The Bishop at Home
Angela and her husband breakfasted late next morning. Leyland came in
as they were finishing, his manner full of excitement. “Mrs. Davis,”
he explained, “has been talking to me.”
“Don’t be led on too much by that,” said Angela. “It has happened to
others.”
“No, but I mean, Mrs. Davis has been saying something.”
“That is far more unusual,” assented Bredon. “Let’s hear all about it.
Angela”——
“Mrs. Bredon,” said Angela firmly, “has been associated with me in
many of my cases, and you may speak freely in her presence. Cough it
up, Mr. Leyland; nothing is going to separate me from this piece of
toast.”
“Oh, there’s nothing private about it particularly. But I thought
perhaps you might help. You see, Mrs. Davis says that Mottram was
expecting a visitor to turn up in the morning and go out fishing with
him.”
“A mysterious stranger?” suggested Angela. “Carrying a blunt
instrument?”
“Well, no, as a matter of fact it was the Bishop of Pullford. Do you
know Pullford at all?”
“Nothing is hidden from us, Mr. Leyland. They make drain-pipes there,
not perambulators, as some have supposed. The parish church is a fine
specimen of early Perp. It has been the seat of a Roman Catholic
Bishopric—oh! I suppose that’s the man?”
“So Mrs. Davis explained. A very genial man. Not one of your
standoffish ones. He was expected, it seems, by the first train, which
gets in about ten. Mottram left word that he was to be called early,
because he wanted to get at the fishing, and the Bishop, when he
arrived, was to be asked to join Mr. Mottram on the river; he would be
at the Long Pool. He’d been down here before, apparently, as Mottram’s
guest. Now, it’s obvious that we had better find out what the Bishop
has to say about all this. I’d go myself only for one thing: I don’t
quite like leaving Chilthorpe while my suspicions” (he dropped his
voice) “are so undefined; and for another thing, I’ve telegraphed up
to London for details about the will and I want to be certain that the
answer comes straight to my own hands. And the inquest is at four this
afternoon; I can’t risk being late for that. I was wondering whether
you and Mrs. Bredon would care to run over there? It would take you
less than an hour in the car, and if you went as representing the
Indescribable it would make it all rather less—well, official. Then I
thought perhaps at the end of the day we might swap information.”
“What about it, Angy?”
“I don’t think I shall come and see the Bishop. It doesn’t sound quite
proper, somehow. But I’ll drive you into Pullford, and sit at the
hotel for a bit and have luncheon there, and you can pick me up.”
“All right. I say, though,” he added piteously, “shall I have to go
and change my suit?”
“Not for a moment. You can explain to the Bishop that your Sunday
trousers are in pawn; if he’s really genial he’ll appreciate that.
Besides, that tweed suit makes you look like a good-natured sort of
ass; and that’s what you want, isn’t it? After all, if you do stay to
lunch, it will only be a bachelor party.”
“Very well, then, we’ll go. Just when I was beginning to like
Chilthorpe! Look here, Leyland, you aren’t expecting me to serve a
summons on the Bishop or clap the darbies on him, or anything? Because
if so you’d better go yourself.”
“Oh no, I don’t suspect the Bishop—not particularly, that is. I just
want to know what he can tell us about Mottram’s movements immediately
before his death, and what sort of man he was generally. He may even
know something about the will; but there’s no need to drag that topic
in, because my telegram ought to produce full information about that.
Thanks awfully. And we’ll pool the day’s information, eh?”
“Done. I say, though, I think I’d better just wire to the Bishop, to
make sure that he’s at home, and ready to receive a stray spy. Then we
can start at elevenish.”
As Bredon returned from sending the telegram, he was waylaid, to his
surprise, by Mr. Pulteney, who was fooling about with rods and reels
and things in the front hall. “I wonder if I might make a suggestion
to you, Mr. Bredon,” he said. “I despise myself for the weakness, but
you know how it is. Every man thinks in his heart that he would have
made a good detective. I ought to know better at my age, but the foul
fiend keeps urging me to point something out to you.”
