Death Makes a Prophet Read online

  Death Makes a Prophet

  John Bude

  With an Introduction

  by Martin Edwards

  Poisoned Pen Press

  Copyright

  Originally published in 1947 by Macdonald & Co.

  Copyright © 2017 Estate of John Bude

  Introduction copyright © 2017 Martin Edwards

  Published by Poisoned Pen Press in association with the British Library

  First E-book Edition 2017

  ISBN: 9781464209031 ebook

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

  The historical characters and events portrayed in this book are inventions of the author or used fictitiously.

  Poisoned Pen Press

  4014 N. Goldwater Boulevard, #201

  Scottsdale, Arizona 85251

  www.poisonedpenpress.com

  [email protected]

  Contents

  Death Makes a Prophet

  Copyright

  Contents

  Dedication

  Introduction

  Map

  Part I

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Part II

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  Chapter XVIII

  Chapter XIX

  Chapter XX

  Chapter XXI

  Chapter XXII

  Chapter XXIII

  More from this Author

  Contact Us

  Dedication

  To

  JULIET O’HEA

  With gratitude for her unfailing watchfulness

  over the “Prophet”

  Introduction

  Death Makes a Prophet, first published in 1947, illustrates John Bude’s versatility as a crime writer. In common with many of Bude’s books, it features Inspector Meredith, but the series detective does not appear until the second half of the story. The punning title is matched by the light tone of the first part of the story, in which humour is much more to the fore than in most of Bude’s earlier work; perhaps, in the austere aftermath of a world war, he felt that his readers needed cheering up.

  Cults of various kinds have long fascinated crime writers, perhaps because seemingly eccentric beliefs and practices offer fertile ground for murderous antics. As a result, cults have featured in a surprisingly large number of detective stories, especially in the classic crime fiction written during the first half of the last century. G.K. Chesterton characteristically indulged his love of paradox in a notable example of this kind of story, “The Eye of Apollo”; at the end, Father Brown says: “These pagan stoics always fail by their strength.” In “The Flock of Geryon,” a story included in the collection The Labours of Hercules, Agatha Christie allowed Hercule Poirot to mock the disciples of a Devonian cult known as The Flock of the Shepherd. Another Queen of Crime, Ngaio Marsh, had Roderick Alleyn investigate the mysterious death of a new initiate at the House of the Sacred Flame in Death in Ecstasy. Across the Atlantic, cults of one kind or another appeared in a wide variety of crime novels produced by authors as distinguished as Dashiell Hammett (The Dain Curse), Ellery Queen (And on the Eighth Day) and Anthony Boucher (Nine Times Nine, a notable “locked room mystery”).

  Writers of classic crime stories tended to be rational thinkers who regarded cult leaders as at best naive, and at worst charlatans, determined to exploit the gullibility of their followers for personal advantage. Bude seems to have been as interested in the comic potential of Cooism as in its suitability as the context for a whodunit plot, but in the later stages of the book, the storyline begins to resemble those so often found in the work of Freeman Wills Crofts (another author whose work has been reprinted in the British Library’s series of Crime Classics). Crofts was the creator of Inspector French, a detective even more relentless than Meredith when faced with the challenge of breaking down a seemingly impregnable alibi, and his meticulous approach to writing crime fiction plainly influenced Bude’s methods.

  John Bude was the pen-name adopted by Ernest Carpenter Elmore (1901–57) when he turned to writing crime fiction. For his early books, starting with The Cornish Coast Murder in 1935, he chose settings and titles featuring a variety of attractive locations. This, like his choice of pseudonym, was a simple enough marketing ploy, but it proved increasingly effective as he developed into a very capable craftsman. Meredith was introduced in Bude’s second mystery, The Lake District Murder, and is an example of the appealing, if lightly characterised, British police officer (such as Inspector French) who emerged during the Golden Age of detective fiction between the wars.

  When war did return, Bude—who lived in a rather idyllic house called Crooked Cottage in Sussex—joined the Home Guard, and arranged for his daughter Jennifer to be sent to the safety of Devon, where she stayed with her grandmother. Bude was kept busy dealing with the aftermath of “doodlebugs” which landed in the neighbourhood of Crooked Cottage, but perhaps to compensate for the absence of his daughter, he started work on a children’s book. Chapter by chapter; he mailed it to a delighted Jennifer. The book was eventually published in 1946, under his real name.

  Jennifer recalls that since

  ‘Crooked Cottage’ was 500 years old, it had no drinking water so each day my father had to walk to a deep well in the woods and fill two buckets. The round trip was about a quarter of a mile. His writing room was a low building attached to the house but accessed from outside. It had a long low window so that when he was writing he could sit and look out at the garden and hills beyond. Nobody was allowed in without permission!

  After the war, life carried on much the same as before except, to his delight, in 1946 he had a son Richard. Our parents then became very busy, building on to the cottage. The other memorable excitement was getting the Rover out of the garage and onto the road, so that we could all get around other than by bicycle. As a result, once again, we were able to go to plays, ballets, concerts, and so on in London.

