Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 133, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 805 & 806, September/October 2008

An Object of Scandal and Concern by Robert Barnard

© 2008 by Robert Barnard

The latest book from CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger recipient is a twisty stand-alone suspense novel entitled Last Post (Scribner, May 2008), in which a woman investigates hidden circumstances in her deceased mother’s life. Mr. Barnard is also a master short-story writer and we have several more of his tales to offer readers in coming months.

Well, this was one situation I hadn’t expected to find myself in! I had, in fact, been to church before. It was the funeral of Svein’s sister in Molde. He’d left me outside, but it was summer, and hot, and the church door had been left open. I walked into the lovely shade, lay down beside Svein in the aisle, and watched him while he tried to cope with the Lutheran church service, not knowing any of the hymns and struggling with any observance more challenging than reciting the Lord’s Prayer. He had not seen his sister for seventeen years, and it was a lot longer since he’d been to a service.

This was quite a lot different.

They seemed to have the right ideas. Though how long I, a dog, in my prime at nine, was going to be Svein’s best hope in years to come when he, at sixty-four, was coasting blithely to senility remained in doubt. I was open to offers.

I was at the monthly service of the English community in Bergen — and of course the English have the right idea when it comes to dogs. The oldest members of the community are mostly Shetland wives — women who married the Norwegians who sailed over to Scotland from occupied Norway and joined the British war effort. Later immigrants came also by marriage, or were academics, businessmen, or workers in the oil fields, though church attendance among the oil workers was exclusively Northern Irish or Scots, or so I was told. And here we were: a well-attended service because the bishop, who served the whole of Northern Europe, was attending: He was giving the sermon, while the local priest was taking the rest of the service.

The vicar was short, pudgy, and impressive only in the power of his voice. Retired from his English parish, he had for a time lived with his daughter in Bergen. This job was usually filled if possible by a retired clergyman who acted part-time and was rewarded meagrely. The bishop, on the other hand, was decidedly impressive: He could have presided at a royal wedding or a media-attended memorial service. Tall, lean, sleek, Kenneth Rose was the very image of an acceptable modern bishop. My dog’s instinct told me that much of the effect he made was show.

Before long I was deciding that an evening was like a thousand ages, because the bishop’s sermon did go on. I wasn’t used to oratory on this scale, because Svein’s verbal advances tend to be monosyllabic or confined to commonplaces and fatuous queries. But eventually the whole thing was over, we were out in the sunlight, and the priest and the bishop were shaking hands, the latter being friendly without being condescending, and making enquiries about absent members of the congregation.

“Just wait and watch, Loyd old boy,” muttered Svein. “We’re old friends of the bishop, remember.”

It was lovely late summer sunshine and eventually everyone drove off home, the bishop said goodbye to Humbleby the vicar, and then, waving in their direction, he eventually came over to us.

“I’ve told him you’re an old friend who is going to drive me to the airport,” he said. “I hope I can be forgiven a white lie.”

“If you can’t be, then God help the rest of us,” said Svein. The bishop smiled neutrally and allowed himself to be led to the car. The moment the pair were strapped into their seats the bishop began his spiel. He had paid, and did pay, no attention to me, reminding me of an English dog who once told me, feelingly, that the English were not a nation of dog-lovers as their reputation has it, but a nation of dog-neglecters. Anyway the bish certainly had his material under closer control than he had had his sermon.

“Let me get straight down to business,” he began, “since we haven’t got long. Mr. Humbleby, the priest here, came to Bergen to live about three years ago, together with his daughter Ellen.”

“Was she at the service tonight?” Svein asked.

“No-o-o,” said the bishop meaningfully. He went on: “He was made priest for Bergen and the Western Coast a year ago, when the previous man died. We mostly have retired English priests in these jobs, which are to look after Anglicans and English speakers in general, and in this case we had one to hand. It’s always worked well till now.”

“But not this appointment?” asked Svein.

The bishop took a deep breath.

“I am entering into this matter most reluctantly. I have no personal knowledge of it, you understand. I am acting after complaints — no, perhaps I should just say approaches — from members of his congregation, which means Anglicans from the West Coast here in Norway — from Stavanger to Trondheim.”

“Big area,” said Svein. “Complaints from all over, then.”

