David Dickinson - Death of a Pilgrim

‘I think they found it in the jacket pocket, sir.’ Delaney held it in his hands. The dead man hadn’t even started on his pilgrimage.

Delaney led them back to the dining room. He made signs to the Sergeant that he was about to speak. One constable had been put on guard duty at the door. The pilgrims were turning into prisoners.

‘Friends, fellow pilgrims,’ he began, ‘I have some terrible news to give you. I have as yet, very few details. John Delaney,’ he pointed sadly at the empty chair, the unopened napkin, the cutlery still in the correct position, the wine glasses untouched, ‘John Delaney is dead. I believe the body was found at the bottom of the most distant rock pinnacle from here, the one they call St Michel.’

The pilgrims crossed themselves. Maggie Delaney hunted desperately for her rosary beads but couldn’t find them. She made a grimace and started praying anyway. Stephen Lewis, the solicitor from Somerset, wondered if there were legal angles to come he could assist with. Then he reflected sadly that he didn’t know very much about French law. He didn’t think there were any French speakers in Frome. Probably there weren’t any English speakers in Le Puy.

‘For now, I think we should wait here until we can discover what the French authorities propose to do.’

Michael Delaney was a veteran of strange meetings, of meetings sulphurous and meetings argumentative and meetings violent. One of his competitors had once enlivened proceedings by pulling a gun on the Delaney company secretary. But he didn’t think he had ever been in one as unusual as this. For the moment he was calm. The Sergeant was now sucking on his pencil and inspecting them all silently. The other constable had stationed himself by the kitchen doors as if to prevent escape through the stoves and pots and pans. And it was from the unlikely quarter of the kitchens that assistance came.

The head waiter was fairly sure that Alex Bentley was much happier with written rather than spoken French. He had after all translated the written menus very quickly earlier that day. The head waiter remembered a tribesman who was fluent in French for some reason, a legendary translator during the head waiter’s days with the military in the Maghreb who had lost his tongue in some tribal vendetta. But his knowledge of Arabic and French was unimpaired. The French officers would make their prisoners write down their statements or their confessions in Arabic. Sitting cross-legged in his tent the man with no tongue would write the translations down in French and hand them over to his employers.

He wrote a brief message to Alex Bentley. He heard, but did not understand, the translation.

‘Our friend here has a suggestion, sir,’ said Alex. ‘He will ask the Sergeant to write down in French what he wishes to say. I think I’ll be able to translate most of that all right. Then you tell me in English what you want to say and I’ll write it down in French. It might work, sir.’

Michael Delaney stared at him thoughtfully. ‘Might take a lot of time. Never mind. Let’s try it.’

The head waiter and a colleague departed briefly to the rest of their dining room and returned carrying a medium-sized table able to take four chairs. They brought a large writing book whose pages, Alex Bentley noticed, were not blank or ruled but filled with those impenetrable squares the French are so fond of. Alex wrote a brief message for the Sergeant. The Sergeant looked at him for a moment as if he thought the American was mad and then a slow look of recognition dawned on him. He grabbed a pen and began to write very slowly, pausing regularly to suck the bottom of the pen. French composition had never been his strong suit at school. Alex Bentley noticed that just as people shouted louder when speaking to foreigners, the Sergeant was writing in extra large letters. The pilgrims watched, spellbound. Girvan Connolly thought it would be permitted to refill his glass again; alcohol was always useful in the absorption of shock. Father Kennedy was staring sadly at his plate of congealed stew. It would never be the same now. At last the Sergeant stopped and passed the book over to Alex Bentley.

‘This is it, sir,’ Alex Bentley began, pausing every now and then to look down at his page, ‘the Sergeant here is operating under the assumption that this may be a suspicious death. People in Le Puy, he says, don’t go around pushing each other over the edge of St Michel. Nor do they go round throwing themselves off it. Most of them never go near the place. There hasn’t been a death of any kind, murder or suicide, up there for at least twenty years. For the time being, we are all under suspicion, all of us here in this room. Nobody, for the time being, is allowed to leave Le Puy. Nobody is allowed to leave the hotel. The process of interviewing all the suspects, as he calls us, will begin in the morning, one person at a time.’

There was a moment of stunned silence. All the pilgrims began to talk at once. Jack O’Driscoll had been watching Michael Delaney very carefully all evening. Jack had made extensive inquiries about Delaney before he set off and knew the man had a fearful temper. After this piece of news, he felt, Delaney might be about to blow.

Michael Delaney banged his fist on the table. ‘Quiet, please, quiet! Alex,’ he shouted, ‘this is monstrous! Monstrous! It’s intolerable! We’ve come on a pilgrimage, for God’s sake. Why can’t we bury the poor man and move on? Haven’t they got a policeman in this place who speaks English? Tell him I want to speak to the Chief Police Officer in the morning.’

Alex wrote as fast as he could. The reply was short.

‘You’re not going to like this, sir. He says the Chief Constable will not be available in the morning. The Sergeant is going now. He says he’s late for his supper. It’s always bad for his digestion, the Sergeant says, to be late for his supper. His wife doesn’t like it either. He will see us here in the morning. His two men will be on duty here in the hotel all night, sir. To make sure nobody leaves.’

As Alex Bentley finished speaking, the Sergeant rose slowly to his feet and marched out of the room. One of his constables took up a position in the centre of the doors leading to the hotel foyer and the outside world. Delaney restrained himself with difficulty. He downed a glass of red wine at breakneck speed. A French priest, presumably the local cure, came in and began talking quietly to Father Kennedy in a corner of the room. Brother White joined his companions of the cloth. Wee Jimmy, who was closest to them, thought they were conversing about the funeral in a kind of prayer book Latin.

‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ said Michael Delaney at last. ‘Let’s try and approach this thing in a businesslike manner.’ It is one of the many differences between the French and the American character that the French attach great value to collective action. Fraternity. The Americans are suspicious of the state, and all in favour of individual initiative, of citizens taking responsibility for their own lives, rather than depending on others to do it for them.

‘Damn French police,’ Delaney began. ‘Useless, completely useless. If I don’t do anything else I’m going to get my own man to look into this death. Pinkerton’s, Alex, what chance of Pinkerton’s here in this dump?’ Michael Delaney had an account with the great detective agency Pinkerton’s in New York, enabling him to spy on his competitors all across the United States.

‘I doubt if there are any Pinkertons to be found anywhere in Europe, sir.’

‘Damn! We’ve got to find the top man,’ said Delaney firmly, ‘top private investigator fluent in English and French, able to drop whatever he’s doing and start immediately. Money no object. Anybody got any ideas?’