At Bertram's Hotel (Miss Marple 11)

“Good morning, sir,” said Inspector Campbell, respectfully, when Father entered his domain. Naturally he called Chief-Inspector Davy “Father” behind his back as everyone else did; but he was not yet of sufficient seniority to do such a thing to his face.

“Anything I can do for you, sir?” he inquired.

“La, la, boom, boom,” hummed the Chief-Inspector, slightly off key. “Why must they call me Mary when my name’s Miss Gibbs?” After this rather unexpected resurrection of a bygone musical comedy, he drew up a chair and sat down.

“Busy?” he asked.

“Moderately so.”

“Got some disappearance case or other on, haven’t you, to do with some hotel or other. What’s the name of it now? Bertram’s. Is that it?”

“Yes, that’s right, sir. Bertram’s Hotel.”

“Contravening the licensing hours? Call girls?”

“Oh no, sir,” said Inspector Campbell, slightly shocked at hearing Bertram’s Hotel being referred to in such a connection. “Very nice, quiet, old-fashioned place.”

“Is it now?” said Father. “Yes, is it now? Well, that’s interesting, really.”

Inspector Campbell wondered why it was interesting. He did not like to ask, as tempers in the upper hierarchy were notoriously short since the mail train robbery, which had been a spectacular success for the criminals. He looked at Father’s large, heavy, bovine face and wondered, as he had once or twice wondered before, how Chief-Inspector Davy had reached his present rank and why he was so highly thought of in the department. “All right in his day, I suppose,” thought Inspector Campbell, “but there are plenty of go-ahead chaps about who could do with some promotion, once the dead wood is cleared away.” But the dead wood had begun another song, partly hummed, with an occasional word or two here and there.

“Tell me, gentle stranger, are there anymore at home like you?” intoned Father and then in a sudden falsetto, “A few, kind sir, and nicer girls you never knew. No, let’s see, I’ve got the sexes mixed-up. Floradora. That was a good show, too.”

“I believe I’ve heard of it, sir,” said Inspector Campbell.

“Your mother sang you to sleep in the cradle with it, I expect,” said Chief-Inspector Davy. “Now then, what’s been going on at Bertram’s Hotel? Who has disappeared and how and why?”

“A Canon Pennyfather, sir. Elderly clergyman.”

“Dull case, eh?”

Inspector Campbell smiled.

“Yes, sir, it is rather dull in a way.”

“What did he look like?”

“Canon Pennyfather?”

“Yes—you’ve got a description, I suppose?”

“Of course.” Campbell shuffled papers and read: “Height 5 ft 8. Large thatch of white hair—stoops….”

“And he disappeared from Bertram’s Hotel—when?”

“About a week ago—November 19th.”

“And they’ve just reported it. Took their time about it, didn’t they?”

“Well, I think there was a general idea that he’d turn up.”

“Any idea what’s behind it?” asked Father. “Has a decent God-fearing man suddenly gone off with one of the churchwardens’ wives? Or does he do a bit of secret drinking, or has he embezzled church funds? Or is he the sort of absentminded old chap who goes in for this sort of thing?”

“Well, from all I can hear, sir, I should say the latter. He’s done it before.”

“What—disappeared from a respectable West End hotel?”

“No, not exactly that, but he’s not always returned home when he was expected. Occasionally he’s turned up to stay with friends on a day when they haven’t asked him, or not turned up on the date when they had asked him. That sort of thing.”

“Yes,” said Father. “Yes. Well that sounds very nice and natural and according to plan, doesn’t it? When exactly did you say he disappeared?”

“Thursday. November 19th. He was supposed to be attending a congress at—” He bent down and studied some papers on his desk. “—oh yes, Lucerne. Society of Biblical Historical Studies. That’s the English translation of it. I think it’s actually a German society.”

“And it was held at Lucerne? The old boy—I suppose he is an old boy?”

“Sixty-three, sir, I understand.”

