The Dalwich Desecration Read online

  “Such a banal answer,” Colin sniffed as he moved down to where Brother Hollings was sitting. The young man looked almost as if he was sleeping, his head bowed forward and his eyes clamped shut, with his straight ginger hair dangling about his face like a veil. But as I continued to stare at him I noticed that his lips were moving rapidly. At first I thought perhaps he was whispering something to Brother Green, who was seated beside him, but I quickly realized that he was, in fact, reciting a prayer.

  “I am sorry that you have been drawn into all of this,” Colin said as he reached the young monk, dropping a hand on his shoulder and causing him to jump slightly and instantly draw his head up, abruptly ending his prayer. As we all watched, Colin leaned forward and brought his lips nearly to Brother Hollings’s ear. “May I ask you to do something for me that I know you will find distressing?” he asked barely above a whisper.

  The poor lad blinked repeatedly and I felt unaccountably sorry for him. He looked pitiable as he sat there, not daring to glance up at Colin but rather holding his gaze on the tabletop in front of him as though his very existence depended on his doing so. “What . . . ?” And it was only because I could see his lips that I knew what he had said.

  Colin’s expression remained flat and unreadable, his voice steady. “Will you please lower your cassock to your waist? You needn’t stand up.”

  Brother Hollings did not move and I was fairly certain that he must have ceased to breathe as well. Why Colin would ask such a thing of a young man we both knew to be inordinately shy I could not understand.

  “What is he saying? What is the meaning of this?” Brother Morrison blasted from the far side of the table before turning to glare at Father Demetris. “I insist you put a stop to this nonsense immediately.”

  “This is the first step to setting your spirit free.” Colin continued to coax Brother Hollings, as though Brother Morrison had not even spoken a word. “It is the only thing I shall require of you.”

  I was certain Brother Hollings would never consent to doing what Colin was asking, but to my amazement the young man quite suddenly reached up and, with quivering hands, undid his collar. It took less than a breath before he was lowering the top of the garment, and at first I could not understand what was being revealed beneath. Still, neither I nor any of the other monks averted our eyes and, in a minute, I saw that Brother Hollings was wearing a mid-sleeve, tight black undergarment woven of animal hair. A hair shirt. And in that moment I understood.

  “Oh Christ.” Brother Morrison pushed himself back from the table as though the garment itself might sully him in some way. “You bloody ass. You have the conviction of a toad. You are a disgrace to this abbey.”

  “Wait a minute . . .” Brother Silsbury interrupted, his eyes moving between Brother Morrison and Brother Hollings. “I don’t understand. Where did you get that, Brother Hollings? Whoever told you to wear such a thing?”

  It took only an instant for the young man’s eyes to shift to Brother Morrison.

  “John Tufton was a goddamn heretic!” the elderly monk roared, his face turning crimson with his fury. “There are no doubts for a man of true faith,” he spat his earlier conviction again. “He would have polluted this entire brotherhood with his sacrilege. Brother Hollings did the Lord’s work by removing that demon’s tongue and throwing it to the Hell fires.”

  “Brother Hollings?!” Brother Silsbury lurched in his seat, turning to stare at the young man. “Oh, Rupert . . . no . . .”

  “Brother Morrison said I was called to it,” he answered in a single breath, stabbing his hands to his face and beginning to weep. “He said I must do whatever the Lord needed me to . . .” His voice was so rough with tears it was nearly impossible to hear what he was saying.

  “ ‘If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father,’” Brother Morrison howled as he heaved himself to his feet, “ ‘then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones; so you shall purge the evil from your midst!’ Do any of you even recognize the word of God anymore?!”

  “You have perverted His intent.” Brother Silsbury rose to his feet, his cheeks flush and his face as pale as milk. “You have dishonored us all and ruptured the soul of this poor boy.”

  Brother Hollings cried out through his fingers and slid from the bench to the floor, his face slick with tears as a clutch of hysteria gripped him. I thought to go to him, to try and console him in some way, but what did I understand of the depths of his belief or the surety of his faith that had propelled him to follow the distorted convictions of his elder monk? So I was profoundly relieved when I watched large, ponderous Brother Green awkwardly lower himself to the floor and wrap his arms around the young man.

