The Black Seraphim Read online

  Copyright & Information

  The Black Seraphim

  First published in 1984

  © Estate of Michael Gilbert; House of Stratus 1984-2012

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  The right of Michael Gilbert to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

  This edition published in 2012 by House of Stratus, an imprint of

  Stratus Books Ltd., Lisandra House, Fore Street, Looe,

  Cornwall, PL13 1AD, UK.

  Typeset by House of Stratus.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.

  EAN ISBN Edition

  0755105281 9780755105281 Print

  0755131770 9780755131778 Kindle

  0755132149 9780755132140 Epub

  This is a fictional work and all characters are drawn from the author’s imagination.

  Any resemblance or similarities to persons either living or dead are entirely coincidental.

  www.houseofstratus.com

  About the Author

  Born in Lincolnshire, England, Michael Francis Gilbert graduated in law from the University of London in 1937, shortly after which he first spent some time teaching at a prep-school which was followed by six years serving with the Royal Horse Artillery. During World War II he was captured following service in North Africa and Italy, and his prisoner-of-war experiences later leading to the writing of the acclaimed novel ‘Death in Captivity’ in 1952.

  After the war, Gilbert worked as a solicitor in London, but his writing continued throughout his legal career and in addition to novels he wrote stage plays and scripts for radio and television. He is, however, best remembered for his novels, which have been described as witty and meticulously-plotted espionage and police procedural thrillers, but which exemplify realism.

  HRF Keating stated that ‘Smallbone Deceased’ was amongst the 100 best crime and mystery books ever published. "The plot," wrote Keating, "is in every way as good as those of Agatha Christie at her best: as neatly dovetailed, as inherently complex yet retaining a decent credibility, and as full of cunningly-suggested red herrings." It featured Chief Inspector Hazlerigg, who went on to appear in later novels and short stories, and another series was built around Patrick Petrella, a London based police constable (later promoted) who was fluent in four languages and had a love for both poetry and fine wine. Other memorable characters around which Gilbert built stories included Calder and Behrens. They are elderly but quite amiable agents, who are nonetheless ruthless and prepared to take on tasks too much at the dirty end of the business for their younger colleagues. They are brought out of retirement periodically upon receiving a bank statement containing a code.

  Much of Michael Gilbert’s writing was done on the train as he travelled from home to his office in London: "I always take a latish train to work," he explained in 1980, "and, of course, I go first class. I have no trouble in writing because I prepare a thorough synopsis beforehand.". After retirement from the law, however, he nevertheless continued and also reviewed for ‘The Daily Telegraph’, as well as editing ‘The Oxford Book of Legal Anecdotes’.

  Gilbert was appointed CBE in 1980. Generally regarded as ‘one of the elder statesmen of the British crime writing fraternity, he was a founder-member of the British Crime Writers’ Association and in 1988 he was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America, before receiving the Lifetime ‘Anthony’ Achievement award at the 1990 Boucheron in London.

  Michael Gilbert died in 2006, aged ninety three, and was survived by his wife and their two sons and five daughters.

  Quote

  Modern science has convinced us that nothing that is obvious is true, and that everything that is magical, improbable, extraordinary, gigantic, microscopic, heartless, or outrageous is scientific.

  George Bernard Shaw,

  From his Preface to Saint Joan

  Prologue

  When Dr James Pirie Scotland fainted, he did so in the most dramatic manner, at the conclusion of a lecture on Morbid Anatomy which he was giving to the students of Guy’s Hospital. He tumbled off the edge of the rostrum and hit his head on a gallows from which was hanging a fully articulated skeleton.

  Twenty medical students, faced with a problem to which there was no answer in their books, proceeded to suggest twenty different courses of action, mostly inappropriate. Fortunately, one of them had the sense to summon the sister on duty, who packed Dr Scotland off to the nearest private ward.

  By the time she had got him there, he had more or less recovered and felt deeply ashamed of himself. Sister Lewthwaite was firm. She said, “That’s a nasty cut in your head. It’ll need stitches. I’ll get the houseman to look at it.”

  Dr Scotland put his feet on the floor and said, “Really, Sister. Absolutely stupid of me.” He tried to stand up and sat down again abruptly.

  “As I thought,” said Sister Lewthwaite. “Concussion. If you’re going to be sick, the basin’s under the bed.”

  In the end it was the Medical Registrar who pronounced the verdict. He said: “There’s nothing organically wrong with you, James. Nature is presenting the bill for six years of overwork. What you need is a month’s holiday. Somewhere right away from all this.” He dismissed, with a wave of his hand, the grimy stones of South London, which were baking under the September sun. “The isles of Greece, or the mountains of Kashmir. Or if you can’t afford that, a cottage in the wildest part of Dartmoor.”

  “I don’t know that I can afford even that,” said James sadly. “But I’ll think of something.”

