THE BISHOP OF Peckham had had heart put into him in the course of the day, and when he finally went in to talk to the Grand Inquisitor, at about half past twelve, he was quite his normal self — avuncular, cheery within limits, but with a definite surface authority. It was thus he behaved on parish visitations. It went down very well with the smaller suburban or country congregations, who otherwise were inclined to be suspicious of so controversial and much-televised a bishop.
It is difficult to say what manner would have brought out the best in Inspector Plunkett. Certain it is that this episcopal manner did not. As the Bishop eased himself down into the comfortable visitor’s chair, mopped his brow, and jovially said: ‘Dreadful business, this, dreadful,’ the submerged sneer on Plunkett’s face relaxed not one iota. He was, it seemed, a man whose soul of steel could not be softened by matiness. And when the Bishop said: ‘Rely on me for any help I can give,’ Plunkett merely replied: ‘I suppose you think you’re out of it?’
‘I beg your pardon?’ said the Bishop.
‘I suppose you think you’re out of the running, eh? — because you’re a bishop.’
‘Not at all, not at — ’
‘Because you’re not. Not by any means. Bishops don’t cut any ice with me. Nor does any of this paraphernalia — robes, sandals, rosaries, crucifixes. No — they don’t cut any ice with me.’
The Bishop, uncertain of his wisest approach, made a cat’s cradle of his fingertips, and maintained a polite silence. His attitude, however, seemed only to make Plunkett more aggressive.
‘And do you know why it doesn’t cut any ice? Do you know why it makes me sick to the stomach? Eh? Because it’s popery, that’s what it is. Popery. We got rid of popery in this country four centuries ago, and now it comes creeping and crawling back in again, using the Church of so-called England as the back door. If I had my way you’d be chased out of the country — put on the next plane for Rome, where you belong.’
He threw himself back in his chair, and lit a cigarette, almost gasping with eagerness. The Bishop, confronted with the sort of passion he had hardly seen among his co-religionists for years, felt a tinge of fear. Clayton was right. This man was on the edge of insanity. On the other hand, before anything could be done, the interview had to be got through, in as dignified a manner as possible.
‘You’re quite wrong if you think I expect special treatment,’ he said, adding urbanely: ‘I’ve known bishops do some very extraordinary things. You’re quite right to suspect me.’
‘I suspect everyone in your group.’
‘Quite, quite — it’s your duty to. No doubt Father Anselm will have told you that I was asleep in my bedroom when he came to inform me of the murder?’
‘Oh, he told me. Whether you were asleep or not, we don’t know, do we? Whether he was telling the truth or not, we don’t know, do we? For all I know, you may be in this together. In other words, there may be criminal collusion.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said the Bishop, sighing. ‘I see it must be very difficult to know who to believe.’
‘Your real name,’ said Inspector Plunkett, leaning forward with a hideous, thirsty expression on his face, as if he were accusing the Bishop of going under an alias, ‘is Henry Caradyce Forde, isn’t it?’
‘Er-yes.’
‘You write — books, don’t you?’ The word was ejaculated as if it were a strand of tough steak stuck between his teeth. ‘I’ve read about them, haven’t I? Modern books, I believe, isn’t that right?’ He paused dramatically. ‘Heretical books, I’d call them — blasphemous books. Sacrilegious. It’s men like you that destroy people’s faith!’
For the first time in his life the Bishop regretted the widespread publicity which had been given to his radical reinterpretations of the basic truths of Christianity.
• • •
On her way down to lunch Bente Frøystad met up with Randi Paulsen in the corridor outside their bedrooms.
‘How did it go?’ she asked. ‘Was he as crazy with you as with the rest of us?’
Randi was feeling so pleased with herself at the way the interview had gone that she had not prepared herself for such a question.
‘He certainly seemed very interested in spiritual matters,’ she said primly, and pulling open the door she went into her room.
• • •
Lunch was not a happy meal. It was not the food that was the cause: it was excellent plain fare as usual, showing that murder had not disturbed the routine of the kitchen. All ate hungrily, showing that murder did not upset the digestive processes either. Ernest Clayton observed that down in the body of the Great Hall the brothers were doing likewise, and, against the usages of the Community, talking among themselves — eagerly, almost excitedly, like birds about to migrate.
