Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 135, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 823 & 824, March/April 2010

A Tour of the Tower by Christine Poulson

Christine Poulson was an academic who taught the History of Art and had written widely on 19th-century art and literature before she penned her first crime novel. Not surprising then that from her imagination there emerged a Cambridge professor, Cassandra James, who starred in two books available in the U.S.: Murder is Academic and Stage Fright, both from St. Martin’s. Her new story takes us to a site we’d expect to appeal to an art historian, a medieval cathedral.

The five o’clock tour was the last of the day.

Sadly, for Miriam it was to be the last one ever.

The grey-haired American — in his sixties, Miriam judged, around her own age — had been the first to arrive. He was wearing a cream linen jacket: good material and very nicely cut. Miriam’s working life had been spent in the menswear department of a big store and even now she couldn’t help noticing what people were wearing. She glanced down at her chocolate- brown linen shirt and trousers: a devil to iron but worth it.

She stole another glance at the American. He was talking to a middle-aged couple (matching red anoraks) and their teenage son (hooded blue sweatshirt). There was also an older couple: a T-shirt that he really shouldn’t be wearing with a paunch like that and a pale blue cotton sweater for her. The Australian couple in their twenties (chinos and a short skirt with high-heeled sling-backs) looked like newlyweds. There were a couple of French girls (cropped top and shift dress), who were probably from the local language school. The two young men, a tall blond (ancient Fruit of the Loom T-shirt) and a shorter, shaggy-haired youth (blue waterproof), were campers, she guessed, judging by their wrinkled clothes.

The group was a typical mix of nationalities and ages and Miriam had seen hundreds like them in her time as a cathedral guide. She was already leading them across the nave to the locker room when two latecomers, a middle-aged woman in a cream raincoat and a stocky young man in a blue anorak, came hurrying up. That made fourteen — fortunately. She didn’t like having thirteen in a group. After rucksacks and umbrellas had been placed in lockers, Miriam asked for a volunteer to stay at the back of the group so that she could be sure that no one was left behind. The American raised his hand and she smiled her thanks. She’d guessed it would be him. He’d probably ask the best questions, too. She led the way to a door in the corner of the locker room. From there a spiral staircase wound up through the wall of the west front.

“It’s a long climb,” she warned.

One by one they followed Miriam through the narrow entrance. The staircase was lit by electric lights that threw a shifting pattern of shadows onto the walls. The group toiled up the steep stone steps, hollowed by generations of feet. When they were almost at the top Miriam made her usual comment to the people behind her.

“It’s just when you think you can’t go any further that you get there!”

She had timed it just right. They emerged onto the narrow gallery as the choir came in for evensong. There were exclamations and gasps of surprise when people realised how high they were. To Miriam’s mind this was the best view of the cathedral. There was a lump in her throat as she watched the white and crimson robes moving in stately procession down the nave.

When she had heard about the new regulation, she had gone to see the dean, but he had explained to her that his hands were tied: “...new rules... insurance company... no one over sixty.”

“It’s not fair, I know,” he said, smiling at her, “when one feels as fit as one ever did.”

And that was kind, because she knew for a fact that he was a good three years younger than she was and he was in good shape. He might be a Very Reverend, but he was also a keen sportsman who coached a cricket team and ran half-marathons to raise money for charity.

His cropped hair and natural tonsure gave him a monastic look. He had asked her to call him Jim, but she really couldn’t bring herself to be so familiar, and after that she tried to avoid calling him anything.

The dean was right. It really wasn’t fair and Miriam was as fit as she had ever been. Even after this climb, she was scarcely out of breath, unlike the woman in the red anorak who was leaning on the parapet and breathing heavily. The stocky young man in the blue anorak was suffering too: beads of sweat were standing out on his forehead.

When everyone had had time to recover, she led them up the next flight of stairs to the space over the clerestory. Her voice seemed to run on independently of her, weaving in the history of the cathedral with little jokes and anecdotes.

“Pardon me,” said the American, “but this render on the walls, what would that be?” He had an “aw-shucks” kind of voice that made her think of James Stewart.

“That’s pumice stone covered with lime wash,” she told him, thinking she’d been right about his asking the best questions.

“You really know your stuff,” he said admiringly.

She did. It was scarcely an exaggeration to say that she knew every inch of the building. At nights when she couldn’t sleep, she explored the place in her imagination, roaming the vast dark spaces of the nave and the glorious soaring transept, wandering through the tranquil cloister and the chapter house, where the treasures of the cathedral were displayed. There were some wonderful things in there — early printed books, embroidered altarcloths and vestments, silver plate, and most precious of all, St. Edmund’s silver-gilt chalice. It had escaped being melted down during the Reformation, when the bishop had buried it in the garden of the palace.

