Passing Strange Read online

  The trivial round, the common task, Will furnish all we ought to ask.

  Some philosophers spelled things out more elaborately, but as religious rules went it said almost everything. It certainly said a great deal about Joyce Cooper.

  “Not a lot of joy in the house,” said Sloan to the pathologist.

  Dr Dabbe had been continuing to think about Richenda Mellows. “In the absence of striking family likeness, Sloan …”

  “Yes?”

  “You might – theoretically at least …”

  “Yes?”

  “Have to exclude a touch of the Old Pretender’s.”

  “The what?”

  “Said by some to have been smuggled in to the royal accouchement …”

  “Baby switching?” Sloan tried to visualize the list of principal arrestable offences. “We don’t get a lot of that down at the Station these days.” He thought it had got left behind in Victorian melodrama.

  “In a warming-pan,” said Dabbe negligently.

  Warming-pans, too, had gone out.

  The pathologist changed his tune. “Actually, Sloan, any congenital deformity could be relevant. And,” he added soberly, “then, of course, the testimony of the midwife would have been decisive.”

  Sloan matched his seriousness. “That’s what I was afraid of, Doctor.”

  Mr Stephen Terlingham made no bones at all about seeing Detective-Inspector Sloan and Detective-Constable Crosby on a Sunday morning. The offices of Messrs Terlingham, Terlingham and Owlet were in Bishop’s Yard at Calleford. So was Mr Terlingham’s house. He lived over the offices in a Georgian house whose perfection of style was a perpetual temptation to those who came to photograph the Minster. If they stood carefully they could get in something of the house and all of the Minster, which put both into photographic perspective, so to speak. The Bishop’s Palace which lay behind and belonged to a later – less happy – architectural period was usually mistaken for offices and seldom photographed.

  This morning there were few tourists about. Those folk who were hurrying across Bishop’s Yard to the Minster were on their way to Morning Service. The Great Bell of Calleford encouraged them with a clangour that in any other sound-form would have constituted Environmental Pollution within the meaning of the Act. If his formal garb was anything to go by, Mr Stephen Terlingham had also been intending to attend it. There was nothing at all casual about his Sunday attire. He was a lean man with a figure that did his suit credit. Black suited him too.

  He received the two policemen with the grave courtesy that had he – Stephen Terlingham – had his way would have been the hallmark of the profession. He had grave reservations about the trestle-table approach of the neighbourhood Law Centre and even graver doubts about the instant law of the radio chat show. Breeziness had no place amid the dark mahogany furniture set carefully upon the Turkey-red carpet of the senior partner’s room.

  There was nothing of the ambulance-chaser about Mr Stephen Terlingham.

  “The Mellows family,” he said to Sloan after a due and proper exchange of credentials, “have been clients of the firm for several generations.” He added a further artistic touch of antiquity to the general impression of extreme age given off by everything in sight by saying, “My old father always said that no good would ever come of that quarrel the Brigadier and his nephew had.”

  Sloan observed sententiously that good seldom came of any quarrel. He’d learned that lesson on the beat long ago.

  “Of course,” said the solicitor consideringly, “the Brigadier wasn’t the easiest of men to get on with. Liked his own way, you know.”

  Sloan said he imagined that Brigadiers usually did.

  Crosby said that Brigadiers usually got it.

  “And I understand,” said Stephen Terlingham, “that young Richard Mellows had a mind of his own too.”

  “Ran in the family, I expect,” said Sloan. Sloan was Calleshire-born and bred and if he remembered police gossip from long ago it was this Mr Stephen Terlingham’s father who had been known as ‘young Mr Stephen’. His grandfather was ‘old Mr Stephen’. That had left no scope at all for this Mr Stephen to be called anything but ‘Mr Stephen’ again – like his great-grandfather before him. The other branch of the Terlinghams had petered out in the female line before the present-day Portias had got their foot in the door of the Inns of Court. The present generation of the Owlet family was represented by a young hopeful straight from Law School presently being allowed to find his feet under the tutelage of an aged Chief Clerk.

