Bury Him Darkly by Blackburn John

Author:Blackburn, John [Blackburn, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction.Mystery/Detective, Fiction.Horror
ISBN: 9789997539236
Google: lneAmAEACAAJ
Amazon: 193914017X
Barnesnoble: 193914017X
Goodreads: 2104831
Publisher: Chatto & Windus
Published: 2015-11-04T05:00:00+00:00

Nine

The Grail, the Sangrail, the Gradalis, the vessel that had been filled with wine and passed from one disciple to another: John tried to remember what he knew of the story.

Following the Last Supper, Joseph of Arimathaea had preserved the bowl and held it beneath the tortured figure on the cross, replacing wine with blood. Then the vessel had been sealed and taken for safety to Britain, the most distant province of the Roman Empire. After that, the object had vanished, now and again appearing in dreams and visions. That was the legend that had sent the knights out on their quest—Galahad and Bors and Percival le Galois; the dream which had inspired the troubadors and set the monkish chroniclers to work. A very beautiful story, John admitted, but only a story. The notion that the chalice had fallen into the hands of Martin Railstone, that Railstone had opened and drunk from it, and that his body had absorbed its powers, transforming them from good to evil, was not only ludicrous, but repugnant.

Why was everybody obsessed by the career of Martin Railstone? Mary lived in a bungalow ten miles to the south of Lanchester, and during each minute of the journey to the Dean’s house, John had asked himself that. Until recently he had been tolerantly sceptical about the whole business, but he was changing his opinion. Why should the man’s story and his work unbalance the most level-headed mind?

George Banks had not been level-headed, of course. But surely his mental disturbance was not enough to account for his actions? A minor government official who lived quietly in Putney with a widowed sister, drank two halfpints of beer of an evening, never more nor less, and spent his holidays hill-walking in Wales or the Lake District. What pressure had driven such a man to try his hand at grave-robbery?

Erich Beck, eminent scientist, medical historian and suspected war criminal who might have got away with his crimes. John was convinced that Beck had a great deal to hide. Beck obviously believed that there had been some physical cause for Railstone’s sudden up-thrust of genius, and the search for that cause had made him as irrational as Banks had been.

Desmond Marne, Marjorie Wooderson and the senior members of the Caswellites, on the surface sane and practical human beings, but fanatics where Railstone was concerned. Why? Was the man’s work so very, very brilliant, John wondered. Did the poems and the paintings have some mysterious quality which he himself was unable to appreciate? He had read the Sonnets to Martha and visited the Railstone Collection at the National Gallery, and he agreed with the opinions of most critics. Rail-stone’s verse struck him as having force, but little control: rather as if a talented amateur had tried to express deep mystical experience but lacked real ability. ‘A poor man’s Emily Bronte’ was how one eminent don had described him.

There was certainly force in the paintings too. Strange, eerie landscapes with figures that might or might not represent human beings or animals because they were all merged against natural objects.

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