From Murder To A Cathedral Read online

  On the morning after the attempted theft of the altar plate from the Cathedral and the murder of Mrs. Margaret Entwhistle, nothing was farther from Gideon’s mind. He had a family preoccupation as well as an administrative one, and it was the first of these that occupied his mind at the moment. He wanted to concentrate on a matter of high policy in the Criminal Investigation Department but was unable to forget the face of his youngest daughter.

  Poor, sad Penny; she had just failed her Royal College examination in music, an examination which was to have set her on the road to a career as a professional pianist. The letter with the results of the examination had arrived just before Gideon left home, and so he had been delayed, which was exasperating in itself. He remembered the sight of Penelope’s glowing blue eyes, so like her mother’s, the radiance of her face as she had opened the letter. Gideon and Kate, his wife, less sure than their daughter of the result, had watched her.

  She had read. . .

  Her face had dropped; her expression had become one almost of despair. She hadn’t trusted herself to look up at her parents, just stared at the letter.

  “No luck, Penny?” Gideon had asked gruffly.

  “No.”

  “Oh, what a shame!” Kate had cried. “They can’t have—”

  “I must have been really bad. And it was easy. I only had to play a selection from Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies. . .” Penelope broke off.

  “Better luck next time,” Gideon had said, bleakly aware of the inadequacy of his words.

  “There won’t be a next time,” Penelope had said, drearily. “I’ve failed, and that’s that. Malcolm always said I was ham-handed on the piano, and this has proved it. I’ll just have to give up. It doesn’t matter really.”

  Suddenly she had darted away from the front room of the Harrington Street house, run up the stairs and into her room. Creaking springs told that she had flung herself on her bed. Husband and wife had looked at each other, unhappily, and then Kate had forced herself to speak.

  “She’ll be all right, George.”

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “She always was too sure of herself. This might do her good.”

  “I’d like five minutes with those examiners,” Gideon had growled, and then suddenly laughed at himself. “I must go! Call me at the office if you think I can help.”

  “I’ll look after her, dear.”

  And Kate would; no one better.

  Gideon reflected on this as he parked his car near the main entrance of the old Commissioner’s Office Building, soon to be demolished, or at least vacated by the police for stark new premises farther along the river. He must get the girl out of his mind. The funny thing was that when one’s own child was hurt, one was so deeply, unreasonably affected, even when that child was an adult. Penelope was twenty-one - a young woman, not an infant to fuss over and protect.

  The courtyard was crowded with big men, standing by or moving to and from cars, two of which were being dusted. The police sergeant on duty said “Good morning,” and Gideon nodded. The morning was bright and the sky a vivid blue, but for him the dull red brick of the buildings cast a gloom. He walked up the tall flight of steps, noting that the hands of the clock in the hall touched nine-thirty - later than he had intended. Four Jamaicans, spruce and very well-dressed, their dark faces showing an almost polished brightness, were sitting round the big table, talking earnestly; they were West Indian delegates here for a police conference. A constable said: “Good morning, sir.”

  “Morning.”

  Gideon’s office was up one floor, overlooking the Embankment and the Thames, just now shimmering with sunlight and gay with pleasure boats. Gideon hardly gave the view a glance as he sat at his desk of polished mahogany, seeing a pile of reports and documents in front of his chair. On the top was a note in heavy black lettering; 10 a.m. Commissioner’s Office.

  So he wasn’t to have much breathing space before plunging into the administrative problem.

  He pulled his chair up and paused to reflect, putting one hand on the report pile. There were at least a dozen different cases here, each requiring his immediate attention. Half would need studying closely, and he would probably have to talk to the Superintendent-in-Charge of at least six investigations. Allow half an hour for each of these cases, and that would see the morning out. Allow an hour with the Commissioner, and he wouldn’t get round to the last case until mid-afternoon. He glanced up, forgetting that he now had a room of his own, that his assistant had been moved next door. He pressed the bell push as he lifted a telephone. The door leading from his assistant’s room opened instantly, the operator answering at the same time.

