Appointed to Die (41 page)

‘A mixture of Old Testament and New Testament passages,' observed Pat. ‘What do they have in common?'

‘Two sections,' David said. ‘Pro and con? To resign, or not to resign?'

The Bishop chose that moment to poke his nose around the kitchen door. ‘Is there any chance of a cup of tea, my dear?' he inquired mildly.

Pat turned to him, stricken. ‘George! I'm sorry – I forgot that you were in your study! Would you like to join us?'

His brain still engaged with an obscure facet of the Albigensian Heresy, Dr Willoughby only then registered the fact that his kitchen was full of people. ‘Oh! All right. I suppose I ought to be sociable.'

‘Bishop George,' David put in before he could sit down, ‘do you by any chance have a few spare Bibles lying about that we could use?'

To the Bishop, having a Bible Study at the kitchen table over cups of tea was a natural activity and not to be questioned. ‘Yes, of course. They're in the study – shall I get them for you? How many would you like?'

He did a quick count. ‘Five, please.'

When the Bishop had returned, with an armload of Bibles, David explained his strategy. ‘If we each take one, and look up one passage to read out, it won't take as long.' They all agreed, and the passages were shared out around the table, one for each. David read his out first, from Arthur Brydges-ffrench's Bible. ‘It's another passage about Samson,' he explained. ‘This one is about the end of his life, when he pulls down the house to kill the Philistines, realising that he will also die himself. Judges 16.29–30: “And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house stood, and on which it was borne up, of the one with his right hand, and of the other with his left. And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life.”'

Pat came next. ‘Mine is about Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac,' she said. ‘You all know the story, I'm sure – how God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son, and Abraham is willing to do it because he trusts in God's promises. “And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.” It looks to me,' she added, ‘that both of those passages are about sacrifice. David may be on to something with his theory – perhaps these were the ones prompting him to self-sacrifice, in resigning. What have you got, Lucy?'

‘It's the one about casting pearls before swine. Matthew 7.6: “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.” Do you think that's a reference to the Dean?'

David and Pat both nodded. ‘It could be,' Pat encouraged her. ‘I've heard him called much worse than a swine, and not a million miles away from this room, either.'

‘Mine is a bit more obscure,' volunteered Mike Drewitt. ‘Amos 6.12: “Shall horses run upon the rock? will one plow there with oxen? for ye have turned judgment into gall, and the fruit of righteousness into hemlock.”'

At the word ‘hemlock' there was a general intake of breath around the table, and they turned to Todd to see what was next.

‘It's a fairly long passage,' he said. ‘Psalm 109, verses 20 through 30. I'll read you a few of the verses to give you the idea. “Let this be the reward of mine adversaries from the L
ORD
, and of them that speak evil against my soul. . . . For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me. I am gone like the shadow when it declineth . . . I became also as a reproach unto them: when they looked upon me they shaked their heads. . . . Let mine adversaries be clothed with shame, and let them cover themselves with their own confusion, as with a mantle.”'

David frowned. ‘I'm afraid it doesn't make a great deal of sense. Bishop George, you have the last one.'

Dr Willoughby grinned cheerfully. ‘I've got a short one, though it's none too sweet. Psalm 109.8: “Let his days be few, and let another take his office.”'

This time they all looked at each other, and no one had to articulate the thought that hung unspoken in the room: Arthur Brydges-ffrench may have wished that fate upon the Dean, but it had been his own fate instead.

‘It's beginning to make sense,' David said slowly, after a moment of thought. ‘I think I finally know what happened, but I'll be damned if I can see how. And I don't see how I can possibly prove it, without even a shred of evidence.' He picked up Canon Brydges-ffrench's Bible and shook it gently over the table. ‘I just wondered if he might have left a note, stuck in between the pages or something,' he explained. ‘But it doesn't look like it.'

‘That's the sort of thing he'd do,' Todd affirmed. ‘To have one puzzle lead to another. Maybe we should go back to his study and look through all the books.'

Mike Drewitt laughed. ‘Don't you think the police have thought of that? I assure you that it was done – all part of the routine.'

‘So that's why the books had been moved,' Todd realised, disappointed. Pat turned to David, intrigued by his claim that he knew what had happened. ‘Aren't you going to tell us what you think?'

