The Dalwich Desecration Read online

  “Do you suspect Mr. Honeycutt of more than just dislike, Constable?”

  He sagged in his chair with a sigh, though whether aimed at himself or Colin I could not tell. “No,” he said with modest conviction. “I didn’t mean to give you such an impression.”

  “No matter. I am sure Miss O’Dowd would be pleased to hear you defend her with such passion.” Colin pushed his emptied mug away from himself. “Can you be counted amongst her indiscretions, Constable?”

  The young man blanched, giving Colin his answer before he could even speak it. “I did spend some time with her. . . .”

  “Some time,” Colin repeated, seeming to consider precisely what that meant as the bones of a wry grin flitted about his face. “Would that constitute more than a single evening, or less?”

  “It isn’t what you think.” The young constable started to protest before snatching up his beer and swallowing the remainder of it. He slapped his mug onto the table and brushed a hand across his mouth. “We provided companionship for each other from time to time over the last few years. She was a comely woman and knew it. I don’t see as there is anything wrong in that.”

  Colin’s eyebrows lifted precipitously. “Did I say there was?”

  Constable Brendle pushed himself from the table and stood up. “Miss O’Dowd was a rare bird and will be sorely missed. Now, if you don’t mind, I have a commitment this evening and must be off. Shall I stop by tomorrow to fetch you both? I should prefer your continued assistance on both of these murders. If we could work together . . . ?” He let his voice trail off and I suspected he was testing Colin’s opinion in light of his admission.

  “An admirable idea.” Colin gave a smile and stood to shake the man’s hand. “We shall be ready by eight.”

  “ ’Till tomorrow then.”

  As Constable Brendle crossed to the door I turned to Colin with a look I know was more suspicious than confused. “What are you up to? An admirable idea to work with some small-town constable? What sort of trifle is that?”

  “Exactly the sort we need. There is something dreadful going on here, Ethan, and a man like that, who was personally involved with one of the victims, can only prove to facilitate our investigations. . . whether he means to or not,” he added cryptically.

  CHAPTER 10

  We awoke the next morning, as was rapidly becoming our custom, with the waxing of the sun. The room at the back that we had chosen to share faced east, which meant its single window permitted unobstructed access to the first fiery tendrils of the sun as they stretched up over the distant horizon. So by the time the sun had finally raised its luminous head there was no further consideration that one might continue to sleep. It was just as well as it got us up and moving about at a respectable time; Colin to wash and dress while I crept to our other room to tussle the bed linens before pulling clothes from the trunk and getting myself ready. We met downstairs for soft-boiled eggs, sausages, toast, and the ever-soothing Earl Grey tea, and by eight o’clock we were standing outside the tatty inn—for it did look so much more forgiving under the glow of the moon and the hiss of gaslight—waiting for Constable Brendle to collect us.

  The three of us rode out to the monastery in relative silence, and while I knew Colin was ruminating these two disparate yet similar murders, I wondered what the constable was making of it all. Most especially because of his previous association with Miss O’Dowd.

  As we pulled onto the rutted driveway of Whitmore Abbey I caught sight of a rail-thin young man with ginger hair dashing into a side entrance. Though I did not get a decent look at him, I suspected it had to be Brother Hollings, the poor bloke who had discovered the abbot’s body. Not a minute later, just as the constable was bringing the carriage to an easy stop, tall, doughy Brother Green burst out the front door with his ever-generous grin alighting his face, wiping his hands on a well-used kitchen towel.

  “Gentlemen!” he called genuinely. “And how is the Lord’s new day treating you?”

  “As well as can be expected,” Constable Brendle answered with a polite nod. “I only wish our business here was of a better nature.” Brother Green’s smile waned as he quickly crossed himself, and it made me appreciate just how polished this young constable was.

  “Were you able to see to your abbot’s proper burial yesterday?” I asked.