It was the presence of the head of the order which cast a blight over High Table. To begin with it had seemed as if his purpose in coming among them (which he had avoided as much as possible over the last two days) was to reassure them, and restore something of the holy calm of St Botolph’s to the atmosphere. So that, though the presence of the ladies still seemed to affect him disagreeably, and though he cast a particularly polar glance in the direction of Bente Frøystad (glowing with vitality and charm, and not bothering with too much simulated grief for the dear departed brother), still, he attempted at the beginning to establish a restful, mournful atmosphere over the table.
But the talk turned to murder, as it could hardly fail to do, and Father Anselm — lacking the human touch that would have told him that this was something he had not had an earthly chance of stopping — retreated into significant silence.
‘One thing I would like to know,’ said Ernest Clayton, sitting two places away from Father Anselm, and making unavailing attempts to draw him into the conversation, ‘is when the Bishop of Mitabezi went out to — do what he did.’
‘Why is that?’ asked Bente Frøystad.
‘Because,’ said Clayton meaningfully, ‘if it was, say, midnight, that would mean that the main door was unlocked from then until about two-thirty, when the Bishop was seen coming back into the main building by Father Anselm here, and the Bishop.’
If Father Anselm was dismayed to hear his theory concerning the limits on who could be suspected coming under question, he gave no sign, merely gazing at his plate with an expression of distaste on his face, as if he was wondering whether it was the lamb slaughtered by Mitabezi that he was now eating.
‘So you mean— ’ said Stewart Phipps, his ferrety eyes aglow.
‘That is the time anyone could have come in and killed Brother Dominic. I mean, for example, anyone from outside the Community — for the walls are mere child’s play — or any of the brothers, if it is possible to get out of their wing at night.’
He looked again towards Father Anselm, who looked straight ahead of him to the empty seat at the other end of the table, usually occupied by the Bishop of Peckham, and gave no sign of having heard. He was clearly too wily a fox to be drawn by such manoeuvres.
‘So you mean,’ said Randi Paulsen, leaning forwards, and genuinely interested, ‘that the murderer might be — just to take an example — a thief from outside?’
‘Yes, indeed. The plate in the chapel certainly looks worth anyone’s attention. Then again, it could be someone connected with Brother Dominic’s past life.’
Ernest Clayton noticed that Simeon Fleishman seemed about to say something, and then stopped. So he went on: ‘All this is dependent on times, of course.’ He determined that he would have to take the battle into Father Anselm’s country. ‘What time was it, Father, that you went into Brother Dominic’s room?’
There was a long pause. It was apparent to everyone present that Father Anselm resented even so simple and factual a question as lèse-sainteté, an impertinent questioning of one who should be beyond trivialities of that kind. There were storm-clouds over the snow. Finally, however, he turned his fathomless eyes in Ernest Clayton’s direction and said: ‘About ten minutes to two.’
The assembled delegates waited with baited breath to see if the Reverend Clayton dared to ask the next question. The inevitability of that question had been perceived even by Simeon P. Fleishman. Ernest Clayton speared a boiled potato, and said:
‘Why did you go to his room at that time of night?’
The silence at High Table was like Frogmore mausoleum waiting for a visit from Prince Albert’s relict. From the body of the hall came the whispered chatter of the brothers, like the voices of the distant world outside.
‘That is a matter,’ said Father Anselm, with simulated calm, ‘that I am quite willing to discuss with the proper authorities, should they consider it of importance. You would hardly expect me to discuss it at this time with you.’
Once into deep water, Ernest Clayton decided he had to swim onward and outward. ‘It is because the proper authorities seem disinclined to ask the obvious questions that I feel they have to be asked by someone,’ he said.
‘Then you will pardon me if I doubt whether you are the person,’ said Father Anselm, pushing back his chair. ‘I have no doubt you are asking these questions as part of some sort of childish game, and I decline to have anything to do with it.’ He stood up, towering over them, looking coldly wrathful. ‘I have business of more importance to attend to.’
And he stalked the length of the Great Hall, his robe billowing against his lanky body as if in an angry wind. As he went past the lower table, voices were stifled and eyes were lowered, and even after he disappeared into the gloom of the cloisters the brothers seemed to have lost the urge to break their silence.
Not so High Table, which suddenly found they had a great deal to say to each other.
