The Pale Horse Read online

  “That’s what I tell myself,” said Mrs. Oliver, “over and over again, but every single time I can’t believe it, and so I’m in agony.”

  She seized her hair again and tugged it violently.

  “Don’t,” I cried. “You’ll have it out by the roots.”

  “Nonsense,” said Mrs. Oliver. “Hair’s tough. Though when I had measles at fourteen with a very high temperature, it did come out—all round the front. Most shaming. And it was six whole months before it grew properly again. Awful for a girl—girls mind so. I thought of it yesterday when I was visiting Mary Delafontaine in that nursing home. Her hair was coming out just like mine did. She said she’d have to get a false front when she was better. If you’re sixty it doesn’t always grow again, I believe.”

  “I saw a girl pull out another girl’s hair by the roots the other night,” I said. I was conscious of a slight note of pride in my voice as one who has seen life.

  “What extraordinary places have you been going to?” asked Mrs. Oliver.

  “This was in a coffee bar in Chelsea.”

  “Oh Chelsea!” said Mrs. Oliver. “Everything happens there, I believe. Beatniks and sputniks and squares and the beat generation. I don’t write about them much because I’m so afraid of getting the terms wrong. It’s safer, I think, to stick to what you know.”

  “Such as?”

  “People on cruises, and in hotels, and what goes on in hospitals, and on parish councils—and sales of work—and music festivals, and girls in shops, and committees and daily women, and young men and girls who hike round the world in the interests of science, and shop assistants—”

  She paused, out of breath.

  “That seems fairly comprehensive to be getting on with,” I said.

  “All the same, you might take me out to a coffee bar in Chelsea sometime—just to widen my experience,” said Mrs. Oliver wistfully.

  “Any time you say. Tonight?”

  “Not tonight. I’m too busy writing or rather worrying because I can’t write. That’s really the most tiresome thing about writing—though everything is tiresome really, except the one moment when you get what you think is going to be a wonderful idea, and can hardly wait to begin. Tell me, Mark, do you think it is possible to kill someone by remote control?”

  “What do you mean by remote control? Press a button and set off a radioactive death ray?”

  “No, no, not science fiction. I suppose,” she paused doubtfully, “I really mean black magic.”

  “Wax figures and pins in them?”

  “Oh, wax figures are right out,” said Mrs. Oliver scornfully. “But queer things do happen—in Africa or the West Indies. People are always telling you so. How natives just curl up and die. Voodoo—or juju… Anyway, you know what I mean.”

  I said that much of that was attributed nowadays to the power of suggestion. Word is always conveyed to the victim that his death has been decreed by the medicine man—and his subconscious does the rest.

  Mrs. Oliver snorted.

  “If anyone hinted to me that I had been doomed to lie down and die, I’d take a pleasure in thwarting their expectations!”

  I laughed.

  “You’ve got centuries of good Occidental sceptical blood in your veins. No predispositions.”

  “Then you think it can happen?”

  “I don’t know enough about the subject to judge. What put it into your head? Is your new masterpiece to be Murder by Suggestion?”

  “No, indeed. Good old-fashioned rat poison or arsenic is good enough for me. Or the reliable blunt instrument. Not firearms if possible. Firearms are so tricky. But you didn’t come here to talk to me about my books.”

  “Frankly no—The fact is that my cousin Rhoda Despard has got a church fête and—”

  “Never again!” said Mrs. Oliver. “You know what happened last time? I arranged a Murder Hunt, and the first thing that happened was a real corpse. I’ve never quite got over it!”

  “It’s not a Murder Hunt. All you’d have to do would be to sit in a tent and sign your own books—at five bob a time.”

  “We-e-l-l-l,” said Mrs. Oliver doubtfully. “That might be all right. I shouldn’t have to open the fête? Or say silly things? Or have to wear a hat?”

  None of these things, I assured her, would be required of her.

  “And it would only be for an hour or two,” I said coaxingly. “After that, there’ll be a cricket match—no, I suppose not this time of year. Children dancing, perhaps. Or a fancy dress competition—”

  Mrs. Oliver interrupted me with a wild scream.

