“Nary a know,” Mornington answered brightly. “The police have the body as the clue, and that’s all. Rather large, and inconvenient to lug about, and of course only available for a few days. Nature, you know. But it’s the Bookman that annoys me—you wouldn’t believe how much.”
“Oh, come, not really!” the Vicar protested. “You wouldn’t compare the importance of an advertisement with a murder.”
“I think Mr. Mornington’s quite right,” the Archdeacon said. “After all, one shouldn’t be put out of one’s stride by anything phenomenal and accidental. The just man wouldn’t be.”
“But, still, a murder——” the Vicar protested.
The Archdeacon shrugged. “Murders or mice, the principle’s the same,” he answered. “To-morrow is too late, I suppose?”
“Quite,” Mornington answered. “But I needn’t worry you with my phenomenal and specialist troubles.”
“As a matter of fact,” the Archdeacon went on placidly, “we were talking about your firm at first rather differently.” He pointed with his glasses to the manuscript on the table, and looked coyly at Mornington. “I dare say you can guess,” he added.
Mornington tried to look pleased, and said in a voice that almost cracked with doubt: “Books?”
“A book,” the Vicar said. “The Archdeacon’s been giving a series of addresses on Christianity and the League of Nations, and he’s made them into a little volume which ought to have a good sale. So, of course, I thought of you.”
“Thank you so much,” Mornington answered. “And you’ll excuse me asking—but is the Archdeacon prepared to back his fancy? Will he pay if necessary?”
The Archdeacon shook his head. “I couldn’t do that, Mr. Mornington,” he said. “It doesn’t seem to me quite moral, so to speak. You know how they say a book is like a child. One has a ridiculous liking for one’s own child—quite ridiculous. And that’s all right. But seriously to think it’s better than other children, to push it, to ‘back’ its being better, as you said—that seems to me so silly as to be almost wicked.” He shook his head sadly at the manuscript.
“On the general principle I don’t agree with you,” Mornington said. “If your ideas are better than others’ you ought to push them. I’ve no patience with our modern democratic modesty. How do you know the publisher you send it to is a better judge than you are? And, if he rejects it, what do you do?”
“If I send it to all the publishers,” the Archdeacon answered, “and they all reject it, I think I should believe them. Securus iudicat, you know.”
“But it doesn’t,” Mornington said. “Not by any manner of means. The orbis terrarum has to be taught its business by the more intelligent people. It has never yet received a new idea into its chaotic mind unless imposed by force, and generally by the sword.”
He picked up the MS. and turned over the pages. “‘The Protocol and the Pact,’” he read aloud, “‘as Stages in Man’s Consciousness.’ ‘Qualities and Nationalities.’ ‘Modes of Knowledge in Christ and Their Correspondences in Mankind.’ ‘Is the League of Nations Representative?’”
“I gather,” he said, looking up, “that this is at once specialist and popular. I don’t for a moment suppose we shall take it, but I should like to have a look at it. May I carry it off now?”
“I think I’d like to keep it over the week-end,” the Archdeacon answered. “There’s a point or two I want to think over and a little Greek I want to check. Perhaps I might bring it down to you on Monday or Tuesday?”
“Do,” Mornington said. “Of course, I shan’t decide. It’ll go to one of our political readers, who won’t, I should think from the chapter-headings, even begin to understand it. But bring it along by all means. Persimmons’ list is the most muddled-up thing in London. Foxy Flossie’s Flirtations and Notes on Black Magic Considered Philosophically. But that, of course, is his father, so there’s some excuse.”
“I thought you told me the elder Mr. Persimmons had retired,” the Vicar said.
“He is the Evening Star,” Mornington answered. “He cuts the glory from the grey, as it were. But he pops in a good deal so as to do it. He hovers on the horizon perpetually, and about once a fortnight lightens from the east to the west, or at least to Persimmons’ private office. A nice enough creature—with a perverse inclination towards the occult.”
“I’m afraid,” the Vicar said gloomily, “this interest in what they call the occult is growing. It’s a result of the lack of true religion in these days and a wrong curiosity.”
“Oh, wrong, do you think?” Mornington asked. “Would you say any kind of curiosity was wrong? What about Job?”