• • •
‘You realize it’s people like you who rob ordinary men and women of their faith, don’t you?’ said Plunkett, stabbing the cosy, episcopal form of the Bishop of Peckham with his hat-pin eyes. ‘Do you realize when I was a boy this was a Christian country? Eh? What is it now? A paradise for pimps and druggies, that’s what it is. A haven for rotten Hindus and Moslems, buying our churches for their filthy rituals, shovelling their poisonous foods into our bellies, living off our welfare state. What do you feel like when you walk through the streets of London? Eh? I’d never seen a darkie till I was twenty. Now they’re teeming everywhere, I can hardly bear to walk down the street it’s so bad. We’re being overrun by lesser breeds without the law!’
Thus far the Bishop had been holding his own pretty well. He was used to dealing with fundamentalists, and he had been firm, dignified and (in so far as it was possible to be in such a ludicrous situation) reasonable. As Plunkett swerved crazily off on to new pastures, and he found himself being held personally responsible for the entire process of coloured immigration, a realization came to him that any pretence at rational conversation with a man in his state of mind was out of the question. A great wave of weariness swept over him. At any moment now, he foresaw, the River Tiber would be flowing with much blood.
‘Well, our streets would be a lot more dirty if we hadn’t the coloured immigrants to sweep them,’ he said feebly.
‘Huh,’ spat out Plunkett, not likely to be mollified by such scraps of liberal leavings. ‘They’re the litter I’d like to see removed.’
‘And I don’t know how our hospitals would manage,’ said the Bishop, feeling he ought to add: ‘Count your blessings.’
‘And what do you think those damned blackies are doing in the hospitals. Eh?’ yelled Plunkett, his voice rising as he became uncontrollably gripped by all his various hysterias. ‘Injecting us with poisons known only to them. They’re filling us with drugs to debilitate us. Weaken our resolve to rule! Make us lose our grip! You can see it happening, bit by bit, every day.’
‘Inspector Plunkett,’ said the Bishop, with some dignity, ‘I kept my patience during your investigation of my religious opinions, totally irrelevant though I found it to the matter in hand. I see no reason whatsoever why I should waste my time listening to your peculiarly nasty racial prejudices, or being put into the dock about something which I have not an atom of control over and which has no conceivable relevance to the investigation you are supposed to be making.’
Plunkett’s face took on an expression of infinite cunning. ‘Him upstairs,’ he said, ‘he’s a darkie. Right?’
‘He is coloured,’ admitted the Bishop. ‘But he is not an immigrant.’
‘He’s a bishop of your church,’ said Plunkett triumphantly.
‘No doubt, but I do not see the relevance of that to the present case.’
‘You’re the enemy within, you see, and he’s the enemy without. You’re one of the ones sapping away our fibre. You’re spreading doubt and irreligion. And he’s one of the ones just waiting to take over.’ He bared his fangs in a horrible snarl. ‘Do you know what I foresee for this country in a few years’ time?’
The Bishop took a deep breath.
‘The River Tiber flowing with much blood,’ said he and Plunkett in unison. It was all too much. The Bishop rose, inclined his head, and made for the door.
• • •
The Bishop of Peckham was momentarily exhilarated by his decisive action in walking out of Father Anselm’s office, which Plunkett’s presence had somehow transformed in his mind into something resembling Alberich’s cave. But the feeling did not last. The decisive action had to be followed up by further decisive action — the removal of Plunkett. And, as so often at crisis moments of this kind, the Bishop’s resolve turned to jelly. He was really the sort of bishop Elizabeth I liked to deal with.
His instinct was, as had become a habit recently, to consult with Ernest Clayton. He pottered around the grounds and buildings of the Community in search of him, and finally found him in the room which they had used for their few symposium sessions. He was talking to Simeon P. Fleishman, but at the Bishop’s approach the American evaporated, in so far as it was possible for so substantial a figure to do so.
‘What do you make of our Simeon?’ asked the Bishop, so as not to bring out his problems too immediately and appear too dependent.
‘A clerical crook?’ hazarded Clayton, who knew perfectly well what the Bishop really wanted to talk about. ‘To be perfectly honest, I can’t make him out. Outside of matters of finance he seems irredeemably stupid. Even with our present shortage of clergymen he’d never get to theological college here. One wonders what on earth his sermons would be like. Probably something like Denis Healey’s, I suppose. But what about you? How did it go?’
