Death Called to the Bar

by David Dickinson

  He climbed up past the first and second floors, where the voice of a senior could be heard tearing strips off some young deviller who had failed to carry out his work properly, and up to the attic floor that was Sarah’s kingdom. He heard the sound of the keys, two typewriters, he thought, so Sarah’s friend must be there too today. The sound was music to Edward’s ears, like a gang of woodpeckers attacking a whole row of trees at the same time.

  Sarah’s companion, a small mousy girl called Winifred, fled once Edward put in his appearance to renew their stocks of typing paper in the stationery shop across the road.

  Edward stood looking at Sarah, who was wearing a cream blouse today with a blue scarf and those long red tresses trailing down her back.

  ‘Edward,’ Sarah said with her finest smile, ‘how very nice to see you. You don’t look very well this morning.’

  Edward opened his mouth to speak but no sound came forth. Damn, he said to himself, damn, damn damn. Just when I thought I was over all that business with Sarah. He wished Lord Powerscourt was there, or even better, that he and Sarah were taking tea in Manchester Square once more.

  Sarah was thinking very fast. If she took Edward by the hand, she was sure he would speak normally. But then Winifred might come back and find them in a compromising position. Winifred was so light on her feet she was the only person in chambers you couldn’t hear coming up the stairs.

  ‘How is Lord Powerscourt?’ she said instead, trying to bring him back to happier times. ‘Do you think we will be invited to tea there again? Any news of the twins?’

  One of those cues must have worked. Sarah watched the lines of strain on Edward’s face relax. She wondered, not for the first time, what had caused his speech problem. Sometimes her mother read her extracts from the newspapers about people being struck dumb by some personal or professional catastrophe. Edward seemed far too young to have gone through anything like that.

  ‘Twins well,’ said Edward, his face going red with the effort. ‘Lord Powerscourt is well too.’ He beamed at Sarah as if he had just climbed a mountain. Perhaps he had. ‘Accounts. Puncknowle accounts. Head of Chambers said to keep going even though Mr Stewart dead. My head is spinning.’

  Sarah had noticed before that once one verb appeared, others were sure to follow. Maybe Edward’s problem had to do with verbs rather than words in general.

  ‘Want to make a suggestion, Sarah,’ Edward carried on bravely. This after all was the reason for his mission.

  ‘And what might that be?’ asked Sarah, looking at Edward in her most flirtatious manner. His eyes, she thought suddenly, his eyes were a wonderful sort of soft brown colour and looked as if they might melt if their owner was maltreated.

  ‘Oxford,’ said Edward in his most authoritative tone. ‘Let’s go to Oxford for the day on Saturday.’ Then he nearly spoilt it all by adding, ‘There’s a special offer on the train. From Paddington.’

  Sarah had never been to Oxford. She didn’t think Edward had either. She had a sketchy picture in her mind of ancient colleges, of a river running through the city, of great libraries, of hundreds and hundreds of young men lying about on the lawns, or draping themselves across punts and rowing boats with straw hats on.

  ‘Why, Edward,’ she said, ‘that would be lovely. Would you like me to bring lunch? Isn’t there a river up there where we could have a picnic?’

  ‘I believe there is,’ said Edward hesitantly. ‘I’ve not been there before, Sarah. One of the young silks is going to brief me, a man I did a lot of work for last month. He went to Magdalen College. He says that’s the best. It’s by the river. And it’s got a deer park.’

  ‘Just like Calne,’ said Sarah sadly, thinking of Dauntsey’s funeral.

  ‘Will your mother be all right?’ asked Edward anxiously.

  Sarah had long suspected that Edward must have or have had a close relation who was not well. Otherwise he wouldn’t understand how important these questions were.

  ‘As long as it’s not a surprise,’ said Sarah. ‘I’ll tell her this evening.’ Just then they caught the faint mouse-like tread of Winifred’s return. Edward made his way back downstairs. Sarah continued with her typing. It was nobody else’s business after all if they were going to Oxford for the day on Saturday with a special offer on the train.