  It had been a hard six years; made harder by an almost complete lack of money. His mother, who had been widowed when James was six, had once said to him: “Other people have money. The Scotlands have to get by on brains.” And so it had been. A good Secondary Modern School, which had allowed him to specialise in physics, chemistry and biology, followed by a scholarship at Oxford. At the end of his first year, at his tutor’s suggestion, he had transferred to the medical school. Here he had discovered a sense of vocation and had worked very hard indeed, winning both the Beaney Prize and the Gull Exhibition in pathology. During his year as a houseman he had continued to read; savage, solitary evenings bent over his books and papers while his contemporaries were drinking beer and making intermittently successful efforts to seduce the nurses.

  By now the authorities had their eyes on this earnest young student. A junior registrarship in the Pathology Department had been his for the asking. He had combined the job with tutorial work.

  His next move had been to the Poisons Reference Section at New Cross Hospital. Here he had spent a hard but happy year. Much of his time had been spent in considering the toxic properties of everyday things. Of bleaching powders and almond oil and turpentine and white spirits; of the weedkillers and insecticides in people’s toolsheds, the kerosene and antifreeze in their garages, the foxglove and laburnum in their gardens, the yew trees and the nightshade in the hedges.

  It was at about this time that he began to have bad nights.

  In the earlier years, after a hard day’s work, sleep had dropped on him as soon as he had tumbled into bed. Now he seemed to have lost the knack. Sometimes tunes would be running in his head. Hymn tunes mostly. A verse would sing itself a dozen times over. When he went to sleep, the nightmares started. He seemed to be living in a world which was pitch black but shot thro
ugh with occasional bursts of unwholesome brightness. It was in these bright intervals that he realised that the men and women who thronged about him were all evil. All of them. The half-smile on their faces when they handed you the cup or the glass indicated that they knew there was something unhealthy in it; but you had to drink. Then came the burning sensation in the mouth and throat and he would wake up, his heart beating double time and his forehead damp. Sometimes, but not often, he would be sick.

  “At least a month,” said the Registrar. “Better two. We’ll call it sick leave. On one condition: You take no books with you.”

  “I must have something to read.”

  “Not detective stories, then. Too complicated. Straight thrillers, if you like. Cowboy stories. Romances. Or take up fishing. I’m told it’s very relaxing.”

  When the Registrar got home that night and told his wife about it, she said, “He doesn’t need relaxing. He needs shaking up. I’m sure he’s a very worthy young man, but he’s dug himself a groove and buried himself in it. That’s all right when you’re fifty. Not when you’re twenty-four.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “Something violent and different. You were lucky. You had that call-up in the Infantry.”

  “Getting up at six o’clock, scrubbing greasy tabletops with cold water.”

  “It broadened your mind.”

  Her husband said, “Ugh.”

  Meanwhile James had been doing some thinking.

  In the empty twelve months between leaving school and starting at Oxford he had taken a temporary job teaching at the Choristers’ School at Melchester. He had chosen it because his cousin, Lawrence Consett, was headmaster. James had found that he enjoyed teaching, as a change from being taught; and Latin and French and history as a change from physics and chemistry.

  “Put you up for a month?” said Lawrence. “No difficulty. To start with, you can share the school cottage with Peter Fleming. You remember Peter? Furbank has broken his ankle, stupid fellow, and won’t be back until around the end of the month. After that, there are one or two people I can think of who’d be happy to give you a bed. Our Chapter Clerk – Henry Brookes – was telling me only the other day that he had a spare room now that his old aunt had popped off at last. You could make some arrangement with him for bed and breakfast and get your other meals out.”

  “That sounds perfect.”

  “It’ll be quiet, of course. But I gather that’s what you want.”

  “Just what the doctor ordered,” said James.

  One

  The bishops wore cardboard mitres. The castles had straw hats with ribbons of red and black. The knights carried riding crops and the kings and queens had paper crowns.

  “The white queen is Mrs Henn-Christie,” said Peter Fleming. “Her husband was Archdeacon when you were here before. A little man with a white beard like a goat. He fell off his bicycle and ruptured his spleen. The white king is Canon Maude. He’s the one the choristers call Aunt Maude. The black queen is Lady Fallingford and the black king is Archdeacon Pawle.”

  A piece of sailcloth, painted in sixty-four squares of black and white, had been pegged out on the Theological College lawn. There was a contraption at each end like the folding ladder used by a tennis umpire. A middle-aged clergyman was perched on the nearer one and a much older clergyman on the one at the far end. Both were armed with megaphones.

  “King’s knight to king four,” boomed the middle-aged clergyman.

  A boy stepped two paces forward and one to his right and tapped the occupant of the square on the shoulder. He was grinning as he did so.

  “Look at Andrew,” said Peter. “He’s bagged the head.”

  The capture of Mr Consett was greeted with heartless laughter from a line of boy pawns who had already been taken and were squatting on a bench alongside the playing area.

  “Of course, this is only a rehearsal,” said Peter. “On the day they’ll all be wearing proper costumes. Some of them are magnificent. The two queens particularly. Mrs Henn-Christie has promised to wear the pearl tiara which belonged to her great-grandmother.”

