Close Quarters (3 page)

‘I don't think it's impossible,' said Pollock slowly, ‘but I agree with you that no one could
rely
on doing it and getting away with it – which is good enough from our point of view.'

He shifted his ground.

‘When are the gates shut?' he asked.

‘Evensong,' explained the Dean, ‘finishes at about six-thirty. People leave from all three gates – south gate, bishop's gate, and the main gate; that's the one you came in by. When Brumfit thinks that everyone has had plenty of time to get clear he walks across to the south gate, warning any people who may be loitering about.' (The Dean was referring tactfully to half a dozen brace of lovers – hardy amorists who pursued their courtship on the benches which the Dean and Chapter had so thoughtfully set up in the precincts for admirers of early English architecture.) ‘When he has shut the south gate and shepherded the last straggler out of bishop's gate and shut that too, he comes back up the east path to the main gate, arriving there a few minutes before seven. He has a little office attached to his house, facing the gate, and he's “on duty” in it until eleven, when he locks up and goes to bed. If you want to get in after that time you have to ring the bell and he will come down and open the gate for you.'

‘He must have rather a disturbed night,' suggested Pollock.

‘Why?' queried the Dean innocently. ‘We are generally in bed by eleven, you know, and we don't visit much outside the Close.'

Reflecting that those few simple words told him more of the community into which he had strayed than hours of questioning. Pollock went on to his next point.

‘Do you mean to say,' he said, ‘that Brumfit sits solidly at his post from seven-thirty till eleven, keeping such a watch on the gate that no one can possibly slip in unobserved?'

‘He has seven active and vigilant assistants,' explained the Dean. ‘I don't say that the good sergeant doesn't take his ease in front of the fire with a pipe, but if he does so you may be sure that one or other of his seven children is on sentry-go, doing Father's work for him. Not that they look on it as work, of course. In fact, I believe it is a great privilege in the Brumfit family to “take the gate.” Anyone who wants to go out or in after seven simply signs in the book, crossing out their name when they come back. So Brumfit can see at a glance if any of the residents are still out when he locks the gate.'

Considering this arrangement critically – and admitting to himself that the vigilance of childish eyes was often the most difficult to escape – Pollock was fain, for the moment, to accept the impregnability theory.

‘I take it,' he said, ‘that two of the incidents – the two which concern you – must have taken place after seven o'clock.'

‘There's no doubt about that,' said the Dean. ‘My letter-box is cleared by the maid at seven o'clock after the evening delivery. She takes out all the letters and puts mine in my study. The letter wasn't there then. I found it myself at about ten past eight. As regards the other business, it's more mysterious still. I was in my garden, talking to Mickie, until after half-past seven; I remember now, it was the evening of the storm, and very hot and sticky. I dined with the windows wide open. And no one could possibly have come into the garden or painted that disgraceful message until quite a late hour, or I should have been certain to have noticed them.'

‘Did you, in fact, see anybody in or near your garden?' asked Pollock.

‘Yes,' said the Dean, ‘I did.' And he told him what he had seen in the storm. ‘It looks as if Parvin might have to explain his movements.'

‘Wait a minute,' said Pollock. ‘You never actually said that you saw Parvin. First a flash of lightning – a figure standing on the road outside. Then darkness for some minutes. Then the light goes up in Parvin's front room. That's correct, isn't it?'

‘It was Parvin, all the same,' said the Dean stubbornly. At this juncture a remarkably pretty house-maid announced lunch.

After lunch Pollock inspected the letters, but could make little of the first two. They simply confirmed his opinion that people read too many detective stories, being efficient products of the only really foolproof style of anonymous communication in which letters and words are cut from a printed page and pasted on to paper. The third – the Dean's letter – was much more interesting. It was written in a thin characterless scrawl, yet not an illiterate hand, Pollock would have said. Most probably disguised. But what gave him great hopes was that he fancied that he could detect a faint and smudgy print on the glossy surface of the envelope. It might be the Dean's, of course, and then again, it might not. It seemed, on the face of it, incredibly careless of the writer to leave his sign manual on his work, but in Pollock's experience wrongdoers often were just that – incredibly careless over the things that really mattered.

He laid it carefully aside and asked to be shown the celebrated garden wall. Here he had yet another demonstration of the Dean's unrivalled ability as a destroyer of evidence. Hubbard had carried out his orders faithfully, and a raw and roughened area was all that remained to mark the scene of the crime. A hope which he had entertained, of taking a sample of the paint and having it analysed, faded.

The Dean appeared quite impenitent over his unprofessional conduct; indeed, his chief feeling seemed to be one of gratification at the prompt removal of such a public display of bad taste.

