Bones in the Belfry (14 page)

‘And then what happened?’ asked Bouncer as we crouched beneath our favourite yew tree.

‘Well, by then F.O. had shut the front door and it was quite difficult to ascertain the exact procedures …’

‘You mean you don’t know,’ the dog said.

I told him that I most certainly did know and that if he had the courtesy to listen I would apprise him of events. He sighed, scratched his ear and said, ‘All right then, go on.’ I went on.

‘The instant the door was closed and my view impeded, I whisked round to the side of the house and positioned myself on the window ledge overlooking the hallway. The window was slightly ajar and so, Bouncer, I could see and hear
everything
.’

‘So what happened?’

‘The Ingaza man stood there white and twitching while F.O. discoursed on the length of their friendship, claiming that his companion was a visiting archdeacon from Brighton called Benchley who had a passion for geraniums.’

‘What’s geraniums got to do with it?’ asked Bouncer.

‘Kindly don’t interrupt, I am coming to that. Mavis Briggs – the apparition on the stairs – has a penchant for geraniums –’

‘Has what?’

I sighed. ‘She
likes
them. Has them trailing in pots all round the house and garden – a little like the Carruthers woman, only with that one it’s gnomes. Personally, I find them rather tasteless – too obvious. Now the occasional bergamot and drifts of
Nepeta mussinii
would be a different matter altogether, but unfortunately –’

‘Oh, do go
on
, Maurice!’ the dog growled.

I sighed, and continued my narrative. ‘Well, as she likes geraniums and takes great pains to cultivate them, I suppose F.O. thought she might be disarmed by the arch-deacon’s interest and thus be diverted from wondering what two parsons were doing in her house in the middle of the afternoon stealing her painting.’

‘And was she?’

‘In a manner of speaking, yes.’

‘What do you mean “in a manner of speaking”?’

‘Oh, really, Bouncer,’ I hissed impatiently, ‘there are times when you are singularly obtuse!’

‘And you,’ he replied, suddenly lurching to his feet and fixing me with a belligerent stare, ‘you are …’ He hesitated, panting loudly and shifting from paw to paw. ‘You are – PRO … LICKS!!’

I recoiled, momentarily stunned by both content and delivery. And then swiftly recovering my wits, put two and two together. He had been in truculent mood all afternoon, something to do with O’Shaughnessy beating him in the weekly race around the graveyard, so obviously the ill temper was due to injured pride. But
prolix
was more difficult to explain. Where had he got it from? And then of course I remembered: he had been in the crypt again – quite a long sojourn, only two days ago. It’s all that dog Latin on the tombs and plaques, it has a curious effect on his canine psyche and he comes out with the most extraordinary terms which you would never think he could know! Of course, he doesn’t know them really; just snaps them up and spits them out, but occasionally they can be uncannily apposite. Not in this case, naturally. After all, no one could accuse yours truly of being prolix!

Anyway, feeling in benign mood I chose to overlook the dog’s outburst, and after a casual ablution continued with my account.

‘In the circumstances,’ I opined, ‘the vicar dealt with the matter tolerably well and had that Briggs woman eating out of his hand – though of course she is not exactly renowned for her acumen. The friend was less convincing; and standing there with Brylcreemed hair, flashing signet ring and spivvy suit, anyone less like an archdeacon it would be hard to imagine. F.O. forced him to examine the geraniums and make appropriate remarks but he looked distinctly sick and one felt not really entering into the spirit of the thing.’

‘But it worked, did it?’ pressed Bouncer anxiously. ‘They got out all right?’

‘Oh yes, they got out – and with the picture.’

‘So everything’s OK, is it?’

‘Well, yes and no.’

‘MAURICE!’

I continued hastily. ‘You see, just as they got into the lane there was a great cascade of shrieks from the house.’

Bouncer guffawed. ‘Old girl discovered the theft, had she?’

‘Yes, and that really set them running – puffing and blinding all along the Guildford road and back to the vicarage. I thought that the Benchley/Ingaza man was going to expire. An absurd spectacle, only humans can behave like that!’

‘Or vicars,’ said Bouncer.

