But in less than five minutes the doorkeeper returned and with great
impressiveness bowed in his principal. He uttered another of his gabbled
benedictions and left the two men together. Grant had expected the fanatic
type; he was confronted instead with the successful preacher; bland,
entrenched, worldly.
“Can I help you, my son?”
“I think you have in your brotherhood a man of the name of Herbert
Gotobed—”
“There is no one of that name here.”
“I had not expected that that was the name he is known by in your
community, but you are no doubt aware of the real names of the men who enter
your order.”
“The worldly name of a man is forgotten on the day he enters the door to
become one of us.”
“You asked if you could help me.”
“I still wish to help you.”
“I want to see Herbert Gotobed. I have news for him.”
“I know of no one of that name. And there can be no ‘news’ for a man who
has joined the Brotherhood of the Tree of Lebanon.”
“Very well. You may not know the man as Gotobed. But the man I want to
interview is one of your number. I have to ask that you will let me find
him.”
“Do you suggest that I should parade my community for your
inspection?”
“No. You have some kind of service to which all the brothers come, haven’t
you?”
“Certainly.”
“Let me be present at the service.”
“It is a most unusual request.”
“When is the next service?”
“In half an hour the midnight service begins.”
“Then all I ask is a seat where I can see the faces of your
community.”
The Reverend Father was reluctant, and mentioned the inviolability of the
holy house, but Grant’s casually dropped phrases on the attractive but
obsolete custom of sanctuary and the still-surviving magic of King’s Writ,
made him change his mind.
“By the way, will you tell me—I’m afraid I’m very ignorant of your
rules and ways of life—do the members of your community have business
in the town?”
“No. Only when charity demands it.”
“Have the brothers no traffic with the world at all then?” Herbert was
going to have a perfect alibi, if that were so!
“For twenty-four hours once every moon, a brother goes into the world.
That is contrived lest the unspottedness of communal life should breed
self-righteousness. For the twelve hours of the day he must help his fellow
beings in such ways as are open to him. For the twelve hours of the night he
must meditate in a place alone: in summer in some open place, in winter in
some church.”
“I see. And the twenty-four hours begin—when?”
“From a midnight to a midnight.”
“Thank you.”
THE service was held in a bare chapel, candlelit and
white-washed, very simple except for the magnificence of the altar at the
east gable. Grant was surprised by the appearance of the altar. Poor the
brothers might be, but there was wealth somewhere. The vessels on the white
velvet cloth, and the Crucifix, might have been a pirate’s loot from a
Spanish American cathedral. He had found it difficult to associate the
Herbert Gotobed he knew by reputation with this cloistered and poverty-struck
existence. Being theatrical to no audience but oneself must soon pall. But
the sight of that altar gave him pause. Herbert was perhaps running true to
form after all.
Grant heard no word of the service. From his seat in the dim recess of a
side window he could see all the faces of the participants; more than a score
of them; and he found it a fascinating study. Some were cranks (one saw the
faces at “anti” meetings and folk-dance revivals), some fanatics (masochists
looking for a modern hair shirt), some simple, some at odds with themselves
and looking for peace, some at odds with the world and looking for sanctuary.
Grant, looking them over with a lively interest, found his glance stayed as
it came to one face. Now what had brought the owner of that face to a life of
seclusion and self-denial? A round sallow face on a round ill-shaped head,
the eyes small, the nose fleshly, the lower lip loose, so that it hung away
from his teeth as he repeated the words of the service. All the others in
that little chapel had been types that fitted easily into recognized niches
in the everyday world; the principal to a bishopric, this one to a
neurologist’s waiting room, this to a depot for unemployed. But where did
that last one fit?
There was only one answer. In the dock.
“So that,” said Grant’s otherself to him, “is Herbert Gotobed.” He could
not be sure, of course, until he had seen the man walk. That was all he had
ever seen of him: his walk. But he was ready to stake much on his judgment.