  “You could be right,” said the solicitor non-committally.

  “My enquiries,” said Sloan, stating the police position, “arise out of the murder of Miss Joyce Cooper.” He could see the Minster from where he was sitting. Its very presence seemed to add weight to the lawyer’s carefully delivered statements.

  The solicitor acknowledged the mention of murder with a quick nod. “Edward Hebbinge telephoned me last night, Inspector. Though I was there earlier myself.”

  “At the Flower Show?” Sloan hadn’t known that.

  “When there is anything special at the Priory, Inspector, I always make a point of attending it.” He bowed his head slightly. “Mrs Mellows expected it.”

  Sloan in his turn acknowledged this with a quick nod which did not reveal whether he thought it window-dressing or not.

  “A nasty business,” continued Terlingham.

  “Yes, sir,” responded Sloan. “A nasty business indeed.” Two could play at the game of not making helpful comment. He explained that Richenda Mellows had been detained for questioning. He might also have added that she had partaken of a good breakfast – but he didn’t.

  “I do not act for Miss Mellows,” said Terlingham at once. “If in fact, you happen to know of anyone who is acting for her I should be glad to get in touch with them. Very glad.”

  “I very much doubt,” said Sloan, with more than a touch of dryness, “if anyone is.”

  “So do I,” said the solicitor with his first touch of warmth. “In spite of several earnest attempts I was not myself able to persuade her to seek professional advice.”

  Sloan was not surprised. He doubted if either the view of the Minster or the Turkey-red carpet would have cut much ice with Richenda Mellows. She was a girl on her own. With a mind of her own. Whether she was a Mellows or not.

  “Her father,” said Terlingham, tightening his lips, “if he was her father, that is – seems to have brought her up on highly selective impressions of the English legal system.”

  “I don’t think she thinks Our Policemen Are Wonderful either,” said Sloan wryly. “Not any more.”

  Terlingham shot him a look in which Sloan thought he could detect fellow-feeling. “She insists, Inspector, on dealing with everything herself.”

  “Difficult,” said Sloan.

  “Especially in the present circumstances.” Terlingham took off his glasses and began to polish them. “I am in the process of discharging the duties of executor of the estate of the late Mrs Agatha Mellows …”

  “Yes?” said Sloan encouragingly.

  “And trustee of the Marriage Settlement of the late Brigadier Richard Mellows.”

  “I see,” said Sloan comfortably. “Then you know all about the family and you can put us in the picture, can’t you?”

  “Well, I … hrmph … hrmph … I don’t know about that.”

  “Murder being once done,” Sloan murmured straight from his subconscious. Now where had that come from?

  “Probate had been obtained.” Stephen Terlingham restored his glasses to his nose. “There was no difficulty there.”

  “And the next step?”

  The solicitor took refuge in verbiage – and the impersonal mood. “It is in the fulfilling of the duties of executor and trustee that the present problem arises.”

  “Richenda Mellows,” said Sloan helpfully.

  “There is a problem of identity,” admitted Terlingham.

  In a chair in the corner of
the room Detective-Constable Crosby stirred. If, thought Sloan, Crosby said his cousin Ted had one of those, too, he’d put him on report. This was no time to be dragging in jokes about psychiatrists. The constable, however, said nothing while the solicitor cleared his throat. “There is some doubt – some considerable doubt – about whether Richenda Mellows is who she says she is. We have evidence – er – documentary evidence – part rather than parcel, you might say …”

  “A letter,” said Sloan. Bushes would only stand so much beating about.

  “Precisely. A letter written by old Mrs Mellows – when she was much younger, naturally – referring to the nephew’s baby as having brown eyes. Hebbinge came across a box of old letters after she died and handed them over to me as executor.”

  “I see.”

  The solicitor straightened his waistcoat with a little tug and delivered himself of a further anxiety. “There is also the – er – more mechanical problem of what happens in consequence. There is a not invaluable property involved, Inspector.”

