The Rebel Angels

Thus Parlabane's landlady, who sounded as if she belonged to the tradition of affronted, put-upon landladies, calling me shortly after six o'clock on the morning of Easter Sunday. Doctors and parish clergymen are old hands at emergencies, and know that rarely is anything so pressing that there is not time to dress properly, and drink a cup of instant coffee while doing so. Figures of authority should be composed when they arrive at the scene of whatever human mess awaits them. Parlabane's boarding-house was not far from the University, and it was not long before I was listening to Mrs. Mustard's excited, angry story as we trudged upstairs. She had risen early to go to seven o'clock church, had seen a light under his door, was always telling 'em they weren't to waste current, knocked and couldn't rouse him, so in she went, expecting to find him drunk as he so often was – him that tried to pass himself off as some kind of a brother – and there he was on the bed with what looked like a smile on his face and couldn't be roused and was icy cold, and no, she hadn't called a doctor, and she certainly didn't want any trouble.

In the small, humble room, which Parlabane had managed to invest with a squalor that was not inherent in it, he lay on his narrow iron bed, dressed in his monk's robe, his Monastic Diurnal clasped in his hands, looking well pleased with himself, but not smiling; the dead do not smile except under the embalmer's expert hand. Propped on his table was a letter addressed to me, with my telephone number on the envelope.

Suicide, I thought. I cannot say that I reassured Mrs. Mustard, but I calmed her down as much as I could, and then telephoned a doctor whom Parlabane and I had both known as a college friend, and asked him to come. In twenty minutes or so he was with me, also fully clothed and smelling perceptibly of instant coffee. Oh, what a boon powdered coffee is to parsons and doctors!

While waiting, I had read the letter, having got rid of Mrs. Mustard by asking if she would be so good as to make some coffee – preferably not instant coffee, I said, so as to keep her out of the way for a while.

It was a characteristic Parlabane letter.

Dear Old Simon:

Sorry to let you in for this, but somebody must cope, and it is part of your profession, isn't it? I really cannot expect too much of La Mustard, to whom I owe quite a bit of back rent. That, and other debts, may be discharged out of the advance of my novel, which ought to be coming along soon. You think not? Shame on you for a doubter! Meanwhile I do very deeply want a Christian burial service, so will you add that to a long list of favours – see Johnny safely into his beddy-bye as you sometimes did when we were young at Spook – though you would never take the risk of joining him there, you old fraidy-cat… God bless you, Sim – your brother in Xt.

John Parlabane, S.S.M.

It was a relief when the doctor came, examined the body and said unnecessarily that Parlabane was dead, and surprisingly that he couldn't say why.

"No sign of anything," he said; "he's dead because his heart has stopped beating, and that's all I can put on the certificate. Cardiac arrest, which is what finishes us all really."

"Any suggestion that it was self-induced?" I asked.

"None. That's what I expected, you know, when you called me. But I can't find a puncture or a mark or anything that would account for it. No sign of poison – you know, there's usually something. He looks so pleased with himself, there can't have been any distress at the end. I'd have expected suicide, frankly."

"So would I, but I'm glad it isn't so."

"Yes, I guess it lets you off the hook, doesn't it?"

By which my old friend the doctor paid tribute to the widely held notion that clergymen of my persuasion are not permitted to say the burial service over suicides. In fact we are allowed great latitude, and charity usually wins the day.

So I did what was necessary, adding extra work to my Easter Sunday, which was already a busy day. There was a little unseemly trouble with Mrs. Mustard, who didn't want the body to be taken out of her house until her debt was paid. So I paid it, wondering how long she would have held out if I had allowed her to keep Parlabane in his present state. Poor woman, I suppose she led a dog's life, and it made her disagreeable, which she mistook for being strong.

The following day, Easter Monday morning, I read the Burial Service for Parlabane at the chapel of St. James the Less, which is handy to the crematorium. As I waited to see if anyone would turn up, I reflected on what I was about to do. There I stood, in cassock, surplice, and scarf, the Professional Dispatcher. How much did I believe of what I was about to say? How much had Parlabane believed? The resurrection of the body, for instance? No use havering about that now; he had asked for it and he should have it. The Burial Service was noble – splendid music not to be examined like an insurance policy.