The best of judges were at fault sometimes—Gotobed might turn out to be
that lean and harmless-looking individual in the front row—but he would
be surprised if Gotobed were any but that unctuous creature with the loose
lower lip.
As the men filed out after midnight, he had no more doubt. Gotobed had a
peculiar walk, a gangling, shoulder-rotating progression which was quite his
own.
Grant followed them out and then sought the Reverend Father. What was the
name of the last man to leave the chapel?
That was Brother Aloysius.
And after a little persuasion Brother Aloysius was sent for.
As they waited Grant talked conventionally of the Order and its rules and
learned that no member could own any worldly property or have communication
for worldly purposes with human beings. Such trivial worldlinesses as
newspapers were, of course, not even thought of. He also learned that the
principal intended in about a month’s time to take over a new Mission in
Mexico, which they had built out of their funds, and that the privilege of
electing his successor lay entirely with him.
A thought occurred to Grant.
“I don’t want to be impertinent—please don’t think this idle
curiosity—but would you tell me whether you have decided in your mind
on any particular person?”
“I have practically decided.”
“May I know who it is?”
“I really do not know why I should tell to a stranger what I am not
prepared to tell to the brothers of my own Order, but there is no reason to
conceal it if I may trust your secrecy.” Grant gave his word. “My successor
is likely to be the man you have asked to see.”
“But he is a newcomer!” Grant said before he thought.
“I am at a loss to know how you knew that,” the Reverend Father said
sharply. “It is true Brother Aloysius has been with us only a few months, but
the qualities necessary for the priorship” (so he was a prior!) “are not
developed with length of service.”
Grant murmured agreement, and then asked which of their community had been
on an errand in the streets this evening.
None of them, the prior said firmly; and the conversation was brought to
an end by the entrance of the man Grant wanted.
He stood there passively, his hands folded within the wide sleeves of his
dark brown gown. Grant noticed that his feet were not sandaled but bare, and
remembered that there had been no warning of his approach when he had
presented himself in the newsagent’s. The looker-on in Grant wondered whether
it was an appearance of humility or the convenience of a noiseless tread
which appealed so greatly to Herbert.
“This is Brother Aloysius,” the prior said, and left them with a blessing,
a much more poetic performance than the doorkeeper’s.
“I am from Messrs. Erskine, Smythe, and Erskine, the lawyers in the
Temple,” Grant said. “You are Herbert Gotobed.”
“I am Brother Aloysius.”
“You were Herbert Gotobed.”
“I never heard of him.”
Grant considered him for a moment. “I’m sorry,” he said. “We’re looking
for Gotobed about a legacy that has been left him.”
“Yes? If he is a brother of this Order, your news will be of little
interest to him.”
“If the legacy were big enough, he might realize that he could do far more
for the cause of charity outside these walls than in them.”
“Our oath is for life. Nothing that happens outside these walls is of
interest to any member of our Order.”
“So you deny that you are Herbert Gotobed?”
Grant was conducting the conversation automatically. What his mind was
occupied with, he found, was that the expression in the man’s small pale eyes
was hate. He had rarely seen such hate. But why hate? That was what his mind
asked. It should be fear, surely?
Grant felt that to this man he was not a pursuer but someone who had
butted in. The feeling stayed with him while he took his leave and all the
way back to the hotel opposite the tobacconist’s.
Williams was brooding over a cold meal he had caused to be set for his
superior. “Any news?” Grant asked.
“No, sir.”
“No word of Tisdall? Have you telephoned?”
“Yes, I telephoned about twenty minutes ago. Not a word, sir.”
Grant slapped some slices of ham between two pieces of bread. “Pity,” he
said. “I’d work much better if Tisdall were out of my mind. Come on. There
isn’t going to be much bed for us tonight.”
“What is it, sir? Did you find him?”
