From Murder To A Cathedral Read online

  When a small car turned into the street everyone was aware of it - even the police constable, who had just passed the synagogue and heard the car behind him. As he turned it slowed down and, a moment later, stopped. At once the policeman’s steps quickened. A man got out of the car as a gust of wind swept along the street at almost gale force. Rain spattered over the car and its windscreen, shimmering in the light of the street lamps. Presently the car moved off, leaving the man behind. The policeman slackened his pace while continuing to advance.

  The watcher at the door spoke mildly. “Can I help you, sir?”

  “Yes.” The voice was authoritative. “I have a message for Rabbi Perlutt.”

  “He is inside,” the watcher said.

  “Can I see him, please?”

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to give me a little more information, sir.”

  The stranger said, “I have come to warn him.”

  The policeman, now very close, caught the last words, and the watcher’s echo: “Warn him? What about?”

  “I am here to tell him that before the sun rises there will be an attack on your house of worship,” the stranger declared, and he looked up into the face of the policeman. “Did you hear that, constable?”

  “I did, sir. Have you warned Scotland Yard?”

  “No, I have not,” the man said. “I will give details only to the Rabbi.”

  “As a police officer, sir—”

  “I am prepared to give a message of great importance to the Rabbi,” the stranger said impatiently. “If he wishes to inform the police, that is entirely his affair.” He stood still and aloof, as doubt chased suspicion across the policeman’s face.

  “I think, sir,” said the watcher, “that you should come in. Please be careful to observe silence, and remember to keep your head covered. Constable, if you will be good enough to stay by the door in case the Rabbi wishes to speak to you, I will be very grateful.”

  “I’ll be here, sir,” the constable assured him.

  The other led the way to the big hall, in which stood the ark, the marriage canopy some distance in front of it, and the reader’s desk. There were only a few lights showing, and the empty spaces seemed full of menace.

  As they stepped forward, the stranger put his hand to his pocket, took out an egg-shaped object, and hurled it at the ark. As it struck it exploded in a violent yellow flash. A fierce blast swept along the pews, smashing the windows, blowing the canopy to smithereens. The policeman heard the roar and sprang forward, but as he reached the doors the stranger appeared, thrust him aside, and ran into the street. Coming along was the little car, which slowed down only long enough for the stranger to scramble inside.

  Fire and smoke and awful debris filled the synagogue, and as men recovered from the shock they raised the alarm which would bring help.

  But the vandal got away.

  The same methods were used all over London, against Anglican church and Roman Catholic, some Methodist and one Presbyterian.

  All but two of the destroyers escaped.

  Gideon’s telephone bell began to ring at dead of night and he stirred in bed, protesting silently, until he felt Kate move and was suddenly conscious of the fact that the ringing would wake her. He stretched out mechanically and put the receiver to his ear. Still half asleep, he said, “Gideon.”

  “George, there have been sixteen!” Lemaitre burst out.

  Gideon echoed, “Sixteen? Sixteen what?” As soon as the question was uttered he realized the absurdity of it, but Lemaitre cried, “Sixteen outrages! Sixteen churches damaged!”

  Gideon could sense the anguish in the other’s voice. He could tell from Kate’s stillness that she was awake, but perhaps not fully, yet. He pushed the bedclothes back, whispering tersely into the receiver, “I’ll come over. Any of them caught?”

  “Only two.”

  Gideon’s heart leapt. “We’ve got two?”

  “Yes. They’re on their way to the Yard.”

  “Where are you?”

  “At West Central.”

  “Meet me at the Yard.” Then a fearful thought flashed through Gideon’s mind, and he asked sharply, “Any cathedrals damaged?”

  “They got the altar at St. Martins in the Furrows,” Lemaitre said. “That’s the biggest. Er - think I ought to tell Hobbs?”

  “No.”

  “So long as you agree,” said Lemaitre.

