Read Online Cecilian Vespers by Anne Emery - Free Book Online

Robin.”
    “Really! Over at the hospital?”
    “Yes, he’s there on psychiatric remand.”
    “Right. And?”
    His eyes shifted away; he seemed to have trouble getting started.
    “Michael!” Burke exclaimed. “You’re just after meeting the man who, apparently, murdered Father Reinhold Schellenberg at solemn vespers here in Halifax. And now you’ve nothing to tell us?”
    “Why did you say ‘apparently’ just now, Brennan? Have you had some doubt about the, em, situation?”
    “No, I just meant he hasn’t been tried yet. And we’ve a defence lawyer in our midst! What’s troubling you, Michael? Have you some doubt yourself?”
    This was not the Monsignor O’Flaherty I had come to know: gabby, sociable, and more than a little fascinated by lurid crime.
    “Why were you concerned about who’s here tonight?” I asked him. “Why did you ask about Colonel Bleier? You don’t think BrotherRobin is guilty, so one of the people in this house tonight could be the real killer? Is that it, Mike?”
    He avoided my questions. “Perhaps you should go over and see him yourself, Brennan. And Monty, unless, well …”
    “Unless he wants to confess to Brennan whatever he confessed to you. Which in some way has led you to question his guilt.”
    “I’m not saying that!”
    No, the monsignor would not come out and say it. He couldn’t. A priest can be excommunicated for revealing what he hears in confession.
    “Who is representing him?” I asked.
    “Saul Green.”
    “Saul would pay solid gold for a tape recording of whatever Gadkin-Falkes told you tonight, Michael.”
    He looked down at his hands. After a few moments he asked: “Are the children here tonight?”
    “Tom and Normie are out. The baby is here. We should cut this short, you’re suggesting.”
    “I don’t know what to say, Monty. But I have to get back to the rec-tory. There are some things I want to do. Go over to see Robin,” he urged us again, before making his exit.
    “Jesus! What do you make of that, Brennan? Why isn’t this Robin Napkin-Forks, or whatever his name is, raising holy hell over there if he’s innocent? If he is and if he knows who really did it, and is protecting him, then that’s the connection we should be looking for. We have to find out what’s going on.”
    We went downstairs, and soon the party drew to a natural, uneventful conclusion.
    But we didn’t get in to see Robin when we tried to arrange a visit on Sunday. He had left instructions with the staff of the hospital that no one was to be admitted to his room.

Chapter 3
    Quid sum miser tunc dicturus,
Quem patronum rogaturus,
Cum vix justus sit securus?
What then shall I say, wretch that I am,
What advocate entreat to speak for me,
When even the righteous may hardly be secure?
— “Dies Irae,” Requiem Mass
    The police had their suspect. But, as far as I was concerned, Michael O’Flaherty’s nervously imparted hint was a bombshell: it was clear he had reason to believe Brother Robin was not the killer. The case was wide open. There was no doubt I’d be drawn into Burke and O’Flaherty’s attempts to solve the murder, and not just because I was the schola’s lawyer; my own curiosity would impel me to look into it. So I was anxious to start searching for another suspect before the trail got any colder.
    I couldn’t do that, however, until I dealt with suspects of my own, two clients who had been ordered by the court to have no contact with each other and who had just been arrested together in connection with the robbery of a credit union. I succeeded in getting them released from jail, but I had no confidence that they would comply with their bail conditions this time, any more than they had in the past.
    When I finished with them on Monday, I stopped in at St. Bernadette’s rectory long enough to collect the notes O’Flaherty had made of his conversations with the police, and read them as soon as Igot home. There wasn’t much to go on. He had already