Unbecoming Habits (The Simon Bognor Mysteries Book 1) Page 18

  By six o’clock when he returned to his room the indecision had become agonising. Again he picked up the letter and stared at it, almost as if he expected it to yield up its secret voluntarily.

  At the same moment precisely, Simon Bognor was sitting in the corner of a first-class compartment, moving gently out of Paddington station. For the umpteenth time he adjusted his bow tie. Then he unfolded his evening paper.

  Between six o’clock and Evensong half an hour later, Father Anselm had come to half a dozen irrevocable decisions. Twice he had picked up the phone and started to dial Sir Erris Beg. Twice he had actually put on a kettle with a view to steaming the letter open, and twice he had put it in his Gladstone bag with a view to forgetting all about it until they arrived in Rumania.

  He was so overwrought that he poured himself two glasses of sherry and drained them both. The alcohol numbed him, but he scarcely felt better, and again he conducted the service badly. The lesson too came as a shock. It was read by Father John in his metallic tones and it had an almost eerie significance. It was the first twenty-seven verses of the fourteenth chapter of St. Mark’s Gospel. The story of Judas Iscariot’s betrayal of Christ. Anselm felt a sickly awfulness as Father John read, ‘Verily I say unto you. One of you which eateth with me shall betray me.’ What did it mean? It had to mean something. Did it mean that he was about to betray Xavier’s confidence? Or that Xavier had already betrayed his confidence? It was a message from above, he was certain of that, but why did it have to be so oracular? He looked hard at Father Xavier to see if he had found the passage significant, but Xavier appeared quite unmoved. He was staring absently at the wall opposite, not even joining in with the prayers. Anselm felt a flush of anger. He wished Xavier participated more.

  The service ended at seven, at which time Bognor, his nerves steadied by a miniature bottle of Scotch, was standing in the corridor of his train watching the spire of the University Church and the tower in Tom Quad, Christ Church, slide past as the train drew into Oxford station. He looked at his watch. There was time to walk to the college. He got out and paced along the lavatory-like tunnel under the station, past Nuffield and the Royal Oxford Hotel and on towards Carfax and the High. It was ages since he had dined in All Souls and he had a vague memory of an endless procession through a series of rooms filled with food and drink. At least the meal should be good.

  The brothers filed straight from Evensong to supper and Anselm said Grace. It was a silent meal, but there was reading. He regretted having sanctioned P.G. Wodehouse as a suitable volume. Brother Barnabas was reading it and the Yorkshire accents were quite wrong. Wooster, whom he had always pronounced like the great cathedral city, became ‘Woooooster’ and ‘Aunt Agatha’ was rendered as ‘Unt Ugutha’. The copious laughter of the brothers grated on his nerves as he continued to wrestle with his dilemma. It was made no better by the realisation that he would have to make a decision soon. Tomorrow would be too late. He ate nothing and was relieved to be able to rise and say ‘For what we have received may the Lord make us truly grateful’. He had come to half a decision and he knew that it was a trifle cowardly. That was too bad. On his way out he put a hand on Father Simon’s shoulder. ‘I’d like a word, please,’ he said. ‘In my room.’ Father Simon nodded silently.

  Once there he poured himself another sherry and offered one to Simon. Simon started to protest that he never touched alcohol but soon desisted.

  ‘This is very difficult,’ said Anselm slowly. ‘Indeed, I scarcely know where to begin. But I need your advice.’

  Thirty-five miles away in a quiet panelled room on the first floor of All Souls three other men were drinking sherry. It was a particularly fine Viejo Oloroso, Solera 1830. Bognor had been expecting his host, Lord Camberley, but the presence of the third man was a surprise. It was Gaymer Burton.

  Bognor had been the last to arrive and Burton therefore had the advantage of him. The surprise on Bognor’s face was all too obvious, but Burton had displayed nothing. Lord Camberley had been patrician and patronising, smooth as mayonnaise. Burton had been suave, diplomatic, but worried with it.

  ‘You two have met, of course,’ said Camberley.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Burton.

  Nothing else was said until sherry had been tasted and then it was only a tease.

