Father Anthony

Jake was the fourteen year old son of Alfred and Doreen Pilchard, the couple that did Gloom's housekeeping and prepared his meals. It wasn't the first time he’d acted as Gloom's wheelchair engineer and he kept a careful eye on the dials and the furnace, occasionally opening the grate and throwing in another piece of charcoal when he judged the fire to be growing low. He wiped his soot stained hands on his apron as the wheelchair chuffed its way along Market Street and nodded politely to a policeman who twirled his truncheon around and around as he watched them pass.

The church at the end of the street had a flight of stairs leading up to the doors, but the wheelchair was more than capable of climbing them so long as Gloom leaned back in his seat and Jake tilted the front wheels up off the ground. The chair was of Gloom's own design, although he'd had to employ a firm of railway engineers to actually build it. In his spare time he amused himself by designing a smaller chair that would be able to move around inside buildings, but he hadn’t yet been able to think of a way to dispose of the smoke produced by the furnace.

Entering the church, he drove the chair into the south aisle and Nicholas Atterton, the bishop's acolyte, held the door to a storeroom while Gloom drove in. Then the two of them helped Gloom into a conventional wheelchair, which the church kept for the use of its elderly and disabled parishioners. Jake then remained with the steam wheelchair to keep the fire burning ready for its return journey while Gloom wheeled himself into the nave.

Father Anthony was kneeling in front of the altar, and Gloom waited patiently for him to finish his prayers. He spent the time examining the intricately carved ornate stonework of the walls and ceiling and the stained glass windows, each of which depicted a story from the bible. He was particularly interested in the depiction of Jonah being swallowed by a great fish. The artist had depicted it as a whale, with a jet of water spouting from its blow hole, but Gloom suspected that the actual fish was more likely to have been a goliath sturgeon, the only fish in the world that was in the habit of swallowing man sized prey whole. He contemplated the story of Jonah, the story of how God had chosen him to be a prophet, despite his unwillingness, and had hounded him with storms and calamities until he’d agreed to do God's bidding. How does that fit in with free will? he wondered. Free will should mean we can say no to You if we want. Does free will only mean that we are free to obey?

“Sebastian Gloom,” said a voice, and Gloom turned to see that Father Anthony had finished his prayers and had come to stand beside him. “It's been many months since we've seen you within these walls.” He looked at the window Gloom had been studying. “He also took his time coming to God.”

“Is that all God wants?” asked Gloom. “A race of obedient servants? It seems such a small thing for an all powerful God to want to create. If I were God, I think I would be more interested in a race of disobedient people. People whose actions could never be predicted and who would therefore be a constant source of entertainment and surprise.”

Father Anthony laughed. “And are people not disobedient enough to serve that purpose?”

“But He punishes the disobedient. Rewards those who obey. If God were human, he people He would most closely resemble would be those work house bosses who force orphan children to work until they collapse from exhaustion and throw the disobedient out into the snow.”

“Those orphan children are given food and a roof over their heads,” pointed out the priest. “If not for the workhouse they would freeze and starve. God loves us, and provides for us. He created this whole world for us. He makes the sun rise, makes the crops grow, gives us children, provides an eternity of reward in heaven when we die. There is no limit to his love, no limit to his generosity.”

“Yes, of course, you are right,” said Gloom, including his head. “Forgive me, Father, I am a victim of my profession. I investigate the very worst of humanity, the scum of the world, and that tends to give me a somewhat jaundiced view of things. It is easy to forget that pure goodness exists, what it has done for us.”

The priest smiled. “There is nothing to forgive, my friend. Many of my parishioners are policemen and soldiers, they say very much the same thing. That is one of the most important parts of my job, to remind them of the love of God.”

“I hope you are in the mood for a great deal more forgiving,” said Gloom, “because it occurred to be earlier today that it has been far too long since my last confession, and I’m afraid that I have a great deal to confess to.”

“Then the sooner we start, the sooner we finish. Would you like a few minutes in prayer first?”