‘Now that we're out here,' said Pollock resignedly, ‘perhaps you could point out where these people live. I may have to go round and see some of them this afternoon. By the way, do they know who I am and why I'm here, and all that sort of thing?'

‘The Chapter know,' said the Dean. ‘I mean, of course, the lesser Chapter, my four residentiary canons.'

‘Of course,' said Pollock, ‘I suppose you had to consult them about getting me down here.'

‘Naturally,' agreed the Dean smoothly. He did not feel it incumbent on him to explain that he had consulted his Chapter after the event – as he did on most matters of importance. ‘But everybody,' he went on, ‘must know by now about the Appledown business. And I'm sure that they will be as helpful as they can; we all deplore it deeply.'

‘Of course,' agreed Pollock, wondering not for the first time whether he was a bigger fool than his uncle took him for. ‘And now that you've given me such a very clear “Who's Who,” perhaps we might have a “Who's Where?”' Pollock extracted from his pocket a printed plan. It had come from the front of a little book called Residential Closes of England, and he had already subjected it to considerable study during his journey down. As the Dean talked he filled names into the outlines in his neat script.

‘Starting at the main gate,' said the Dean, ‘we have Sergeant Brumfit's cottage, and facing it across that small dividing lane is Scrimgeour's house. He's a bachelor and lives with his sister; they've both been away for more than a month, but I think they're due back next week. Between Scrimgeour's house and mine is Mickie's. He is married but has no family. That big outbuilding you can see at the back is the practice room which the choir use on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday nights – other practises are in the cathedral. Those two cottages in the north-west corner belong to Mrs. Judd and Parvin.'

‘Parvin's being the southern one, I suppose,' said Pollock.

‘A deduction,' smiled the Dean, ‘based on the fact that I could see his front windows from my bedroom.'

‘Correct,' agreed Pollock with a grin. ‘Has Parvin any family?'

‘His wife lives with him – I think there was a boy, but he's grown up and gone. The first of the three big houses on that side is Hinkey's – he's a bachelor. I can't imagine how he manages to use all that rambling great place. He has three cats, and they used to say that each one had his own bedroom, sitting-room, and bathroom. The middle house is Fox's, and the farther one belongs to Trumpington. By the way, they are known officially as the West Canonry North and the West Canonry South. Trumpington's a bachelor. Fox is our family man; he's got four children – two small girls, a small boy – and the older boy, as I told you, at the choir school. The little cottage next to West Canonry South – you can just see it – is Appledown's, and the house beyond that is Halliday's. Halliday is another of our bachelors.'

‘Is Appledown a family man?' asked Pollock.

‘Hardly,' said the Dean. ‘In fact, I should say that Appledown had very little use for women. He lives with his brother, who is older than he is, and I fear rather a disreputable person. He keeps house for Appledown. And, I should imagine, liquidates a good deal of his pay. Morgan, the junior verger, has that little cottage you can see over Halliday's garden wall. The rest of the southwest corner is taken up with the choir school and Smallhorn's house. Along the south side you can see that there are two large houses, alternating with two smaller ones. First, comes the South Canonry West – that's Bloss. He lives with his unmarried daughter. The first small one belongs to Malthus – he's married and has three children. Next to that is the South Canonry East: Beech-Thompson – wife but no children. Last of all, before you come to the south gate, is Canon Prynne's house. He's a widower and lives with his unmarried daughter.'

‘Thank you,' said Pollock a little breathlessly; he went back over the eighteen houses and their occupants and was pleased to find that he could remember them perfectly. The arrangement of the south side of the Close was particularly gratifying to an orderly mind. Big house, little house, big house, little house. Canon, minor canon, canon, minor canon. Like a huge ecclesiastical sandwich with alternate layers of jam and cream.

As they walked back together to the study Pollock considered his best plan of action. First, he wanted at least an hour alone with his notes, and possibly a pipe of tobacco. Then he thought he would like to begin by doing a little elimination. Here the Dean was again able to help him. Scrimgeour, it appeared, had been away the whole time – both he and his sister were in London, and the house was shut up. Halliday and his sister had gone away on Wednesday, September 8th, and should have had three weeks by the sea, but had had to curtail it because Malthus had insisted on running off on Sunday evening. He imagined that Halliday had just got back; anyway, he was due to take Evensong. Canon and Mrs. Beech-Thompson had got back on Monday evening; they had been away on holiday since September 6th.

‘Of course,' said Pollock thoughtfully, ‘we mustn't go too fast. Just because one of these people was away on holiday, that is not enough to exempt them from all suspicion with regard to some of the incidents – in the matter of the letters possibly rather a contrary inference might be drawn.'

