Petrella at 'Q' (23 page)

He knew, now, what had happened.

The word had gone out against him.

Milo said, “I think I’ve found him, sir.”

“Found who?”

“Captain Crabtree.”

“All right. Let’s have it.”

“I’ve copied it out. It was in Palgrave’s
South Bank Worthies.
Charles Hannaford Crabtree. Came of humble parentage. His father was reported to have been a pork butcher, who amassed a considerable fortune at the time of the Great Plague. I thought that sounded rather gruesome, sir.”

“Cut out the commentary, Sergeant. Just let us have the facts.”

“Yes, sir. Charles was educated at the school in the Charterhouse and joined the Navy as a gentleman volunteer in 1680. He attained the rank of Post Captain in 1703 and left the Navy on the death of his father. Being the only surviving son, he inherited the family business, which he expanded greatly into the importing and exporting side. He became a generous benefactor of all local charities and died in 1742, greatly respected by all who knew him.”

“Importing and exporting,” said Petrella thoughtfully. “It might be worth following up. I’d like to know more about him.”

“I’m afraid that’s all there is.”

“Palgrave was only a collator. He usually gives references. See where he got his stuff from. Then have a look at the original works.”

“Suppose they aren’t in the library.”

“The Library of the British Museum,” said Petrella patiently, “has a copy of every published book. Don’t they teach you anything at Eton?”

When Soapy left the East Indiaman he walked slowly in the direction of his house. He needed time to think. It was a few minutes before he got the impression that he was being followed. There were plenty of people about in the High Street. It was impossible to be sure.

He dived down a side turning, covered twenty yards almost at a run and then stopped. Nobody seemed to be following him. Fifty yards farther on, the road he was in turned to the right. Then it turned to the right again and he found himself back in the High Street.

As he emerged, a young man bumped into him. Soapy leaped back. The young man looked surprised, said, “Sorry I’m sure,” and crossed the road to the opposite pavement. Here he was joined by a second young man, who said something which made them both laugh.

Soapy kept an eye on them as he moved off. They made no attempt to cross the road, but seemed to be keeping level with him on the opposite pavement. They were not in sight when he reached his front door. He let himself in, bolted the door behind him and stood for a moment, sweating.

He could hear his housekeeper, Mrs. Catterick, grumbling to herself in the kitchen. She seemed upset.

“Turning the place upside down,” she said.

“Who did?”

“Those two men. I ought to report them. They got no right.”

“What
men?”

“Inspectors they called themselves. From the Gas Board. Had half the floor up.”

Soapy held on to the door jamb to support himself. He said, “Just what did they do?”

“I dunno what they did. That’s up to them, isn’t it? They know their job, I suppose. Tracing a leak they said.”

“And you let them do it?”

“What did you expect me to do?” said Mrs. Catterick with a show of spirit. “Throw them out. Where are you off to now? Your dinner’s in the oven.”

“I’m going out,” said Soapy.

Milo presented his card and was shown into the great circular reading room at the British Museum. He said to the attendant, “Have you really got every book here that’s ever been written?”

“Not on the shelves,” said the attendant indulgently. “That’s just a selection. Might be a hundredth of what we’ve got in store. You’ll need one of those forms.” He explained the procedure for obtaining books.

Milo handed in his completed form at the central counter and sat down at one of the desks. He had never imagined such a room. Maybe a hundred students, some with a dozen or more books in front of them. What obscure and esoteric subjects could they be reading up? The grey-haired matronly woman? The attractive girl with horn-rimmed glasses balanced on the end of her pert nose? The old man with a face like a goat?

Petrella had been hoping to get away early to take his wife out shopping. Three times he thought he’d made it, three times the telephone had thwarted him. This time it was Station Sergeant Cove.

“It’s
who?”
said Petrella irritably.

“Lidgett, sir. Soapy Lidgett.”

“What does he want?”

“What he says he wants,” said Sergeant Cove impassively, “is police protection.”

“He must be joking.”

“You wouldn’t say so. Not if you’d seen him.
And
he wants the Gas Board to inspect his house, to see if someone’s left a bomb under the floor boards.”

