Body in the Transept (25 page)

It worked. George turned, startled, and I ran like a deer, coat flapping, hat askew. It was only a tiny chance. George was as out of shape as I, but his legs were longer, and he had the strength of desperation. I was nearly at the stair when I tripped, and went down, and in one last urgent attempt I picked up a piece of masonry and threw it.

It fell just ahead of George. But in swerving to avoid it, he struck the side railing, hard. The single, temporary plank held, but it bowed out and George missed his footing. Scraps of stone fell to the floor of the nave, forty feet below. He swore, scrabbled, grasped the plank once more.

This time it broke, with all his weight against it. As he fell, screaming, he clutched the manuscript fiercely with both hands, as if it could provide a handhold. It crumbled to bits. As I watched, paralyzed, the one large piece drifted down to a candle of the crossing altar and then, burning, wafted to the floor to join its destroyer.

T
HE DEAN WAS
there, speechless with horror. Nigel was there. The police were there. Alan was there, finally, mercifully, to cut short the questions and explanations and let me go home. I didn’t want any company. Later, when I stopped shaking and started crying, I would want people. Not now. I walked away from them down the echoing aisle of the south choir transept. In the gloom I thought I saw a cowled figure preceding me, but when I got to the door no one was there.

I opened the door on much more light than I had expected, and stepped out into a world transformed. From the heavy clouds snow was falling at last, thick, white, beautiful snow, blanketing, softening, cleansing. At the gate I turned back. The cathedral, huge, gray, and serene, brooded on its smooth white cloud and folded its protective wings over Sherebury.

“. . . S
O THAT’S REALLY
all the news from here. No one can say it hasn’t been an
eventful
Christmas! Love, Dorothy.”

That was nearly all of my Christmas correspondence done, thank goodness. It had been tedious writing a slightly different version of murder and mayhem to all the friends and relations, but the thought of mass-producing a “Christmas letter” made me quail. Not that I mind them, but I could
not
see beginning one with, “Well, the holidays are over and all our murders are solved. . . .”

The doorbell rang; Emmy stirred and stretched and went back to sleep.

“Alan, come in. The rest will be along shortly, I expect.”

He tossed his hat and coat onto the chair in the hall and went into the parlor. “How’s the mistress of the house?” he asked, nodding at the heap of gray fur.

“Back to her usual form and ruling with an iron paw. I spoiled her the first few days she got home, and she’s still taking full advantage of my sympathy.”

I excused myself to put the kettle on, and by the time I got back to the parlor the rest of my guests had arrived.

“Everybody knows everybody, of course, except Nigel, have you met Dr. Temple?”

Nigel stood up and extended his hand, his manners very much to the fore. “I’ve heard of you, of course, sir. You’re a legend at the university.”

Dr. Temple twinkled, his white hair flying away. “And I’ve heard of you, too, young man.”

“Oh, dear,” said Inga demurely. “That sounds frightfully ominous.”

Jane grunted contentedly.

“Now, Alan,” I said when everyone had tea and goodies, “there’s one thing I still can’t understand. Why was the canon so secretive about the manuscript? A find like that, you’d think he’d have shouted it from the rooftops.”

“That’s an easy one. He stole it.”

“But—who from?” I asked, my grammar deserting me.

“From Greece. He found it, probably when he was involved in that earthquake in Corinth, although we’ll never know for certain, of course. But finders aren’t keepers in this case. Antiquities belong to the country where they are found, so he stole it from the Greek government.”

“Not only that,” said Nigel, dripping with youthful scorn, “he took it away from the site, and everyone knows something like that should be left
in situ
until it can be dated, matched up with other artifacts in the same place—all that. One would’ve thought him a better scholar.”

“I reckon it was just too much for him,” put in Dr. Temple. “Every researcher dreams of turning up a big discovery, and this one was beyond the wildest dream.”

“What do you think he meant to do with it?” asked Inga. “Stolen, and all—he’d scarcely have been able to publish his findings.”

Jane snorted. “Doubt he knew himself. Might’ve taken it back and replanted it and then ‘discovered’ it again. Probably stole the thing on impulse and then, when he knew what he had . . .”

“Do you think,” I asked the room at large, “it was really . . .?” I couldn’t say it. I kept thinking of those shreds of papyrus floating to the cathedral floor.

“Never know,” said Jane gruffly. “Sending the remains to the BM for dating, but that’s all they can tell. Now.”

There was a sober pause.

“Three people died for it,” I said finally. “All because George wanted his academic chair, his justification for existence, badly enough to kill. In a way, I hope it was worth it.”

“I wonder what Mrs. Chambers is going to do,” said Inga, changing the subject.

“So do I,” I put in. “I can hardly call on her, or write, but I do feel sorry for her.”

“Needn’t,” said Jane. “Going to sell her house and buy that Victorian ruin out Dilham way. Restore it to glory.”

“I thought she liked new houses!”

“George did. Funny woman, Alice. Loyal to him through thick and thin, but never cared much. Too soon to say so, but better off without him.”

Emmy smelled the turkey in the sandwiches just then and came over to help herself. When we had chased her away (sandwich in mouth), Dr. Temple grinned mischievously at me.

