The Second Attempt on the Graal

Inspector Colquhoun, summing up the situation of the Persimmons investigations, found himself inclining towards three trails, though he was conscious of only one, and that the remnants of the Wesleyan mission bill. The prospects of this fragment producing anything were of the slightest, but he would have done what could be done sooner had he not been engaged in checking and investigating the movements of the staff of Persimmons. His particular attention was by now unconsciously fixed on two subjects — Lionel Rackstraw and Stephen Persimmons. For the first Sir Giles was responsible; for the second, absurdly enough, the adequacy of the alibi. Where few had anything like a sufficient testimony to their occupation during the whole of one particular hour, it was inevitable that the inspector should regard, first with satisfaction but later almost with hostility, the one man whose time was sufficiently vouched for by almost an excess of evidence. His training forbade this lurking hostility to enter his active mind; consciously he ruled out Stephen, unconsciously he lay in ambushed expectation. The alibi, in spite of’ himself, annoyed him by its perfection, and clamoured, as a mere work of art, to be demolished. He regarded Stephen as the notorious Athenian di Aristides.

Unconscious, however, of this impassioned frenzy, the inspector spent an hour or more going through the files of the Methodist Recorder and investigating the archives of the Methodist Bookroom. He found that during the few weeks preceding the murder three missions had been held in London at Wesleyan churches — at Ealing, at East Ham, and near Victoria. He achieved also a list of some seven churches in the country which fitted his demands — ranging from Manchester to Canterbury. He expected no result from this investigation, which, indeed, he undertook merely to satisfy a restless conscience; it might be worth while asking the various ministers whether they had heard of any unexpected disappearance in their districts, but the chance was small. The inspector thought it more than likely that the disappearance had been explained and arranged for, and his mind returned slowly to a sullen hatred of Sir Giles and a sullen satisfaction with Stephen Persimmons as he rode back on a bus to his home.

The two emotions working with him led, however, to an unexpected if apparently unprofitable piece of news. For they drove him to a third interview with Stephen, ostensibly to collect a few more details about the staff and the premises, actually to mortify his heart again by the sight of the one man who could not have committed the murder. The conversation turned at last on Sir Giles, and Stephen happened to say, while explaining which of his books the firm had published and why, “But of course he knows my father better than me. Indeed, he’s staying with him now.”

At the moment the inspector thought nothing of this; but that night, as he lay half asleep and half awake, the two names which had haunted him arose like a double star in his sky. He felt them like a taunt; he bore them like a martyrdom; he considered them like a defiance. A remote thought, as from the departed day of common sense, insisted still: “Fool, it’s his father, his father, his father.” A nearer fantasy of dream answered: “He and his father — the name’s the same. Substitution? disguise — family life? vendettas? vengeance — ventriloquism . . . ” It lost itself in sleep.

The next evening he spent in writing a report on the case, and part of the afternoon in being examined upon it by an Assistant Commissioner, who appeared to be a little irritated by the hopelessness of the investigation up to that date.

“You haven’t any ideas about it, inspector?” he asked.

“Very few, sir,” the inspector answered. “There must obviously be a personal motive; and I think it must have been premeditated by someone who knew this Rackstraw wasn’t going to be there at the time. But till I know who or what the man was, I can’t get my hands on the murderer. I’m having inquiries made in the Wesleyan districts — one of them’s near where I live, out by Victoria, and I’ve told my wife to keep her ears open. She goes to church. But the man’s just as likely as not to have been a stranger to the district, just passing or lodging there for a week or so.”

The Assistant Commissioner grunted. “Well,” he said, “let me know what happens. It’s a bad thing, these undiscovered murders. Yes, I know, but they oughtn’t to happen. All right.”

The inspector saluted and went out, passing on his way Colonel Conyers, who, having been landed in London, was making use of the afternoon to dispose of certain official business. Having settled this, he lingered to ask whether the Duke of the North Ridings was known to Scotland Yard, but discovered that, with the exception of one summons for having ridden a bicycle without a light and one for assault on Boat Race Night, nothing evil was to be discovered. Nor of the Archdeacon of Fardles. Nor of Mr. Gregory Persimmons. Nor of Dimitri Lavrodopoulos, chemist.

“This is all very curious, Colonel,” the Assistant Commissioner said. “What’s the idea?”

“Nothing official,” Conyers answered. “I won’t go into it all now. But if ever you hear anything about any of those names, you might let me know. Good-bye.”

“Stop a moment, Colonel,” said the other. “I think I ought to know why you want to know about this Gregory Persimmons. Nothing against him, but we’ve come across his name in another connection.”