  Brother Green’s face changed yet again as a warm grin returned to his face. “Indeed, we did, and I thank you both for allowing us to do so with such haste. Our blessed abbot was dear to all of us, and it troubled our souls greatly to be unable to pay our final respects and return his body to the earth from whence it came.” His eyes radiated the warmth of his words as he took a step back and gestured to us. “Come inside now and tell me how we can assist your investigation.”

  “If I may? . . .” Colin was, of course, the first to speak as soon as we were inside. “We should like to meet with Brother Hollings right off. Is he about?”

  “Is he about?!” Brother Green gave a delighted chuckle. “Well, of course he is about. Where else would he be?”

  The constable and I both smiled, but Colin did not flinch. He allowed only a stiff sort of grin to breeze across his face before Brother Green led us back to the refectory, where we had eaten dinner two nights before. “You gentlemen settle in here and I’ll have Brother Hollings come and see you. I can offer you some tea, but I’m afraid we haven’t much else to accompany it.”

  “You mustn’t trouble yourself,” Colin said. “You attend to your business and we shall do our best to be as unobtrusive as possible.”

  “It’s no trouble,” Brother Green assured at once. “We may be monks, but we are not without our manners.” He chuckled as he swept out of the room.

  “That monk has the most generous way about himself,” Constable Brendle noted as he sat down across from Colin and me. “His calling seems to bring him a great deal of satisfaction and pleasure.”

  “So he would have us believe. . . .” Colin muttered, though I caught a hint of mischief behind his eyes. “It seems to me he acts as though his abbot has only stubbed a toe or overslept. I find it all rather curious.”

  Constable Brendle frowned and appeared to be considering Colin’s observation, which made me feel rather bad for the young officer, though not enough to speak up on his behalf. After several moments pondering, he apparently grew weary of the prospect and settled on changing the subject. “And what do you hope to learn from Brother Hollings?”

  “The truth of course,” Colin answered.

  Before the conversation could hobble any further, the young monk we had come to see presented himself in the doorway, gangly, reticent, and cursed with the paleness of a true redhead.

  “Brother Hollings.” Colin stood up and gave him the first honest smile I had seen him produce since our arrival. “Thank you for joining us. Please do come in and sit down.”

  The young man nodded, his wavy red hair continuing to bob for a moment after his head had stopped moving. He crept forward on silent feet, managing to keep even his cassock from rustling, before seating himself on the same side of the bench as the constable. Rather than slide in beside Constable Brendle, however, he left a gap between the two of them that only seemed to further demonstrate his ubiquitous discomfort.

  “I know this has been a terrible time for everyone here at the monastery,” Colin began, “and I appreciate how that must be especially true for you.”

  Brother Hollings nodded and dropped his gaze, appearing to concentrate on his folded hands resting on the table as though there might be some solace to be found there. I wondered how old this young man was, with his soft blue eyes and skin so pale and clear that it looked as though the sun had never had occasion to alight upon it. But most of all I wondered what had led him here, hiding away from the world in the single-minded pursuit of spiritual devotion. Had something fearful driven him to righteousness just as it had driven me to opiates and pilferage? Or perhaps he had found himself dispossessed? Or maybe he truly had bee
n called to something profound? Something that someone like me could never understand. Whichever the case, I could not shake the feeling that save for the shading of degrees, this young man and I were not that different when the spectre of our futures had forced us to respond.

  “How long have you been at Whitmore?” Colin asked.

  The young man’s lips pursed and it looked almost as though he was in pain. “About two years,” he finally answered in a voice as soft as it was hesitant.

  “Are you the last monk to join?”

  “No, Brother Nathan is.”

  “Brother Nathan . . . ?” Colin glanced at me, and I knew he was checking to see whether we had heard the name before.

  “I’m not familiar with him,” I said for Colin’s benefit. “Where does he work?”

  The young monk slid his gaze up, though his chin remained resolutely pointed toward his lap. That he was shy and ill at ease was irrefutable, but there was something else about him that I simply could not reconcile. “Out in the fields with Brother Duncan,” he said after a moment.

