The Corpse in the Cellar (3 page)

‘Is that what I'm saying?' he asked with a teasing tone in his voice.

‘Yes. Therefore—'

‘And how does that differ from anyone else's point of view?'

‘It's being exclusive. Narrow.'

‘And it's exactly the same claim that everyone makes. You, for instance, young Morris, have a world view I take it?'

‘Yes, I've thought things through and I am now a convinced atheist.'

‘As I once was. My book, as you discovered for yourself, is the story of my journey from atheism, to philosophical idealism, to theism, to Christianity told as an allegory. And the reason you currently hold to atheism, Morris, old chap, is because you believe atheism to be true.'

‘Of course,' I jumped in to reply quickly. ‘If it wasn't true there wouldn't be any reason to believe it.'

‘And that,' said Jack, pausing to relight his pipe, ‘is exactly the same for everyone. Every serious way of looking at the world and thinking about the world is believed to be true. All claims to truth are exclusive claims. So the problem with Christianity is not whether it's guilty of exclusivism or not, but whether it's true.'

The streets of Market Plumpton had not been laid out for motor cars. Much of the town appeared to be Elizabethan, judging from the appearance of the oldest buildings, and seemed to have been designed for a fat cow to be walked through the streets—but only one fat cow at a time, and not very fat either.

The local landowner who commissioned the building of the place, centuries before, can't have been too happy at the time. ‘But this is not what it looked like on the plans!' he would have protested. ‘The streets looked much wider.'

‘Ah well, your lordship,' the builder would have explained. ‘There was a problem with the supplies—something to do with too much rain in the clay pits of Cornwall. And then, of course, the Street Pavers' Guild withdrew from negotiations. You know how it is. We just had to make do.'

And his lordship would probably have responded with a round collection of Elizabethan abuse: ‘thou bolting-hutch of beastliness, thou swollen parcel of dropsies, thou huge bombard of sack, thou stuffed cloak-bag of guts' and so on. They had a lovely line in invective in those days. But the result was the series of narrow streets though which we now walked.

As we made our way towards the centre of the small town, Warnie remarked, ‘There's no way two cars could pass in a street like this.' And he shook his head at the sad lack of foresight, or cheapskate cost-cutting, on the part of the town's medieval forefathers.

As if to make his point, at that moment an Austin Seven drove down the street and we three had to step hastily onto the narrow footpath and flatten ourselves against the wall of the nearest terrace house. The small car occupied the entire road width.

At the end of the street we stepped out into the town square. It was paved from side to side with ancient, well-worn cobblestones. On three of its sides were shops and offices, and on the fourth was the town church standing in its churchyard. This was built from blocks of warm, honey-coloured stone, and beside it was a free-standing bell tower.

Jack gazed around and said, ‘Over there. That's the place.'

We walked in the direction he indicated. It was clear that this was the building Alfred Rose had told us about: a Georgian gentleman's terrace house now converted to bank offices.

We climbed the three steps up from the street and entered through the open front door. To one side was an impressive staircase leading to the upper levels, while immediately in front of us was an area obviously designed for customers: straight-backed chairs against the walls and under the front window a desk littered with blank bank forms. Facing the window was a counter that divided the staff from the customers.

There was the usual hushed and sacred silence so often found in a bank, telling us we had stepped into the modern world's most holy place: the Temple of Mammon. And, as always in a bank, the moment I stepped through the front door I felt as if I was invading their privacy.

The bank was empty except for two staff members. In the teller's cage behind the counter was a large, beefy young man, looking more like a farmhand than an office worker. According to the gold-lettered sign on the counter in front of him he was ‘Franklin Grimm, Teller'. Behind him, in the small office area, a young woman tapped in a desultory way at a typewriter.

‘Good morning,' said Jack, stepping up to the counter and whipping off his hat. ‘I'd like to make a withdrawal please.'

‘Certainly, sir,' said the teller in a cold voice that suggested he was never in favour of money being taken out of the bank. ‘Do you have an account with us?'

‘Not with this branch,' Jack explained, ‘with your Oxford branch, but I do have my passbook with me.' As he spoke he pulled off his rucksack and fished in its depths. After a moment of fumbling he produced a small, blue-covered booklet which he handed to the teller.

Franklin Grimm opened this and perused its contents with a look of deep suspicion on his face. The lengthy silence that followed was broken only by the quiet clattering of the typewriter.

‘So your account is actually with the Oxford branch of the bank then, sir?' was the question that finally emerged from the sceptical teller. He had finally deduced this astonishing fact from Jack's reference to Oxford and from the word “Oxford” appearing in large letters on the front of the passbook.

‘Correct.'

‘Do you have any identification on you, sir?'

‘What sort of identification?'

‘A passport, driver's licence, anything of that sort.'

‘Do I need something of that sort?' asked Jack with a note of surprise in his voice.

‘Well, sir,' said Franklin Grimm with a coldly superior sneer, ‘how can I be certain that you are indeed the person whose name appears in the front of this passbook?'

‘What nonsense!' snorted Warnie. ‘This is definitely Jack. Tom Morris here and I can both swear to it. I'm his brother—known him all his life.'

‘So,' continued the teller, ‘you're assuring me that this man is your friend and brother Jack?'

‘Exactly!' said Warnie, blowing out his cheeks in indignation.

‘Well, that does present me with a problem, sir,' said Grimm, ‘since the name in the front of this book is not Jack Lewis, or even John Lewis, but Clive Staples Lewis.'

‘Yes!' insisted Warnie, becoming quite heated. ‘That's him.'

