The Case of the Red Mass Barrister
by Ben Pastor
The Right Reverend Adalbert Pruett, bishop of D. and formerly dean of the chapel of St. Mary-in-the-Mews, is a florid man whose great knowledge and compassion are matched by a curiosity that from time to time puts my investigative acumen to shame. As a Bohemian Jew, physician, and sleuth malgre moi, I consider myself highly sensitive to nuances, symptoms, and unspoken clews. However, The Right Reverend Pruett's keenness about criminal cases—hidden beneath an appearance of blustery middle-aged good health—is a study in and of itself.
We became friends during my now my oft-recounted travels through England in the year 1909. It was on a chilly clear morning of mid-December that the good bishop, lighting the cigar without which he was seldom seen, made the following observation.
"Were you aware, dear Meisl, that if one were to count all those who attend one of the three Masses regularly said on Sunday in each of the more than eighty Roman Catholic churches in London, one would go well above the official number of half a million adherents to that faith in that city alone?"
This remark did not altogether take me by surprise, as we had been discussing the variety of religions freely practiced in England. It was what the Right Reverend said next that caught my attention, and made me surmise there was more to the statement than met the ear.
In the comfort of his suburban home, where he spent his holidays in the company of a pious sister enamored of Siamese cats, Pruett puffed on his cigar and asked, "Have you ever heard of the Red Mass at Sardinia Street Chapel?" He immediately added, "No, of course you haven't. The building is at Lincoln's Inn—a plain but noble Renaissance interior with double balconies and a glass lantema that rains light onto the main altar. The Red Mass is the service attended by Roman Catholic barristers at the beginning of a term, to ask God's blessing on the work to come."
"But why a 'red' Mass?" I inquired.
"Ah, that's the color of the robes worn by the legal professionals in Paris, where the custom originates. It was after one such ceremony that I met Lord Russell of Killowen—a dear friend of mine—and a newly appointed barrister by the name of Lockhart. I was not to see Lockhart again for some five years. It was just yesterday that he came knocking on my door here in the country, unbidden, wholly unexpected, and in extremity, to ask me for help regarding a crime."
My interest was now up. Never a smoker, I sank into my armchair to avoid the aromatic cloud that escaped the Right Reverend's mouth as I prompted him to proceed with his story.
"Well, you know, he was a young man of thirty when I saw him exiting the Red Mass. Yesterday, had he not introduced himself and handed me his card directly (I had gone to open the door myself, being about to go on my constitutional), I would not have recognized him."
"Do you mean he appeared aged?"
"Aged? My dear Meisl, 'aged' doesn't begin to tell the story! The man looks old enough to be his own father—his hair completely white, his step feeble and infirm, and his voice barely above a whisper. I have octogenarians in my congregation who look livelier than he, and Lockhart must not have passed his thirty-sixth year."
"Well, that is certainly a medical curiosity," I commented. "Not altogether unknown, but I take it you have your own opinion about the matter."
"Indeed I do, Meisl. At a time when good Christians everywhere are preparing to celebrate the birth of He who was born of your ancient race, Lockhart comes to my doorstep yesterday raving of a fantastic tale of murder, and begging that, as I'm known as somewhat of an amateur detective, I lend my assistance. 'You are unmanned, sir,' I upbraided him after my good sister left us with some claret. 'Do compose yourself and begin your narrative again.'"
"Did he?"
"He did, Meisl. But, rather than repeating to you Lockhart's story, I invite you to hear it yourself this evening, if you will but promise to stay for dinner. My sister's plum preserves are her specialty, and you must partake."
Suffice it to say that I stayed, and had one of the finest repasts of my stay in England. In due time—my host being on his second cigar of the evening—the object of our common curiosity was introduced by the servant girl into the parlor where we sat. Outside the mist had turned to sleet, and the crackling logs in the fireplace must have been particularly welcoming to one who had come in from the damp of the street. The visitor, all appropriate greetings being disposed of, sat wearily in the chair closest to the fire, and spoke.
"My uncle, Sir Matthew Walton, has for years been me purveyor of prebends for the Dominican Fathers at Haverstock Hill. Likewise, he has provided legal assistance gratis et amore Dei for the poor in the care of the Canons Regular, the Servites, and the Highgate Passionists. His prudence with investments has allowed these and other orders to make the most out of charities and gifts, and he was wholly trusted with those accumulated gains." Lockhart sighed, holding his hoary head in his cupped hands. "So much for the official man.
