Chapter Eight
Two Canons

ITHA: “Look, look, master; here comes two religious caterpillars.”

BARA: “I smelt ’em ere they came.”

MARLOWE

“A pleasant morning.”

The Inspector’s voice thus greeted them as they passed up the clergy-house drive towards the road. It held a hint of complacency, as if the pleasantness of the morning were somehow of his own contriving. And certainly it was another glorious day, promising much heat and discomfort later on, but for the present as perfect as any man could desire. Tolnbridge sunned itself, opulently and lazily. Its colours took on a new freshness. The estuary glittered—silver tinsel on a vivid blue—and the explosions of the engines of the outgoing fishing boats proceeded peaceably from it. Beyond them, a minute grey warship lay at anchor. The cathedral itself achieved in the sunlight such grace and lightness that it seemed likely at any moment to be transmuted into a fairy place and float gently away into some Arcady, some genial Poictesme. Decidedly, a pleasant morning.

It soon appeared, however, that the Inspectors comment was less self-congratulatory than a propitiating gambit in a difficult game. He had rung up the Yard, he said, joining to this statement a good deal of devious rambling fantasy; they were sending a man down today; and—here the Inspector’s unease became acute—they considered that unauthorised persons should be absolutely excluded from any subsequent investigations which might be made.

“The boot,” said Fen. “Anathema sumus.”

“You see my position, sir,” said the Inspector. Plainly he regretted the outcome as much for himself as for Fen. “As it is, they’re not at all pleased that you know as much as you do. I suppose”—he stared at Fen unhappily—“I shouldn’t have let either of you in on that radio business.” He stared still harder, becoming acutely unhappy. Fen’s spirits, however, were normally raised rather than lowered by adverse circumstances. “Inspector,” he said with evil glee, “I’ll beat you to it. Bet you I get the murderer before you do.”

The Inspector nodded pathetic assent. “Very probably, sir. You can’t be much further off from it than I am at the moment. And, of course”—his eyes twinkled momentarily—“I can’t stop you going round asking people questions if they’re prepared to answer them.”

“Have you,” said Fen, “got any new information you can give us before the interdict comes into force? Or is it in force already?”

The Inspector peered anxiously about him; he appeared to be seeking for evidences of an ambush. Then, spectacularly lowering his voice, he said:

“I’ve had a go at that lad Josephine this morning. Would you believe it, the little devil still insists that message was given her by a policeman.”

“Perhaps it was.”

“No: she’s obviously lying. But I’m darned if I know how to get the truth out of her. As far as I can see, if she chooses to stick to that story, there’s absolutely nothing we can do about it.”

“It’s odd,” said Fen. “I wonder why—?” He shook his head vigorously. “Anything else?”

“Nothing. The post mortem’s this morning at eleven, and there’ll certainly have to be an inquest. God knows what verdict they’ll bring in—we can’t help them. Is there any other way of violent death except murder, accident and suicide? They all look equally impossible.”

“It was murder all right,” said Fen with an exuberance unjustified by the nature of the statement. “Oh, by the way. You didn’t, I suppose, trace that radio in any way? There must have been a car to take it away. It occurs to me, too, that they must have been a fair time about it. All this whipping transmitting sets in and out of cathedrals must be quite a business. Surely there’d be aerials, or something?”

“Anyway, we didn’t trace it,” said the Inspector. It was evident that he was sinking to hitherto unplumbed depths of pessimism. “Nor was there anyone in the cathedral when we searched again this morning.” He steeled himself reluctantly to action. “I must be off.”

“Where are you going first? We don’t want our interviews to clash. What a silly waste of energy,” said Fen in a pained voice. “Interviewing everyone twice. We’re going to Garbin.”

“All right,” said the Inspector. “Then I’ll see Mrs. Butler. It doesn’t seem to matter much what order one takes them in.”

“I wish,” put in Geoffrey, “that you could do something about the landlord of the ‘Whale and Coffin.’”

“Do something, sir? Do what? Arrest him because he happened to know your Christian name? God love us,” said the Inspector with feeling, “the things people expect one to do.”

