The Priest at Puddle's End Read online

  Florence put her teacup down and picked up a scone and did the same as Frances. Her one half was different though, instead of marmalade with clotted cream on top she put strawberry jam and clotted cream on top.

  “I’m going to do a side by side taste test and see how I like it,” she said.

  “I like it quite a lot,” said Frances. “Sometimes I just think our rituals could use a little invigorating.”

  Florence was eating a bite from the half with the marmalade and clotted cream.

  “This is surprisingly good,” she said.

  Frances smiled and nodded.

  “Of course,” she said, “it’s all to do with the marmalade, Flo.”

  Florence took a bite of the other half with the strawberry jam and clotted cream. Frances waited for the final verdict. Florence nodded and hummed and chewed and chewed, drawing it out.

  “I can’t choose a winner, Fran, I honestly believe you might be onto something. They’re both as good as each other.”

  Frances finished her one half and put the plate down. She picked up her tea and took a sip.

  “Rituals do help to inform our lives, don’t you think?” asked Florence. “You were just saying how comforting they were at church. Perhaps they help give us order and boundaries to what is really a chaotic world.”

  “I agree, Flo,” she said. “And aren’t we enjoying the ritual of afternoon tea with scones. I suppose I just think the little things, the minutiae if you will, can be pushed a little.”

  “And that’s what you’ve done. You’re making a heathen out of me, Fran. First it’s cream and not milk and now it’s marmalade instead of jam. Whatever will be next. Coffee!”

  Florence laughed.

  “Good God no,” said Frances, “never coffee. That is the devil’s own vile swill.”

  They both laughed.

  “You don’t care for it then I guess?”

  “Not particularly,” said Frances, “I find its effects and taste both too strong.”

  Florence was nodding.

  “I would agree with that. Seems more of a working man’s drink than a retired lady’s beverage of choice.”

  Frances nodded. She looked outside at her friend’s garden. It was wonderful. A peaceful, tranquil oasis just like the whole of Puddle’s End was. Except for that murder of Ginnie Forsyth some years ago. But murder sought nor restrained itself to boundaries or rituals. Frances discarded the thought. It was unpleasant and today was a pleasant day with her dear friend she hadn’t seen in some time.

  “You were going to tell me about Father Fannon,” said Frances.

  Florence took a sip of her tea and put it back down on the table by her plate with the remainder of her scone.

  “Yes,” she said, looking out the window into the garden. “I can’t put my finger on it, and one feels awful about thinking odd thoughts about a man of the cloth, and yet, there’s just something about him that rubs me the wrong way.”

  “Ever since you’ve been here?”

  Florence nodded.

  “Yes, you don’t have that opinion of him, do you?”

  She looked eagerly at her friend. Frances shook her head.

  “No, but then again I’ve just met him. Seems likable enough and friendly. What is it that sort of rubs you the wrong way?”

  “Hard to say, Fran. He just seems a little too friendly with some of the younger women in town. Nothing obvious, just the look he might give one now and then. I can’t help but think he’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing. There seems something slightly lascivious about him.”

  Frances nodded.

  “And there’s never been anything overt. Never any police involvement or statements made to them about him?”

  Florence shook her head.

  “No. Nothing like that. But then again who would? Who would risk trying to sully a man of the cloth without a large amount of evidence to show for it. That’s what irks me a little. Seems the cloth would be a perfect cloak for someone of a bent nature to hide behind.”

  “Although I sympathize with your feelings, Flo, perhaps you are looking behind dark corners for ghosts that aren’t there.”

  Florence nodded solemnly, staring out into her garden.

  “You’re probably right,” she said. “Ever since that poor woman was murdered here in Puddle’s End…”

  “Ginnie Forsyth?”

  Florence nodded.

  “Yes, that’s right. Poor woman. Murdered by her husband, what an awful betrayal of trust. Ever since then, I’ve never looked at anyone here in Puddle’s End the same. I don’t know how you do it, Fran. How do you keep your equanimity about you while peering at the awful underbelly of humanity?”