  “And you . . . ?” Colin took up the thread of the conversation again, such as it was. “You worked for the abbot?”

  “Sometimes. Mostly Brothers Morrison and Silsbury.”

  Colin nodded with interest, his eyebrows knitting as though he found the whole thing quite fascinating, which I was certain he did not. “And what exactly do you do for them?”

  “Whatever is needed,” came the taciturn reply. “And I attend to the upkeep of our common areas.”

  “Very noble,” Colin allowed with the ghost of a smile that the young brother did not see. “Now, I know this is difficult for you, Brother Hollings, but I need to ask you some questions about the morning you discovered your abbot’s body.”

  Brother Hollings nodded grimly and I could almost physically feel him steeling himself. I felt sorry for the young man. He clearly felt close to the late abbot, which made the fact that he had not only discovered the poor monk’s body but subsequently scoured his cell of its carnage that much more horrific. Even so, Brother Hollings appeared resigned to the fact of assisting us in spite of the melancholia that appeared ready to swamp him at any moment.

  “How is it that you ended up going to the abbot’s cell after he failed to show up for morning prayers?” Colin asked with his usual fervor, the details of another person’s mood inconsequential when he was ferreting about on a case.

  “I often did odd jobs for him,” he answered in his reticent voice. “It was appropriate for me to go.”

  “Now, I know this is difficult for you, Brother, but I need you to describe for us exactly what happened and what you saw when you arrived at the abbot’s cell.”

  The young monk released a laden sigh that seemed to have the effect of folding his body even further into itself, giving him an appearance of such insignificance that a fleeting glimpse would seem to reveal him more a shadow than a man. “His door was closed . . .” He spoke quietly and with a notch of hesitation in his voice. “I knocked twice, but there was no answer . . . no sound from inside. I figured he must have gone somewhere, but I opened the door anyway. I don’t even know why . . .” He sat there for a moment, his shoulders hunched forward and his gaze boring into the tabletop as though it might keep the apparition so evidently struggling within his mind from surfacing. “He was lying on the floor,” he started again, this time his words coming in a barely audible whisper, “he was facedown. There was blood . . .”

  He blinked twice. “It was everywhere. I . . . I backed away. I didn’t know what had happened. It was . . .” He dropped his face into his hands. “I ran to get Brother Silsbury. I didn’t even check on him . . . I just ran . . .” His voice broke as he sank behind his pale fingers.

  Constable Brendle was the first to speak up after he slid the short distance down the bench until he was beside the monk, where he rested a hand upon the younger man’s shoulder. “You mustn’t, Brother Hollings,” he soothed. “You were trying to get him help. It was the right thing to do.”

  “I didn’t even go to him. . . .”

  “It wouldn’t have made any difference,” Colin cut in. “I can assure you most certainly that he was dead some time before you came upon him. Seeking aid in that moment was the best thing you could have done.”

  The monk drew in a slow, protracted breath. “I pray to God every day that I did the right thing.”

  “Of course you did,” the constable reassured as he dropped his hand and gave a wincing sort of grin. “Even Mr. Pendragon here says so.”

  “It must have been a difficult thing to return to the cell,” Colin pressed, and though his words were bound with compassion, I knew he expected an answer.

  “They needed me to help move his body. Brother Silsbury is strong, but Brother Morrison is elderly and does not walk well.”

  “And then you went back again to clean it?” Colin prodded.

  “I was grateful to set my mind to a task,” Brother Hollings mumbled. “I didn’t know what else I should do.”

  “Sensible,” Colin stated in a curious sort of way. “Did you notice anything unusual when you were cleaning the cell?”

  Brother Hollings shook his head once as his eyes drifted back to the table, demonstrating his relief at having been able to set himself to the ghastly chore. “I did not let myself think,” he said. “I only worked at the task before me.”