“I would prefer to say approaches from several individuals. When the Reverend Humbleby came here he was a widower — looked after, as I said, by his daughter. She, not surprisingly, has been wooed and won by a young Norwegian. She is a pretty girl, and by all accounts he is an eligible man, but perhaps she has been eager to accept and get away because — because her father has married again.”

Svein left a silence, as if to say that remarriage was not, in Norwegian eyes, either a crime or a misdemeanour. When he spoke, he said, “You seem to find the daughter’s marriage perfectly natural and understandable but the father’s marriage somehow... deplorable. Is Humbleby’s wife Norwegian?”

“Norwegian? Oh, dear me, no. I don’t imagine there would be any... approaches if she were. No, she is French, she says.”

“But people doubt it?”

“She speaks it beautifully, but her complexion is such that people feel there is probably North African blood. But you mustn’t get the impression this is a racial question.”

“Funny — I was just beginning to get just that idea,” said Svein, who was really handling this rather well, and made me suspect he had had a bad experience with a bishop as a boy.

“No, no. The question is about the lady’s past. The rumour that is going round is that Chantal has been employed — I must speak frankly — in a brothel, or brothels, in the South of France.”

“Ah,” said Svein. “Unusual for a clergyman’s wife. I’d have to admit I can’t see a Norwegian congregation standing for it.”

“I think not indeed. And in fact, many members of the congregations we get here are Norwegians: the children of one or other English parent, or the husbands and wives of Norwegians, or just people who prefer something a bit brighter than the standard Lutheran service of the state church here. No, really, I cannot see a Norwegian congregation standing for it, as you put it. Though of course there will always be one or two who mention Mary Magdalene.”

“Mary M—. That wouldn’t be the Virgin Mary, would it?”

“By no means.”

“Wait a sec. The woman taken in adultery!” said Svein, triumphantly.

“Popularly believed to be so. But we should not confuse adultery with prostitution. And we have no evidence Mary Magdalene went off and married a rabbi.”

“All very interesting,” said Svein, rubbing his hands in dirty-minded glee so that we swerved to avoid a red squirrel. “This will be a nice change for Loyd and me. We don’t even get much divorce work these days, now everything is so amicable, and laid down by law. Now, I believe the lady was not in the congregation today.”

“No. Very regrettable, but of course my schedule of visits is fixed months in advance. She was on holiday with her sister in Nice, so I’ve unfortunately missed seeing her. She’ll be back on Tuesday. In the meanwhile I have a picture of her — a photo.”

He handed it over. Before looking at it, Svein asked: “The question is, what do you want me to do?”

“I want you to go to the South of France and get evidence one way or the other.”

“I have no French.”

“All the French speak English these days. It sticks in their throat, but they do it. And you will have your photograph.”

Svein looked at it.

“Very nice! Obviously a tremendous looker in her time. And still very easy on the eye.”

The bishop coughed a disapproving but forgiving cough. We were approaching Bergen airport, and he gathered his things together.

“I regret greatly not seeing the lady — er, the vicar’s wife. It presents a better face to the question if I have actually seen, or even talked to, the object of the... approaches to me. Nothing to be done about it. I leave the case to you, and I rely on you to do the job as speedily and as economically as such a case can be done.”

“Of course, I shall need to get a pet’s passport for my dog,” said Svein. The bishop’s eyebrows rose.

“Your dog? What use can a dog be in a case like this?”

“You don’t know Loyd. And brothels in France, particularly Marseilles, are notoriously rough, lawless places.”

“Really? I suppose that’s possible. One hears about pimps and people like that. Well, I rely on you, and of course on Loyd. I trust you will be discreet. This is a matter full of dreadful possibilities for scandal, scoffing, and general unseemly hilarity. Absolute discretion must be the watchword.”

Svein assured him that discretion always was our watchword, but the bish seemed to think he should be vouchsafed something special not given equally to the hoi polloi, and he went off towards the air terminal looking dubious, as if he had landed himself in uncharted waters and was fearful of finding himself in the maelstrom.

Svein took his time. He had an old policeman’s feeling (which I share) that a crime is a crime, and is something urgent, whereas something morally whiffy in the past is something that can be taken slowly, savoured. We had all the injections done on Monday, which I endured with truly canine stoicism, and on Wednesday we went on a visit to the Rev. Humbleby. An excuse for the visit took Svein some time to work out, but in the end he took a glove.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” he said when the Rev. Humbleby opened the door, “but the bishop thought he must have picked this up by mistake when he had lunch here on Sunday. He found it in his pocket when he was going for the plane.”