Crises provoke excessive reactions, and conferring the status of archdeacon upon Nicholas Ingaza was clearly an error of judgement. At the time it had been useful, inducing in Mavis a state of such fawning deference that we had been able to make our getaway with relative ease – despite the return to the vicarage being necessarily energetic. It was the repercussions that were embarrassing. Incensed by the robbery, Mavis had taken it into her head to telephone Clinker lamenting the loss of his gift, but applauding myself and the archdeacon – without whose presence, she declared, dire and intimate results might have ensued! I learnt this from Clinker himself who the following day had contacted me in some annoyance.

‘Look here, Oughterard, that woman who accosted me about the picture I brought to Pick’s bazaar – I’ve just had her on the blower telling me she’s been burgled, and apparently rescued from a fate worse than death by you and some archdeacon called Benchley. I can’t imagine you rescuing anybody, whatever the circumstances … but who’s this chap Benchley? What’s his diocese? Certainly not mine! She seemed to think he was an expert on geraniums – I don’t know anyone of that kind. Where does he come from? She said something about Brighton, but that’s nonsense. I’d look him up but can’t find my confounded Crockford – Gladys dusting the books again!’

‘Ah …’ I ventured.

‘What?’

‘Yes, it’s always annoying when one’s books are disturbed.’

‘That’s hardly the point, Oughterard!
Who
is Benchley?’

‘Oh,’ I laughed, ‘she’s got it wrong! Benchley has been
staying
in Brighton but
comes
from Australia – the Outback actually, special work among the aborigines …’

‘I see,’ said Clinker drily. ‘Helping them to grow their geraniums, I suppose.’

‘Er …’

‘Anyway, I’ve quite enough on my plate without being rung up by witless females from your parish thinking they’ve been on the point of rape. Kindly see that it doesn’t happen again. Wednesday is my busy day, I’ve got a full programme this afternoon and I am running late as it is.’

‘I am sure Mrs Carruthers won’t mind …’ I began, but he had already rung off.

There were of course other embarrassments: Nicholas and the police. The former was in even poorer physical condition than myself, and when we arrived back at the vicarage it was some time before he could recover and, unfortunately, speak. When he did so, it was to provide a colourful and imaginative account of my parentage embellished by quizzical references to my sanity. Once that was over, I suggested he try one of the cream buns specially reserved for our return; but he didn’t seem to think much of that so I dropped the idea.

However, at least the crisis produced one good thing: I would not now have to suffer the penance of harbouring yet another of his ‘belongings’. Mavis’s Spendler was not the only picture to be deposited in his car: for after more heaving, the large item in the hall was also returned to the Citroën’s back seat. Apparently, I was not to be entrusted with further consignments from the art world! Theoretically, this should have been my cue to suggest that he also relieve me of the remaining one stored in the belfry – except, of course, that by now it wasn’t in the belfry but with Primrose. It did not seem quite the right moment to reveal this fact … indeed, I was fearful that the same idea might occur to Nicholas, but mercifully he was too preoccupied with the matters in hand and nothing was said.

Getting rid of both visitor and merchandise was one thing: but there was surely still the inevitable problem of a police interview. I sighed morosely and scowled at Bouncer who promptly wagged his tail. Another brush with the law to be endured and parried!

The following day my spirits might have been soothed by the prospect of Choral Evensong – had I not been met in the church porch by Mavis, clearly recovered from her ague and eager to rake over the robbery. The clerical presence had, she felt sure, affected the conscience of the intruder and deterred him from making further inroads. Indeed, were it not for myself and the nice archdeacon
anything
might have happened! Recalling Clinker’s words, it struck me that her evident excitement was perhaps based on the hope that the burglar’s motive was less the theft of her picture than her honour. I was about to observe that surely nobody in their right mind would consider the latter, when Edith Hopgarden appeared and the two got into a heated huddle over the distribution of hymn books.

Evensong over, I was again waylaid by Mavis bursting to relate her experiences with the police officers.

‘… and that Mr March,
so
sensible and comforting. He assured me he would get my painting back in next to no time!’ (Was Ingaza aware of that? I wondered.)

Having previously encountered March engaged on the Fotherington case, I was unsurprised that the detective inspector had so far failed to link Mavis’s picture with the Spendler work. He was not somebody who struck me as being especially clued up on artistic matters, or indeed on anything of a cultural bias – unless one counted the prize dahlias. But I just hoped that this time his investigations would not be aided by the weedy Samson, a sallow, sharp-nosed type whose presence some months previously I had found more than irksome. Surely by now he would have got promotion and gone elsewhere.