“Yes, he’s there all right. Denied he was Gotobed. They’re not allowed to
have any worldly transactions. That is why he was so shy in the shop. Didn’t
even wait to see who the second person behind the counter was: just fled at
the very prospect of a watcher. That’s what’s worrying me, Williams. He seems
much more occupied with not being chucked out of the order than with being
run in for murder.”
“But his running out of the shop might have been because he wanted to keep
on in hiding. That monastery place is as good a hideout as a murderer could
wish for.”
“Ye-s. Yes, but he’s not frightened. He’s angry. We’re spoiling something
for him.”
They had been going quietly downstairs, Grant eating large mouthfuls of
his improvised sandwich. As they approached the ground floor they were
confronted by an enormous female who blocked their exit from the stairway.
She had no poker in her hand, but the effect was the same.
“So that’s what you are!” she said, with concentrated venom. “A couple of
sneaking fly-by-nights. Come in here, as large as life, you do, and make me
and my poor husband buy the best of everything for your meals—chops at
tenpence each, and tongue at two-and-eightpence the pound, to say nothing of
English tomatoes to suit your very particular tastes—and all we get for
our expense and our trouble is a couple of empty rooms in the morning. I’ve a
good mind to ring up the police and give you in charge—if it weren’t
for—”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” Grant said angrily; and then began to laugh. He hung
over the banisters laughing helplessly, while Williams talked to the angry
hostess.
“Well, why didn’t you say you were bobbies?” she said.
“We’re
not
bobbies,” Williams said, ferociously, and Grant laughed
the more, and dragged him from the scene.
“Gilbertian!” he said, wiping his eyes. “Quite Gilbertian. Did me a lot of
good. Now, listen. These monks, or whatever they esteem themselves, retire to
their cells at midnight and don’t move out of them till six. But Herbert gets
in and out of that building more or less when he likes. I don’t know how he
works it: those first-floor windows are low enough to drop from but much too
high to get back into, and he doesn’t look like a gymnast. But get out he
does. No one knew—or at least, the powers that be didn’t know—he
was out tonight. Well, I have a hunch that he’s going walking again tonight,
and I want to see where to.”
“What makes you think so, sir?”
“Just instinct. If I were Herbert I’d have a base to conduct operations
from. I walked around the block before I came back to the hotel. There are
only two points where the monastery property abuts on the street. At the side
where the door is; and at the very opposite side where the garden ends in a
wall that looks fifteen feet high. There’s a long gate there; iron and very
solid. It’s a long way from the living quarters, and I think our original
side is the most helpful, But I want you to keep watch on the garden side,
and tail anyone who comes out. I’ll do the same on the door side. If nothing
happens by six o’clock you can creep home and go to bed.”
GRANT had been waiting for what seemed an eternity. The
night was soft, with a damp air, and smelled pleasantly of green things and
flowers. Somewhere there was a lime tree. There was no sky, only a thick
misty dark above. Bells chimed every now and then, with aloof sweetness. In
spite of himself, Grant found the peace of the night invading him; his mind
grew blurred and incurious and he had to whip it to wakefulness.
And then, a few moments after half-past two had struck, something
happened, and his mind leaped without any goading. He had heard no sound, but
in the lane in front of the monastery there was movement. It was too dark to
see a shape; all that happened was that the darkness moved, as a curtain
might stir in a current of air. Someone was in the street.
Grant waited. The movement grew less, became more blurred, and ceased.
Whoever was there had moved away from him. Grant slipped his unlaced boots
from his feet and strung them across his shoulder; every step on a shod foot
would be audible on a night like this. Silently he moved down the lane and
past the high wall of the house. Out of its shadows the visibility was
slightly better: he could see the movement in front of him again. He followed
it with every sense alert; it was not only difficult to gauge his exact
distance from it, but almost impossible to tell if it stopped for a moment.
In the street beyond it was easier; the movement in the darkness became a
form. A form retreating swiftly and effortlessly into the night. Grant set
out to keep pace with it. Down the little streets of two-story houses. Past
small houses with small gardens. Past an occasional small paddock.