“Well . . . ” the Colonel hesitated. He had included Gregory’s name in his inquiries from habit and nothing else; if you were investigating, even in the most casual way, you included everybody and everything in your investigations; and if a case had arisen in which his own wife had played some unimportant part, the Colonel would have been capable of putting her name down on the list for inquiries to be made regarding her life and circumstances. He had paid a visit with Gregory to the shop in Lord Mayor Street, where the Greek, as weary and motionless as ever, had confirmed Persimmons’s statement. Yes, he had sold the chalice; he had had it from another Greek, a friend of his who was now living in Athens but had visited London two or three months before; yes, he had a receipt for the money he had himself paid; yes, he had given Mr. Persimmons a receipt; the chalice had come from near Ephesus, and had been brought to Smyrna in the flight before the Turkish advance.

It all seemed quite right. The Colonel felt that Mr. Persimmons was being very harshly dealt with, and he looked now at the Assistant Commissioner with a slight indignation.

“A very nice fellow,” he said. “I don’t want to go into the story, because at present we want it kept quiet. I think the Archdeacon has gone mad, and if the Duke hadn’t behaved in the most unjustifiable manner the whole thing would have been settled by now.”

“It all sounds very thrilling,” the Assistant Commissioner said. “Do tell me. We don’t usually get cases with Dukes and Archdeacons in. The Dukes are usually in the divorce court and the Archdeacons in the ecclesiastical.”

He was nevertheless slightly disappointed with the story. There seemed to be no remotest connection between the loss of the chalice and the murder in the publishing office except the name of Persimmons. Still, he wondered what Persimmons had been doing while the murder was going on. But that was a month or more ago; it would be very difficult to find out. The Assistant Commissioner had never ceased to wonder at the way in which many people always seemed to be quite certain what they were doing at four in the afternoon of the ninth of December when they were being examined at half-past eleven on the morning of the twenty-fifth of January. He turned the page of the reports in the file before him.

“You didn’t meet Sir Giles Tumulty by any chance?” he asked. “Or Mr. Lionel Rackstraw?”

“I did not,” the Colonel said.

“Or Mr. Kenneth Mornington?”

“There was a Mr. Mornington — or some name like it — with the Archdeacon,” the Chief Constable said. “But I didn’t really catch his name when he was introduced, so I didn’t mention it. It may have been Mornington. He ran away with the Duke.”

“Very funny,” the other murmured. “A chalice, too — such a funny thing to run away with. Ephesus, you say? I wonder if any particular chalice came from Ephesus.” He made a note. “All right, Colonel; we’ll remember the names.”

About the same time the allies in Grosvenor Square separated. There had been some discussion after lunch what the next move should be. The Duke inclined to ask Sir Giles definitely whether he identified this chalice with the Graal. But he had not met the antiquarian, and neither the Archdeacon nor Mornington thought it likely that Sir Giles would do more than cause them as much embarrassment as possible. The Archdeacon was inclined to put the Graal in safe keeping in the bank; the Duke, half convinced of its authenticity, felt that this would be improper. He, like Kenneth, attached a good deal more importance than the Archdeacon to the actual vessel. “It will be quite safe here,” he said; “I’ll put it in a private safe upstairs and get Thwaites to keep an eye on it. And you’d better stop here too for the present.” This, however, the Archdeacon was reluctant to do; his place, he felt, was in his parish, which Mr. Batesby would soon be compelled to leave for his own. He consented, however, to stop for a couple of nights, in case any further move should be made by their opponents.

Kenneth’s plan for that afternoon was definite. He intended to go down to the publishing offices on two errands; first, to forestall Gregory Persimmons if that power behind the throne should attempt to influence the throne in the matter of the proofs; and secondly, to obtain a set of the uncorrected proofs containing the paragraph that had caused the trouble, and, if possible, Sir Giles’s postcard. He felt that it might be useful in the future to have both these in his possession. For Kenneth, not being more or less above the law like the Duke, or outside it like the Archdeacon, had a distinct feeling that, though it might be good fun to steal your own property under the nose of the police, the police were still likely to maintain an interest in it. Besides, he had never read the paragraph itself, and he very much wanted to.

On arrival at the offices, therefore, he slipped in by the side entrance, reached Lionel’s office without passing anyone of sufficient eminence to inquire what had caused this visit, and searched for and found the proofs he desired. Then, going on to his own room, he rang up the, central filing office. “I want,” he said, “the file of Tumulty’s Sacred Vessels at once. Will you send it down?” In a few minutes it arrived; he stopped the boy who brought it. “Is Mr. Persimmons in?” he asked. “Find out, will you?”

While the boy was gone on this errand, Kenneth looked through the correspondence. But it consisted wholly of business-like letters, a little violent on Sir Giles’s part, a little stiff on Lionel’s. There was no special reference to the article on the Graal as far as he could see, beyond the question of illustrations; certainly no reference to black magic. He abstracted the last postcard, took a copy of the book itself from his shelves, and by the time the boy had returned was ready for Stephen.