“Job?” the Archdeacon asked.
“Well, sir, I always understood that where Job scored over the three friends was in feeling a natural curiosity why all those unfortunate things happened to him. They simply put up with it, but he, so to speak, asked God what He thought He was doing.”
The Vicar shook his head. “He was told he couldn’t understand.”
“He was taunted with not being able to understand—which isn’t quite the same thing,” Mornington answered. “As a mere argument there’s something lacking perhaps, in saying to a man who’s lost his money and his house and his family and is sitting on the dustbin, all over boils, ‘Look at the hippopotamus.’”
“Job seemed to be impressed,” the Archdeacon said mildly.
“Yes,” Mornington admitted. “He was certainly a perfect fool, in one meaning or other of the words.” He got up to go, and added: “Then I shall see you in the City before you go back to … Castra Parvulorum, was it? What a jolly name!”
“Unfortunately it isn’t generally called that,” the Archdeacon said. “It’s called in directories and so on, and by the inhabitants, Fardles. By Grimm’s Law.”
“Grimm’s Law?” Mornington asked, astonished. “Wasn’t he the man who wrote the fairy tales for the parvuli? But why did he make a law about it? And why did anyone take any notice?”
“I understand it was something to do with Indo-European sounds,” the Archdeacon answered. “The Castra was dropped, and in parvulorum the p became f and the v became d. And Grimm discovered what had happened. But I try and keep the old name as well as I can. It’s not far from London. They say Caesar gave it the name because his soldiers caught a lot of British children there, and he sent them back to their own people.”
“Then I don’t see why Grimm should have interfered,” Mornington said, shaking hands. “Fardles … it sounds like an essay by Maurice Hewlett. Castra Parvulorum … it sounds like … it sounds like Rome. Well, good night, sir. Good night, Vicar. No, don’t come to the door.”
III
Actually at the moment when Mornington was speaking of him the elder Mr. Persimmons was sitting in a comfortable chair in an Ealing flat, listening to his son’s account of the afternoon’s adventure. He was a large man, and he lay back watching Stephen with amused eyes, as the younger man grew more and more agitated over the incredible facts.
“I’m so afraid it’ll be bad for business,” he ended abruptly.
The other sighed a little and looked at the fire. “Business,” he said. “Oh, I shouldn’t worry about business. If they want your books, they’ll buy your books.” He paused a little, and added: “I called in to see you to-day, but you were out.”
“Did you?” his son said. “They didn’t tell me.”
“Just as well,” Mr. Persimmons answered, “because you needn’t know now. You won’t be called at the inquest. Only, if anybody ever asks you, say you’ll ask me and find out. I tell you because I want to know what you are doing and saying.”
Stephen was looking out of the window, and a minute went by before he spoke. Then he said absently, “What did you want? Anything important?”
“I wanted to talk about the balance sheet,” his father answered. “There are a few points I don’t quite understand. And I still incline to think the proportion of novels is too high. It fritters money away, merely using it to produ
ce more novels of the same kind. I want a definite proportion established between that and the other kind of book. You could quite well have produced my Intensive Mastery instead of that appalling balderdash about Flossie. Stephen, are you listening?”
“Yes,” Stephen said half-angrily.
“I don’t believe you mean to produce my book,” his father went on equably. “Did you read it?”
“Yes,” Stephen said again, and came back into the room. “I don’t know about it. I told you I didn’t quite like it—I don’t think other people would. Of course, I know there’s a great demand for that sort of psycho-analytic book, but I didn’t feel at all sure——” He stopped doubtfully.
“If you ever felt quite sure, Stephen,” the older man said, “I should lose a great deal of pleasure. What was it you didn’t feel quite sure about this time?”
“Well, all the examples—and the stories,” Stephen answered vaguely. “They’re all right, I suppose, but they seemed so—funny.”
“Funny Stories I Have Read, by Stephen Persimmons,” his father gibed. “They weren’t stories, Stephen. They were scientific examples.”
“But they were all about torture,” the other answered. “There was a dreadful one about—oh, horrible! I don’t believe it would sell.”
“It will sell right enough,” his father said. “You’re not a scientist, Stephen.”
