Death in Ecstasy (9 page)

The behaviour of Father Garnette underwent a rapid and most perceptible change. This difference was first apparent in his face. It was rather as though a facile modeller in clay had touched the face in several places, leaving subtle but important alterations in its general expression. It became at once bolder and more sly. The resemblance to a purveyor of patent medicines triumphed over the more saintly aspect. Indeed, Father Garnette no longer looked in the least like a saint. He looked both shady and blowsy.

Nigel, fascinated, watched this change into something rich and strange. Alleyn, busy at the desk, had his back to the priest. Inspector Fox had returned to the bedroom where he could be heard humming like a Gargantuan bumble-bee. Presently he burst into song:

It was an earnest attempt to reproduce the intermediate radio French lesson.

The clock on the mantelpiece ticked loudly, cleared its throat, and struck twelve.

“Say, ho, why can’t we get together?”

Alleyn turned slowly and regarded him.

“That’s the way Ogden talks when he talks when he talks,” added Father Garnette with an air of great lucidity.

“Oh, yes?” said Alleyn.

“Get together,” repeated Father Garnette, “let’s get together at the river. The beautiful the beautiful the river. Why can’t we gather at the river? I ran a revivalist joint way down in Mitchigan back in ’14. It was swell. Boy, it was swell.”

“Was Mr. Ogden with you in Michigan?” asked Alleyn.

“That big sap!” said Father Garnette with bitter scorn. “Why, he thinks I’m the sand-fly’s garters.” He appeared to regret this last observation and added, with something of his former manner: “Mr. Ogden is sassherated in holy simplicity.”

“Oh,” said Alleyn. “When
did
you meet Mr. Ogden?”

“Crossing th’ ’Tlantic. He gave me a piece of gold. Ogden’s all right. Sassherated in simplicity.”

“So it would appear.”

“Listen,” said Father Garnette. “You got me all wrong. I never did a thing to that dame. Is it likely? Little Cara! No, sir.”

He looked so obscene as he made this statement that Nigel gave an involuntary exclamation.

“Be quiet, Bathgate,” ordered Alleyn very quietly.

“Why can’t we get together?” resumed Father Garnette. “I’ll talk.”

“What with?” asked Alleyn.

“With the right stuff. You lay off this joint and you won’t need to ask for the say-so. What’s it worth?”

“What’s it worth to you?”

“It’s your squeak,” said Father Garnette obscurely.

“You’re bluffing,” said Alleyn, “you haven’t got tuppence.”

Father Garnette was instantly thrown into a violent rage.

“Is that so!” he said, so loudly that Fox came back to listen. “Is that so! Listen, you poor simp. In my own line there’s no one to touch me. Why? Because I got brains sanimaginasshon and mor’n that — because I got one hundred per cent essay.”

“What’s that?” asked Alleyn.

“Essay! Ess-shay. ‘It.’ ”

“So you say,” grunted Alleyn most offensively.

“So I say and what I say’s so I say,” said Father Garnette with astounding rapidity. “If you don’t believe me — look f’yourself.”

He made an effort to rise, fell back in his chair, fumbled in his pocket and produced a ring of keys.

“Little leather box in desk,” he said. “And not only that. Safe.”

“Thank you,” said Alleyn. Father Garnette instantly fell asleep.

Alleyn, without another glance at him, returned to the desk and pulled out the bottom drawer.

“Lor’, sir,” said Fox, “you’ve doped the gentleman.”

“Not I,” Alleyn grunted. “He’s merely tight.”

“Tight!” ejaculated Nigel. “What was in the bottle?”

“Proof spirit. Over-proof as like as not.”

“Pure alcohol?”

“Something of the sort. That or rectified spirit, I imagine. Have to be analysed. This is a very exotic case. Thorndyke stuff. Not my cup of tea at all.”

“What,” asked Nigel, “did you write on that paper you gave Fox?”

“A suggestion that he should attract Mr. Garnette’s attention.”

“You bad old Borgia!”

“Stop talking. Can’t you see I’m detecting. What’s the back door like, Fox?”

“Ordinary key and bolts. Funny it was open.”

“Very funny. Go through that waste-paper basket, will you? And the grate.”

Fox knelt on the hearth-rug. The fire had almost burnt out. For some time the detectives worked in silence. Suddenly Fox grunted.

“How now, brown cow?” asked Alleyn.

“If you mean me, sir, here’s a bit of something.”

“What?”

Fox, using tweezers, drew two scraps of burnt paper from the ash-tray and laid them before Alleyn. Nigel got up to look. They were the merest fragments of paper, but there were one or two words printed on them in green pencil:

“Oh, Lord!” said Alleyn, “what now! Let’s see. Same paper as this stuff on his desk? No. I can’t see a green pencil anywhere. We’ll have to find out when that thing was last cleaned out. Any more bits?”

“That’s the lot,” said Fox.

“Put it away tenderly. We’ll have to brood over it. I want to get this desk cleaned up. Ah, here we are.” He drew out a purple suede case and examined the keys. Father Garnette uttered a stertorous snore. Fox, still looking scandalised, walked over to him.

“He’d be better in bed,” said Fox.

“So he would. Make it so, will you, Fox? Mr. Bathgate will help you. And from his fair and unpolluted breath may violets spring. Ugh, you horrid old man!” added Alleyn with sudden violence. He had taken a bundle of letters from the box and was reading one of them.

Fox, assisted by Nigel, heaved and hauled Father Garnette into the bedroom, which was draped in rose-coloured plush and satin. Here were more idols, more Nordic bijouterie, more cushions.

“Very classy, isn’t it, sir?” remarked Fox as he lowered Father Garnette on to the divan bed.

