Ngaio Marsh - Collected Short Fiction of Ngaio Marsh

Mr. Bates whispered imploringly to Troy, “ Would you mind? I do so want to have a word—” and she was obliged to introduce him. It was not a successful encounter. Mr. Bates no sooner broached the topic of his Bible, which he still carried, than Mr. De’ath burst into an alcoholic diatribe against superstition, and on the mention of Old Jimmy Wagstaff, worked himself up into such a state of reminiscent fury that Mr. Bates was glad to hurry away with Troy.

They overtook the rector in the churchyard, now bathed in the golden opulence of an already westering sun.

“There they all lie,” the rector said, waving a fatherly hand at the company of headstones. “All your Wagstaffs, right back to the sixteenth century. But no Hadets, Mr. Bates, I assure you.”

They stood looking up at the spire. Pigeons flew in and out of a balcony far above their heads. At their feet was a little flagged area edged by a low coping. Mr. Bates stepped forward and the rector laid a hand on his arm.

“Not there,” he said. “Do you mind?”

“Don’t!” bellowed Mr. Pilbrow from the rear. “Don’t you set foot on them bloody stones, Mister.”

Mr. Bates backed away.

“Edward’s not swearing,” the rector mildly explained. “He is to be taken, alas, literally. A sad and dreadful story, Mr. Bates.”

“Indeed?” Mr. Bates asked eagerly.

“Indeed, yes. Some time ago, in the very year we have been discussing—1921, you know—one of our girls, a very beautiful girl she was, named Ruth Wall, fell from the balcony of the tower and was, of course, killed. She used to go up there to feed the pigeons and it was thought that in leaning over the low balustrade she overbalanced.”

“Ah!” Mr. Pilbrow roared with considerable relish, evidently guessing the purport of the rector’s speech. “Terrible, terrible! And ’er sweetheart after ’er, too. Terrible!”

“Oh, no!” Troy protested.

The rector made a dabbing gesture to subdue Mr. Pilbrow. “I wish he wouldn’t,” he said. “Yes. It was a few days later. A lad called Simon Castle. They were to be married. People said it must be suicide but—it may have been wrong of me—I couldn’t bring myself—in short, he lies beside her over there. If you would care to look.”

For a minute or two they stood before the headstones.

“Ruth Wall. Spinster of this Parish. 1903-1921. I will extend peace to her like a river. ”

“Simon Castle. Bachelor of this Parish. 1900-1921. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. ”

The afternoon having by now worn on, and the others having excused themselves, Mr. Bates remained alone in the churchyard, clutching his Bible and staring at the headstones. The light of the hunter’s zeal still gleamed in his eyes.

Troy didn’t see Mr. Bates again until Sunday night service when, on her way up the aisle, she passed him, sitting in the rearmost pew. She was amused to observe that his gigantic Bible was under the seat.

“ We plow the fields ,” sang the choir, “ and scatter —” Mrs. Simpson roared away on the organ, the smell of assorted greengrocery rising like some humble incense. Everybody in Little Copplestone except Mr. Richard De’ath was there for the Harvest Festival. At last the rector stepped over Miss Hart’s biggest pumpkin and ascended the pulpit, Edward Pilbrow switched off all the lights except one and they settled down for the sermon.

“A sower went forth to sow,” announced the rector. He spoke simply and well but somehow Troy’s attention wandered. She found herself wondering where, through the centuries, the succeeding generations of Wagstaffs had sat until Old Jimmy took to his freakish practices; and whether Ruth Wall and Simon Castle, poor things, had shared the same hymnbook and held hands during the sermon; and whether, after all, Stewart Shakespeare Hadet and Peter Rook Hadet had not, in 1779, occupied some dark corner of the church and been unaccountably forgotten.

Here we are, Troy thought drowsily, and there, outside in the churchyard, are all the others going back and back—

She saw a girl, bright in the evening sunlight, reach from a balcony toward a multitude of wings. She was falling— dreadfully—into nothingness. Troy woke with a sickening jerk.

“—on stony ground,” the rector was saying. Troy listened guiltily to the rest of the sermon.

Mr. Bates emerged on the balcony. He laid his Bible on the coping and looked at the moonlit tree tops and the churchyard so dreadfully far below. He heard someone coming up the stairway. Torchlight danced on the door jamb.

“You were quick,” said the visitor.

“I am all eagerness and, I confess, puzzlement.”

“It had to be here, on the spot. If you really want to find out—”

“But I do, I do!”

“We haven’t much time. You’ve brought the Bible?”

“You particularly asked—”

“If you’d open it at Ezekiel, chapter twelve. I’ll shine my torch.”

Mr. Bates opened the Bible.

“The thirteenth verse. There!”

Mr. Bates leaned forward. The Bible tipped and moved.

“Look out!” the voice urged.

Mr. Bates was scarcely aware of the thrust. He felt the page tear as the book sank under his hands. The last thing he heard was the beating of a multitude of wings.

“—and forevermore,” said the rector in a changed voice, racing east. The congregation got to its feet. He announced the last hymn. Mrs. Simpson made a preliminary rumble and Troy groped in her pocket for the collection plate. Presently they all filed out into the autumnal moonlight.

It was coldish in the churchyard. People stood about in groups. One or two had already moved through the lych-gate. Troy heard a voice, which she recognized as that of Mr. De’ath. “I suppose,” it jeered, “you all know you’ve been assisting at a fertility rite.”

“Drunk as usual, Dick De’ath,” somebody returned without rancor. There was a general laugh.

They had all begun to move away when, from the shadows at the base of the church tower, there arose a great cry. They stood, transfixed, turned toward the voice.

Out of the shadows came the rector in his cassock. When Troy saw his face she thought he must be ill and went to him.

“No, no!” he said. “Not a woman! Edward! Where’s Edward Pilbrow?”

Behind him, at the foot of the tower, was a pool of darkness; but Troy, having come closer, could see within it a figure, broken like a puppet on the flagstones. An eddy of night air stole round the church and fluttered a page of the giant Bible that lay pinned beneath the head.

It was nine o’clock when Troy heard the car pull up outside the cottage. She saw her husband coming up the path and ran to meet him, as if they had been parted for months.

He said, “This is mighty gratifying!” And then, “Hullo, my love. What’s the matter?”

As she tumbled out her story, filled with relief at telling him, a large man with uncommonly bright eyes came up behind them.

“Listen to this, Fox,” Roderick Alleyn said. “We’re in demand, it seems.” He put his arm through Troy’s and closed his hand round hers. “Let’s go indoors, shall we? Here’s Fox, darling, come for a nice bucolic rest. Can we give him a bed?”

Troy pulled herself together and greeted Inspector Fox. Presently she was able to give them a coherent account of the evening’s tragedy. When she had finished, Alleyn said, “Poor little Bates. He was a nice little bloke.” He put his hand on Troy’s. “You need a drink,” he said, “and so, by the way, do we.”

While he was getting the drinks he asked quite casually, “You’ve had a shock and a beastly one at that, but there’s something else, isn’t there?”