The Black Seraphim by Michael Gilbert Read Free Book Online

on his heel and marched steadily out of the Close into the High Street without looking back.
    James let out the breath which he had been holding and said, “I don’t know about you, but I could do with a cup of coffee.”
    “Good idea,” said Amanda. “Let’s go to the Copper Kettle.” She got out of the car. Mullins was still looking at his notebook. He seemed to be abstracted. “Jolly well played, Mullins.”
    “I’m afraid we may have a bit of bother about that,” said Mullins, “but I wasn’t going to be trampled on. If he’d been polite, now—”
    “Don’t worry,” said Amanda. “You were only doing your duty. The Dean will back you to the hilt.”
    Over a cup of coffee in the Copper Kettle, James said to Amanda, “What is the position, really? Does the authority of the police extend to the Close or not?”
    Amanda said, “I don’t think anyone knows. For crimes and breaches of the peace and things like that, certainly it does. But some things, like traffic control, are left to us.”
    When James got back to the cottage, he found Peter stretched out in a chair with his heels on the table, smoking.
    “Picture of an idle schoolmaster,” said James.
    “I’m conserving my powers,” said Peter. “Difficult days ahead. Finance Committee meeting tomorrow.”
    “Are you involved in that?”
    “We’re all involved. Even the Matron has to turn up and account for every cough drop she dishes out.” The prospect didn’t seem to worry him. He said, “You remember Anstruther.”
    “Bottle?”
    “That’s the boy. Aunt Maude has started writing to him.”
    “Poems?”
    “Love letters.”
    “Good God!” said James.
    “It’s no joke, really. Luckily, the boy had the sense to hand it straight over to me. I don’t think anyone else saw it. I gave it to Lawrence. He nearly had a fit. It was full of stuff about eyes like stars and rose-red lips.”
    “The man’s senile. What’s Lawrence going to do?”
    “I left him worrying about it.”
    “If I was him, I’d tell the boy to tear it up.”
    “And what happens when Anstruther tells his father about it? He’s a brigadier general and lives in the town.”
    “Not easy,” agreed James.
    “What I guess he’ll do is pass the buck to the Archdeacon. He’s chairman of the School Governors.”
    “What will he do?”
    “You shall have the next exciting instalment this evening.”
     
    At three o’clock that afternoon Detective Superintendent Herbert Charles Bracher called, by appointment, on the Dean. He was not the sort of man whom his colleagues, or even his friends, would ever address as Bert or Charlie. He was a tall solemn man with a bush of hair already retreating from his forehead, who stood on his dignity, had an ambitious wife and was said to have money put by. The Dean received him in his study and listened in silence to what he had to say. There was a further silence when the Superintendent had finished.
    Finally the Dean spoke. His voice was soft and so deliberate that there seemed to be short intervals between words and longer intervals between sentences.
    “First,” he said, “I’d like to be a little clearer about the facts. I was aware that there had been pilfering, on a small scale, from houses in the Close. In the summer we live with our front doors open. All sorts of people walk past. Saints and sinners.”
    The Superintendent said, “Just so, sir.”
    “The articles which have been stolen have mostly been silver. Trays, cups, inkstands. Things calculated to catch the magpie eye of a sneak thief.”
    “That’s just my point, sir—”
    “And now you come and tell me that one of the servants of the Cathedral, the junior verger, Masters, has been seen selling articles of silver to a trader in the market.”
    “Not just any trader, sir. A man with a bad reputation. We’ve had our eye on him for some time.”
    “I see. Then it was one of your men who observed this transaction?”
    “Well, no, not actually, sir. But it