Death in a White Tie

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE Benefit of Clergy

The inquest on Lord Robert Gospell was held at eleven o’clock the next morning. It was chiefly remarkable for the circumstance that more people were turned away from it than had ever been turned away from any previous inquest in the same building. The coroner was a cross-grained man with the poorest possible opinion of society with a small “s” and a perfectly venomous hatred of Society with a large one. He suffered from chronic dyspepsia and an indeterminate but savage conviction that somebody was trying to get the better of him. The proceedings were coloured by his efforts to belittle the whole affair when he thought of the fashionable spectators, and to make the very most of it when he reflected that this sort of thing was the direct outcome of the behaviour of those sorts of people. However, apart from this personal idiosyncrasy, he was a good coroner. He called Donald, who, very white-faced, gave formal evidence of identification. He then heard the evidence of the taxi-driver, was particular about time, place and route, and called Alleyn.

Alleyn described his first view and examination of the body. In formal phrases he gave a precise account of the injuries he had found on the body of his friend. Dr Curtis followed with his report on the post-mortem. One of Dimitri’s men gave evidence on the time Lord Robert left Marsdon House. The coroner with a vindictive glance at the audience said he saw no reason to call further evidence, addressed the jury in words that left them in no possible doubt as to the verdict they should return and when they had duly returned it, ordered an adjournment. He then fixed a baleful blue eye on the farthest wall and pronounced an expression of sympathy with the relatives. The whole proceedings had lasted twenty minutes.

“Swish!” said Fox when he met Alleyn in the street outside. “That’s old ‘Slap-Bang, Here-we-are-again.’ You can’t beat him for speed, can you, sir?”

“Mercifully, you can’t. Fox, we’re off to Barbicon-Bramley. I’ve borrowed my mother’s car and I’ve a hell of a lot to tell you, and I rather think the spell is wound up.”

“Sir?”

“You are quite right, Fox. Never quote, and if you do certainly not from Macbeth.”

Lady Alleyn’s car was parked in a side street. Fox and Alleyn got into it and headed for the Uxbridge Road. On the way Alleyn related Bridget’s and Donald’s and Lady Carrados’s stories. When he had finished Fox grunted and they were both silent for ten minutes.

“Well,” said Fox at last, “it all points to the same thing doesn’t it, Mr Alleyn?”

“Yes, Fox. In a dubious sort of way it does.”

“Still, I don’t see how we can exclude the others.”

“Nor do I unless we get something definite from these people. If necessary we’ll have to go on to Falconbridge and visit the hospital, but I’m in hopes that Miss Harris’s uncle will come out of his retirement and go back to his gay young rectorish days seventeen years ago.”

“What a hope!” said Fox.

“As you indicate, the chances are thin.”

“If they couldn’t find this chap O’Brien’s letter on the premises then how can we expect to trace it now, seventeen years later?”

“Well urged, Brer Fox, well urged. But I fancy we know something now that they didn’t know then.”

“Oh, well,” conceded Fox. “Maybe. But all the same I wouldn’t give you a tuppenny damn for our chances and that’s flat.”

“I’m a little more sanguine than that. Well, if we fail here we’ll have to peg away somewhere else.”

“There’s the missing cloak and hat.”

“Yes. Any report come in this morning from the postal people?”

“No. I’ve followed your suggestion and asked them to try to check yesterday’s overseas parcels post. Our chaps have gone into the rubbish-bin game and there’s nothing there. The Chelsea and Belgrave bins were emptied this morning and there’s no cloaks or hats in any of them. Of course something may come in from farther afield.”

“I don’t fancy the rubbish-bins, Fox. Too risky. For some reason he wanted those things to be lost completely. Hair oil, perhaps. Yes, it might be hair oil. I’m afraid, you know, that we shall have to ask all these people if we may search their houses.”

“Carrados is sure to object, sir, and you don’t want to have to get search warrants yet, do you?”

“I think we can scare him by saying that Dimitri, Withers, Davidson, Halcut-Hackett and Lady Potter are all going to be asked to allow a search of their houses. He’ll look a bit silly if he refuses on top of that.”

