War in Heaven (Chap. 5: The Chemist’s Shop)

For some three weeks the Archdeacon was in retirement, broken only by
the useful fidelity of Mrs. Lucksparrow and the intrusive charity of Mr.
Batesby, who, having arrived at the Rectory for one reason, was
naturally asked to remain for another. As soon as the invalid was
allowed to receive visitors, Mr. Batesby carried the hint of the New
Testament, "I was sick and ye visited me" to an extreme which made
nonsense of the equally authoritative injunction to be "wise as
serpents." He was encouraged by the feeling which both the doctor and
Mrs. Lucksparrow had that it was fortunate another member of the
profession should be at hand, and by the success with which the
Archdeacon, dizzy and yet equable, concealed his own feelings when his
visitor, chatting of Prayer Book Revision, parish councils, and Tithe
Acts, imported to them a high eternal flavour which savoured of Deity
Itself. Each day after he had gone the Archdeacon found himself inclined
to brood on the profound wisdom of that phrase in the Athanasian Creed
which teaches the faithful that "not by conversion of the Godhead into
flesh, but by taking of the manhood into God" are salvation and the
Divine End achieved. That the subjects of their conversation should be
taken into God was normal and proper; what else, the Archdeacon
wondered, could one do with parish councils? But his goodwill could not
refrain from feeling that to Mr. Batesby they were opportunities for
converting the Godhead rather firmly and finally into flesh. "The dear
flesh," he murmured, thinking ruefully of the way his own had been
treated.

In London the tracing of the murderer seemed, so far as Stephen
Persimmons and his people could understand, to be a slow business.
Descriptions of the murdered man had been circulated without result.
There had been no papers--with the exception, crammed into the corner
of one pocket, of the torn half of a printed bill inviting the
attendance of outsiders at a mission service to be held at some (the
name was torn) Wesleyan church. The clothes of the dead man were not of
the sort that yield clues--such as had any marks, collars and boots,
were like thousands of others sold every day in London. There were, of
course, certain minor peculiarities about the body, but these, though
useful for recognition, were of no help towards identification.

Investigations undertaken among the van-men, office boys, and others who
had been about the two streets and the covered way about the time when
the corpse entered the building resulted in the discovery of eleven who
had noticed nothing, five who had seen him enter alone (three by the
front and two by the side door), one who had seen him in company with an
old lady, one with a young lad, three with a man about his own age and
style, and one who had a clear memory of his getting out of a taxi, from
which a clean-shaven or bearded head had emerged to give a final message
and which had then been driven off. But no further success awaited
investigations among taxi-drivers, and the story was eventually
dismissed as a fantasy.

Mornington suspected that a certain examination into the circumstances
of the members of the staff had taken place, but, if so, he quoted to
his employer from Flecker, "the surveillance had been discreet."
Discreet or not, it produced no results, any more than the interview
with Sir Giles Tumulty that Inspector Colquhoun secured.

"Rackstraw?" Sir Giles had said impatiently, screwing round from his
writing-desk a small, brown wrinkled face toward the inspector, "yes, he
came to lunch. Why not?"

"No reason at all, sir," the inspector said, "I only wanted to be sure.
And when did he leave you--if you remember?"

"About half-past two," Sir Giles said. "Is that what he ought to have
done? I'll say two, if you like, if it'll help you catch him. Only, if
you do, you must arrange for me to see the hanging."

"If he left at half-past two, that's all I want to know," the inspector
said. "Did you happen to mention to anyone that he was coming?"

"Yes," said Sir Giles, "I told the Prime Minister, the Professor of
Comparative Etymology at King's College, and the cook downstairs. Why
the hell do you ask me these silly questions? Do you suppose I run round
telling all my friends that a loathsome little publisher's clerk is
going to muck his food about at my table?"

"If you felt like that," the inspector said, holding down his anger, "I
wonder you asked him to lunch."

