The Unburied (13 page)

‘You are very generous, sir. I do beg your pardon.’

‘I don’t mean you, sir. They peer through my windows at the front, you know.’

‘That must be intolerable. I can sympathize for I live in a Cambridge college and my rooms are subject to the same sort of attention.’

‘You are one of the most courteous of all those who have tried to read the inscription. I was afraid you would fall over in your efforts to remain outside.’

‘I must have cut a ridiculous figure.’

He advanced a few steps towards the wall and raised the lantern. ‘Can you read it now?’

The letters were worn and, where the stone was chipped, altogether lost in places. But the old gentleman knew the words by heart and we spelt them out together:

It was certainly enigmatic, I reflected as I committed it to memory.

‘Do you know the story that lies behind it?’ the old gentleman asked.

‘I’ve been told that it was found at dawn just after the death of Treasurer Burgoyne and that it denounces the Cathedral Mason, Gambrill, as his murderer.’

The old gentleman nodded: ‘In fact, the story passed down in my family has it that Gambrill himself carved it overnight as a confession.’

‘It is hard’, I went on, ‘to read it that way since its tone seems to be vengeful and triumphant rather than apologetic.’

‘That’s true,’ he agreed. ‘But perhaps Gambrill felt that he was entitled to boast of the murder. Certainly the reference to the high and the low seems to refer to the aristocratic Treasurer and the low-born Mason.’

I nodded, reflecting that it also fitted well with an idea that had occurred to me at breakfast that morning prompted by something Austin had said.

‘How exactly was Burgoyne killed?’

‘That was never established for certain. He was found under a collapsed scaffold which had been erected in order to put the memorial slab in place for his own family’s monument. The extraordinary thing was that Gambrill had put the heavy slab in place up on the wall.’

‘Singlehandedly?’

‘So it appeared. And then, according to the story, Gambrill came here and chiselled this shortly before dawn.’

‘At night and without being heard?’ I asked with a smile.

It was just light enough with the glow of the lantern to see that the old gentleman himself smiled. ‘Well, that’s the explanation that my ancestors have accepted for more than two hundred years.’

‘How did the house come into your family?’

‘That’s quite a story. The Canon-Treasurer who was Burgoyne’s immediate predecessor spent a great deal of money enlarging and improving it with the wealth he had amassed during his period as Treasurer.’

‘You mean, that he had acquired from the Foundation by embezzlement?’

‘Yes, or, rather, by malversation – if you’ll pardon a banker’s pedantry.’ The old gentleman chuckled. ‘Shortly after Burgoyne’s death there was a new dean and because this was the grandest house in the Upper Close, he persuaded the Chapter to make it the New Deanery. Much to the annoyance of the Treasurer at the time.’

‘The Dean was Launcelot Freeth, wasn’t he?’

‘You
are
well-informed,’ the old gentleman exclaimed. ‘In that case, you will understand that after his death the Chapter decided that because this house was ill-omened, they should sell it and revert to the Old Deanery. It was bought by my great-grandfather, James Stonex, in 1664 and has retained its name.’

‘So it was through this very gate’, I said, turning back to look, ‘that the Dean was dragged to his death?’

‘It was certainly through this gate that he passed on his way to his death, but he went to his execution of his own free will.’

‘Of his own free will? And why do you call it an execution? His death is regarded as one of the most shameful murders in our history.’

‘Not according to a tradition that has been handed down in my family with the house.’

‘I would be most intrigued to hear it.’

‘I haven’t time now,’ he said apologetically. ‘This is the hour when I dine. I keep strange hours because of my business. But come to tea the day after tomorrow and I’ll tell you the true story of how the Dean met his end.’

‘That is extraordinarily kind of you.’

‘Very well, it’s settled then. I shall expect you at a little after half-past four. Do please be punctual because my life is ordered by clocks and I will have to leave for my office at six o’clock.’

I assured him that I would be on time. There was an uncomfortable moment when we both stood there and then he said: ‘I can’t invite you in now, I’m afraid.’

‘No, of course, I quite understand,’ I said, rather bewildered. Then in a gesture that seemed oddly discourteous, he opened the gate and smiled and bowed as if to encourage me to go through it.

‘Until Friday,’ he said.

I passed out into the Close again, made my adieus and walked away, leaving him standing at the gate.

Then something strange happened. The corner of the Cathedral was about fifty yards away and I was sure that there was a figure standing there, only very dimly apparent through the twilit gloom. As I approached, it vanished round the corner. I was almost sure it was Austin. How odd that he should have been skulking like that and then have scuttled out of my sight. Yet it was of a piece with some of his other behaviour, I reflected, as I walked round the Close towards his house. It was as if he both wanted me here and did not want me.

I knew I could get into the house since Austin told me he always left the door unlocked. And now that I thought of his odd remark on the subject that morning, I suddenly guessed what he must mean: the reason why he hid the keys – for he had used the plural – even though the front-door was never locked, was because one of them was the key to a secure place. So even if someone entered the house, he would not find both the hiding-place and the key to it. What could he have that he needed to hide? I was still thinking about this when I reached the house and was only awakened from my reverie when, as I lifted the latch and opened the door, I felt something obstructing its movement. There was a piece of paper lying on the floor. I picked it up and carried it into the dining-room and turned up the gas. The note said:

I was struck by the curtness, even the rudeness of this. He gave no explanation and made no apology for this failure of hospitality. If it was Austin whom I saw in the Close a few minutes ago, why had he hurried away without speaking if he had something to say to me?