“Farewell, Inspector, and God ’ild you,” said Fen. “We meet,” he added grandiosely, “at Philippi.”

“Colney Hatch, more like,” said the Inspector.

Parting, however, was not to be yet. They were interrupted by the bustling advent of Canon Spitshuker, greatly out of breath.

“Wanted to catch Mr. Vintner,” he gasped. “Music… organist… services.” He paused to recover himself, and went on more coherently: “Since the terrible events of last night, the duties of Precentor have temporarily devolved upon me. Mr. Vintner”—he paused and wiped his forehead with a large purple handkerchief—“it will, in view of the circumstances, be said Matins this morning—”

The Inspector interrupted. “Good heavens, sir,” he said aghast, “you’re not proposing to hold your service this morning as usual?”

“My dear Garratt, of course.”

“But really, sir, after what has happened—”

A tinge of impatience came into the Canon’s voice. “The Church does not suspend the worship of God on any and every pretext. And if ever there was a time when our prayer and praise were needed, surely it is now.”

“Praise!” The Inspector’s voice was unexpectedly bitter.

“My dear Inspector, I have simply not the time to argue with your doubtless ridiculous notions about God allowing evil, and so forth. Now, Mr. Vintner—”

“But look, sir.” The Inspector was mildly exacerbated. “There’s the mess—the confusion…”

“That has all been cleared up.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Our cleaners have dealt with it. There is only the slab to put back.”

“God have mercy,” said the Inspector. “The things people do behind one’s back.”

Canon Spitshuker looked faintly puzzled. “I fear it was done on my authority. Surely… surely I have done nothing wrong?”

“You may have destroyed valuable evidence, sir.”

“It could hardly be left, though, could it, Inspector?… Dear me.” Spitshuker seemed perturbed. “And I never dreamed… Still, what’s done’s done.”

“No use crying over spilt milk,” put in Fen tediously.

“And now, Mr. Vintner: sung Evensong at 3:30, and the choir will be at your disposal at 2:00. Poor Brooks had his practices in the old chapter house—there is a good piano there. Now let me see.” He felt in a pocket and produced a bundle of service sheets, among which he scrabbled unsystematically until he found the one he wanted. “For this afternoon we have down Noble in B Minor, and Sampson’s Come, My Way. All quite familiar to the boys, I think.” He thrust the sheaf at Geoffrey. “The music for future services is noted here. I leave it to you to make any alterations that you think fit.” He made movements of hasty departure.

“One moment, sir.” It was the Inspector. “Did you say you’d made arrangements to have the slab put back?”

Perturbation and alarm again appeared on Spitshuker’s rubicund face. “I have, certainly, though if you think it will destroy evidence…” (Was there a hint of sarcasm in his voice? Geoffrey wondered.) “Still, it would hardly be desirable to hold Matins with the tomb gaping open, would it?” He smiled innocently.

“If it hasn’t been done already, sir, I should like to be present. There are certain tests I wish to make.” The Inspector’s manner was markedly stiff and official.

“By all means. By all means.” Spitshuker looked agitated. “I promised to superintend the work myself.” He glanced at his watch. “But we must hurry. Matins is in less than an hour.”

In the cathedral they found a group of men gazing at the fallen slab without enthusiasm, under the eye of the Verger. For the first time Geoffrey was able to examine properly the tomb of St. Ephraim. From the space beneath the spire, where the transepts joined the main body of the cathedral, a short flight of steps led up into the chancel; but the stalls of the choir, and of the cathedral officers, were placed some way further to the east, beginning just below the organ-loft. Beneath the Bishop’s Gallery, hollowed from the wall, was the cavity of the tomb. The fallen slab normally filled it. In its edges were embedded iron rings, corresponding with others in the edges of the slab, so that when this was in position a large padlock could be passed through each pair to hold it firm. The cavity, though quite shallow, was about ten feet in length and six in height, and the slab was proportionately thick. Amid a good deal of premonitory groaning, it was hoisted upright, and eventually, with titanic efforts, lifted into its cavity. It fitted quite loosely, Geoffrey noticed, the lower edge between two and three feet from the ground, the upper some six feet higher. The Inspector had a chair brought and stood on it, motioning the men away with one hand and holding the slab in position with the other. Then with infinite slowness and caution he withdrew his hand. As yet unanchored by its padlocks, the slab swayed ever so slightly, delicately poised on its narrow base; but it showed no sign of falling of its own accord. The Inspector grunted.

