E. C. Bentley - Trent Intervenes

Langley stared at him. ‘Why, doesn’t your man have a map?’

‘Yes; but there isn’t any place called Silcote Episcopi on his map.’

‘Nor,’ Trent added, ‘on any other map. No, I am not suggesting that you dreamed it all; but the fact is so.’

Langley, remarking shortly that this beat him, glared out of the window eagerly; and soon he gave the word to stop. ‘I am pretty sure this is the turning,’ he said. ‘I recognize it by these two hay-stacks in the meadow, and the pond with osiers over it. But there certainly was a signpost there, and now there isn’t one. If I was not dreaming then, I guess I must be now.’ And as the car ran swiftly down the side road he went on, ‘Yes; that certainly is the church on ahead—and the covered gate, and the graveyard—and there is the vicarage, with the yew trees and the garden and everything. Well, gentlemen, right now is when he gets what is coming to him. I don’t care what the name of the darn place is.’

‘The name of the darn place on the map,’ Trent said, ‘is Oakhanger.’

The three men got out and passed through the lych-gate.

‘Where is the gravestone?’ Trent asked.

Langley pointed. ‘Right there.’ They went across to the railed-in grave, and the American put a hand to his head. ‘I must be nuts!’ he groaned. ‘I know this is the grave—but it says that here is laid to rest the body of James Roderick Stevens, of this parish.’

‘Who seems to have died about thirty years after Sir Rowland Verey,’ Trent remarked, studying the inscription; while the superintendent gently smote his thigh in an ecstasy of silent admiration. ‘And now let us see if the vicar can throw any light on the subject.’

They went on to the parsonage; and a dark-haired, bright-faced girl, opening the door at Mr Owen’s ring, smiled recognizingly at Langley. ‘Well, you’re genuine, anyway!’ he exclaimed. ‘Ellen is what they call you, isn’t it? And you remember me, I see. Now I feel better. We would like to see the vicar. Is he at home?’

‘The canon came home two days ago, sir,’ the girl said, with a perceptible stress on the term of rank. ‘He is down in the village now; but he may be back any minute. Would you like to wait for him?’

‘We surely would,’ Langley declared positively; and they were shown into the large room where the tabard had changed hands.

‘So he has been away from home?’ Trent asked. ‘And he is a canon, you say?’

‘Canon Maberley, sir; yes, sir, he was in Italy for a month. The lady and gentleman who were here till last week had taken the house furnished while he was away. Me and Cook stayed on to do for them.’

‘And did that gentleman—Mr Verey—do the canon’s duty during his absence?’ Trent inquired with a ghost of a smile.

‘No, sir; the canon had an arrangement with Mr Giles, the vicar of Cotmore, about that. The canon never knew that Mr Verey was a clergyman. He never saw him. You see, it was Mrs Verey who came to see over the place and settled everything; and it seems she never mentioned it. When we told the canon, after they had gone, he was quite took aback. “I can’t make it out at all,” he says. “Why should he conceal it?” he says. “Well, sir,” I says, “they was very nice people, anyhow, and the friends they had to see them here was very nice, and their chauffeur was a perfectly respectable man,” I says.’

Trent nodded. ‘Ah! They had friends to see them.’

The girl was thoroughly enjoying this gossip. ‘Oh yes, sir. The gentleman as brought you down, sir’—she turned to Langley—‘he brought down several others before that. They was Americans too, I think.’

‘You mean they didn’t have an English accent, I suppose,’ Langley suggested drily.

‘Yes, sir; and they had such nice manners, like yourself,’ the girl said, quite unconscious of Langley’s confusion, and of the grins covertly exchanged between Trent and the superintendent, who now took up the running.

‘This respectable chauffeur of theirs—was he a small, thin man with a long nose, partly bald, always smoking cigarettes?’

‘Oh yes, sir; just like that. You must know him.’

‘I do,’ Superintendent Owen said grimly.

‘So do I!’ Langley exclaimed. ‘He was the man we spoke to in the churchyard.’

‘Did Mr and Mrs Verey have any—er—ornaments of their own with them?’ the superintendent asked.

Ellen’s eyes rounded with enthusiasm. ‘Oh yes, sir—some lovely things they had. But they was only put out when they had friends coming. Other times they was kept somewhere in Mr Verey’s bedroom, I think. Cook and me thought perhaps they was afraid of burglars.’

The superintendent pressed a hand over his stubby moustache. ‘Yes, I expect that was it,’ he said gravely. ‘But what kind of lovely things do you mean? Silver—china—that sort of thing?’

‘No, sir; nothing ordinary, as you might say. One day they had out a beautiful goblet, like, all gold, with little figures and patterns worked on it in colours, and precious stones, blue and green and white, stuck all round it—regular dazzled me to look at, it did.’

‘The Debenham Chalice!’ exclaimed the superintendent.

‘Is it a well-known thing, then, sir?’ the girl asked.

‘No, not at all,’ Mr Owen said. ‘It is an heirloom—a private-family possession. Only we happen to have heard of it.’

‘Fancy taking such things about with them,’ Ellen remarked. ‘Then there was a big book they had out once, lying open on that table in the window. It was all done in funny gold letters on yellow paper, with lovely little pictures all round the edges, gold and silver and all colours.’

‘The Murrane Psalter!’ said Mr Owen. ‘Come, we’re getting on.’

‘And,’ the girl pursued, addressing herself to Langley, ‘there was that beautiful red coat with the arms on it, like you see on a half crown. You remember they got it out for you to look at, sir; and when I brought in the tea it was hanging up in front of the tallboy.’

Langley grimaced. ‘I believe I do remember it,’ he said, ‘now you remind me.’

‘There is the canon coming up the path now,’ Ellen said, with a glance through the window. ‘I will tell him you gentlemen are here.’

She hurried from the room, and soon there entered a tall, stooping, old man with a gentle face and the indescribable air of a scholar.

The superintendent went to meet him.

‘I am a police officer, Canon Maberley,’ he said. ‘I and my friends have called to see you in pursuit of an official inquiry in connection with the people to whom your house was let last month. I do not think I shall have to trouble you much, though, because your parlourmaid has given us already most of the information we are likely to get, I suspect.’

‘Ah! That girl,’ the canon said vaguely. ‘She has been talking to you, has she? She will go on talking for ever, if you let her. Please sit down, gentlemen. About the Vereys—ah yes! But surely there was nothing wrong about the Vereys? Mrs Verey was quite a nice, well-bred person, and they left the place in perfectly good order. They paid me in advance, too, because they live in New Zealand, as she explained, and know nobody in London. They were on a visit to England, and they wanted a temporary home in the heart of the country, because that is the real England, as she said. That was so sensible of them, I thought—instead of flying to the grime and turmoil of London, as most of our friends from overseas do. In a way, I was quite touched by it, and I was glad to let them have the vicarage.’

The superintendent shook his head. ‘People as clever as they are make things very difficult for us, sir. And the lady never mentioned that her husband was a clergyman, I understand.