  Johnny Fitzgerald’s stockinged feet were draped elegantly on the Powerscourt dining table. His right hand was holding a glass of crystal clear Sancerre, his left a bundle of papers filled with drawings that might have been birds. To his left, Lady Lucy was drinking tea, as was Powerscourt on the opposite side of the table. At the far end, sleeping peacefully in their Moses baskets, were the twins. Lady Lucy believed they should see a bit of family life from time to time and she knew how much her husband loved looking at them or talking way above their heads with poetry or whatever was passing through his mind.

  ‘It’ll make my fortune, I’m certain of it,’ said Johnny Fitzgerald, waving his papers vigorously at his friends. ‘I’m astonished nobody’s thought of it before.’

  ‘What’s the plan, Johnny?’ said Powerscourt.

  ‘Please forgive me, Lady Lucy, if I repeat some of what I told you just now.’ Johnny took an appreciative gulp of his Sancerre. ‘It all started the other morning, Francis. I woke up very early and I couldn’t get back to sleep so I went for a walk. I don’t know if you’ve been to Kensington Gardens at five o’clock in the morning, but the noise is fantastic. It’s the birds.’

  Johnny doesn’t need to catch trains to obscure railway stations in the countryside any more, Powerscourt thought to himself. He can just take a stroll in the middle of London.

  ‘Some of them are singing,’ Johnny went on, ‘some of them are squawking, some of them are belting out bits out of forgotten operas, some of them seem to know some special hymns of their own, some are just saying this is my pitch, why don’t you bugger off, you other birds, some are screaming and some are twittering, some are chirping away to themselves and some seem to be saying “Pink, pink.” All this within two hundred yards of the Round Pond.’

  Johnny paused and looked down at his papers. The old Johnny, Lady Lucy found herself thinking, would have taken another quaff of his wine at this point, a suitable moment for refreshment, but no. This Johnny carried on without a drop passing his lips.

  ‘Only thing is, Francis,’ Johnny went on, ‘I didn’t have a clue who these bloody birds were. In the dark, I mean. Couldn’t bloody well see. They could have been the black-browed albatross or the short-toed eagle for all I damned well knew. So I went to this Natural History Museum place in South Kensington – fascinating place, full of stuffed birds and things, you should take the big children there, they’d love it – and they sent me to an old chap who lives out Acton way, who knows the sound of almost every bloody bird in England. Used to be a sailor and he’s nearly blind, but I took him out to Hyde Park yesterday at five fifteen in the morning and this is what we’ve produced.’ He waved his papers at them enthusiastically. Powerscourt saw that they were full of rough descriptions of birds followed by rather precise descriptions of their sounds.

  ‘I’ve got great plans, Francis.’ At last Johnny Fitzgerald yielded to temptation and took a considerable pull of his wine. He eyed the bottle carefully as if trying to gauge how many glasses there were left in it. Powerscourt wondered if he would, unusually, restrict himself to a single bottle.

  ‘Do you remember that little chap we had working with us in Indian Intelligence, Francis? Fellow by the name of Cooper, Charlie Cooper, who did all the maps and could draw you a snake or a vulture right down to the last nail in its talon? Well, he works for a publisher now, illustrating books and magazines, and he’s said he’ll do all the birds for me, so you see them in their proper habitat, not just stuffed in a glass cage with no branches to cling on to. It’s going to be a book describing all these different creatures and the sounds they make. Lady Lucy, what do you think of that?’

  Lady Lucy smiled. She was pleased Johnny had f
ound something other than the vintages of France to occupy his spare time, but she doubted if he would meet many eligible females on his dawn patrol up and down Rotten Row in the hours before daybreak. ‘I think that’s tremendous, Johnny,’ she said. ‘Maybe you could put it in the newspapers in sections first, like the novelists used to do.’

  ‘Serialize it?’ said Johnny. ‘That would be good, we could all get paid twice. Mind you there’s me, and there’s the sailor man and there’s Charlie Cooper, all of us to get paid. Still, we can try. I give you a toast, doesn’t matter if it’s drunk in Sancerre or Darjeeling, let us drink to The Birds of London.’