  ‘I won’t pretend,’ said Camberley, ‘that we don’t have something important to discuss. But we can hardly do it in front of the entire college. There are conventions. It will have to wait till the port.’ Bognor licked his lips. The sherry was superb. He had two glasses before it was time to dine. They seated themselves at eight and started on the smoked trout, accompanied by a fresh chill Muscadet.

  Father Simon was appalled. ‘I really didn’t mean…’ he began. ‘I mean I was just chattering… I mean if what you’re suggesting is true then it’s tantamount to accusing Father Xavier of murder. You can’t. It’s not conceivable.’

  Father Anselm drummed his fingers on the desk and looked at his frightened colleague with new resolve. He always derived strength from other people’s inadequacy.

  ‘I’m inclined to think,’ he said, ‘that there is only one thing for it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It will have to be opened.’

  ‘You can’t. It’s not fair.’

  ‘On the contrary. It’s the only thing which is fair. Fair to you and me. Fair to the Community. Fair to the police. Yes, fair even to Xavier. It’s the only way.’

  ‘Can I have another glass of sherry?’ asked Simon. Anselm pushed the decanter across the desk and looked suspicious.

  ‘But what,’ asked Simon, as he half choked on the gulp, ‘what if it’s innocuous?’

  ‘Then I’ll seal it up again.’ He went outside with the kettle, glad that Simon didn’t know it was the third time he’d done so. It didn’t take a second to light the gas ring and the kettle, a cheap old thin-bottomed model, boiled quickly. Within five minutes he had steamed open the envelope. For a moment he contemplated it with apprehension, then he went back into his room and put it open on the desk, but without removing the contents.

  ‘Let us pray,’ he said, closing his eyes. ‘Guide us we beseech thee, O Lord, that we may do only that which is right in thy sight. That if we err we do so through the error of our understanding and not through evil intent. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.’

  Father Simon, who had long since ceased being surprised at the Father Minister’s capacity for on-the-spot spontaneous prayer, echoed the Amen and opened his eyes. For the last time Father Anselm glared at the object of his concern and then in one dramatic gesture put his hand inside and drew out the contents. There were three large sheets of paper, squared graph paper. He unfolded them carefully, flattening them out on the surface of the desk, side by side. Then he stood back and looked at them. Father Simon came round to his side of the desk and together they stared at the letter to Brother Aloysius.

  ‘Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,’ said Father Anselm.

  ‘You’d better ring Sir Erris,’ said Father Simon.

  They continued to stare uncomprehendingly at the mass of drawings and formulae scattered across the pages.

  ‘I suppose,’ said Father Simon, ‘I suppose it is what I think it is. I mean you don’t think this chap Aloysius is just keen on mathematics or something?’

  Father Anselm regarded his colleague with derision. ‘Be your age,’ he said. ‘No, I will not ring Sir Erris. Not yet. This is our own problem and we must deal with it. Whatever Xavier has done, it is we who must confront him with it. Then we can decide about the police. But it is we who must decide.’

  It was ten to nine. There were only ten minutes to go to Compline. ‘Simon,’ he said, ‘go to Xavier’s room and tell him to come here to see us after the service… And Simon… say nothing about this to him. I don’t want him to suspect. Not yet.’

  Father Simon went off, and Anselm sat back, trying again to unravel the secret of the sheets of squared foolscap. He shook his head several t
imes and sighed. Oddly enough, it didn’t occur to either of them to feel fear.

  There had been times, and not so far distant either, when dinners at All Souls had been enormously protracted affairs of nine or more courses. On St. Lambert’s Day, however, the meal, though good enough in its way, was neither long nor imaginative. Tournedos Rossini, which followed the smoked trout, were, to Bognor’s way of thinking, the sort of thing one got in flash expense account restaurants in stockbroker country. Good stuff at the country club. The Château Montrose, however, was more than compensation.

  The conversation, which was what an All Souls Dinner was supposed to be about, impressed Bognor with its brittle brilliance, but he found its lack of humanity distressing. Brother Bede would have found it even worse.

  It suited Gaymer Burton, and to a lesser extent Camberley, but Bognor kept quiet. He was amazed that both men, though they obviously had something vitally important to tell him, were able to forget it completely and talk with wit and fluency about everything from the new Rent Act to salmon-fishing. He found it unnerving.

  At nine a pineapple concoction appeared and with it bottles of Rauenthaler Rothenberg, Riesling Auslese.