  The double negative brought the memory of the smell of blackboard chalk flooding back to Sloan’s inner mind. He could almost detect it in his nostrils now. And with it came the sound of the English master’s voice barking at the class, “If you mean a thing, boy, say it! Don’t say it doesn’t mean the opposite.”

  He lifted his head and said, “Yes, sir, I’m sure.” There was no doubt in his mind that what was up for grabs was worth grabbing. Indubitably. And he would not be alone in thinking so. That started another train of thought in Sloan’s mind. “The other person or persons involved …”

  “Mrs Edith Wylly.” Stephen Terlingham looked out of the window at the Minster. “She’s the widow of a clergyman living in not uncomfortable circumstances here in Calleford.”

  Sloan marked another double negative.

  Terlingham stroked his chin, and chose his words with care. “She is not prepared to take any active steps to further a claim to the estate which would only be hers by default.”

  “She’s childless, I take it,” said Sloan. A man learned realism early in the police force. Sons and daughters – or at any rate their wives and husbands – would never have stood back. Or have let their mother stand back from the chance of three good farms and a small country house.

  “Childless and no longer young,” said Terlingham. “If it is decided that Richenda Mellows is not entitled to the Priory estate …”

  “If she’s not the real Richenda Mellows?” put in Crosby, who was now following the proceedings with interest, “and the real one’s dead …”

  “Then,” said the solicitor, “it devolves on Mrs Wylly automatically. She is content to – er – rest in the Lord and let events take their course.”

  “Religious,” diagnosed Sloan. It always made calculation difficult.

  “Very.”

  “And if anything should happen to her?” said Sloan.

  It was his bounden duty to see – from this moment onwards – that nothing did happen to Mrs Wylly. Religion wasn’t going to save her from irreligious attack. Police protection might but even police protection was no guarantee against Mother Nature. Or Original Sin.

  He made a note.

  “Then,” said the solicitor on firm ground now, “it goes to the descendant of a remote collateral branch.”

  “Lock, stock and barrel?” enquired Sloan ironically.

  “Yes,” said Terlingham without any touch of irony at all. “We – er – haven’t been in touch with him yet. It seemed just a little premature.”

  “Very wise,” said the policeman. And meant it.

  “But, of course, should the necessity arise …” the sentence hung unfinished in the air.

  “One thing puzzles me,” said Sloan. “I thought places like the Priory – landed property –” that was another phrase he used every day without knowing what it meant “– usually went to the men of the family.”

  “The money in the Mellows family,” said Terlingham astringently, “came originally through the female line.”

  “Ah.”

  “And heiresses tend to come from infertile families.” Terlingham delivered himself of this unexpected pearl of received legal wisdom and sat back.

  “Er – quite so,” said Sloan. The law could say what it meant when it wanted to. He knew that. Especially when it started talking about Equity. Its well-established reputation for not doing so came solely from an unwillingness to disclose information: which was something quite different.

  Disclosing information reminded him of something else.

  “Where does Maurice Esdaile come into all this?” asked Sloan.

  A shadow passed over the solicitor’s face. “The position of Esdaile Homes is undoubtedly complicated by the – er – unsettled business. The Trustees of Richenda Mellows, of whom I am one, are willing for the deal to go ahead – should they be appointed, of course. Mrs Agatha Mellows died just before the formalities could be completed, otherwise that transaction would have been quite straightforward.” He looked up. “She went quite suddenly at the end, you know.”

  “I know,” said Sloan. It was one of the many things he had thought about during the night. “And Mrs Wylly. What does she think?”

  Stephen Terlingham looked out at the Minster. “Informal approaches have been made to Mrs Wylly. Strictly off the record, you understand.”

  Sloan understood. He probably understood more than the solicitor realized.

  “She has – er – intimated,” went on the solicitor, “that in the event of her coming into the property she would wish the estate to continue to be administered as at present. I am happy to say that Mrs Wylly is not entirely without some knowledge of the capital and maintenance needs of property.” He took another look through the window at the Minster and added drily “I dare say we have to thank her close association with the Church of England for that.”

