Day of Vengeance: Dorothy Martin investigates murder in the cathedral (A Dorothy Martin Mystery) (26 page)

‘Oh, Martha Rudge, is it? Well, then, I’ll make some éclairs as well. Very fond of my éclairs, is Martha. What time did you want it, dear?’

‘I’ll ask her what might be convenient. Would four thirty suit you if it’s all right with her?’

We agreed, and Mrs Rudge, when I reached her, was delighted, so I went back to the kitchen. ‘Four thirty will be fine, Mrs Stevens, and I do hope you’ll join us, especially since you seem to know Mrs Rudge well.’

‘That’ll be lovely, dear. Now, I’d best get to work on those éclairs.’

I left her to get on with it, and went up to my room to ponder several ideas. I lay down to do it, so nature took its course, and when I woke it was a quarter past four. I jumped up, tidied my hair, and got downstairs as fast as two titanium knees would allow. Mrs Rudge was ringing the bell.

‘Answer it, would you, dear?’ Mrs Stevens called from the kitchen. ‘I’m just wetting the tea.’

Mrs Rudge, I was embarrassed to see, was dressed rather more nicely than I, in dressy pants, a light blue pullover that looked like cashmere, and pearls. ‘I apologize,’ I said as I let her in and gestured to my jeans and sweatshirt. New jeans and an attractive sweatshirt, but still. ‘I’m afraid I dozed off this afternoon and didn’t have time to change out of my travel clothes.’

‘Not to worry,’ said Mrs Rudge comfortably, and softly. ‘I dressed up a bit because Ruth always takes notice of my clothes. You wait and see what she says.’

Sure enough, when Mrs Stevens came in with the tea tray, the first thing she said was, ‘New jumper, I see, Martha. That’s a nice colour for you. A bit young, though, perhaps, don’t you think?’

‘I’ve always liked pastels,’ said Mrs Rudge calmly. ‘And you’ve made éclairs for me. How kind of you!’

‘I remembered you liked them. The sandwiches are cheese, cucumber, and ham.’

And then for a while the only conversation was about the food. I was truly hungry after my miserable lunch and ate far more than I should have.

I was polishing off a second éclair when Mrs Rudge said, ‘I suppose you’re looking into Dean Brading’s death.’

My full mouth gave me a good excuse for not replying immediately.

She went on. ‘I know who you are, you see. Or at least I know who your husband is, and I’ve heard about you.’

‘That sounds ominous,’ I said tentatively.

‘My cousin lives in Belleshire, or did. She’s moved to Bournemouth, which I wouldn’t touch with a bargepole, but she’s happy there. Likes the climate, I suppose. But Mr Nesbitt was the chief constable when she was there, and she says he was held in very high regard.’

‘Mr Nesbitt is a policeman?’ asked Mrs Stevens, her voice almost squeaking.

‘Not anymore. He’s been retired for several years now.’ I had finally recovered my wits. ‘And yes, he and I are trying to make sense of Dean Brading’s death, but not from the police point of view. Alan is a member of the Crown Appointments Commission, searching for a new Bishop of Sherebury. He is deeply distressed by the death of one of the candidates, as are we all.’

‘And my cousin has heard about you, too,’ Mrs Rudge went on. ‘You’ve been mixed up in murders.’

Mrs Stevens’ eyes grew even wider.

‘I have indeed. Only as an investigator, I hasten to say. It turns out I’m good at talking to people and putting two and two together, and that’s why I’m here, to help Alan understand why Dean Brading died. Now, Mrs Stevens, if you’d rather I found another place to stay, I’ll quite understand. I love your house and I’d be sorry to leave, but if you think I’m … I don’t know … a dangerous guest, or apt to steal the towels, or something, I’ll go.’

It hung in the balance for a moment, then my hostess sighed. ‘No. I took to you and your husband when I first saw you, and I fancy myself a good judge of people. Goodness knows I’ve seen enough of them in and out of my house these past few years. And though I was no friend of the dean, if a parson can be murdered in his own church, nobody’s safe. Whoever did it needs to be caught. Stay as long as you like, Mrs Martin.’

‘That’s very good of you, Mrs Stevens. But I do wish you’d call me Dorothy.’

‘And we’re Ruth and Martha,’ said Mrs Rudge. ‘We may be old, but we’re not old trouts. And I’ll have another piece of cake, Ruth, if you wouldn’t mind.’

