Death at the Jesus Hospital

by David Dickinson

Ancient statute, Devereux said to himself, that’s good. That wretched codicil. About as ancient as nineteen hundred and eight, if the man from Cambridge was to be believed.

  ‘Another question for you, Colonel, if I may.’ Horrocks was looking like a boxer who has had quite enough for one day. ‘Did the voting slips mention the place they were going to, if you follow me. Would they have said, Thomas Dixon, Jesus Hospital, Marlow, that sort of thing? Or would the location be omitted?’

  ‘I object, Sergeant.’

  ‘It’s Inspector, actually.’ Devereux smiled beatifically at the solicitor. ‘Let’s get our facts right, shall we? I was promoted two years ago.’

  ‘You are imputing motive to my clients.’

  ‘What motive am I meant to be implying?’

  ‘You are implying that my clients might be forging votes if there was no specified location on the ballot paper.’

  ‘What a suspicious mind you have, Mr Buckeridge! I hadn’t thought of that before. Thank you for drawing it to my attention. I’ve nearly finished, Colonel, just a couple of small points to clear up. What was the total number of those entitled to vote, the size of your electorate, if you like.’

  ‘Just over seven hundred and fifty,’ he said, ‘seven hundred and sixty-three, including the outstations like the almshouses and the school and so on. The location is specified at the top right-hand corner of the ballot paper.’

  ‘And do you know how many have voted up until today? There must be some sort of a tally, I presume.’

  ‘I object.’ Buckeridge had returned to the ring. ‘The voting figures are a private matter for the Silkworkers Company. You do not have to answer that, Colonel.’

  ‘I’m afraid he does, Mr Buckeridge. Let me repeat the question with another one. Do you know how many have voted up until today? And have the votes come in from the Jesus Hospital in Marlow and Allison’s School in Norfolk?’

  ‘You do not need to answer that, Colonel. That is private information for the company,’ Buckeridge was looking pleased with himself now.

  ‘You could probably argue that it should be classified information in normal times, gentlemen.’ Inspector Devereux wasn’t about to lose his temper but he was angry. ‘But these are not normal times. One murder would be bad enough. We are dealing not with one or even two but with three murders, one in this very building, one at the Jesus Hospital and one at Allison’s School in Norfolk. For the last time. How many votes have been cast up till today? And have the votes come in from the Jesus Hospital in Marlow and Allison’s School in Norfolk?’

  ‘I object.’ Buckeridge was off again. Devereux cut him off.

  ‘I wouldn’t pursue your objection any further if I were you, Mr Buckeridge. Any further refusal to answer questions, or advice to the same effect, and I shall arrest you both right now for obstructing the police in the course of their duty. It’s your choice. You can spend the rest of the day at liberty. Or you can spend it in a police cell. Our formalities can sometimes take a very long time to complete. In cases like this I have known them spread out into the following day or even the day after that. It’s entirely up to you.’

  There was a pause. Eventually the colonel cracked. ‘Six hundred and eighty votes have been received so far. No votes have been received from Marlow or Fakenham.’

  ‘Thank you, Colonel, thank you very much indeed.’

  PART THREE

  THE FARMER’S ARMS

  11

  Inspector Grime pounded the table with his fist when Lady Lucy and Powerscourt told him the news. ‘By God!’ he said. ‘You’ve managed to find out what a police Inspector, a headmaster and a bloody Bishop couldn’t manage, you’ve got us a description. Now we can get going!’

  He shouted for his sergeant and strode over to a map of Norfolk on his wall. ‘Now then, Sergeant Morris,’ he began. ‘First of all I want a house-to-house search of Fakenham and the surrounding villages. Does anybody remember seeing a man, middle thirties, average height with a great black beard on the days before the murder or on the day itself? Suspect may have had foreign accent but we can’t be sure. Blighter must have got here the day before. Blighter must have stayed somewhere. All hotels, boarding houses, you know the drill. Blighter must have got here somehow. God knows where he came from, we’ll just have to try all stations. Cromer, Holt, Swaffham, King’s Lynn, Norwich, I want signs put up in all those places asking anybody who remembers seeing our bearded friend on the day of the murder or, more likely, the day before to report to their local police station. I’ll send a wire to all those stations directly after this meeting.’ Inspector Grime stopped. ‘Is that clear? Any questions?’