Bredon smiled at the elaborate address. “I should like to hear it
awfully,” he said. “After all, detection is only a mixture of common
sense and special knowledge, so why shouldn’t we all put something
into the pot?”
“It is special knowledge that is in question here; otherwise I would
not have ventured to approach you. You see that rod? It is, as you
doubtless know, Mottram’s; it is the one which he intended to take out
with him on that fatal morning. You see those flies on it?”
They looked to Bredon very much like any other flies, and he said so.
“Exactly. That is where special knowledge comes in. I don’t know this
river very well; but I do know that it would be ridiculous to try to
fish this river with those particular flies, especially at this time
of the year and after the weather we’ve been having. And I do know
that a man like Mottram, who had been fishing this river year after
year, couldn’t possibly have imagined that it was any use taking those
flies down to the Long Pool. I only mention it because it makes me
rather wonder whether Mottram really came down here to fish. Well, I
must be starting for the river. Still nursing the unconquerable hope.
Good-morning.” And, with one of his sudden gestures, the old gentleman
was gone.
A telegram came in admirably good time, assuring Bredon that the
Bishop would be delighted to see him. It was little after eleven when
the car took the road again; this time their way brought them closer
to the Busk and gave them a better view of its curious formation. A
narrow gorge opened beneath them, and they looked down into deep pools
overhung by smooth rocks that the water had eaten away at their base.
There was no actual waterfall, but the stream always hurried downward,
chuckling to itself under and around the boulders which interrupted
its course. “I think Pulteney overestimates the danger of having his
river dragged,” observed Bredon. “You couldn’t drag that part of it;
and, with all those shelves of rock, a corpse might lie for days
undiscovered, and no one the wiser. I’m glad that it’s a death by gas,
not by drowning.”
Their road now climbed onto the moors, and they began to draw closer
to a desolate kind of civilization. Little factory towns which had
sprung up when direct water-power was in demand, and continued a
precarious existence perched on those barren slopes now that
water-power had been displaced by steam, were the mile-stones of their
route. They were jolted on a pavement of villainous sets; the air grew
dim with a smoky haze and the moorland blackened with their approach
to the haunts of men. At last tram-lines met them, announcing the
outskirts of Pullford. “I’m getting the needle rather about this
interview,” confessed Bredon. “What does one do by way of making one’s
self popular with a Catholic Bishop?” he demanded of Angela, who was
convent-bred.
“Well, the right thing is to go down on one knee and kiss his ring. I
don’t think you’d make much of a show at it; we ought to have
practised it before we left Chilthorpe. But I don’t suppose he’ll eat
you.”
Bredon tried to rearrange his ideas about Bishops. He remembered the
ceremony of being confirmed at school; a long, tiresome service, with
an interminable address in which he and fifty of his compeers were
adjured to play for their side. He remembered another Bishop, met in a
friend’s rooms at Oxford, a hand laid on his shoulder and an
intolerably earnest voice asking whether he had ever thought of taking
holy orders. Was that the sort of thing? Or was he rather to expect
some silken-tongued courtier, in purple and fine linen, pledging him
in rich liqueurs (as in the advertisements) and lying to him smoothly
(as in the story-books)? Was he to be embarrassed by pietism or to be
hoodwinked by a practised intriguer? Anyhow, he would know the worst
before long now. They drew up at the centre of the town before a vast,
smoke-grimed hotel which promised every sort of discomfort; and
Bredon, after asking his way to the Catholic Cathedral, and steadying
himself with a vermuth, went out to face the interview.
The Cathedral house proved to be a good specimen of that curious
municipal Gothic which is the curse of all institutions founded in
1850. The kind of house which is characterized by the guide-books as
fine, by its inmates as beastly. The large room into which Bredon was
shewn was at least equally cheerless. It was half-panelled in
atrocious pitch-pine, and it had heavy, ecclesiastical-looking chairs
which discouraged all attempts at repose. There was a gas-stove in the
fireplace. Previous occupants of the See of Pullford lined the walls,
in the worst possible style of portraiture. A plaster Madonna of the
kind that is successively exiled from the church to the sacristy and
from the sacristy to the presbytery at once caught and repelled the
eye. In point of fact, the room is never used except by the canons of
Pullford when they vest for the chapter mass and by the strange
visitor who looks a little too important to be left in a waiting-room
downstairs.