The cathedral was the only thing that had kept her going after Bill died so soon after they had retired here from London. But perhaps she shouldn’t have let it become her whole life. Maybe she should take up bowls again. She and Bill used to play at competition level...

Someone coughed. She came to herself and realised that everyone was looking at her.

“This way,” she said brightly and led the way across a gangplank to a room at the base of the tower that housed the working of the medieval clock. This was the first place on the tour where one could get a view of the close and the surrounding landscape. Pewter-grey clouds were massing over the water meadows. Miriam pointed out the bishop’s palace through the rain-flecked window. She noticed for the thousandth time that the crevices of the windowsill were clogged with the desiccated corpses of dozens of butterflies. She had been meaning for ages to bring up a little battery-operated vacuum cleaner and now she never would.

I’m looking at things for the last time, she thought, and that’s almost like looking for the first time. She was struck all over again by how strange it was to be up here, like seeing behind the scenes at the theatre.

An open wooden staircase, like a piece of scaffolding, wound up around the inside of the tower. They climbed it and emerged into the bell chamber. Miriam had timed this to coincide with the chiming of the hour at six o’clock. The group ranged themselves on wooden benches or leaned against the wall and waited. The sound, when it came, was stupendous. It swelled to fill the whole space and got into your head. It was impossible to speak, scarcely even to think.

When the reverberations had faded away, it was time for the final climb up to the walkway that ran around the base of the spire. Today, the view was literally breathtaking. When you tried to speak, the wind whipped the words out of your mouth. The Australian girl didn’t want to go out, and in those heels, no wonder. The metal rails were chest-high, but it felt as if the wind was about to lift you off your feet.

All that was left now was to retrace their steps. She kept up her flow of patter — it wouldn’t do to shortchange the visitors — but when the door at the foot of the spiral staircase thudded shut behind her, it had such a final sound that she felt like crying.

She got a grip on herself. Her last task was to count heads before the group dispersed. She counted thirteen. She frowned — must have missed one — and asked everyone to stand still so that she could count again. She did count again — and again — but it still came to thirteen.

Someone was missing.

“Did you count them in the clock room on the way down?” asked the dean.

It had been the rule ever since a visitor had got stranded on the walkway around the foot of the spire. Miriam blushed to the roots of her hair. She had clean forgotten. The guide hadn’t realised that he was still out there and had bolted the door. The poor chap had been trapped for hours.

The American had been adamant that no one had been left behind. No, he hadn’t actually counted them, but he had been the last to leave every room and each time he had checked that it really was empty. Miriam had felt a momentary doubt, but she clung to the knowledge that there had been three dark young men on the way up and only two when they reached the bottom. The trouble was that they were all dark and stocky and they all had been wearing something blue. No one else thought there was anyone missing.

It was just her luck that the dean should have been hanging around to witness her discomfiture. Not that he was censorious, far from it, but his kindness only made her feel worse.

“I’ll go back,” she said.

“You most certainly won’t,” said the dean. “I’ve been in my office all day. I could do with the exercise. I’ll be there and back before you know it.”

Miriam could only submit. She took a seat at the end of a pew. The other guides were drifting into the nave one by one. Miriam glimpsed one of the posher ones, a woman who was a leading light in the local pony club. She was pleasant enough, but Miriam never felt comfortable with her. She was whispering something to one of the others. From the corner of her eye Miriam saw them glance at her and look away. She wished the earth would open up and swallow her.

It seemed to take hours, but couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes before the dean emerged from the locker room. As he walked briskly towards her, the skirts of his cassock flicking out behind him, he smiled and gave her a thumbs-up.

“All clear. There’s no one up there,” he said. “And there’s nothing left in the lockers, either.”

Miriam felt a surge of relief. She got to her feet and the smiling dean took charge of her. Chatting at her side, his hand under her elbow, he steered her towards the cathedral cafe. She was surprised to see that the little gathering of guides had swelled to a crowd. The door was opening, there were balloons, and someone was holding a bottle of Champagne. The dean released her and held up his arms like a conductor readying an orchestra. He brought them down and there was a ragged but enthusiastic chorus of “For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow.”

“Happy birthday, dear Miriam,” said the dean, and he leaned forward to kiss her on either cheek.

Perhaps it was the excitement or the Champagne or both, but Miriam couldn’t sleep. It was almost two o’clock when she gave up and pushed back the single sheet that was all she’d been able to tolerate. She put on her dressing gown, padded into the sitting room, and switched on the light. Rain was spattering the window and buffeting the geraniums in their pots on the little balcony.

The top-floor flat wasn’t in the close, but it was near enough for a view of the cathedral. On sunny days, the massive structure looked as vast and improbable as Mont Blanc. Tonight it was like a black ocean liner floating in the dark. The floodlights were switched off at midnight and only a red warning light on the very summit of the spire remained.