"I asked him to lunch because I'd rather him foul my table than my
time," Tumulty answered. "I had to waste an hour over him because he
didn't understand a few simple things about my illustrations, and I
saved it by working it in with lunch. I expect he charged overtime for
it, so that he'd be two shillings to the good, one saved on his food and
another extra pay. I should think he could get a woman for that one
night. How much do you have to pay, policeman?"

The inspector at the moment felt merely that Sir Giles must be mad; it
wasn't till hours afterwards that he became slowly convinced that the
question was meant as an insult beyond reach of pardon or vengeance. At
the time he stared blankly and said soberly: "I'm a married man, sir."

"You mean you get her for nothing?" Sir Giles asked. "Two can live as
cheaply as one, and your extras thrown in? Optimistic, I'm afraid. Well,
I'm sorry, but I have to go to the Foreign Office. Come and chat in the
taxi; that's what your London taxis are for. When I want a nice long
talk with anyone I get in one at Westminster Abbey after lunch and tell
him to go to the Nelson Column. We nearly always get there for tea. Oh,
good-bye, policeman. Come again some day."

The immediate result of this conversation was to cause Colquhoun to
suspect Rackstraw more grievously than before. But no amount of
investigation could prove the tale of the lunch unreliable or connect
him in any way with an unexplained disappearance or even with any
semi-criminal attitude towards the law. He owed no money; he seemed to do
nothing but work and stop at home, and his connection with Sir Giles,
which was the most suspicious thing about him, was limited apparently to
the production of _Sacred Vessels in Folklore_. The inspector even went
the length of procuring secretly through Stephen Persimmons an advance
copy of this, and reading it through, but without any result.

Another of the advance copies Mornington had sent personally to the
Archdeacon, and a few days before the official publication, and some
four weeks after the archidiaconal visit to the publishing house he had
a letter in reply.

DEAR MR. MORNINGTON, the Archdeacon wrote, I have to thank you very much
for the early copy of _Sacred Vessels_ which you were good enough to send
me. It is a book of great interest, so far as anything intellectual can
be, and especially to a clergyman; who has, so to speak, a professional
interest in anything sacred, and especially to anything which has a
bearing on Christian tradition--I mean, of course, Sir Giles Tumulty's
study of the possible history of the Holy Graal.

There is one point upon which I should like information if you are able
to give it to me--if it is not a private matter. This article on the
Graal contained, when I glanced through it in the proofs you showed me,
a concluding paragraph which definitely fixed the possibility (within
the limitations imposed by the very nature of Sir Giles's research) of
the Graal being identified with a particular chalice in a particular
church. I have read the article as it now stands with the greatest care,
but I cannot find any such paragraph. Could you tell me (1) whether the
paragraph was in fact deleted, (2) whether, if so, the reason was any
grave doubt of the identification, (3) whether it would be permissible
for me to get into touch with Sir Giles Tumulty on the subject?

Please forgive me troubling you so much on a matter which has only
become accidentally known to me through your kindness. I am a little
ashamed of my own curiosity, but perhaps my profession excuses it in
general and in particular.

I hope, if you are ever in or near Castra Parvulorum, you will make a
special point of calling at the Rectory. I have one or two early
editions--one of the _Ascent of Mount Carmel_--which might interest you.

Yours most sincerely,

JULIAN DAVENANT.

"Bless him," Mornington said to himself as, coiled curiously round his
chair, he read the letter, "bless him and damn him! I suppose Lionel
will know." He dropped the letter on his desk, and was opening another,
when Stephen Persimmons came into the office. After a few sentences had
been exchanged, Stephen said: "When do you go for your holidays,
Mornington?"

"I was going at the end of August--for some of them, anyhow,"
Mornington answered--"if that fits in all right. It fitted in when I
fixed it. But I'm only walking a little, so, if there's any need, I can
easily alter it."

"The fact is," Stephen went on, "I've been asked to go with some people
I know to the South of France at the beginning of August, and I might
stop six weeks or so if things didn't call me back. But I like you to be
here while I'm away."