  The sense of humour so evident in Death Makes a Prophet was typical of a man whose wit, and love of practical jokes, are still fondly remembered by his daughter. Rather like Inspector Meredith, Bude was evidently a likeable fellow, and this novel, like the other titles of his reprinted in the Crime Classics series, displays his talent for writing likeable mysteries.

  Martin Edwards

  www.martinedwardsbooks.com

  Map

  Part I

  Welworth Garden City

  Chapter I

  The Children of Osiris

  I

  “An Englishman, as a free man,” said Voltaire, “goes to heaven by the road which pleases him.” If there are many roads that lead to perdition, then there are as many that lead to salvation; and England probably houses more diverse, odd and little known religions than any other country in the world. And of all places in this island most conducive to the flourishing of these many beliefs, none can equal the little town of Welworth. Wel
worth is not an ordinary town. It is that rarefied, mushroom-like, highly individualistic conglomeration of bricks and mortar known as a Garden City. There is no house in Welworth over thirty years old. There are no slums, monuments, garden-fences, bill-hoardings or public-houses. There is a plethora of flowering shrubs, litter-baskets, broad avenues, Arty-Crafty Shoppes, mock-Tudor, mock-Georgian, mock-Italianate villas. There is, of course, a Health Food Store selling Brazil Nut Butter, cold spaghetti fritters, maté tea and a most comprehensive and staggering range of herbal pills and purgatives. Per head of the population, Welworth probably consumes more lettuce and raw carrot than any other community in the country. A very high percentage of the Welworth élite are not only vegetarians, but non-smokers, non-drinkers and non-pretty-well-everything-that-makes-life-worth-living for less high-minded citizens.

  They weave their own cloth, knit their own jumpers and go their own ways with that recherché look common to all who have espoused the Higher Life. Many favour shorts and open-work sandals. A large number do barbola-work or dabble in batik. Some are genuine, some are not; but all bear with them the undeniable stamp of individuality and burn with the unquenchable fire of their particular faith. It may be Theosophy or Babaism; it may be Seventh Day Adventism, Christian Science, Pantheism or what you will—but in a naughty world full of atheists and agnostics, Welworth is a refreshing centre of spiritual élan and a complete refutation of the theory that sectarianism in this country is on the wane.

  It is claimed (with all due deference to Mr. Heinz) that there are fifty-seven varieties of religion in Welworth. It speaks highly of the town’s tolerance. Some are orthodox. Some are unorthodox but well known. Others are unorthodox and unknown. And among the latter, probably the least orthodox and the most exclusive, is that queer, somewhat exotic sect, founded by Eustace K. Mildmann in the early nineteen hundreds, called the Children of Osiris.

  For the sake of brevity in a busy world, the Children of Osiris, adopting the initials of their full title, referred to their doctrine as the Cult of Coo, or more simply, Cooism. (Not to be confused, of course, with Coué-ism.) The gods of Cooism were those of Ancient Egypt—Osiris, Isis, Horus, Thoth, Set, and so forth—but this rich mythology had been modernised and modified by the inclusion of many dogmas borrowed from less remote religions. The result was a catholic hot-pot compounded of a belief in magic numbers, astrology, auras, astral bodies, humility, meditation, vegetarianism, immortality, hand-woven tweeds and brotherly love. It was, in short, an obliging religion because one could find in it pretty well anything one looked for. Eustace Mildmann found everything in it. It was his child, his passion, his whole life. He had created Cooism and because, before seeing the light, Eustace had been a nonentity, it might be said that Cooism had created Eustace Mildmann. It had lifted him out of a small provincial bookshop and set him down in Welworth with five elderly female acolytes, an enormous and contagious enthusiasm for his faith and a small overdraft at his bank. His sincerity was not to be doubted. Cooism to Eustace was the key to all life’s mysteries. It was the only straight road that led to salvation. He believed it could solve everything—even the overdraft at his bank. And like many men of unswerving belief he found his optimism justified. He found in Welworth an intellectual coterie ready and willing to listen to him. His five female acolytes soon became ten, fifteen, fifty zealots of both sexes. He found a small tin hall left by some improvident sect that had gone theologically and financially bankrupt. It became the first Temple of Cooism. And finally, like a Parsifal who at length discovers his Holy Grail, he found the Hon. Mrs. Hagge-Smith. After that Cooism, so to speak, was on the map.