A door opened at the end of the room, and through it came a tall man
dressed in black with a dash of red whose welcome made you forget at
once all the chill of the reception room. The face was strong and
determined, yet unaffectedly benevolent; the eyes met you squarely,
and did not languish at you; the manner was one of embarrassed
dignity, with no suggestion of personal greatness. You did not feel
that there was the slightest danger of being asked whether you meant
to take orders. You did not catch the smallest hint of policy or of
priestcraft. Bredon made a gesture as if to carry out Angela’s
uncomfortable prescription; but the hand that had caught his was at
once withdrawn in obvious deprecation. He had come there as a spy,
expecting to be spied upon; he found himself mysteriously fitting into
this strange household as an old friend.
“I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr. Brendan.” (The Chilthorpe
post-office is not at its best with proper names.) “Come inside,
please. So you’ve come to have a word about poor old Mottram? He was
an old friend of ours here, you know, and a close neighbour. You had a
splendid morning for motoring. Come in, please.” And Bredon found
himself in a much smaller room, the obvious sanctum of a bachelor.
There were pipes about, and pipe-cleaners; there was a pleasant litter
of documents on the table; there was a piano standing open, as pianos
do when people are accustomed to strum on them for mere pleasure;
there was a quite unashamed loud-speaker in one corner. The chair into
which the visitor was shepherded was voluminous and comfortable; you
could not sit nervously on the edge of it if you tried. Instinctively,
in such a room your hand felt for your tobacco-pouch. Would Mr.
“Brendan” take anything before dinner? Dinner was due in three
quarters of an hour. Yes, it was a very sad business about poor
Mottram. There was a feeling of genuine regret in the town.
“I don’t really know whether I’d any right to trespass on My
Lordship’s—on Your Lordship’s time at all,” began Bredon, fighting
down a growing sense of familiarity. “It was only that the landlady
told us this morning you were expected to join Mottram at Chilthorpe
just on the morning when he died. So we naturally thought you might
have known something about his movements and his plans. When I say
‘we,’ I mean that I’m more or less working in with the police, because
the Inspector down there happens to be a man I know.” (Dash it all,
why was he putting all his cards on the table like this?)
“Oh, of course, I should be only too glad if I can be of any use. The
newspapers have just mentioned the death as if it were an accident,
but one of my priests was telling me there is a rumour in the town
that the poor fellow took his own life. Well, of course, I don’t think
that very probable.”
“He was quite cheerful, you mean, when you last saw him?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say cheerful, exactly; but, you see, he was always a
bit of a dismal Jimmy. But he was in here one evening not a week ago;
very glad to be going off for his holiday, and full of fishing plans.
It was then he asked me to come down and join him just for the day.
Well, there was a tempting hole in my engagement book, and there’s a
useful train in the morning to Chilthorpe, so I promised I would. Then
the Vicar General rang me up the last thing at night and told me about
an important interview with some education person which he’d arranged
behind my back. So I gave it up—one has to do what one’s told—and was
meaning to telegraph to Mottram in the morning. And then this sad news
came along before I had time to telegraph after all.”
“Oh, the news got here as early as that?”
“Yes, that secretary of his wired to me, Brinkman. It was kind of him
to think of me, for I know the man very little. I forget the exact
words he used, ‘Regret to say Mr. Mottram died last night, useless
your coming,’ something of that sort.”
“Do you know if he meant to make any long stay at Chilthorpe?”
“Brinkman would be able to tell you better than I could; but I fancy
they generally spent about a fortnight there every year. Mottram
himself, I daresay you know, came from those parts. So far as I knew,
this was to be the regular yearly visit. Honestly, I can’t think why
he should have been at pains to ask me down there if there had been
any idea of suicide in his mind. Of course if there was definite
insanity that’s a different thing. But there was nothing about him to
suggest it.”