  ‘The Birds of London,’ Francis and Lucy chorused in unison. There was a faint moan from the far end of the table. A twin was stirring in its sleep. They all fell silent for a moment.

  ‘Johnny,’ said Powerscourt, ‘I think that’s a tremendous scheme. But I hope it isn’t going to drag you away from detection completely. I would be lost without you. And I have something I want you to do.’

  ‘Rest assured, my friend,’ said Johnny Fitzgerald with a grin, ‘that I shall not desert you in your investigations. The birds may have to wait, the birds on occasion may have flown, but the solving of the crime will take priority.’

  With that he finished his glass, refilled it, and looked expectantly at Powerscourt, who was looking for something in his trouser pocket.

  ‘You know about the first murder in Queen’s Inn, Johnny, the man Dauntsey.’

  ‘The fellow who fell into his soup?’

  ‘Precisely so,’ said Powerscourt. ‘There’s been a second murder, another barrister in Queen’s called Stewart. The two of them were going to prosecute that fraudster Jeremiah Puncknowle. Just days before the case is due to start, they’re both in their graves. Convenient for Mr Puncknowle, very convenient. William Burke didn’t think our Jeremiah would go in for violence, not good for the Low Church image, but he sent me this note today.’

  Powerscourt handed Burke’s message over to Johnny Fitzgerald.

  Good to see you last week. As I said, Puncknowle had no reputation for violence. But he had a colleague who came with him to London from the north. Name of Bradstock, Linton Bradstock. Distinguishable by enormous black beard and very stout cane, carried at all times. If you didn’t keep up your mortgage payments or meet your interest bills on time, you might receive a visit from Bradstock or his friends. Broken legs commonplace, broken arms likewise, in one or two cases people said to have disappeared completely. Also on trial for fraud with Puncknowle. Take very great care, Francis. Love to the family, William.

  Johnny handed the note back to his friend. ‘So you would like me to exchange a blackbird for a Bradstock, Francis? I presume you want to know if he or any of his colleagues, who may, of course, not be on trial for fraud, have been knocking off barristers down there in the Strand. You don’t have any idea where he lives, our blackbeard friend, do you?’

  Powerscourt pulled another piece of paper from his breast pocket. ‘Very short note from William an hour or so ago. Big mansion in Belgrave Square, he says, Number 25. Place full of Bradstock’s thugs.’

  Johnny Fitzgerald took an absent-minded sip of his Sancerre. ‘Think I’ll approach this in a roundabout sort of way, Francis. Don’t fancy knocking on the front door and asking if anybody here murdered a couple of barristers recently. Might not be good for the prospects of The Birds of London, if you follow me. I’ll try to see if there’s any gossip in the criminal circles, there usually is if a job that size has been pulled off.’

  ‘There’s more news, Francis.’ Lady Lucy had been sitting quietly through the male conversation, waiting for her moment. She was looking very serious. With the late afternoon sun shining on her hair Powerscourt thought she looked very beautiful. He was so proud of her.

  ‘You remember you asked me to make some discreet inquiries about the Dauntseys?’ she went on, totally unaware of her husband’s reflections about hair and late afternoon sun.

  ‘Of course, Lucy,’ said Powerscourt, wondering what sort of reply she had received.

  ‘Well, it’s only a whisper,’ she went on. ‘Maybe a whisper is too strong. My informant said it was like a very distant bell you can just hear ringing a long way off.’

  ‘And what was the rumour, Lucy?’

  ‘It had to do with Dauntsey’s brother. The elder one. The rumour said that Mrs Dauntsey had been very close to him, that they had gone on holiday together or short weekends away quite a lot.’

  ‘How long ago was this meant to be?’ asked Powerscourt, running a hand through his hair.

  ‘Two years ago, something like that.’

  ‘And who was your informant?’

  ‘A second cousin who lives quite close to Calne and has dined there many times. I would regard her as a reliable witness.’