  “That’s it,” she cried. “A cricket ball! Of course! He sees it from the window…rising up in the air…and it distracts him—and so he never mentions the cockatoo! What a good thing you came, Mark. You’ve been wonderful.”

  “I don’t quite see—”

  “Perhaps not, but I do,” said Mrs. Oliver. “It’s all rather complicated, and I don’t want to waste time explaining. Nice as it’s been to see you, what I’d really like you to do now is to go away. At once.”

  “Certainly. About the fête—”

  “I’ll think about it. Don’t worry me now. Now where on earth did I put my spectacles? Really, the way things just disappear….”

  Two

  I

  Mrs. Gerahty opened the door of the presbytery in her usual sharp pouncing style. It was less like answering a bell, than a triumphant manoeuvre expressing the sentiment “I’ve caught you this time!”

  “Well now, and what would you be wanting?” she demanded belligerently.

  There was a boy on the doorstep, a very negligible looking boy—a boy not easily noticeable nor easily remembered—a boy like a lot of other boys. He sniffed because he had a cold in his head.

  “Is this the priest’s place?”

  “Is it Father Gorman you’re wanting?”

  “He’s wanted,” said the boy.

  “Who wants him and where and what for?”

  “Benthall Street. Twenty-three. Woman as says she’s dying. Mrs. Coppins sent me. This is a Carthlick place all right, isn’t it? Woman says the vicar won’t do.”

  Mrs. Gerahty reassured him on this essential point, told him to stop where he was and retired into the presbytery. Some three minutes later a tall elderly priest came out carrying a small leather case in his hand.

  “I’m Father Gorman,” he said. “Benthall Street? That’s round by the railway yards, isn’t it?”

  “’Sright. Not more than a step, it isn’t.”

  They set out together, the priest walking with a free striding step.

  “Mrs.— Coppins, did you say? Is that the name?”

  “She’s the one what owns the house. Lets rooms, she does. It’s one of the lodgers wants you. Name of Davis, I think.”

  “Davis. I wonder now. I don’t remember—”

  “She’s one of you all right. Carthlick, I mean. Said as no vicar would do.”

  The priest nodded. They came to Benthall Street in a very short time. The boy indicated a tall dingy house in a row of other tall dingy houses.

  “That’s it.”

  “Aren’t you coming in?”

  “I don’t belong. Mrs. C. gave me a bob to take the message.”

  “I see. What’s your name?”

  “Mike Potter.”

  “Thank you, Mike.”

  “You’re welcome,” said Mike, and went off whistling. The imminence of death for someone else did not affect him.

  The door of No. 23 opened and Mrs. Coppins, a large redfaced woman, stood on the threshold and welcomed the visitor with enthusiasm.

  “Come in, come in. She’s bad, I’d say. Ought to be in hospital, not here. I’ve rung up, but goodness knows when anybody will come nowadays. Six hours my sister’s husband had to wait when he broke his leg. Disgraceful, I call it. Health Service, indeed! Take your money and when you want them where are they?”

  She was preceding the priest up the narrow stairs as she talke
d.

  “What’s the matter with her?”

  “’Flu’s what she’s had. Seemed better. Went out too soon I’d say. Anyway she comes in last night looking like death. Took to her bed. Wouldn’t eat anything. Didn’t want a doctor. This morning I could see she was in a raging fever. Gone to her lungs.”

  “Pneumonia?”

  Mrs. Coppins, out of breath by now, made a noise like a steam engine, which seemed to signify assent. She flung open a door, stood aside to let Father Gorman go in, said over his shoulder: “Here’s the Reverend for you. Now you’ll be all right!” in a spuriously cheerful way, and retired.

  Father Gorman advanced. The room, furnished with old-fashioned Victorian furniture, was clean and neat. In the bed near the window a woman turned her head feebly. That she was very ill, the priest saw at once.

  “You’ve come… There isn’t much time—” she spoke between panting breaths. “…Wickedness…such wickedness… I must… I must… I can’t die like this… Confess—confess—my sin—grievous—grievous…” the eyes wandered…half closed….