‘Clive Staples Lewis is also Jack Lewis?'

‘Yes . . . well . . . ' Warnie suddenly saw the problem. ‘When he was quite a small child he told the family that he didn't like his name and wanted to be called Jack. And he has been ever since.'

Another silence followed this explanation with the teller slowly turning over the pages of the passbook. Finally he looked up and said to Jack, ‘Do you have any paperwork at all, sir, in the name of C. S. Lewis?'

‘Not on me, no,' Jack admitted. ‘All I have in my rucksack, apart from that passbook, is clean clothing and my sponge bag. And in my pockets . . . '

With these words he patted his pockets and produced the contents. ‘Just my pipe and tobacco pouch and a couple of books.' Jack set on the counter two small volumes: the Oxford World Classics edition of
Palgrave's Golden Treasury
in its blue cloth binding, and a compact Bible, printed in small type on what used to be called rice paper.

‘Hang on,' I volunteered, and digging into my jacket pocket I produced the book I was carrying:
The Pilgrim's Regress
by C. S. Lewis. I waved it in Jack's direction and said, ‘That's him, you see—the author.'

‘I see,' said Franklin Grimm very slowly. ‘So you have a book written by this C. S. Lewis and a savings bank passbook belonging to the same man, but no other identification?'

‘I was here last year,' Jack boomed, becoming slightly annoyed by this farrago of nonsense, ‘when I was passing through on another walking holiday. On that occasion I dealt with the manager. He may well recognise me. If, that is, the same man is still the manager here.'

‘Mr Ravenswood has been here for six years, sir,' said the teller.

‘That's the man,' Jack said with delight. ‘I remember the name—Ravenswood. Just wheel him out of his office, my good man. I'm sure he'll recognise me.'

The teller turned and said to the young woman at the typewriter, ‘Is Mr Ravenswood in his office, Ruth?'

‘No, Mr Grimm,' she replied. ‘He's down in the cellar doing the quarterly maintenance.'

The teller turned back to us and said with a smarmy smile, ‘Perhaps you'd care to wait until Mr Ravenswood is available?'

‘Take me down to him in the cellar,' said Jack in that great voice of his that could fill an Oxford lecture hall. ‘He just needs to take a glance at me and authorise the withdrawal, that's all.'

Franklin Grimm suddenly looked undecided. Clearly he felt keenly the superiority of the bank officer over the mere customer, but Jack carried so much authority in his manner and his voice that the teller was now uncertain how far he could take this.

He reached his decision, coming down on the side of safety. ‘If you'd step through this counter flap, sir, I'll take you down to Mr Ravenswood in the cellar.'

As he spoke he stepped out of his teller's cage and raised the counter flap beside it.

Jack entered the office behind the counter and followed the teller towards a door in the far wall. Warnie and I glanced at each other and decided, pretty much simultaneously, not to be left behind. So we followed them.

The young woman looked up, startled by our entry into the sacred ground of the bank's office. She was too stunned to speak. She just sat there with her mouth open, looking like a cod in a fish shop window—a cod who was clearly waiting for either an explanation or an apology.

The door at the rear of the office opened onto a steep flight of steps that led down into a dimly lit cellar. In fact, the only light came from a single naked light globe dangling on the end of a piece of flex in the centre of the room.

‘Mr Ravenswood? Sir?' called out Franklin Grimm. Facing us was a solid brick wall with a large steel vault door set into it. This was standing ajar, and, in response to the teller's call, a man emerged from the strongroom behind the steel door. He was a large, solidly built man with a puffy, red face. He was wearing a business shirt but no jacket and his tie was slightly askew. As he emerged he was wiping his hands on an oily rag.

‘Yes, what is it, Grimm?' he growled. But before the teller could reply he saw the rest of us—Jack standing beside the teller and Warnie and me on the stairs.

‘Who are these people? And what are they doing here? Did you bring them down into the cellar? That's against bank policy!'

This prompted Grimm to look over his shoulder and become aware of our presence. ‘You two, go back upstairs!' he snapped. Warnie responded by leaning his elbow on the railing of the stairway, making it clear that he had no intention of moving. I felt the same: I was neither an employee nor a customer of the bank, and saw no reason to snap to attention and follow orders.

A look of frustration and helplessness swept over Grimm's face. He turned back to his manager and indicated Jack standing by his side. ‘This man wishes to make a withdrawal from his passbook account, sir. But his account is with the Oxford branch and he has no identification. He says that you might recognise him from a visit last year.'

‘Step into the light, if you please, sir,' said Ravenswood. Jack moved to stand immediately under the circle of yellow light thrown by the one light globe. ‘I have seen your face before . . . you were with a party of hikers or ramblers . . . from Oxford, if I recall.'

‘The name is Lewis,' said Jack. Then he turned to Grimm and asked, ‘Is that sufficient identification?'

‘Should I . . . ' Grimm began to ask, but Ravenswood interrupted him to say, ‘Yes, yes, yes, let him withdraw whatever he wishes against his passbook.'

While this was going on, Warnie was looking the staircase up and down. ‘This is the place,' he said quietly to me.

‘What place?' I asked.

‘This must be where Lady Pamela stood, screaming, as she watched Sir Rafael Black butcher her boyfriend, Boris the footman.' Then pointing at the floor below us he added, ‘That must be where the poor blighter was buried.'

Jack having obtained his authorisation, we all turned to troop back up the stairs. But before we could take our first step, the door above us was thrust open and a young man burst in. His explosive arrival set us on a path that was to lead to violence and murder.