  Gideon got out of bed and flicked on a light faint enough not to disturb Kate. He began to dress, seeing from the illuminated dial of the bedside clock that it was twenty minutes to two. Well, he’d had two hours’ sleep.

  “Is it serious?” Kate asked, suddenly.

  “Nothing desperate yet. Just some more church damage.”

  “It’s wicked,” Kate said.

  “Downright evil,” Gideon agreed. “You stop worrying about it.”

  “How many were damaged?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “Sixteen. Why, that’s twice as many as the last time!”

  “They seem to be doubling after each outrage,” Gideon remarked. “Don’t worry about me if I don’t come back. I’ll probably bed down at the Yard.”

  In fact he was not likely to get any more sleep tonight. As he made his way to the garage through the chill of a now dry but blustery morning, he yawned and was aware of being tired; he needed more sleep than he used to. No - he needed to sleep more regularly, he could not throw off the effect of late or broken nights as easily as he had done when younger. But what did it matter? He drove along the Embankment, passed Milbank House, and saw the vague outline of Lambeth Palace across the river. At least eight uniformed policemen were in sight of St. Margaret’s Church and the Abbey. What a thing to come to pass - the churches, guarded by the law! They would have to call the military out if the situation got much worse, and so history would repeat itself. He turned into the Yard, and found more than the usual bustle. Up in the C.I.D. offices lights blazed, men walked and talked noisily, there was a great wave of activity. He opened Lemaitre’s door, but the room was empty, went into his own room and found the lights on, coffee on a tray, all the signs that it had been used within the past few minutes. Smoke rose straight from the stub of a cigarette in the ashtray. Lemaitre didn’t smoke cigarettes these days. He was at the door when it opened and Scott-Marie appeared, gaunt and aloof.

  “Hallo, sir!”

  “Hallo, Commander.” The Commissioner was always formal when others were present, and Lemaitre and another Chief Superintendent were just behind him. “I want you to interrogate the two prisoners yourself.”

  “I will, sir.”

  “I’ve asked Lemaitre to prepare a detailed plan of the locations of tonight’s outrages, and to assess the total extent of the damage.”

  “I’ll get on to it at once, sir,” Lemaitre promised.

  “Thank you.”

  “One thing,” Gideon said. “Has anyone been hurt tonight?”

  “Not seriously,” Lemaitre said. “That’s one relief, anyhow. A few cuts and bruises. One of the so-and-so’s has damaged his arm pretty badly, he’s the worst as far as I know.” He glanced at Scott-Marie. “I’ll get down to the plan, sir.” He hurried into his office, then bobbed back: “They’re over at Cannon Row, Geo - Commander.”

  The door closed on him.

  Gideon looked at the other Chief Superintendent and said, “Bring the two prisoners up and stay with them in Mr. Hobbs’s room until I send for them.” When the man had gone he studied Scott-Marie’s drawn and troubled face, and went on. “Do you wish to be present at the interrogation, sir?”

  “Do you think it would be wise?”

  Gideon hesitated, deliberating the matter, then answered with a diffidence that barely sounded in his voice, “No, sir.”

  “Very well,” Scott-Marie said. “I will be in my office. Don’t rush the interrogation on my account, Commander.”

  21: CANNON ROW

  In Cannon Row Police Station, awaiting the Magistrate’s Court heari
ng of the charge, was Geoffrey Entwhistle, pale and haggard and unshaven, feeling weak and helpless one moment, enraged the next. During the past week he had relied on whisky to keep up his morale, and he had not had a drink for hours. He sat on the narrow bed, head in his hands, hardly able to believe that such a thing had happened to him. He had not yet named a solicitor because, so far, he had had very little need of one. At the same time he felt the situation to be so hopeless that to fight it would be a waste of effort. They had him; they would convict him.

  Suddenly, he jumped up and cried, “And they won’t even hang me!”

  The police sergeant on duty in the cells heard him, went along, listened, heard a repetition, and noted it down.