If Miriam craned her neck, she could see part of the top floor of the dean’s house. The windows were dark tonight. In the months after Bill’s death, when Miriam had found it hard to sleep, she had often seen a light there in the early hours. It was comforting to think of the dean working late on a sermon or reading some weighty theological tome and to know that she wasn’t the only one awake.

Miriam thought about that last tour. She had been certain that fourteen had gone up the tower and only thirteen had come down. Of course, feeling certain and being certain aren’t the same thing. That’s what Bill would have said. How infuriating he could be and how she missed him. If he were here now, he would be complaining about being woken up. “Stop fussing, woman.” She could hear him saying it. And yet when push came to shove, he would have been on her side, and in the end, wasn’t that what marriage was about?

The cathedral clock struck two. In her mind’s eye Miriam saw the clogs turning and meshing together, the ropes growing taut, the pealing of the bell vibrating through the empty cathedral and floating out into the night air.

And that was when she knew how the disappearing trick had been pulled off.

She had already started to dial the dean’s number when she asked herself what she thought she was doing. She couldn’t ring him at this time of night and he had already been up the tower once. And suppose she did instigate another search, how would she feel if after all there was no one there?

She went back to the window. If there was some real evidence, lights in the cathedral maybe... But she could see only the upper part from here. She bit her lip, considering. Well, why not, she wasn’t going to get any sleep, that was for sure. She went into the bedroom and got dressed.

She was about to leave when her eye fell on her bowling bag, open on the chest of drawers. Buoyed up by Champagne-induced optimism after the party, she had decided to polish her woods, thinking that maybe she could find a new partner and begin again. She picked up the nearest wood and cupped the familiar almost-spherical object in her hand. It wouldn’t make much of a weapon, and if it came to self-defence, she couldn’t see herself putting up much of a show. Still, there was something reassuring about its smooth weight in her palm. She slipped it into the pocket of her cagoule. It just fit.

Miriam was no stranger to the close at night. After Bill had died, insomnia had often driven her out to stroll there alone, but she had never been there when the rain was pelting down and the wind was blowing so hard that her umbrella was turned inside out. Two of the spokes were actually broken, and she dumped it in the bin next to the kiosk that was occupied by the constable of the close. There was no one there at the moment — he must be on his tour of the close — but that would be her first port of call if she did see anything suspicious.

She pulled up her hood and pushed her hands into her pockets to reassure herself that the wood was in one and her mobile phone in the other. She set off along one of the paths that dissected the grassy space around the cathedral. She didn’t need a torch. Her feet knew the path and took her confidently forward. She reached the paved area outside the west front. Her eyes had adjusted to the dark now and the cathedral was no longer one black undifferentiated mass. She could distinguish window arches and the shadowy forms of saints in their niches. Out of the inky darkness of the porch a figure stepped forward. Her heart jolted and her hand shot up to her mouth. The beam of a torch light dazzled her.

“Jeez, you nearly scared the pants off me,” said a laconic American voice. “That hood. Thought for a moment you were some kind of monastic ghost.”

“I scared the pants off you! What are you doing here?”

“Same as you, I guess. Couldn’t sleep. Look, you’d better come in out of the rain.”

She stepped into the porch. The American held the torch so that it illuminated both their faces. The strong light exaggerated his features, giving him deeply shadowed eyes and flared nostrils.

“I don’t think we introduced ourselves. I’m Tom, Tom Leverens.” He thrust out a hand. His clasp was firm and his hand felt dry and warm in hers.

“I’m Miriam. And I think you’d better switch the torch off. If there is something going on...”

“Yeah, yeah, okay.” There was a click and his face vanished. “If I’d had my wits about me, I’d actually have counted heads, but — well, my mind was elsewhere. I’ve been planning this trip for years — it would have been our fortieth wedding anniversary — me and Louise. She passed away last year, and, well, I wasn’t going to come, but the kids thought I needed a break. Tell the truth, I thought one of them might come with me, but Jeannie’s expecting her second and Martha got offered this internship....”

This homely litany was reassuring. He was a solid presence in the dark beside her and she was conscious of an aftershave or cologne that smelt of lime.

“Hey,” he said, “you don’t want to hear all that. Thing is, I know when someone might have slipped away.”

“Me too.”

“The clock striking, right?”

She nodded, forgetting that he couldn’t see her. “No one would have heard him going back down the stairs. There’d be plenty of time to hide in the roof space above the clerestory.”

“But why?” he said. “For a bet? To steal something? All the valuable stuff must be in the chapter house. That chalice...”

“St. Edmund’s chalice. That’s what I’m afraid of. All the security is all aimed at keeping people out of the building, but once you’re in there...”

“I’ve already been round the building looking for lights, but what say we do another circuit?”

