The Search for the House

Tea, tobacco, meditation, and sleep brought the inspector no nearer a solution of his problem. On the assumption that J. M. Pattison was the murdered man, there had still appeared no reason why Gregory Persimmons should have murdered him. It was true that so far he knew nothing of their relations. If Pattison had been blackmailing Persimmons now — but then why the scribblings in the Bible? Some ancient vengeance, he rather desperately wondered, some unreasoning hate? But he could not get away from a feeling that, even so, it was the wrong way round. Small nonentities did sometimes murder squires, bankers, or peers, but it was not normal that a squire should murder a small nonentity. Besides, religious mania seemed to come into it somewhere. But whether Mr. Persimmons or the deceased was affected by it, or both of them, the inspector could not decide. And why the devil? Why, in God’s name, the devil? The inspector’s view of the devil was roughly that the devil was something in which children believed, but which was generally known not to exist, certainly not as taking any active part in the affairs of the world; these, generally speaking, were run by three parties — the police, criminals, and the ordinary public. The inspector tended to see these last two classes as one; all specialists tend so to consider humanity as divided into themselves and the mass to be affected. Doctors see it in the two sections of themselves and patients potential or actual; clerics in themselves and disciples; poets in themselves and readers (or non-readers; but that is the mere wickedness of mankind); explorers in themselves and stay-at-homes; and so on. The inspector, however, was driven by the definitions of law to admit that the public was not as a whole and altogether criminal, and he inevitably tended to consider it more likely that Mr. Pattison should be guilty than that Mr. Persimmons should be. Only someone had strangled Mr. Pattison, and Mr. Pattison’s own expectation seemed to point direct to Mr. Persimmons.

Colquhoun went over in his mind the incidents which had led him to this point — his failure to connect anyone directly with the crime, his irritation with Stephen Persimmons and Lionel Rackstraw, his anger with Sir Giles, his discovery of Gregory’s connection with Stephen and Sir Giles, his not very hopeful descent on Fardles. His conflict with Ludding had relieved, but not enlightened him. He came to the events of the morning and the way in which the young stranger had recognized him. Of course, more people knew Tom Fool . . . no doubt, but he had a feeling that he knew the face. He thought of it vaguely, as Mrs. Lucksparrow and Ludding had done, as a foreigner’s. The Duke had thought of it in connection with the high friendships of his Oxford days; Kenneth as related to his intelligence of the Church and its order; Sir Giles had seen it with equal curiosity and fear — but this was almost purely intellectual, and did not suggest the revival of some past vivid experience. Gregory and the Archdeacon had answered to it more passionately, as somehow symbolical of a mode of real existence; as Barbara had recognized in it at once the safety and peace which had succoured her in the house of the infernal things. Nor, had Gregory remembered it — but the crisis of Kenneth’s death had put it out of his mind — was it without significance that the Greek had seemed to feel a power moving under and through the activities of his opponents.

But these things were not known to Colquhoun, who, nevertheless, found himself trying to recollect who the stranger was. He had met foreigners enough in his life, and he was driven at last to believe that it must have been on a visit of the Infanta of Spain some time before that their meeting had taken place; he had interviewed enough members of the Spanish police then for more than one face to have been seen and since forgotten, till chance rediscovered it. Chance also had directed the conversation with Mr. Batesby to fear and his past experiences, and so to the appeal of the late James Montgomery Pattison. At least, chance and the stranger between them, for it had been he who had asked the occasional helming question. He tried to consider whether this stranger could have had anything to do with the murder, but found himself foiled; when his mind brought the assumed Spaniard into relation with any other being one of them faded and was gone. It was chance, of course; and chance had done him a good turn — up to a point, anyhow.

He took his troubles to the Assistant Commissioner the next morning, who listened to his report carefully, and seemed disposed to make further inquiries. “On Monday,” he said, “Colonel Conyers mentioned Gregory Persimmons to me as having taken part with him in a curious little chase after a chalice which had been more or less stolen by the Duke of the North Ridings and the Archdeacon of Fardles. This Persimmons assured us he wouldn’t prosecute, and that made it very difficult for us to move. But I went to tea with the Duchess on Tuesday and had a chat with the Duke.”

“And did he admit that he’d stolen it?” the astonished inspector asked.

“Well, he seemed to think it really belonged to the Archdeacon,” the Assistant Commissioner answered, “but he was rather stiff about it, told me he had reason to believe that the most serious attempts were being made to obtain possession of it, and even talked of magic.”

“Talked of what?” the inspector asked, more bewildered than before.

“Magic,” the chief said. “The Arabian Nights, inspector, and people being turned into puppy-dogs. All rubbish, of course, but he must have had something in his mind — and connected with Persimmons apparently. I had Professor Ribblestone–Ridley tell me what’s known about Ephesian chalices, but it didn’t help much. There seem to be four or five fairly celebrated chalices that come from round there, but they’re all in the possession of American millionaires, except one which was at Kieff I did wonder whether it was that — a lot of these Russian valuables are drifting over here. But I still don’t see why the Duke should have bolted with it, or why Persimmons should have refused to get it back. Unless Persimmons had stolen it. Could the deceased Pattison have been mixed up in some unsavoury business of getting it over?”

“Bolsheviks, sir?” the inspector asked, with a grin.

“I know, I know,” the Assistant Commissioner said. “Still, ‘wolf,’ you know . . . there are Bolshevik affairs of the kind.”

