Later, when Parson Wigger had concluded his sermon and prayer service and we’d sung the obligatory Christmas hymns, I sought out Minnie Haskins in the back of the church. Despite her years she was a spry little woman who moved about with remarkable agility. “Hello there, Dr. Sam,” she greeted me. “Merry Christmas!”
“Merry Christmas to you, Minnie. How’s the leg?”
“Fit as a fiddle!” She did a little kick to show me. “A touch o’ rheumatism can’t keep me down!” Then she pulled me aside as the others were leaving and whispered, “What’re all them gypsies doin’ here, Doc? I’m in enough trouble with folks for lettin’ them camp on my farm. Now they come to church!”
“It’s Christmas, Minnie. I think they should be welcomed at church on Christmas Day.”
“Well, lots o’ folk are upset with Parson Wigger for invitin’ them, I’ll tell ye that!”
“I haven’t heard any complaints yet except from Eustace Carey.”
“Well, him an’ others.”
Carey joined us then, still grumbling. “Soon as I can get the parson alone I’m goin’ to give him a piece o’ my mind. Bad enough fillin’ the church with gypsies, but then he takes ’em right down front.”
“Where are they now?” I asked.
“Would you believe it? He’s taken them up in the steeple to show them the view!”
I followed them out to the sidewalk, and we looked up through the fallin’ snow at the towerin’ church steeple. Though each of its four white sides had an open window for the belfry, no bell had rung there since its days as a Baptist church. The Baptists had taken their bell with them to a new church in Groveland, and Parson Wigger hadn’t yet raised enough money to replace it.
As we watched, the gypsies began comin’ out of the church and climbin’ back onto their wagon. “They can’t read or write, you know,” Carey said. “No gypsies can.”
“Probably because they haven’t been taught,” I replied. “A little schoolin’ for the youngsters like Tene would help.”
“Well,” Carey said, “I’m still goin’ to talk with the parson about this, soon’s I can catch him alone.”
I glanced around for Minnie, but she’d disappeared, swallowed up by the fallin’ snow. We could barely see across the street now, as the fat white flakes tumbled and swirled in the breeze. I could feel them cold against my face, clingin’ to my eyelashes, and I decided it was time to go home. Just then Volga Lowara came out of the church and climbed into the wagon. The driver snapped the reins and they started off.
“I’m going in to see the parson now,” Carey said.
“Wait a minute,” I suggested. I could have been wrong but I didn’t remember seeing Carranza leave the church. He might have stayed behind to talk with Parson Wigger.
“The heck with it,” Carey decided at last, his hat and coat covered with fat white snowflakes. “I’m goin’ home.”
“I’ll see you, Eustace. Wish the family a Merry Christmas.” It was somethin’ to say, avoidin’ obvious mention of the fact that his wife hadn’t accompanied him to Christmas services.
I decided there was no point in my waitin’ around, either. As Carey disappeared into the snow I started in the opposite direction, only to encounter Sheriff Lens. “Hello there, Dr. Sam. Comin’ from church?”
“That I am. A snowy Christmas, isn’t it?”
“The kids with new sleds’ll like it. Seen Parson Wigger around?”
“He’s in the church. What’s up?”
“Funny thing. I’ll tell you about it.” But before he could say more the familiar figure of Parson Wigger appeared in the church doorway, still wearin’ his long black cassock but without the white surplice. For just an instant a stray beam of light seemed to reflect off his thick glasses. “Parson Wigger!” the sheriff called out, startin’ through the snow for the church steps.
Wigger turned back into the church, bumpin’ against the door jamb. It was almost as if the sight of Sheriff Lens had suddenly terrified him. The sheriff and I reached the back of the church together, just in time to see Wigger’s black cassock vanish up the stairs to the belfry.
“Damn!” Lens exploded. “He closed the door after him. Is he running away from us?”
I tried the belfry door, but it was bolted from the other side. “He’d hardly run up there to get away from us. There’s no other way out.”
“Lemme at that door!”
It was an old church, and a powerful yank by Sheriff Lens splintered the wood around the loose bolt. Another yank, and the door was open.
Lens led the way up the wooden steps. “We’re comin’ up, Parson,” he called out.
There was no answer from above.
We reached the belfry and pushed open the trap door above our heads. The first thing I saw was Parson Wigger outstretched on the floor a few feet away. He was face up, and the jeweled hilt of a small gypsy dagger protruded from the center of his chest.
“My God!” Sheriff Lens gasped. “He’s been murdered!”
From the trap door I could see the entire bare belfry and the snow swirling around us outside. It seemed there was not another living creature up there with us.
But then somethin’ made me turn and look behind the open trap door.
Carranza Lowara was crouched there, an expression of sheer terror on his face.
“I did not kill him,” he cried out. “You must believe me-I did not kill him!”
It was the damnedest locked-room mystery I ever did see, because how could you have a locked room that wasn’t even a room-that was in fact open on all four sides? And how could you have a mystery when the obvious murderer was found right there with the weapon and the body?
And yet-
First off I’d better tell you a bit more about that belfry itself, because it was the first time I’d ever been up there, and some things about it weren’t obvious from the ground. The big bell was gone, all right, though the wooden frame from which it had hung was still in place. There was also a round hole cut in the floor, maybe four inches in diameter, through which the heavy rope for ringing the bell had passed.
But the thing that surprised me most about Parson Wigger’s belfry was the thin wire mesh fencing tacked up over all four open windows. It was like chicken wire, with gaps of a couple inches between the individual strands. Since it obviously wasn’t meant to keep out flies it took me a moment to figure out its purpose.
“Birds,” Sheriff Lens explained, noting my puzzlement “He didn’t want birds roosting up here.”
I grunted. “You can’t even see it from the street, the wire’s so fine.”
Wigger’s body had been taken away, and the gypsy had been arrested, but we lingered on, starin’ through the wire mesh at the street below. “The news has really spread,” Lens observed. “Look at that crowd!”
“More than he had for services. Tells you somethin’ about people, I guess.”
“Think the gypsy did it, Doc?”
“Who else? He was alone up here with Wigger.”
Sheriff Lens scratched his thinning hair. “But why kill him? God knows, Wigger was a friend o’ theirs.”
There was a sound from below, and Eustace Carey’s head emerged through the open trap door. “I just heard about the parson,” he said. “What happened?”
“He was showin’ the gypsies the view from up here. They all came down except Lowara, an’ I guess he musta hid in here. We saw Parson Wigger down by the front door, lookin’ out at the gypsies gettin’ ready to leave, and I wanted to talk to him. He seemed to run away from us, almost, an’ bolted the steeple door after him. By the time Doc Sam and I got up here, he was dead, with the gypsy’s knife in his chest.”
“No one else was up here?”
“No one.”
Carey walked over to the west side of the belfry, where the wind-driven snow covered the floor. “There are footprints here.”