,’ said he.

‘Are you feeling better this morning?’

‘I feel I am about to go mad,’ he said, in a dull voice. ‘I need something to happen, Wilson. I shall go mad – I am sure of it – if something doesn’t happen soon.’

And just at that moment something happened. It was almost as if the gods had heard his request and instantly answered it, or as if we were in a stage play in which things always happen right on cue but too conveniently to be entirely believable. What happened was that Sergeant Bundle of the local constabulary lurched up into view behind the back gate and hailed Mr Coombes.

‘Mr Coombes,’ said he, stepping on to the patio. ‘So there you are. Have you got a moment, sir?’

Coombes nodded, dully.

The sergeant wore a white shirt and tie, with bars on his shoulders, and he looked very spiffy and bluff and also a bit downcast. He smiled with his mouth but his eyes squinted in worry. ‘Mr Coombes, I’ve just had a conversation with our mutual acquaintance at Scotland Yard – you know who I mean.’

‘Yes, yes, I do.’

‘Our mutual acquaintance informs me that you might be able to help us with a problem we have encountered here in Dyfed.’

‘Yes?’ said Coombes, looking up sharply.

‘A murder, Mr Coombes.’

‘Murder?’

‘The gentleman at Scotland Yard has urged me to get into contact with you.’ The sergeant raised a chubby hand. ‘We don’t exactly need your help, you understand, Mr Coombes. But this case has some very strange components. We feel we could use your suggestions.’

Coombes was suddenly transformed. He sprang to his feet and stood as rigidly as a grenadier, leaning forward slightly, his face intent. ‘I will be very glad to assist you, if I am able.’

‘And this gentleman?’ said Sergeant Bundle, motioning to me affably.

‘Quite safe, quite safe,’ said Coombes. ‘This is Mr James Wilson.’

After having established that it was safe to speak in front of me, we three sat around the metal table on the patio and Sergeant Bundle described his problem, leaning forward and holding his thick hands over the table top as if he were holding the problem itself – which appeared to be about the size of a large brick. He turned the problem over and over as he spoke, as if to reveal all of its aspects.

‘Murder, Mr Coombes, is a common crime.’

‘Indeed.’

‘But this murder, sir, is baffling. There are no clues.’

‘Pray give me the details.’

‘I will try to be brief,’ said Bundle. ‘I know your time is valuable.’

‘Actually, it is not terribly valuable,’ said Coombes. ‘I am interested in all details, however minute.’

‘A young American named Calvin Hawes arrived in town last week, having come all the way from Georgia,’ said Bundle. ‘He booked a room for a week at the Swan Hotel on Belmont Road. Yesterday evening he asked the man at the front desk, Mr Twembley, for directions to The Old Vicarage cottage, which lies in a secluded lane just outside of town. Twembley thought it an odd request because he knew that Mr Jenkins, who owns The Old Vicarage, has been away in Scotland for the past month. But Twembley drew him a little map, just the same. Calvin Hawes also asked Mr Twembley if he knew of a family in town named Languish. Twembley said he did not. Hawes then wrote out the name Languish but Twembley assured him that although he had lived in town a quarter century he knew no such family. The young man asked if Mr Twembley knew a girl in town whose Christian name was . . . Linda? Sylvia? I forget. No matter.

‘Calvin Hawes left the hotel about five o’clock, and Twembley noticed he was carrying a bouquet of flowers wrapped in gold paper, which Twembley thought charming but odd.

‘I must now explain something, sir. It is this: a hiking path leads from the town into Brecon Beacons National Park, right up to Hay Bluff. This path climbs over the hill just behind The Old Vicarage, and from it you can see the upper storey of the cottage, though mainly what you see is the roof and the chimneys. Last evening, just at dusk, two of our townspeople were descending the mountain path with their dogs when they noticed a light on in The Old Vicarage. They thought that their friend David Jenkins must have come back from Scotland earlier than planned, and they called his house phone to greet him – intending, you know, to say that they were standing on the hill behind his house and looking at him through his windows. But he did not answer. They assumed he must be taking a bath or some such thing, and they left a message on his answering machine saying they would be coming round in a few minutes to welcome him back.