  It was the third week in September, but the sun had lost none of his summer strength. Most of the men who were watching were in shirt sleeves. Two girls, seated together on the far side of the square, were in thin summer dresses. One was a well-rounded brunette. The other was fair and slight.

  Peter saw James look in that direction and said, “Watch your step.”

  “Who are they?”

  “The plump one is Penny. She’s the head’s daughter. She’s man-hungry.”

  “If she’s Lawrence Consett’s daughter, she’s my first cousin once removed.”

  “Consanguinity won’t save you.”

  “Why didn’t I meet her when I was here before?”

  “She was away in Switzerland, being finished. The first cosy little chat you have together she’ll tell you all about it. It sounded to me like a mixture between a brothel and a school of mountain warfare.”

  “Queen to king seven,” said the old clergyman.

  Mrs Henn-Christie swept forward and abolished a squeaking pawn.

  “Check.”

  “King to queen two,” said the middle-aged clergyman hastily.

  “Who’s the other girl?”

  “That’s Amanda. Dean Forrest’s daughter. The Forrests came here about two years ago. Same time as the new Archdeacon.”

  “Is the Dean here?”

  “He wouldn’t be likely to attend a function organised by the Archdeacon.”

  “Why not?”

  “They loathe each other’s guts.”

  “Queen’s knight to queen six. Check.”

  “The one on the ladder at the far end is old Canon Lister. I recognise him. And this one must be Canon Humphrey. He came just before I left.”

  “Francis Humphrey. Canon and Subdean. A very nice man.”

  “But not a very good chess player.”

  “Not as good as old Tom Lister.”

  Canon Humphrey was considering his next move. He did not seem to have much room for manoeuvre. While he was thinking about it, James looked around. Living chess. That was part of the Melchester tradition. He remembered reading that in the last years of Victoria’s reign the great Bishop Townshend had played a game against the Hungarian master Ramek. In that game the kings and queens had been the Marquess and Marchioness of Bridport and Lord and Lady Weldon of Kings Sutton. The meanest pawn had been an esquire of the county.

  Characters changed, the scale changed, but, underneath, it was unchanging.

  It seemed to be checkmate. Canon Humphrey waved a hand at his opponent and climbed down from his perch. The Archdeacon said, “It’s no good, Francis. We’re charging people a pound to come in. If Tom’s going to beat you in under twenty moves, they won’t feel they’ve had their money’s worth.”

  “Then we’ll have to fudge it,” said Canon Humphrey. “Hello. Don’t I recognise you? You used to teach at the school.”

  “He’s a rising young doctor now,” said Peter.

  “Splendid. They’re giving us tea in the college. Come along.”

  Tea had been laid out in the refectory. The pawns were already making inroads into the sandwiches. Canon Maude came bouncing in. He was exactly as James remembered him. Large, moist and pink. As soon as he was sighted, the nearest chorister picked up two plates and offered them to him. Canon Maude patted him on the head and said, “Poor little pawn, so soon captured.”

  “I died in a good cause,” said the pawn coolly. “Tomato or cucumber?”

  “Would you think I was very greedy if I had one of each?”

  Another boy offered him a cup of tea. He earned a smile.

  “You’re being neglected,” said a girl’s voice behind James. “The boys are such horrid little pigs. They scoff most of the food themselves. Anyone would think we starved them. Andrew, bring those sandwiches here at once.”

  One of the black knights rescued a plate from a smaller b
oy and brought it across. He smiled in a friendly way and said, “I recognise you, sir. We were both new together.”

  “And I wouldn’t like to bet on which of us was the more scared,” said James. He thought for a moment. “Then you’re either Andrew Gould or David Lyon.”

  “I’m Andrew. This one’s David.” He indicated his fellow knight.

  “You both seem to have grown a lot in the last six years.”

  “One does,” said Andrew. He sounded like a middle-aged man regretting his lost youth.

  “Andrew’s Bishop’s Boy and head of the school now,” said Penny. “What about getting us both a cup of tea?”

  “See what I can do.”

  Penny focused friendly brown eyes on James. She seemed to approve of what she saw. She said, “When you were here before, I don’t believe we met.”

  “I did catch one glimpse of you, I think. You had pigtails.”

  “And a red nose and a squeaky voice.”

  “I don’t remember the red nose.”

  Andrew returned carrying a cup of tea in either hand. He was closely followed by Lady Fallingford, who cut out James from under Penny’s guns with the expertise developed in a hundred social engagements. She said, “Your grandmother Marjorie Lovett was one of my greatest friends. We were at school together, at Oxford. You must come and have tea with me and tell me all about her.”

  “I didn’t know her well,” said James. “She died when I was four. I remember her as a little black bundle that jingled when it moved.”

  Lady Fallingford gave a cackle of laughter. She said, “Monday, then. At half past four. You know where I live. River Gate Cottages. Just inside the wall. Mine is the one at the far end. You mustn’t be late, because we shall all be going on to a recorder session at the Humphreys’ afterwards. Now, come along and let me introduce you to Claribel Henn-Christie. Her husband was the last Archdeacon. Happy days they were!”