It was the Wardrobe That Worried Canon Pennyfather

It was the wardrobe that worried Canon Pennyfather, you see he could’ve sworn it had been much closer to the sink yesterday evening. Yet, waking to the sound of the breakfast gong, the wardrobe appeared to have shifted a good three feet to the left. It was nowhere near the sink now. Of course, he’d not managed to get a good look at the room last night. It’d been dark when they arrived at the guest house. Some drink had been taken over dinner, a little more before the party retired to their separate rooms. Canon Pennyfather had not given the furniture his particular attention. Still, he was almost certain the wardrobe had moved. He’d heard of malfunctioning wardrobes before: wardrobes which could make the occupant disappear, wardrobes which opened portals to other worlds, time travelling wardrobes, shrinking wardrobes, wardrobes in which you could see the future and wardrobes in which you could see the past. This particular wardrobe looked like a rather ordinary specimen. But that was the thing with wardrobes. You could never tell from looking. You had to open the door and get inside.

Canon Pennyfather eyed the wardrobe from bed. It was cosy beneath the bedclothes and, having eaten to excess the previous evening, he was in no real need for breakfast. He could easily lie on for another half hour, contemplating the wardrobe and other wardrobes he had known. He reached over to the bedside cabinet for his spectacles and his teeth. Once his face was fully dressed, he drew himself up to a sitting position and gave the wardrobe his full attention. It was a rather ordinary wardrobe, approximately seven foot tall and an arms’ span wide. It had been varnished a rich mahogany brown, though Canon Pennyweather suspected the varnish concealed a much cheaper wood. It was comprised of two handled doors and a single drawer which ran the entire width of its lower section. Some wardrobes did not contain such a drawer. Canon Pennyweather appreciated those which did. It gave him somewhere to store his pullovers and knitted vests. Just as he was thinking about his own wardrobe back home, with its drawer full of winter woollens, the wardrobe gave a little shudder and slid two feet back towards the sink.

Canon Pennyweather did not jump, for he was made of sternish stuff. In his heyday as a young curate, he’d had quite the name for exorcism. He’d personally exorcised three teenage girls, a semi-detached house, a German shepherd and a caravan. He’d never encountered a possessed wardrobe before, but how dangerous could a wardrobe demon be? Surely, nothing compared to the German shepherd or that one young girl whose entire head had spun round and round. The wardrobe was really going for it now. It rocked back and forth on its hand-carved feet. It tilted dramatically to the right, then righted itself and lent to the left. There was no way Canon Pennyweather was getting a lie in this morning. He’d have to deal with this situation immediately or the wardrobe might knock its way through to the room next door.

He lifted his Bible from the bedside table. He reached into his blazer pocket for a crucifix. He paused momentarily to force his bare feet into the slippers which were sitting at the end of his bed. Then Canon Pennyweather approached the wardrobe boldly, muttering the usual Latin phrases. He threw the doors open, ready to give the wardrobe the full and undiluted force of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit but the wardrobe was a canny beast. It was two steps ahead of Canon Pennyweather. As soon as the doors were fully open, they snapped back upon the Canon’s backside, closing around his pyjama-clad body as if they were a hungry mouth. Once the Canon had been swallowed, the wardrobe settled down in its usual spot. It did not move an inch or make any racket for almost a fortnight. After which the hunger came on it, in a greedy rush and it signalled -by the usual method- that it was ready to acquire another guest. Mrs Tolliver who owned the guest house knew exactly what was expected of her. She flipped the sign in her window from No Vacancies to Vacancies. She changed the bed linen and put out fresh towels. Then she sat back in her favourite armchair and waited to see who would call first.

Inspired by a line from Agatha Christie’s 1965 novel, At Bertram’s Hotel