  “Get me the Commissioner’s office.” Gideon raised a hand to the tall, lanky man who came in, bony-faced, bright-eyed, thinning black hair smoothed down with too much hair cream, red and white spotted bow tie a little too flamboyant. This was Chief-Superintendent Lemaitre. “Sit,” said Gideon, and a moment later, “Colonel Scott-Marie, please . . . Gideon.” Lemaitre sat down and Gideon asked, “Who’s waiting to see me?”

  “Rollo, Simmons and Golightly,” answered Chief-Superintendent Lemaitre. “As you were late I dealt with the others.”

  Gideon nodded.

  “Yes, Gideon,” said Colonel Sir Reginald Scott-Marie in his rather aloof voice; over the telephone most people found him hard to approach.

  “Is ten o’clock the only possible time, sir?” Gideon asked.

  “Isn’t it convenient for you?”

  “I can make it convenient, but there are one or two urgent jobs I’d rather attend to first.”

  “Then make it eleven,” Scott-Marie said. “And let me know what the Dean says.”

  He rang off before there was time to answer. Gideon frowned as he replaced the receiver. Lemaitre was looking at him, eyebrows raised, lips parted in a set smile. What had the Commissioner meant by “Let me know what the Dean says”? He did not ask Lemaitre if he knew; one way to preserve an oracle-like reputation was to find out the difficult answers for oneself.

  “What’s Golightly want?” he inquired.

  “He’s been over to Ml Division. A woman was strangled there last night,” said Lemaitre. “Looks as if the husband did it.”

  Gideon made no comment except a mental one: that remark, prejudging an issue about which he could not possibly have enough evidence, was characteristic of Lemaitre. It also made it easier for Gideon to form a decision when he saw Scott-Marie. He wondered if Lemaitre realized what the morning’s conference was about. The Yard was a spawning ground for rumour, and none spawned so prodigally as those about appointments in the Force.

  “I’ll see Golightly first,” decided Gideon. “Get him for me.”

  “Right.” Lemaitre went smartly to the door. “We can’t keep the Commissioner waiting too long, can we?”

  Was there a slightly malicious, or hurt, expression in his voice and in his eyes?

  Gideon half wondered as he picked up the first file, marked: Murder: Margaret Entwhistle. C. Supt. Golightly, the second, marked: Murder - Photo-Nudes: C. Supt. Rollo, and the third, marked: Fraud: C. Supt. Simmons. The file beneath this was one he hadn’t seen before, marked: Attempted theft: St. Ludd’s Cathedral. He needed no more telling what Scott-Marie had meant about the Dean; obviously the Commissioner had assumed he would need time to start on this particular investigation. Yet another swift thought, more a reaction, passed through Gideon’s mind: this kind of crime was sacrilege, about which the public conscience was likely to be very sensitive. The case would need careful handling.

  The door opened, and Golightly came in.

  It had often seemed to Gideon that names either fitted perfectly or were complete misfits. Golightly’s fitted like a glove. He was a comparatively small man by the standard of physique in the C.I.D.; neat, bland, gentle, soft-voiced; one seldom heard him approaching, so quiet were his movements. He was in his late forties, fair-haired, with innocent-looking grey eyes which always seemed to have a hint of surprise
in them.

  “Morning, Percy.”

  “Morning, Commander.”

  Gideon was looking through the thin file.

  “Sit down.”

  “Thanks.”

  A married woman, attractive according to the photograph, had been found in her bed, strangled. Her husband, darkly handsome judging from a snapshot of him, said he had come in at three o’clock in the morning and found her dead in bed. Their three children, aged eleven, six, and three, had been sound asleep - two girls in one room and the boy, the eleven-year-old, in his own. The husband, Geoffrey Entwhistle, had telephoned the police. The Divisional murder squad had gone over at once - arriving at three-thirty-one precisely.

  “No one lost much time,” Gideon remarked. “When did you get there?”

  “Just after seven.”

  “Couldn’t you sleep?”

  Golightly smiled dutifully.

  “I’m still an early riser, and I called Information in case I could do anything on the way here. So I looked in at Entwhistle’s place.”

  Gideon’s eyes were smiling.

  “Just to pass the time of morning.”