“Do you think the cloak and hat may still be hidden away in — well, in the guilty party’s house?”

“No, blast it. I think he got rid of them yesterday before we had covered the first phase of investigation.”

“By post?”

“Well, can you think of a better method? In London? We’ve decided the river’s barred because of the tide. We’ve advertised the damn thing well enough — they haven’t been shoved down anyone’s area. We’ve searched all the way along the Embankment. The men are still at it but I don’t think they’ll find them. The murderer wouldn’t have time to do anything very elaborate in the way of hiding them and anyway, if we’re right, it’s off his beat.”

“Where would he send them?” ruminated Fox.

“Put yourself in his place. What address would you put on an incriminating parcel?”

“Care of Private Hoo Flung Dung, forty-second battalion, Chop Suey, Mah Jongg, Manchuria, to wait till called for,” suggested Fox irritably.

“Something like that,” said Alleyn. “Something very like that, Brer Fox.”

They drove in silence for the rest of the way to Barbicon-Bramley.

Miss Harris’s natal village proved to be small and rather self-consciously picturesque. There was a preponderance of ye olde-ness about the few shops and a good deal of pseudo-Tudor half-timbering on the outlying houses. They stopped at the post office and Alleyn asked to be directed to the Reverend Mr Walter Harris’s house.

“I understand he is not the rector but his brother.”

“Oo, yes,” agreed the post office lady rattling her basket cuffs and flashing a smile. “That will be the old gentleman. Quayte an aydentity in the district. First to the left into Oakapple Lane and straight on to the end. ‘The Thatch.’ It’s ever so unmistakable. The last residence on the left, standing back in its own grounds.”

“Thank you so much,” said Alleyn.

They found ‘The Thatch’ as she had predicted, without any difficulty. The grounds of its own in which it stood back were an eighth of an acre of charming cottage garden. Alleyn and Fox had only got half-way up the cobbled path when they came upon two rumps up-ended behind a tall border of rosemary and lavender. The first was clad in patched trousers of clerical grey, the second in the navy blue decency of a serge skirt. Fragrant herbs hid the rest of these two gardeners from view.

“Good afternoon, sir,” said Alleyn, removing his hat.

With a slow upheaving movement, the Reverend and Mrs Walter Harris became wholly vertical and turned about.

“Oh!” they said gently. “Good afternoon.”

They were very old indeed and had the strange marital likeness that so often comes upon a man and woman who have worked together all their lives. Their faces, though they differed in conformation, echoed each other in expression. They both had mild grey eyes surrounded by a network of kindly lines; they were both weather-beaten, and each of their mouths in repose, curved into a doubtful smile. Upon Mrs Harris’s hair rather than her head was a wide garden hat with quite a large rent in the crown through which straggled a straight grey lock or two. Her husband also wore well over his nose a garden hat, an ancient panama with a faded green ribbon. His long crêpey neck was encircled by a low clerical collar, but instead of the usual grey jacket an incredibly faded All Souls blazer hung from his sharp shoulder-blades. He now tilted his head backwards in order to look at Alleyn under his hat-brim and through his glasses which were clipped half-way down his nose.

Alleyn said: “I’m so sorry to bother you, sir.”

“No matter,” said Mr Harris, “no matter.” His voice had the authentic parsonic ring.

“There’s nothing more maddening than to be interrupted when you’ve settled down to a good afternoon’s gardening,” Alleyn added.

“Twitch!” said Mr Harris violently.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Twitch! It’s the bane of my existence. It springs up like veritable dragon’s teeth and I assure you it’s a great deal more difficult to extract. Three wheelbarrow loads since last Thursday forenoon.”

“Walter,” said his wife, “these gentlemen want to speak to you.”

“We won’t keep you more than a few minutes, sir,” said Alleyn.

“Yes, dear. Where shall I take them?”

“Into your den,” said Mrs Harris, as if her husband was a carnivorous ravager.

“Certainly, certainly. Come along. Come along,” said Mr Harris in the patient voice of vicarage hospitality. “Come along.”