Gloom wheeled his chair a few feet away and sat with his head bowed in silent prayer. When he thought he’d spent long enough to be convincing he approached the priest again, who indicated the way to the confessional.

The bench within could be removed, for the benefit of wheelchair bound parishioners, and a moment later Gloom was sitting in the dark alcove looking at the priest through the small grill. “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been six months since my last confession.”

“Tell me your sins, my child.”

“I have again harboured angry thoughts towards God for the malaise that confines me to this chair. I see others walking and running, delighting in their perfect, healthy bodies, and I feel envy and resentment. I try to tell myself that life itself is a gift, that I am fortunate for the many gifts God has given me. The gifts of sight and hearing, for instance, that others have been deprived of, but I can’t help comparing myself to those who are more fortunate, not less. I was less than ten years old when the polio struck me down. What great sin did I commit that I deserved this fate? Yes, I know the answer. Why shouldn't He give me polio? God does as He wishes, and we cannot question Him. I know all this but I get angry nonetheless. I just can't help it. I am so weak, so ashamed. Every time I come to confess you forgive me, and yet I commit the same sin again and again. Why should you forgive me yet again?”

“We are all weak, my son, and yet God forgives us.”

“I have committed other sins. I harbour lustful thoughts towards women, even though my poor body is incapable of committing intimate acts.”

“That is another of His gifts, my son. Thoughts are of little consequence so long as they remain confined to our own minds, but actions can have the most grievous consequences. God has blessed you by ensuring that you are incapable of committing the acts to which you refer.”

“I shall remember to thank Him every time a lustful thought enters my head from now on.”

Gloom continued for several minutes longer, recounting things he had done that the church considered sinful, although he omitted several things that he didn’t consider sinful and that he didn't regret. When he ran out he made up sins, since having a great number of sins was central to the strategy he’d decided upon. It occurred to him that exploiting the sanctity of confession in order to pursue an investigation might itself be considered a greater sin than anything he was confessing to, but since becoming a member of Paul's conspiracy would no doubt be considered the greatest sin of all he didn't let it bother him.

When he was finished the priest gave him a number of penances, none of which Gloom had the slightest intension of performing, and then they exited the confessional.

“You must seldom hear a longer list of confessions than I just recited,” he said as he wheeled his chair back into the nave. “Sometimes I think it would be simpler to avoid judgement altogether by procuring a Solomon Bottle.”

“Do not even joke about such a thing,” said the priest, suddenly serious. “The use of such an object results in instant damnation if the man's soul should ever come before God.”

“Unless he repents, of course. Repentance is always possible and, if genuine, always results in forgiveness.”

“Repentance is only possible while you still live. Once the heart stops the book of your life is closed and nothing you do after that is considered by the Almighty.”

“Why is that?” asked Gloom, genuinely curious. “Why can you not repent after death? Repentance is repentance, surely. How can it matter whether it comes before or after death?”

“The book of your life is closed when you draw your last breath,” repeated the Priest. “So it has been ordained by God, and so it is.”

Oh well, so long as there’s a good reason, thought Gloom, but he didn’t speak the thought aloud. “I have heard rumour that several men I know possess Solomon Bottles. They are damned, then?”

“Unless they repent and destroy their bottles before they die.”

“That is rather distressing. Many of these men are great friends of mine. The idea that they are destined for eternal torment in Hell if their bottles fail them is rather distressing.”

“Then I urge you to make them see the error of their ways. Or give me their names and I will speak to them.”

“I would rather not give away their names in case what I've heard is untrue. It may be nothing but idle gossip and I would not wish to slander them. One man that I know definitely owned such a bottle, though, is Philip Cranston, and he died a number of years ago.”