  ‘Very remarkable. Edelfäule,’ said Burton, and started to talk with his usual irritating grace and knowledge about the manufacture of great table wines.

  Now that his decision had been taken Father Anselm was almost boisterous. He conducted Compline with verve and returned afterwards to his study with all the elation of a public school housemaster who is about to deliver a well-merited beating. He knew now with a perfect certainty who had betrayed whom and yet he felt no bitterness. Only a militant, all-conquering self-righteousness. For three minutes he and Simon sat, waiting in glowing silence, the three offending pages still lying flat on the desk top, as witnesses to the crime. At twenty-five past nine there was a sharp triple knock.

  ‘Come,’ said Father Anselm, and Father Xavier entered softly, followed closely by Brother Paul.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Anselm, with the assurance of might and right. ‘I only wanted you, Xavier.’ Xavier said nothing. He just looked at the papers on the desk. Then he reached under his habit and pulled out a packet from which he extracted one cigarette. Very deliberately he lit it and blew smoke in the direction of Anselm and Simon.

  ‘How very unfortunate,’ he said at length.

  Quite what happened next neither Anselm nor Simon ever knew. It was so fast. One minute, it seemed, they were admonishing an erring inferior, and the next they were sitting in the floor securely bound up in white dressing-gown cords (their own and Xavier’s and Paul’s) with handkerchiefs stuffed in their mouths. It can’t have been long because Xavier, who had left practically all the work to Paul, was still smoking the same cigarette.

  ‘You’ll be up in time for Terce,’ he said. ‘They’ll miss you at Prime. And by then we’ll have gone. I’d love to explain, but there simply isn’t time. And, by the way, Anselm, I’m not really in the least sorry about what happened in the library the other day.’ He smiled. ‘Well. Good-night and good-bye.’ Simon and Anselm heard the key being turned in the lock and the sound of footsteps walking urgently away. Then another door. The front door of the farmhouse. And silence.

  The atmosphere in Lord Camberley’s room was already thick with cigar smoke when he began but there was none of the relaxed contentment normally associated with the aftermath of dinner in an Oxford college. His grey gaunt face with its hooded eyes took on an expression of great seriousness and melancholy. Bognor couldn’t help feeling that everything he did seemed contrived.

  ‘I’m afraid,’ said Camberley, ‘that I owe you an apology. Simon—I hope you don’t mind my calling you Simon—I didn’t realise until yesterday that this would be the case, and I’m sorry that my apology and the information that accompanies it should be so belated… However…’

  He turned to Gaymer Burton, who was sitting well forward in his chair, eager and nervous, toying with an eight-inch Cuban cigar which was several sizes too big for him. ‘I think, Gaymer, that it would be best if you told Mr. Bognor the whole story.’

  ‘Yes. Absolutely,’ said Gaymer. Bognor studied him closely. He was undoubtedly nervous and the nervousness was undoubtedly genuine, but there was still something phoney. ‘Well…’ he started, ‘I’ll try to be reasonably concise. The other day, after we met at the retreat at Beaubridge, I bumped into Lord Camberley here and naturally commiserated with him about the terrible business of poor Thomas. Anselm had told me that in his view it was quite definitely suicide, so I was most surprised when Lord Camberley told me this was quite without truth. He also told me why… In some detail.’

  Simon wished he understood other men’s minds. Burton sipped more port and continued. ‘I was upset and, of course, concerned. Both for personal and for political reasons. It seemed to me to be distressing on both counts. And naturally I gave the matter a great deal of thought over the next few days.

  ‘Now you’ll think me terribly naive and silly when I tell you the next bit. But it’s so naive and silly you will just have to believe it.’ Bognor noted inwardly that he would believe anything of Gaymer Burton, but not naivety or silliness. ‘Anyway, it suddenly came to me, and why I didn’t think of it before I can’t imagine. But…’ He was very nervous. ‘But, as you know, I’ve been going to Beaubridge for many years now.’

  ‘Eleven,’ said Bognor unnecessarily.

  ‘I hadn’t kept count, I’m afraid,’ said Burton irritably.

  He drank more port and picked up the interruption. ‘Eleven years ago—if you’re right and that was the year of my first visit—one of my colleagues gave me a letter to pass on to Anselm. He claimed he was an old friend but he hadn’t for various reasons been able to see him.’