  ‘So,’ Powerscourt was whispering as if he didn’t want his thoughts to reach the purer minds of the twins. ‘Think of it. Here you are, Alexander Dauntsey and your beautiful wife. You have been trying to have children for years and have failed. For Alexander, one of the cores of his being is his house. His people have lived in it for centuries. His descendants must carry on that tradition. But he cannot have any descendants. Or perhaps his wife cannot have any. They simply do not know. Let’s suppose they are going to try this route first. Dauntsey makes the suggestion to his wife. My brother instead of me. I can imagine her, oddly enough, agreeing to it out of her love for him. He suggests it to his brother, less difficult with such a beautiful woman. But still no children. The adulterous experiment failed. I wonder what happened next. Was the brother married?’

  Powerscourt had a sudden vision of a vengeful wife, realizing that the blame lay with the husband rather than the wife, organizing a mysterious visitor to Queen’s Inn, a poison phial concealed about his person.

  ‘He wasn’t married, the brother. But there’s one thing,’ Lady Lucy was looking at Johnny’s pieces of papers as she spoke, ‘that makes me think it might be true.’

  ‘What’s that, Lucy?’ asked Johnny Fitzgerald.

  ‘The elder brother,’ she too spoke very quietly, ‘he’s gone away. They think he’s gone to some remote part of Canada, but nobody knows for certain where he is. They think he may be in Manitoba.’

  ‘That’s where the Dauntsey lawyers think he is, Lucy. Manitoba.’

  ‘Do you want me to see if I can find him, Francis?’ asked Johnny Fitzgerald, ‘I’ve always wanted to go to Canada. Wine has to be imported but the birds are said to be wonderful.’

  Powerscourt smiled. ‘Not yet, Johnny. We’ve got enough to do here for now. Lucy, do you have further inquiries you can make, the younger brother perhaps, or any male cousins who might have taken part in the same experiment, if there was one?’

  ‘I discovered some new relations only yesterday, Francis, I’m sorry to say. But they too live not far from Calne.’

  Johnny Fitzgerald was gathering up his papers. ‘I’ve just had a thought,’ he said, looking up at his friends. ‘After The Birds of London I wondered about The Birds of East Anglia, The Birds of the West, The Birds of Wales, that sort of thing. But there’s not many people living in those places. It was thinking of Canada and their French connections that did it. Not only a bird book, but a wine book as well. Two for the price of one. The Birds of Bordeaux, Lucy. The Birds of Burgundy, Francis. We could probably do some of them by describing the birds that live in the actual vineyards that produce the Meursault or the Gevrey Chambertin. Wouldn’t that be grand?’

  They both laughed. ‘Excellent, Johnny,’ said Lady Lucy. ‘You’ll be famous in France as well, maybe.’

  Johnny Fitzgerald looked serious all of a sudden. ‘Tell me, Francis,’ he said, ‘what are you going to be doing in the next few days in case any of these fraudsters and murderers want to kill you too and I need to tell them your whereabouts?’

  Powerscourt suspected Johnny had a different motive for his question. After their last adventure at a West Country cathedral
and a vicious attempt on Powerscourt’s life, Lucy had taken great care, unobtrusive care, of course, to make sure Johnny was never far away from her Francis.

  ‘I have two journeys in mind, Johnny, for you to tell your assassin friends about. I shall be going to Calne to renew my acquaintance with Mrs Dauntsey, although how I turn the conversation to where I want it to go, I have no idea. Of mutual embarrassment there could be no end. But before that I am going to visit one of the most extraordinary houses in Britain. It is in England, but it is French, it has telephones and a telegraph, it has furniture that used to belong to Marie Antoinette, it has more Sèvres porcelain than anywhere else in England.’

  ‘Where on earth is this domestic heaven?’ asked Lady Lucy.

  ‘It is in the Chiltern Hills, my love. It was designed to the wish or the whim of a man who was then thought to be the richest man in Britain. Typically he called his vast pile simply Paradise. The man is Jeremiah Puncknowle and the house is his fantasy and his folly.’

  Johnny and Lucy left the Powerscourt dining room, chattering happily about The Birds of London. Powerscourt himself wandered slowly to the top of the table and looked down at the sleeping twins. One had a tiny fist resting on a pink cheek. The other was virtually invisible beneath the covers. He began whispering to them. You would have to have been very close indeed to realize that he was telling them the words of the Lord’s Prayer.