“I suppose I’d better find out what it’s all about.”

“Please yourself,” said Sergeant Cove. “Speaking personally, I wouldn’t worry if someone did Soapy up in a sack and dropped him in the river.”

Soapy started talking as soon as he came into the room. Sergeant Cove had been right. The man was scared silly. Out of a jumble of words he gathered that he had been followed and threatened and that his house had been visited.

“Who by?”

“It’s them Peddies.”

At this Petrella did sit up. Peter and Jim Peddie and their families were a by-word in South London for genial brutality. They operated from Catford and were not Petrella’s personal headache, but he knew their reputation.

“Why would the Peddies be bothering you?”

“I don’t know. Honest to God, I don’t, Inspector. I never done nothing to them.”

“They wouldn’t be bothering you unless you’d bothered them somehow.”

Soapy shook his head. “Someone’s been telling lies. That’s all I can think.”

“What have they actually done?”

It didn’t seem to amount to much. People wouldn’t talk to him. Men on the other side of the street. Gas Board looking for a leak.

“I don’t see that we can do anything on that sort of evidence. If they start something, we’ll crack down on them quick enough.”

The telephone on his desk buzzed at him. He picked up the receiver, listened for a moment and then covered it with one hand.

“You’ll have to run along. Have a word with Sergeant Cove. He’ll get the man on the beat to keep an eye on your house.” As soon as the door had shut behind him, he said, “Go on, Sergeant.”

“I thought you ought to have this right away, sir.
Captain Crabtree was buried in St. Barnabas Church.
He’d contributed pretty handsomely in his lifetime and they gave him a private tomb. The book says, ‘Students of mid-eighteenth century memorial sculpture will be interested in this tomb which stands against the south wall of the Lady Chapel. It shows the deceased recumbent, with his head on a pillow adorned with his personal armorial devices and his feet on a representation of a ship of war.’ Hullo?”

But Petrella had gone.

He parked his car twenty yards short of the gate as the clock of St. Barnabas Church struck six.

At that hour, the streets were empty and quiet. The latch clacked loudly as he raised it. There was no one in the churchyard, or in the church. It occurred to Petrella, as he walked down the aisle, that if his suspicions were well-founded, it would have been sensible to have brought a couple of men with him. Too late now.

Captain Crabtree’s tomb filled a lot of the floor space in the tiny Lady Chapel. Prostrate on his bed of stone, the face of the sailor-merchant looked up at him. Some forgotten craftsman had chiselled those life-like features, the masterful nose, the pursed lips, the triple chins, folding into a heavy neck.

There’ll be some catch that holds the lid shut, thought Petrella. But it was only the weight of the lid and the recumbent figure which kept it down. Using all his strength, he raised it six inches.

It was enough for him to see that the interior was completely empty.

As he lowered it, the Reverend Sabine said from behind him, “You must be stronger than you look, Inspector. I know very few men who could lift that lid single-handed. If you want to look inside I could give you a hand, and we’d get it up all right.”

“Thank you,” said Petrella. He was still getting his breath back. “I could see that it was empty.”

“Quite empty, alas.”

“What happened to the Captain?”

“His coffin was stolen many years ago. The thieves would have been after the lead lining. No doubt the bones were dropped into the river. It’s very handy for the disposal of unwanted objects. An undignified ending for one of our great benefactors. But I don’t imagine that the Captain minded.”

“I don’t suppose he did,” said Petrella. “What I was wondering about was whether this very convenient receptacle had been used for quite different purposes since.”

“I can see that you have some theory about it. I suggest we move into the vestry and discuss it there. We shall be more comfortable.”

The vestry, being on the north side of the church, and possessing only a single narrow window, was already in half darkness. The Rector switched on an overhead light and closed the heavy door behind him. He said, “Please sit down and tell me what is in your mind.”

“I was interested,” said Petrella, “in a comment which was reported to me some months ago. It was about a collection of stolen coins. One of the young men who was thought to have stolen them, said that the coins were quite safe, ‘because Captain Crabtree was looking after them’. We were puzzled as we knew no one of that name in the district.”