‘These two descended the path to Oxford Road and drove in their Vauxhall round to Jenkins’s place. But they could not rouse him. They went on home. But early this morning they telephoned Jenkins again. When he still did not answer they got concerned. They telephoned me at the station and asked if I would look in on The Old Vicarage. Officer Jones and I arrived there some hours ago. We found the place deserted. Several lights seemed to gleam within, but no one answered our knock. No vehicles were in the garage. Then we noticed that the front door had been jimmied and the lock broken. We pushed it open and went inside.

‘At first we saw nothing at all. Nothing appeared disturbed. The doilies were all in place on the table tops, the clocks were ticking. We assumed a burglar had broken in but we could not see what had been stolen. All seemed in perfect order. Then, by sheer chance, we glanced into the bathroom and saw what I had never expected to see.

‘I must now explain something, sir, and it is this: the tub in that bathroom is a very large tub, with lion feet. Over the top of that ancient tub had been laid a pane-glass door. It had been removed (as we later discovered) from where it had hung between the sitting room and the sun porch. We looked down through the glass door and saw the corpse of Calvin Hawes in a rosy tubful of blood and water. One of the large panes of glass had been smashed and the man’s throat had apparently been gashed by the smashed shards that still hung like knives in the frame. Apparently he had sat up in the tub to escape drowning, had smashed his head against the pane, broken it, and when he fell back again the shards just slit his throat. His hands were tied behind his back. When we lifted him out of the water we found he was clutching a bouquet of flowers in his bound hands – almost as if he meant to whisk them out from behind his back and surprise someone.’

‘How odd,’ said Coombes.

‘There was one other odd thing,’ said Bundle. ‘On the mirror we found the word Heigh-ho written in soap.’

‘Just that?’ queried Coombes.

‘Nothing more, sir. And that is about all there is to tell at this moment. We have collected the dead man’s belongings from his hotel room. We are presently trying to retrieve messages from the hard drive of his laptop computer. The victim may have had some email communication with whoever killed him. At any rate, the desk clerk, Twembley, saw the victim working with his computer in the lounge of the hotel shortly before he left for The Old Vicarage.’

During Bundle’s recitation of the facts Coombes had been sitting bolt upright in his chair with his hand on his chin and his index finger across his lips. Now he removed his finger. ‘And you saw no other sign of the killer at all? Nothing but the words written on the mirror?’

‘That is the puzzling part. We found nothing out of place except in that bathroom. Every other room appeared completely undisturbed. Not a single item was touched, not a single item damaged or out of place – except for the front door which, as I have said, had been jimmied and the lock broken. Mr Jenkins informed us – we telephoned him in Scotland – that it was he who had removed the sun porch door and leant it in the back hallway, intending to dispose of it when he returned from holiday. He no longer wants a door separating the sun porch.’

‘When will Mr Jenkins return?’ asked Coombes.

‘That is anybody’s guess,’ said Bundle. ‘He lives in the cottage only about one week each month. He is a theatrical producer in London. He comes and he goes.’

‘Does he have neighbours?’

‘Only Mrs Ogmore. She is ninety-five. I’m afraid she, at her age, is just a wee bit unreliable. She said she saw nothing last evening except Father Pritchard riding by on his bicycle.’

‘When was that?’

‘A little after dusk had settled on the hills. Unfortunately, Father Pritchard has been dead for eighty years. I doubt anyone in town ever knew him except her.’

‘Ahh,’ said Coombes. ‘And has Mrs Ogmore ever seen the good Father on other occasions in recent years?’

‘That I cannot tell you, Mr Coombes. I would not doubt that she has.’

‘That could be an important detail,’ said Coombes.