  “You know how the Divisions like someone to hold their hand,” rejoined Golightly. “I haven’t a big job on at the moment, you know.”

  That was true. Moreover, this was his kind of job: the family crime, an investigation which affected people suffering from too much emotion. Such a condition was very relevant in Percy Golightly’s opinion; he was hypersensitive to the undertones prevalent in crimes of passion, and in a way he enjoyed burrowing into the causes of such crimes, perhaps because each taught him a little more about human beings and so helped him in his job.

  “Think this one’s right for you?” asked Gideon.

  “It could be.”

  “Lem thinks the husband’s worth keeping an eye on.”

  “So do I,” said Golightly. “And the lover boy.”

  “What?” ejaculated Lemaitre, from the door.

  “So there’s another man involved,” Gideon remarked.

  “Not much doubt about it from what the neighbours say,” Golightly told him.

  “There’s the motive, then!” exclaimed Lemaitre.

  “The lover’s or the husband’s?” asked Golightly, with his mildly perplexed and faintly knowing smile. “Ml is deep in that bank robbery, Commander, that Division’s got enough on its plate. This job isn’t really right for them, anyway. They can give me all the help I’ll need, but Fisherton would be glad to leave it to me.”

  “I dare say,” said Gideon dryly. Fisherton, the Superintendent at Ml Division, was nearing retirement, and since having a serious operation two years before, had lost much of his vigour. He never missed a chance of passing the buck on any job. Golightly, cunning as he was, had anticipated the likely result of his call - probably Fisherton had telephoned Golightly at home. Gideon had to decide quickly whether to let him and Fisherton have their way, or make the Division take the responsibility. The real question was whether Golightly would do the better job; there was no point in being stubborn or cussed.

  Gideon reached his decision.

  “You take over,” he said. “Get any help necessary from the Division; if you need any from here I want to know in advance.”

  Golightly smiled much more freely.

  “Thanks a lot,” he said, and stood up.

  Lemaitre watched him go, leaned back in his chair, exploded: “Lover boy!” and jumped up. “I’ll go get Rollo.”

  Rollo was one of the Yard’s glamour boys, the most worldly and probably the most licentious member of the C.I.D. His reputation as a bachelor made even hardened policemen whistle, shocking some and making others envious, but he had a professional etiquette as rigid as any doctor’s. His affaires de coeur, as he referred to them, were strictly out of business hours; he was as cold-blooded with a beautiful woman witness as with a plain one. His peccadilloes affected his work in this, however: he did know women, particularly the sophisticated and those who were promiscuous by nature. The photo-nude murders probably concerned such women. Unlike the case which had preoccupied the Yard for years, that of the murder of prostitutes whose nude bodies were found in many parts of London, these were of young girls who were easily persuaded to be photographed in the nude. At least three had died soon after being photographed - of narcotic poisoning. The first two had been taken for suicides by overdoses of sleeping tablets; a third, in such identical circumstances, made murder much more likely. Chief Superintendent Hugh Rollo was now in charge of the case. He was a youthful-looking forty-five, pleasant-faced rather than handsome, with a deep, melodious voice.

  “What’s new?” Gideon asked him.

  “I’ve found a professional photographer we knew nothing about who has a collection of nude photographs that would rock the Folies Bergère,” answered Rollo. “He works part-time in the photographic department of a big chemist shop and has access to every poison in the pharmaceutical book. He’s got a nice little picture gallery in a cellar at his home - still lives with his parents, though. I’d like to check if he’s got any pictures of the three girls who died.”

  This was one way of asking for a search warrant, but there was probably more in the request than that.

  “What else?” Gideon demanded.

  Rollo laughed. “Call this a confession. One of his models used to be an acquaintance of mine. I don’t know what you feel about my mixing past pleasures with business.”

  Gideon grinned. “Don’t mix ‘em too intimately,” he said. “Does this chap know he’s under suspicion?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Don’t forget how badly we want the killer,” Gideon said, and waved his hand in dismissal.

  As Rollo stood up, two telephones on Gideon’s desk rang. Gideon answered the exchange telephone, Lemaitre the internal one.

  “Gideon.”

  “Commander’s Office.”