  ‘Only this,’ said his sergeant. ‘We know he came here to kill the bursar. But he must have gone away too. Should we ask people who were on the trains if they saw him leaving too? Same journey, only both ways? Travelling on a return ticket, if you like?’

  ‘You’d better include that,’ said the Inspector grumpily, reluctant to admit he might have forgotten something important. ‘Please amend the instructions accordingly.’

  The sergeant departed to organize the manhunt. Only the police had the manpower to undertake such a search, Powerscourt said to himself. But he did wonder if they hadn’t missed the obvious point. The murderer might have been sporting a large black beard on the fatal day. How long had it taken him to grow it? In other words, how long before the event had he known that he was going to come to the school and kill the bursar? And, more important still, did the murderer still have the beard? Or had he shaved it off? He mentioned his reservations to Lady Lucy as they walked back to the hotel. He didn’t say anything to Inspector Grime. He didn’t want to spoil his enthusiasm. As he took a cup of tea, another thought struck him. If you were the murderer, maybe you would suppose the police’s first assumption would be that the killer would shave the beard off. But suppose the murderer was playing double bluff? Suppose he was still wandering around with a great black beard, reckoning that the police were now looking for a cleanshaven man. Maybe the beard would be his best form of disguise after all.

  Johnny Fitzgerald had been approaching the old men of the Jesus Hospital one at a time. He had become a familiar figure in the almshouse, popping his head round a door one moment, inviting an elderly resident for coffee or lunch at his hotel the next. He had realized by now that you could discount the first ten, maybe the first fifteen minutes of any conversation with a silkman resident at the Jesus Hospital. Once he had uttered the familiar words how are you, the man would be off. It reminded Johnny of cavalry officers he had known in his army days who always spent the first part of any conversation talking about their horses. So he knew by now that Nathaniel Jones, Number Five, known as Jones the Steam from his days as an engine driver, was troubled with the gout, not that he drank a lot, only four or five pints a night and a couple of whisky chasers, and that he had trouble sleeping. There followed a list of all possible remedies from counting sheep to listing the names of all your classmates in your last year at school. Christy Butler, Number Thirteen, had trouble with his back. Sitting down for meals, he told Johnny, had become very difficult. Maybe he would have to eat standing up. But he couldn’t go to sleep standing up, could he? That Dr Ragg, he was no more use than a teetotaller in a saloon bar, he never gave you proper medicine. William Taylor, Number Sixteen, usually referred to as Pretty Billy, a nickname that had followed him throughout his life, true in his youth, ironic in old age, said he just felt ill most of the time. He ached. He sweated. He limped. He had headaches. He was, he told Johnny, like some old engine that has been run for too long and is just about to collapse. Looking at him, Johnny thought Number Sixteen was probably right.

  There was one topic Johnny always came round to in these conversations. He never approached it head on, he came in from the side or from the back, he never knocked on the front door. On the question of the Silkworkers’ vote – Devereux had passed on the news about the dates – Johnny found opinion undecided. He noticed a reserve in the old
men, as if some further injunction had been added to the earlier demands for silence.

  That evening Johnny was at his usual position at the table in the Rose and Crown nearest the bar. This was where the old men liked to sit, closest to where the pretty barmaid would be as she pulled pints for the silkmen. The talk was of minor ailments at first. When he judged that all were present who were going to come, Johnny took the initiative.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘I would like to ask you about something that has been troubling me. You see, I have a relative in the Silkworkers Company up in London and he has been telling me about the vote that’s coming up. Now, it’s for you to decide how to cast your vote, obviously, but I think there is a risk that you could make a terrible mistake. But I can only say that when I know how you are going to vote. I think most of you were against it when Number Twenty was with us. Is that still how it is today?’

  Silence fell over the saloon bar. The old men looked at each other but did not speak. The barmaid even looked in from the public to see if one of the old gentlemen had actually died halfway down a pint of Wethered’s Best Bitter. Eventually Jack Miller, Number Three, the former bank clerk, broke with the discretion of a lifetime and spoke up.