"The private man, gentlemen, was to me more than a father, more than a mentor—he was the lodestar that set my moral compass, initiating me in the ways of rightful professing of my existence and of the Law. So important was his guidance to me that, when he removed to Canada two years ago, I promptly followed him there, although it meant giving up a practice both profitable and satisfying here in the city."
The Right Reverend Pruett mumbled something over his cigar to the effect of having read the news of the transfer in The Times. It was obvious that he was anxious to hear about the murder Lockhart had alluded to. So was I, but even more, I felt intrigued and saddened by the effects of grief on this chronologically still youngish man. I have, I must say, seen a buxom Moravian farm woman of twenty-five turned into a crone by the death of her three children during an earthquake, and a veteran of the recent war against the Boers become, overnight, a Methuselah after watching his beloved mother being struck and killed by a train. I hold no doubt that grief and other powerful emotions can and will wreck health and appearance.
"My uncle was savagely killed upon reaching British waters a fortnight since, as you both must have read. He planned to carry on his business with Church charities in London and we had undertaken the voyage together in order to celebrate the holidays with distant cousins. For reasons you shall soon hear, they are presently under suspicion, although," Lockhart added quickly, "we must exclude the family from the circle of suspects, as we all unreservedly loved Sir Matthew."
Here Pruett wagged his forefinger, the mildness of his vocation colored by his awareness of Man's fallen state and by his fierce curiosity. "Ah, but Saint Paul says that the Lord made us 'a little lower than the angels.' Dear Sir, we may not exclude anyone from the circle of suspects, unless we know all the facts and details."
I agreed, and asked for a verbal sketch of the ship on which the murder had apparently taken place in the waters off Land's End, and a description of the characters involved. There followed, out of the trembling lips of the visitor, a verbal gallery of relatives whom he amiably endeavored to present as far better than they were. There was cousin Aethelred, who—true—was known to gamble, but "always paid his debts and had an uncommonly generous heart;" his sister, Lady Felicia P. —well-known in the charity circles of London as the patroness of Nazareth House, Hammersmith—who had married a wastrel but would "never commit a crime for money;" and cousin Vaughan who was, undeniably, the selfsame Vaughan whom Sir Peter Day had defended against an accusation of embezzlement, but who had since "wholly reformed his ways." Thus Lockhart went on to describe two or three more greedy relatives, any of whom could indeed have resorted to murder for money. Confronted by both of us with this possibility, however, he grew indignant to the point of nearly becoming ill.
The murder was a particularly distasteful one. The details (for those who are morbidly curious) may be found in the scandal sheets of that winter, or in the article I wrote last year (veiled by a pseudonym) for The Lancet's issue dedicated to abnormal behaviors and crime. Let the reader only know that they involve a severed and missing head and a body recovered after two days near Penzance. In addition, the savings entrusted to Walton by the Roman Catholic institutions, which he had invested in the Canadian Provincial Bank and had recently withdrawn for those institutions had disappeared. The sum exceeded one hundred thousand pounds and had been neatly divided into sealed envelopes destined for the various Roman Catholic institutions.
When Lockhart had finished he seemed too exhausted for further conversation and took his leave.
After his departure, neither one of us spoke for some time. My host's sister had the footman bring in the Christmas tree and began decorating it, notwithstanding the impediments her Siamese cats placed on the draping of garlands and the hanging of colored trinkets. "Tomorrow, Meisl," said Pruett finally, "if you would be so good as to accompany me to the offices of The Times and a few more places, we shall look into this matter a little more closely."
And so we did. We secured copies of sketches of the dead man and photographs of the murder scene. (The bishop was well-introduced everywhere, as befitting a man who had risen in the ranks of the Church of England as he had.) I also insisted on gathering photographs of young Lockhart as he had looked when Pruett had met him on his exit from the Red Mass, before the current crisis.
By the end of the day, in the coziness of the parlor with sleet continuing outside, we compared notes. The murder had taken place under cover of darkness, on the bridge of the ship. The weapon used was a large, sharp blade which had not been recovered. If blood had stained the killer's clothing, this, too, had been committed to the deep. The crew professed to know nothing. Sir Matthew's relatives— who had joined him and Lockhart on board at St. Just where the ship had stopped before proceeding to Plymouth, Portsmouth, and terminus at Dover—denied any involvement and accused one another most shamefully. The Right Reverend, puffing on his cigar for all he was worth, had his opinion, which he proceeded to give.