‘You mean,' said the Dean slowly, ‘that whilst Beech-Thompson or Halliday or Scrimgeour was supposed to be on holiday, he might have had an opportunity of eluding his family, or friends, and slipped over to Starminster and posted these letters.'

Pollock looked up sharply. He had not been mistaken. The Dean was laughing at him.

‘I am sorry if I appeared to treat the suggestion with levity,' said the Dean. ‘It was just that I was trying to picture Beech-Thompson leaping on to his bicycle each night and pedalling over to Starminster with his pockets full of anonymous letters. A sustained course of such conduct would – or so I should have imagined – have rendered him a little conspicuous.'

‘The same would apply to anyone living in the Close,' said Pollock after a pause in which he, too, endeavoured to visualise the aged clerical bicyclist skimming along the moonlit road with venom in his heart and a selection of vindictive missives in his pocket. ‘But I fancy,' he went on more briskly, ‘that we shall find some quite simple explanation of the daily posting in Starminster. There are a number of ways in which such a thing might be arranged.'

At this point the Dean looked at his watch and discovered that he was already five minutes late for the League of Pity Needlework Committee, at which he was to take the chair.

Having rapidly conferred upon Pollock the freedom of his household and warned him that dinner that evening would be at half-past seven (‘no need to dress'), the Dean snatched up some papers, which he later discovered to be a transcript of his sermon for next Sunday, and departed in a well-organised flurry.

At the door he turned for a moment and looked back.

Pollock was motionless in his chair. He was already deep in his notes and a cloud of tobacco smoke encircled his head. It struck the Dean that he had not yet mentioned the unfortunate business of Canon Whyte. But on second thoughts, why should he? It had nothing to do with the matter in hand.

3

CATHEDRAL EVENSONG

And love the high embowed roof,
With antick Pillars massy proof,
And storied windows richly dight,
Casting a dimm religious light.
There let the pealing organ blow,
To the full voic'd Quire below
In service high and Anthems cleer.

Head happily wreathed in tobacco-smoke, Pollock collected his thoughts into logical sequences. He assembled his dramatis personae and paraded them for a critical inspection. Four canons (residentiary), a Precentor, three vicars (choral), a headmaster, three vergers, an organist, and one old-fashioned solicitor. Behind them – a rather more shadowy rank – he ranged their womenfolk. Canons' wives and daughters (not forgetting that celebrated relict, Mrs. Judd). To complete the cast he added at one end Appledown's disreputable brother and the worthy Sergeant Brumfit, and at the other, withal reluctantly and with a certain sentiment of family disloyalty, his uncle the Dean.

He was already, it will be noticed, tacitly accepting the theory that this was an “inside job.” He could not have explained in so many words why he was certain of this; he had a feeling about the matter which depended little on facts like high walls and locked gates, and a good deal on mere intuition.

He also felt that it was a one-man (or one-woman?) show. Here the balance of his experience was in favour of the proposition. It had been his melancholy duty during his short term of service in the police to investigate a number of anonymous slanderings and “poison-pen” cases, and he could not call to mind a single example of complicity in such affairs. They were, by their very nature, a product of “a mind diseased.” People with obsessions – often, he had found, rather lonely and pathetic people.

He considered the letters themselves. An obvious point was the difference between the last letter – the Dean's – and the others. Why should it be in handwriting, where the others were of the cut-out-and-paste-on variety? And what was the point of the initials? Was it a piece of stupid bravado, or something more subtle? The Dean, assisted by an adult voters' register had already ascertained that there was no J. B. living in the Close. Brumfit was Sergeant Albert Alfred Kitchener Brumfit, whilst his wife, to complete a patriotic household, bore the name of Elizabeth Florence Nightingale Brumfit. Canon Bloss, the other possible candidate, was Herbert Patrick, and his as yet unmarried daughter was Monica Berwyn.

Pollock felt most strangely that he was, in nursery parlance, “getting warm,” that these startling discrepancies in the last letter contained a real key to the business, a key which he had not yet the skill or the knowledge to manipulate. Still, the thumbprint might be helpful.

Granting the truth of his own hunch that the culprit had no accomplices, and the soundness of the Dean's contentions as to the inviolability of the Close after seven o'clock in the evening, it became obvious that the vital incidents were the writing on the Dean's wall and the letter which an unknown hand had thrust into the Dean's letter-box at some time after seven on that Monday evening. It seemed strongly probable that anyone who was out of the Close on Sunday night, or who could produce an alibi (why, he wondered, did it seem slightly incongruous to him to think of clergymen with alibis?) for the period of seven to eight-fifteen on Monday evening could be eliminated.