But David shook his head. ‘Not yet. As I said, it's just a feeling – I don't have any proof. Why don't you all tell me what you think – perhaps it will get the wheels turning, and we'll end up with something.'

* * *

Before they'd had a chance to discuss the implications of the passages, John Kingsley arrived in search of his daughter. He was mildly surprised to see so many people around the table, earnestly studying their Bibles. As the Bishop went to find an extra chair, and Pat rose to refill the kettle, the Canon saw the box of Turkish Delight on the table. ‘Where on earth did that come from?' he asked.

‘It was the one that Canon Brydges-ffrench had on his desk when he . . . died,' Todd explained. ‘We brought it over here to see if there was anything significant about it, but it's just an ordinary, half-empty box of Turkish Delight.'

Canon Kingsley stood very still for a moment. ‘I've just remembered something,' he said. ‘Something I hadn't thought about since last Monday night.' That captured their attention; they all turned to look at him. ‘When Arthur came by to see me, just before he went to the Deanery, he gave me a box of Turkish Delight. It seemed an odd gesture at the time – he said it was something he wanted me to have, I remember.'

‘But what did you do with it?' David asked eagerly. ‘Where is it now?'

The Canon's brow wrinkled with the effort of remembering; so much had happened since that night. ‘I didn't open it. I think I put it on the hall table,' he said at last. ‘Would you like me to go and look? Do you think it might be important?'

David nodded in vigorous affirmation. ‘It may just be the piece of evidence we need.'

‘I'll go, Daddy,' Lucy offered.

‘Very well, my dear. Whatever you like.'

She was gone only a few minutes, but to those waiting around the kitchen table it seemed an age. ‘If we're going to open Joanna Southcott's box,' quipped Dr Willoughby, with a nervous attempt at humour, ‘don't you think I need to ring round and get a few more Bishops here?'

Lucy was out of breath, peering at the top of the box as she entered. ‘There's something written on the box,' she observed, pointing to a tiny mark on the lid. They all gathered around to squint at it.

‘It looks to me like another Scripture reference, in Arthur's writing,' added Pat. ‘What does it say? Todd, you have young eyes – you ought to be able to read it, even though it's written very small.'

Todd examined it closely. ‘I think it says Hebrews 11.4,' he deciphered.

David riffled through the Bible to the New Testament. ‘It says, “By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh.”' He looked up to meet six sets of eyes in various stages of comprehension. ‘He being dead yet speaketh,' he repeated. ‘Good Lord. This is it. I think that Arthur Brydges-ffrench is about to give us our evidence.'

It was John Kingsley, as recipient of the box, who opened the lid at last. Inside was not Turkish Delight, but a tiny old-fashioned chalice of the type used for home communions. Gingerly, he lifted it out to show them all; a minute slip of paper fell out of its bowl and fluttered to the floor.

Todd stooped to pick it up. ‘I think this must be the last clue,' he said.

‘Another verse?' guessed Pat.

‘Yes. Matthew 26.42.'

David felt himself to be unendurably clumsy and slow as he turned the pages; all eyes on him, it seemed as if he would never find the reference. ‘“He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.” Good Lord.'

‘“This cup”,' said John Kingsley. ‘Does that mean . . . ?'

‘Just a minute,' breathed David. ‘That's not all. There's something written here in the margin of the Bible, on the same page as the verse.'

‘Is it Arthur's writing?' Pat asked.

‘Yes.' David turned the book around and looked at it closely, then read the words of the tiny crabbed script aloud. ‘“Thomas à Becket suffered martyrdom to preserve his principles and save the Church from the power of an evil king. Brother Thomas gave up his life out of love for this place, also against an evil man. I follow after them: God is calling on me to offer my life to save this cathedral, which I have loved for many years, from a man who would destroy it. Eventually my clues should lead you to this, and you will know that I found it necessary to take my own life. But it was also necessary for him to be discredited, and to suffer. I pray that my sacrifice may not have been in vain, and that Malbury Cathedral might yet be saved.”'

There was a prolonged, stunned silence.

‘Good Lord,' said David at last. ‘Good Lord.'

Drewitt rose, addressing David with respect. ‘Do you have any idea how it happened?'

