Fenneau again fixed his eyes on me. He gave the impression of a scientist who has found a useful specimen, if not a noticeably rare one. His stare was preferably not to be endured for too long. He may have been aware of that himself, because he immediately dropped this disturbing inspection. Perhaps he had settled to his own satisfaction whatever was in his mind. I took the initiative.
‘Nietzsche thought individual experiences were recurrent, though he put it rather differently. But what did you mean by saying “that too”?’
‘I was astonished to hear that as a child you should have known Trelawney.’
‘Only by sight. I did not meet him till years later. It is true that, as a child, he haunted my imagination — at times rather more than I liked. Haunting the imagination was the closest we came to acquaintance at that early period.’
‘Haunters of the imagination have already come close to the imagination’s owner. From that early intimacy would you give any credence to the claim of Scorpio Murtlock that in him — Scorpio — Trelawney has returned in the flesh? Some proclaim that as well as Scorpio himself.’
The question was asked this time very quietly, put forward in this unemphatic manner, I think, deliberately to startle. In fact there can be little doubt that Canon Fenneau had such a motive in view. I took the enquiry as matter-of-factly as possible, while accepting its unexpectedness as an impressive conversational broadside. It would have been bad manners to admit less.
‘You know Murtlock too?’
‘Since he was quite a little boy.’
Fenneau spoke reflectively, almost sentimentally.
‘What was he like as a child?’
‘A beautiful little boy. Quite exceptionally so. And very intelligent. He was called Leslie then.’
Fenneau smiled at the contrast between Murtlock’s nomenclature, past and present.
‘You still see him?’
‘From time to time. I have been seeing something of him recently. That was why I was aware he would be known to you. You may have read about certain antagonisms Scorpio was encountering. I believe a good deal never got into the papers. In consequence of this rumpus there was some talk of a television programme about the cult — one of the series After Strange Gods, in which Lindsay Bagshaw recently made a comeback, but perhaps you don’t watch television — and I was approached as a possible compère. I had to say that I had long been a friend of Scorpio’s, but could not publicly associate myself, even as a commentator, with his system, if it can be so called. Mr Bagshaw himself came to see me. It transpired, in the course of conversation, that Scorpio had visited you in the country.’
‘That was produced as a reference?
‘Mr Bagshaw seemed to think it a good one.’
I did not often see Bagshaw these days, but made a mental note to take the matter up with him, if we ran across each other.
‘Murtiock was one of your flock in his young days?’
That was an effort to set the helm, so far as Fenneau was concerned, in a more professionally clerical direction; not exactly a call to order, so much as a plea for better defined premises for discussion of Murtlock’s goings-on. If I were to be brought in by Bagshaw as a sort of reference for Murtlock’s respectability — on the strength of allowing the caravan to be put up for one night — I had a right to be told more about Murtlock. That he had been a pretty little boy might be a straightforward explanation for extending patronage to him, but, anyway as a clergyman, it seemed up to Fenneau to provide a less sensuous basis for their early association together. After further biographical background was given, enquiries could proceed as to whether Fenneau himself had set Murtlock on the path to become a mage. Fenneau was in no way unwilling to elaborate the picture.
‘Scorpio once sang in my choir. That was when I was in south London. His parents kept a newspaper shop. As ever in these cases, there was an interesting heredity. Both mother and father belonged to a small fanatical religious sect, but I won’t go into that now. It was with great difficulty that I secured their son for the choir. I should never have done so, had Leslie himself not insisted on joining. His will was stronger than theirs.’
‘Did you yourself introduce him to what might, in general terms, be called alchemy?’
‘On the contrary, Scorpio — Leslie as he was then — already possessed remarkable gifts of a kinetic kind. As you certainly know, there has been of late years a great revival of interest in what can only be called, in many cases, the Black Arts, I fear. It was quite by chance that Scorpio’s natural leanings fell within a province with which I had long concerned myself. Mystical studies — my Bishop agrees — can be unexpectedly valuable in combating the undesirable in that field.’
Fenneau’s mouth went a little tight again at mention of his Bishop, the eyes taking on a harder, less misty surface. It was permissible to feel that the Bishop himself — elements of exorcism perhaps out of easy reach at that moment — could have agreed, not least from trepidation at prospect of being transformed into a toad, or confined for a thousand years within a hollow oak.
‘What happened to Murtlock after he left your choir?’
‘A success story, even if a strange one. After singing so delightfully — I wish you could have heard his solo:
Now we are come to the sun’s hour of rest,
The lights of evening round us shine.
— Leslie won a scholarship at a choir-school. He was doing splendidly there. Then a most unfortunate thing happened. It was quite out of the ordinary. He developed a most unhappy influence over the choirmaster. Influence is a weak word in the circumstances.’
‘You mean — ’
Fenneau smiled primly this time.
‘That is certainly what one might expect. There had been trouble of that sort earlier. Leslie was quite a little boy then, hardly old enough to understand. The man was not convicted — I think rightly — as there was a possibility that Leslie had — well — invented the whole thing, but, as people said at the time, no smoke without fire. That unhappy possibility did not arise with the choirmaster. I knew him personally, a man of blameless life. There are, of course, men of blameless life, who yield to sudden temptation — lead us not into Thames Station, as the choirboys are said to have prayed — and there is no question but Leslie was an unusually handsome boy. No one could fail to notice that. Not that he wasn’t a boy with remarkable qualities other than physical ones. At the same time I am satisfied that not a hint of improper conduct took place on the part of the choirmaster.’
The thought extended the smile of Fenneau’s long mouth into ogreish proportions. He moved quickly from the prim to the blunt.
‘Not even pawing. Leslie assured me himself.’
‘Murtlock gave the impression of being tough when I met him. I should have thought he would be as tough about sex, as about anything else.’
‘You are right. Let me speak plainly. Leslie — Scorpio by now — is tough. That does not mean he is necessarily badly behaved in matters of sex. I have always thought him not primarily interested in sex. What he seeks is moral authority.’
‘Mightn’t he use sex to gain moral authority?’
Fenneau gave me an odd look.
‘That is another matter. Possibly he might. I can only say that all who had anything to do with the choirmaster affair agreed that sex — in any commonplace use of the word — did not come into it. At the same time, having known Leslie from his earliest years, I was not altogether surprised at what happened. I felt sure something of the sort would take place sooner or later. I knew it would grieve me.’
‘Had he ever tried to impose his moral authority in your own case?’
I thought Fenneau deserved the question. He showed no disposition to resent or sidestep it. When he spoke he gazed into the distance beyond me.