‘Dreadful, dreadful,’ said the Bishop. ‘A long inquisition concerning my various heresies, done in a very unpleasant manner — almost as if he were a reporter for one of the sensational Sundays. Then he veered round on to coloured immigration, I forget how, and somehow I seemed to be responsible for that too. I’m the “enemy within”, whatever he may mean by that.’
‘And about the case itself?’
‘Nothing. Less than nothing. He didn’t seem in the least interested. I’m afraid I’m forced to agree with you. The man is completely off his head.’
‘Then he must be removed,’ said the Reverend Clayton briskly.
‘You think so?’ said the Bishop nervously.
‘How else will the thing ever be cleared up, and us let out of this place? If we don’t get a competent man on the job, it will hang around us like a dirty smell, and people will be gossiping about it behind our backs for years to come.’
The Bishop seemed to hear his hopes of an Archbishopric evaporate into the blue with a flap of angel’s wings. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘What do you suggest?’
‘Well, we could start by finding out who the Chief Constable is,’ said Ernest Clayton. ‘Surely in your position you usually find you can go to the top?’
‘True,’ murmured the Bishop complacently, and followed Clayton out of the meeting-room, through the dim cloisters, and out into the sunlit expanse of the Great Hall.
‘I thought so,’ said Ernest Clayton, looking towards the main door, where Sergeant Forsyte was posted, looking hefty and useless and bored. ‘See what you can get out of him.’
The Bishop was quite unsure of the manner he should adopt to Sergeant Forsyte, though he needn’t have worried, for the good sergeant had more than an inkling of what was on his mind, and a limitless desire to help. ‘I’m awfully sorry to trouble you, Sergeant,’ said the Bishop, dancing from foot to foot in his embarrassment, ‘but I wonder if you could — in short — if you could tell me the name of the Chief Constable of the Riding?’
‘Certainly, sir,’ said the good sergeant, who didn’t know how to address a bishop, but oozed servility instead. ‘It’s Sir Henry Abbotsford, of Kirkby-le-Dale.’
The Bishop skipped gleefully back to Ernest Clayton. ‘It’s Harry Abbotsford,’ he said. ‘I met him at one of the Brontë Society do’s — the trip to Scarborough on the Anne Brontë one hundred and fiftieth Anniversary, I think. What a stroke of luck!’
‘Then you must get on to him,’ said Ernest Clayton.
The Bishop, fired with conspiratorial zeal, jumped to find Sergeant Forsyte suddenly at his elbow.
‘The phone number is Kirkby-le-Dale three five six nothing,’ said the Sergeant levelly, looking straight into the Bishop’s eyes.
‘Oh, thank you, thank you,’ said the Bishop to his retreating figure. ‘Much obliged.’
‘Right,’ said Ernest Clayton. And then they both stopped in their tracks.
‘Where do I phone from?’ said the Bishop helplessly. ‘The only phone I’ve seen is in Father Anselm’s room.’
‘Oh, dear,’ said Ernest Clayton, ‘I’m sure that’s the only one. How stupid of us not to have thought of that. I suppose I could drive you into Hickley.’
‘I don’t like the idea of that,’ said the Bishop. ‘They might not let us out — and it would look as if we were running away.’
They both thought for a moment.
‘Peckham,’ said Clayton thoughtfully. ‘I wonder if you were the last. There’s no one after you alphabetically. It could be he’s left his office — though heaven knows what he might be planning to do next.’
They skulked along the cloisters and ducked into the semi-darkness, watched by the benevolent eye of Sergeant Forsyte. As luck would have it, they were no sooner in the murk of the corridors than they heard the sound of a door being opened. Standing quite still in the long shadow (the Bishop thought that perhaps last night someone had done exactly the same thing, in exactly the same spot, and the thought nearly set his teeth chattering) they saw Chief Inspector Plunkett emerging from Father Anselm’s office, his suspicious little eyes darting everywhere. After a moment of indecision, he started off down the little passageway leading to the chapel.
‘Now,’ whispered Ernest Clayton. ‘Kirkby-le-Dale three five six nothing. I’ll keep watch at the corner, and I’ll cough twice if he comes out of the chapel.’
The Bishop darted into Father Anselm’s office, and a moment later Ernest Clayton heard him riffling through the telephone directory for the dialling code.
It was early afternoon, and the Chief Constable had just risen from his after-lunch nap. Such a situation did not normally find him in his best humour, but he dearly loved a Lord, and a bishop was the next best thing. So he my-Lorded him with great geniality, and listened to his story.