  “It’s difficult, Flo, to be honest. Not as easy as you think it looks. I comfort myself in seeking the truth and seeking justice for the innocent victims. But it’s hard. It’s a matter of mental gymnastics a lot of the time. I continually remind myself that the great majority of us are good and kind. That’s really all you can do.”

  Florence nodded, picked up her tea and looked outside again.

  “Then there was that awful thing that happened here even before that.”

  Frances looked at her friend.

  “What thing?”

  “It was the Autumn of 1929 so I’ve heard. This was before I was here, mind you, so it’s all hearsay. Though it really did happen. There are police reports to prove it. Though nobody was brought to justice.”

  Frances waited patiently. Florence was staring outside as if she were in a trance, reliving the very thing she was talking about. After some time of silence she turned to look at Frances with a pained and forced smile on her face.

  “A Deacon was murdered on the grounds of St. Francis’ Church.”

  “That’s where we had today’s service, isn’t it?”

  Florence nodded.

  “Yes, St. Francis’ Church is the Catholic Church where Father Fannon is the priest. He, or should I say the church, had a Deacon serving there in the twenties. I don’t know when he arrived but he left in 1929.”

  “Left?” asked Frances. “You said he was murdered.”

  Florence nodded.

  “Yes, Fran, he was murdered. He left in a coroner’s van never to be seen again.”

  Frances found her friend’s choice of words strange and unusual.

  “What was his name?”

  “Kerr Millar,” said Florence, not looking at her friend. “Funny how one can remember certain names and not others.”

  “Tell me about him,” said Frances.

  “Not much to tell. I didn’t know him of course. I haven’t seen the police reports but they are there. All I know is secondhand.”

  “What happened?”

  “He was found bludgeoned to death at the back of the church by a large oak tree not far from the graveyard.”

  Frances hadn’t seen the back of the church.

  “When was that?”

  “I believe it was the morning of the tenth of September in 1929. That’s when he was found. Apparently he was murdered the day before. I think they thought it was the late afternoon.”

  “Did they ever find who did it or have a suspect?”

  Florence nodded, sipped her tea and looked over at her friend.

  “Yes, they believe it was a drifter that the deacon and priest had helped by giving him odd jobs around the church just the month or two before. He was there until the morning of the tenth when the Deacon’s body was found. Nobody saw him again from that morning onward.”

  “What evidence did they have against this drifter?”

  “Apparently his fingerprints were found at the scene on a wheelbarrow and the metal handle of a spade that was close by. The deacon was bludgeoned with a piece of headstone. As I recall, there were broken bits of headstones in a pile by this tree. That’s what was used to murder him.”

  “And did they come up with any motive?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “So this fellow’s fing
erprints were on file here with the local constabulary?”

  Florence shook her head and put down her teacup. She picked up her plate of scone.

  “No, but the sergeant in charge at the time. I forget his name… wait, I think it was Sergeant Owen Potts. Yes, that’s it. He was quite keen on the new technology of the time. He took a trip down to Scotland Yard to see if they might have this drifter’s prints on file. They did. I don’t remember the details but I don’t think they ever found him.”

  Frances looked at her tea. It was getting cold and she only had a few sips left. She drank the rest. She reached for her scone and slowly ate the remainder of it. Florence was being counseled by her own thoughts as she nibbled on scone and looked out at her handiwork in the back garden.

  “Perhaps that’s something we could do,” said Florence.

  “What is?”

  “Perhaps we could investigate this murder.”

  “But you said the police did a fine job of it. Seems they have their suspect, they just never caught him.”

  “But I’d really like to get a handle on motive. Why was the Deacon murdered? It sends shivers up my spine just thinking that a man of the church could be brutally murdered for just offering a kindness. That seems too awful to believe. Are none of us safe?”