Bundle spread his thick fingers, suddenly letting drop the problem he had been turning over and over in his hands. He leant back in his chair, and grinned. ‘Long ago, sir, our mutual acquaintance at Scotland Yard – you know who I mean – warned me that you were a man for detail. But I confess, sir, I am surprised, nonetheless, at the quantity of detail you require.’

‘I wonder,’ said Coombes, ‘would you be good enough to allow me to have a look at the crime scene?’

‘Certainly, sir,’ said Bundle. ‘It would be a pleasure.’

Coombes hurried to his room. A few minutes later he reappeared wearing a brown Harris tweed sport jacket with leather elbows, brown wool trousers, smooth leather shoes, a brown shirt open at the collar, and a plaid wool hat that made him look a little like Bing Crosby. Soon we were in Bundle’s police car gliding along a deserted lane beyond the edge of town. Leaves whirled down and the bright sun was masked and unmasked by scudding clouds, and the whole landscape seemed to shrink and grow with the dimming and brightening of the light. Bundle pointed, ‘There be Mrs Ogmore now, rake in hand.’

‘Ah, may we have a word with her?’ cried Coombes.

Bundle hit the brake and swung into the driveway.

Mrs Ogmore was raking briskly. She wore a large straw hat. She was thin, and her thin white dress blew, and she wore a green jacket that was too big for her. Coombes got out of the car and walked to her and the two of them stood amidst swirling leaves, facing each other a few feet apart. Bundle and I hurried up to them.

‘My name is Cedric Coombes,’ said Coombes. ‘I’m working with Sergeant Bundle.’

‘How do you do,’ she said, and looked up at him with pressed lips as she nodded firmly.

‘May I ask you a question?’

‘Of course. You look like a sensible young man.’ She smiled coquettishly.

‘Have you often seen Father Pritchard riding his bicycle?’

‘Not in recent years. He’s been gone a long time.’

Here Sergeant Bundle raised a finger and interrupted. ‘Now, think clearly, Constance,’ he said. ‘Think what you are saying. This morning you told me . . .’

‘I am thinking perfectly clearly,’ said Constance Ogmore. ‘Father Pritchard has been dead for eighty years. The last time I saw him was in 1927 when I was fourteen years old. You are talking foolishness.’

‘Ah,’ said Coombes. ‘But yesterday evening, just after dusk, did you see anyone riding a bicycle?’

‘I don’t remember seeing anyone,’ she replied, in her high little voice. ‘I do remember Father Pritchard used to ride a bicycle. He used to ride all round the countryside in his priestly robe.’ Suddenly she chuckled. ‘When the wind was up he looked like a bat! I shouldn’t say such things, of course.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Ogmore,’ said Coombes.

Coombes left her – almost rudely, I thought, under the circumstances – and hurried to the car, limping wildly on his game leg.

Bundle put the car into gear. ‘Lord, lord, poor woman,’ he gasped as he backed out.

Fifty yards further down the lane we came to the drive leading to The Old Vicarage. Already the body had been removed from the house. Coombes walked carefully through every room, upstairs and downstairs, and with his ancient magnifying glass he examined table tops, floors, curtains. What he was looking for I could not imagine. On several occasions I noticed Sergeant Bundle standing with his hands on his fat hips, and with a self-satisfied smile on his face, gazing with amusement at the bent and urgent figure of Coombes. I had the feeling – once again – that Coombes reminded me of someone. I decided it must an actor in an old film. But I could not recall the film or the actor. Maddening.

The last room he examined was the bathroom. I had seen blood and death aplenty in Afghanistan, but the sight of a tub full of blood – a literal blood bath – unsettled me and I did not look at it closely. Coombes, however, was on his knees by the tub, carefully examining all the fixtures, every aspect of the room. To my surprise he suddenly produced a small digital camera from his pocket and began taking photographs, seeming to pay particular attention to the pane-smashed door which had been removed from the top of the tub and leant against a wall.