  II

  Before he left his bookshop and moved to Welworth, Eustace had become a widower. It was shortly after the death of his wife, in fact, that he set out to evolve the first principles of Cooism. His best ideas had always come to him when sunk in a self-imposed trance, or, as he more pithily expressed it, “during a phase of Yogi-like non-being”. (“Non-being” figured as a very important factor in the Cult of Coo, though nobody seemed able to define its exact significance.) Whether the original idea of Terence, his only child, had also occurred to him when in a state of “non-being” seems doubtful, for at such periods Eustace was a receptacle for good ideas and Terence was probably the worst idea he’d ever had. For Terence was the antithesis of his father. Where Eustace was mild, dreamy and soft-spoken, Terence was athletic and practical, with a booming bass voice. When Eustace had first moved to Welworth, Terence was still a very junior schoolboy. At the time when this narrative opens he was a gradely young man of twenty-one, with a healthy appetite, wholesome ideas and the physique of a boxer. In the interim, his father had done everything to undermine his normality. He had sent him to a co-ed school with an ultra-modern, one might almost say, post-impressionistic curriculum; clamped down on his tremendous appetite with a strict vegetarianism; made him a Symbol-Bearer in the Temple of Osiris; and with the inhumanity of a fanatic with a one-track mind, kept him very short of pocket-money. To say that Terence disliked his father is not an exaggeration. He simmered with resentment under the restrictions placed upon him. He thought Cooism the most incomprehensible twaddle. He thought the Children of Osiris the most embarrassing collection of cranks in a town where ordinary men seemed odd. He rated vegetarianism as an unnatural vice. He thought co-education sloppy. He considered the Hon. Mrs. Hagge-Smith a blot on the face of creation. And yet, being naturally inarticulate and obedient, Terence dared not come out in open rebellion. He just suffered in silence like a goaded ox. Sometimes there was a look in his eye that was strangely reminiscent of an ox—a look of patient resignation that gave way every now and then to a gleam of ominous hostility.

  The Mildmanns, father and son, lived in the mockest of mock-Tudor mansions on Almond Avenue. It was a big, secluded house standing in an acre of well-kept garden as befitted the High Prophet of Cooism. It was run by an efficient lady-housekeeper, a widow by the name of Laura Summers, a handsome, even striking, blonde, with perfect manners and a cultured voice. In the emancipated atmosphere of a Garden City this arrangement raised no breath of scandal. Merely a rip-snorting tornado of vilification that would have pulverised any man less innocent and unworldly as Mr. Mildmann. As it was he never even thought of Mrs. Summers as a blonde. She was his housekeeper and a convert (though not a particularly reliable one) to Cooism. Between Terence and Mrs. Summers there was considerable sympathy and understanding. Her late husband had been a man with a big appetite and few ideas. She felt sorry for Terence in his over-tight shorts, his sandals and open-neck shirts. He looked so like a little boy that has grown out of his clothes that the mere sight of him roused all her maternal instincts. They formed a sort of nebulous alliance against the soft-fingered influences of Eustace Mildmann. They shared little private jokes over many things that the Children of Osiris held sacred. Misplaced, perhaps, but very human. In particular over Mrs. Hagge-Smith—the very sight of whom always reduced Terence to a state of unutterable boredom.

  Ostensibly the Archbishop—or in the nomenclature of the order, the “High Prophet”—of Cooism was, of course, its founder, Eustace Mildmann. But the force behind the movement, the financial prop, the true director of policy, was Alicia Hagge-Smith. She paid the piper and so, naturally, she called the tune. She was quite accustomed to calling the tune. She had been calling it all her life, for the simple reason that her late husband had made a million out of mineral waters.

  Right from her earliest years Alicia had taken to religion as other women take to golf, bridge or pink gin. She had, so to speak, a nose for odd religions—the odder the better. She had feasted at the tables of many a faith, but always in the long run she had suffered spiritual indigestion and retired in search of a more assimilatory diet. At one time she had actually turned her back on the problems of salvation and taken up Eurhythmics. Unfortunately, a generous build coupled with an artistic fervour out of keeping with her mature years, had led her to rick her ba
ck during one of the more advanced exercises, leaving a vacuum in her life which was quickly filled with Cooism. And in Cooism, Mrs. Hagge-Smith seemed to have found a spiritual pabulum that suited her to a T. She gobbled up the movement lock, stock and barrel and, thereafter, allowed Eustace five thousand a year to act as figurehead whilst she steered the ship. Luckily, Eustace (probably during a phase of “non-being”) recognised on which side his bread was buttered, and sensibly accepted Mrs. Hagge-Smith’s patronage with open arms. In less than no time Cooism thrust out tentacles, though its central body still remained in Welworth, and, within four years of Alicia’s enrolment as a Child of Osiris, its membership numbered over ten thousand and Temples sprang up in London and the provinces. Within five years its subscriptions and donations covered all disbursements. In six, Cooism was making a handsome profit and Eustace found himself saddled with a far more elaborate hierarchy for the running of his movement. He needed his Bishop of York, so to speak—a worthy successor who, in the event of his sudden demise, could step into his sandals. It was thus that the office of Prophet-in-Waiting was created and paved the way for the sudden, flamboyant entry of that enigmatic personage, Peta Penpeti.

  III

  From its inauguration Cooism had attracted a very distinct type of initiate. It was a cult for the few rather than the many; and the few for the most part were well able to afford the exclusive entrance fee that was deliberately imposed by Mrs. Hagge-Smith in order to sort the sheep from the goats. Alicia, when backing her enthusiasms, preferred quality rather than quantity. She liked her religion to have a certain ton, a certain je ne sais quoi of good-breeding about it. She often felt that Eustace, as High Prophet, was a trifle too democratic in outlook. To him all converts were grist to the mills of his particular creed, irrespective of their accents and incomes. Even as High Prophet, Eustace himself was not quite…and here Mrs. Hagge-Smith would twiddle her fingers and shake her grey locks.