  ‘What reasons?’ asked Bognor.

  Again Burton was irritated. ‘I don’t know. I don’t make a habit of prying into the private affairs of my colleagues and friends. I suspect, if you must know, that it was something to do with my colleague’s wife. I suspect. I don’t know and I don’t happen to think it’s relevant… Anyway, as I was saying, he gave me a letter and I passed it on.’

  ‘Why didn’t he just post it?’ Bognor was anxious to make sure of the details.

  ‘I don’t know. He may have posted letters as well as giving one to me. I suppose when he heard I was going down to Beaubridge he thought he’d save the stamp. I simply don’t know.’

  ‘Sorry. Go on.’ Bognor resolved to interrupt more tellingly in future.

  ‘Well, to cut a long story short, the same thing happened every year from then on. A few days before the retreat my friend gave me a letter for Anselm and I passed it on without giving it a second thought. Until, of course, Lord Camberley told me this dreadful story about secrets. Then suddenly it all clicked into place.’

  ‘I see.’ Bognor, with a blinding glimpse of the obvious, realised that one of his strongest cards in this case was the way everyone underestimated him. ‘Can you tell me the name of your friend?’

  Burton flushed, and appeared embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘At this stage I don’t think I can tell you. I will. Later. But I would like the chance to talk to him first. The important thing, though, is that Anselm must be the courier.’

  ‘So you see, Bognor,’ Lord Camberley had slipped back easily into the habit of calling him by his surname, ‘I’m afraid… horribly afraid… that I misled you about Anselm. I find it inconceivable that he should have done anything so evil and carried on this deceit for so long. But in view of what Gaymer has said there is no other possible explanation.’ Lord Camberley rose and dispensed port from the decanter. ‘I only hope this news doesn’t come too late.’

  ‘No,’ said Bognor. ‘Happily not. As you know, the Expo-Brit doesn’t leave till tomorrow at noon and I’ve arranged for Father Anselm and Father Simon to be picked up at the airport. No doubt we shall find the incriminating letter and that will be that.’ He paused and drank. ‘As you know, sir, I’ve ha
d my suspicions of Anselm since the very beginning.’

  He didn’t believe Burton’s story. But, on the other hand, if they did find a secret letter in Anselm’s habit tomorrow it would be difficult to disprove it. ‘I wonder,’ he said with assumed simplicity, ‘why he should have killed your son?’

  Camberley looked at Burton. ‘We agreed,’ he said, ‘and it’s a small consolation, that although he directed it, he must have “hired” or “ordered” an assassin.’

  Bognor nodded sagely. ‘Because he’d seen your son talking to me and he knew that your son had seen him killing Brother Luke.’

  ‘Quite so,’ said Camberley. ‘Tell me again. What precisely did Thomas tell you?’

  Bognor thought for a moment. He had always realised that there was something important there, muddled up with the gibbering about the Royal Family. ‘Nothing conclusive,’ he said. ‘There was something about seeing someone who shouldn’t have been there.’

  Even as he said it Bognor suddenly realised. Christ, he’d been an idiot! Burton was droning on, but Bognor only half heard him. ‘It’s obvious,’ he said, ‘Anselm never went near the vegetable garden. He wouldn’t soil his hands with that sort of work. That was what Thomas was trying to tell you. Only you didn’t recognise it.’

  Bognor tried to conceal his elation. That wasn’t it at all. The only person in the entire Community who had a real alibi, who had actually been miles away from the Friary when it happened, was the person who was the most likely murderer of Thomas. The man he and Sir Erris had picked up on the road. He had invented the one alibi any one would accept without question, then waited in the vicinity of the Friary until he got his chance, committed the murder and kept well away for another day. Only Batty Thomas had spotted him. That was what he had meant about the man not being supposed to have been there. Bognor’s mind raced. He mustn’t let Burton or Camberley think he didn’t accept their theory in toto. Camberley, he reasoned, must be simply a dupe. The death of his son had thrown him off balance. He must somehow get Burton to give the rest of the secret away. If he could go on managing to appear stupid it shouldn’t be hard. Nor, on previous performances, should it be difficult to look stupid.