The cottage was furnished with an eclectic mix of ancient and modern objects, nineteenth century antiques and paintings cheek by jowl with modern appliances and modern art. Much of the art had a theatrical theme, reflecting the interests of a theatrical manager – photographs of Lawrence Olivier, John Barrymore, Vanessa Redgrave and other famous stage actors, a painting of Sarah Bernhardt, an engraving of David Garrick as Richard III by William Hogarth, and so on. Coombes lurched about with insect energy and only once did his attention seem to waver from the task at hand. He stopped suddenly and gazed at a box camera on one of the bookshelves in the study, and he said, ‘Why, I had a camera like that. Do they still sell them?’ Then he seemed to bethink himself, and he murmured, ‘Surely not, no.’

‘I’m sure you can find one in London, sir,’ said Bundle, rocking back on his heels. ‘Many an antique dealer specializes in cameras.’

‘Yes, yes,’ muttered Coombes, and he tilted his glass to examine a book more closely, without touching it.

‘I’m sure I can’t imagine what you are searching for,’ said Bundle, his thick fingers fidgeting. I had noticed for some while that he had been growing impatient with the excruciating slowness of Coombes’s examination.

‘I may already have found it,’ said Coombes. ‘If you gentlemen would be good enough to come with me to the entry hall, I’ll show you.’

On the entry table were a bust of Shakespeare and a bust of Voltaire, and between the two were artfully piled a number of old and new books. ‘There is one book on this table that was put here recently,’ said Coombes. ‘You can see a fine layer of dust on the table itself, if you look against the light. That same dust is on each of the books, except one. This one.’ He pointed to a closed book lying face down on the table.

‘Well, sir?’

‘Someone has put it here within the last day or so. It has a dark dust jacket, and dust would plainly show on it, if there were any. Also, if you look closely you will see that someone has not only set the book on to the table, but twisted it slightly, thus creating the shape of a small fan in the dust, where the book was turned.’

‘Yes,’ said Bundle, squinting and nodding. ‘That is the case.’

‘This book may well tell us a tale or two that the author never envisioned,’ said Coombes. ‘I should like to examine it more closely.’

Bundle stepped backwards a pace and held his arms wide, palms up. ‘Help yourself, Mr Coombes.’

‘Thank you.’

Bundle raised a brow, rocked back on his heels, and looked on with an expression both patronizing and puzzled as Coombes pulled a plastic shopping bag from his pocket, removed the book carefully from the table top, and placed it into the bag. ‘I will be sure to give this back to you, sergeant,’ said Coombes. ‘I will take good care of it.’

‘I can’t imagine what you hope to learn from a book. It looks new.’

‘Very new,’ said Coombes. ‘Now let us examine the area around the house. The rain of yesterday should have prepared the earth for tracks. A pity that the police have been driving in and out, tromping here and there.’

‘We had to arrive, Mr Coombes,’ said Bundle with a smile, and he held his finger in the air. ‘We had to arrive, didn’t we, sir?’

Coombes hopped down the front steps. He circled the cottage, looking carefully at the ground as he went, pausing every few paces to look up at the house, at the nearby trees, at the surrounding area. He then made his way along the driveway, staying to the edge. The driveway was light sand and gravel, damp with rain. Every once in a while I heard Coombes groan ‘Ah!’ as if he’d found something. When he reached the end of the drive he motioned me towards him and pointed to a patch of sand amidst grass at the very margin. ‘Can you see the tracks – a fat bicycle tyre. What they call a mountain bike tyre.’

‘I see it,’ I said. ‘Barely.’

‘Let me call your attention to this other set of tracks, nearby. Two sets of bicycle tracks. One going in, one coming out. Both at the very edge of the driveway.’

‘They become plainer and plainer as I stare.’

‘Now look, Wilson, in the centre of the drive. Someone walked to the cottage in the rain last night. You see occasionally a footprint. Many of the prints have been wiped out by the tyre prints of police vehicles, but many remain.’

