The Dalwich Desecration Read online

  Whether it was the sight of Brother Hollings’s extraordinary modesty or merely the fact that I had suddenly begun to feel overly exposed, I felt compelled to reach over and pull my undershirt over my head, and was instantly relieved that I had done so. The other monk in the balneary smoothly repeated the process I had glimpsed earlier of slipping his cassock on before stepping out of his waist cloth with utmost discretion. He swooped it up and was gone in a breath, leaving me and Brother Hollings alone, though we could hardly have been farther apart.

  I was actually considering the idea of speaking with the young monk again when a small scuffle in the hallway caught my attention. I turned fully away from the trough to find the cause of the ruckus only to see Colin bound into the room in just his trousers and boots, an undershirt clutched in one hand and a hearty smile alighting his face.

  “There you are!” he said as though we had not seen each other in days. “I checked your cell on my way here and found it empty. I was beginning to wonder if you never made it back last night.” He chuckled as he came over to me and, before I knew what he was doing, reached out and squeezed my nearest hand.

  “Hey!” I hissed, yanking away from him as I shot my eyes over to the corner where Brother Hollings was, surprised to discover that he was gone.

  “What’s the matter?” Colin asked, his smile fading.

  “Brother Hollings . . .” I mumbled, glancing around and seeing that we were, in fact, quite alone. “He was just here. I didn’t want. . .” But I knew I didn’t need to finish the sentence. “Sorry.”

  “I suspect that poor boy ran off the minute he heard me coming. He was here when I came in yesterday as well and did the same thing. I would swear he wears more clothing when washing than our Victoria does when she attends church.”

  “Why are you so jittery this morning,” he asked as he turned toward the trough and twisted the spigot on.

  “Need I remind you how we were compromised just two days ago,” I answered under my breath. “Have you forgotten that?”

  “We were sleeping,” he muttered dismissively as he started washing his face. “Perfectly civil.”

  I looked up at the ceiling and exhaled an exasperated breath. “It didn’t feel very civil when we were being thrown onto the street with our belongings. And look at you prancing about the monastery this morning in just your trousers. Have you no prudence?”

  “Prudence?” He stood up and stared at me, his face dripping water onto his chest. “This place is full of men. Nothing but men. What is imprudent about anything I am doing in that circumstance?”

  “They’re not men,” I shot back before I’d truly considered what I was about to say. “They are monks.”

  Colin let out an abrupt laugh. “Well, I suppose you have a point, but I’ll bet more than a few of them would be deeply offended by your statement.” He turned back to the trough and dunked his head fully under the spigot.

  I pulled my shirt on and wondered how I had gotten so sideways in trying to explain what I meant. It had seemed to make sense as it was coming out of my mouth, but once released it sounded as foolish as the incessant humiliation that continued to nettle me since our expulsion from the Pig and Pint. Why did I even care what Raleigh Chesterton thought of Colin or me? I could not say, yet I knew that I did.

  “Did you have any success last night? Did you find anything of interest?” Colin asked as he stood up and toweled his tawny hair before running his fingers through it just as I had done with my own.

  “I never had a chance to get the papers,” I stated simply, knowing he would be surprised at this perceived failure on my part. I allowed a tiny grin. “Because I stumbled upon a late-night conversation in the infirmary between Brothers Silsbury, Clayworth, and Wright. All very clandestine,” I added, dropping my voice.

  “And . . .” he prodded with his typical impatience.

  I was on the verge of sharing what little I had managed to overhear when Brother Rodney drifted into the room, his small frame moving with the stealth of a breeze. “Good morning, Brother Rodney,” I called out to make sure Colin realized we were no longer alone.

  “Gentlemen,” he answered in a near squeak, and I realized that I had never heard him speak before. Brother Green had always done the talking whenever we were with the two of them. It felt strangely relieving to know that Brother Rodney actually had a voice.

  “Put your undershirt on,” I muttered to Colin as Brother Rodney turned away from us, remaining as far away as he could just as Brother Hollings had done before he’d simply decided to flee. “You’re embarrassing everyone.”