That cleared the air, and my conscience as well. I don’t like lying, even though I can do it fluently when necessary. And I had begun to think of these women as friends. When Ruth had poured me another cup of tea, and I had reluctantly turned down another piece of cake, I got down to business. ‘We have decided,’ I said, ‘those of us who are trying to figure out this business of Dean Brading, we’ve decided that we need to know as much as possible about his background. My husband and a few friends are looking into other places where he lived and worked, and I chose to come here. I wish you two would tell me anything you can remember about him. Not just things that might bear on his death, I don’t mean, but any little tidbits you can think of.’

I hesitated for a moment and then plunged ahead. ‘You see, I’ve read a lot of mystery fiction in a long life, starting years ago with Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, and right on into P. D. James and the other contemporary writers. And though their books are fiction, they have a lot of wise insights into human psychology and behaviour. One thing that Hercule Poirot used to say strikes me as profoundly true, and that is that the secret of a murder lies in the character and personality of the victim. Not a street crime, not the drug addict who kills anyone he can find for money. That sort of thing is brutal and horrible, but there’s nothing mysterious about it, and the police usually track down the villain in a matter of hours.

‘A crime like this, though, directed against a particular person, for reasons unknown – in this kind of crime, the more you know about the victim, the more likely you are to understand the murderer. And that makes it easier to find him, or her. So tell me what you can, and, as Lord Peter Wimsey said on one occasion, forget all about Christian charity for the moment.’

That brought a laugh from both of them. ‘Well,’ said Ruth, ‘I hope I won’t offend you, Martha. I know he was your vicar and all, but I personally couldn’t abide the man. This isn’t all that big a place, you know, and I keep my ear to the ground, and I could tell you a thing or two about Andrew Brading.’

‘I wish you would,’ I said. ‘Gossip, rumour – you never know what may help.’

Martha looked a little shocked, but sat back to listen critically.

‘You know he had a wife.’

It wasn’t a question, but I nodded. ‘And no children, I believe?’

‘He didn’t like children. I’ve heard there were almost no young people going to the cathedral anymore, because the feeling was that children were definitely not welcome at services.’

‘I’m afraid that’s true,’ said Martha reluctantly. ‘I’ve been attending the cathedral nearly all my life, and there were quite a number of young people years ago, before Dean Brading came. There were children’s sermons now and again, and outings for them, and even a youth choir of children from the community. But Dean Brading has –
had
– a very different style. He wanted the services to be quiet and reverent, with everything just so. It upset him when children made noise, and do what you will, babies
will
cry, and toddlers
will
get restless. Of course, he didn’t take all the services, and some of the canons were more tolerant, but one was never quite sure when the dean would be officiating, so the young couples stopped attending. I thought it a great pity, though there were those who agreed with the dean about the disruptions.’

I nodded. ‘When we were here before, I said some things I probably shouldn’t have about attendance dropping off. It sounds as though I might have been right about that, though.’

‘It’s true enough, but I don’t know that you can lay that at the feet of the dean. There aren’t nearly as many people going to church these days as when I was a girl.’

‘It was the war,’ said Ruth. ‘When bombs were falling everywhere and everyone thought they might meet their Maker any minute, they took care to be on good terms with Him. Not that I remember the war, mind you, but my mum told me about the air raids and all, and the younger kids from London being billeted with country families. And even afterwards, there was so little food. One can understand why most people went to church then. They had to find hope somewhere. Nowadays we have it too easy. We don’t need religion anymore.’

I disagreed with that, but I kept my peace. We had established a rather fragile pact of understanding, and I didn’t want to shatter it.

Martha spoke up, though. ‘Oh, you know I can’t agree, Ruth. It isn’t just the hope and peace you can find at church, the rituals and the sermons and that – it’s the community. The church used to be the centre of community life. Now the centre, if we have one, is – I don’t know – the shopping mall, I suppose. And I think we’ve lost something.’

We were getting off the track. ‘It seemed to me, when I visited, that the cathedral community was rather fragile, with some large cracks in it. Was I wrong?’

Ruth cackled. ‘You’ve been talking to Archie Pringle!’

I nearly choked on a sip of tea. ‘Archie?’ I asked when I could speak again.