Mr. Persimmons was in. Mornington went along the corridor, tapped, and entered. Stephen looked up in surprise. “What brings you here?” he asked. “I thought you’d be away till tomorrow week.”

“So I am, sir,” Mornington said. “But I wanted to see you rather particularly. I called on Mr. Gregory Persimmons yesterday, and I’m not altogether easy about our interview.”

Stephen stood up hurriedly and came nearer. “What happened?” he said anxiously. “What’s the trouble?”

Kenneth explained, with a certain tact. He didn’t blame Gregory at all, but he made it clear that Sir Giles and Gregory between them wanted blood, and that after the morning’s chase Gregory was likely to want it more than ever; and he hinted as well as he could that he expected Stephen to stand up for the staff. Unfortunately, the prospect seemed to cause Stephen a good deal of uneasiness. With a directness unusual in him he pressed the central question.

“Do you mean,” he said, “that my father will want me to get rid of you?”

“I think it is possible,” Kenneth answered. “If ever a man wanted the tongue of his dog to be red with my blood it was Giles Tumulty. That’s the kind of fellow he is.”

“Oh, Giles Tumulty!” Stephen said. “I don’t dismiss my people to please Giles Tumulty.”

“He’s a source of revenue,” Kenneth pointed out. “And Mr. Gregory Persimmons will probably be rather annoyed himself.”

“My dear Mornington,” Stephen said, looking at the papers on his table, “my father wouldn’t dream of interfering . . . either with me or with the staff — especially any of his old staff.” He heard his own voice so unconvincingly that he walked over to the window and looked out. He felt his possession — his business and occupation and security — beginning to quiver around him as he considered the foreboded threat. He knew that he was incapable of standing up against his father’s determination, but he knew also that the determination would not have to be called into play; the easier method of threatening his financial stability would be used. His father, Stephen had long felt, never put forward more power than was sufficient to achieve his object; it was the vaster force in reserve which helped to create that sense of laziness emanating from the elder Persimmons, as a man who pushes a book across with a finger seems more indolent than one who picks it up and lays it down in a new place. But an attack on Mornington roused alarm in Stephen on every side. His subordinate was as far indispensable to the business as anyone ever is; he was personally sympathetic, and Stephen was very unwilling to undergo the contempt which he felt the other would show for him if he yielded. Of the more obvious disadvantages of dismissal to Kenneth, Stephen in this bird’s-eye view of the situation took little heed; “I can always get him another job,” he thought, and returned to his own troubles.

Kenneth in these few minutes’ silence realized that he would have to fight for his own hand, with the Graal (figuratively) in it.

“Well,” he said, “I’ve told you about it, sir, so that if anything is said you may know our point of view.”

“Our,” said Gregory’s voice behind him, “meaning the Archdeacon and your other friend, I suppose?”

Stephen jumped round. Kenneth looked over his shoulder. “Hallo,” the publisher said, “I . . . I didn’t expect you.”

Gregory looked disappointed. “Tut, tut!” he said. “Now I hoped you always did. I hoped you were always listening for my step. And I think you are. I think you expect me every moment of the day. A pleasant thought, that. However, I only came down now to put a private telephone call through.” He laid his hat and gloves on the table. Kenneth was unable to resist the impulse.

“A new hat, I’m afraid, Mr. Persimmons,” he said. “And new gloves. The Chief Constable, of course, had them.” Gregory, sitting down, looked sideways at him. “Yes,” he said, “we shall have to economize somehow. Expenses are dreadfully heavy. I want to go through the salary list with you in a few minutes, Stephen.”

“I’ll send for it,” Stephen said, with a nervous smile.

“Oh, I don’t think you need,” Gregory answered. “Only a few items; perhaps only one today. In fact, we could settle it now — I mean Mr. Kenneth Mornington’s item. Don’t you thing we pay him too much?”

“Ha, ha!” Stephen said, with a twisted grin. “What do you say, Mornington?”

Kenneth said nothing, and Gregory in a moment or two went on, “That is immaterial; in fact, the salary itself is immaterial. He is to be dismissed as a dishonest employee.”

“Really —” Stephen said. “Father, you can’t talk like that, especially when he’s here.”

“On the contrary,” Kenneth said, “he can quite easily talk like that. It’s a little like Sir Giles certainly, but your father, if I may say so, sir, never had much originality. Charming, no doubt, as a man, but as a publisher — third rate. And as for dishonesty . . . ”

Gregory allowed himself to smile. “That,” he said, “is vulgar abuse. Stephen, pay him if you’d rather and get rid of him.”

“There is such a thing as wrongful dismissal,” Kenneth remarked.

“My dear fellow,” Gregory said, “we’re reducing our staff in consequence of my returning to an active business life . . . did you speak, Stephen? . . . and you suffer. And your present employer and I between us can make it precious difficult for you to g............