He took them through a french window into a little faded red room where old dim photographs of young men in cassocks hung beside old dim photographs of famous cathedrals. The shelves were full of dusty volumes of sermons and the works of Mrs Humphry Ward, Charles Kingsley, Charlotte M. Yonge, Dickens and Sir Walter Scott. Between a commentary and an Imitation of Christ was a copy of The Martyrdom of Man, truculently solid. For Mr Harris had once been an earnest undergraduate and had faced things. It was a shabby, friendly old room.

“Sit down, sit down,” said Mr Harris.

He hurriedly gathered up from the chairs, parish magazines, Church Times and seed catalogues. With his arms full of these papers, he wandered vaguely about his den.

Alleyn and Fox sat down on the horsehair chairs.

“That’s right,” said Mr Harris. He incontinently dropped all his papers on the floor and sat down.

“Now, what can I have the pleasure—? Um?”

“First, sir, I must tell you we are police officers.”

“Dear me,” said Mr Harris, “not young Hockley again, I hope. Are you sure it’s not my brother you want? The rector of Barbicon-Bramley? He’s been very interested in the case and he told me that if the poor lad was not charged he could find a post for him with some kind souls who are prepared to overlook—”

“No, sir,” interrupted Alleyn gently, “it’s you we want to see.”

“But I’m retired,” said Mr Harris opening his eyes very wide. “I’m quite retired, you know.”

“I am going to ask you to go back to the days when you were rector of Falconbridge.”

“Of Falconbridge!” Mr Harris beamed at them. “Now this is really the greatest pleasure. You come from dear old Falconbridge! Let me see, I don’t recollect either of your faces though, of course, I have been retired now for fifteen years and I’m afraid my memory is not what it used to be. Now tell me your names.”

“Mr Harris, we don’t come from Falconbridge, we are from Scotland Yard. My name is Alleyn and this is Inspector Fox.”

“How do you do? I hope nothing has gone wrong in the dear old village,” ejaculated Mr Harris anxiously. He suddenly remembered his panama hat and snatched it from his head revealing a shining pink pate with an aura of astonished white fluff.

“No, no,” said Alleyn hastily. “At least, not recently.” He darted a venomous glance at Fox who was grinning broadly. “We are investigating a case, sir, and are anxious to trace a letter which we believe to have been lost in Falconbridge between seventeen and eighteen years ago.”

“A letter! Dear me, I’m afraid if it was addressed to me there is very little hope of recovery. Only this morning I found I had mislaid a most important letter from a very dear old friend, Canon Worsley of All Saints, Chipton. It’s a most extraordinary thing where that letter has gone. I distinctly remember that I put it in the pocket of this jacket and—”

He thrust his hands in the side pockets of his blazer and pulled out a collection of string, seed-packets, pencils and pieces of paper.

“Why, there it is!” he exclaimed, staring at an envelope that had fallen to the floor. “There, after all, it is! I am ASTOUNDED.”

“Mr Harris,” said Alleyn loudly. Mr Harris instantly threw his head back and looked at Alleyn through his glasses.

“Eighteen years ago,” continued Alleyn very rapidly, “there was a motor accident on the bridge outside the rectory at Falconbridge. The driver, Captain O’Brien, was severely injured and was taken into the rectory. Do you remember?”

Mr Harris had opened his mouth in astonishment but he said nothing. He merely continued to gape at Alleyn.

“You were very kind to him,” Alleyn went on; “you kept him at the rectory and sent for help. He was taken to the hospital and died there a few hours later.”

He paused, but Mr Harris’s expression had not changed. There was something intensely embarrassing in his posture and his unexpected silence.

“Do you remember?” asked Alleyn.

Without closing his mouth Mr Harris slowly shook his head from side to side.

“But it was such a serious accident. His young wife motored down from London. She went to the hospital but he died without regaining consciousness.”

“Poor fellow!” said Mr Harris in his deepest voice. “Poor fell-oh!”

“Can’t you remember, now?”

Mr Harris made no reply but got to his feet, went to the french window, and called into the garden.

“Edith! Edith!”

“Hoo-ee?” replied a wavering voice close at hand.