  A rambling monotone of words came from her lips.

  Father Gorman came to the bed. He spoke as he had spoken so often—so very often. Words of authority—of reassurance…the words of his calling and of his belief. Peace came into the room… The agony went out of the tortured eyes….

  Then, as the priest ended his ministry, the dying woman spoke again.

  “Stopped… It must be stopped… You will….”

  The priest spoke with reassuring authority.

  “I will do what is necessary. You can trust me….”

  A doctor and an ambulance arrived simultaneously a little later. Mrs. Coppins received them with gloomy triumph.

  “Too late as usual!” she said. “She’s gone….”

  II

  Father Gorman walked back through the gathering twilight. There would be fog tonight, it was growing denser rapidly. He paused for a moment, frowning. Such a fantastic extraordinary story… How much of it was born of delirium and high fever? Some of it was true, of course—but how much? Anyway it was important to make a note of certain names whilst they were fresh in his memory. The St. Francis Guild would be assembled when he got back. He turned abruptly into a small café, ordered a cup of coffee and sat down. He felt in the pocket of his cassock. Ah, Mrs. Gerahty—he’d asked her to mend the lining. As usual, she hadn’t! His notebook and a loose pencil and the few coins he carried about him, had gone through to the lining. He prised up a coin or two and the pencil, but the notebook was too difficult. The coffee came, and he asked if he could have a piece of paper.

  “This do you?”

  It was a torn paper bag. Father Gorman nodded and took it. He began to write—the names—it was important not to forget the names. Names were the sort of thing he did forget….

  The café door opened and three young lads in Edwardian dress came in and sat down noisily.

  Father Gorman finished his memorandum. He folded up the scrap of paper and was about to shove it into his pocket when he remembered the hole. He did what he had often done before, pressed the folded scrap down into his shoe.

  A man came in quietly and sat down in a far corner. Father Gorman took a sip or two of the weak coffee for politeness’ sake, called for his bill, and paid. Then he got up and went out.

  The man who had just come in seemed to change his mind. He looked at his watch as though he had mistaken the time, got up, and hurried out.

  The fog was coming on fast. Father Gorman quickened his steps. He knew his district very well. He took a shortcut by turning down the small street which ran close by the railway. He may have been conscious of steps behind him but he thought nothing of them. Why should he?

  The blow from the cosh caught him completely unaware. He heeled forward and fell….

  III

  Dr. Corrigan, whistling “Father O’Flynn,” walked into the D.D.I.’s room and addressed Divisional Detective-Inspector Lejeune in a chatty manner.

  “I’ve done your padre for you,” he said.

  “And the result?”

  “We’ll save the technical terms for the coroner. Well and truly coshed. First blow probably killed him, but whoever it was made sure. Quite a nasty business.”

  “Yes,” said Lejeune.

  He was a sturdy man, dark haired and grey eyed. He had a misleadingly quiet manner, but his gestures were sometimes surprisingly graphic and betrayed his French Huguenot ancestry.

  He said thoughtfully:

  “Nastier than would be necessary for robbery?”

  “Was it robbery?” asked the doctor.

  “One supposes so. His pockets were turned out and the lining of his cassock ripped.”

  “They couldn’t have hoped for much,” said Corrigan. “Poor as a rat, most of these parish priests.”

  “They battered his head in—to make sure,” mused Lejeune. “One would like to know why.”

  “Two possible answers,” said Corrigan. “One, it was done by a vicious-minded young thug, who likes violence for violence’s sake—there are plenty of them about these days, more’s the pity.”

  “And the other answer?”

  The doctor shrugged his shoulders.

  “Somebody had it in for your Father Gorman. Was that likely?”

  Lejeune shook his head.

  “Most unlikely. He was a popular man, well loved in the district. No enemies, as far as one can hear. And robbery’s unlikely. Unless—”

  “Unless what?” asked Corrigan. “The police have a clue! Am I right?”

  “He did have something on him that wasn’t taken away. It was in his shoe, as a matter of fact.”