  Two cells along the corridor, out of earshot, was one of the two men caught raiding a church. He was short, compact, in his late forties, clean-shaven, rather austere-looking. He had refused to give his name. He had been searched but nothing in his pockets or on his clothes gave any clue to his identity. Next to him was another man, taller, equally silent, equally good-mannered. Next to this tall man was the thief whom Eric Greenwood had disturbed at St. Ludd’s. He was here because the second hearing was due early the next morning, and Lemaitre wanted to question him again and make quite sure he was not connected with the vandalism.

  This man was sleeping.

  In other cells there were two prostitutes and a woman who had tried to kill herself and her illegitimate infant. A welfare officer was with her, soothing the hysteria of despair.

  A plain-clothes sergeant came hurrying down from the station above.

  “The two men are wanted,” he said. “Have they shown any sign of violence?”

  “Mild as milk,” the sergeant answered, and then two more officers came, each carrying handcuffs. “You won’t need those,” the sergeant declared.

  “We aren’t taking any chances.”

  The two vandals were removed from the cells without fuss, handcuffed, and taken up to the Yard. Four uniformed and two more plain-clothes men were there. A photographer at the gates let out a yell and rushed forward into the forbidden territory of the Yard, his light flashing. Two officers closed on him. The contingent of big men, towering above the prisoners and watched by dozens of night-duty men and Flying Squad officers, went in the back way and up in the big, iron-gated lift. At the first-floor level three men stood waiting.

  Throughout all this, the two prisoners had not changed their expression or uttered a word. Now, with a guard in front and one behind, they were taken to Hobbs’s office and escorted inside. They were kept waiting for five minutes before a sergeant came in.

  “The first accused, please,” he said.

  There was a moment’s hesitation before the taller of the two men stepped forward. As he crossed the passage, he saw the door with the name COMMANDER GIDEON. One man tapped on this door and then opened it.

  Gideon stood with his back to the window. The prisoner stepped inside.

  “Take off the handcuffs,” Gideon ordered. “And wait outside.”

  Gideon had become a student of men the hard way, from the bitter experience of trial and error, of betrayed trust, of honesty and dishonesty concealed by the most unlikely faces. He studied this prisoner as closely as he had ever studied anyone. The first impression never left him; the man was an ascetic. The face was lined, but not deeply; the lips were set, but not tightly. His features were clean-cut and his skin had the clearness which some devotees of extreme physical fitness show, an almost aggressive purity. There was no spare flesh on him, no hint of plumpness. He was dressed in a clerical grey suit, well-cut but not in any particularly modish way. His greying hair was cut quite short.

  Gideon knew that he had not uttered a word since his arrest outside St. Butolph’s in the Strand.

  Gideon held his own peace for at least two minutes, before saying casually, “Good evening.”

  The man was surprised into opening his mouth, actually forming the letter “g”, and in that moment Gideon felt a flare of triumph: once start him talking and he might go on and on.

  But no sound came; the thin lips closed again. Gideon kept silent for a few seconds, and then remarked, “So you’ve taken a vow of silence.”

  The reaction was sufficient to convince him that the guess was right. The pale eyes narrowed, a gleam of surprise flickered in them but soon died away. Now Gideon felt no flare of triumph, rather one of dismay. If the prisoner had taken a vow of silence he would almost certainly keep it, and what was true of him would probably prove true of any others who were caught. Lemaitre had known what he was talking about.

  Gideon said, “Presumably you are aware that you have committed a very grave crime, not only against the church, but against the laws of the country.”

  There was no answer.

  “The maximum penalty for sacrilege is imprisonment for life. Do you realize that?”

  The man showed no flicker of interest.

  “Life imprisonment is no joke, Mr.—”

  There was no response.

  “Your wife and family may have plenty to say,” remarked Gideon.

  No answer.

  “You know, all you are doing is wasted effort,” Gideon said, as if to himself. “A good try but bound to fail. If you’d simply been seen we might have had trouble in identifying you, but when we put your photograph in the newspapers and on television, someone is bound to come forward and identify you. After that it will be simply a question of routine questioning of your relations, your friends and your acquaintances. Failure to identify you, and through you your associates in these crimes, is out of the question. You haven’t a chance.”