“I suppose it’s possible,” Colquhoun allowed. “But, then, did Pattison mean the Bolsheviks by the devil?”

His chief shook his head. “Religion plays the deuce with a man’s sanity,” he said regretfully. “Your clergyman told you he thought he was saved, and in that state there’s nothing people won’t say or do.”

“It might be one of the American chalices,” the inspector submitted.

“It might,” the other said. “But we should have been warned of the theft from New York, probably. It might also be the Holy Graal, which Ribblestone–Ridley says, according to some traditions, came from Ephesus.”

“The Holy Graal,” the inspector said doubtfully. “Hadn’t that something to do with the Pope?”

“It’s supposed to be the cup Christ used at the Last Supper — so I suppose you might say so,” the Assistant Commissioner answered almost as doubtfully. “However, as that Cup, if it ever existed, isn’t likely to exist now, we needn’t really worry about that. No, Colquhoun, I lean to Kieff. I wonder whether the Duke would tell me anything.” He looked at the inspector. “Would you like to go and ask him?” he finished.

“Well, sir, I’d rather you did,” Colquhoun said. “I like to have some hold on people when what I’m asking them is as vague as all that — it seems to help things on.”

The Assistant Commissioner looked at the telephone. “I wonder,” he said. “We don’t know much, do we? A chalice and a Bible and a clergyman. What an infernally religious case this is getting! And an Archdeacon on the outskirts.

“Perhaps Persimmons has killed the Archdeacon by now,” he added hopefully as he took off the receiver.

The Duke, it appeared, when he got through to the butler, was not in London. He had been up for two nights, but had returned to the country on Wednesday? yesterday — morning. He had been accompanied (this when it was understood who was inquiring) by the Archdeacon of Fardles and a Mr. Mornington. They had both returned with the Duke. Should Mr. Thwaites be called to the telephone? Mr. Thwaites was — no, not his Grace’s secretary; no, nor his Grace’s valet; a sort of general utility man to his Grace, in the best sense, of course.

The Commissioner hesitated, but he didn’t want to seem to be asking questions about the Duke, and decided to try Ridings Castle first. He asked for the trunk call, and sat back to wait for it.

“It all seems to be mixed up together, sir,” Colquhoun said. “There was a Mr. Mornington at those publishing offices; it may be another man, of course — but there’s a Persimmons and a Mornington there, and a Persimmons and a Mornington here.”

“And a Bible all written over with Persimmons there, and a chalice that Persimmons stole or had stolen here,” the other said. “Yes. It’s odd. And a corpse there. We only want a corpse here to make a nice even pattern.”

Scotland Yard not being usually kept waiting for its trunk calls, they had not broken the few minutes’ silence by any further remarks before the housekeeper at Castle Ridings had been notified that she was wanted at the telephone. No, the Duke was not in the country. He and Mr. Mornington had left for London last night. By train — the car had been away for a day for some minor repairs. No, nothing was known of his Grace’s return. He had said he should be at Grosvenor Square. What had the Duke’s movements been yesterday? He and Mr. Mornington had arrived, unexpectedly, for lunch. They had gone out walking in the afternoon, and the Duke had said they might not be back. Where had they gone? She did not know; she had heard the Duke say something about a Mrs. Rackstraw to Mr. Mornington after he had told her they might not be back. Yes, Rackstraw. Could she give any message?

The Assistant Commissioner rang off and looked at the inspector, who was in a state of some excitement.

“That damned Rackstraw,” he said. “He’s always coming in. He lunches out with Sir Giles Tumulty and a man gets killed in his room. The Duke goes out to call on his wife and the Duke disappears.”

“I wonder if we’ve got the other corpse,” his chief said. “I think, Colquhoun, we might go and see what this Thwaites fellow can tell us. It’s all right, no doubt, but I don’t seem quite to like it.”

Thwaites, when at Grosvenor Square he was summoned to the presence, seemed at first, if not recalcitrant, at least reluctant. He disclaimed any knowledge of the Duke’s whereabouts; he thought his Grace would not be at all pleased if they were brought into publicity. Why? Well, he had an idea that his Grace wished for privacy. Yes, he admitted gradually, he had seen a chalice in the Duke’s possession on Monday. Considering that on the Monday night he had been awakened to watch in front of it after the other three had retired, content to believe the Archdeacon’s assertion that the attack had failed, this was a restrained way of putting it. But it had been indicated to him that the Duke desired secrecy, and secrecy Thwaites was trying to maintain. But he became anxious when he heard of the disappearance, or at least of the non-appearance, of his master and admitted more than he altogether meant. He admitted that the chalice was not now in London; the Duke and his friends had taken it with them on the Wednesday. This was Thursday, he pointed out, to himself as well as the visitors, so the Duke’s absence had not yet lasted for much over twelve hours — not so very long.

“Say four o’clock to twelve — twenty,” the inspector said.

“Well, not twenty-four,” Thwaites answered. “Only a night, you might say. Not so long but what, if his Grace was busy with something, he mightn’t easily be away.”

“Does the Duke often stay away without warning?” the Assistant Commissioner asked.

Not often, Thwaites admitted, but it had been known. He had gone for a sort of a joy-ride once and not been back for the whole twenty-four hours. Still, his Grace had been very anxious about something, something private, he didn’t know what, but something to do with the chalice, on the Monday and Tuesday.

The Duchess, Thwaites thought, had not been told, since the Duke was not much in the habit of telling his aunt anything; and he very strongly dissuaded the visi............