Gloom watched the priest's face carefully as he spoke the name, and felt his heart sink when he saw the reaction he’d feared. The very slightest change in expression, the momentary ghost of a smile as if he knew something of Philip Cranston, and it wasn't anger that he’d cheated judgement. Rather, it suggested satisfaction that Cranston had received, or was about to receive, his just reward. That momentary smile, gone almost before he could be sure it had even been there, also told him that the man could not be recruited as an ally. Gloom had reached a dead end.

Or maybe not. Father Anthony was not a man to have burgled Cranston’s house himself. He was a member of Exercitus Dei, the organisation that was descended from the crusaders of the eleventh century and that now hunted down those that the church considered to be sinners. Gloom knew that the man was proficient with a number of weapons, having worked with him a number of times before. He was an expert duellist with rapier and sabre, an excellent marksman with a rifle and no mean street fighter with his bare fists, but he thought it likely that Philip Cranston’s Solomon Bottle had been kept in a safe and safecracking was outside his experience. He would have had to hire a specialist to do the job for him, and that man would probably have had one or two accomplices in case of unexpected complications. They would have demanded payment for their service. What was more, one of Father Anthony's weaknesses was an obsessive need to keep accurate and detailed accounting records. Somewhere in the priest's books would be a record of that payment, therefore, even though under a false heading, and maybe there would be a clue as to the identities of the housebreakers. It was a thin lead, but it was all he had.

Gloom apologised for introducing the subject of the hated bottles and the priest nodded his head magnanimously. The two men shook hands, Jake helped Gloom transfer back into his steam wheelchair and the investigator drove back out into the cold night air.

Descending the steps back to street level was accomplished by means of applying the brakes to keep the chair from running away with itself, then releasing the brake just long enough for it to descend one step. It took a couple of minutes to negotiate them all, but he was well used to this manoeuvre and accomplished the task without incident. Instead of heading directly back home, though, he instead turned and drove along the side of the church towards the small churchyard at its rear and its scattering of moss covered headstones.

Gloom beckoned for Jake to come around to the front of the chair. “I have a task for you,” he said in his whispery voice. “I want you to put on my coat and hat, and then I want you to take my place in the chair and drive it to the Victoria Theatre, just around the corner from here. There's a parking space around the back where you'll be out of sight of the street. Wait for me there. If you have any trouble from thugs and footpads, blow on the whistle. It’s a police whistle and should bring any constables within half a mile running to help you. If that fails, just run. Abandon the chair and run. Your safety is the most important consideration.”

“What are you doing to do?” asked Jake.

“I have a little investigating that I want to do on my own.” He didn't say any more, not wanting to involve the lad in what would be an unavoidably criminal act. Instead he just swapped coats with the boy. They were about the same size, both being smaller than the typical adult man, and the boy's coat fitted him pretty well. He then lifted himself out of the chair with his arms, which had grown powerful and muscular from thirty years of wheeling a conventional wheelchair, and sat on the cold paving slabs while Jake took his place in the seat. In Gloom's coat and hat, it was impossible to tell from a distance that it wasn't the investigator sitting there.

“Are you sure you'll be all right?” asked the lad, frowning with concern.

“I'll be fine,” replied Gloom. “Off you go now. If all goes well I’ll join you by the theatre within the hour. If I’m not there by dawn, tell Benson he'll be able to find me in the cells of the local police station.”

“The police...”

“Never mind. Off you go now.”

Jake frowned again, but then he nodded and opened the valve, allowing steam through the pipes to the piston that drove the wheels. Turning the tiller, he drove the wheelchair along the street and turned the corner into Halfpenny Lane, the chair making loud chuffing sounds as it did so. Father Anthony, in the church, would hear that sound receding into the distance and know that Gloom had left. Hopefully, he would then assume that the church had had its last visitor for the day and would begin preparations for his supper.

Gloom had taken great care over the years to give the impression of being far more feeble and helpless than he actually was. Everything below his waist was useless, but above the waist he was as strong and nimble as young Jake and had no trouble slithering his way on his elbows and gloved hands across the graveyard to the window of the priest's study. He paused there for a moment, listening carefully, and hearing nothing he lifted himself up to peer through the grimy glass.