“Wouldn’t take much to topple that out,” he said. He got down from the chair.

Fen had been unwontedly silent and attentive during these proceedings. Geoffrey stepped back and spoke to him. “Explosive charge inside?” he asked. “Even though the slab doesn’t fit exactly, the tomb would be pretty well airtight.”

Fen shook his head. “There’d be obvious traces. Any sort of mechanism’s out of the question for the same reason.”

Geoffrey glanced up to the Bishop’s Gallery above.

“Could it be pushed out, by a long pole or something, from there?”

Again Fen shook his head, and pointed. “That projection would stop it. And besides, think of the complications. Very unlikely. And you’d still have to account for how the person concerned got out of the cathedral. The wall between the Bishop’s Gallery and the organ is solid brick, remember.”

“I think I know,” said Geoffrey, “how someone could have got out of the cathedral.” Mentally, he fondled his cherished Idea. Fen gazed at him kindly.

“You mean Peace, of course. Just after the crash we find him wandering on the other side of the cathedral. Why shouldn’t he just have come out, locking the door after him, and throwing away the key in case anyone should take it into his head to search him? Why indeed? The only snag is that it doesn’t fit in with anything else we know about the case.”

Geoffrey was peeved at having his thunder stolen; he made obstinate mental reservations, highly unwilling to have his Idea thus facilely disposed of. But he made no comment, since the Inspector was about to make another experiment. The group of men who had hoisted the slab into position, and who had been hanging about since exhibiting that gentle, inane interest in the goings-on of others which is one of the mainstays of the English character, showed, as he explained his intentions, stupefaction and gloom. He was proposing, in fact, to allow the slab to fall out again.

This, however, was a more difficult operation than at first appeared, chiefly because the slab rested quite flat in its cavity and offered no projection by which it could be pulled. Eventually the Inspector inserted a steel ruler into one side, and standing as far clear as he could, used it as a lever. Slowly the great stone moved, toppled. They watched in frozen silence. The fall at first was slow, rapidly gathering a tremendous momentum. Just before it reached the horizontal, Geoffrey noted, the lower edge came away from the shelf on which it rested. And the terrifying, stealthy silence of it! In a moment it lay flat on the ground, the chair which had been left beneath it crushed to splinters.

The noise of the impact was shattering, and yet…somehow, Geoffrey thought, it was different from what he had heard the previous evening. The deadening effect of walls and doors might account for the disparity, but it was not exactly that. Perplexed, he watched the herculean heavings and groanings begin anew; perplexed, he saw the six padlocks inserted to hold the slab in position, and the remnants of the chair cleared away. The Inspector, apparently satisfied, made off on his own. Fen and Spitshuker, engaged in conversation, were walking towards the door. After a last look round Geoffrey joined them.

“…A few questions,” Fen was saying as they came out into the sunlight, “which I hope you won’t regard as impertinent.” The apology was conventional, and sounded it. “And I think you ought to know,” he added, with an unwonted spasm of honesty, “that I’m no longer collaborating with the police.”

Spitshuker clucked simultaneous dismay and assent. “But my dear fellow… of course. The police have thrown over your offer of assistance?” He made clicking noises with his tongue. “Scandalous, scandalous.” This, too, seemed a trifle less than sincere. “Of course I will answer any questions. If you wish, I will walk with you towards Garbins house. I am ‘in residence’ at the moment, so I have to say Matins, but that is not for half an hour yet.” He gathered his short coat about his portly little figure, and walked down the cathedral hill with them.

“Mainly about times,” said Fen. “Six o’clock, and ten to ten-fifteen yesterday evening.”

