Sidney Chambers and The Shadow of Death (The Grantchester Mysteries)

course, the way of Our Lord. Are you a believer?’
    ‘You have asked me that before.’
    ‘That was when you came to see me about your marriage.’
    ‘You will still marry us? Despite what I say?’
    ‘The marriage service asks if there are any impediments . It does not require a degree in theology.’
    ‘I was brought up with an intense faith. I know the liturgy. I admire the language and the music. I still hope for revelation. But I am afraid I have seen too much suffering to believe in divine benevolence. The war, you know. I presume you were a pacifist?’
    ‘I am afraid you presume wrongly,’ Sidney cut in, a little too aggressively, he thought. ‘I fought for what I believed in.’
    ‘Even if it meant killing people?’
    ‘A lesser evil.’
    ‘Ah yes,’ the doctor replied, his vulnerability signalled by a furrowed brow that hovered over eyebrows that were darker than his hair. ‘A lesser evil. I think we both know about that . . .’
     
    When Sidney returned home he found that Leonard Graham had already left to visit the sick on his Communion round and that, in his absence, Mrs Maguire had decided to pick all his books off the floor of his study yet again, stacking them all over his desk, in order to vacuum the whole house. He had repeatedly asked her not to do this but any request he had made in the past had fallen on deaf ears. He had never seen such a small woman act with such gusto. There was an aggression to her hoovering, a violence that was clearly some kind of displacement activity. He had only seen it once before, after she had been given an unconfirmed report that her husband, who had disappeared in 1944 amidst conflicting rumours of pacifism and bigamy, might actually be living in West London. He guessed that this was not the best time to engage her in any kind of conversation but he was mistaken. Mrs Maguire was all too eager to converse.
    She turned off the vacuum cleaner and removed her apron. She had clearly been waiting for this moment and Sidney feared the worst. There were rumours in the village, she told him, and they were bad.
    ‘What do you mean, Mrs Maguire?’
    ‘I will spare you the conversations regarding yourself . . .’ she began, as if such a silence was of the utmost difficulty.
    Sidney was alarmed. He liked people to think well of him. ‘What can you mean?’
    ‘My sister is refusing to see the doctor,’ Mrs Maguire announced.
    ‘And why is that?’
    Mrs Maguire folded her arms in what Sidney took to be a gesture of defiance. ‘She is frightened he’s going to kill her.’
    Sidney could not believe it. Somebody had been talking out of turn. His own conscience was clear, and he assumed that he could trust Inspector Keating. Could it be the coroner, or perhaps a spurned admirer of Dr Robinson? He would have to visit Derek Jarvis once more.
    ‘That is nonsense.’
    ‘All tittle-tattle, I imagine,’ Mrs Maguire continued. ‘But you know what they say? There’s no smoke without fire . . .’ She looked at Sidney as if she had used a phrase he had never heard before.
    ‘I have always found that to be a most unhelpful aphorism,’ Sidney answered.
    Mrs Maguire took a step forward. ‘I don’t suppose you know anything about it?’
    ‘I do not,’ Sidney replied, unconvincingly. It really was extraordinary the number of lies he had to tell since becoming embroiled in criminal investigation.
    ‘But I think you’ll still want to know what they’ve been saying about you ?’
    ‘Not particularly, Mrs Maguire.’ Sidney tried to sound nonchalant. ‘I would rather people told me what they thought directly.’
    ‘Very well. Then I will tell you. They think you’re going to marry Miss Kendall.’
    ‘That is most unlikely.’
    ‘That’s what I said to Mr Graham.’
    ‘You have discussed the matter with him? What did he reply?’
    ‘That it wasn’t for him to comment.’
    ‘Quite right too.’
    ‘But everyone is talking about it,’ Mrs Maguire continued. ‘You were seen in a restaurant holding hands . . .’
    ‘Only for a brief moment . . .’
    ‘Long enough for the waitress to tell the chef, who told his sister, who is a barmaid at The Green Man. The news will be all round Grantchester by now and tomorrow it will be at every high table.’
    ‘I hardly think that the dining tables of Cambridge colleges are interested in my marital prospects, Mrs Maguire . . .’
    ‘Clever folk love an opportunity to make fun of their rivals, I’ve