Coombes was off again, turning right at the end of the drive and proceeding along the edge of the lane, squatting so low that he seemed to be almost crawling. He darted along like a monkey, past Mrs Ogmore’s driveway, and then he veered into the trees. Suddenly he stood and waved at me and shouted, ‘Go get the car!’

I walked back to The Old Vicarage where Sergeant Bundle was waiting. We drove out into the lane, turned right, and then I spotted Coombes far into the trees, on his hands and knees.

‘Lord, Lord, what is that man doing!’ cried Bundle. ‘I am responsible for him!’

Coombes crawled awhile, then suddenly stood and held up what appeared to be a black cloth. He waved it at us and then made his way towards the lane, on an angle. We picked him up and drove on slowly.

‘You crawled a long way through the grass, Mr Coombes,’ said Bundle. ‘I’ve never seen detective work done in that manner before.’

‘It was necessary.’

‘Ah, but you crawled a very long way for a man of your age,’ said Bundle. ‘I don’t know if that is good.’

‘You mustn’t take your duties too seriously, sergeant. I found something of interest.’

‘Yes?’

Coombes held up a black pillow slip.

‘How very odd,’ said Bundle. ‘Who would sleep on black sheets?’

‘Fashion,’ I said.

‘Odder still,’ said Coombes, ‘is that two holes have been cut in it – apparently eye holes.’

‘Do you see a connection between this and the murder?’ asked Bundle.

‘We must ponder that possibility,’ said Coombes. He leant back in his seat, closed his eyes, and pressed his fingers together. He did not speak for the rest of the short journey. But when we reached Chancery Lane Coombes said to Bundle, ‘By the way, sergeant, could Lydia be the girl’s name that the victim mentioned to Mr Twembley?’

‘Yes, yes, that was it!’ cried Bundle. ‘Lydia, yes. Where did you see that name, sir?’

‘Just a guess, Bundle, just a guess.’

That evening Coombes was much changed. He was no longer depressed. He seemed alternately in a state of alert agitation, meditative calm, and reflective melancholy. He sat in front of the fire with his fingers pressed together, staring into the flames or up at the ceiling. All at once he sprang from his chair – as if he had been tied there and suddenly burst his bonds – and he began to pace the floor mercilessly, wall to wall, around and around. Suddenly he stopped. A faraway look invaded his face. His shoulders fell a little, as if an unwelcome thought had just overtaken him. He turned to me and said, ‘Do you think they really need me on this case, Wilson? Or are Bundle and my Scotland Yard contact merely concocting therapy?’

‘Therapy?’ I said, looking up from my book.

‘Therapy for an old man, yes.’

‘I haven’t the foggiest idea what you are talking about. Whatever can you mean, Coombes? You say the strangest things sometimes. I begin to wonder if you are keeping some deep dark secret from the world.’

‘Perhaps I am, Wilson,’ said he, in a faraway voice. ‘Perhaps I am.’

‘Who is this mysterious contact of yours at Scotland Yard? And what has he to do with Sergeant Bundle? Bundle is always referring to your famous contact – with a wink wink, and a nod nod. I am not a terribly clever man, Coombes, but I do pick up on the obvious.’

Coombes stalked back and forth across the floor with renewed anxiety, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. ‘Yes, yes, I doubt you could help me unless you knew all the facts.’

‘I don’t wish to pry into any man’s secrets,’ I said. ‘But I have wondered why the police should be consulting you on a murder case. I’ve been baffled from the beginning. A common man such as me needs to be provided with a few facts before he can judge a matter.’

‘Quite so, quite so.’

‘If ever you wish to tell me what your connection is with this mysterious “Scotland Yard” contact, I’d be very glad to listen.’

For a moment he paused in front of the fire and seemed about to tell me something. Then he walked on, at a gentler pace, still rubbing his neck. ‘It is a very long story, Watson . . .’

‘Wilson.’

‘I could hardly expect you to believe it even if I dared tell you.’

There we left it, for the time being.