“I don’t think this is one of—” began Humbleby, no doubt wondering why anyone should have gloves lying around in September when the worst that the Bergen climate throws at you is rain, followed by rain, followed by more rain. But he was interrupted by a charming voice.

“Ah — quel charmant chien! What a ’andsome boy. Is ’e a boy? ’E ’as so much ’air ’e is modesty personified.”

I wagged my tail like crazy. It’s something I’ve never been able to stop myself doing, where what I should show is an official lack of interest. Charming women, especially dusky, mature, and incredibly sexy women do not feature much in Svein’s lifestyle, though they do sometimes in his official investigations.

“This is Loyd,” he said. “He used to be my most trusted police dog.”

“Oh, bring ’im in. I came back and found lots of cold meat left over from Sunday. Cold meat I habominate, and all leftovers. If the meal is good, there is no leftovers.”

We were in the vicarage’s sitting room, and Chantal bustled out into the kitchen and came back with a plate of slices of meat which I did justice to.

“You have been away?” asked Svein. “I didn’t see you on Sunday.”

“I ’ave been to Nice.”

“That’s nice,” said Svein, not making a joke but just showing the poverty of his vocabulary. “I mustn’t take up any more of your time. Loyd has managed to put away your beef very quickly.”

“I must be getting away, too,” came a voice from a far corner of the room. A thin man, short by Norwegian standards, stood up. He spoke perfect English. “We’ve done our business. Good to have you back with us, Mrs. Humbleby.”

We all trooped to the door and made our farewells. The vicarage was a small but charming house in Fana, and we went out into the weak autumn sunshine. The man introduced himself as Stan Shawston, one of Humbleby’s parishioners. As we walked towards our cars Svein made use of his new contact.

“Very charming woman, Mrs. Humbleby.”

“Delightful. A real addition to the congregation. Numbers have gone up on Sundays, I can tell you!”

“Oh really? I heard there’d been a lot of talk.”

“Did you? I suppose it got to the ear of the bishop, did it? He’s a bit of a figure from the past. That’s the sort who get to be bishops. The people like Humbleby are at the cutting edge: They have to move with the times or they lose their congregations.”

“I see,” said Svein. “There was one allegation that I must say would have caused a lot of mischief if it had concerned one of our pastor’s wives.”

“Oh, I think I know the one you mean. Nobody has taken much notice. To me it’s probably just talk. One or two of our members have been merchant seamen. They go around the world, often half-stoned. It’s probably a case of mistaken identity.”

“I see. So the women in the congregation haven’t been causing the trouble?”

“I see what you’re getting at. No, they haven’t been causing trouble. If this was happening twenty years ago, then maybe they would have kicked up a fuss. Made representations to the bish — that kind of thing. But nothing like that has happened this time. We’re in the twenty-first century now. And as Christians we have to judge people on what they are, not what they have been in the past. Otherwise what does repentance mean? What is the point of grace? I tell you, I act as Humbleby’s eyes and ears with the congregation, and everybody — women included — is delighted to have Chantal. She’s such a lovely person.”

So that was that. Pollyanna couldn’t have put it better. That was a view of the congregation’s opinion as authoritative as we were likely to get. But I could see that Svein was puzzled. Someone had approached the bishop — perhaps had assumed new and multiple identities to make it seem like a general unease. Who? The Rev Humbleby’s daughter, perhaps. The bishop had implied that she did not welcome her new stepmother, and Chantal’s remarks about leftovers from a meal Miss Humbleby had probably cooked suggested an incipient feud.

I won’t dwell on the journey to Marseilles. It was my first flight, and it was out of the question to enjoy the experience, imprisoned in a portable cage in the luggage hold. I howled for the first time in years. I knew no one could hear me or do anything about it, but sometimes you just have to howl to give adequate expression to your feelings. When I was relieved from captivity in Marseilles I spent the first hour throwing reproachful looks at Svein, who eventually twigged what I was trying to say.

“It’s rules and regulations, old boy,” he said. “You know all about them, having been a police dog.”

From that point on, things began to look up. We stayed at an unpretentious hotel that allowed dogs in the rooms and where the cooking was excellent. I wasn’t taken with truffles, which struck me as the sort of thing I wouldn’t mind digging up and playing with, but certainly not using as food. Otherwise the things that Svein brought up to my room from the restaurant were more than acceptable, particularly as right from the start Svein made one of his most sensible decisions: This was to begin his investigations of the brothel areas of the town at the top end of the range.