Spitshuker looked up quizzically. “You are trying to establish alibis,” he stated with evident enjoyment. “I have none for six o’clock. I was alone in my room, working, at that hour. My housekeeper was in the house, but she cannot possibly vouch for me.” He seemed to regard this as a matter for some pride. “Between ten and a quarter-past I was talking to the Inspector in the clergy-house drawing-room. About seven I had set out with Garbin to dine at the clergy-house, and after dinner, when Dallow had given us the terrible news about poor Brooks, we held our little conclave—Dallow, Garbin, Butler and myself.”

“Ah, yes.” Fen was pensive. “I’m interested in this meeting.”

“Unofficial. A purely unofficial affair. Of course the Dean and the Bishop have been communicated with, and are returning at once.” The parenthesis confused the Canon, and he paused doubtfully. “The meeting was called when there was, as yet, no question of murder, merely this…accident which had occurred to Brooks, and which necessitated a little rearrangement among ourselves. We had intended, as it were, to clear the ground a little before the Dean returned. I fear that nothing very useful was said. The greater part of the meeting was taken up by a squabble between Dallow and Butler about the legal and financial position of the resident organist, and by some unavailing attempts at armchair detection on the part of Garbin.”

“Not a very brotherly affair, in fact?”

“There was, perhaps, a slight undercurrent of unfriendly feeling.” Spitshuker hesitated, himself somewhat taken aback, one fancied, by this flagrant understatement.

“Nothing, of course, was decided—about anything.” He smiled faintly. “The upshot of it was Butler’s announcing that fatal intention of going up to the cathedral and stopping there alone. Had we not been in such a te—had we considered a little, I should say, we should probably not have allowed him to go.”

“The meeting ended at what time?’

“About ten to nine, I should say. Yes, that would be it.”

“And did anyone else in the house know of Dr. Butler’s intention?”

“Everyone, I fancy. He met Frances in the hall, talking to Peace on some trivial matter, as he went out, and informed them. Dutton, I think, was lurking about, too.”

“I thought he went early to bed,” Geoffrey interposed.

“Dutton, I suspect, does not go to bed without extensive preliminary reconnoitring.” Spitshuker nodded his approval of this cryptic comment. “At all events, there he was. I remember noticing him when Butler was arranging to meet Peace up at the cathedral—”

“When what?”

Spitshuker was all mild-eyed innocence. “You didn’t know? To discuss some business matter, I think it was. Butler suggested that Peace should follow him in about twenty minutes’ time and Peace agreed, but I fear we sat so long talking together that it was close on ten o’clock before he—”

“Oh, my dear paws!” Fen exclaimed. “Oh, my fur and whiskers! I knew it. I knew something of the sort—” He checked himself, and asked urgently: “What happened to everybody after the meeting broke up?”

Spitshuker considered. “Dallow and Garbin, as far as I know, went straight home, Butler to the cathedral. I think Frances went to her room with a book. Dutton somehow faded out of the picture. I walked with Butler as far as the gate which leads from the clergy-house garden on to the cathedral hill. I thought he seemed moody, depressed, and a little nervous. I remember that as we stood chatting at the gate he picked a four-leaf clover to put in his buttonhole, which surprised me, because he was always inveighing against such superstitions. But as I say, he appeared nervous. Then I went back and talked to Peace.”

“We know about all that,” said Fen. “Savernake?”

“I’ve no idea. He disappeared immediately after dinner, I fancy.” Spitshuker looked at his watch. “You must forgive me if I turn back now. I hope I have been of assistance.” He smiled and, suddenly, was gone.

Fen seemed little inclined to talk as they walked on; conceivably he was reflecting on what he had heard. Geoffrey, too, reflected, but without much enlightenment, and fell to wondering at the general lack of extreme distress over the Precentor’s death. If Spitshuker had been labouring under a burden of emotion, he had not shown it.

“Curious,” said Geoffrey, “that all the Butler family should have been in Germany before the war.”

“It has its interest,” Fen replied. “But for all we know, everyone here may have been in Germany. Spitshuker was instructive, don’t you think?”