“The old boy didn’t turn up, is that it?”

Inspector Campbell drew his papers towards him and gave Father the ascertainable facts in so far as they had been ascertained.

“Doesn’t sound as if he’d gone off with a choirboy,” observed Chief-Inspector Davy.

“I expect he’ll turn up all right,” said Campbell, “but we’re looking into it, of course. Are you—er—particularly interested in the case, sir?” He could hardly restrain his curiosity on this point.

“No,” said Davy thoughtfully. “No, I’m not interested in the case. I don’t see anything to be interested about in it.”

There was a pause, a pause which clearly contained the words, “Well, then?” with a question mark after it from Inspector Campbell, which he was too well-trained to utter in audible tones.

“What I’m really interested in,” said Father, “is the date. And Bertram’s Hotel, of course.”

“It’s always been very well-conducted, sir. No trouble there.”

“That’s very nice, I’m sure,” said Father. He added thoughtfully, “I’d rather like to have a look at the place.”

“Of course, sir,” said Inspector Campbell. “Anytime you like. I was thinking of going round there myself.”

“I might as well come along with you,” said Father. “Not to butt in, nothing like that. But I’d just rather like to have a look at the place, and this disappearing Archdeacon of yours, or whatever he is, makes rather a good excuse. No need to call me ‘sir’ when we’re there—you throw your weight about. I’ll just be your stooge.”

Inspector Campbell became interested.

“Do you think there’s something that might tie in there, sir, something that might tie in with something else?”

“There’s no reason to believe so, so far,” said Father. “But you know how it is. One gets—I don’t know what to call them—whims, do you think? Bertram’s Hotel, somehow, sounds almost too good to be true.”

He resumed his impersonation of a bumblebee with a rendering of “Let’s All Go Down the Strand.”

The two detective officers went off together, Campbell looking smart in a lounge suit (he had an excellent figure), and Chief-Inspector Davy carrying with him a tweedy air of being up from the country. They fitted in quite well. Only the astute eye of Miss Gorringe, as she raised it from her ledgers, singled out and appreciated them for what they were. Since she had reported the disappearance of Canon Pennyfather herself and had already had a word with a lesser personage in the police force, she had been expecting something of this kind.

A faint murmur to the earnest-looking girl assistant whom she kept handy in the background, enabled the latter to come forward and deal with any ordinary inquiries or services while Miss Gorringe gently shifted herself a little farther along the counter and looked up at the two men. Inspector Campbell laid down his card on the desk in front of her and she nodded. Looking past him to the large tweed-coated figure behind him, she noted that he had turned slightly sideways, and was observing the lounge and its occupants with an apparently naïve pleasure at beholding such a well-bred, upper-class world in action.

“Would you like to come into the office?” said Miss Gorringe. “We can talk better there perhaps.”

“Yes, I think that would be best.”

“Nice place you’ve got here,” said the large, fat, bovine-looking man, turning his head back towards her. “Comfortable,” he added, looking approvingly at the large fire. “Good old-fashioned comfort.”

Miss Gorringe smiled with an air of pleasure.

“Yes, indeed. We pride ourselves on making our visitors comfortable,” she said. She turned to her assistant. “Will you carry on

, Alice? There is the ledger. Lady Jocelyn will be arriving quite soon. She is sure to want to change her room as soon as she sees it but you must explain to her we are really full up. If necessary, you can show her number 340 on the third floor and offer her that instead. It’s not a very pleasant room and I’m sure she will be content with her present one as soon as she sees that.”

“Yes, Miss Gorringe. I’ll do just that, Miss Gorringe.”

“And remind Colonel Mortimer that his field glasses are here. He asked me to keep them for him this morning. Don’t let him go off without them.”

“No, Miss Gorringe.”

These duties accomplished, Miss Gorringe looked at the two men, came out from behind the desk and walked along to a plain mahogany door with no legend on it. Miss Gorringe opened it and they went into a small, rather sad-looking office. All three sat down.