The Pale Horse - Agatha Christie [7]
“One supposes so. His pockets were turned out and the lining of his cassock ripped.”
“They couldn’t have hoped for much,” said Corrigan. “Poor as a rat, most of these parish priests.”
“They battered his head in—to make sure,” mused Lejeune. “One would like to know why.”
“Two possible answers,” said Corrigan. “One, it was done by a vicious-minded young thug, who likes violence for violence’s sake—there are plenty of them about these days, more’s the pity.”
“And the other answer?”
The doctor shrugged his shoulders.
“Somebody had it in for your Father Gorman. Was that likely?”
Lejeune shook his head.
“Most unlikely. He was a popular man, well loved in the district. No enemies, as far as one can hear. And robbery’s unlikely. Unless—”
“Unless what?” asked Corrigan. “The police have a clue! Am I right?”
“He did have something on him that wasn’t taken away. It was in his shoe, as a matter of fact.”
Corrigan whistled.
“Sounds like a spy story.”
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