  Colin rolled his eyes but did as I asked before snatching up his towel. “Why don’t we finish getting dressed and meet at the entry by the chapel. We need to return to Dalwich and discuss a few things with the constable. I should think a brisk walk will do well to calm you down some. And on our way you must tell me the rest of what you overheard last night.”

  “Of course.” I nodded with some chagrin as I grabbed my own small towel and we headed for the door. “Good day to you, Brother Rodney,” I called back to the diminutive man, noticing that he too had only gone as far as loosening the collar of his cassock. That so many of these monks were clearly so painfully reserved once again reminded me of the boys at Easling and Temple. I wondered if it was our presence alone that put them so on edge or if it was just the way of it. “I am afraid,” I murmured to Colin as we walked back down the hallway, “that what I heard last night amounts to nothing. Those men seemed far more concerned about our being here than who has killed their abbot.”

  “Which means we have set them on edge and I am quite content to have done so.” We stopped by the door to my cell. “We are drawing ever closer to the perpetrator, Ethan. That meeting you happened upon proves it. We have set this monastery on edge and it is only a matter of degrees now before we force the killer into the abyss.”

  I nodded as I pushed into my cell and quickly finished dressing, a feat I was able to accomplish with minimal fuss, though my hair was not nearly as cooperative as my truncated wardrobe. All the while I hoped that Colin was correct even as I wondered how he could feel so certain. I threw on my vest and jacket and headed for the vestibule, having deigned myself presentable enough, given that there were no mirrors anywhere to ensure it.

  I was still buttoning up my vest as I came barreling around the last corner just past the chapel doors and nearly collided with Father Demetris, who was hovering just outside of the abbot’s office. “Right on time . . .” Colin beamed as I managed to pull myself up short. “It is nice to be able to rely on some things in this world,” he added.

  “Indeed it is,” Father Demetris agreed as he threw the office door open. “Such is the way of the Lord.” And now it was his turn to beam as he ushered us in. “Sit down, sit down,” he bade us, seating himself behind the large desk as usual. “I wanted you to know that I have already spoken with Brother Bursnell this morning and he tells me he did a thorough check of the library and has been unable to find any of Abbot Tufton’s Egyptian journals. He confessed to being at it until far past vespers last night, so you can rest assured that he has done everything he can. I’m afraid they have been mislaid, although perhaps Abbot Tufton removed them at some point himself.” Father Demetris looked to be considering that possibility for the first time as a thoughtful scowl colored his face. “They did belong to him, after all. And it’s certainly not as if one of the other men would have coveted them. Everything in the library is for the use of all of the monks. There would be no call for such an action.” He leaned forward in what felt like an effort to make sure we were following his logic. “It hardly merits saying that I would never expect a man capable of stealing to have taken the vows required of living in a monastery.”

  “And yet . . .” Colin spoke up and I knew precisely what he was about to say. “It does still remain most probable that the man capable of murdering your Abbot Tufton made those same vows and resides here even now.” He flashed a pained
sort of smile before waving his hand through the air as though to dismiss the entire sordid conceit. “Let us assume, for a moment, that the abbot did take his journals back. Wherever do you suppose he would have put them? There was certainly nothing to be found in his cell.”

  “Where . . . ?” Father Demetris tilted his head and stared at us blankly, and I could tell he remained quite disturbed by Colin’s assertion of a moment ago. “Well, I’m sure I wouldn’t know,” he managed after a moment.

  Colin nodded perfunctorily before pressing ahead. “Then let me ask you one other thing. Do the monks here practice any sort of mortification as a show of their penance?”

  Father Demetris’s eyes went wide as though the very suggestion was somehow offensive or shocking. “We are not living in the Middle Ages, Mr. Pendragon. The church has not condoned such archaic forms of self-torture in hundreds of years.”