“What you need, my dear, is another cat.”

“Heaven help me! You’re surely not trying to find a new home for Soo and Ling?”

“No, indeed, they’d not allow it for a moment! No, but Ling finds herself in a delicate condition. I’m sure a half-Siamese kitten would be just the companion for Esmeralda. Probably her half-sibling, as well.” He looked fixedly at Inga, who groaned.

“Mum and Dad really
are
going to have to have Max altered. We’ll be settling paternity suits all over town at this rate.”

Alan stayed after the party to help me wash the dishes.

“Dorothy,” he said as he was leaving, “there’s a new Indian restaurant just opened on the High Street. Do you like Indian food?”

“Very much.”

“Then let’s try it out, shall we? Tomorrow night?”

“I’d enjoy that.”

I closed the door and went back to my desk to write the very last Christmas-card reply.

“Dear Bob and Sophie, I appreciate your efforts in looking for a new house for me, but I think I’m going to stay in England, at least for now. Sherebury suits me. . . .”

F
OR THOSE UNFAMILIAR
with Church of England architecture and liturgy, I offer the following guide.

T
HE CATHEDRAL CHURCH
of St. Peter and St. Paul at Sherebury is, like most medieval cathedrals, built on a cruciform (cross-shaped) plan, with the high altar toward the east end. The building is surrounded by a large grassy area known as the “Close” (pronounced with a softs), with an ancient cemetery in one corner and the homes and offices of the dean, bishop, and other cathedral personnel around the edges. One usually enters the cathedral not through the huge west door, which is opened only for ceremonial purposes, but through a smaller door in the south tower, leading into the
south porch
¹
and thence into the church. The main body of the church is the
nave,
from the Latin for ship, so-named because it looks, with its curved, ribbed roof, a little like an overturned hull. The nave is flanked by
aisles
on either side, lined with tombs and memorial plaques in the walls and on the floor.

At the east end of the nave there is a
parish altar
at the
crossing,
where the two
transepts
stretch out to north and south. The transepts are also thickly cluttered with tombs and memorials; against the east walls are a number of small chapels, many of them
chantries
endowed centuries ago by the wealthy for the purpose of having masses sung there forever for the repose of their souls. As the years changed religious and political thought, the chantries were stripped of their reason for being, but remain as tiny architectural gems within the larger church.

Sherebury, originally built as an abbey church, has a
chapter house
, where the daily business of the monastery used to be transacted, now used as the cathedral library, and also a
choir screen
, a thick, elaborately carved wall separating the nave, where the laity worshiped at the parish altar, from the
choir
, where the cloistered monks sang their many daily services. The choir screen has a wide, arched doorway through which processions pass and the activity at the
high altar
can be seen from the nave. Most services at Sherebury Cathedral are now held in the choir; the singers—also referred to as the choir (which can be confusing)—and clergy occupy about a third of the
stalls
, or carved oak seats designed for the monks, and the congregation the rest. The choir is also the location of the
cathedra
, the bishop’s throne that gives the building its name and its function as the principal church of the diocese. A second set of shorter transepts extends from the choir at the west end of the
chancel
. The south choir transept is the only remaining part of the original abbey church of the eleventh century. The rest burned down in the 1400s and was rebuilt in Perpendicular style. The transept would probably have been torn down and rebuilt next, but Henry VIII’s dissolution of the abbeys intervened.

The
apse
is distinguished by marvelous stained-glass windows, by far the best in the cathedral. These are unfortunately invisible from most of the church, since someone in the eighteenth century erected an imposing set of organ pipes on top of the choir screen and completely blocked the view.

Within the Church of England there are various “parties,” or sets of liturgical and doctrinal preferences. Sherebury’s bishop and dean are both of high church persuasion. This means that their services tend to be very formal and traditional, and to emphasize the similarities with the Roman Catholic Church rather than the differences. Thus the clergy wear full sets of vestments for services, most of the service is sung or chanted instead of being spoken, incense is used for important occasions, genuflections and signs of the cross are made at appropriate moments, and so on. It also follows that the most important service on a Sunday is the Eucharist (or Holy Communion, or Mass), at which bread and wine are consecrated and distributed to the faithful as the Body and Blood of Christ. There are four services at Sherebuiy every Sunday: an early spoken Eucharist, followed by Matins (Morning Prayer) at which the full glories of the male choir are put to use, followed a little later by a sung Eucharist, the principal service, and, in the late afternoon, Evensong (Evening Prayer), a particularly lovely choral service. Matins and Evensong are said or sung every weekday, as well; there is a spoken Eucharist every morning and a sung one on saints’ days and special holy days.

The accompanying floor plan may be of help, particularly to the reader who has never been so fortunate as to visit an English cathedral. For him, or her, I would recommend beginning with Lincoln Cathedral, which really is, in this writer’s opinion, the most beautiful church in the world—not counting Sherebury, which, though truly magnificent, exists, alas, only in our imagination.

The town of Sherebury is also fictional, though owing much to various real places. It is located somewhere in the southeast of England. The Wicked Lady and the Old Bakehouse do exist, but nowhere near Maidstone. I haven’t presumed to alter London geography or landscape.

¹
Italicized terms will be found in the floor plan.