He based this decision on his perception that Mrs. Humbleby, if she had ever been involved in the trade, had to have been a class act. He got in to see a young policeman by flashing his old Bergen Police ID, and he got a list of the streets where the customers were of the highest standing: aristocrats, local politicians, big businessmen, and friends of Jacques Chirac. I got the impression that the policeman had all this info at his fingertips not through the call of duty, but through that of the flesh.

I will spare you the details of our activities. Svein hawked his picture around substantial houses, once-respectable family houses, and other places pretending to be elite hotels. Usually he left me outside, which for once I found entirely acceptable. “Cherchez la chienne,” the motto of the macho philosopher dog Hamsun in the 1960s, was the order of the day for me. Prostitutes often have delightful dogs, just as rich women do, to enhance their charms. Probably they find them much more devoted and faithful than the male humans they meet in the course of business. Anyway, I had the time of my life.

It was in the morning of the second day that Svein hit a bull’s-eye. It was at a rather run-down establishment in the Avenue Victor Hugo, where the past-his-prime doorkeeper had plenty of time on his hands, morning customers being restricted to men on nights and merchant seamen with only a limited time on shore. He stood there, his arms folded in a tough pose, at his feet a sleeping bitch long past her smell-by date. I went outside in disgust, but Svein did his usual spiel about not being a policeman and not investigating a crime, and the man recognised the photograph at once.

“That’s Mme. de Stael — Chantal was her real name. She was in the Hôtel de Nuit, the star attraction.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Oh, until a year or two ago. Lovely person, though she knew her worth. I was a sturdy chap when she started. I could throw three or four troublemakers out single-handed. But I never scored with her, or even made the suggestion. She only took the class customers. Not that she was a snob. It was the fact that she knew her worth. She had the looks and she had the technique to give a man a good time, and she was the soul of discretion. School headmasters, MPs, civil servants from Brussels, priests, diplomats — they were all safe with her. She worked half the hours of the other girls but earned twice the money. When they gave me the push because they said I was past it she talked about all the girls going on strike, but everyone knew she was going to get married so nothing came of it.”

“Who was she going to marry?”

“Oh, some priest or other with a funny name. I don’t get these religions. France is supposed to be a secular state, but you wouldn’t think so, the airs these priests give themselves.”

“What nationality was he?”

“Oh, British. They’re the worst. They’re always worrying whether they should give a tip.”

And that was all we got out of him. Svein tried at the Hôtel de Nuit further up the road but a tank-like doorman threatened to throw him off a pier and we both retreated in confusion.

“We’ve got what we wanted, Loyd old son,” he said. He even decided not to fly home, but to take the train to Hamburg and then the boat. I don’t think this was for my comfort but because airline meals were below even his standards of culinary acceptability. We had an excellent trip, I made my contentment known, and as soon as we were home to our flat in Minde, Svein took me out to renew acquaintanceship with the smells and the leavings of my friends and enemies in that suburb.

My mind, though, was on other things.

I don’t know about you, but I always think reading, writing, and even talking are much overrated by our two-footed friends. Most of them use talking as an alternative to actually experiencing. I didn’t need much in the way of conversation with les chiennes de Marseilles. Still, as we walked along in the rain of Bergen past gardens soaked to an autumnal dinginess, past the last falling roses on their second flowering, I wondered how to communicate my unease to Svein. I was afraid he would just pass on our discoveries to the bishop, send in his bill, and leave it at that. But how to communicate what needed to be done? So often it became nothing more than a game of “I spy with my little eye,” and this is what happened. Because in the end all I could think of to do was to look at a flower bush, look at Svein meaningfully, and bark.

“What’s up, Loyd? Nothing’s wrong here.”

So we’d walk along a bit further till we came to another bush, and I’d do the stop, the meaningful look, and the loaded bark all over again. Finally Svein banged his forehead.

“I’ve got it. You’re right, Loyd. I must do a bit more work on that one.”

And it happened that when we got back to the flat and really began to settle back in Svein found on his answer machine a message from Chantal Humbleby: “I think we should arrange a meeting. Will you ring me?” Svein stayed up surfing the Internet, and in the morning he had his breakfast with a distinct air of self-satisfaction.

