47. More Returns
In which Angle is kept busy…
@ErrolTheDragon landed in the yard at a quarter to four and the glasses on the bar shelf rang for some time afterwards. Gordian went out to untie the empty picnic basket and the gerbils came in full of news.
“WE FOUND IT,” said Gantry.
@AngleofRepose had the notebook open. “Where?”
“ST CATHERINE’S CHAPEL.”
Gasket took over, “There is a window by Veronica Whall called the Bowman window. It is for a soldier who died in the first war and the mark is in the leading under the figure with the chalice.”
“The circle and the three lines,” said Gadget. “In the bottom border. Gantry photographed it from a kneeler, which she was asked not to stand on and stood on anyway, and then from Errol’s claw through the chapel door, which the verger allowed on condition it was quick.”
“IT WAS QUICK.”
“It was not quick,” said Gadget. “That’s everything I’ve got. There’s a birthday and I need to sort out the cake.”
“You couldn’t tell what sex the figure was,” said Garnet.
“Which figure?” asked Angle.
“The one with the chalice. Long robe. Long hair. Holding the chalice up in front, like this.” Garnet held up her mug. “We stood under it for a long time and Gantry said it was a woman and Gadget said it was a man and I said you couldn’t tell, and the verger said she had never been asked.”
“WE DIDN’T ASK HER WHAT SEX IT WAS,” said Gantry. “WE ASKED HER WHETHER SHE KNEW.”
“She didn’t.”
Angle wrote Carlisle. St Catherine’s Chapel. Whall, the Bowman window. Margrave’s mark under the chalice figure.
“Were there seeds in Carlisle?” asked Girdle.
“No,” said Garnet. “I asked.”
@NotAtMyAge arrived from Coventry at half past four. “No mark,” she said, and sat down.
“Go on anyway,” said Angle.
“The Baptistry Window. It’s John Piper’s design and Patrick Reyntiens painted the individual glass panes, and it’s about twenty-five metres high, which is roughly two longships stood end to end on their stern.”
“One hundred and ninety-five lights, all abstract,” she continued. “It’s incredible. Basil Spence designed the stone around it, and the font is a 3-tonne boulder shipped over from a hillside outside Bethlehem. The side walls are set at an angle to it, so at certain times of the day beautiful, coloured rays are projected onto them. I went twice, once at eleven and once at two, just to see it move.”
Angle wrote Coventry. Baptistry Window. Piper, Reyntiens. 195 lights. No mark.
@MarieDeGournay came in a little before five and said simply, “Lincolnshire”. Angle turned to the page that had been empty for a week.
“The Trust’s telephone rings inside the old Chapter House,” said Marie. “It is all that is left of the priory. Octagonal. The village calls it the chapel. Three of the eight sides are brick, the side with the door and the two either side of the opposite side, which has a plain wooden prie-dieu in front of it. That side and the rest of the sides are just plain clear glass. No stained glass windows at all. That is everything. No altar. No colour. No mark anywhere. Just the building, the phone and the prie-dieu”.
Angle wrote it all down.
“I went back the next morning to look again in a different light,” said Marie. “There was nothing further to see. Then I gave the key back to the churchwarden’s sister.”
“Sainte-Chapelle,” said @Hedgehogforshort. “There is an original window from the cathedral in a crate sent from Fenella Burnish to Sweden, along with three others. We want you to go to Paris and see if you can find a mark.”
“Of course,” said Marie. “When?”
“Now, if it suits you.”
“It suits me.”
Gendarme, Gateau, Garlic, Glacé and Gourmand immediately began to squabble again about who was French enough to accompany her.
“Only one of you can go,” said Girdle, “Marie will decide.”
“Why one?”
“Because Marie can’t take five gerbils to Paris.”
“Marie can take as many gerbils to Paris as she likes,” said Marie, picking up her bag. “It is a large city. You can all come.”
Five coats were taken off five hooks, and Gendarme took her beret out of her pocket. They had left with Marie before Gasket could clear the cups off the table.
Griffin, Gimbal and Graphic arrived at their usual time. The grey smear down the side of Graphic’s paw had still not come off with washing.
“I leaded Gemma Glasswing’s window,” she said. “The whole day. I finished at ten past five and Fenella came and looked at it and then went back to her bench.”
“I’ve got the spreadsheet,” said Griffin. She undid the button on her inside pocket, took out @Boiledbeetle's data stick and gave it to Angle. “I saved it to the stick while Halcyon was in the office. Nobody looked round.”
Gimbal had not sat down. “Compartment 23 is empty,” she said. “So is 106. I went through the whole box from one to two hundred on paper for the stamps list, and those two have nothing in them. I put both stamps in myself. Nobody has asked me for either since I did.”
“Which one is 23?” asked Angle.
“The old mark, with the curve and the tail,” said Gimbal. “And 106 is the Margrave’s mark.”
“There’s one more thing,” said Gimbal. “We were leaving. Halcyon had gone. I’d left the broom by the bench, so I went back to put it away. I opened the workshop door and saw Fenella looking at Graphic’s window. She had a stamp in one hand and the small hammer in the other. She turned the die to the light to check it and I saw it was stamp 23. She put it on the lead on the bottom edge and hit it once. Then she put it down and picked up the heavier stamp, the Margrave’s mark. She put it on top of where the first one had gone, and she hit it harder.”
https://myrtlelion.substack.com/p/47-more-returns