After seeing his fill, Colbeck set off on his second visit of the day. St Dunstan’s Rectory was only a stone’s throw from the church itself and it had been built at roughly the same time, retaining its medieval exterior while undergoing many internal renovations. Shown into the drawing room by the housekeeper, Colbeck was given a cordial welcome by Ezra Follis who pulled himself out of his high-backed chair with barely concealed pain.
‘Forgive me if I don’t shake your hand, Inspector,’ he said. ‘My hands are still somewhat tender and I had difficulty turning the pages of my Prayer Book during the service this morning. Your visit is timely. I was just about to have my afternoon cup of tea.’
‘Then I’ll be happy to join you, Mr Follis.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Ashmore.’
A nod from the rector was all it took for the housekeeper to bustle out of the room. The two men, meanwhile, sat down opposite each other. After the grand proportions of the library he had visited earlier, Colbeck found the room small and cluttered. The low ceiling, thick roof beams and little mullioned windows contributed to the sense of restriction but the place had a snug, homely feeling about it. Follis had less than a quarter of the number of books owned by Giles Thornhill but Colbeck suspected that he had read far more of the contents of his library than the politician had of his.
‘What brings you to Brighton again?’ asked Follis.
‘I had to speak to one of your Members of Parliament.’
‘Then it must have been Giles Thornhill.’
‘Yes,’ said Colbeck. ‘Like you, he was a survivor of the crash.’
‘How did you find him?’
‘I think he’s still in considerable discomfort.’
Follis chortled. ‘That’s a polite way of saying that he was singularly inhospitable. It’s no more than I’d expect,’ he said. ‘On the one occasion when I called at his house, Thornhill kept me waiting for twenty minutes before he deigned to see me.’
‘I take it that you are not an admirer of the gentleman.’
‘Voting against him at the last election gave me a sense of delight, Inspector. I despise the man. He manipulates people to his advantage. The only thing that animates him is the greater glory of Giles Thornhill.’ He chortled again. ‘When visitors come to Brighton for the first time, I ask them what they think of the monstrosity.’
‘The Royal Pavilion?’
‘No,’ said Follis, ‘our Parliamentary eyesore – Mr Thornhill.’
‘What has he done to offend you?’ wondered Colbeck.
‘He’s treated people with contempt as if he inhabits a superior order of creation. Then, of course,’ said Follis, knowingly, ‘there’s the small matter of his inheritance.’
‘Judging by the size of his house, I’d say that it was an extremely large one.’
‘His father made his fortune in the slave trade, Inspector.’
‘Ah, I see.’
‘He grew rich on the suffering and humiliation of others. That may explain why Thornhill regards so many of us as mere slaves. However,’ he went on, sympathy coming into his voice, ‘I’m genuinely sorry that he was injured in the crash and did my best to help him at the time. Needless to say, I received no thanks.’
‘Do you see Mr Thornhill often?’ asked Colbeck.
‘At least once a week – we catch the Brighton Express every Friday evening and often share a carriage. Though we acknowledge each other, we rarely speak.’ Follis grinned. ‘I fancy that he knows he can’t rely on my vote.’
They chatted amiably until the housekeeper arrived with a tray. As she served the two of them with a cup of tea, Colbeck was able to take a closer look at Ellen Ashmore. She was a stout woman of medium height with well-groomed grey hair surrounding a pleasant face that was incongruously small in comparison with her body. Though she and Follis were of a similar age, she treated him with a motherly concern, urging him to rest as much as possible.
‘Mrs Ashmore will spoil me,’ said Follis when she had left the room. ‘She did everything she could to stop me taking the service this morning. I told her that I had a duty, Inspector. I couldn’t let my parishioners down.’
‘I’m sure that they appreciated your being there.’
‘Some of them did.’ Adding sugar to his cup, Follis stirred his tea. ‘Incidentally, did you manage to get anything coherent out of Horace Bardwell?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ said Colbeck. ‘He’s hopelessly bewildered.’
‘We prayed for him and the other victims.’
‘While I was at the hospital yesterday, I spoke to some of them. Two, apparently, were in the same carriage as you.’
‘Oh? And who might they be?’
‘Mr Terence Giddens and a young lady named Miss Daisy Perriam. They were both highly distressed at what happened to them.’
‘That’s understandable,’ said Follis with something akin to amusement. ‘Instead of being trapped in hospital beds, the pair of them had hoped to be sharing one.’ Colbeck was taken aback. ‘You didn’t see them together as I did, Inspector. Had you done so, you’d have noticed that, though they pretended to be travelling alone, they were, in fact, together. That’s why Giddens was so desperate to get out of the hospital.’
‘He told me that his bank needed him in London.’
‘I heard the same lie. The truth of it is that he was afraid that his wife would read about the crash in the newspapers and see her husband’s name among the injured. The last thing that Giddens wanted was for his wife to discover that, instead of doing whatever he told her he would be doing that weekend, he had instead slipped off to Brighton with a beautiful young woman. He lives in fear that Mrs Giddens will walk through the door of his ward at any moment.’
Colbeck was impressed. ‘You’re a shrewd detective, Mr Follis,’ he said. ‘I wish I had your intuition.’
‘It’s something one develops,’ explained Follis. ‘If you’d sat by as many sad deathbeds as I have, and settled as many bitter marital disputes, and listened to as many tearful confessions of wickedness and folly, you’d become acutely sensitive to human behaviour. As it was, Giddens gave himself away at the start. When I first spoke to him in hospital, he wanted to know if Daisy Perriam had survived the crash. He was far less interested in the fate of Giles Thornhill and the others in our carriage.’
‘I wish that I’d talked to you earlier.’
‘Why – are you going to offer me a job at Scotland Yard?’
‘No,’ said Colbeck, tickled by the suggestion. ‘By inclination and training, you’re clearly far more suited to the Church – though I’m bound to observe that there are very few clergymen who’d share your tolerant view of people’s peccadilloes. Any other gentleman of the cloth would be scandalised by the relationship you discerned between Mr Giddens and Miss Perriam.’
‘God has punished them enough for their sins,’ said Follis. ‘I don’t feel they deserve the additional penalty of my disapproval. Given their condition, they’ll get nothing but sympathy from me.’
Colbeck could not imagine that view being expressed by any other churchman. It would certainly not be endorsed by Edward Tallis, a man of high ideals and a stern moral code. In his report to the superintendent, Colbeck would make no mention of the liaison between a respected, married banker and an attractive young woman. The more he got to know Ezra Follis, the more interesting and unusual the man became. Colbeck was about to ask a question when the rector read his mind.