  “My apologies,” Colin said, allowing a tight grin to fleet across his face, yet as always there appeared to be little honest regret in his tone. “I needed to avail myself of the loo last night and heard someone crying in his cell as I traversed the hallway. The sound was quite muffled and impossible to discern from which cell it came, but it did put me in mind of such past disciplines and I felt obligated to verify whether those activities were still practiced.”

  “I can assure you they are not.”

  “Just a moment of sorrow for one of the brothers then,” Colin answered blithely as the slightest hint of a grin tugged at one corner of his mouth. “Otherwise it would seem to me that such a practice would appear to suggest a guilty conscience, wouldn’t you say? For one reason or another,” he added as though it was an afterthought, which I knew it almost certainly wasn’t.

  “All very good and well,” Father Demetris said as he settled back into his chair again, “but I am afraid you are off the mark. Far more likely that one of the brothers merely became overwhelmed with the Holy Spirit during his prayers. God’s love is a powerful force.”

  “Indeed.” Colin flashed that same tight smile again as he stood up. “And now you must excuse Mr. Pruitt and me for a few hours as we have a bit of unfinished business to conclude in Dalwich.”

  “Is it about that poor young woman who was murdered?”

  Colin nodded grimly as he started for the door. “That it is.”

  “God grant you whatever you need to triumph,” the priest called after us.

  “He already has,” Colin answered cryptically as we walked out and pulled the door shut.

  “You sound quite sure of yourself,” I noted as we headed for the front doors.

  “Yes, I suppose you could say that . . .” he muttered distractedly, his face having grown restive.

  “I must confess I haven’t necessarily felt that to be true.”

  Colin shoved his way out the door and I found myself hurrying to keep up with him in spite of the fact that my legs are longer. If I was having doubts about the certainty of his statement, the pace of his stride assured me that he was not. “I passed the library several times last night,” he abruptly blurted out, “and never once saw Brother Bursnell in there searching for anything. So either he is lying to Father Demetris, or Father Demetris is lying to us.”

  “Lying?! They’re clerics. . . .” But I stopped myself from finishing that thought, well aware of how foolish I would sound. “What about Maureen O’Dowd? You said we were on our way to conclude that case?”

  Colin shot a hasty glance my direction without the slightest hesitation in his stride. “Father Demetris has just now put me in mind of something that has been rumbling about my brain for the last several days.”

  “He has? Whatever would that be?”

  “Coveting and pilfering,” he said bleakly as we charged down the uneven path toward Dalwich.

  CHAPTER 27

  Constable Lachlan Brendle looked almost like a man renewed. The color was returning to his cheeks and his eyes looked clearer than they had since he’d been shot three days before. I eyed the small medicine bottle next to his bed and was pleased to find it slightly more than half full, a testament to the clarity behind his eyes. He was once again fully upright in his bed, though he had informed us with a heavy sigh that the doctor insisted he not attempt to get out of it for another three weeks. His cheeks and jaw were freshly shaved, removing the auburn shadow he had been cultivating, and his hair had been carefully parted down the middle and slicked back on both sides. He looked rather like a young magistrate who chose to dispense justice from the comfort of his bed.

  Colin and I had pulled chairs alongside the constable’s bed, and Mr. Masri was seated across the room near the door in the spot usually occupied by Mr. Whitsett. As before, Mr. Whitsett had been sent to the Pig and Pint to fetch Raleigh Chesterton, but this time he’d also been requested to bring Edward Honeycutt and Annabelle White. There was no doubt that Mr. Chesterton would be livid at this decimation of his lunchtime staff, but I knew it made little difference to Colin, who was focused on collecting his suspects.

  “But surely you must have something concrete you can share . . .” Constable Brendle was practically begging, the flush in his cheeks and the determination behind his eyes a further attestation to his rapidly improving health.