  “Commander, the very Reverend the Dean of St. Ludd’s is on the line.”

  “Hold him for one moment.” Gideon picked up the other telephone. “Gideon.”

  “This is the Back Room, Commander. I’ve got a bunch of press reporters here screaming for a statement on the attempted theft at St. Ludd’s.”

  “Tell ‘em they can’t have one for at least an hour,” Gideon ordered. He rang off, placed one hand over the mouthpiece of the other instrument, and looked across at Lemaitre, who was holding his telephone and obviously waiting to get a word in. “What is it, Lem?”

  “Simmons says he’s onto something. Can he see you later, and not hang about for you now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, Simmy,” Lemaitre said into his mouthpiece.

  “Put the Dean through now, please,” Gideon said.

  He noticed that Big Ben was striking ten; it was a good thing he had postponed the discussion with Scott-Marie.

  3: DELICATE MISSION

  “Good morning, Mr. Howcroft,” Gideon said.

  “Good morning, Mr. Gideon,” said the Very Reverend Dean. “You have some idea why I am worrying you, no doubt.”

  “No worry at all, sir.”

  “That’s most reassuring,” the Dean murmured; his voice was slow, and slightly husky. “May I come and see you this morning?”

  “How soon can you be here?”

  “In five minutes or so, if that would suit you. I am at Westminster Abbey at this moment.”

  Gideon did not understand why he was so surprised, but surprised he was and it took him a moment or two to say, “I’ll be free until five minutes to eleven, sir, when I have to leave for a conference.”

  “Most cooperative of you. I know how busy you must be. Shall I come to any particular entrance?”

  “The Commissioner’s entrance - the man on duty in the yard will direct you, and I’ll have someone waiting in the hall to bring you straight up.”

  “Thank you again,” Dean Howcroft said.

  Gideon rang off, rubbed his chin, saw Lemaitre staring at h
im with more than customary intensity, and smothered a sigh. There were mornings which were simple routine, one could just get on with the job, but too many were like this. Penelope, the administration problem, the fresh murder, the Cathedral crime. He looked back at his assistant, friend, and confidant of many years, feeling almost as if he were about to betray him. It was a nonsensical thought, but he could not rid himself of it. The best thing now was to face the matter squarely.

  “Well, Lem,” he said. “Know what the meeting with Scott-Marie is about?”

  “I can guess,” Lemaitre answered, avoiding Gideon’s eyes.

  “And you’d be right. The decision about the new Deputy Commander can’t be put off much longer.”

  “And it’s not going to be me.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Gideon agreed. He hated himself, yet went on defensively, “We’ve talked this out a dozen times, and you’ve always agreed you don’t want the job.”

  “That’s right, I’m the liar,” Lemaitre muttered.

  He wanted the post desperately, of course, despite the fact that reason told him he was not right for it. He knew that well enough. Now and again, after an abysmal failure to handle a major investigation successfully, he would quip bluffly that he wasn’t cut out for responsibility, that he was the natural assistant, born to subservience. Yet here was a dream of a lifetime, fading; after this morning, all hope, all illusion and all self-deception would be gone. The bony face seemed to become thinner, almost haggard, and the full lips worked.

  “Lem,” Gideon said gently, “I don’t think the job is right for you.”

  “Too true you don’t. Why not let me have it straight? You don’t think I’m right for the job of Deputy Commander, in line for promotion to Commander. Let’s have it, George, the blunt truth.”

  Gideon, so deeply concerned, studied his friend, and then said quietly, “I think Alec Hobbs is right for it.”

  “Dear old school tie.”

  Out of nowhere, Gideon felt a flash of annoyance not far removed from anger, and it must have shown in his expression, for suddenly Lemaitre jumped up, clapped his bony hands together, forced a broad grin, and said boisterously, “Old bloody school tie be damned! You and I went to the same type of school, George, London Elementary in the days before they knew what a grammar school was! Hobbs is the man for the job. I know it, and the fact that I’m not the man for it isn’t your fault or Hobbs’s. There’s just one thing. Don’t ask me to kowtow to the slob.” Suddenly he looked forlorn and anxious; he broke off again.