Naturally, no such luck. So once more, looking rather like a sinister parody of Abbott and Costello and clad in matching raincoats, they appeared together on my doorstep: the one narrow and pinched, the other stout and grizzled. And, as before, I faced them in a state of genial terror.

After the preliminary pleasantries (from March, not Samson) they got down to brass tacks.

‘Lucky for the lady that you were actually there at the time of the intrusion,’ March commenced, ‘you and the, er, other clerical gentleman.’

‘Well, ye-es,’ I replied hesitantly. ‘But of course one isn’t entirely sure if we
were
there, I mean …’

‘Are you saying you don’t
know
whether you were at her house or not?’ cut in Samson with his usual acidity. I recalled how like a suspicious whippet he had seemed that first time around; and confronting him now, almost a year later, I felt the resemblance even more marked. He quivered in his corner as I patiently explained my position.

‘I was about to say that although we were indeed there, it is quite possible that the robbery took place long before our arrival.’

‘
She
doesn’t think so.’

‘Perhaps the lady is mistaken,’ I suggested gently. ‘After all, we didn’t hear anything.’

‘No? And what might you have expected to hear?’

The words ‘breaking glass’ sprang to my lips but I bit them back, realizing that although Mavis had mentioned the shattered garden door it wouldn’t do to sound too knowledgeable. Instead I said the first thing that came into my head: ‘Bumps, I should imagine.’ He wrote something in his notebook (‘bumps’?), and I was about to continue but was interrupted by March clearing his throat loudly.

‘You see, Mr Oughterard, Miss Briggs says she had occasion to go down into the dining room just before you and the other gentleman arrived – said something about looking for a chest poultice in the sideboard. Funny the places people like to keep things.’ And he grinned. His colleague did not. ‘Apparently the picture was on the wall then all right, in fact she kept going on about how nice she thought it had looked.’

‘So it’s obvious the theft took place while you were both there,’ snapped the Whippet.

‘So it would seem … how extraordinary!’ I exclaimed. ‘That means the burglar must have already been in the dining room when we arrived, skulking there and –’

‘
I
think there were two of them,’ interjected Samson. I didn’t like the sound of that but assumed an air of fascinated curiosity.

‘Really? Whatever makes you think that? They must have been jolly quiet!’

‘Yes.
Jolly
.’ He had always been impertinent.

‘Ah, Samson and his hunches!’ March laughed. ‘Often they’re wrong – but mind you, more often they’re right! Isn’t that so, Sidney?’ The latter sat in silence examining his nicotined fingers. ‘Anyway, Reverend, what about this other gentleman, the, uhm, archdeacon. Are you sure he didn’t see or hear anything?’

‘He didn’t mention it,’ I said, ‘besides, he’s rather deaf.’

‘And blind?’ asked the Whippet.

I ignored that, as did March, who went on to ask if I had Benchley’s contact details. This was what I had been fearing, but hoped they would be fobbed off with my reply that the archdeacon had embarked on an indefinite walking tour of the Austrian Alps prior to returning to Australia, and was thus currently without fixed abode.

To my relief March seemed to accept this, saying he had always enjoyed Kitzbühel himself though had never really taken to all that snow and skiing business. To my even greater relief he added vaguely, ‘Oh well, when all’s said and done, it’s only a picture she found in a jumble sale or some such, small value, no great loss … Might turn up eventually, I suppose. It’s what they often do when they realize their mistake – chuck the things in the nearest ditch or front garden and then scarper. Someone will come across it, I daresay.’ (Given the earlier assurances to Mavis, his attitude struck me as a mite cavalier, though it was not a point I was keen to raise.) He nodded to Samson and they got up to leave.

‘Nice to see you again, sir,’ said March, belting his raincoat across his paunch. And then, pausing, he added, ‘Singing your praises she was, that Miss Briggs. Seems to think you being there had prevented an
assault
– if you get my meaning!’ And he leered gently.

I smiled in return. But as I showed them out Samson suddenly turned, and said in an expressionless voice, ‘I expect you miss that other lady, don’t you, sir? That Mrs Fotherington. A pity about all of that …’

‘Yes,’ I said faintly, the smile evaporating, ‘a great pity.’