11

The Vicar Intervenes

Having kept our appointment at the rectory, we were enjoying our evening meal. The Rev. Marsden-Lee had earlier invited us to share a repast of roast haunch of venison at the supper table in the oak-panelled dining room, prepared by his housekeeper. The candles, I confess, cast a somewhat eerie illumination on the portraits in oils of previous incumbents that were hung about the room.

‘Dead!’ The clergyman shrieked with laughter. ‘My dear Holmes, if only you had asked, I could have told you that much and saved you both a wasted journey. The matter of Tommy Weekes was of course uppermost in our conversation when we last spoke over sherry. I myself visited Foxbury Hall this afternoon after learning of our old Norwich M.P.’s passing. Most sad, but not entirely unexpected due to his chronic state of health. But, you know, it all went rather queer.’

‘What went rather queer?’ said I, sampling a glass of excellent French wine.

‘We heard a rumour, a death up at the big house, Mr Sands’s passing of course. Well, Mrs Lunn, our ministering angel, who does the flowers in my church, a woman of advanced years who whenever there is a death in the village takes it on herself, to prepare the deceased, washing, doing “the necessary”, sheeting the corpse, making everything presentable, by no means an interfering old busybody, came to see me in floods of tears. A man up at the manor house had apparently told her to get off the property. He called her a witch!’

Holmes glanced up from his plate, his pale, sallow, aquiline features all aquiver from the wavering light of the candelabrum on our table which cast shadows about the room, making those dratted oil paintings of stern old country parsons seem alive and overly judgemental.

‘Yes, I think we catch your drift, padre,’ said he. ‘The old lady was naturally upset by this fellow’s uncouth attitude’.

‘I asked her if it was not Mr Garson the valet to whom she referred. “Oh no sir,” she insisted, “for he is a gentleman’s gentleman, a man of impeccable manners who should never dream of addressing a lady like that. This was a young man wearing red loafers claiming to be the son.”

‘ “But, my dear lady,” I replied, “Mr Sands was a confirmed bachelor. He never married in his life and was, before his illness, fond of his clubs and fine dining. He was a fellow who as far as I know had no understanding whatsoever of the ways of a woman’s heart. Garson was his only constant companion over the years, in good times and bad. A son? Why, that’s absurd! I shall ask cook to make you a very hot gin and water while I meanwhile go and give this young bounder a good talking to!”’

‘Bravo! Most commendable.’

‘I was appalled by the insensitive treatment of this woman who, after all, only wanted to help lay out Mr Sands with all the dignity and care she could muster, so I went up to the hall, cutting through the walled kitchen garden, and saw the back door to the house had been left open. Well, I am acquainted with Lord Astor, who rents Foxbury Hall out in the winter, and know the layout of the rooms fairly well from previous visits, so I let myself in and – what a shock – there was a group of Chinamen, I ask you, bickering with one another, consulting a map that had been laid out flat on the kitchen table, a map depicting the naked human form, indecent and covered in heretical symbols and underlinings, the diagram countenanced by numerals and Chinese letters of the alphabet. The abhorrent scent of powerful joss alerted me to Oriental mischief, wholly un-Christian ethics.’

‘Practitioners of alternative medicine,’ corrected my companion good-naturedly. ‘They were merely discussing acupuncture, studying a chart, my dear Marsden-Lee. I have spent time in Tibet and China and can assure you there was nothing untoward regarding their activities. Do carry on. Your observations are first rate.’

‘Be that as it may, Mr Holmes, I demanded to see Mr Sands’s body there and then, to view the corpse.’

‘Ha ha, by Jove that’s good and pushy.’

‘To pray for the soul of the departed, to offer up a prayer for the dead in the Anglican faith. Well, my arrival was greeted with polite disapproval. I was bustled away by their leader, a tall, gangly Chinaman, austere to the extreme with a cruel mouth and menacing airs who went by the name of Wu. Doctor Wu Xing. He was evidently held in high esteem for the other Orientals would respectfully bow when referring to this chart of blasphemy.

‘I was evicted! Evicted from the hall as a trespasser. Me! The vicar of the parish and on friendly terms with Lord Astor. Well, I have not been back since.’

‘Did you perchance observe anything else of interest?’ asked Holmes.

‘Now you come to mention it, I was passing round by the shrubbery and happened to peer into the billiard room. The windows look out onto the flower beds, and the lawn and tennis courts. Well, I chanced upon the strangest thing, for there on top of the green baize billiard table was a most peculiar receptacle. Not exactly a proper elm coffin, more of a wicker compostable shell, a lightweight coffin of basketwork favoured these days by faddish vegetarians and slavish pre-Raphaelite followers of William Morris who prefer to be buried beneath a flower bed in the garden.’

‘And of the young man calling himself the son?’

‘I saw nothing of him, Mr Holmes. He might well have been a complete stranger, an impostor for all we know.’