Last Ditch (28 page)

‘I’m coming,’ he said, when he got the chance. ‘We are all coming. It has been arranged.’

‘Jones!’ the voice boomed.
‘Jones!’

‘That may be a bit difficult, but I think so.’

Expostulations rent the air.

‘This is too much,’ Alleyn said to Troy. He laid the receiver down and let it perform. When an opportunity presented itself he snatched it up and said: ‘Mr Harkness, I am coming to your service. In the meantime, goodbye,’ and hung up.

‘Was that really Mr Harkness?’ asked Troy, ‘or was it an elemental on the rampage?’

‘The former. Wait a jiffy.’

He called the office and said there seemed to be a lunatic on the line and would they be kind enough to cut him off if he rang again.

‘How can he possibly hold a service?’ Troy asked.

‘He’s hell-bent on it. Whether he’s in a purely alcoholic frenzy or whether he really has taken leave of his senses or whether in fact he has something of moment to reveal, it’s impossible to say.’

‘But what’s he
want?’

‘He wants a full house. He wants Ferrant and Jones, particularly.’

‘Why?’

‘Because he’s going to tell us who killed his niece.’

‘For crying out loud!’ said Troy.

‘That,’ said Alleyn, ‘is exactly what he intends to do.’

The service was to be at six o’clock. Alleyn and Fox left Montjoy at a quarter to the hour under a pall of cloud and absolute stillness. Local sounds had become isolated and clearly defined: voices, a car engine starting up, desultory footfalls. And still it did not rain.

After a minute or two on the road a police van overtook them and sailed ahead.

‘Plank,’ said Alleyn, ‘with his boys in blue and their charges. Only they’re not in blue.’

‘I suppose it’s OK,’ Fox said, rather apprehensively.

‘It’d better be,’ said Alleyn.

As they passed L’Esperance, the Pharamonds’ largest car could be seen coming down the drive. And on the avenue to Leathers they
passed little groups of pedestrians and fell in behind a procession of three cars.

‘Looks like capacity all right,’ said Fox.

Two more cars were parked in front of the house and the police van was in the stable yard. Out in the horse-paddock the sorrel mare flung up her head and stared at them. The loose-boxes were empty.

‘Is he looking after all this himself?’ Fox wondered. ‘You’d hardly fancy he was up to it, would you?’

Mr Blacker, the vet, got out of one of the cars and came to meet them.

‘This is a rum go and no mistake,’ he said. ‘I got the most peculiar letter from Cuth. Insisting I come. Not my sort of Sunday afternoon at all. Apparently he’s been canvassing the district. Are you chaps mixed up in it, or what?’

Alleyn was spared the necessity of answering by the arrival of the Pharamonds.

They collected round Alleyn and Fox, gaily chattering as if they had met in the foyer of the Paris Opera. Julia and Carlotta wore black linen suits with white lawn blouses: exquisite tributes to Mrs Ferrant’s art as a
blanchisseuse de fin.

‘Shall we go in?’ Julia asked as if the bells had rung for curtainup. ‘We mustn’t miss anything, must we?’ She laid her gloved hand on Alleyn’s arm. ‘The baskets!’ she said. ‘Should we take them in or leave them in the car?’

‘Baskets?’

‘You must remember? “Ladies a Basket”. Carlotta and I have brought
langouste
and mayonnaise sandwiches. Do you think – suitable?’

‘I’m not sure if the basket arises this time.’

‘We must wait and see. If unsuitable we shall wolf them up when we get home. As a kind of
hors d’oevre.
You’re dining, aren’t you? You and Troy? And Mr Fox,
of course?’

‘Julia,’ Alleyn said, ‘Fox and I are policemen and we’re on duty and however delicious your
langouste
sandwiches, I doubt if we can accept your kind invitation. And now, like a dear creature, go and assemble your party in the front stalls and don’t blame me for what you are about to receive. It’s through there on your right.’

‘Oh, dear!’ said Julia. ‘Yes. I see. Sorry.’

He watched them go off and then looked into the police van. Plank and Moss were in the front, Cribbage and a very young constable in the back, with Ferrant and Syd Jones attached to them. The police were in civilian dress

Alleyn said: ‘Wait until everyone else has gone in and then sit at the back. OK? If there aren’t any seats left, stand.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Plank.

‘Where are your other chaps?’