"It appears to me, Meisl, from what the police have ascertained thus far—though they seem unable to hazard a conclusion, much less make an arrest—that the murder was plainly committed by one of the cousins. He or she secreted the money or had it spirited away by an accomplice, possibly engaged from among the fishermen who draw close with their crafts to incoming vessels. Most importantly, notwithstanding his grief and sincere desire to return the money to those who entrusted his uncle with it, our Lockhart is altogether halfhearted in his request for help in finding the murderer, as, in his heart, he believes it to be a relative, and well knows, as a man of the legal profession, what punishment may follow."
I must have looked as pensive as I felt, because the good bishop shook me gently by the arm after a time. "Do you not agree?"
"My dear bishop," I said at last, extending my hands towards the cheerful fire, "you and I have pored over the sketches and photographs together, and both of us have remarked on the resemblance among all the members of the late Sir Matthew's family, especially the uncanny similarity of looks between barrister uncle and barrister nephew. My conclusion is highly divergent from yours."
"How so?" inquired my host.
"I submit to you that Lockhart is not Lockhart at all, but that—contrary to all we have heard about the dead man's impeccable financial operations and responsibilities in Canada—it was Sir Matthew who, tempted by the large sum beyond his ability to resist, stole the Roman Catholic money and killed his upright nephew, Lockhart, the only witness. Having succeeded through the odious mode of this murder in concealing the dead man's identity, he could then construct the fable of his being Lockhart, aged by grief. No, sir, I believe Walton is very much alive, and presently behaving not as one prematurely aged by shock and suffering, but as someone of his own proper age. And, as the murder is likely to go unsolved, he will eventually—I wager—head back to Canada and vanish in that great country before long, possibly under a new name, to enjoy his ill-gotten wealth. Why else would he endeavor to make the body unrecognizable, if not to conceal that a much younger man had been murdered? You read how in those two days awash, enough damage was brought to the body that only by clothing and a signet ring was he identified."
The Right Revered Adalbert Pruett stared at me as though I had just sprouted a second head on my neck. "Surely you jest!" he exclaimed. "As a member of the Church of England, I have my differences with those who follow the Roman Catholic persuasion, especially my recently converted Oxonian colleagues. But you will never convince me, Doctor Meisl, that a virtuous barrister has disposed of his virtuous nephew over money, no matter what the sum."
We remained of our separate opinions until the following day, when the man who called himself Lockhart was once more to join us. The Right Reverend Pruett and I were silent about our suspicions and merely chose to review the likelihood that one or more relatives might have had a hand in the foul crime. This time, however, of common accord, my host and I agreed with our visitor's defense of the family innocence. Indeed, we began with an earnest defense of Lady Felicia P., who, according to the bishop, was the soul of scrupulosity. The guest seemed taken aback by the tactic. "Nonetheless," he said after my friend had quite exaggerated the lady's virtues, "my poor Felicia has shown some greed in the past—" When I proceeded to cite journalistic hearsay about the exemplary reformation of the erstwhile embezzler, cousin Vaughan, the gray-haired visitor nearly lost his patience. "It may very well be, but even my good uncle would say that occasion makes man a thief—" And so it went, with the two of us praising the suspects, and Lockhart (or Walton?) behaving in a puzzled and even defensive manner.
That evening, neither the bishop nor I were any closer to a solution, nor to finding a common suspect. Pruett decided then that we needed to call on a couple of barristers and co-religionists who had known Sir Matthew from his charitable days in London. We met at their fashionable club, and naturally they were at once acutely interested in our investigation of the crime. What they said, however, proved both of us wrong, and myself the most deceived of the two.
"Bless me, Bertie," exclaimed one of the barristers, a member of the glorious Howard progeny, "your medical friend, here, is far from the truth! Why, young Lockhart was a scamp. While here, his excesses were limited to spendthrift habits and playing a furious game of cricket—for he had an unusually strong right arm. He went bad after being exposed to unsuspected opportunities for making money in Canada, especially around the mining country. Poor Walton saved him from more than one scrape in the last three years. He succeeded in concealing the truth from their common clients, but I have my dead friend's letters to prove it. It's only because I have no proof of Lockhart's guilt that I haven't blasted him with prosecution!"
