The Knocker on Death's Door

but it’s gospel—What I saw looked for all the world like somebody in a long brown habit, like those old monks used to wear.”

CHAPTER 6

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History had repeated itself with phenomenal exactitude. The position of the prone body was a copy of Gerry Bracewell’s position when found, one hand crumpled down from the sanctuary ring. The second absentee from the now gap-toothed border of white stones along the edges of the grass had been dropped in almost identically the same place as the first. Under the unconscious man lay a large torch, glass and bulb broken, instead of a battered briefcase. By all appearances he had been examining the door at close quarters when he had been hit from behind. It was certainly proving very unhealthy to show too much interest in that door.

The bald skull was lacerated and bleeding, but Brian had made no mistake; the man was alive. The doctor, kneeling over him while the ambulance attendants stood by with stretcher and blankets, pronounced it as his opinion that the victim was in no danger of dying, and that the attack must have been made only very recently, which confirmed Brian’s story of interrupting it at the crucial moment, and suggested both to George and Sergeant Moon, though neither of them said a word, that the boy’s arrival had in fact prevented the completion of this duplication of death. The victim laid out helplessly, the stone coolly positioned for the second and final blow, and suddenly Brian running across the road from the vicarage, an apparition in black P.V.C. He might look like one of Cocteau’s demons, but he had been a guardian angel to this harmless, intrusive crank whose name, according to the papers he had on him, was Herbert Charles Bristow.

Unless, of course, George thought, unobtrusively studying Brian’s interested, impassive face, unless Brian himself had been the one who picked up the stone and laid out the inquisitive stranger at the foot of the door. No apparent reason why he should, but then there were no apparent reasons as yet why anyone should. A cool young card, this boy, and the timing would fit perfectly, in addition to the great convenience of not having to believe, in that case, in the elusive figure of someone in a long brown coat or robe, like a monk, who had vanished at speed among the trees. But if Brian had both provided the tableau and instantly reported it, then there had been no intention to murder, but only to remove the intruder from the scene without being identified.

Concussion, probably fairly bad, the doctor said. Don’t expect to get anything much out of him for two or three days, and don’t expect him to know much about whoever hit him even when he is coherent again. That was fairly obvious advice. Nothing was more certain than that the victim’s attention had been concentrated avidly on what he was examining, and the victim’s back solidly turned on the world. If he had heard steps and turned, even at the last moment, the blow would not have been positioned so accurately at the very back of his head.

It had stopped raining soon after two o’clock, so on the paths, and especially in the places where the gravel had worn thin and mud had gathered, there might be a chance of discovering the most recent footprints. But the wet grass would show them nothing, and according to Brian the assailant had fled among the trees and so to the rear of the church, which meant grass most of the way. They would have to go over every inch. He might have left some trace behind. Trees in the dark are scratchy, aggressive beings, retaining stray threads and bits of wool pile never missed by their owners. There was a whole day of the finicky, meticulous work policemen hate most in store for them; and the day, heaven help them, was Sunday. You can’t keep a church congregation from pursuing its Christian rites on the sabbath day, not even for the sake of a murder investigation. But with the vicar’s help they might be confined to one approach.

They lifted the injured man carefully, swathed him in blankets and carried him away to the ambulance. The doctor took his car and followed his patient. The stone was shrouded in polythene and dispatched, with the broken torch, to the forensic laboratory. The plainclothes and uniformed men available dispersed to patrol the entire surroundings of the church. And in the temporary office in the vicarage Dave and Brian put their evidence formally on record. Until then there had been no time for the finer details, but they were sure of their times, and they had their statements clear in their minds.

“He must have heard me coming through with the bike,” Brian said, and was momentarily disconcerted by his own words, and stopped short.

“That’s the understatement of the year,” confirmed Sergeant Moon emphatically. “He must have if he wasn’t stone-deaf.”

“What I mean,” persisted Brian sturdily, “is that anybody who lives around here knows my bike, they’d know that about two or three minutes after the racket stopped— no, it takes longer than that, I always switch off and bring her quietly on account of the Rev.—say about like five or six minutes after—I should be walking across home. Not always through the churchyard, sometimes I go round, but still I should be somewhere around, and might see something.”

“You have a distinct point there,” said George with interest. “So you think this was somebody who didn’t know the habits of everybody around here. Somebody who might even think you’d driven straight through.”

“Or else somebody very cool,” said Brian, feeling his way visibly with every word. “Because, you see, it was raining, and I must have taken less time than usual over putting the bike away. I shoved her in the vicarage shed, where he lets me keep her, and ran for it as soon as I’d locked the door. Really ran, all down the drive and across the road and up the path, to get round to the lodge by the south porch. I reckon I cut at least two and a half minutes off the course. Maybe he was counting on these two and a half minutes, and didn’t have them. Maybe he’d forgotten about me until he heard me go rocketing through, and then he thought, all right, what does it matter, I know that chap’s timing to the second. Only this time he didn’t. Maybe he took a shade too long over hitting him again, and all of a sudden I was pelting up the path like a greyhound, and he had to cut his losses and drop his rock and get out. Either it’s somebody who doesn’t know at all,” said Brian with great care, “or somebody who knows absolutely, to the minute. Somebody right inside, or right outside.”

“And then, of course,” said Sergeant Moon amiably, “that still leaves one more person—you, laddie.”

“Yeah,” agreed Brian, gazing back at him steadily and not visibly disturbed by the suggestion, “I thought of that, too. I suppose I could have. There’s nothing I can say about that, except that I didn’t. I didn’t even know he was there. Sure I could have picked up the stone and bashed him, and then dropped it and run back to the garage and knocked up Dave—only I’m not green enough to suppose that would give me an alibi, so if I had knocked him out I should just have gone home and said nothing. Dad would probably have been the one to find him, this being Sunday. Also he’d probably have been dead, after a night out in the rain and cold.”

“I’m doing you the favour of supposing that you never wanted him dead,” said Sergeant Moon reasonably.

“If I was desperate enough to want him knocked flat, I’d be desperate enough to prefer him dead rather than talking,” pointed out Brian, and smiled, a genuine if rather cagey smile.

The sergeant, unruffled, cast a glance at George. “You want him anymore, sir?”

“This figure you saw,” said George, thoughtfully, “could it possibly have been a woman?”