The Corpse in the Cellar (18 page)

Just as we were finishing the last of the bread and cheese, the large, plump shadow of Constable Dixon once again floated between us and the sunlight, looming over us like a threatening zeppelin—a zeppelin with a large moustache and an officious attitude—telling us that the inquest was about to start and Inspector Crispin had sent him to ‘ensure our attendance at same'.

The inquest into the death of Franklin Grimm was held in the church hall, which stood behind the old stone church through which we had earlier escaped the watchful eye of Constable Dixon. Seated at the front of the hall, behind a table, was an officious-looking little man sorting out his papers as we entered. He had a face as wizened as a prune and a pair of gold-rimmed pince-nez clipped to his nose. We took our seats on the hard wooden chairs among (or so it seemed) most of the town's population.

‘Who's that chap?' I asked Dixon as we squeezed into some of the few remaining chairs.

‘That's Mr Brewer,' the policeman explained. ‘Mr Harvey Brewer. He's a local solicitor and he usually acts as district coroner at these hearings.'

At that moment Mr Brewer called us all to order by tapping the table impatiently with the blunt end of his fountain pen. It was only a quiet sound, not the banging of a gavel, but it appeared that this was what everyone was waiting for, and silence fell almost immediately.

‘This is a coronial inquiry,' he announced in a thin, fluting, self-important voice, ‘into the death of Mr Franklin Grimm of the town of Market Plumpton.'

He proceeded to empanel a jury of twelve local citizens and instruct them in their duties. Then he called the police surgeon to give evidence as to the cause of death.

Dr Haydock explained to the court what we already knew: that the deceased had died as a result of a single knife blow to the throat. ‘This blow,' he added, ‘severed the carotid artery and punctured the larynx.'

‘Would death have been rapid?' asked Mr Brewer.

‘Almost instantaneous,' Dr Haydock replied.

‘Were there any defensive wounds or signs of a struggle?'

‘None.'

‘Would the blow have required considerable force?'

‘That would depend on the sharpness of the blade—which the police have, thus far, not recovered. A very sharp blade would not have required very much strength to inflict the fatal injury.'

‘Could the injury have been self-inflicted?'

‘It would be difficult to strike such a blow against oneself—difficult but not entirely impossible for a determined person. However, in the absence of a weapon at the scene—'

The coroner cut off Dr Haydock's speculations at this point and excused him from giving further evidence. Then Inspector Hyde was called to give an account of the finding of the body.

This was all so familiar to us that I found my attention wandering. I leaned back and looked up at the hammer-beam ceiling of the church hall and found myself speculating about the building's history. Perhaps, I thought, this might once have been a medieval banqueting hall attached to a great house. And perhaps the little Norman church beside it had been the chapel for the noble family that owned the house. I could picture the sort of people Chaucer described living in such a setting. Then in my imagination I could hear Lewis proclaiming once again, in his impeccable Middle English: ‘Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote, The droghte of March hath perced to the roote . . . '

I was woken from my Chaucerian daydream by the sound of my old tutor's name being called. He went to the witness stand and was sworn in.

‘Your name is Clive Staples Lewis?' asked the coroner.

Jack admitted to these, his birth names, although he detested them, and went on, in response to questions, to tell the whole story of that morning when we wanted nothing more than to withdraw cash from the bank and became embroiled in a series of dramatic and tragic events.

‘At any time during these events,' asked the coroner, ‘did you see a knife or weapon of any sort in the hands of the deceased?'

‘Never,' said Jack, and Ruth Jarvis, who was seated only a few rows in front of me, began to sob.

‘Or, in fact, did you see such a weapon anywhere in the bank at all at this time?'

‘No, there was no sign of whatever weapon was used. Or, indeed, of any weapon at all.'

‘Not so much as a letter opener?'

‘As you say—not so much as a letter opener.'

A sceptical cloud passed over the coroner's face, as if he found it impossible to believe that a bank office would not have at least one letter opener somewhere. He paused to scribble down a note, then resumed his questioning.

‘What frame of mind would you describe the deceased as being in, the last time you saw him?'

‘He was focused entirely on the problem of getting Mr Ravenswood, the bank manager, out of the strongroom in which he had been locked.'

‘Did he appear alarmed or distressed at all?'

‘Those are not the words I would use. He was busy. Active. Seeking a remedy for the situation. He was not focused upon himself at all.'

Jack was excused. Next the coroner briefly questioned Warnie and me along similar lines but we had nothing substantial to add to Jack's answers.

Inspector Hyde was then recalled to give an account of the search for the murder weapon. This was more interesting so I paid close attention, but it was entirely unenlightening. Hyde's statement was as slow and meticulous as the search had evidently been—and with the same results.

‘You recovered no weapon at all? You saw no evidence of the hiding or destruction of a weapon?'

‘None at all.'

The destruction of a weapon? That was a thought that had not occurred to me. Might Grimm have been killed with some sort of weapon that could be destroyed or made unrecognisable in some way? But in what way? I was still completely baffled.

‘Could an ordinary object have been used as a weapon? Perhaps the blade of a pair of scissors?'

‘We tested all such objects in the bank for traces of blood and found none. As you know, it is virtually impossible to remove all traces of blood from a weapon. Minute traces are sure to remain. Based on our tests I am certain we have not yet seen the weapon. The search continues.'

Then Inspector Crispin was called and asked to give an account of the current state of the police investigation. In as few words as possible he explained that inquiries were continuing and that several lines of investigation were being pursued. He was asked if he believed the death could have been self-inflicted.

