The Pale Horse

Lejeune smiled.

‘It’s much simpler than that. He had a hole in his pocket. Sergeant Pine talked to his housekeeper. She’s a bit of a slattern, it seems. Didn’t keep his clothes mended in the way she might have done. She admitted that, now and again, Father Gorman would thrust a paper or a letter down the inside of his shoe—to prevent it from going down into the lining of his cassock.’

‘And the killer didn’t know that?’

‘The killer never thought of that! Assuming, that is, that this piece of paper is what he may have been wanting—rather than a miserly amount of small change.’

‘What was on the paper?’

Lejeune reached into a drawer and took out a flimsy piece of creased paper.

‘Just a list of names,’ he said.

Corrigan looked at it curiously.

Ormerod

Sandford

Parkinson

Hesketh-Dubois

Shaw

Harmondsworth

Tuckerton

Corrigan?

Delafontaine?

His eyebrows rose.

‘I see I’m on the list!’

‘Do any of the names mean anything to you?’ asked the inspector.

‘None of them.’

‘And you’ve never met Father Gorman?’

‘Never.’

‘Then you won’t be able to help us much.’

‘Any ideas as to what this list means—if anything?’

Lejeune did not reply directly.

‘A boy called at Father Gorman’s about seven o’clock in the evening. Said a woman was dying and wanted the priest. Father Gorman went with him.’

‘Where to? If you know?’

‘We know. It didn’t take long to check up. Twenty-three Benthall Street. House owned by a woman named Coppins. The sick woman was a Mrs Davis. The priest got there at a quarter past seven and was with her for about half an hour. Mrs Davis died just before the ambulance arrived to take her to hospital.’

‘I see.’

‘The next we hear of Father Gorman is at Tony’s Place, a small down-at-heel café. Quite decent, nothing criminal about it, serves refreshment of poor quality and isn’t much patronised. Father Gorman asked for a cup of coffee. Then apparently he felt in his pocket, couldn’t find what he wanted and asked the proprietor, Tony, for a piece of paper. This—’ he gestured with his finger, ‘is the piece of paper.’

‘And then?’

‘When Tony brought the coffee, the priest was writing on the paper. Shortly afterwards he left, leaving his coffee practically untasted (for which I don’t blame him), having completed this list and shoved it into his shoe.’

‘Anybody else in the place?’

‘Three boys of the Teddy boy type came in and sat at one table and an elderly man came in and sat at another. The latter went away without ordering.’

‘He followed the priest?’

‘Could be. Tony didn’t notice when he went. Didn’t notice what he looked like, either. Described him as an inconspicuous type of man. Respectable. The kind of man that looks like everybody else. Medium height, he thinks, dark blue overcoat—or could be brown. Not very dark and not very fair. No reason he should have had anything to do with it. One just doesn’t know. He hasn’t come forward to say he saw the priest in Tony’s place—but it’s early days yet. We’re asking for anyone who saw Father Gorman between a quarter to eight and eight-fifteen to communicate with us. Only two people so far have responded: a woman and a chemist who had a shop nearby. I’ll be going to see them presently. His body was found at eight-fifteen by two small boys in West Street—you know it? Practically an alleyway, bounded by the railway on one side. The rest—you know.’

Corrigan nodded. He tapped the paper.

‘What’s your feeling about this?’

‘I think it’s important,’ said Lejeune.

‘The dying woman told him something and he got these names down on paper as soon as he could before he forgot them? The only thing is—would he have done that if he’d been told under seal of the confessional?’

‘It needn’t have been under a seal of secrecy,’ said Lejeune. ‘Suppose, for instance, these names have a connection of—say, blackmail—’

‘That’s your idea, is it?’

‘I haven’t any ideas yet. This is just a working hypothesis. These people were being blackmailed. The dying woman was either the blackmailer, or she knew about the blackmail. I’d say that the general idea was, repentance, confession, and a wish to make reparation as far as possible. Father Gorman assumed the responsibility.’

‘And then?’

‘Everything else is conjectural,’ said Lejeune. ‘Say it was a paying racket, and someone didn’t want it to stop paying. Someone knew Mrs Davis was dying and that she’d sent for the priest. The rest follows.’

‘I wonder now,’ said Corrigan, studying the paper again. ‘Why do you think there’s an interrogation mark after the last two names?’

‘It could be that Father Gorman wasn’t sure he’d remembered those two names correctly.’

‘It might have been Mulligan instead of Corrigan,’ agreed the doctor with a grin. ‘That’s likely enough. But I’d say that with a name like Delafontaine, either you’d remember it or you wouldn’t—if you know what I mean. It’s odd that there isn’t a single address—’ He read down the list again.

‘Parkinson—lots of Parkinsons. Sandford, not uncommon—Hesketh-Dubois—that’s a bit of a mouthful. Can’t be many of them.’