‘Sound elimination,' as his old Chief Inspector used to say, ‘is the basis of all detection.' Good. He would start by eliminating as many people as possible. According to the Dean, the entire Beech-Thompson, Halliday, and Scrimgeour
ménages
had been away on holiday, whilst Vicar Choral (and minor canon) Malthus had departed at tea time on Sunday to visit a sick relative. Pollock placed a neatly pencilled cross against each of them in his note-book and registered the determination that his first port of call should be the South Canonry East. He would see Beech-Thompson and Halliday, and ask them a few tactful questions about their holidays.

Under the normal headings of motive and method Pollock could find little to help him. He supposed that it might be to the advantage of either the second or the junior verger to get Appledown removed from office in order to step into his place and superior emoluments. But he could not help reflecting that if Parvin or Morgan had instituted the persecution with such an object, they were likely to achieve very little by it.

Anyway, motive was likely to prove a broken reed in a case like this. Obsession, mania – complexes of all sorts. One talked glibly of them, especially if one had read the latest popular approach to psychology. But they were difficult to diagnose in practice, more difficult still to detect. The most saintly countenance might mask a seething fury of inhibitions. The most ordinary-looking breast-pocket might contain a poison pen.

As a rough plan of campaign Pollock felt that the first thing to do was to obtain the fingerprints of every resident in the Close and send them to London with the Dean's anonymous letter for expert scrutiny. This was plain police routine, and yet somehow he shrank from it. What was straightforward in Wapping became a little complicated within the classical purlieus of Melchester. A second step was the elimination of those with sound alibis for Sunday and Monday night. Pollock rose to his feet with a sigh and collected his notes.

Some minutes later he was knocking at the front door of the South Canonry East.

A thin parlour-maid opened the door, accepted Pollock with a practised glance, and showed him into a frigid morning-room. Here he was left kicking his heels for just long enough to imply that, after all, he had called without making an appointment, and then the same maid ushered him into the holy of holies, the canonical library.

Canon Beech-Thompson, once he understood that he was speaking to the Dean's nephew, thawed considerably. He was a robust-looking man of about sixty, with a mop of white hair and a skin of that smooth and satiny pinkness which comes from a complete lack of worry and many hours of healthful sleep.

Pollock opened with a few general inquiries as to the health of the canon and his wife (which, as he was doubtless gratified to learn, was in both cases excellent) and passed on to their recently concluded holiday (extraordinary weather for the time of year). At the first faint and tentative approach, however, to the real business of his visit, an unmistakable frigidity crept into the atmosphere, and when Pollock admitted that besides being the Dean's nephew he had also the questionable taste to be a member of the Criminal Investigation Department, he was aware almost physically of the drop in temperature. Feeling quite uncomfortably like the hero of a Bateman drawing, he ploughed on with his questions.

Reluctantly, as a man who is losing his last few teeth, the canon permitted a bare minimum of information to be extracted from him. Yes, he and his wife had been at Bournemouth for the last three weeks. Yes, the whole time. They had stayed at the Esplanade Hotel – everyone knew the Esplanade Hotel. On the night of Sunday, September 26th, he had been in bed, of course. Where else did Pollock expect him to be? He always retired to bed at ten o'clock precisely. Pollock's nerve failed him at the mere thought of asking whether his wife could corroborate this part of the canon's alibi, and he passed on hastily.

On Monday evening they had attended a concert of classical music in the hotel. He failed to see entirely what concern of the police his movements (or those of his dear wife) might be. Yes, he knew that certain frivolous and disgusting letters had been received in the Close, but since he had had nothing to do with them he was at a loss to see why he was being questioned. Pollock admitted that his visit was a mere matter of routine and took a hurried farewell. He was beginning to perceive that detection in the Close might have its own difficulties.

He made his way towards the modest house of Vicar Choral Halliday.

The door was opened by a wizened, determined-looking woman. To Pollock's cheerful good afternoon she replied dubiously – and a little inconsequentially – that she would see if Mr. Halliday was in.

‘Tell him that a Mr. Pollock would like a word with him.'

The name clearly meant little to her, for she shook her head angrily and pattered off down the passage.

A few minutes later she reappeared.

‘What name, please?' she barked.

Pollock repeated the information.

‘He won't insure his life,' retorted the old lady with great determination. ‘It's insured twice already.'

‘And very rightly,' said Pollock approvingly. ‘You can't be too careful these days.'

‘Sun Alliance, and Moon Equable Incorporated,' said the old lady resignedly. ‘I dare say they're as bad as each other.'