Our astonishment having subsided at last, the bishop and I engaged in a perfect whirlwind of telephone calls, wires, and private interviews at New Scotland Yard. Within twenty-four hours we had succeeded in securing vigilance over Lockhart's movements lest he try to flee the country, and obtaining permission to request that officers and crewmen be encouraged to come forward with impunity regarding any odd requests made of them by a passenger or passengers between Halifax and Land's End. Once Lockhart was detained (for he was, in a matter of hours, with ticket already in hand to travel back to Canada), I was allowed to demand a radiographic exam of Lockhart's right leg, which, according to Howard, he'd broken while hiking in the Laurentides a year earlier. This was done to satisfy me that the man in custody was indeed the nephew and not the uncle.
It all ended in a near-perfect reconstruction of the tragic events two days before the Christmas celebration at the bishops suburban home. Canadian bankers, British sailors, and the Gospel all figured in the explanation which the Right Reverend Pruett, for once sans cigar, summarized for his colleague Howard, myself, and Miss Pruett.
"A trusted clerk at the Provincial Bank of Canada—which, upon request, froze Lockhart's assets there—wired us that in excess of one hundred thousand pounds had been withdrawn by the suspect from the Walton and Lockhart firm's account, only days before his departure for England with Sir Matthew. The clerk had not grown suspicious, as the barristers often handled large sums for the charities, yet it struck him as unusual that Mr. Lockhart should withdraw the sum in cash rather than by a draft, as Sir Matthew was in habit of doing. As it turns out, Matthew had indeed demanded cash, and instructed Lockhart to place it in envelopes—which, as you will hear, is not exactly what took place. Thanks to our good Doctor Meisl here, we were able, after repeated assurances of impunity, to learn from one of the sailors who'd traveled with Lockhart the clew which made resolution possible." Prompted by the bishop, I recounted how obliging the seaman had eventually been, as he put it, "with Christmas comin and all, a man wants to be at peace with 'is fellow man and especially the Law."
"He told us," I reported to my small audience, "that a few hours out of Land's End he had been convinced by a gentleman, against payment often pounds, to secrete a small trunk marked M. W. inside his sailor luggage. He had been instructed to take the trunk to an address near the tobacco factory of Salmon and Gluckstein, Clarence Works, City Road, and deposit it with the charwoman there. That was all he knew. Kindly allowed by the police to tag along, the bishop and I had accordingly gone to the place indicated, where the sailor, duly identified by the charwoman, had pointed out the small trunk, which, as the woman told us, ' 'ad been sitting 'ere all along under me bed, and no one 'ad the key to it' The key (which, you'll want to know, was found in Lockhart's possession) being produced, a constable had unlocked the trunk. Inside were stacks of sealed envelopes marked with the names of various London charitable institutions and religious orders. When we opened them, however, nothing but rag paper was found in them\ The sailor also identified, through photographs, the gentleman of the trunk as Lockhart before his premature aging. This phenomenon," I added, a little abashed by my wrong supposition days earlier, "was due not to grief, but to guilt and fear of prosecution."
"Lockhart," continued the Right Reverend Pruett, "traveled to England knowing that he needed to dispose of his uncle and the trunk with its false contents before disembarking, but after their greedy relatives had joined them on board. Likewise, the murder needed to include the barbarous detail of beheading, to delay identification. His 'unusually strong' cricket arm served him well when he used a sharp foreign blade (he may confess what type, who knows) to carry out the unspeakable. Thirdly, Lockhart had to cast direct suspicion on others within the family, while appearing to excuse them."
At this point, Howard spoke up from his plum preserves. "But why was Lockhart not considered a suspect?"
"Why?" The Right Reverend Pruett fished inside his pocket for a cigar, which he seemed ready to light in the lady's presence, but thought better of. "You may recall the Lord saying in Matthew, 10:16, 'Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.' Lockhart, in his murderous intent, subverted the Lord's exhortation. He was devious like unto the Serpent in Eden, and yet so meek and dove-like in his protestations of piety and love for his uncle—even fluttering to my doorstep seemingly in distress and asking for help and advice— that he never came under suspicion. And even were he to have become a suspect, no proof would have existed against him had Meisl and I not stumbled upon the truth.
The rest of our holiday celebration went quietly, with Miss Pruett's spoiled cats enjoying scraps under the table and the precipitation outside turning to snow. The Right Reverend Adalbert Pruett smoked a deserved cigar, for he had done well foiling me a little and helping to solve a crime so blatantly despicable that for years afterwards—I am quite sure—the Catholic barristers of London would discuss it among themselves before and after the Red Mass at Sardinia Street Chapel.