"The beginning of August--six weeks--" Mornington murmured, "and it's
the fifth of July now. Well, sir, I'll go before or after, whichever you
like. Rackstraw goes next Friday, and he'll be back by the end of the
month."

"Are you sure it's convenient?" Stephen asked.

"Entirely," the other said. "I shall walk as long as I feel like it, and
stop when and where I feel like it. And I can walk in July as well as in
September. Anyhow, I'm only taking ten days or a fortnight now. I have
to go to my mother in Cornwall in October for the rest."

"Well, what about now, then?" said Stephen.

"Now, then," Mornington answered. "Or at least Friday week, shall we
say? Unless, of course, I'm arrested. I feel that's always possible.
Didn't I see the inspector calling on you the other day, sir?"

"You did, blast him!" Stephen broke out. "Why that wretched creature got
huddled up here I can't imagine. It's killing me, Mornington, all this
worry!" He got up and wandered round the office.

Behind his back his lieutenant raised surprised eyebrows. It was a
nuisance, of course, but, as Stephen Persimmons had for alibi the
statement of every other reputable publisher in London, this agitation
seemed excessive. It might be the murder in general, but why _worry_?
Stephen was always reasonably decent to the staff, but to worry over
whether any of them had committed a murder seemed to point to a degree
of personal interest which surprised him.

"I know," he said sympathetically. "You feel you'd like to murder the
fellow just for having _been_ murdered. Some people always muddle their
engagements. Probably he had arranged to be done in at a tea-shop or
somewhere like that--he was just that kind of fellow--and then got
mixed and came here first. Has the inspector any kind of clue? The body,
by now, is past inspecting."

"I don't believe he knows anything, but one can't be sure," Persimmons
answered. "And, of course, if he does it needn't--"

He became unhappily silent.

Mornington uncoiled himself and got up. "Are you sure you wouldn't like
to go away now for a week or two, sir?" he said. "It's rather knocked
you over, I expect."

"No," Stephen said, drifting to the door. "No, I can't go away now. I
simply can't. We'll leave it at that then." He disappeared.

"We seem to be leaving it at a very undefined that," Mornington thought
to himself, as he went back to his letters. "Stephen never was what the
deceased would probably have called 'brainy'. But he seems rather cloudy
even for him."

Later in the day he replied to the camp of the children.

MY DEAR MR. ARCHDEACON,

--The fact is that the paragraph you refer to was cut out by Sir Giles
Tumulty at the last moment. This puts us in a mild fix, because I
suppose technically proofs in a publisher's office are private, till the
book is published. And after, for that matter. I am given to understand
by the people here who have met him that he is the nearest to a compound
of a malevolent hyena and an especially venomous cobra that ever
appeared in London, and I shrink therefore from officially confirming
your remembrance of that paragraph. But you _were_ here, and you saw the
proofs, and, if you could conceal the unimportant fact that we showed
them to you, write to Sir Giles by all means.

This sounds as if I were proposing an immorality. But it only means
that, while I can't officially say 'Write,' I am reluctant to say 'Don't
write.' Your tact will no doubt discover the wise road. Personally, I
hope you'll find out.

Thank you for your invitation. I may conceivably turn up one day before
the month ends.

Did you have a pleasant time in Scotland?

Yours very sincerely,

K. H. MORNINGTON.

At the moment when this letter was being dictated Sir Giles had, in
fact, a visitor from Fardles sitting with him; not the Archdeacon, but
Mr. Gregory Persimmons. They were speaking in subdued tones, both of
them rather greedily, as if they each wanted something from the other,
and the subject of their conversation might have eluded Mornington, had
he heard it, for a considerable time. When Gregory had been shown in,
Sir Giles got up quickly from his table.

"Well?" he said.

Gregory came across to him, saying: "Oh, I've got it--a little more
trouble than I thought, but I've got it. But I don't quite like doing
anything with it...In fact, I'm not quite sure what it's best to do."

