Everything in Its Place

The vestry of the Thrift Chapel was a lean-to at the back of the building, with a deal table, a gas ring and a cupboard of tin collection boxes in neat blue rows. The Reverend had come down from the manse to meet you and stood with his hat in his hand as if the room were not entirely his. The place smelled of paraffin and hymn books and, faintly, of copper.

“Josiah counts every Thrift Day tin in this room the same night,” he said. “By ten, to the penny, with the book open. Eleven years. I have never known him leave a tin.” He took a battered biscuit tin from the cupboard, one of the large ones, with the chapel’s name stencilled on the lid, and set it on the table. “I found this on Friday morning at seven, in the corner, with the lid still sealed with a strip of tape. Uncounted.”

“What was in it?”

“Forty pounds less than last year, in a year of strike and sorrow, which I thought rather good.” He smiled, miserably. “I counted it myself, and felt like a man at his own funeral. I rang Josiah at noon to tell him the books were done. He thanked me. He said he would lead the Sunday service as always.” The Reverend sat down on the one chair. “He has been in this chapel every evening since. I find him alone with the ledger. He doesn’t pray. He counts.”

You looked at the tape on the lid. A man’s routine, you thought, is the plainest alibi in the world, and the plainest confession when it breaks. The Anchor had told you he missed his prayers. The vestry told you he had left a tin. No one had asked Josiah Penhale to keep any of it. He had kept it for eleven years because it was the shape of who he was.

“Garfinkel,” said Jonah, with no pleasure in it at all. “You take the routine away and it’s all there. The whole person.”

“He will be here at dawn on Sunday,” said the Reverend. “He always is.” He looked at you for a long moment. “I should be grateful if you would be kind.”