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Authors: Ellis Peters
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but all the same… Well, you know yourself, alibis are meaningless in Middlehope. When threatened, they close ranks. For all you know,’ said Moon generously, ‘it could be anybody. It could be me!’
‘Interesting!’ said George. ‘Was it?’
‘Well, no, it wasn’t. But then,’ pointed out the sergeant reasonably, ‘we’d all say that, wouldn’t we?’
‘Come on,’ said George, ‘let’s go and see if the church is any more informative.’
St Eata’s church – a local dedication which occurred in several of the hill villages – dated back to Saxon times, but nothing much of Saxon workmanship was left above-ground, and even the succeeding Early English had largely been patched, built on to, and defaced in several later ages, even before the ambitious nineteenth-century renovation was undertaken. The fabric had ended up as slightly top-heavy neo-Gothic, with the upper part of its old tower rebuilt and made more lofty, with a new battlemented surround. It still had a respectable congregation, and so had escaped the horrid fate of being declared redundant. Its one unchallenged excellence was its organ, an early masterpiece lovingly rebuilt.
‘Any amount of people go in and out here most days,’ said Detective-Sergeant Brice, looking up from the nave towards the organ pipes, towering above the left-hand side of the chancel. ‘I thought we should have to spend half our time keeping folks out today, but only the vicar’s been near. It’s as though the place has been tabu from the time they saw us move in. Not that this part has anything much to tell us. It’s different once you get up above, where hardly anyone ever goes. We’ve marked several details for you.’
‘The organ first,’ said George.
Rainbow’s music-case was still lying on the organ-bench, unfastened, sheet music fanning out from it. George looked round at the demigod’s view of the church from this angle, and up at the correctively awesome vista of pipes. Organs are designed to prostrate the onlooker with humility before their vastness and beauty, and exalt their handlers into daemonic self-glorification. But here everything was neat, placid and undisturbed; here there had certainly been no sudden assault, no life and death struggle. The floor was clean, every surface dustless, everything in order.
‘Right, now the tower.’
Down to the body of the church again, and along to the west end, to the curtained alcove and the narrow stairway that led to the bellringers’ room. This, again, was regularly used and scrupulously cleaned, no dust to trap intruding footprints. The looped ropes of an eight-bell peal dangled motionless, their padded grips striped spirally in red, white and blue cotton, like barbers’ poles. A fair amount of light came in from Gothic lancets. In one corner an open-treaded stairway, broad, solid and safe, slanted upwards into a narrow, dark trap above. George climbed, and emerged into a sort of attic limbo below the still invisible bells. A stout, boarded floor, roughly finished, an enclosing scent of old timber, and a sense of being suspended in half-light between two worlds. In the far corner another step-ladder, still with broad treads, pursued its upward way. Here people seldom came, and very few of them. Here there was dust, moderately thick, peacefully still, with the furred neatness of undisturbed places.
‘Here it gets more interesting,’ said Brice. ‘Look here, on this first stair. More than one set of feet has trodden up the middle, mostly the prints are overlaid and scuffed, but here there’s one left foot that stepped well to the side of the tread, and the mark’s quite clear. We’ve followed all the tracks up. This one just doesn’t seem to occur again, unless he very carefully trod always in the middle where the dust was already disturbed. It looks as if somebody got this far, and then changed his mind.’
‘And there are two sets of tracks beyond?’ asked George.
‘Two detectable.
‘Interesting!’ said George. ‘Was it?’
‘Well, no, it wasn’t. But then,’ pointed out the sergeant reasonably, ‘we’d all say that, wouldn’t we?’
‘Come on,’ said George, ‘let’s go and see if the church is any more informative.’
St Eata’s church – a local dedication which occurred in several of the hill villages – dated back to Saxon times, but nothing much of Saxon workmanship was left above-ground, and even the succeeding Early English had largely been patched, built on to, and defaced in several later ages, even before the ambitious nineteenth-century renovation was undertaken. The fabric had ended up as slightly top-heavy neo-Gothic, with the upper part of its old tower rebuilt and made more lofty, with a new battlemented surround. It still had a respectable congregation, and so had escaped the horrid fate of being declared redundant. Its one unchallenged excellence was its organ, an early masterpiece lovingly rebuilt.
‘Any amount of people go in and out here most days,’ said Detective-Sergeant Brice, looking up from the nave towards the organ pipes, towering above the left-hand side of the chancel. ‘I thought we should have to spend half our time keeping folks out today, but only the vicar’s been near. It’s as though the place has been tabu from the time they saw us move in. Not that this part has anything much to tell us. It’s different once you get up above, where hardly anyone ever goes. We’ve marked several details for you.’
‘The organ first,’ said George.
Rainbow’s music-case was still lying on the organ-bench, unfastened, sheet music fanning out from it. George looked round at the demigod’s view of the church from this angle, and up at the correctively awesome vista of pipes. Organs are designed to prostrate the onlooker with humility before their vastness and beauty, and exalt their handlers into daemonic self-glorification. But here everything was neat, placid and undisturbed; here there had certainly been no sudden assault, no life and death struggle. The floor was clean, every surface dustless, everything in order.
‘Right, now the tower.’
Down to the body of the church again, and along to the west end, to the curtained alcove and the narrow stairway that led to the bellringers’ room. This, again, was regularly used and scrupulously cleaned, no dust to trap intruding footprints. The looped ropes of an eight-bell peal dangled motionless, their padded grips striped spirally in red, white and blue cotton, like barbers’ poles. A fair amount of light came in from Gothic lancets. In one corner an open-treaded stairway, broad, solid and safe, slanted upwards into a narrow, dark trap above. George climbed, and emerged into a sort of attic limbo below the still invisible bells. A stout, boarded floor, roughly finished, an enclosing scent of old timber, and a sense of being suspended in half-light between two worlds. In the far corner another step-ladder, still with broad treads, pursued its upward way. Here people seldom came, and very few of them. Here there was dust, moderately thick, peacefully still, with the furred neatness of undisturbed places.
‘Here it gets more interesting,’ said Brice. ‘Look here, on this first stair. More than one set of feet has trodden up the middle, mostly the prints are overlaid and scuffed, but here there’s one left foot that stepped well to the side of the tread, and the mark’s quite clear. We’ve followed all the tracks up. This one just doesn’t seem to occur again, unless he very carefully trod always in the middle where the dust was already disturbed. It looks as if somebody got this far, and then changed his mind.’
‘And there are two sets of tracks beyond?’ asked George.
‘Two detectable.
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