Quirke 06 - Holy Orders by Benjamin Black Page B

hands. “This way, gents,” he said. His voice was a harsh croak. He turned and set off down the hall. As he walked he swung his right hand back and forth in long slow arcs; it might have been an oar and he the oarsman, paddling himself along. They could hear his labored breathing. The hall had a mingled smell of floor polish and must. All round them in the house a huge and listening silence reigned.
    Father Dangerfield’s office was a large cold room with a corniced ceiling and three tall windows looking out on a broad sweep of lawn and, beyond the grass, a stand of stark-looking trees. The carpet had a threadbare pathway worn in it, leading up to an antique oak desk with many drawers and a green leather inlaid top. There was an acrid tobacco smell—Father Dangerfield was evidently a heavy smoker. He was narrow-shouldered, thin to the point of emaciation, with a narrow head and a pale dry gray jaw that had the look of a cuttlefish bone. He wore spectacles with metal rims, in the lenses of which the light from the windows weakly gleamed. He stood up as they entered—he was tall, well over six feet—and smiled with an evident effort, pursing his lips. The bent old man went out crabwise and shut the door soundlessly behind himself.
    “Gentlemen,” the priest said. “Please, sit.”
    Quirke and Hackett had each to fetch a chair from the far side of the room and set it down before the desk. Hackett was holding his hat as if it were an alien thing that had been thrust into his hands.
    Father Dangerfield resumed his seat. Hackett did not much like the look of him, with his raw, bone-dry face and purplish hands, and the shining lenses of his spectacles that magnified his eyes and gave him a look of vexed startlement. The priest leaned his elbows on the arms of his chair and steepled his fingers and touched the tips of them to his lips. It was a studied pose, practiced, Hackett surmised, over long hours spent in the confessional, listening in judicious silence to the sins of others. Never jump to conclusions …
    “So,” Father Dangerfield said. “What can I do for you?” He had an English accent, precise and slightly prissy.
    “We were hoping,” Hackett said, “to speak to Father Honan.”
    The priest frowned, his eyes behind the glasses growing wider still. “For what reason, may I ask?”
    Hackett smiled easily. “There’s a couple of things we’d like to talk to him about.” At the word “we” Father Dangerfield glanced in Quirke’s direction, as if he were registering him for the first time. “This is Dr. Quirke,” Hackett said, and left it at that, as though merely the name would be enough of an explanation for Quirke’s presence.
    The priest turned to Hackett again. “Please tell me, what are these things you wish to discuss with Father Honan?”
    “A young man died on Monday night. Name of Minor—you might have read about it in the papers.”
    “Why?” the priest asked. Hackett blinked, and the priest gave a faint grimace of impatience. “I mean, why would I have read about it?”
    “Well, it was a murder, we think. There was a subsequent report on it in the Clarion . Big story, page one.”
    Father Dangerfield put the joined tips of his fingers to his lips again and sat very still for a long moment. “Ah,” he said at last, and again seemed somewhat impatient, “in the papers. I see. Y ou must understand, we’re rather”—he smiled his wintry smile—“sequestered here.”
    It struck Hackett that the fellow had all the tone and mannerisms of a Jesuit, one of those clever English ones who spend their time in the drawing rooms of great houses, sipping dry sherry and covertly working to convert the upper classes. How had he come to join the Trinitarians, an order not known for subtlety or sophistication? Had there been some misdemeanor, committed in another jurisdiction, that had resulted in him ending up here?
    Now the priest spoke again. “Who was the young man? Y ou say his name was