C S Lewis and the Country House Murders (C S Lewis Mysteries Book 2) (27 page)

‘That seems most likely,’ Jack agreed, ‘and hence the body was transported to an isolated spot on the clifftop and thrown down onto the rocks below. The tide must have been falling at the time. In other circumstances the body might have been carried out to sea and her fate would have remained a mystery.’

‘As it is,’ Crispin responded grimly, ‘we know there’s someone out there we must identify and catch before there’s another death.’

Inspector Crispin apologised for not being able to offer us a lift in the police car. We understood that with Crispin, Merrivale, Nile and Dr Henderson there were four bulky men and a driver squeezed into a small black Austin and we had no desire to share their discomfort. Sardines well acquainted with the social confinement of a sardine tin would have complained of the lack of elbow room in that small black Austin.

We took the train.

The journey back to Plumwood was even slower than our outward trip to the coast. This time the train took the scenic route in a long curve that only after a series of stops at small rural halts would bring us back to the village.

It seemed that the same elderly locomotive that had carried us to the coast was still pulling the local branch line train, and in the interim its character had not changed. It still took a leisurely view of its task and had a relaxed attitude towards the timetable. This it seemed to regard as a mere approximation, a guess and no more, of where it ought to be and when. It was in no hurry to get back to its shed, and was prepared to linger over the journey, enjoying the bucolic scenery.

This gave us time to talk.

‘Awful business,’ I said, and Jack agreed.

‘Does this latest death—I suppose I should call it this latest murder—give you any more pieces of the puzzle?’

‘At best,’ Jack replied, ‘it tells me a little more about the mind of the murderer. And the more I know about the way that particular mind works, the less I like it.’

I asked Jack to explain, so he continued, ‘There is an ingenious twisted darkness to that mind—a totally immoral viciousness that is unpleasant to contemplate.’

Talking about the murders was a grim and unpleasant subject, so I led our conversation in other directions.

‘You said that the key to understanding what the future, ultimately, holds is found in the word resurrection?’

Jack agreed that he had said so.

‘The problem,’ I objected, ‘is that resurrection is so fanciful. Now, I ask you, Jack, what do the inhabitants of cemeteries do? Nothing! They just lie there. And that’s all that dead men have done since the dawn of history. Dead men stay dead. It’s a universal truth that has never been broken. The dead have dropped out of circulation. They’ve stopped eating their lunches and have cancelled their magazine subscriptions. There just are no resurrection men around, Jack! It’s never happened. And that makes it an impossible foundation for any sort of future hope.’

‘Never?’ Jack asked, raising one eyebrow.

‘If it had ever happened it would be the biggest talking point in human history,’ I asserted.

‘It did, and it is,’ Jack replied.

I told him to go on, and Jack raised the subject of the supposed resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

‘Just a myth!’ I interrupted. ‘Ancient myths are full of gods who die and are reborn. This is just another of those.’

This time Jack laughed heartily, ‘I once thought exactly as you do, young Morris. I remember one night Tollers and Dyson took me to task on just this point. Those ancient myths you speak of Tollers called “good dreams”—ideas planted by God in human cultures to prepare them for the Big Event he was always planning to pull off. And the evidence that he did pull it off is solid and well-documented historical evidence.’

‘You’ll never convince me of that,’ I said with confidence.

‘Would you like me to try?’

‘I’d love you to try—but I warn you, there’s little chance you’ll succeed.’

Jack paused to light his pipe, and then said, ‘You are familiar, of course, with church buildings?’

‘Naturally. Substantial buildings, usually with crosses on them.’

‘Precisely. You’ll find them in every suburb, town and city.’

‘What about them?’

‘They shouldn’t be there. Both logically and historically, they shouldn’t be there. Without the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, their presence is inexplicable.’

‘But,’ I protested, ‘there are a number of major religions, so why do you say that Christian churches are surprising?’

‘Because of the origin of Christianity. Judaism is the faith of a people, an identifiable ethnic grouping. Hinduism and Buddhism also have their foundations in the history of nations. So the survival and spread of these religions is hardly surprising. Islam spread by means of the military conquest of the Arabian peninsula. But Christianity had none of those advantages.’

He paused for a moment, just as he did in tutorials, for this point to sink in, then he continued, ‘When Jesus was executed by the Roman authorities . . . and, by the way, that fact is undeniable.’

‘How so?’

‘The crucifixion of Jesus under the orders of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of the province of Judea, is recorded by both Christian and anti-Christian writers from the very earliest times. Roman and Jewish historians, as well as the gospel writers, record this execution. Jesus certainly died on a cross after only a few years of public life in or around ad 33.’

‘I have no difficulty accepting that. But why does that make his resurrection any more likely?’

‘Because the movement he started should have died with him. At the time of his death Jesus had a relatively small number of followers—probably around five hundred. Certainly not the tens of thousands following Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism or Confucianism. And those five hundred were neither rich nor powerful—for the most part they were tradesmen or minor civil servants. And when he was executed they were, understandably, terrified. Most of them fled from the scene of his execution and talked of abandoning the cause and returning to their old lives. They were defeated, disheartened, dispirited, depressed and ready to give up.’