‘They went in, Mr Alleyn. As far front as possible. And there’s an extra copper from the mainland, like you said. Outside the back door.’

‘How are your two treasures in there?’

‘Ferrant’s a right monkey, Mr Alleyn. Very uncooperative. He doesn’t talk except to Jones and then it’s only the odd curse. The doctor came in to see Jones before we left and gave him a reduced fix. The doctor’s here.’

‘Good.’

‘He says Mr Harkness called him in to give him something to steady him up, but he reckons he’d already taken something on his own account.’

‘Where is Dr Carey?’

‘In the audience. He’s just gone in. He said to tell you Mr Harkness is in a very unstable condition but not incapable.’

‘Thank you. We’ll get moving. Come on, Fox.’

They joined the little stream of people who walked round the stables and along the path to the Old Barn.

A man with a collection plate stood inside the door. Alleyn, fishing out his contribution, asked if he could by any chance have a word with Mr Harkness and was told that Brother Cuth was at prayer in the back room and could see nobody. ‘Alleluia,’ he added, apparently in acknowledgement of Alleyn’s donation.

Alleyn and Fox found seats half-way down the barn. Extra chairs and boxes were being brought in, presumably from the house. The congregation appeared to be a cross-section of Cove and countryside in its Sunday clothes with a smattering of rather more stylish persons who might hail from Montjoy or even be tourists come out of curiosity. Alleyn recognized one or two faces
he had seen at the Cod-and-Bottle. And there, stony in the fourth row with Louis beside her, sat Mrs Ferrant.

A little further forward from Alleyn and Fox were the Pharamonds, looking like a stand of orchids in a cabbage patch and behaving beautifully.

In the front three rows sat, or so Alleyn concluded, the hard-core brethren. They had an air of proprietorship and kept a smug eye on their books.

The curtains were closed to exclude the stage.

An audience, big or small, as actors know, generates its own flavour and exudes it like a pervasive scent. This one gave out the heady smell of suspense.

The tension increased when a thin lady with a white face seated herself at the harmonium and released strangely disturbing strains of unparalleled vulgarity.

‘Shall we gather at the River?’
invited the harmonium.
‘The Beautiful, The Beautiful, The Ree-iv-a?’

Under cover of this prelude Plank and his support brought in their charges. Alleyn and Fox could see them reflected in a glazed and framed scroll that hung from a beam: ‘The Chosen Brethren’, it was headed, and it set out the professions of the sect.

Plank’s party settled themselves on a bench against the back wall.

The harmonium achieved its ultimate
fortissimo
and the curtains opened jerkily to reveal six men seated behind a table on either side of a more important but empty chair. The congregation, prompted by the elect, rose.

In the commonplace light of early evening that filled the hall and in a total silence that followed a last deafening
roulade
on the organ, Mr Harkness entered from the inner room at the back of the platform.

One would have said that conditions were not propitious for dramatic climax: it had, however, been achieved.

He was dressed in a black suit and wore a black shirt and tie. He had shaved, and his hair, cut to regimental length, was brushed. His eyes were bloodshot, his complexion was blotched and his hands unsteady, but he seemed to be more in command of himself than he had been on the occasions when Alleyn had encountered him. It was a star entrance and if Mr Harkness had been an actor he would have been accorded a round of applause.

As it was he sat in the central chair. There he remained motionless throughout the ensuing hymn and prayers. These latter were extempore and of a highly emotional character, and were given out in turn by each of the six supporting brethren, later referred to by Plank as ‘Cuth’s side-kicks’.

With these preliminaries accomplished and all being seated, Cuthbert Harkness rose to deliver his address. For at least a minute and in complete silence he stood with head bent and eyes closed while his lips moved, presumably in silent prayer. The wait was hard to bear.

From the moment he began to speak he generated an almost intolerable tension. At first he was quiet but it would have come as a relief if he had spoken at the top of his voice.

He said: ‘Brethren: This is the Day of Reckoning. We are sinners in the sight of the Great Master. Black as hell are our sins and only the Blood of Sacrifice can wash us clean. We have committed abominations. Our unrighteousness stinks in the nostrils of the All-Seeing Host. Uncleanliness, lechery and defilement stalk through our ranks. And Murder.’

It was as if a communal nerve had been touched, causing each member of his audience to stiffen. He himself actually ‘came to attention’ like a soldier. He squared his shoulders, lifted his chin, inflated his chest and directed his bloodshot gaze over the heads of his listeners. He might have been addressing a parade.