David looked thoughtful. ‘I think so, yes.'

‘Then perhaps you can explain it to me on our way back to the station.'

‘We're going now? You and I? What's the rush?'

‘There's the tiny matter of the Dean to be cleared up.' Drewitt shook his head and sighed, a sigh of bafflement mingled with regret. ‘You're his solicitor, and I'm sure you'd be the first one to tell me that if we don't get the little sod out of prison immediately, you'll have us for wrongful arrest.'

Laughing, David sat back down. ‘Just between you and me, my friend, the Dean can wait a few minutes longer. I think we all need another cup of tea!'

EPILOGUE

    
Recompense them after the work of their hands: pay them that they have deserved.

Psalm 28.5

Christmas Day in Malbury: throughout the town trees twinkled, children squealed with greedy delight, and great quantities of food were consumed. In the Close the low-slung sun bathed the cathedral in a sharp-edged glow against the clear blue frosty sky.

At the Deanery, the Latimers observed their first Christmas in Malbury. Christopher and Stephen, the two young Latimers, were of course home from school, so the Deanery was more than usually lively; Jeremy Bartlett was with them for lunch as well, deep in discussion with the Dean about their ongoing plans for the Cathedral Centre. The unfortunate incident of the Dean's arrest and imprisonment was not even mentioned, although it was implicit in every controlled move and disapproving glance of the largely silent Anne Latimer.

Next door, Todd had not returned to Evelyn Marsden's house, but she was not alone; her house was the scene of unaccustomed hilarity as she entertained Victor and Bert to a delicious and carefully prepared meal.

The trio of red brick houses at the east end of the cathedral were now all empty: the Subdean's house, the organist's house, and now the Precentor's house as well, for Rupert and Judith Greenwood had left Malbury for London just before Christmas. Further along the Close, though, there was evidence of activity – not at the Canon Missioner's, where the Thetfords dined alone, quietly, on their festive nut roast, but at Rowena Hunt's house. Rowena had invited the bell-ringers to join her for a drink after the morning service, in the confident hope that Mike Drewitt, newly reconciled, would be staying on after the others went home to their respective lunches.

Christmas lunch at the Willoughbys was a traditional and convivial affair, complete with crackers and turkey and a flaming Christmas pudding. As an added note of festivity there was even champagne, provided by David.

In addition to the two dogs, who waited patiently and hopefully beneath the table for their anticipated turkey scraps, there were seven of them present at the meal: the Willoughbys, David and Lucy, John Kingsley, Todd Randall, and the Bishop's secretary, Olivia Ashleigh. As they pulled their crackers, read out their jokes, and donned their paper crowns, conversation was lively, moved along by Pat, who had made a conscious decision that on that day they should not dwell on the unhappy events of the past few months. But the toast to ‘absent friends' brought those events all too poignantly to mind, and it was perhaps inevitable that they should be mentioned.

Olivia was the only one of the seven who had not been in Pat's kitchen on the day, four weeks earlier, when the riddle of Arthur Brydges-ffrench's death had been unravelled. She was, naturally enough, curious to hear the details from the others, particularly from David. So when she raised the subject, Pat decided to let it ride.

‘Poor old Canon Brydges-ffrench,' said Olivia, shaking her head. ‘It's dreadful to think of him being so unhappy that suicide seemed the only way out.'

David turned to her. ‘Oh, but there was much more to it than that. His suicide was more than an escape from an untenable situation – it was his way of trying to rectify that situation. In dying, he was attempting to preserve a way of life that he had loved, in the only way he thought possible. He had reached the point where he had convinced himself that nothing less than the sacrifice of his own life would be enough to save Malbury Cathedral.'

‘But how did he really think that his death could accomplish that?'

‘By casting suspicion on the Dean, the man whom he held responsible for all that was threatening the cathedral,' David explained. ‘He had arranged things so that suspicion would inevitably fall on the Dean, and he knew that even when the Dean was cleared, as he would be eventually, some of the mud would stick.'

‘You know how people are,' Pat added. ‘No smoke without fire, they all say. People are always ready to believe the worst, especially of someone as unpopular as Stuart Latimer.'

‘At the very least he would suffer humiliation,' David went on. ‘And as Pat says, he was bound to be discredited to some degree just by being arrested, no matter how unjust or unjustified it was.'