‘Out of the question,' he said firmly, and went through the medical and scene of crime evidence to explain why.

The coroner gave his final directions to the jury, who immediately returned a verdict of ‘murder by person or persons unknown'. This being what the coroner wanted, he tapped the table with his pen once more and declared the hearing closed.

We found ourselves being jostled out of the church hall and into the town square by the crowd that had filled the public gallery. As we walked back towards
The Boar's Head
, I noticed Constable Dixon keeping a discreet eye on us from a distance—proof that we were still under official observation. Warnie and I chatted about what had happened at the inquest, but Jack, I noticed, seemed to be lost in silent thought.

When the crowd had thinned out, and as we were drawing nearer to the pub, I said, ‘Well, now—about tonight. I have two questions. First, how do I get out? And second, what do I ask Amelia Proudfoot if I manage to find her?'

‘Taking them in reverse order,' said Jack, ‘I want you to ask Mrs Proudfoot about her personal relationship with each of the people at the bank: Franklin Grimm, Ruth Jarvis, Edmund Ravenswood and Edith Ravenswood.'

‘Just that?' I was surprised. ‘No more?'

‘Just that,' Jack said firmly. ‘That will give me the missing final piece of the puzzle. As to how you get out, well, I think we might assign Warnie the task of scouting around the pub and finding a back way out. That should be right up your street, old chap.'

Warnie chuckled and said, ‘I'm good at talking to folk in pubs—and getting them talking. Leave it to me. I'll have the information before we've finished eating our tea.'

And Warnie was as good as his word. At some point he disappeared into the bowels of the pub, only to reappear fifteen minutes later just as a roast dinner was being served for us in the snug.

‘Well?' asked Jack through a mouthful of roast duck.

‘I played my usual role,' chuckled Warnie, ‘of the old bumbler who has no idea of where he's got to. And I found out exactly what we need to know.'

He paused to chew and swallow and then resumed, ‘There's a back door that opens out of the kitchen. It gives on to a narrow alley behind the pub. At night it's latched and bolted from the inside. If you slip out that way, young Morris, leaving the door closed and bolted behind you, no one will know you've gone. I'll lock up behind you as you leave.'

‘But once the pub's locked up I won't be able to get back in,' I protested.

‘You won't need to, remember?' said Jack. ‘You'll be catching the milk train to the coast and you won't be back here until well after the pub has opened tomorrow morning.'

This loomed before me as a most unattractive prospect. I drowned my sorrows in roast duck and potatoes swimming in thick gravy.

After dinner Warnie drifted into the public bar where I could see, through the open doorway, that he was roped into a game of darts with the locals. Jack and I lingered in the snug over a glass of brandy.

‘“Person or persons unknown”,' I said. ‘That was the best verdict that was possible at today's inquest. And sometimes that's the best, the most intelligent, verdict that's available to us in these big questions we've been discussing.'

‘Ah, we're back to the God question,' Jack said, with the gleam of eager combat in his eye. ‘And has your thinking progressed any further?'

‘I've decided that the best verdict it's possible to bring in is an open one.'

‘Meaning agnosticism?'

‘Meaning that we admit when there's not enough evidence to decide one way or the other. That's when we bring in a verdict that is the philosophical equivalent of “person or persons unknown”. It's the only honest thing to do.'

‘But the point of today's verdict was to continue the inquiry. It was an interim verdict, not a final one. Inspector Crispin is not about to say, “Well, there you are then: persons or persons unknown. That settles the matter, so I can now move on to another case.” Rather the point of an open verdict is to say: gather more evidence, do more thinking.'

‘I still think I'd like to keep an open mind.'

‘Forever?'

To avoid replying I took a sip of brandy and Jack responded by continuing, ‘G. K. Chesterton is a very dangerous writer for a young atheist or agnostic to read; he keeps planting explosive ideas in the mind. When I was still an atheist I read his remark that the purpose of having an open mind is rather like having an open mouth—in order to close it on something solid. So would you admit, young Tom, that an “open verdict” can only ever be an interim position?'

‘And I've decided there's another problem,' I responded, rapidly changing the subject to avoid answering this challenge, ‘another problem with this whole field of thinking.'

‘Meaning?'

‘With this whole category of religion.'

‘The problem being . . . ?'

‘What religion has brought to our world. It's religion that gave us the Spanish Inquisition and the Crusades and persecutions in which so-called “heretics” were burned at the stake. Religion has divided families and divided nations. Europe was torn apart by the Hundred Years' War—and that was over religion. Galileo was persecuted by religion for his science. Religious superstition stood in the way of the birth of modern science until it was pushed aside by the weight of the evidence.'

‘And the other side of the ledger?'

‘I can't see that there is one. I mean to say, what good has religion ever done anyone? I can't see that there's any answer to that charge. So let's hear how you get out of that one, Jack.' I sat back in my seat, rather pleased with myself, mopping up the last of the gravy with a piece of bread.

‘My first objection would be that your label—your whole category of “religion”—is so wide and so vague that it's not possible to make the huge sweeping statements about it that you do.'

‘I don't understand.'

‘Well, you speak of “religion” as if it were one thing. That's like treating a subject such as—well, sport, let's say, as if it were one thing. Now I'm no sportsman, but even I know that it would be possible to build a case for saying that all sport is evil and all sport should be banned based on the worse examples.'

‘I don't follow you.'