“It’s villainous, Fox,” said Nigel. He contemplated Father Garnette with distaste.

“Must we undress this unpleasant old blot?” he asked.

“I’m afraid so, sir. Can you find his pyjamas?”

From under a violently embroidered coverlet Nigel drew out a confection in purple silk.

“Look, Inspector, look! Really, it’s too disgusting.”

“Not quite my fancy, I will say, sir,” conceded Fox who had attacked Father Garnette’s right boot. “I believe in wool next the skin, summer and winter. I’d feel kind of slippery in that issue.”

Nigel tried to picture Inspector Fox in purple satin pyjamas, failed to do so and laughed himself into a good humour. They put Father Garnette to bed. He muttered a little, opened his eyes once, said: “Thank you, my son” in faultless English, showed signs of feeling very ill, but appeared to get over it, and finally sank again into the deepest slumber.

They rejoined Alleyn and found him poring over an array of letters.

“Something doing, sir?” asked Fox.

“Much. Most of it odious. These are all letters from women.”

“Any from the deceased?”

“Yes.” Alleyn grimaced. “There it is. Read it. A mixture of pseudo-mystic gibberish and hysterical adulation. Garnette seems actually to have persuaded her that the — the union— was blessed, had a spiritual significance — puh!” He made a violent gesture. “Read it. It’s important.”

Nigel read over Fox’s shoulder. The letter was written on mauve paper printed with Cara Quayne’s address in Shepherd Market. It was undated. It began:

The letter ran on to eight pages.

“Very peculiar indeed, sir,” said Fox who read the whole thing through with a perfectly impassive demeanour. “That will be the money Mr. Ogden and monsieur talked about. In the safe here, they said.”

“They did. I’m about to tackle the safe.”

Alleyn moved across the room, pulled aside a strip of Javanese tapestry, and disclosed a small built-in safe. He found the key on the ring Father Garnette had given him, opened the safe and began, with great method, to remove the contents and array them neatly on the table.

“Bankbook. Let’s see. He paid in fifty pounds last Monday. I suppose we shan’t find much cash. Any offertory tonight, Bathgate?”

“No. I imagine we didn’t get so far.”

“I suppose not. There’s a bag of something. Petty cash, perhaps. What’s this? Cheque from Mr. Ogden. Twenty pounds. Dated last Wednesday.”

“How he gets it out of the
gentlemen
fairly beats me,” said Fox.

“Extraordinary, isn’t it? But you know, Fox, there is a kind of simple, shrewd business brain that’ll believe any tarra-diddle outside its own province.”

“Would you say Mr. Ogden’s was that sort, sir?” Alleyn flipped the cheque at him.

“Looks like it,” he said, and turned again to the safe. “Hullo! This is more the sort of thing.”

He pulled out a package and laid it on the table. It was a largish brown-paper parcel tied up with red ribbon. It was addressed to “The Reverend Father Jasper Garnette,” and the writing was undoubtedly Cara Quayne’s. Alleyn stared fixedly at the ribbon. He turned the parcel over once or twice.

“Aren’t you going to open it?” asked Nigel.

“Oh, yes. yes.” But he hesitated a little while longer and at last, laying the parcel on the table, slipped the ribbon very gingerly over one end, cautiously pulled out the folds of paper, and peered into the open end. He held the parcel under a lamp, and examined it even more closely. Then he dropped it back on to the table.

“Well?” asked Nigel.

“Well, Bathgate, I wish Mr. Garnette was not so sound asleep.”

“Why on earth?”

“I should like him to have a look at this.” Fox lifted the parcel by the open end and looked in.

“Cripes!” he said.

“Here!” Nigel ejaculated. “Let me look.”

“Don’t pick it up. Look inside.”

Nigel did so. Fox flashed his torch into the parcel. Nigel glanced up at the two policemen, peered again into the parcel, grinned, looked doubtful, and at last said:

“But is that all?”

“I think so, oh yes,” answered Alleyn.

“But,” said Nigel, “it’s — it’s all newspaper.” He thrust a finger in and ferreted round.

“So it is,” agreed Alleyn.

“By gum!” ejaculated Nigel. “The motive!”

“Very like, very like.”

“Garnette has pinched the bonds.”

“Somebody’s pinched them. Ask Bailey to come in and get the prints, if any, will you, Bathgate,?”

Bailey was grubbing about in the vestry. He returned with Nigel, produced his insufflator and got to work on the parcel. Alleyn had sat down at the table and was tackling the rest of the material from the safe. Fox embarked on a meticulous search of the sideboard drawers. Nigel, with a side-long glance at the Chief Detective-Inspector, pulled out his pad, sank into Father Garnette’s most spacious armchair, lit a cigarette, and began to write.

“Copy?” inquired Alleyn mildly.

“And why not?” said Nigel defiantly.

“No reason at all. Let me see it before you send it in.”

“That’s a pretty piece of effrontery, that is,” said Nigel hotly. “Who was here from the start? Who called you in? I consider I displayed remarkable presence of mind. You’ve come in on a hot scent. This is a big story and I’m going to make it so. Eyewitness of a murder. That’s what I was, and they’re going to know it.”

“All right. All right. I merely ask to see your story.”

“Yes, and you’ll blue pencil it out of existence.”

“No, I won’t. Don’t mention the bearer bonds.”

‘There you go, you see!”

“And pray, Bathgate, don’t refer to me as ‘The indefatigable Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn.’ ”

“But, Alleyn,” Nigel protested, “that is altogether unfair. I have never made use of such a phrase. You merely speak for your own amusement.”

“What style are you adopting? You have been reading George Moore again I notice.”

“What makes you suppose that?” asked Nigel, turning pink.

“His style has touched your conversation and left it self-conscious.”