Sir Giles pushed a chair towards him. "You don't think," he said. "What
do you want to do?" He sat down again as he spoke, his little eager eyes
fixed on the other, with a controlled but excited interest. Persimmons
met them with a sly anxiety in his own.

"I want something else first," he said. "I want that address."

"Pooh," Sir Giles said, "that won't help you. Tell me more about this
other thing first. Do you notice anything about it? How does it affect
you?"

Gregory considered. "Not at all, I think," he said. "It's just an
ordinary piece of work--with a curious smell about it sometimes."

"Smell?" Sir Giles said. "Smell? What sort of smell?"

"Well," Persimmons answered, "it's more like ammonia than anything else;
a sort of pungency. But I only notice it sometimes."

"I knew a cannibal chief in Nigeria who said the same thing," Sir Giles
said musingly. "Not about that, of course, and not ammonia. It was a
traditional taboo of the tribe--the dried head of a witch-doctor that
was supposed to be a good omen to his people. He said it smelt like the
fire that burned the uneaten offal of their enemies. Curious--the same
notion of cleansing."

Gregory sniggered. "It'll take Him a good deal of ammonia to clean
things out," he said. "But it'd be like Him to use ammonia and the Bible
and that kind of thing."

Sir Giles switched back to the subject. "And what are you going to do
with it?" he asked alertly.

Gregory eyed him. "Never mind," he said. "Or, rather, why do you want to
know?"

"Because I like knowing these things," Sir Giles answered. "After all, I
saved it for you when you asked me, on condition that you told me about
your adventures, or let me see them for myself. You're going mad, you
know, Persimmons, and I like watching you."

"Mad?" Gregory said, with another snigger. "You don't go mad this way.
People like my wife go mad, and Stephen. But I've got something that
doesn't go mad. I'm getting everything _so_." He stretched out both arms
and pressed them downwards with an immense gesture of weight, as if
pushing the universe before and below him. "But I want the ointment."

"Better leave it alone," Sir Giles said tantalizingly. "It's tricky
stuff, Persimmons. A Jew in Beyrout tried it and didn't get back. Filthy
beast he looked, all naked and screaming that he couldn't find his way.
That was four years ago, and he's screaming the same thing still, unless
he's dead. And there was another fellow in Valparaiso who got too far to
be heard screaming; he died pretty soon, because he'd forgotten even how
to eat and drink. They tried forcible feeding, I fancy, but it wasn't a
success: he was just continually sick. Better leave it alone,
Persimmons."

"I tell you I'm perfectly safe," Gregory said. "You promised, Tumulty,
you promised."

"My lord God," Sir Giles said, "what does that matter? I don't care
whether I promised or not; I don't care whether you want it or not; I
only wonder whether I shall get more from--" He broke off. "All right,"
he said, "I'll give you the address--94, Lord Mayor Street, Finchley
Road. Somewhere near Tally Ho Corner, I think. Quite respectable and
all that. The man in Valparaiso was a solicitor. It's in the middle
classes one finds these things easiest. The lower classes haven't got
the money or the time or the intelligence, and the upper classes haven't
got the power or intelligence."

Gregory was writing the address down, nodding to himself as he did so;
then he looked at a clock, which stood on the writing-table, pleasantly
clutched in a dried black hand set in gold. "I shall have time to-day,"
he said. "I'll go at once. I suppose he'll sell it me? Yes, of course he
will, I can see to that."

"It'll save you some time and energy," Sir Giles said, "if you mention
me. He's a Greek of sorts--I've forgotten his name. But he doesn't keep
tons of it, you know. Now, look here, Persimmons. This is two things you
have got out of me, and I've had nothing in return. You'd better ask me
down to wherever you hatch gargoyles. I can't come till after Monday
because I'm speaking at University College then. I'll come next
Wednesday. What's the station? Fardles? Send me a card to tell me the
best afternoon train and have it met."

Gregory promised in general terms to do this, and as quickly as he could
got away. An hour after he had hunted out Lord Mayor Street.