  “God has forsaken the bloody lot of you,” Brother Morrison was growling as he straightened his cassock, staring down at the quivering form of Brother Hollings with obvious distaste. “The bloody lot of you!” he repeated. And then he turned and began to move toward the exit as though what he had said should be enough.

  “You incited a horrible, brutal murder.” Colin spoke quietly as he stepped in front of the man.

  “I have severed the head of the asp and left the tail to Hell,” he spat.

  “Brother Morrison . . . Robert . . .” Brother Clayworth stood up, his pallor gray and his eyes as flat as death. “You have lost your way, but God does not forsake you. . . .”

  The elder monk spun on him with surprising deftness. “Do not presume to judge me,” he sneered. “I am a soldier of the Lord. How could you understand that, you besotted wretch? How could any of you understand?”

  He turned again and ambled from the room, and this time Colin did not try to stop him. We all remained as we were, the frantic sounds of Brother Hollings’s wails smothered in the black fabric of Brother Green’s cassock, the look on the older monk’s face a mask of anguish and shock. Even so, he held on to the broken young man and I admired Brother Green’s extraordinary devotion and strength.

  “Were we in London I would summon the Yard,” Colin said after a minute had passed, a decided lack of conviction in his voice. “I must confess to being at a loss here. . . .”

  “They are the church’s burden,” Father Demetris answered at once. “I will contact Bishop Fencourt. He will want to consult with the Apostolic Palace. The Holy See will guide us now. And they will warrant the salvation of our poor Brother Hollings.”

  Colin looked pained as he stared out at the tortured faces of the men gazing back at him—all but Brother Hollings. The young monk continued to weep in the consuming arms of Brother Green, who was still rocking him gently from their position on the floor.

  Colin let a burdened sigh escape his lips before he began to speak, his voice sounding hesitant, with an unaccustomed hitch to it. “Should I agree to allow you to do as you say, you cannot permit Brother Morrison to leave his cell and”—he cleared his throat awkwardly, his eyes flicking about the room—“there is always the possibility he might try to harm himself . . . or Brother Hollings here . . .”

  “I will stay with Brother Hollings as though he were a part of my own body.” Brother Green spoke up at once. “We will remain together until the Holy Father’s wishes are known, and then I will remain with him even so if he needs me to.”

  “And I will make certain that Brother Morrison remains in his cell until we receive word,” Brother Silsbury consented, his gaze wearied. “He will not harm himself. To do so would be a sin against God.”

  Colin looked as though he were about to state the obvious before he seemed to think better of it, thankfully snapping his mouth shut and settling for a simple nod of his head.

  “I shall watch over our poor Brother Morrison as well,” Brother Clayworth put in. “It is the least I can offer to him now.”

  “As will I,” Brother Wright added. “I know we will all be unified in our support and prayers for both of our brothers. We would have learned nothing if we could not offer one another solace at such a time as
this.”

  “Then I shall not interfere,” Colin said. “Mr. Pruitt and I will be gone by midday.”

  And so we were.

  CHAPTER 30

  There is quite simply nothing like being at home and sleeping in one’s own bed. And I felt that truth ever more so given that I had also been sleeping alone for the past several nights. While I cannot recall precisely when I became fully enamored with sharing a bed, I will admit that it suits me now, making a night on my own feel foreign and discomfiting. Not to mention that I had just been trying to slumber at the scene of a murder.

  So it was a pleasure to open my eyes and stare into Colin’s sleeping face not a handful of inches away from me, his right arm tucked under my neck and the other strewn across my side. In the next instant, however, I had the sudden realization that my neck was throbbing all along the length of where his arm was stashed beneath it, and that I could not feel my left leg whatsoever. “Colin . . .” I mumbled, the word coming out dry and cracked, alerting me to the fact that I had likely been sleeping with my mouth agape for the better part of the night. I dragged my right hand up to my chin to check whether a thread of drool might be crusting there and found that it was. What a sight I would be. “Colin . . .” I said again with far greater determination, and this time his brilliant blue eyes sprang open.