‘Of course I realize,’ said the Bishop in a low, earnest voice, terrified lest Alberich should return to his cave and clobber him with a Nibelung’s hammer, ‘that a complaint at this stage may seem very premature. But when the man arrived his manner seemed strange, and in the course of the day it has become stranger and stranger. I must say that many of us feel that he is quite literally mad.’
‘In what way mad?’ asked the Chief Constable, perhaps wondering whether Plunkett was wandering round in white satin, distributing flowers.
‘He’s spent his entire time asking us about our religious views, and shouting and snarling at us if he doesn’t approve of them. He’s made no investigation whatsoever of the case, as far as I can see. And he’s absolutely obsessed about colour.’
‘Colour?’ said the Chief Constable, seeming to take more notice.
‘Coloured people. He practically foams at the mouth when they’re mentioned. For some reason he seems to think I’m personally responsible for letting them into the country, though beyond the odd remark on Any Questions? I don’t recall that I ever — ’
‘Oh, dear, that’s bad,’ said the Chief Constable. ‘We’re having to be very careful about anything of that kind. We’ve had very strict directions from the HO.’
‘And of course the Bishop of Mitabezi is here.’
‘Oh, good lord, a coloured bishop,’ said Sir Henry in disgust. ‘Well, look, I’ll get on to this, and if — ’
But Sir Henry was interrupted by a noise which even he, in Kirkby-le-Dale, couldn’t fail to register. The Bishop, so much closer, practically jumped out of his gaiters. It was a thunderous clang of metal, and it reverberated around the narrow corridors, and was speedily followed by further, lesser clangs, all of which left their little shivers of noise behind them, as if they were part of an acoustics experiment.
‘One moment, Sir Henry,’ said the Bishop in his normal voice, and scooted for the door. His intention was to make for the open, but at the end of the corridor he saw Ernest Clayton, who beckoned.
‘Come on,’ he said, and the two went hurrying down the long dark passage which led to the chapel, Clayton keeping a comfortable lead. The door was open, and they stood in the doorway, incredulously watching the figure inside.
Chief Inspector Plunkett was standing to one side of the chapel, his hands on his hips, apparently contemplating his handiwork with satisfaction. He was at the entrance to a tiny side-chapel, hardly more than a box, with a William Morrisy stained-glass window. The plate from the altar of this chapel had been hurled to the floor, and the altar cloth dragged after it. A heavy candlestick was still rolling in a sea-sick manner down the side-aisle, and as they watched he reached for a statue of St Botolph, in a small niche.
‘Idolatry!’ barked the Inspector, to the heavy oak rafters. ‘Confounded, damnable idolatry!’ And he hurled the statue to the ground.
Then, doing a sharp, right-angled turn, he strode in his military way towards the high altar.
‘We must stop him,’ whispered Ernest Clayton urgently to the Bishop. But they made no move, whether from understandable doubts of their own capacity to hold the madman, or from a desire to see him struck by celestial lightning for his sacrilege perhaps neither of them quite knew. Reaching the altar, and uttering meaningless little grunts of hatred and contempt, Plunkett seized the massive silver pieces one by one and, casting them down with a certain sense of theatre, sent them crashing and hopping down the altar steps and across the chapel floor. He seized the Sanctus lamp, but was prevented by its chains from hurling it to the floor. Instead a superb brass crucifix fell victim to his Cromwellian zeal. The pieces rang out richly and impressively, and the Inspector sent them on their way with more incomprehensible cries, this time of triumph, presumably over popery.
Finally, hearing sounds from the other end of the corridor which they thought might be Father Anselm, the Bishop and Ernest Clayton decided they could remain quiescent no longer. They advanced purposefully across the chapel just as Plunkett seized the last of the pieces on the altar, a heavy candlestick, and began sending both it and the altar cloth skidding across the chapel floor.
But, progressing up the wide central aisle, the Bishop and Clayton found themselves confronting not just the heavy candlestick, which rolled towards them like distant thunder, but also a lesser object, which skimmed out of the altar cloth and across the floor at them. It scraped the candlestick with a metallic shriek, and finally landed up not far from the door, in which now stood framed the figure of the head of the Community of St Botolph’s. The three clerics stood looking at the object.
It was a long, sturdy, deadly-looking knife, and its blade was brown with blood.
It looked as if Inspector Plunkett had found a clue at last.