It was not actually quite so respectable as Sir Giles had given him to
understand. It had been once, no doubt, and was now half-way to another
kind of respectability, being in the disreputable valley between two
heights of decency. There were a sufficient number of sufficiently dirty
children playing in the road to destroy privacy without achieving
publicity: squalor was leering from the windows and not yet contending
frankly and vainly with grossness. It was one of those sudden terraces
of slime which hang over the pit of hell, and for which beastliness is
too dignified a name. But the slime was still only oozing over it, and a
thin cloud of musty pretence expanded over the depths below.

At one end of the road three shops huddled together in the thickest
slime; a grocer's at the corner, flying the last standard of
respectability in an appeal towards the Finchley Road some couple of
yards away--like Roland's horn crying to Charlemagne. At the far end of
the street a public house signalized the gathering of another code of
decency and morals which might in time transform the intervening decay.
Next to the grocer's was a sweet-shop, on which the dingy white letters
ADBU OC A appeared like a charm, and whose window displayed bars of
chocolate even more degradingly sensual than the ordinary kind. Next to
this was the last shop, a chemist's. Its window had apparently been
broken some time since and very badly mended with glass which must have
been dirty when it was made, suggesting a kind of hypostatic union
between clearness and dinginess. Nor, since the breakage, had the
occupant, it seemed, troubled to re-dress the window; a few packets of
soap and tooth-paste masked their own purpose by their appearance.
Persimmons pushed open the door and, first looking to see that the shop
was empty, went quietly in.

A young man was lounging behind the counter, but he did no more than
look indolently at his customer. Persimmons tried to close the door and
failed, until the other said "Push it at the bottom with your foot,"
when he succeeded, for the door shut with an unexpected crash. Gregory
came to the counter and looked at the shopman. He might be Greek, as Sir
Giles had said, he might be anything, and the name over the door had
been indecipherable. The two looked at one another silently.

At last Persimmons said: "You keep some rather out of the way drugs and
things, don't you?"

The other answered wearily: "Out of the way? I don't know what you
mean--out of the way? Nothing's out of the way."

"Out of the ordinary way," Gregory said quickly and softly, "the way
everyone goes."

"They go nowhere," the Greek said.

"But I go," Persimmons answered, with the same swiftness as before. "You
have something for me."

"What I have is for buyers," the other said, "all I have is for buyers.
What do you want and what will you pay?"

"I think I have paid a price," Gregory said, "but what more you ask you
shall have."

"Who sent you here?" the Greek asked.

"Sir Giles Tumulty," said Gregory, "and others. But the others I cannot
name. They say"--his voice began to tremble--"that you have an
ointment."

"I have many precious things." The answer came out of an entire
weariness which seemed to take from the adjective all its meaning. "But
some of them are not for sale except to buyers."

"I have bought everything." Gregory leaned forward. "The time has come
for me to receive."

Still the other made no movement. "The ointment is rich and scarce and
strange," he said. "How do I know that you are worth a gift? And what
will my master say if I mistake?"

"I cannot prove myself to you," Gregory answered. "That I know of it--
is not that enough?"

"It is not enough," the other said. "But I have a friendship for all who
are in the way. And priceless things are without any price. If you are
not worth the gift, the gift is worth nothing to you. Have you ever used
the ointment?"

"Never," Gregory said; "but it is time, I am sure it is time."

"You think so, do you?" the Greek said slowly. "There comes a time when
there is nothing left but time--nothing. Take it if you like."

Still with the minimum of movement, he put out his hand, opened a drawer
in the counter, and pushed on to it a little cardboard box, rather
greasy and dented here and there.

"Take it," he said. "It will only give you a headache if you are not in
the way."

Gregory caught up the box and hesitated. "Do you want money?" he asked.

"It is a gift, but not a gift," the other answered. "Give me what you
will for a sign."

Gregory put some silver on the counter and backed toward the door. But
the same difficulty that had met him in closing it now held it fast. He
pulled and pushed and struggled with it, and the Greek watched him with
a faint smile. Outside it had begun to rain.