coughed in an apologetic manner and said, as he rose to his feet, ‘It may be as Mr and Mrs Eccles will come out and see you, ma’am—if you don’t mind, that is.’
‘Of course I don’t mind,’ said Bunch. ‘It’s very natural. I only wish I had something to tell them.’
‘I’ll be getting along,’ said Sergeant Hayes.
‘I’m only so thankful,’ said Bunch, going with him to the front door, ‘that it wasn’t murder.’
A car had driven up at the vicarage gate. Sergeant Hayes, glancing at it, remarked: ‘Looks as though that’s Mr and Mrs Eccles come here now, ma’am, to talk with you.’
Bunch braced herself to endure what, she felt, might be rather a difficult ordeal. ‘However,’ she thought, ‘I can always call Julian to help me. A clergyman’s a great help when people are bereaved.’
Exactly what she had expected Mr and Mrs Eccles to be like, Bunch could not have said, but she was conscious, as she greeted them, of a feeling of surprise. Mr Eccles was a stout florid man whose natural manner would have been cheerful and facetious. Mrs Eccles had a vaguely flashy look about her. She had a small, mean, pursed-up mouth. Her voice was thin and reedy.
‘It’s been a terrible shock, Mrs Harmon, as you can imagine,’ she said.
‘Oh, I know,’ said Bunch. ‘It must have been. Do sit down. Can I offer you—well, perhaps it’s a little early for tea—’
Mr Eccles waved a pudgy hand. ‘No, no, nothing for us,’ he said. ‘It’s very kind of you, I’m sure. Just wanted to … well … what poor William said and all that, you know?’
‘He’s been abroad a long time,’ said Mrs Eccles, ‘and I think he must have had some very nasty experiences. Very quiet and depressed he’s been, ever since he came home. Said the world wasn’t fit to live in and there was nothing to look forward to. Poor Bill, he was always moody.’
Bunch stared at them both for a moment or two without speaking.
‘Pinched my husband’s revolver, he did,’ went on Mrs Eccles. ‘Without our knowing. Then it seems he come here by bus. I suppose that was nice feeling on his part. He wouldn’t have liked to do it in our house.’
‘Poor fellow, poor fellow,’ said Mr Eccles, with a sigh. ‘It doesn’t do to judge.’
There was another short pause, and Mr Eccles said, ‘Did he leave a message? Any last words, nothing like that?’
His bright, rather pig-like eyes watched Bunch closely. Mrs Eccles, too, leaned forward as though anxious for the reply.
‘No,’ said Bunch quietly. ‘He came into the church when he was dying, for sanctuary.’
Mrs Eccles said in a puzzled voice. ‘Sanctuary? I don’t think I quite …’
Mr Eccles interrupted. ‘Holy place, my dear,’ he said impatiently. ‘That’s what the vicar’s wife means. It’s a sin—suicide, you know. I expect he wanted to make amends.’
‘He tried to say something just before he died,’ said Bunch. ‘He began, “Please,” but that’s as far as he got.’
Mrs Eccles put her handkerchief to her eyes and sniffed. ‘Oh, dear,’ she said. ‘It’s terribly upsetting, isn’t it?’
‘There, there, Pam,’ said her husband. ‘Don’t take on. These things can’t be helped. Poor Willie. Still, he’s at peace now. Well, thank you very much, Mrs Harmon. I hope we haven’t interrupted you. A vicar’s wife is a busy lady, we know that.’
They shook hands with her. Then Eccles turned back suddenly to say, ‘Oh yes, there’s just one other thing. I think you’ve got his coat here, haven’t you?’
‘His coat?’ Bunch frowned.
Mrs Eccles said, ‘We’d like all his things, you know. Sentimental-like.’
‘He had a watch and a wallet and a railway ticket in the pockets,’ said Bunch. ‘I gave them to Sergeant Hayes.’
‘That’s all right, then,’ said Mr Eccles. ‘He’ll hand them over to us, I expect. His private papers would be in the wallet.’
‘There was a pound note in the wallet,’ said Bunch. ‘Nothing else.’
‘No letters? Nothing like that?’
Bunch shook her head.
‘Well, thank you again, Mrs Harmon. The coat he was wearing—perhaps the sergeant’s got that too, has he?’
Bunch frowned in an effort of remembrance.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t think … let me see. The doctor and I took his coat off to examine his wound.’ She looked round the room vaguely. ‘I must have taken it upstairs with the towels and basin.’
‘I wonder now, Mrs Harmon, if you don’t mind … We’d like his coat, you know, the last thing he wore. Well, the wife feels rather sentimental about it.’
‘Of course,’ said Bunch. ‘Would you like me to have it cleaned first? I’m afraid it’s rather—well—stained.’
‘Oh, no, no, no, that doesn’t matter.’
Bunch frowned. ‘Now I wonder where … excuse me a moment.’ She went upstairs and it was some few minutes before she returned.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said breathlessly, ‘my daily woman must have put it aside with other clothes that were going to the cleaners. It’s taken me quite a long time to find it. Here it is. I’ll do it up for you in brown paper.’
Disclaiming their protests she did so; then once more effusively bidding her farewell the Eccleses departed.
Bunch went slowly back across the hall and entered the study. The Reverend Julian Harmon looked up and his brow cleared. He was composing a sermon and was fearing that he’d been led astray by the interest of the political relations between Judaea and Persia, in the reign of Cyrus.
‘Yes, dear?’ he said hopefully.
‘Julian,’ said Bunch. ‘What’s Sanctuary exactly?’
Julian Harmon gratefully put aside his sermon paper.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘Sanctuary in Roman and Greek temples applied to the cella in which stood the statue of a god. The Latin word for altar “ara” also means protection.’ He continued learnedly: ‘In three hundred and ninety-nine A.D. the right of sanctuary in Christian churches was finally and definitely recognized. The earliest mention of the right of sanctuary in England is in the Code of Laws issued by Ethelbert in A.D. six hundred …’
He continued for some time with his exposition but was, as often, disconcerted by his wife’s reception of his erudite pronouncement.
‘Darling,’ she said. ‘You are sweet.’
Bending over,