  Frances didn’t say anything. She put her empty plate down on the table and poured another cup of tea into her teacup.

  “Well, I suppose it might keep us busy whilst I’m here,” she said at last.

  “That’s the spirit,” said Florence. “Fac et aliquid operis, ut semper te diabolus inveniat occupatum.”

  “Does that mean busy hands will do God’s work?” asked Frances, smiling.

  “One can only hope.”

  Frances sipped at her second cup of warm tea. It was just what was needed in order to grease the gears of the mind.

  “You know,” she said, turning to look at her friend. “Perhaps you should start writing fictional accounts of some of these murders. That might help you understand them more. Give reason to the madness of them. Sometimes motive seems lacking, but in fiction you can always give the reader that satisfaction.”

  “You mean sort of like that character. Oh, what was her name? Ariadne Oliver, that’s it. Sort of like that, and you can be Poirot?”

  “Well, perhaps more like Miss Marple but I understand what you’re saying.”

  “What was the author’s name. The one who wrote about Poirot and Oliver and Jane Marple. Her name’s on the tip of my tongue.”

  Frances chuckled.

  “You’re pulling my leg. Everybody knows who the author of Poirot and Marple are. It’s Agatha Christie, Flo.”

  Florence winked at her friend.

  “Oh yes, that’s exactly who I was thinking of.”

  Florence finished her scone and poured herself another cup.

  “I just don’t know if I’m a good writer. I’ve never written more than an essay and that was a long time ago at St. Mary’s.”

  “Well, you wouldn’t have to publish them, Flo, and I bet you’ll get better as time goes by. It’s all practice I’m sure. Just like anything.”

  “If you promise to get to the bottom of it, then I’ll promise to consider writing about it.”

  “I can’t promise that, Flo, in real life, murders sometimes don’t make sense. It’s not like in the books.”

  “Let’s give it a go, something to do while you’re here. See if we can’t add anything to this case. We’ll call it the ‘The Drifter, The Deacon and the Wheelbarrow: A Murder Most Sinful’.”

  Frances smiled.

  “Alright then, we’ll go to the station tomorrow morning.”

  Florence nodded and sipped her tea. She looked over at the brave man looking at her from the gold frame on the white linen on the side table. Maybe all murders were senseless, just like his had been.

  TWO

  St. Francis' Church 1929

  SERGEANT Potts was a very tall man. He stood six feet and five inches. But he was slim with it. He had a booming voice and a brown curly mop of hair with thick eyebrows. He had never lost his Scottish brogue even though he’d been in Puddle’s End for thirty years.

  It was a quiet hamlet and he liked it that way. Law and order ruled the day. Except for today. He could count on one hand the number of murders that had taken place here in his time as a constable and now as sergeant. This murder meant he had to use his other hand to start counting. He didn’t like that.

  To make matters worse, it was the murder of a man of the cloth. That enraged him, though from looking at him he didn’t look like a man enraged.

  The constable was standing out back in the large grounds not far from the oak tree and the graveyard and the broken up headstones. Potts could see the Deacon even from this distance. His head out one side of the tree and his legs out the other.

  Pacing not far from the tree, the constable and the dead deacon, was the priest. Walking towards them, Sergeant Potts put the priest in his sixties. He had thinning gray hair and a stomach that had known lots of good food. He was wearing green vestments. Potts looked at his watch. It was ten thirty. The priest had probably just finished up mass.

  “What’s going on here, Constable?” asked Potts.

  The young man's clean shaven and serious face under his custodian helmet belied his uncomfortableness with his first homicide. He had never seen a dead person before. And especially not one like this.

  “Well Sergeant, ah, we have the Deacon here. He’s dead… as you can see. I’ve been guarding him since we arrived.”

  “Does he look like he needs guarding, Constable?”

  “Um, yes, I mean no, sir?”