‘Oh, he never uses it,’ said Ruth, filling my cup with hot tea. ‘I’ll stake a fiver his wife calls him Colonel. I call him Archie whenever we run into each other, just to watch that ramrod back get even stiffer.’

Martha smiled tolerantly. ‘He does look like a caricature, doesn’t he? And acts like one, too, at times. But there’s good in Archie. He truly loves the cathedral and its traditions, and tries to preserve them against a rising tide of change.’

‘I take it he was a strong supporter of Dean Brading,’ I said, trying to steer the conversation back toward my goals.

‘The strongest, at least at first. He’s quite well off, and he’s donated a good bit to the cathedral.’

‘Pots of it,’ said Ruth. ‘Archie’s problem is that he’s stuck in the nineteenth century, if not the one before that. And Martha won’t tell you, because she’s so good-natured she’d see the good in the devil himself, but Archie Pringle is the main reason the cathedral is dying. He can’t – or won’t – see that his way is not everybody’s way. He agreed with Dean Brading in every detail, and that’s just not the way a church can function in this day and age.’

‘Now, Ruth.’ Martha’s voice was verging on annoyed. ‘You haven’t been to church in years, dear. Archie has changed. He truly loves the cathedral. In any case, I’m not sure you know what should and shouldn’t be done there.’

‘What you really mean is that I’ve no right to set myself up as judge. And you’re right, but you’ve forgotten that I know quite a few people, and I’ve heard quite a lot of talk from people who’ve left the cathedral because they couldn’t abide the dean.’

‘Why not?’ I got in before Martha could protest.

‘In a word, he was stuffy. Oh, there are quite a few more words. Self-righteous, domineering, stern, unforgiving – but stuffy sums it up.’

‘Was there any attempt to have him – gosh, I don’t know the word. Impeached? Deposed?’

‘He was neither an American president nor a monarch,’ said Ruth tartly. ‘I suppose the dean of a cathedral can be removed, but I have no idea how.’

‘I read about that the other day,’ said Martha. ‘With all the problems the Church has been having lately, there’s been discussion of it in the news, and someone wrote that the only way to remove a cathedral dean is to find him legally guilty of immorality. And say what you will about Dean Brading, no one could ever have imagined him immoral.’

That disappointed me, of course. ‘His relationship with his wife was good, then? You said they had no children.’

‘There was never any talk about them,’ said Ruth, almost reluctantly, I thought.

‘She came to church every Sunday,’ said Martha. ‘Sat in a front pew, so I never saw her face, at least not during the service.’

‘Did you gain any impression of her? As a regular attendee at the cathedral, you must have chatted with her from time to time.’

‘She isn’t the chatty sort, and even before the dean’s death, the gatherings after church were sparse. I don’t think I’ve ever exchanged more than a few words with her. She is … very correct.’

Sounds as cold and forbidding as her husband, I thought. Didn’t spoil two couples, my mother would have said. I changed tack. ‘Do you have any idea of how the dean felt about being considered for our diocese?’

‘I never spoke to him after he was shortlisted, but he knew he was being considered, of course, and I got the impression, from some things he said in sermons, that he liked the idea. He thought he could bring Sherebury back to its traditions, its foundations, and do away with what he considered popish practices.’ She made a little face, and her hands seemed to disavow the dean’s sentiments.

‘That, of course, would have been one way to get him out of Chelton,’ said Ruth. ‘Kick him upstairs.’

‘There was another way,’ I said. The remark lay amongst the tea things like a stone.

I
accompanied Martha Rudge to the door as she was leaving. Ruth was dealing with the tea tray, and Martha said in a low voice, ‘There are some things I didn’t want to talk about in front of Ruth. It doesn’t do to air dirty church linen in front of a non-believer. Are you staying long in Chelton?’

‘A few days.’

‘Then could you come to lunch tomorrow? I live quite near the cathedral.’

‘I’d love to,’ I said, and meant it. I hadn’t yet gathered nearly enough information. We agreed that she’d ring me near noon.

I made a brief foray to a nearby Sainsbury’s, one of the small ones, and laid in a supply of cheese and biscuits and fruit, and, after a quick call to Alan, spent the rest of the afternoon and evening in my room, making lists.

Alan may laugh at me, but lists can be a big help, even without counting the feeling of accomplishment derived from simply having made one. They do force me to organize my thoughts, and that leads to organizing my actions.

I had brought my notes from our discussion back at home, and started from there.