  He started to smile at me before his face abruptly screwed up in a display of evident pain. “My arm . . .” he gasped, “. . . it feels like someone’s stuck a thousand blasted needles into it.”

  “I can’t feel my left leg at all.”

  We began to delicately extricate our jumble of limbs, nerve endings throughout both of our bodies screaming their wretched torment, when the sound of approaching footsteps caught my attention. “Mrs. Behmoth is coming,” I yawned.

  “Well, thankfully, unlike the chambermaid at the Pig and Pint, she isn’t about to come barging in here,” he said as he began to massage his sleeping arm, releasing a hiss of pain as he did so.

  And, of course, I knew he was right. Even when our bedroom door quite suddenly burst open I still believed he was correct. And so he was. For it was not Mrs. Behmoth who stood in our doorway but Colin’s father, Sir Atherton Rentcliff Pendragon.

  “How can the two of you be lying about like a pair of jackanapes when you have wrought such havoc upon that poor monastery in Dalwich?” he demanded as he came ambling into the room and lowered himself onto the foot of our bed. All I could think was how grateful I was that he had not arrived one minute earlier. “What a sorrowful affair,” he muttered, his eyes heavy with weariness as he ran a quick hand through his thick, steel-gray hair. “Nevertheless, Bishop Fencourt has already had a letter delivered to me this morning with his personal thanks to the two of you, however aggrieved the results of your investigation did prove to be.” He shook his head and gazed back out toward the hallway, his thoughts clearly very far away.

  “Umm . . . might I ask for a favor . . . ?” Colin spoke gently to his father, clutching the covers up around his throat. “Why don’t you go back out to the sitting room and we’ll join you there in a minute. Have Mrs. Behmoth bring up some tea if she hasn’t done so already.”

  “It’s already ’ere,” she hollered from the front room. “But I sure as ’ell ain’t bringin’ it in there.”

  “What?!” Sir Atherton blinked and looked around the bedroom, seeming to spot the two of us in earnest for the first time. “Oh my . . .” He stood up from the bed and brushed at himself in a gesture that looked at once as embarrassed as it was apologetic. “Yes, yes . . .” he muttered as his eyes darted around the ceiling until he had backed all the way to the door. “I’ll just wait out there,” he said as though the thought had been entirely his own. “You boys take your time.” And with that he dashed out and swung the door shut.

  “God help me . . .” Colin mumbled as he threw the covers back and scampered across the room to grab our underclothes. “Almost fourteen years together and we get intruded upon twice in one week.” He tossed my things to me. “I hope that never happens again as I long as I live.”

  We both dressed with all due haste, though Colin accomplished the feat far faster than I, sending him out the door first. “I shall get your tea ready,” he called back over his shoulder before disappearing down the hall.

  I did my best to move quickly but still took several minutes before I had adequately splashed the slumber from my brain and pulled myself together with sufficient care. By the time I got out to the study, Colin and his father were sipping their tea and idly chatting. As I entered the room I took note of the fact that while I was appropriately ready for the day, Colin looked rakishly disheveled with his shirt collar open and his tie lying impotently untethered. I crossed the room and gladly accepted the cup of tea that Colin held out to me. It tasted as comforting as being home felt. I dropped onto the settee next to Colin since his father always preferred to sit in Colin’s chair, and returned the warm smile Sir Atherton was sending my direction.

  “I trust you will forgive my frightful manners this morning,” he said to me, as though he really needed to ask. “I must admit my mind was very much elsewhere. . . .”

  “It’s no matter,” I answered, eager to be through with this line of conversation. “You mentioned a letter from the bishop . . . ?”

  “Yes, yes. Very grateful for your work and the way you handled yourselves.” He leaned forward and patted Colin’s knee. “You see? You can be quite the charmer when you choose to be. You get that from me.”