Geoffrey frowned ponderously. “Possibly,” he said with judicial caution. “He went off in a hurry. Were you going to ask him anything else?”

“One or two things,” said Fen noncommittally. “Whether he was an accomplished church musician, for one.”

“Good heavens, why?”

Fen grinned. “That surprises you? It’s half a shot in the dark, so I don’t wonder. By the way, you might scribble down what people say they were doing at crucial times. It’ll be useful for reference. I don’t think its much use trying to pry into alibis on the night Brooks was attacked in the cathedral. If people weren’t in bed alone all night, then they ought to have been.” He frowned puritanically.

Garbin’s house and garden were pervasively humid and melancholy. The first characteristic, in view of the unexampled brilliance of the weather, it was difficult to account for; but no other word would describe the listless, damp impression made by the overgrown flowerbeds and drooping foliage which greeted Fen and Geoffrey as they turned in at the gate. In this riot of greenery, through which struggled an occasional misguided and feeble blossom in search of the light, Niobe must surely have wandered, all tears. Even the singing of the birds was without spirit, a mere dejected gurgle.

And the house was no better. Its grey walls seemed to sweat dampness. Large, Victorian and ugly, its windows stared upon the world with frank misanthropy. Were it not attached to his prebend, surely Garbin would not live in it. And yet a subtle affinity existed between the man and the house, a fundamental dull seriousness of outlook, and behind this a complacent if melancholy resignation to things as they were. So at least it appeared; but Geoffrey reminded himself that, here and now, no appearance could be trusted.

Mrs. Garbin opened the door to them, dressed in a suit of drab chocolate-brown. If she was surprised to see in Geoffrey her travelling-companion of the day before, she gave no sign of it. Her husband, she said, was working; not, one gathered from her tone, at anything that was ever likely to be the slightest use to anyone, even himself. No doubt he would be delighted to see them; it was one of the penances of a clergyman’s life that he must always be available to anyone who chose to call; fortunately, he had nothing else to occupy him.

To this underhanded series of attacks, Fen replied monosyllabically. Before they were taken into Garbin’s study he did, however, stop to say:

“You must feel Dr. Butler’s death as a great loss.”

The woman paused. “Of course,” she said. “A very great loss indeed—to ourselves. It is possible that others may not be so greatly affected.”

“A popular man, I thought.”

“A man of strong personality, Professor. And you know what is commonly meant by personality—an obstinate blindness and lack of consideration. There were, of course, antagonisms.”

“Serious antagonisms?”

“That, of course, it is hardly my business to say.” She paused. “The Romish practices of Canon Spitshuker—”

“And the scholarly rivalry of your husband…”

She put a hand on the banisters. The pallor of her face was perhaps a little accentuated. “You had better go in now.”

Garbin’s study was a large room, unpleasantly panelled in dark pine. Massive mahogany furniture and bookcases added to the gloom. A dark brown carpet was on the floor. There were worn armchairs and a rack of pipes and a pallid bust of Pallas—or more probably of some dead ecclesiastic, since both sex and features were indistinguishable in the crepuscular light—in a niche above the door. And there, great heavens—Geoffrey felt the sense of unreality which one has immediately on waking from a vivid dream—was a raven. It perambulated the desk with that peculiar gracelessness which walking birds have, ruffled its feathers, and stared malignantly at the intruders.

“You’re looking at my pet.” Garbin rose from his chair as they came in, his tall, sombre form towering over the desk. “An unusual fancy, some people think. But he came to me quite by chance.”

“Indeed?”

Garbin motioned them to chairs. “A foreign sailor with a tragic history sold him to me some two years ago. He is supposed to speak, I think, but I have never heard him do so. He is not”—Garbin paused—“a companionable creature, I admit. Sometimes I find his presence actually depressing. I have given him every chance to escape, but he displays only apathy.” He stretched out a hand to stroke the bird’s feathers. It pecked at him.