As they stepped out of the porch, Tom took her arm and tucked it in his. It was a long time since a man had done that, but it felt natural. They fell into step with Miriam leading the way. The rain had slackened, but the sky was still overcast. They kept close to the cathedral, moving out to skirt flying buttresses, staring up at the windows, straining their eyes against the darkness. It wasn’t until they were rounding the east end that something occurred to Miriam. She pulled Tom in against the wall.

“You said you’d already done a circuit,” she whispered. “Did you see the constable?”

“Didn’t see a soul.”

“He wasn’t in his kiosk when I passed it, so where is he?”

“Maybe he’s there now.”

They looked across the close towards the kiosk. But an avenue of mature beeches blocked the view. They saw a light glinting through the leaves, nothing more.

“We’d better see,” Tom said.

They set off across the broad expanse of lawn. The wind pushed Miriam’s hair back from her face and made her eyes water. From time to time, she glanced back and it was when they had almost reached the shelter of the beeches that she thought she saw something moving on the tower.

“What’s that?”

Tom’s arm stiffened in hers and he said, “What — I can’t see—”

Something was dangling from one of the windows of the clock room like a spider letting itself down from a web.

“We’d better call the police.” Miriam pulled her mobile phone out of her pocket.

“I don’t think so.” Tom’s hand closed round her wrist and he didn’t sound like James Stewart anymore. “I’d hate to hurt you, Miriam, so I think we’ll just stand here and let my confederate make his escape.”

The night exploded into dazzling whiteness. The cathedral sprang out of the darkness. The floodlights had been switched on.

Tom released Miriam. He turned on his heels. The next moment she heard the thudding of his feet on the paved path between the beeches.

A figure in track-suit bottoms and a sweater emerged from the porch door. Was it another member of the gang? No, it was the dean. He was looking up at the tower. In the stark light she saw a young man with a rucksack on his back hanging ten feet from the ground. The rope on which he was descending had snagged on a gargoyle. In an effort to free it, he was bouncing himself off the wall with his feet.

The dean was sprinting towards him. Without pausing to think, Miriam set off too.

The gargoyle gave way. The young man fell heavily to the ground. Miriam prayed that he had twisted an ankle, but the next moment he was on his feet. The dean was closing in on him. The young man slipped off his rucksack. For a moment Miriam thought he was going to drop it and run. Instead he gripped it by both straps and swung it at the dean. The dean swerved and the rucksack hit him only a glancing blow, but it was enough to send him spinning out of control. He fell awkwardly on his side. The young man was off, sprinting towards the west front.

In the distance there was the wail of a siren. Over by the constable’s lodge flashing lights appeared and there was the sound of a car screeching to a halt. The dean was getting to his feet, but he wasn’t going to be in time. Once the youth had reached the other side of the close and the bridge into the water meadows, he could lose himself in the darkness. Even if Miriam could intercept him, what then? He was young and fit and desperate and she was sixty.

She pulled the wood out of her pocket, drew back her arm, and bent forward in one fluid movement. The wood seemed to flow out of her hand and float across the shaven grass. Time slowed down. The wood reached the path at the precise point where its curved trajectory met that of the fleeing youth. The sole of his right foot made contact with the ball as if the two of them had always been destined to meet. His arms flailed, he wobbled, he teetered. For a moment it seemed that he was going to regain his balance. Then he was down with a crash that knocked the wind out of him.

“Ouch,” said the dean.

“Sorry,” said Miriam, “but it’s a nasty graze and it should be disinfected.”

She put the top back on the tube of antiseptic cream. The dean rolled down his sleeve. They were in the kitchen in his house and there was a bottle of brandy on the table between them.

“I should be the one worrying about you,” the dean said. “You must have had an awful shock when that scoundrel turned on you.”

“He’ll get his just deserts.”

Tom Leverens and the driver who was waiting for him had been stopped as they tried to leave the market square.

“You’re sure you’re all right? Delayed shock can be nasty thing.” He took one of her hands in both of his and squeezed it.

“Something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” she said. “What were you doing in the close at that time of night? How did you know something was wrong?”

“I didn’t, but I know you, Miriam, and you were certain you’d left someone up in the tower. When I went up to bed, I saw that there was a light on in your flat and I guessed that you were still worrying about it.”

“In my flat?”

“You can just see it from my bedroom window.” Could it be? Was the dean blushing? “I tried to ring you, but there wasn’t any answer. I couldn’t raise the constable of the close, either. I went out and found the poor fellow trussed up by the wall of the bishop’s palace. That was when I called the police.”

“Thank goodness you were working late!”

“Actually, I wasn’t working. I was reading a detective story.” Now the dean was definitely blushing.

He wasn’t looking at her, but he was still holding her hand.

Hunting for the first-aid kit, Miriam had noticed tins of soup for one in the cupboard. It struck her that a person could be busy and important, yet still come home to an empty house.

She cleared her throat.

“Tell me, Jim,” she said, “have you ever thought of taking up bowls?”