  Colin’s face remained impassive as he nodded, pursing his lips as though he were deep in thought, which seemed unlikely as I was certain he had laid out every question on our journey here this morning. “Did you pick up the pottery pieces from the bowl that was knocked to the floor?”

  “It was the pitcher,” Brother Hollings corrected. “The bowl landed safely on the bed. I set it back on the stand.”

  Colin nodded solicitously, but I knew he had only been testing the young monk. “When you discovered the abbot’s body, did you notice whether he was holding anything in either of his hands?”

  Brother Hollings looked to be considering the question before pinching his lips and shaking his head again.

  “You’ve already told us you don’t remember seeing anything on the abbot’s table, is that right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “I cleaned the entirety of his cell. I couldn’t have missed such a thing.”

  “Did you know whether he kept a Bible in his cell?”

  The young man opened his mouth to answer and then shut it, appearing to be reconsidering. “I . . .” He stopped again and frowned before looking up at us from below his lowered brow.

  “But you didn’t see one that morning?”

  He shook his head.

  “Was anyone else missing from prayers that morning other than Brother . . .” Colin hesitated before flicking his eyes at me.

  “Wright,” I reminded.

  “Yes.” He gave a slight smile. “Brother Wright was in his cell with a migraine, I believe. Was anyone else missing?”

  “No, sir,” Brother Hollings answered after a moment.

  “Very well then.” Colin nodded succinctly. “I think we have asked enough of you for now.”

  Brother Hollings bobbed his head once and stood up, his face as forlorn as when we had started. His eyes remained downcast as though we were too daunting to look at, and as was true of his entrance, he was able to glide back to the door with nary a rustle of fabric. For a fleeting moment I wondered whether such restraint could actually be a part of novitiate training.

  “Sirs . . .” the young man said from the doorway, his voice as tentative as ever. “Never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, sayeth the Lord.’” He dipped his head in a stiff sort of nod, as though his words should reveal something to us, and then he was gone.

  “What in heaven’s name was that?” I asked.

  Colin chuckled. “Well said. It was a quote from the Bible.”

  �
��I gathered that. But what does he mean by it?”

  This time Constable Brendle spoke up before Colin could. “I believe it’s from the book of Romans, but I wouldn’t swear to it.” His pale cheeks flushed pink as a small grin tugged at his lips. “I suppose I shouldn’t be swearing to anything in a monastery.”

  I allowed myself a grin both at the constable’s words and at his embarrassment of them, but when I turned to Colin I found no such similar smirk on his face and decided my question was not so easily answered.

  “I am less concerned about that lad’s scriptural ramblings,” Colin said concisely, “than I am about speaking with that monk who was missing the morning of the murder. Wright, you said?” He glanced at me, but I could tell he had the man’s name well learned now that he was intrigued by him.

  Before I could respond, a deep voice rumbled from the doorway behind the three of us. “I see you have come back.” Brother Morrison stood just inside the refectory, his craggy, round face as cheerless as ever.

  “Now, don’t make a fuss . . .” Colin said as the three of us rose. “You will only embarrass us.” He gave a fleeting smile that the monk did not return.

  “I must profess,” he said dourly, “that I am disappointed in your persistent need to badger Brother Hollings. He is a fragile young spirit who has suffered greatly these past few days. I should think that might earn him a modicum of grace on your part. If you can be so inclined to be thusly moved.”

  “Mr. Pendragon has been the very model of compassion with Brother Hollings.” I spoke up at once, bristling at the elder monk’s censure of Colin. “I am sure you realize that we could not conduct a successful investigation without speaking to all of the parties concerned. And I know you wish us to be thorough and expeditious,” I added, even though I suspected he only truly wanted us gone.

  Brother Morrison studied me for a moment before shifting his eyes back to Colin and asking, “And it is Brother Wright you wish to speak with now?” And in that instant I felt utterly dismissed.

  “You have sound hearing,” Colin answered with a tight nod.