“Can you spare-ah a moment?”

“Coming.”

He turned away from the window and beamed at them.

“Now we shan’t be long,” he announced.

But when Alleyn saw Mrs Harris amiably blunder up the garden path he scarcely shared in this optimistic view. They all stood up. She accepted Alleyn’s chair and drew her gardening gloves from her old hands. Mr Harris contemplated her as if she was some rare achievement of his own.

“Edith, my dear,” he said loudly, “would you tell these gentlemen about an accident?”

“Which accident?”

“That, I’m afraid, I don’t know, dear. Indeed we are depending upon you to inform us.”

“I don’t understand you, Walter.”

“I don’t understand myself very well, I must admit, Edith. I find it all very puzzling.”

“What?” said his wife. Alleyn now realized that she was slightly deaf.

“Puzzling,” shouted Mr Harris.

“My husband’s memory is not very good,” explained Mrs Harris smiling gently at Alleyn and Fox. “He was greatly shaken by his cycling accident some months ago. I suppose you have called about the insurance.”

Raising his voice Alleyn embarked once more on his recital. This time he was not interrupted, but as neither of the Harrises gave any sign of understanding, it was impossible to tell whether or not he spoke in vain. By the time he had finished, Mr Harris had adopted his former disconcerting glare. Mrs Harris, however, turned to her husband and said:

“You remember the blood on the carpet, Walter? At dear old Falconbridge?”

“Dear me, yes. Now that’s what I was trying to recollect. Of course it was. Poor fellow. Poor fell-oh!”

“Then you do remember?” Alleyn cried.

“Indeed I do,” said Mrs Harris reproachfully. “The poor young wife wrote us such a charming letter, thanking us for the little we had been able to do for him. I would have liked to answer it but unfortunately my husband lost it.”

“Edith, I have discovered dear old Worsley’s letter. It was in my pocket. Fancy!”

“Fancy, dear, yes.”

“Talking of letters,” said Alleyn to Mrs Harris. “Can you by any chance remember anything about a letter that was lost on the occasion of Captain O’Brien’s accident? I think you were asked if it had been found in the vicarage.”

“I’m afraid I didn’t catch—”

Alleyn repeated it.

“To be sure I do,” said Mrs Harris. “Perfectly.”

“You were unable to give any information about this letter?”

“On the contrary.”

“What!”

“On the contrary,” repeated Mrs Harris firmly. “I sent it after him.”

“After who?” roared Fox so loudly that even Mrs Harris gave a little jump. “I’m sure I beg pardon, sir,” said Fox hastily, “I don’t know what came over me.” He opened his notebook in some confusion.

“Mrs Harris,” said Alleyn, “will you please tell us everything you can remember about this letter?”

“Yes, please do, Edith,” said her husband unexpectedly. “She’ll find it for you,” he added in an aside. “Don’t distress yourselves.”

“Well,” began Mrs Harris. “It’s a long time ago now and I’m afraid I’m rather hazy. It was after they had taken him away, I fancy, that we found it under the couch in the study. That was when we noticed the stain on the carpet you remember, Walter. At first, of course, I thought it was one of my husband’s letters — it was not in an envelope. But when I glanced at it I realized at once that it was not, as it began ‘Dear Daddy’ and we have no children.”

“ ‘Dear Daddy,’ ” repeated Alleyn.

“I decided afterwards that it was perhaps ‘Dear Paddy’ but as my husband’s name is Walter Bernard it didn’t signify. ‘Why,’ I said, or something of that sort. ‘Why, it must have dropped out of that poor fellow’s coat when the ambulance man examined him.’ And — of course, I remember it now as clearly as if it was yesterday — and I said to little Violet: ‘Pop on your bicycle and take it to the hospital as quickly as you can, dear, because they may be looking for it.’ So little Violet—”

“Who was she, please?” asked Alleyn rather breathlessly.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Who was little Violet?” shouted Alleyn.

“My small niece. My husband’s brother’s third daughter. She was spending her holidays with us. She is grown up now and has a delightful post in London with a Lady Carrados.”

“Thank you,” said Alleyn. “Please go on.”