  “Quite so,” said Sloan, matching the other man’s tone.

  “I think I may say that in any event the status quo would be preserved as far as possible.” He fixed Sloan with his eye. “But I am aware that the matter needs resolution.”

  “We do not at this stage,” said the detective-inspector cautiously, “know what bearing, if any, the death of the District Nurse has on the Priory inheritance.”

  Mr Stephen Terlingham favoured the policeman with a remarkably shrewd look. “If the District Nurse had been able to identify Richenda Mellows as the daughter of Richard Charles Mellows, then of course this would have settled the matter as far as Terlingham, Terlingham and Owlet are concerned.”

  “Or not the daughter,” said the policeman. His concern was with the late Joyce Cooper and would be until he had brought her killer to book.

  “That, too,” said the solicitor precisely, “would have settled the matter.”

  Inside the Minster at Calleford the canon in residence was intoning “the Scripture moveth us in sundry places to acknowledge and confess our manifold sins and wickedness …”

  In the Minster Yard a detective-inspector and a detective-constable, both on duty too, were walking away from the offices of a solicitor.

  “There’s a lot of scope for sticky fingers in this set-up, sir,” said the detective-constable succinctly, “isn’t there?”

  But Sloan was whistling a tune to himself. It sounded very like “Take a pair of sparkling eyes.”

  12

  Hauteboy swell

  Morning Service at St Peter’s Church, Almstone, was both the same as and different from the Morning Service being conducted in the Minster at Calleford. The timing was the same and the form of the service was the same. The music was very different. At the organ in Calleford Minster (organ case carved by Grinling Gibbons) a budding organ scholar from one of the older universities was giving a virtuoso performance designed to further his career in the world of the long pipes.

  There was no organist this Sunday at St Peter’s, Almstone.

  Last Sunday Nurse Cooper had played the organ
there. This morning the Rector’s wife, who hoped she knew where her duty lay, was doing her best at the piano.

  Another thing that was different was the size of the congregation. That at the Minster was much the same as usual for the third Sunday in the month. That at St Peter’s, Almstone, broke all records since 1928 when the then Rector had asked for – and got – a show of force over the proposed Revision of the Prayer Book.

  The Reverend Thomas Jervis was not particularly disturbed. He had long ago come to terms with the innate frailty of human nature. He reckoned that a clergyman was not a real shepherd of his flock until he had. And he recognized that the threat of danger was what drew people together: that and simple curiosity. There was plenty of both of these ingredients about in Almstone after yesterday.

  That this should manifest itself in the largest congregation he had ever had was merest accident.

  He had, however, made two concessions to the changed circumstance. His sermon was to have been preached on the Gospel of St Matthew, Chapter Five, verse five – ‘Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.’ He had been playing about in his mind with this intriguing piece of Scripture since the previous Monday. (Another thing that he had learned over the years was that the only way to put any doubts about the efficacy of the previous Sunday’s sermon out of his mind was to start thinking about the one for the following Sunday.)

  Like so much in Holy Writ, its application to present-day living was not immediately apparent. Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan had not struck Mr Jervis as particularly meek – nor Catherine the Great. Æsop – good old Æsop – had, of course, hit the nail on the head as usual with his fable about the reed and the olive (transmogrified for those in northern climes to the oak). The Reverend Thomas Jervis had paused in his thinking at that point (and in his shaving, as it happened: it was surprising how often the two things went together) to pay tribute to the works of Æsop. Keep them in view and you couldn’t go far wrong.

  On the other hand, though sound, they were pre-Christian and what he had wanted to do was to put the concept of the meek inheriting the earth into a modern context. He had abandoned Æsop by the time he had dried his face. It was just as well that he felt he was too old for a beard because all his best ideas came while shaving. His father had been too young to have a beard – and his grandfather had been thought old-fashioned with his.