Jack paused to relight his pipe and glance out of the window. ‘However, just thirty years later these same men and women had spread the Christian message so far and so powerfully across the Roman Empire that the Emperor Nero could use them as scapegoats for the Great Fire of Rome. Thirty years, Morris—think on that number. That’s about half a lifetime. Something must have happened to galvanise that small, defeated and dispirited group, something so astonishing, so life-changing, they were prepared to face martyrdom in the name of Jesus. They swept across the greatest empire the world had known up to that time and turned it on its ear. There was clearly something more than mundane human power involved there.’

He leaned forward and looked me in the eye, ‘Something had turned their defeat into astonishing victory; something as amazing and life-changing as their leader, Jesus, coming back from the dead.’

‘But . . . but . . . other similar groups from that time have survived,’ I responded.

‘Have they?’ Jack asked with a smile and a glint in his eye. ‘Have they? Christianity began as a movement within Judaism. At the time there were other similar movements within Judaism: the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Zealots, the Essenes. Where are their buildings? In fact, where is the evidence they have survived at all? And the other religions of ancient Rome—Mithraism or the worship of Diana of the Ephesians—where are their temples in our cities, suburbs and towns?’

He leaned back, took a deep breath, and said, ‘Without the resurrection of Jesus, the survival of Christianity and its spread around the globe—to become the largest faith on earth—is inexplicable. Logically Christianity should not exist. Its Founder was killed at an early age, crucified at a time when the Romans were crucifying thousands. Jesus Christ should be unknown to most of us—remembered only by those scholars who study the dusty, forgotten corners of ancient history. Instead of which, his is the most famous name on earth. Something of utterly astonishing power so changed his small, rag-tag bunch of followers that they changed the world. Nothing less than his resurrection from the dead explains that.’

Jack puffed his pipe in silence for a moment, then said, ‘The resurrection meets Hume’s criterion for a genuine, historical miracle—since the survival, and global spread, of Christianity can’t be intelligently explained without it.’

I was silent for a while. I certainly couldn’t deny the evidence of my eyes—the presence of Christian churches everywhere. And I had never before thought of their existence as remarkable in any way.

‘Of course,’ said Jack, seeing my silence as an invitation to continue, ‘there’s all the other supporting evidence as well.’

‘Such as?’

‘Such as the failure of the authorities at the time to kill off the Christian movement at its very beginning by displaying the corpse of Jesus. They didn’t because they couldn’t. There was no corpse. The tomb was empty. And the hostilities between these galvanised and changed followers of Jesus and the authorities began at once. There was no crucified corpse to be put on display because the story Peter and the rest told was the literal truth.’

I looked out of the window at the fields slowly trundling by and tried to digest everything Jack had said. Finally, I conceded, ‘I should investigate this further.’

‘Excellent move, young Morris, excellent! Three or four years ago a book was published called
Who Moved the Stone?
It lays out all the historical evidence and is, in my view, unanswerable. But the important thing to understand is the personal consequences this truth has for your life.’

‘My life? In what way?’

‘If death has been conquered once—triumphantly defeated, in fact—it can be again. And the One who has already conquered death is the One who offers to take away the sting of death for you and me.’

‘Tonight I have a small adventure planned for us,’ said Jack with a sense of glee. ‘Meet me at nine o’clock on the terrace at Plumwood Hall. And bring a torch.’

We were walking down the village street from the railway station when Jack uttered these astonishing words. Jack was walking towards his dinner at the village pub and I was heading for mine in the oak-panelled dining room of Plumwood Hall, on the outskirts of the village. I say astonishing words because I had always thought of Jack as someone who found a walking holiday in the Cotswolds enough of an adventure. Now he seemed to be planning something on another scale entirely.

‘What do you have in mind?’ I asked, not unreasonably.

All I got in response was an enigmatic smile and the words, ‘Wait and see.’

As he was about to enter the pub he turned back to ask, ‘You can lay your hands in an electric torch, I take it?’

‘I’ve seen one in the kitchen. I’m sure Mrs Buckingham will let me borrow it.’

‘Excellent. And I have no doubt mine host Alfred Rose will be able to lend me one. Until nine o’clock then.’

It was late afternoon by the time I walked up the gravel drive towards the Hall. Dark banks of cloud filled the western horizon, piling up like some vast medieval castle in the sky and filling the landscape with an eerie olive and silver light. Occasional blood-red beams of the westering sun escaped from behind those cloudy towers and ramparts and somehow increased the threat that the night might end in a violent storm.

Dinner was a quiet, sombre affair. Conversation was sullen and desultory, and no one gave Mrs Buckingham’s dinner the respect it deserved—pushing away only half empty plates still piled high with roast meats.

After dinner I retired to the library. I had found in the Plumwood collection a first edition of Johnson’s
Rasselas
which I’d been saving up to read when I wanted to fill an hour or two. But I was restless and uneasy. Speculating on Jack’s planned ‘adventure’, I put the book to one side and paced the library floor, wondering what he had in mind and what the next few hours might hold.

At nine o’clock I went up to my room, pulled on a pair of rubber-soled shoes and made my way, as quietly as I could, to the drawing room. The lights were off and it was empty, so I crossed the room, opened the French windows and stepped out onto the terrace.