“And the diagrams and all that,” his son went on. “It’d cost a great deal to produce.”
“Well, you shall do as you like,” Persimmons answered. “But, if you don’t produce it by Christmas, I’ll print it privately. That will cost a lot more money, Stephen. And anything else I write. If there are many more it’ll make a nasty hole in my accounts. And there won’t be any sale then, because I shall give them away. And burn what are over. Make up your mind over the week-end. I’ll come down next week to hear what you decide. All a gamble, Stephen, and you don’t like to bet except on a certainty, do you? You know, if I could afford it, I should enjoy ruining you, Stephen. But that, Stephen——”
“For God’s sake, don’t keep on calling me Stephen like that,” the wretched publisher said. “I believe you like worrying me.”
“But that,” his father went on placidly, “wasn’t the only reason I came to see you to-day. I wanted to kill a man, and your place seemed to me as good as any and better than most. So it was, it seems.”
Stephen Persimmons stared at the large, heavy body opposite lying back in its chair, and said, “You’re worrying me … aren’t you?”
“I may be,” the other said, “but facts, I’ve noticed, do worry you, Stephen. They worried your mother into that lunatic asylum. A dreadful tragedy, Stephen—to be cut off from one’s wife like that. I hope nothing of the sort will ever happen to you. Here am I comparatively young—and I should like another child, Stephen. Yes, Stephen, I should like another child. There’d be someone else to leave the money to; someone else with an interest in the business. And I should know better what to do. Now, when you were born, Stephen——”
“Oh, God Almighty,” his son cried, “don’t talk to me like that. What do you mean—you wanted to kill a man?”
“Mean?” the father asked. “Why, that. I hadn’t thought of it till the day before, really—yesterday, so it was; when Sir Giles Tumulty told me Rackstraw was coming to see him—and then it only just crossed my mind. But when we got there, it was all so clear and empty. A risk, of course, but not much. Ask him to wait there while I get the money, and shut the door without going out. Done in a minute, Stephen, I assure you. He was an undersized creature, too.”
Stephen found himself unable to ask any more questions. Did his father mean it or not? It would be like the old man to torment him: but if he had? Would it be a way of release?
“Well, first, Stephen,” the voice struck in, “you can’t and won’t be sure. And it wouldn’t look well to denounce your father on chance. Your mother is in a lunatic asylum, you know. And, secondly, my last will—I made it a week or two ago—leaves all my money to found a settlement in East London. Very awkward for you, Stephen, if it all had to be withdrawn. But you won’t, you won’t. If anyone asks you, say you weren’t told, but you know I wanted to talk to you about the balance sheet. I’ll come in next week to do it.”
Stephen got to his feet. “I think you want to drive me mad too,” he said. “O God, if I only knew!”
“You know me,” his father said. “Do you think I should worry about strangling you, Stephen, if I wanted to? As, of course, I might. But it’s getting late. You know, Stephen, you brood too much; I’ve always said so. You keep your troubles to yourself and brood over them. Why not have a good frank talk with one of your clerks—that fellow Rackstraw, say? But you always were a secretive fellow. Perhaps it’s as well, perhaps it’s as well. And you haven’t got a wife. Now, can you hang me or can’t you?” The door shut behind his son, but he went on still aloud. “The wizards were burned, they went to be burned, they hurried. Is there a need still? Must the wizard be an outcast like the saint? Or am I only tired? I want another child. And I want the Graal.”
He lay back in his chair, contemplating remote possibilities and the passage of the days immediately before him.
Chapter Three
THE ARCHDEACON IN THE CITY
The inquest was held on the Monday, with the formal result of a verdict of “Murder by a person or persons unknown,” and the psychological result of emphasizing the states of mind of the three chief sufferers within themselves. The world certified itself as being, to Lionel more fantastic, to Mornington more despicable, to Stephen Persimmons more harassing. To the young girl who lived in the waiting-room and was interrogated by the coroner, it became, on the contrary, more exciting and delightful than ever; although she had no information to give—having, on her own account, been engaged all the while so closely indexing letter-books that she had not observed anyone enter or depart by the passage at the side of her office.