  Colin chuckled quietly as he dug out a crown and sent it scurrying between his fingers. “It isn’t as though I am hiding something from you,” he said, the lie coming as smoothly as the gossamer threads from a spider. “While I will confess to being a man who keeps his own counsel, Mr. Pruitt being something of an exception,” he added, gesturing at me with a distracted wave of his free hand that spoke to the fact that I too was often kept in the dark, “it is also not my habit to neglect cooperating with the proper authorities.” A thin-lipped grin fleeted across his face and I wondered how he could say such a thing without being struck by lightning or at the very least blushing. Indeed, if the present circumstances had not been so grim, I believe I would have laughed out loud myself. As it was, I held my tongue while imagining the dreadful shade of plum that Constable Varcoe would turn were he still alive to hear Colin’s self-assessment.

  “I didn’t mean to suggest such a thing,” the constable backpedaled exactly as Colin had intended. “I was only hoping for an insight into the way you work, Mr. Pendragon. There is so much my men and I can learn from you and I would hate to squander such an opportunity.”

  “Oh . . .” A faint grin raised the corners of Colin’s mouth as the coin he was spinning through his fingers halted for an instant. “You flatter me,” he said with noticeable pleasure before he started the coin on its rotation again.

  “Mr. Pendragon has greater than ten years on you, Constable.” I finally spoke up, perfectly content to prick Colin’s ego a touch lest it should derail him. “There is much to be said about the significance of pure experience.”

  Colin’s eyebrows ticked a lack of amusement, just as I had known they would. “Yes. . . .” he muttered.

  “Some things simply cannot be taught,” I added.

  No sooner had the words left my mouth than I heard the front door open and close in the other room. The footfalls of multiple shoes clattering upon the floorboards grew closer, though no one could be heard to be speaking. Lanky, awkward Annabelle White was the first to enter the room, all angles and shuffling feet, followed by Edward Honeycutt wearing an expression somewhere between discomfort and distress. Mr. Chesterton entered a whole moment later, Mr. Whitsett coaxing him with a steady hand on his back, which the older man seemed quite displeased about.

  “Oh, bloody hell . . .” Raleigh Chesterton pulled up short in the doorway as he spotted Colin and me. “Are these two gonna be here every time you send for me?” Mr. Whitsett tried to prod Mr. Chesterton into the room, but his efforts were soundly rebuffed. “I got nothin’ more ta say ta them. I told ya that the last time.” I presumed he was speaking to Constable Brendle, but this time his eyes did not leave Colin and me for an instant.

  “I’ll not have this conversation
with you again, Raleigh,” the constable answered at once, his eyes flashing darkly. And if I had not already known that he was feeling better I could most certainly see it now. “You will find yourself a chair, sit down, and be civil, or you will end up in a cell for impeding this investigation until I can get a magistrate from Arundel to release you. And in my present condition you can be sure it will take some measure of time for me to accomplish that!”

  Raleigh Chesterton gave a deep-throated snort as he grabbed one of the wooden chairs Mr. Masri had dragged in from the other room and pulled it opposite to where Colin and I were seated. “I ain’t the one belongs behind bars . . .” he groused as he heaved himself into the chair, folding his arms across his chest like a petulant child.

  “If you please . . .” Constable Brendle said to the others, waving a hand toward the remaining chairs stationed around the room for Annabelle White, Edward Honeycutt, and Mr. Whitsett, leaving Mr. Masri seated back by the entrance to the room, his left arm dangling within the muslin sling fastened around his neck like an injured bird. Everyone looked confused and uneasy with the notable exception of Mr. Chesterton, who appeared to be nothing less than incensed. “Now, Mr. Pendragon has requested to speak with the lot of you about the murder of Maureen O’Dowd. Please know that he does so with the full support and authority of my office, and I will expect each of you to behave accordingly. And I hold myself to this same standard since, as you are all aware, I had a brief liaison with Miss O’Dowd some time back and therefore do not presume to hold myself above the very law I seek to enforce.” He flicked his eyes between everyone in the room before landing on Raleigh Chesterton.

  “So what . . .” he snapped back corrosively, “she courted her share a men. What does that have ta do with anything?”

  “She loved me,” Edward Honeycutt flung back, sounding almost pitiful, leaving me to wonder if he was trying to convince us or himself. “I’m the one she was going to marry and move to London with. We were going to raise our baby there . . .” The young man’s voice caught.