  The man standing so still in front of him did not flicker an eyelid.

  Ten minutes later Gideon gave up.

  Half an hour later he gave up on the smaller prisoner, too.

  Immediately afterward he went across to see Scott-Marie, who was alone in his office, poring over a map of London in which the churches were marked with crosses. He glanced up, hopeful for a moment, then settled back in his chair.

  “I’m as nearly sure as I can be that they’ve taken a vow of silence,” Gideon told him. “Both men reacted in exactly the same way to the same questions. I should say they’ve not only taken a vow but they’ve also practiced living up to it. And if we catch any more they’ll be the same.”

  Scott-Marie, his eyes very red-rimmed, said gruffly, “You’re not often pessimistic.”

  “I am about making these men talk. But we can have their photographs in tomorrow’s - I mean today’s - evening papers and on television. By the day after tomorrow we’re bound to get some form of identification. From then on we should be on the way to finding who they are and what they’re up to, but - I’ll be in Paris.”

  Scott-Marie said, “Yes. You must be.”

  “And it may be too late,” Gideon warned. “These men aren’t fools. They know that from today on, their number’s up. But they’ve taken some pretty big risks last night, and they might take bigger ones for bigger objectives.”

  “Then before you go, make sure everything is tied up so that nothing avoidable can go wrong,” Scott-Marie ordered. When Gideon made no comment, he went on with a faint smile, “I know, I’m tired, George.” After another pause, he went on. “It’s a thousand pities Hobbs can’t be on duty. How do you think Lemaitre is going to make out?”

  Gideon said with forced confidence, “He’s missed nothing so far.”

  Before Scott-Marie could comment there was a tap at the door, and at Scott-Marie’s “come in,” Lemaitre entered, carrying a long roll of paper.

  “All finished, sir.”

  “Good. Let me see.” There was a high table at one side of the room, rather like a drawing board, and Scott-Marie held the paper flat while Lemaitre, with fingers fluttering with eagerness, pinned them at the corners. There was an outline map of London with every major road marked, and a criss-cross of thin lines, like rivers on an ordinary map, showing the minor streets. There were differ
ent-coloured crosses in a spreading rash over the whole area,

  “The black are for Anglican churches, the blue for R.C. . .” Lemaitre’s voice was quick with suppressed pride, the words tumbling over each other. “And the red stars show where we’ve had the trouble - one star, the first night of attack, two the second, three last night—”

  Not wishing to detract from Lemaitre’s brief hour of importance Gideon said quietly, “Do you need me any more now, sir?”

  “No, Commander. Lemaitre can tell me all I need to know.”

  Gideon went out and along to his office, pleased for Lemaitre, but deeply worried over the matter as a whole. There was now no shadow of doubt that they had to deal with religious fanatics and should start concentrating on the known off-beat sects. Time was the problem; he had a sense of urgency which Scott-Marie shared, but what serious hope was there of getting this investigation finished quickly? They needed weeks.

  He turned into his office and found Rollo by his desk, drawing fiercely at a cigarette. In spite of the pressure of the church crimes Gideon’s thoughts flashed immediately to the photo-nudes murders and to the missing girls.

  “Heard you were in,” Rollo said.

  “Got anything?” demanded Gideon.

  “I think we know the man - a Toni Bottelli.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Owns a tobacconist and newspaper shop in Tottenham,” said Rollo. “He’s got a cellar on the same scale as Rhodes’s. Often has girls down there to photograph - we’ve found one of the girls.”

  “One of those we’re looking for?”

  “No. One who went down to the cellar and didn’t like what she saw,” Rollo said. “She came forward because she recognized some of the photographs we’ve had in the papers. She’d seen the same photos in the cellar before.”

  Gideon said gruffly, “Thank God for this much. What have you done?”