  ‘We’re not meant to speak to anybody about this,’ he began.

  ‘Who says so?’ said Johnny, draining his glass.

  ‘Well, it’s Warden Monk, Mr Fitzgerald, sir, but seeing as it’s you, I think we can make an exception.’

  ‘Has he been saying this all along, or only recently, the Warden?’

  ‘Well, he did say it at the start, but he repeated it very definitely only the other day.’

  Curiouser and curiouser, Johnny said to himself. Sir Peregrine comes to the hotel at night. Monk puts the frighteners on about speaking to anybody the next morning. What else had Monk and Sir Peregrine been cooking up in the ornate splendour of the Elysian Fields?

  ‘That’s very interesting,’ he said, ‘but tell me, are you still of the same mind? To oppose the changes, I mean?’

  One or two of the old men glowered at each other. Johnny wondered if they might come to blows. Even the barmaid pulling another round failed to distract them in the usual way.

  ‘It’s like this, see.’ John Watkins, Number Fifteen, who had lost two fingers of his left hand in some battle long ago, rarely spoke and was therefore regarded as a fount of very deep wisdom by his fellow silkmen. ‘Some people have changed their minds, and that’s a fact. I shall mention no names and no numbers. I leave that to others. But I do believe that there are special circumstances regarding those who have changed their minds and betrayed all our futures for thirty pieces of silver. I shall say no more.’ Number Fifteen returned to his tankard.

  Johnny waited for somebody else to speak.

  ‘We don’t know what to do for the best, Mr Fitzgerald,’ said Edward Cooper, Number Seven, ‘and that’s a fact. We don’t understand about codicils and things from hundreds of years ago. We’re simple folk here, so we are. What would you advise us to do?’

  Not for the first time, Johnny felt a great wave of sympathy for the silkmen. Here they were, abandoned by their families, if they had any family left, thrown together with a group of people they had never known before, complicated arguments about money and codicils they did not properly understand swirling around over their heads, still frightened there might be a murderer in their midst, poised to strike again. They’re parked, he said to himself, in death’s waiting room, hanging on for the last train.

  ‘Gentlemen, gentlemen, I am perfectly happy to give you advice though I would warn you that I have no more experience in financial matters than most of you. But first I would like to know what’s going on. What did John Watkins, Number Fifteen, mean when he talked about thirty pieces of silver? You can tell me, gentlemen. I’m not going to let you down.’

  There was a pause. Considerable amounts of beer were poured down the silkmen’s throats as they wondered what they should do. Sometimes one draught was not enough. A second was needed, and in two cases a third was required to set the thought processes into full working order.

  ‘Very well,’ said Peter Baker, Number Ten, ‘I’ll tell you, if nobody else will. Just the other day it was, Monk calls a meeting straight after breakfast. Funny how they all make their announcements first thing in the morning. Maybe they think our wits leave us during the course of the day. I suppose they might be right. Anyway, Monk says he has a special statement to make. It concerns the ballot, he says. He has been given to understand – pompous fellow, that man Monk, always was – that all those who vote in favour of the changes will receive what he called a discretionary emolument. He had to explain that, of course. Basically, if you vote yes, in Monk’s presence and he sees you do it, then you get ten pounds. That’s a lot of money, Mr Fitzgerald. It’s more than I have to live on for a year and I’m sure that holds true for many of my colleagues here.’

  ‘Discretionary? Emolument?’ James Osborne, the locksmith, Number Nineteen, had risen, rather unsteadily, to his feet. ‘It’s just another word for bribe. That’s all. They’re trying to buy us off!’

  ‘I don’t suppose anybody asked Mr Monk how much he would be getting if he delivered the votes?’ Johnny was ordering another round with a wave of his hand as he spoke.