Fen, however, plainly was not moved by this recital. “We’ve come to talk about Butler’s death,” he said firmly. “There are some odd features about it, and I’m conducting a sort of unofficial investigation of my own.” His eye strayed to the bird, and then hastily withdrew. “I don’t know if you’d care to cooperate?”

Disconcertingly, Garbin regarded him in silence for a moment. Then he shifted in his chair, to indicate that he was about to speak. “Do you think it wise,” he asked in his deep, slow voice, “to pry into these things? Surely the responsible authorities are capable of dealing with it.”

“Possibly.” Fen’s admission was reluctant. “But I should hesitate to rely on them.”

“I know you regard this sort of thing as a sport, Mr. Fen. Frankly, I cannot do so. The death of a man seems to me the poorest excuse for a display of personal ability. You will forgive my speaking so frankly.”

Fen regarded him thoughtfully. “And you will allow me the same liberty, I’m sure. I shall say that the murder of a man is so serious a business that it concerns everyone who can possibly help in any way, and particularly those who, like myself, have had some experience of these things.”

Garbin raised an eyebrow. “Your own vanity is not implicated in any way?”

Fen gestured impatiently. “One’s vanity is implicated in everything, as Rochefoucauld pointed out. Action from pure motives simply does not exist.”

“There are degrees of purity, none the less.”

Fen stood up. “There seems little point in continuing this conversation.”

“Please, please!” Garbin waved a hand. “If I was offensive, I apologise. You must remember that I belong to a generation, and a calling, whose standards are strict. Rochefoucauld was not a Christian. Christianity maintains that for a man to act from wholly disinterested motives is possible. Take that away, and the whole fabric of Christian morality falls apart.”

“You did not consider it a disinterested action when Butler stole your ideas?”

“The inquisition has begun, I see,” said Garbin drily. “No, naturally I did not. But it was forgivable, because Butler was no scholar—he hadn’t the temperament. A poseur must plagiarise, or he can produce nothing.”

“That’s a harsh judgment, surely?”

“Perhaps so. God forbid that I should judge anyone. I should have said that—well, that what Butler undertook was beyond his capacities. His sail was too big for his boat.”

“Still, you considered his thefts morally reprehensible?”

“Naturally.” Garbin smiled slightly. “But surely you’re not here to hold an enquiry into my moral standards. I bore him no lasting resentment, if that’s what you mean.”

The raven rose from the desk, and with a whirring of wings that sounded like a berserk mowing-machine, flew and perched on the bust above the door. Fen and Geoffrey eyed it in fascination. “A literary fowl,” Fen murmured; then returned with somewhat of an effort to the matter in hand.

“Mainly,” he said, “one wants to know about movements during yesterday.”

“Ah, yes.” Garbin put the tips of his fingers together. “At six o’clock, the time when poor Brooks was killed, I was alone here. Lenore was out to dinner and bridge.”

“Who?” The word burst from Geoffrey before he could stop himself.

“Lenore—my wife. So I have no alibi for that time. Between ten and a quarter past.”

Fen interrupted. “How about between nine and ten?” The question evidently surprised Garbin as much as it did Geoffrey; he hesitated, slightly but visibly, before replying. “I left the clergy-house shortly before nine, after Butler had announced his intention of going up to the cathedral. I went for a walk along the cliffs.”

“You overheard the arrangement Butler made to meet Peace up at the cathedral?”

“I could hardly avoid it; I fancy everyone did.”

“May I ask what was said at the meeting?”

“I hardly think that concerns the death of Butler in any way.”

“As you please. But did Butler by any chance say he had definite knowledge about the death of Brooks?’

“Since you ask—no.”

Fen nodded. “It might have been necessary,” he said, half to himself. “But that depends on the exact time the police guard left… I must find out.”

On its perch, the raven ruffled its feathers again. The branch of a tree growing outside the window scraped against the panes. Fen succumbed suddenly to the obsessing temptation.

“Surely,” he said—“surely that is someone at your window lattice?”

Garbin glanced over his shoulder. “It’s the tree. I am always meaning to have it cut down. It makes the room very dark.” Plainly the allusion was lost on him. Geoffrey retired discreetly behind a handkerchief, and went red in the face.