‘How on earth, though, did he actually accomplish it? He fooled the police, and he fooled everyone else. Why didn't they suspect suicide?'

David smiled wryly. ‘Why didn't any of us suspect it? A gesture like that was very much in keeping with his character, and after Ivor Jones's suicide, Canon Kingsley preached a sermon in which he implied that suicide might be justified under certain circumstances.'

‘That's not exactly what I said,' John Kingsley put in, defensively. ‘I just said that we're in no position to judge. I still feel that way, but I can't help feeling guilty – perhaps that sermon
did
influence Arthur in some way.'

Lucy reached for her father's hand. ‘Daddy, that's enough,' she stated firmly.

‘As to why we didn't suspect it,' continued David, ‘the police told us that it wasn't possible. They said that he couldn't have ingested the poison before he arrived at the Deanery – the timing wasn't right, and there was definitely poison in the box of Turkish Delight at the Deanery. And they'd found nothing – no traces in his clothing or anything in which he could have brought it – to indicate that he'd carried the poison in with him. Besides, the police reasoned that if he'd wanted to commit suicide, he could have done it in a much simpler and more straightforward way. They couldn't know that the whole point of it was to implicate the Dean, so that it had to look like murder.'

‘I may be dim,' Olivia laughed, ‘but please explain to me how he
did
do it. How did he poison the Turkish Delight?'

‘This is where David was so clever,' Lucy said with pride.

He shook his head self-deprecatingly. ‘Not at all. I just overheard something that gave me a little idea. It was Canon Brydges-ffrench who was clever to think of such a thing. I just put two and two together and came up with four.'

‘Or rather,' added Lucy, ‘you put two and nought together, and came up with two.'

‘It was the wax lining papers,' David amplified. ‘I heard Pat say that the box of Turkish Delight on Canon Brydges-ffrench's desk was missing its lining paper, and then Inspector Drewitt remarked that the box at the Deanery had two. It was after that I realised how it was done: he carried the poison to the Deanery folded in the lining paper from his own box of Turkish Delight. He'd arranged for Canon Kingsley to ring the Deanery at ten o'clock, so while the Dean was out of the room taking the call he just emptied the poison on to the Turkish Delight in the box, and slipped the extra lining paper into the lid.'

‘Very neatly done,' Pat declared. ‘But David was the one who twigged about the significance of the extra lining paper. No one else, including the police, thought anything of it. And now,' she went on with determination, ‘I think we ought to change the subject to something a little more in keeping with the spirit of the season.'

‘Can't I ask one more question?' Todd, who had been quite silent up to that point, requested.

Pat nodded. ‘Go ahead.'

‘What
is
going to happen to the Dean? I mean, I know he's been cleared, and is back at the Deanery, but surely he can't just go on here at Malbury as if nothing has happened.'

A rumbling chuckle issued forth from the Bishop. ‘Good question, young man.' He looked sideways at Pat. ‘It is my wife's opinion – and I must tell you that she's usually right about these matters – that before long he will do the decent thing and find himself another preferment.'

‘With any luck,' she added, smiling, ‘it will be a nice remote bishopric somewhere in the Colonies – that's the way these things used to happen, at any rate.'

‘It all rather depends on what happens with his plans for the Cathedral Centre, I should have thought,' ventured John Kingsley. ‘The Chapter is going to be changing quite significantly over the next few months, with Arthur and Rupert gone, and if he can get his own people appointed as Precentor and Subdean, then perhaps he'll want to stay on and push that through.' He paused. ‘I was actually thinking of retiring soon, myself,' he revealed with an apologetic look at the Bishop. ‘The last few months have been rather too much for a man of my advanced years.'

‘Nonsense!' George Willoughby roared robustly. ‘You're younger than I am, John Kingsley, and I'm not about to retire! No, you must stay on! Whatever happens, the Chapter will need a man of your experience and wisdom.
I
need you, John. I'm telling you: there will be no more talk of retirement from you for a good many years yet.'

Canon Kingsley bowed his head in silent acknowledgement of defeat.

‘But about the Cathedral Centre,' said Olivia. ‘Do you think it's still on?'

