Sebastian Gloom

The Paternoster Club

     The crime that Father Anthony had hoped would be lost amongst the mischief and mayhem of any major city was front page news the next day, and Sebastian Gloom sat up straight in his wheelchair as the headline caught his eye. “Quite a coincidence,” said Benson as he laid his master's breakfast on the table before him. “Two murders in that house in just a few days.”

     “No coincidence,” said Gloom, his fingers white as he clutched the newspaper with furious intensity. “I would wager everything I own that the unfortunate servant girl was Doris Kettle. The church, tidying up loose ends.” He looked up at his manservant. “You spoke to her. How would you characterise her?”

     “Quiet, scared, but basically innocent. Her only crime, I think, was to have had a villainous brother. Left to herself, I think her only desire would have been to live an honest life. Work for her living, meet and marry a good man. Raise a couple of children. I was rather shocked to find that it was she who was the weasel in the house. I would say that she was more a victim than a villain.”

     Gloom nodded. “This was murder, Benson. Murder most foul. I intend to bring the culprit to justice, whether it was the church or not.”

     “I wonder if our clerical friend dirtied his own hands this time,” said Benson as he poured Gloom’s tea. “Or whether they hired another man to do the job for them.”

     “If it was Doris who met her end that night, the motive would have been to ensure her silence. They would have feared that Gideon had told her that it was the church that had hired him. They wouldn’t have taken the chance that she might have spoken to her assassin before her death, passing on the dangerous information to someone much better equipped, as well as more criminally inclined, to use it against them. No, if I'm right about the victim and the motive, this was something the church would only have entrusted to one of their own people. A priest, a member of Exercitus Dei. Maybe none other than Father Anthony himself.” He looked at his manservant over the top of the newspaper, his eyes narrow with anger. “Cold blooded murder, Benson. Committed by a man of the church. A man able to clear his conscience of any immoral act simply by asking forgiveness from God.”

     “How do we find out?” asked the manservant. “If the police find out about our own involvement, we run the risk of becoming suspects ourselves.”

     “Yes, we cannot let them find out that we were hired to recover the bottle. However, I was a friend of Philip Cranston, before his death. I can use that to explain my interest in the case.”

     “So, we're going to pay a visit to Inspector Bailey?”

     “Yes, we are.”

   ☆☆☆

     Sebastian Gloom had collaborated with Inspector Bailey many times over the years, whenever a case came along that lay outside what the police normally felt comfortable dealing with. Gloom was happy to lend his expertise with the occult whenever necessary, and this had led to the two men becoming fast friends. Like Gloom, Bailey was a member of the Paternoster Club and so Gloom decided to spend the evening there, in the hope that the inspector would pop in, allowing the investigator to begin a casual conversation during which he could steer the topic of discussion towards the crime of the night before.

     The evening was a long time away, though, and the inspector, who had investigated the original break in and whose familiarity with the house and the family would surely result in his being given this new case, would need the day to do his own investigating. Gloom spent the day working on some of his other current cases, therefore, which mostly involved poring over information sent to him through the post and researching through the vast collection of occult books he had collected across the years. Gloom's handicap meant that he tried to avoid travelling whenever possible, and if he had to meet a client in person, they could often be persuaded to come to him.