“May I ask how long your walk lasted?” With manifest difficulty Fen had got back to the subject.

“Until about ten-thirty. When I arrived back here I made myself some cocoa, and sat reading by the fire.”

“And each separate dying ember,” said Geoffrey, “wrought its ghost upon the floor.”

Garbin looked at him in mild surprise. “Exactly so. Shortly after eleven Spitshuker came in and gave me the news. We talked for some time.”

Fen sighed. “Thank you. You’re being kinder than your first words suggested. I wonder if, after all, you aren’t anxious to get this thing cleared up?”

A shadow of evasiveness passed over Garbins face. “Anxious. Most certainly I shall help the law in any way I can. But I cannot disguise from myself the fact that someone—that one of us who are connected with the cathedral must be implicated.”

“What makes you think that?”

“It is a question of keys, is it not?”

“Ah, yes. I understand that virtually everyone had a key to the cathedral grounds.”

“It seems pointless for people to have a key to the grounds, and not to the cathedral itself.”

“Not at all. Suppose I had arranged to meet someone at the cathedral.” Garbin paused. “As Butler arranged to meet Peace. I should unlock the gate into the grounds, and lock it again after me, to keep out… intruders. Then I should go up to the cathedral and unlock the door there. Anyone following me up there would thus require a key to the grounds, but not a key to the cathedral itself.”

“That seems clear enough. Peace, I suppose, must have had a key to the grounds last night. I wonder whose he borrowed?”

“I’m afraid I can’t help you there.”

“And possibly Josephine as well.”

“Josephine Butler?” Garbin’s voice was guarded.

“She took a false message to the police on duty at the cathedral. But what time are the grounds locked?”

“At seven sharp. The sexton sees to it. There are only the north and south gates and that into the clergy-house garden.”

“Is it absolutely impossible to get into the grounds otherwise than by the gates?”

Garbin shrugged. “Not impossible, no. Anyone who wished could manage it quite easily. The locking is chiefly a moral preventive.”

“Ah, of course. To prevent the incontinent young from necking publicly on the cathedral hill.”

Garbin made a gesture of impatience and stood up. This abrupt movement disturbed the raven, which emitted a hoarse, dyspeptic croak and began flying agitatedly about the room. Garbin beat at it ineffectually with his hands. Eventually it settled on the window-sill.

“I must apologise,” said Garbin, “for my pet.”

“Ghastly, grim and ancient raven from the night’s Plutonian shore.”

Garbin stared in bewilderment. “A little picturesquely put, perhaps. And now if there’s nothing more—”

“One more thing. Are you interested in music?”

Garbin smiled wryly. “I know little or nothing about it; and care less. It always seems to me that it plays far too large a part in our services: there are occasions when the worship of God degenerates into an organised concert.” He bowed slightly to Geoffrey. “Please don’t think me ungracious. And now, is there anything else?”

“Is there,” said Geoffrey, “is there balm in Gilead?”

Fen hastily retired to make a close examination of one of the bookcases. “I see you have here”—he hesitated, and went on in a weak, quavering voice—“many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore.”

It was at this point that the interview really got out of hand. Geoffrey was hardly able to contain himself, and Fen was scarcely better. The gravity and incomprehension of Garbin made matters worse. What he thought was going on it is impossible to say; perhaps he fancied Fen and Geoffrey to be engaged in some recondite form of retaliation for his earlier outspokenness. At all events he said nothing. Hasty farewells were made. At the door Fen turned to look at the raven again.

“Take thy beak,” he said, “from out my heart, thy form from off my door.”

“His eyes,” said Geoffrey, “have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming.” Then they went out, in some haste. At the front door, Fen recovered himself sufficiently to ask Garbin one more question.

“Do you know the poetry of Edgar Allan Poe?”

“I’m afraid not. I have no great use for verses.”

“Not his poem, The Raven?”

“Ah. There’s a poem about a raven, is there? Is it good? I know nothing about these things.”

“Very good,” said Fen with the utmost gravity. “You would find much in it to interest you. Good morning.”