‘Murder,’ roared Mr Harkness. ‘You have Murder here in your midst, brethren, here in the very temple of righteousness. And I shall reveal its Name unto you. I have nursed the awful knowledge like a viper in my bosom, I have wrestled with the Angel of Darkness. I have suffered the torments of the Damned but now the Voice of Eternal Judgement has spoken unto me and all shall be made known.’

He stopped dead and looked wildly round his audience. His gaze alighted on the row against the back wall and became fixed. He raised his right arm and pointed.

‘Guilt!’ he shouted. ‘Guilt encompasseth us on every hand. The serpent is coiled in divers bosoms. I accuse! Sydney Jones –’

‘You lay off me,’ Syd screamed out, ‘you shut up.’

Heads were turned. Sergeant Plank could be heard expostulating. Harkness, raising his voice, roared out a sequence of anathemas, but no specific accusation. The accusing finger shifted.

‘Gilbert Ferrant! Woe unto you Gilbert Ferrant –’

By now half the audience had turned in their seats. Gilbert Ferrant, tallow-faced, stared at Harkness.

‘Woe unto you, Gilbert Ferrant. Adulterer! Trader in forbidden fruits!’

It went on. Now only the inner brethren maintained an eyes-front demeanour. Consternation mounted in the rest of the congregation. Mr Harkness now pointed at Mrs Ferrant. He accused her of stony-heartedness and avarice. He moved on to Bob Maistre (wine-bibbing) and several fishermen unknown to Alleyn (blasphemy).

He paused. His roving and ensanguined gaze alighted on the Pharamonds. He pointed: ‘And ye,’ he apostrophized them, ‘wallowers in the flesh-pots…’

He rambled on at the top of his voice. They were motionless throughout. At last he stopped, glared, and seemed to prepare himself for some final and stupendous effort. Into the silence desultory sounds intruded. It was as if somebody outside the barn had begun to pepper the iron roof with pellets, only a few at first but increasing. At last the clouds had broken and it had begun to rain.

One might be forgiven, Alleyn thought afterwards, for supposing that some celestial stage-management had taken charge, decided to give Mr Harkness the full treatment, and grossly overdone it. Mr Harkness himself seemed to be unaware of the mounting fusilade on the roof. As the din increased he broke out anew. He stepped up his parade-ground delivery. He shouted anathemas: on his niece and her sins, citing predictable Biblical comparisons, notably Jezebel and the whore of Babylon. He referred to Leviticus 20.6 and to the Cities of the Plains. He began to describe the circumstances of her death. He was now very difficult to hear, for the downpour on the iron roof was all-obliterating.

‘And the Sinner…’ could be made out ‘…Mark of Cain…before you all…now proclaim…Behold the man…’

He raised his right arm to the all-too-appropriate accompaniment of a stupendous thunder-clap and turned himself into a latter-day Lear. He beat his bosom and seemed at last to become aware of the storm.

An expression of bewilderment and frustration appeared. He stared wildly about him, gestured, clasped his hands and looked beseechingly round his audience.

Then he covered his face with his hands and bolted into the inner room. The door shut behind him with such violence that the framed legend above it crashed to the floor. Still the rain hammered on the iron roof.

Alleyn and Fox were on the stage with Plank hard at their heels. Nothing they said could be heard. Alleyn was at the door. It was locked. He and Fox stood back from it, collected themselves and shoulder-charged it. It resisted but Plank was there and joined in the next assault. It burst open and they plunged into the room.

Brother Cuth hung from a beam above the chair he had kicked away. His confession was pinned to his coat. He had used a length of wire from the coil in the old coach-house.

Alleyn pushed the confession across the table to Fox. ‘It’s all there,’ he said. ‘He may have written it days ago or whenever he first made up his mind.

‘He was determined to destroy the author, as he saw her, of his damnation, and then himself. The method only presented itself after their row about Dulcie jumping the gap. He seems to have found some sort of satisfaction, some sense of justice in the act of her disobedience being the cause of her death. He must have…made his final preparations during the time he was locked up in the back room before the service began. If we’d broken in the door on the first charge we might just have saved him. He wouldn’t have thanked us for it.’

‘I don’t get it, sir,’ Plank said. ‘Him risking the sorrel mare. It seems all out of character.’