I took off my hat and coat, poured myself a glass of sherry and sat at the table. It was all very strange. I was surer than ever that Austin was involved in some kind of intrigue. I knew so little about his life here, but how could he be happy in this dull little town – he who had been a Senior Wrangler with a brilliant future in prospect? I had given him more than one chance to confide in me. Was I wrong to think that he had asked me to visit him because he wished to ask for my advice? In that case, had I misunderstood the sequence of events and had he invited me before this matter – whatever it was – had begun to preoccupy him and did he now find he had little time or thought to spare for me? In that case, why had he not withdrawn the invitation? Or – if he did not want me to be there at that moment – why had he not allowed me to move into an inn when I had given him the opportunity? To have invited me and then to treat me so strangely was inexplicable. The more I thought about the rudeness of his note the more indignant I became. This evening we were to have dined at an inn in the town and I had hoped we would have been able at last to arrive at a better understanding.

A sudden booming sound broke in upon my reverie. The Cathedral clock was striking half-past six. How inescapably the proximity of the Cathedral would remind one of the passing of time, I thought. The quiet life of the college had obscured that from me. The incessant arrival each year of a new cohort of young men somehow dulled my sense of time passing. In one sense, I still thought of myself as relatively youthful and with all my life before me. And yet I knew that that was a delusion. I was nearly fifty and the die had been cast. For better or for worse, my life was set in the mould which it would retain until death.

I realized I was hungry and rose to my feet. My eye fell on Dr Sheldrick’s manuscript which I had placed on the table before me and I decided to take it with me and peruse it during my solitary dinner. Tucking it under my arm, I left the house and made my way to the High Street, directing my steps, as a creature of habit, towards the Dolphin.

Wednesday Evening

I sat in the vast, gloomy dining-room in which there were no other diners, served by a lugubrious waiter with the mournful solemnity of the last priest of a dying Church. The ambience seemed all of a piece with this ancient, decaying town with its unlit and dilapidated streets in which nobody seemed ever to be about. I supposed that the town had never recovered from the damage to its commercial life occasioned by the siege during the Civil War. That made me think of my recent encounter with the strange old creature who had shown me the inscription.

I recalled its enigmatic words –
In the Ripeness of Time shall they that are on High be brought Low
– for when I had read them I had been struck, with Austin’s dream fresh in my memory, by the possibility that they were referring to Gambrill’s murder of the father of his journeyman, Limbrick. Did the inscription describe the murder? Was Gambrill confessing to having pushed his rival off the roof of the Cathedral in the accident that had cost him an eye? But it was nonsense to suppose that the inscription had really been carved by Gambrill. All the same, I reflected that I would give a great deal to ascend to the roof of the Cathedral and see the place for myself. Austin had said that the inscription hinted at the secret that Burgoyne was obsessed by and I tried to find some clue to its nature in its Biblical phraseology. The words resisted my efforts and I wondered if Dr Sheldrick’s fascicle cast any light on this issue.

And so, as I sat over my greasy lamb-chop and thin claret, I found the account of these events in the manuscript. It was not well written – heavy, pedantic and often pompous – but the story it told was fascinating and I read it quickly and then perused it again more carefully. Some of what Dr Sheldrick revealed was very surprising – in particular the nature of the secret which Burgoyne was threatening to reveal. I understood Dr Locard’s jibe about its unscholarliness, for it often failed to cite its sources and seemed to rely a great deal on unsubstantiated oral tradition.

When I had eaten I found that I didn’t want to go back to the house yet, so I went into the public-bar where I ordered a brandy and seated myself. The only other occupants were two old men who were sitting somewhat conspiratorially in a corner. I wondered whether to have a frank discussion with Austin and ask him if he wanted me to leave. I might even ask him if the reason for his strange demeanour was that he felt guilty about what he had done to me. I kept on going over and over the same ground, telling myself that it had been foolish of me to think that I could restore my friendship with Austin. Too much time had passed and there were still unhealed wounds. I hadn’t realized to what extent the past was still painful to me. Moreover, Austin was a different man from the one I had known. I thought of the strangeness of some of the things he had done and said in the brief time I had been with him. There seemed to be a slyness in him that I didn’t remember. As a youth, Austin had been so open, so impulsive and so vulnerable. Had he now become devious and secretive? I thought of his heavy drinking, his quickness to anger and his skulking about the Close earlier in the evening. It was as if something had taken him over, some dark power gained mastery over him.

The other drinkers had been joined by a younger man. I was only half-aware of their conversation until I was distracted by the sound of raised voices. One of the elderly men – the one who had a battered hat pulled down over the side of his face – was saying loudly: ‘They shouldn’t have started meddling with ’em. You don’t never know what might not happen in a building as old as that. Leave well alone is what I say.’

‘You sound like old Gazzard,’ said the young man. ‘He’s agin anything that’s new. He’s as pleased as Punch tonight.’

‘I’ll wager it’s them drains,’ said the same old man. ‘They goes back hundreds and hundreds of years. Lord knows what’s down there. Things they’ve been hiding for years and years.’

‘Don’t be softer than the good Lord made you,’ said the other old man, removing his pipe from his mouth for the first time. ‘The Cathedral don’t have no drains.’

‘Well, mebbe it should,’ said the other with a hideous cackle. ‘There’s been a stink coming out of that place these twenty years.’

‘What do you mean?’ the youngest man asked indignantly. I now believed I recognized him as one of the vergers whom I had seen in the Cathedral last night.

‘I’m talking about what everybody knows about them canons,’ said the old man with the hat, and he gave an enormous wink.

‘You don’t know what you’re saying,’ said the man who had mentioned Gazzard. ‘They watches each other like a dog eyes a bitch. If one of ’em done something he didn’t oughter, the others would have him nigh on hung, drawed and quartered for it.’

‘They watches each other, all right,’ said the first old man. ‘But they don’t always ketch each other. And if they ketch each other, they don’t always turn each other in.’