Ngaio Marsh: Death In Ecstasy

Having seen this much, Nigel’s attention was arrested by a solitary voice of great beauty. The Rev. Jasper Garnette had mounted the pulpit.

Afterwards, when he tried to describe this part of the service to Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn, Nigel found himself quite unable to give even the most general résumé of the sermon. Yet at the time he was much impressed. It seemed to him that these were the utterances of an intellectual. He had an extraordinary sense of rightness as though, in a series of intoxicating flashes, all mental and spiritual problems were reduced to a lovely simplicity. Everything seemed to fit with exquisite precision. He had a vivid impression of being personally put right. At first it appeared that the eyes of the preacher were on him alone. They looked into each other’s eyes, he thought, and he was conscious of making a complete surrender. Later the preacher told him to look at the torch and he did so. It wavered and swelled with the voice. He no longer felt the weight of his body on the seat. Nigel, in short, had his first experience of partial hypnotism and was well underway when the large lady gave utterance to a stentorian sneeze and an apologetic gasp: “Oh, dear me!”

That, he told Alleyn, tore it. Back to earth he came just as Father Garnette spoke his final period, and that was the one utterance Nigel did retain:

“Now the door is open, now burns the flame of ecstasy. Come with me into the Oneness of the Spirit. You are floating away from your bodies. You are entering into a new life. There is no evil. Let go your hold on the earth. Ecstasy it is yours. Come, drink of the flaming cup!”

From all round the hall came a murmur. It swelled and was broken by isolated cries. The large lady was whimpering, further along a man’s voice cried out incoherently. The priest had gone to the altar and from a monstrance he drew out a silver flagon and a jewelled cup. He handed the flagon to the dark acolyte and passed his hand across the cup. A flame shot up from within, burned blue and went out. In the front rank a woman leapt to her feet. The rest of the congregation knelt. The woman ran up the chancel steps and with a shrill “Heil!” fell prostrate under the torch. The priest stood over her, the cup held above his head. She was followed by some half-a-dozen others who ranged themselves in a circle about her, knelt and raised their hands towards the cup. They too, cried out incoherently. There was something indecent about these performances and Nigel, suddenly sane, felt ashamed and most uncomfortable. Now the priest gave the cup to one of the kneeling circle, a large florid woman. She, with the exclamation of “Y’mir,” pronounced with shrill emphasis, took the silver flagon from the attendant acolyte, poured something into the cup and passed it to her neighbour. He was a dark well-groomed man who repeated the ritual uttering a different word. So the cup went round the circle. Each Initiate took it from his neighbour, was handed the flagon by the acolyte, poured wine from the flagon into the cup, passed the cup to the next Initiate, and returned the flagon to the acolyte. Each uttered a single word. Nigel thought he detected the names of “Thor,” of “Ar’riman” and of “Vidur” among others so outlandish as to be incomprehensible. The circle completed, the priest again received the cup. The prostrate woman sprang to her feet. Her arms twitched and she mouthed and gibbered like an idiot, turning her head from side to side. It was a nauseating, a detestable performance, doubly so since she was a beautiful creature; tall, not old, but white-haired. She was well and fashionably dressed, but her clothes were disarranged by her antics, her hat had slipped grotesquely sideways, and one of her sleeves was twisted and dragged upwards. She began to speak, a long stream of incoherences in which were jumbled the names of antique gods with those of present-day beliefs. “I am one and I am all.” The kneeling circle kept up an obbligato of “Heils” in which, at the last, she joined, clapping her hands together and rocking to and fro.

Suddenly, perhaps at some signal from the priest, they were all silent. The woman stretched both her hands out and the priest gave her the cup.

“The wine of ecstasy give joy to your body and soul!”

“Tur-aie!”

“The holy madness of the flame possess you!”

“Heil! Tur-aie! Tur-aie!”

She raised the cup to her lips. Her head tipped back and back until the last drop must have been drained. Suddenly she gasped violently. She slewed half round as if to question the priest. Her hands shot outwards as though she offered him the cup. Then they parted inconsequently. The cup flashed as it dropped to the floor. Her face twisted into an appalling grimace. Her body twitched violently. She pitched forward like an enormous doll, jerked twice, and then was still.

At first Nigel, though greatly startled, imagined that this performance was merely the climax of the ceremony. He found the whole business extremely unpleasant but was nevertheless interested. Perhaps a minute passed before he realised that the woman’s collapse was not anticipated by the congregation or by Father Jasper Garnette himself. A young man in the group of Initiates gave the first indication. He rose from his knees and stood looking from the woman to the priest. He spoke, but so quietly that Nigel could not hear what he said. The rest of the circle remained kneeling, but rather as though they had forgotten to rise or were stricken into immobility. The ecstatic fervour of the ceremony had quite vanished and something infinitely more disquieting had taken its place. The priest spoke. Perhaps because he had heard the words so often that evening, Nigel heard them then.

“Spiritual ecstasy— ”He pronounced this word “ecsta-sah.”

“Manifestation…”

The Initiate hesitated and looked fixedly at the prostrate figure.

“My friends,” said the priest loudly, with an air of decision. “My friends, our beloved sister has been vouchsafed the greatest boon of all. She is in ecstasy. Let us leave her to her tremendous experience. Let us sing our hymn to Pan, the God-in-all.”

He stopped. The organ uttered a tentative growl. The congregation, murmuring and uneasy, got to its feet.

“Let us sing,” repeated Jasper Garnette with determination, “the hymn—”

A scream rang out. The little dowdy woman had broken away from the circle and stood with her head thrust forward and her mouth wide open.

“It’s not. It’s not. She’s dead. I touched her. She’s dead!”

“Miss Wade, quiet!”

“I won’t be quiet! She’s dead.”

“Wait a moment,” said a placid voice near Nigel. An elderly solid-looking man was working his way out of the row of pews. He pushed himself carefully past the large lady. Nigel moved out to make way for him and then, on a journalistic impulse, followed him up the aisle.

“I think I had better have a look at this lady,” said the man placidly.

“But, Dr. Kasbek—”

“I think I had better have a look at her, Father Garnette.”

Nigel, unobserved, came up with the group under the torch. He had the sensation of walking on to a stage and joining in the action of the play. They appeared a strange enough crew, white-faced and cadaverous looking in the uneven glare of the single flame. This made a kind of labial bubbling. It was the only sound. The doctor knelt by the prostrate figure.

She had fallen half on her face, and head downwards across the chancel steps. The doctor touched her wrist and then, with a brusque movement, pulled away the cap that hid her face. The eyes, wide open and protuberant, stared straight up at him. At the corners of the mouth were traces of a rimy spume. The mouth itself was set, with the teeth clenched and the lips drawn back, in a rigid circle. The cheeks were cherry-red, but the rest of the face was livid. She may have been in a state of ecstasy but she was undoubtedly dead.