  Potts wasn’t looking at the young constable. He was looking down at the dead Deacon. Potts put him around fiftyish. He was a tall, slim man in his black shirt with clerical collar and black pants and black shoes. His socks were charcoal gray. His shirt was short sleeved. He had been hit on the back of his head towards the left side, probably more than once with a chunk of granite headstone that looked to be about the size of a large bible.

  “Who found him?”

  “The, er, groundskeeper, sir. He’s inside with Constable Parsons, sir.”

  Potts nodded. He turned towards the priest.

  “You are the pastor here at the church, Father?”

  “Yes,” said a visibly shaken Father Kane Fannon. He kept glancing over at the body. “I’m Father Kane Fannon. I am the parish priest.”

  “Walk with me, Father,” said Potts, trying to discourage the priest from continually looking over at the dead body. “Constable Noble, remain at your post.”

  The young Constable nodded. Potts took Father Fannon by his elbow and led him back towards the church.

  “You knew the deacon quite well?”

  “I did, yes,” said Father Fannon. “This is simply terrible. I don’t know why anyone would want to kill him.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Kerr Millar.”

  “Do you know how old he was?”

  “Fifty-four I believe.”

  “How long had he served here?”

  “Nine years. He was assigned to my parish in the summer of 1920.”

  “Had he any troubles with anyone over the years, particularly anyone recently?”

  Father Fannon stopped walking. They were halfway towards the church. He shook his head.

  “No, not at all. This is a peaceful hamlet, Sergeant. You know that. Our role as servants of God is to serve the community. We are faithful disciples of Jesus Christ. Our ministry is service.”

  “So you can offer no names for who might have held a grudge against Deacon Millar?”

  Fannon shook his head again.

  “I cannot.”

  “Are all parish staff accounted for?”

  Father Fannon creased his brow for a moment.

  “There’s Deacon Millar. There’s me, of course. There’s Matilda Walmsley, she’s our administrator and she takes care of the
day to day administration, appointments that sort of thing. The groundskeeper, Peter Bolton. I believe he is inside. Then there’s our housekeeper Isabel Slaughter.”

  “That’s your complete staff?”

  Father Fannon nodded. Potts continued to walk him up the gently rising grounds towards the back of the church.

  “We do have a young man helping us around the grounds. Millar recommended we help him with odd jobs. He’s a drifter I believe. I had never met him before. Seemed like a fine young man, just down on his luck. Quiet and keeps to himself. He should be here someplace. He’s been working on cleaning out the broken bits of headstones lately. I think that’s what Millar was getting him to do.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Carbry Turnbull.”

  “How would you describe him?”

  “Well, I always found his name quite suits him. He’s about my height but thick as a bull. Not fat you understand,” said Fannon, patting his belly subconsciously. “He’s got a mess of wavy, black hair and a scraggly beard to match. Has some missing teeth. We try keep him out of the public eye as he doesn’t take to water or a razor very well.”

  “How old is he?”

  “I think he must be around thirty if I were to guess. He didn’t have any papers, you understand.”

  Sergeant Potts nodded. He wasn’t writing any of this down. His memory was trustworthy.

  “And you never saw Millar or Turnbull arguing?”

  “Quite the contrary. Kerr had a way with him. Like some people do with wild animals. Carbry seemed quite relaxed with Kerr. With me on the other hand, he always seemed quite stiff so I left the dealing with him to Kerr. Other than that we had no problems with him. Didn’t say much, but he was quite respectful of Matilda and Isabel.”

  The coroner came up to them with two other men and a stretcher.

  “Are you finished with him, Sergeant?” the coroner asked.

  “I am.”

  “We’ll need you at the inquest as you know,” he said, smiling.

  Potts nodded.

  “I’ll be there.”

  Potts watched the men walk down towards the tree. Doctor Brant Holme was an old man. Probably would be retiring soon, thought Potts. He had to be in his seventies. Potts smiled. He’d known him for many years. A very thorough and trustworthy man. But not one for socializing. Potts turned back to Father Fannon.