The Bishop nodded. ‘In my last conversation with the Dean, he was determined to go ahead with it.'

David cleared his throat. ‘I'm afraid,' he said in a quiet but authoritative voice, ‘that won't be possible.'

They all turned to look at him. ‘In the last few weeks I've done a bit of investigation,' he revealed. ‘Pat said something to me when I ran into her at the Patronal Festival, and it got me thinking. She said that part of the Abbey church had belonged to the monks, and part to the town. At the Dissolution, she told me, the townspeople tore down their bit, hence the green space at the west end.' He looked to Pat for confirmation.

She nodded. ‘Yes . . . But I don't see . . .'

‘I've done some legal research. And I've discovered that if that part of the church belonged to the town, so did the land that it stood on – and it still does, up to the present day. The cathedral can't build on that land,' he concluded triumphantly, ‘because it doesn't own it. That space belongs to the city of Malbury, and I can't imagine them handing it over to the Dean to satisfy his edifice complex.'

‘Well, that does it,' Pat declared at once. ‘He'll definitely go if he can't have his new building.'

‘And what about Jeremy Bartlett?' asked the Bishop. ‘He won't be any too pleased about this.'

David smiled complacently. ‘I know.'

‘I suppose I'll have to tell him,' Dr Willoughby mused, stroking his beard.

‘No,' said David. ‘I'd like to tell him myself.' Glancing at Lucy, he thought back to the various humiliations he had suffered at Jeremy's hands, and realised, with some shame, how much he was going to enjoy it.

After lunch it was time to open presents. Lucy sat quietly on the sofa as the many gifts were distributed, opened, and enthused over, attending with only part of her mind to the proceedings. The moment was drawing near, she realised, when she would be called upon to declare a decision.

The night before, after they'd returned from Midnight Mass at the cathedral, David had detained her under the mistletoe and kissed her thoroughly, then had produced a small jewellery-sized box. ‘Your Christmas present,' he'd said. ‘Do you want to open it now, or will you wait until tomorrow?' She'd decided to wait, to give herself time to decide. For she knew it must be a ring, and he would want an answer.

Through the night she'd been wakeful, wrestling with the issue of marriage as she had so many times before. This time, however, she had reached a different conclusion than all those other times; in the past few weeks she had learned a few painful truths about herself, as she tried to analyse why she seemed to be attracted to the most unsuitable men. For, she admitted to herself at last, in a certain sense she
had
been drawn to Jeremy, a man who had turned out to be not unlike her ex-husband in many ways: both facilely charming older men with well-concealed darker sides. Even as she had protested to David that she wasn't interested in Jeremy, she had found him unaccountably fascinating, until circumstances had proved how wrong she'd been. But through it all, it was David whom she loved, and his solid, unassuming strength had never seemed more attractive to her than it did now. David was gentle, and kind; he was decent, and good. David loved her to distraction, and she loved him; she couldn't imagine any circumstances that would change that. If he asked her to marry him tomorrow, in front of so many people whom they both cared about, she would say yes.

So now she waited for the moment with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. The little box was practically the last thing left under the tree when David brought it to her. ‘With all my love,' he said, putting it into her hands.

Todd craned his neck in benign curiosity. ‘I'll bet it's a ring,' he predicted as her fingers fumbled with the wrapping paper. ‘An engagement ring. Is it a ring?'

She had the box open at last. It was an exquisite gold and amethyst brooch, intricately wrought. ‘No,' she said involuntarily. ‘It's not a ring.'

Fatally, David failed to hear the disappointment in her voice. ‘Not a chance,' he laughed. He explained to the others, ‘I've lost count of the number of times I've asked this woman to marry me, and the number of times she's turned me down. I decided that I couldn't cope with yet another rejection – not on our first Christmas together.' Turning back to Lucy, he asked with touching eagerness, ‘Do you like it, love? I had it made specially for you.'

‘Yes, of course. It's beautiful – I love it.' Swallowing back her regret, she smiled up at him as he pinned it on her collar. ‘But you shouldn't have done it, darling – it must have cost the earth.'

David returned her smile. ‘Oh, it did. But you needn't worry about that – with the whacking great bill that I'm sending the Dean, I'll even have a bit of loose change left over for a pair of matching earrings!'