Pollock was just wondering whether he had stumbled unexpectedly into Alice in Wonderland when a hearty clerical figure appeared at the end of the passage.

‘All right, Biddy. Excuse me, I'm Halliday. Let me see, do I know you?'

Pollock got an impression of muscular Christianity, and advanced resolutely past the still suspicious Biddy.

‘I'm Pollock,' he said (thinking how silly your own name sounded when you had to repeat it three times in as many minutes). ‘The Dean sent me over to talk to you about a small matter which has cropped up. I'm his nephew, you know.'

‘Oh, come in,' said Halliday more genially, opening the study door and revealing an untidy room. ‘It's quite all right, Biddy, you run along and help Miss Halliday with the unpacking. I'm afraid we're rather in a mess, you know,' he went on, sweeping two tennis rackets and a pair of sand-shoes from the nearest chair. ‘Just back from our holiday. Won't you sit down?' As Biddy backed out of the room, her gaze still fixed suspiciously on Pollock as though she expected him at any moment to blossom with pink proposal forms and premium schedules, he added, ‘Now what can I do for you?'

Feeling that in this case, there would be no harm in trying the approach direct, Pollock said, ‘I shan't keep you very long, I dare say. As a matter of fact, I'm a police officer from Scotland Yard. I understand that you and your sister have been away from Melchester for some time, so you mayn't know much of what has been going on, but during the last few days somebody has been sending some rather stupid and unpleasant messages to people in the Close – mostly about your head verger, Appledown.'

‘I had heard something about it as a matter of fact,' said Halliday slowly. ‘Trumpington – he's one of the canons, you know – wrote to me. Something about a flag and the anthem at Evensong. And now that you mention it, I remember that he said he'd had an anonymous letter.'

‘Letters have been sent,' said Pollock carefully, ‘and it would seem from their nature and contents that they constitute a criminal offence. The evidence would seem to point to the fact that they were written by a resident of the Close.'

‘Good gracious,' said Halliday mildly. ‘What a very extraordinary thing.'

‘You'll appreciate,' went on Pollock more informally, ‘that I have to question everyone. I'm starting by trying to eliminate those people who weren't here. I wondered—'

‘You'd like me to prove an alibi,' said Halliday cheerfully, coming to the point with such crude abandon as momentarily to take Pollock aback. ‘For what time or times?' he added ingenuously.

‘Well,' said Pollock cautiously, ‘it would be a help to start with, if you would let me know what you were doing last Sunday evening.'

‘Preaching,' said Halliday, and seeing a slight look of mystification on Pollock's face, he added, ‘I don't often take a proper holiday, you know. Too hard up. But I sometimes do locum for an old friend of mine who has a tiny little parish in North Devon – seventeen inhabitants and a three-by-four church; you know the sort of thing. Just Sunday services, and a very good golf course opposite the front door. Evensong (with sermon), at six-thirty till about seven-thirty. Last Sunday, after evening service, my sister and I went back to dinner with the local big-wigs. I'm afraid we sat it out a bit late as I knew their eldest son at Cambridge, and he was spending the week-end with them – I suppose we were back before one o'clock in the morning, and then—'

‘Have you got a car?' interrupted Pollock.

‘Afraid not,' said Halliday. ‘Can't afford it, you know.'

‘In that case,' said Pollock with a smile, ‘and seeing that we are at least two-hundred and fifty miles from North Devon, I don't think I need trouble you for any detailed account of how you spent the rest of the night.'

‘Well, that's lucky anyway,' said Halliday with an answering grin. ‘Old Evershed's vintage port being all that it is, I don't remember much myself until breakfast at nine-thirty the next morning.'

‘What did you do on Monday?' said Pollock.

‘Golf with the chap I was telling you about from Cambridge, tea in the clubhouse about five.'

‘All right,' said Pollock. ‘Subject to verification, I think that disposes of you. You'd better let me have the name of the man you had dinner with.'

‘Sir Lionel Evershed. The Red House, Tawton, North Devon.'

‘Thank you, I'll make a note of that.'

‘This is really rather fun, isn't it?' said Halliday unexpectedly. ‘I mean I've read so often in books of people being asked to account for all their movements on the night of the thirteenth of April, and I've always rather wanted to be asked to account for my own. In fact, I sometimes wondered if I should be able to remember exactly what I'd done on a particular night after, say, six months.'

‘It's not very difficult,' said Pollock, ‘as long as there's something to fix it by and you don't have to be exact about times.'

‘If you want to eliminate someone else who has been away,' suggested Halliday, ‘why not try your arts on Canon Beech-Thompson?'

‘I have questioned Canon Beech-Thompson,' replied Pollock shortly.