  ‘Nobody did, sir, though I think we should have done.’ This was Henry Wood, Number Twelve, the man Johnny had lunched with at the hotel, lubricated by a couple of bottles of Beaune. ‘I’m going to say what I think. This is all very difficult for the people in the Jesus Hospital, Mr Fitzgerald. Time has a lot to do with it. None of us are going to last very long. If the livery company is broken up, we all receive a payment for that, because we’re all members of the Silkworkers Company. We’re like shareholders, getting our cut when the company is sold on. Mr Monk says nobody can be precise as it depends on the state of the stock market and the property market when the assets are sold. He claimed it could be between thirty and fifty pounds. Now there’s this extra money on top of that. Some of the men here would have more money in their hands than they have ever had in their lives. And if things start to go wrong in the hospital after a couple of years – even though they have always said it will be protected, whatever that means – it won’t matter very much. Half of us will be dead. It’s all very well to talk of doing the right thing for posterity and voting no, but I don’t think you feel virtuous when you’re in your coffin, six feet underground, with the lid screwed down.’

  ‘It’s all a question of timescales,’ said Christy Butler, Number Thirteen, staring hard at the low level of his beer in the glass. ‘If you think you’re going soon, within a year or a year and a half, say, vote yes and enjoy the money while you can. If you think you might still be drinking this excellent bitter in ten years’ time, you’d better vote no or you might not be able to afford it. Short time left means yes, long time left means no.’

  ‘That’s all very well,’ said Johnny Johnston, Number Nine, the former postman, whose glass was completely empty, ‘but how on earth are we meant to know how long we’re going to last? Even the bloody doctors aren’t going to tell us that.’

  There was another silence. Johnny Fitzgerald remembered being told that Number Nine had been conducting a vendetta against Dr Ragg for years over the treatment, or, as Number Nine maintained, the lack of treatment for his gout. He called for refills. He wondered what the assets of the Silkworkers were worth on the open market. He wondered if Inspector Devereux had found out. Johnny rather liked Miles Devereux. He decided that the best thing to do would be to keep this particular ball in play. Maybe Sir Peregrine Fishborne would have to make another trip to the Elysian Fields late at night.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘you were kind enough to ask me for my advice. I do not think we have sufficient information to form a balanced judgement. I think you need clarification on one particular point. While I agree with my friend Number Twelve that it must be difficult to feel virtuous in the grave, I do feel that we owe
certain obligations to our successors. You are all good men and true.’ Are you sure? he said to himself. One of them might be a murderer. Better press on. ‘I do not think that you would want the Jesus Hospital to close its doors for ever just so that you could receive what one of your colleagues referred to as thirty pieces of silver. When I say clarification, I mean this. You should ask to see the full accounts of the hospital for the last five years. Then you take an average of the figures. Then you ask for a legally binding document, signed in the presence of solicitors, which guarantees that an amount of capital capable of producing that amount of annual income with a fifteen per cent safety margin will be placed in a reputable bank and is only to be used for the maintenance of the Jesus Hospital.’

  Johnny took a monster pull on his beer. He realized he might have made it too complicated. He heard various mutterings among the old men. What did he mean by average? Surely capital referred to places like London or Paris. What was it doing here? What was a fifteen per cent safety margin?

  ‘Basically,’ said Johnny, ‘it means that you ask them to guarantee that there will be enough money to keep the hospital going in the future.’

  Old heads began to nod in agreement at this moment. The barmaid announced in her sweetest voice that the Rose and Crown was closing for the night. The old men shuffled slowly back to the hospital. Johnny made his way back to the Elysian Fields. A taxi passed him as he neared the front door. Johnny had a brief glimpse of an enormous black car discreetly parked under the trees. A very pretty young woman got out of the cab and fiddled with her gloves. As she entered the reception area, Johnny caught a hint of very expensive perfume. ‘The usual keys, madam?’ the night porter behind the desk said. ‘The Baron Haussmann Suite?’

  Johnny was astonished. Sir Peregrine had indeed come once more to the Elysian Fields but not to plan more bribes for the old men of the Jesus Hospital. Johnny looked at the girl’s back as she disappeared up the stairs. She seemed to be very pretty indeed. Johnny didn’t think she had come all this way at this time to discuss share options or exchange rates. I’ll be damned, Johnny said to himself. The old devil. Lucky bugger.