Svein made an appointment to meet Chantal at the vicarage the next day. She said that her husband was on a visit to Alesund and Kristiansund, so she would be alone. Svein said he did not take this as a reversion to her old profession, and he was obviously relieved that it didn’t. When we arrived that evening promptly at seven Chantal welcomed me ecstatically, Svein decorously, and she poured gin and tonics for them and put down a bowl of freshly boiled stewing steak for me. A woman who knew how to please men! I gobbled it down in thirty seconds flat and went back to the living room.

“So you see, Edwin was getting rather worried. ’E talked to Stan, who told ’im the drift of your conversation, ’e thought about the visit you made ’ere, the business of the glove, and ’e thought: We are being investigated. Everyone in Bergen, naturally, has heard of Loyd. So ’oo is paying? What is their interest in this? What are they trying to do to us?”

“I think I can answer that,” said Svein. “They are trying to get rid of you.”

“But why? We love it ’ere. Bergen is the most beautiful place in the world when it don’t rain. I ’ave a lovely stepdaughter and we are good friends as long as she don’t cook. Everyone ’as been very welcoming to me. So ’oo is doing this?... You ’ave been to France, ’ave you not?”

“Well, I—”

“I knew it! Someone ’ave complained about my past. They pretend to love me, but all the time they are stabbing me in the back. And you ’ave found out where I worked. So? Here we say I was PA to several remarkable men. Everyone know what is meant by that. Who has complained to this bishop?”

“Ah... You have never met the bishop, have you?”

“Not yet. I was away visiting my sister when ’e came ’ere.”

“I suspect you will not meet him. There will be sudden illnesses, or pressing family business that prevent his usual routine visits.”

“But why? Am I so disgusting to his refined tastes?”

“By no means. He will not come here because you have met him before.”

Svein fished in his pocket and brought out a photograph of the bishop he had found in the files of Bergens Tidende. “This is Bishop Rose.”

She took it eagerly.

“Ha! Pious Pete! The only man who got on his knees and begged forgiveness before rather than after. Like a sort of grace. ‘For what we are about to receive.’ ’E is a ’orrible ’ippocrite.”

“Yes — I think that about sums him up. He was afraid you would recognise him and talk about his brothel visits.”

“Oh, I’d recognise him all right. But I’d never talk about ’im. All the priests and clergymen wanted anonymity — I pronounce that right? — but Pete, ’e was a complete mystery. I only know ’is name because one of the sailors knew ’im.”

“Yes. I’ve been looking him up on the Internet. He was pastor at the Seaman’s Mission in Marseilles. He must have known many of your... customers.”

“ ’E always wear a scarf over ’is face, coming and leaving. This sailor only see ’is face because ’e trip down stairs — legs tired out — and ’is scarf fall down when ’e tries to save ’imself. Ha! Pious Pete! Where do you get your satisfaction now? Not from anyone as kind and discreet as Mme. de Stael.”

“I’m not sure. Perhaps he has a ‘good friend’ in Oslo. Oh yes — a little more gin would be most welcome. Now what I propose to do is to ring him — he will appreciate there being no written evidence — and tell him what I found out in Marseilles, mention that he may have heard of the Hotel de Nuit when he was at the Seaman’s Mission, underline that I found no evidence of ‘scandal and concern’ in the congregation, emphasize that you are a woman of extreme discretion, and advise him strongly to do nothing further. It will be quite safe for him to visit Bergen. Then I will send him a very large bill.”

“Punish ’im for ’is ’ippocrisy. Good! I will talk to Edwin, tell ’im there was a misunderstanding, say it is all solved now, and everything can go on as before.”

“Excellent,” said Svein, getting up. “Thank you very much for your hospitality. Most welcome. Loyd thanks you, too.”

“Lovely to ’ave a dog in the ’ouse. I shall get a dog.”

“So you should. I’d advise against a poodle. There is a stereotype—”

“I know. I know. Remember you are talking to a woman of the world.”

“Quite, quite.” Svein paused at the door. “There is one question, rather embarrassing, that I’d like—”

“Of course. Everyone wants to ask it. To you I can reply honestly. Why did I marry my overweight, rather dull English vicar? Because ’e was the best lover I ever ’ad. You cannot believe it? You’d better, as the Yanks say. I am a woman who always insists on the best.”