“But now you have solved the puzzle.”

“I think so, yes.”

“You have concluded that the thieves were using his empty tomb as a cache.”

“A temporary cache, before they continued on their way out of the country. It is the second stage of their journey which would need careful organisation.”

The Reverend Sabine smiled. It was a broad, relaxed smile, with no artifice about it. He said, “Break it to me gently. You concluded that I was the organiser.”

“It seemed a possible explanation.”

“Might I guess that Mr. Lidgett – Mr. Soapy Lidgett – has been talking to you?”

“He saw me this afternoon. And made certain allegations. I thought the least I could do was to put them to you.”

“Suppose for a moment, Inspector, that Mr. Lidgett’s fantasies were the sober truth. Would it shock you?”

The question was so unexpected that Petrella found himself fumbling for an answer. “Shock me?” he said at last. “No. It wouldn’t shock me. Crime doesn’t shock me. It’s my business. You wouldn’t expect a doctor to be shocked by disease.”

“Let me remind you,” said the Rector, “that the Roman Catholic Church, which is, in many ways more logical than our own, decided some years ago, that if religion was to be brought back as a genuine force into the lives of the people, priests must work much more closely with their flocks. They formed a guild of worker priests. Young men who spent their days in the factories and plants, in the mines and quarries, working alongside their own people.”

“I think I read something about it,” said Petrella. “But I haven’t heard of it lately. Was it not a success?”

“On the contrary. It was too successful. The young priests became entirely imbued with the ideas of their parishioners. Ideas which were often Marxist, sometimes criminal. They undoubtedly exercised a great influence, but the Vatican could not accept the risks involved.”

“You mean that the flock might corrupt the shepherd.”

“They were young men. Young men are susceptible. It is only in very rare instances that a priest can descend from his pulpit, for six days in the week to live with and for his people, and re-ascend it on Sunday to give them the spiritual guidance which they need.”

“I should have thought it was impossible.”

“Curiously enough one of my ancestors seems to have achieved exactly that feat. He had a cure of souls at Cooling in the marshes. It was a small poor parish and the greater part of his people lived entirely by smuggling.”

“And he helped them?”

“He did not help them. He led them. When the goods were landed, they were brought straight to the church. There was a convenient cache actually underneath the pulpit. But – and that is the point – it was from that same pulpit every Sunday that he preached the higher duties of Christian charity and faith.”

Petrella said, “And he could do that although he was encouraging crime. As any man who acted in the way we have been discussing would also be encouraging crime. How could he square that with his conscience?”

“He would do so without difficulty. He would reflect that the people concerned would steal anyway and that all that he was doing was enabling them to obtain a fair reward for their labours.”

Petrella was only half listening. A minute before he had thought he heard a footstep. Now he was certain. There was more than one man outside. He cast an eye round the vestry. The window was too narrow to permit of exit. It opened almost directly on to the river. As the Rector had said, very handy for the disposal of unwanted objects.

“You must look, too, on the positive side of the picture,” said the Rector. “When I first came here the total congregation of this church was three old ladies. Now we have a regular attendance of over a hundred, many of them young people, an active parish council, an enthusiastic choir.
If
this had been achieved, by the methods that you and Mr. Lidgett are suggesting, would you not feel inclined to agree that the end justified the means?”

“No,” said Petrella firmly. “I would not.” He was certain now that a number of men had come into the church. He could hear the murmur of voices and even a quiet laugh. “Nor can I let this matter rest where it is.”

“If I might advise you, in your own best interests, I think – I really do think – that you should regard the whole matter as closed.”

Petrella stood up. He said, “Am I to understand that as a threat?”

The Reverend Sabine peered up at him in mild surprise. “A threat?” he said. “Why in the world should I threaten you? My meaning was, simply, that if you were to publish your theories to anyone else you would be in grave danger of being laughed at. Guardians of the law must never be laughed at. It is the one thing they cannot stand. And let me give you a further reason. Even if your theory was correct, it would be out of date.”