  Corrigan whistled.

  “Sounds like a spy story.”

  Lejeune smiled.

  “It’s much simpler than that. He had a hole in his pocket. Sergeant Pine talked to his housekeeper. She’s a bit of a slattern, it seems. Didn’t keep his clothes mended in the way she might have done. She admitted that, now and again, Father Gorman would thrust a paper or a letter down the inside of his shoe—to prevent it from going down into the lining of his cassock.”

  “And the killer didn’t know that?”

  “The killer never thought of that! Assuming, that is, that this piece of paper is what he may have been wanting—rather than a miserly amount of small change.”

  “What was on the paper?”

  Lejeune reached into a drawer and took out a flimsy piece of creased paper.

  “Just a list of names,” he said.

  Corrigan looked at it curiously.

  Ormerod

  Sandford

  Parkinson

  Hesketh-Dubois

  Shaw

  Harmondsworth

  Tuckerton

  Corrigan?

  Delafontaine?

  His eyebrows rose.

  “I see I’m on the list!”

  “Do any of the names mean anything to you?” asked the inspector.

  “None of them.”

  “And you’ve never met Father Gorman?”

  “Never.”

  “Then you won’t be able to help us much.”

  “Any ideas as to what this list means—if anything?”

  Lejeune did not reply directly.

  “A boy called at Father Gorman’s about seven o’clock in the evening. Said a woman was dying and wanted the priest. Father Gorman went with him.”

  “Where to? If you know.”

  “We know. It didn’t take long to check up. Twenty-three Benthall Street. House owned by a woman named Coppins. The sick woman was a Mrs. Davis. The priest got there at a quarter past seven and was with her for about half an hour. Mrs. Davis died just before the ambulance arrived to take her to hospital.”

  “I see.”

  “The next we hear of Father Gorman is at Tony’s Place, a small down-at-heel café. Quite decent, nothing criminal about it, serves refreshment of poor quality and isn’t much patronised. Father Gorman asked
for a cup of coffee. Then apparently he felt in his pocket, couldn’t find what he wanted and asked the proprietor, Tony, for a piece of paper. This—” he gestured with his finger, “is the piece of paper.”

  “And then?”

  “When Tony brought the coffee, the priest was writing on the paper. Shortly afterwards he left, leaving his coffee practically untasted (for which I don’t blame him), having completed this list and shoved it into his shoe.”

  “Anybody else in the place?”

  “Three boys of the Teddy boy type came in and sat at one table and an elderly man came in and sat at another. The latter went away without ordering.”

  “He followed the priest?”

  “Could be. Tony didn’t notice when he went. Didn’t notice what he looked like, either. Described him as an inconspicuous type of man. Respectable. The kind of man that looks like everybody else. Medium height, he thinks, dark blue overcoat—or could be brown. Not very dark and not very fair. No reason he should have had anything to do with it. One just doesn’t know. He hasn’t come forward to say he saw the priest in Tony’s place—but it’s early days yet. We’re asking for anyone who saw Father Gorman between a quarter to eight and eight fifteen to communicate with us. Only two people so far have responded: a woman and a chemist who had a shop nearby. I’ll be going to see them presently. His body was found at eight fifteen by two small boys in West Street—you know it? Practically an alleyway, bounded by the railway on one side. The rest—you know.”

  Corrigan nodded. He tapped the paper.

  “What’s your feeling about this?”

  “I think it’s important,” said Lejeune.

  “The dying woman told him something and he got these names down on paper as soon as he could before he forgot them? The only thing is—would he have done that if he’d been told under seal of the confessional?”

  “It needn’t have been under a seal of secrecy,” said Lejeune. “Suppose, for instance, these names have a connection of—say, blackmail—”

  “That’s your idea, is it?”

  “I haven’t any ideas yet. This is just a working hypothesis. These people were being blackmailed. The dying woman was either the blackmailer, or she knew about the blackmail. I’d say that the general idea was, repentance, confession, and a wish to make reparation as far as possible. Father Gorman assumed the responsibility.”