“Do I understand that Mottram belonged to your—that Mottram was a
Catholic?”
“Oh, dear no! I don’t think he was a church-goer at all. I think he
believed in Almighty God, you know; he was quite an intelligent man,
though he had not had much schooling when he was young. But his
friendship with us was just a matter of chance—that and the fact that
his house is so close to us. He was always very kindly disposed toward
us—a peculiar man, Mr. ‘Brendan,’ and a very obstinate man in some
ways. He liked being in the right, and proving himself in the right;
but he was broad-minded in religious matters, very.”
“You don’t think that he would have shrunk from the idea of suicide—on
any moral grounds, I mean?”
“He did defend suicide in a chat we had the other day. Of course my
own feeling is that by the time a man has got to the state of nerves
in which suicide seems the only way out he has generally got beyond
the stage at which he can really sit down and argue whether it is
right or wrong. At least one hopes so. I don’t think that a person who
defends suicide in the abstract is any more the likely to commit
suicide for that or vice versa. Apart from grace, of course. But it’s
the absence of motive, Mr. ‘Brendan.’ Why should Mottram have wanted
to take his own life?”
“Well, My Lord, I’m afraid I see these things from an uncharitable
angle. You see, my business is all connected with insurance; and
Mottram was insured with us, and insured heavily.”
“Well, there you are, you see; you have the experience and I haven’t.
But doesn’t it seem to you strange that a man in good health, who
digests his meals, and has no worries, should take his own life in the
hope of benefiting his heirs, whoever they may prove to be? He had no
family, you must remember.”
“In good health? Then—then he didn’t mention anything to you about his
life prospects?”
“I can’t say that he did; but he always seemed to me to enjoy good
health. Why, was there anything wrong?”
“My Lord, I think this ought to be confidential, if you don’t mind.
But since you knew him so well I think it’s only fair to mention to
you that Mottram had misgivings about his health.” And he narrated the
story of Mottram’s singular interview at the Indescribable offices.
The Bishop looked grave when he had finished.
“Dear, dear, I’d no notion of that; no notion at all. And it’s not
clear even now what was wrong with him? Well, of course that alters
things. It must be a grave temptation for people who are suffering
from a malignant disease, especially if it’s a painful one; pain
clouds the reason so, doesn’t it? I wish I’d realized that he was in
trouble, though it’s very little one can do. But that’s just like him;
he was always a bit of a stoic; fine, in a rugged sort of way. ‘It
never did any good meeting troubles half way,’ he used to say to me.
Well, money can’t do everything for us.”
“He was enormously rich, I suppose?”
“Hardly that. He was very comfortably off, though. There will be a
windfall, I suppose, coming to somebody.”
“He never mentioned to you, I suppose, what he meant to do with his
money?”
“Well, of course, he used to say half-jokingly that he was going to
provide for us; but I don’t think he meant us to take that seriously.
He had a kind of hankering after religion, you see, but he didn’t get
on well with religious people as a general thing. The Anglicans, he
said, were all at sixes and sevens, and he couldn’t bear a church
which didn’t know its own mind. The non-conformists, he said, did no
sort of good in the town; all those fine chapels, and only thirty or
forty people in each of them on a Sunday morning. He was a little
unjust, I think, to the non-conformists; they do a great deal of good,
some of them. And about the Salvation Army he was extraordinarily
bitter. So he used to say he’d sooner his money went to us than to any
of the others. But I think that was only an ironic way he had with
him; people who have made a lot of money are often fond of talking
about what they’re going to do with it. Of course it would have made a
lot of difference to us; but I don’t think he meant to be taken
seriously.”
“Well, I’m very much obliged to Your Lordship; I think, perhaps, I
ought to be”——
“What, going away, and dinner on the table? No, no, Mr. ‘Brendan,’
that isn’t how we treat our guests at Pullford. Just you come along,
now, and be introduced to some of the reverend clergy. I know the
_Load of Mischief_, and those chops! Come on, and we’ll send you off
in better trim than you came.” It was evident that there was no help
for it; Angela must wait.