On the Tuesday, however, being, perhaps naturally, more watchful, she remarked towards the end of the day, three, or rather four, visitors. The offices shut at six, and about half-past four the elder Mr. Persimmons, giving her an amiable smile, passed heavily along the corridor and up to his son’s room. At about a quarter past five Barbara Rackstraw, with Adrian, shone in the entrance—as she did normally some three or four times a year—and also disappeared up the stairs. And somewhere between the two a polite, chubby, and gaitered clergyman hovered at the door of the waiting-room and asked her tentatively if Mr. Mornington were in. Him she committed to the care of a passing office-boy, and returned to her indexing.
Gregory Persimmons, a little to his son’s surprise and greatly to his relief, appeared to have shaken off the mood of tantalizing amusement which had possessed him on the previous Friday. He discussed various financial points in the balance sheet as if he were concerned only with ordinary business concerns. He congratulated his son on the result of the inquest as likely to close the whole matter except in what he thought the unlikely result of the police discovering the murderer; and when he brought up the subject of Intensive Mastery he did it with no suggestion that anything but the most normal hesitation had ever held Stephen back from enthusiastic acceptance. In the sudden relief from mental neuralgia thus granted him, Stephen found himself promising to have the book out before Christmas—it was then early summer—and even going so far as to promise estimates during the next week and discuss the price at which it might reasonably appear. Towards the end of an hour’s conversation Gregory said, “By the way, I saw Tumulty yesterday, and he asked me to make sure that he was in time to cut a paragraph out of his book. He sent Rackstraw a postcard, but perhaps I might just make sure it got here all right. May I go along, Stephen?”
“Do,” Stephen said. “I’ll sign these letters and be ready by the time you’re back.” And, as his father went out with a nod, he thought to himself: “He couldn’t possibly want to go into that office again if he’d really ki
lled a man there. It’s just his way of pulling my leg. Rather hellish, but I suppose it doesn’t seem so to him.”
Lionel, tormented with a more profound and widely spread neuralgia than his employer’s, had by pressure of work been prevented from dwelling on it that day. Soon after his arrival Mornington had broken into the office to ask if he could have a set of proofs of Sir Giles Tumulty’s book on Vessels of Folklore. “I’ve got an Archdeacon coming to see me,” he said—“don’t bow—and an Archdeacon ought to be interested in folklore, don’t you think? I always used to feel that Archdeacons were a kind of surviving folklore themselves—they seem pre-Christian and almost prehistoric: a lingering and bi-sexual tradition. Besides, publicity, you know. Don’t Archdeacons charge? ‘Charge, Archdeacons, charge! On, Castra Parvulorum, on! were the last words of Mornington.’”
“I wish they were!” Lionel said. “There are the proofs, on that shelf: take them and go! take them all.”
“I don’t want them all. Business, business. We can’t have murders and Bank Holidays every day.”
He routed out the proofs and departed; and when by the afternoon post an almost indecipherable postcard from Sir Giles asked for the removal of a short paragraph on page 218, Lionel did not think of making the alteration on the borrowed set. He marked the paragraph for deletion on the proofs he was about to return for Press, cursing Sir Giles a little for the correction—which, however, as it came at the end of a whole division of the book, would cause no serious inconvenience—and much more for his handwriting. A sentence beginning—he at last made out—“It has been suggested to me” immediately became totally illegible, and only recovered meaning towards the end, where the figures 218 rode like a monumental Pharaoh over the diminutive abbreviations which surrounded it. But the instruction was comprehensible, if the reason for it was not, and Lionel dispatched the proofs to the printer.
When, later on, the Archdeacon arrived, Mornington greeted him with real and false warmth mingled. He liked the clergyman, but he disliked manuscripts, and a manuscript on the League of Nations promised him some hours’ boredom. For, in spite of his disclaimer, he knew he would have to skim the book at least, before he obtained further opinions, and the League of Nations lay almost in the nadir of all the despicable things in the world. It seemed to him so entire and immense a contradiction of aristocracy that it drove him into a positive hunger for mental authority imposed by force. He desired to see Plato and his like ruling with power, and remembered with longing the fierce inquisition of the Laws. However, he welcomed the Archdeacon without showing this, and settled down to chat about the book.