  “It was a difficult case,” Colin said over the rim of his teacup, “that was made harder by the fact that it happened in a monastery.” He lowered his cup and stared at his father, one of his eyebrows stretched toward the ceiling. “A monastery . . . !” he repeated, “. . . filled with monks!”

  His father stared back at Colin, his face a vision of absolute serenity. “Yes,” he said after a moment, “I should think you’ll find all monasteries are filled with monks.”

  “You aren’t funny.”

  “I wasn’t trying to be.”

  Colin leaned forward. “I don’t think your bishop friend would be as amused if he knew the way Ethan and I live.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” Sir Atherton looked from Colin to me, but I had nothing to offer.

  “Are we not a disgrace?” Colin pressed. “A heretical blunder against his spiritual convictions?”

  His father pinched his face and waved him off. “God does not blunder, boy. Now, stop being so disagreeable.” He leaned forward and tossed a lump of sugar into Colin’s teacup. “Now, then, the bishop specifically asked me to convey to you his gratitude for allowing the church to handle the outcome of the case in their own way. You see . . . ?!” He reached forward and slapped Colin’s closest knee. “You’ve both done a fine thing.” He beamed as he sat back in his chair. “So, tell me what happened. The bishop tells me you’ve left the monastery all at ends now.”

  Colin heaved a sigh. “I suppose we have at that,” he agreed before beginning to recount the events that had transpired to his father, the fire in his eyes slowly stoking the deeper he got into the story. I did note, however, that he omitted the part about our humiliating eviction from the Pig and Pint. It reminded me once again that in spite of his bluster and assurance, Colin was really not so different from me at his core.

  “After I found what was left of the abbot’s Egyptian journals,” he was explaining to his father, “I knew without a doubt that I had landed upon the reason for the abbot’s murder. Then it became a simple matter of discerning which of the monks was most likely to have been so unforgivably aggrieved by their abbot’s doubts and struggle.”

  His father shook his head with amazement. “An utter travesty. . .”

  “It was the hair shirt that I’d glimpsed Brother Hollings wearing in the balneary one morning that first caught my eye. And when Father Demetris adamantly assured me that the church no longer condones mortification I knew something was terribly a
miss with the young monk. Even so, he did not strike me as the type of person who would take matters into his own hands.”

  “But when did you come to realize the involvement of the elder monk?” his father pressed.

  Colin gave a slight shrug as he sipped at his tea. “The young man attended to Father Morrison and followed him around like a lap dog. He seemed the most likely suspect to me, especially given his obvious rigidity around their way of life at the monastery.” He took another quick swallow of tea before adding, “I think it rather a stroke of ingenuity for Brother Morrison to have made his little underling address the murder scene once they had removed the body. It kept anyone else from stumbling upon anything that might have piqued their suspicions. If that place were not so bloody awkward, I would have solved the case sooner.”

  Sir Atherton looked about to say something, but an abrupt pounding at our door downstairs halted his words.

  “I thought I heard a carriage pulling up,” Colin said as he burst off the settee and hurried to the window. “Ah! It would seem that the good Acting Inspector Maurice Evans has come to welcome us home.” His eyes were ablaze with exhilaration as he turned back to his father and me. “No doubt he has come to fawn over you,” he said to his father, “for your remarkable diplomatic success with the Swiss.”

  “Oh, don’t let him make a fuss,” Sir Atherton muttered with a discomfited shrug. “I didn’t do it for him. . . .”

  “It’s yer Yarder bloke,” Mrs. Behmoth hollered up the stairs. “But then ya already know that, ’cause I ’eard ya runnin’ cross the room ta look out the bleedin’ winda,” she bothered to add as the sound of Maurice Evans making his way up the stairs accompanied her shouts. His unruly mop of dark brown hair bobbed into view just as she finished.

  “Gentlemen! . . .” Mr. Evans called out cheerily as soon as he reached the landing. “Oh!” He stopped in the doorway the moment he spied Colin’s father standing up. “Sir Atherton . . .” He flinched. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”