The study was empty and the door into the back corridor was closed. So was the window unfortunately, and locked from the inside, but opening locked doors and windows was a skill he'd learned from a young age and he soon had it open. Then, with his hands on the windowsill, he lifted his body as high as he could and leaned forward into the room. He allowed gravity to pull him forward and fell softly and gently onto the room's soft carpet.

The exertion brought on a bout of coughing and he froze in place, a handkerchief to his mouth as he attempted to stifle the noise. As if being paralysed by polio wasn't enough, he had to be struck down with consumption as well! He frowned at the blood on his handkerchief, then replaced it in his pocket.

He closed the window again, then looked around the room. It was dark, lit only by the light of the gas streetlamp coming in through the window, but as his eyes adjusted he was able to see fairly well. The first thing he looked for was Cranston’s Solomon Bottle, but it was nowhere to be seen. It could be in a locked safe somewhere in the room, he supposed, but he lacked the skill to open a safe. If his later investigations showed this to be the case, there were safecrackers he knew that he could hire to do the job, but he rather doubted that the bottle would be anywhere on the premises. Exercitus Dei had a number of safe houses that they used for their meetings and for the keeping of valuable items, and that was where the bottle would be now, assuming the burglars had handed it over yet.

Okay then, the priest’s financial records. Where would they be? There were two books on the table, but closer investigation showed one of them to be a bible and the other to be Russell's Study of the Acts of the Saints and Martyrs of England. There were rows of books on shelves along the walls and he slithered across to look at them. He counted no fewer than fifty copies of the bible in various languages and editions, the largest being bound in wood and looking to be over a thousand years old. Gloom had no doubt that it would be worth a small fortune to a collector.

The next row down contained prayer books and commentaries by various priestly authorities, but it was on the third row that he found what he was looking for. Account books, each one covering a six month period and the oldest being twenty years old. He pulled the most recent from the shelf and opened it on the floor.

Each entry was written in an exquisitely perfect hand and detailed a sum of money either received or paid out along with a name and a date, except for the Sunday collections which only had a date. Gloom’s eyebrows rose at the sums people seemed willing to pay in return for being told how wicked and sinful they were, but then he cursed himself for time wasting and turned his attention to the outgoings. Most of them were routine and concerned the payment of wages to the church staff, the buying of various items and payments to charities. One of the charities was new to him, the Cheetham Hill Home for Waifs and Strays. It had, according to the book, received a sum of a thousand pounds from the church just three days ago. Cheetham Hill was an area he knew well, and he could not remember ever seeing anything there that resembled a charity. He'd have to scout out the area again to know for sure, but he thought he’d found what he was looking for. There were no other payments of a comparable size within the last six weeks.

There was nothing he could find that gave any clue as to what the money had really gone for, but the priest would have needed some kind of aide memoire for when he looked back through his records in years to come. Unless his memory was so good that he’d just be able to remember... If that were the case then he'd hit another dead end. His one hope was that the priest had left something to remind himself. Maybe the entry itself was the clue. Cheetham Hill. It was a respectable residential area, but there were a couple of dark alleys and empty houses that might be of use to a gang of villains. Perhaps the burglars used a house in the area for a hideout...?

Either it was a clue or it wasn't. Only further investigation would tell. He knew that he’d found all he was likely to find there, though. It was time to go. He replaced the book on the shelf, therefore, slithered back to the window and crawled through it. He locked it from the outside, then crawled on his hands and elbows back across the graveyard to the street.

It took him half an hour to reach the Victoria Theatre. Several people passed him on the pavement, and every time he would sit with his back to the wall and pretend to be a homeless vagabond. One passer by actually tossed him a coin. He thanked him in a rough voice and the pedestrian hurried on without a backward glance. A few minutes later he reached the parking space behind the theatre, where Jake greeted him with relief, and a few minutes later Gloom was once again sitting comfortably in his steam driven wheelchair and heading back towards home.


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