‘One of my children once asked me, in that disconcerting way that children have, if I thought Gladstone was a great man. I was on my way to court at the time so I just told him Yes. He never asked me about it again. Was Alex a great man? I think that’s the wrong question in his case. Greatness was not what he was about. But he was a man of enormous personal charm, a man with a mind that worked like a rapier, the finest companion I ever knew and the best friend I ever had.’
There was complete silence in the church as Mr Fraser returned to his pew. If you listened very carefully, you could hear some of the women crying. Powerscourt wondered if Sarah, so devoted to Dauntsey, was among them. After that there was an anthem from the choir, ‘I Know that My Redeemer Liveth’ from Handel’s Messiah. Try as he might, Powerscourt was unable to find any references to judge or jury, earthly or celestial in it. A bencher from Queen’s Inn spoke about Dauntsey’s contribution there. Powerscourt thought the man must have given the same speech before. Then a final prayer from the vicar and the congregation, with that look of relief people often have when leaving church services, streamed out into the windy sunshine. Powerscourt saw that the porters were being particularly assiduous in their duties. He observed, but did not disturb them, that Sarah was leaning heavily on Edward’s arm as if the service was still upsetting her.
Exactly one hour after the last person had departed, Powerscourt presented himself, as stealthily as he could, in the back parlour of the porter’s lodge. A fire burned brightly in the tiny grate and a junior porter was despatched to hold the fort while Roland Haydon, the Head Porter, conferred with Powerscourt.
‘Please take a seat, sir, and I’ll tell you what we found out.’ Haydon was a surprisingly youthful Head Porter, just into his thirties, easily the youngest man in that position in any Inn of Court. He had begun his career in the hotel trade and then become a junior porter in Queen’s five years before. His quickness and discretion made him a natural choice when his predecessor finally retired at the age of seventy-one, not, he said, because he was getting old, but because he’d always believed in giving youth a chance.
‘That’s very kind of you,’ said Powerscourt, taking his place by the left side of the fire.
‘Well, sir, there’s two pieces of intelligence, I suppose you could call them. And I’m not sure what to make of either of them. You remember you asked us to look out for any young women who might be scouting round before the service but not actually attending it? Well, we found one of those, about an hour before kick-off, sir, if you’ll pardon the expression. Young Matthews spoke to her, he’s very good at being polite when he wants to be, is young Matthews. She told him her name was Eve Adams, sir, and she gave her address as Number 7, Eden Street in Finsbury.’
Powerscourt laughed. ‘I’m glad to see you agree with me, sir,’ said Haydon. ‘I told Matthews he’d been sold a pup, a biblical pup from the Book of Genesis, mind you, but still a pup. I had to make him look it up on the street map to show him there was no Eden Street in Finsbury.’
‘Well, she showed some spirit, this female, Mr Haydon. What was she like?’
Haydon smiled. ‘He’s got an eye for the ladies, young Matthews has. I will not repeat the precise words of his description or what he said he would like to do to the young lady, sir. When you decode his statement, she was about thirty years old, well spoken, blonde hair, brown eyes and a shapely figure, sir, that might be the best way to translate the Matthews version.’
‘Had he ever seen her before?’ asked Powerscourt.
‘No, he hadn’t, but he very much hopes he’ll see her again. Matthews says what she needs is a younger man, sir. He’s only nineteen.’
‘I’m sure,’ Powerscourt said with a smile, ‘that he’ll keep a good lookout for her. And how about the other piece of news?’
Roland Haydon scratched his head at this point. ‘That’s more curious still. You’ll recall that two of the people who saw the mysterious visitor saw his back only. They didn’t get a front view at all. They both of them thought they saw the visitor today around the time of the service, but realized later that they must have been mistaken.’
‘Why was that?’ asked Powerscourt, sensing that anything that puzzled such a capable man as Haydon must be hard to grasp.
‘It’s this, sir,’ he said. ‘They thought Mrs Dauntsey was the visitor, seen from the back. Once they realized who it was, they knew they must be mistaken, but it’s strange all the same.’
Powerscourt looked curious. ‘How odd that they should have made the same error,’ he said, reaching for his wallet. ‘Your men have done splendidly, Mr Haydon, and so have you as officer commanding. May I present you with another five pounds for distribution as you think fit? No, I insist. Just one last thing, Mr Haydon. Could you let me have the address for the previous Financial Steward, Mr Bassett?’
Haydon disappeared into his seat of custom and came back with an ancient ledger. ‘Here we are, Number 15, Petley Road, Fulham. Funny thing, Lord Powerscourt, Mr Dauntsey asked me for the address, must have been a week or so before he died. It went right out of my mind.’
Powerscourt was on his way to talk to Edward in New Court when he almost bumped into Chief Inspector Beecham.
‘Come, my lord, I have news, but I would rather not impart it here.’ He led the way out of the porter’s lodge and on to the Embankment. Jack Beecham remained silent until they were well away from Queen’s Inn.
‘We’ve got the report from the government analyst, Dr Stevenson, about what was used to poison Mr Dauntsey, my lord. The reason it took so long was that he had been on holiday in France, Dr Stevenson.’
‘Well?’ said Powserscourt.
‘Strychnine, sir, that’s what it was. He found 6.39 grains of it in the stomach and its contents. He wasn’t taking any chances, our murderer, my lord. It only takes half a grain to kill you.’
‘What about the time it was administered? What did Dr Stevenson say about that?’
‘You know as well as I do, my lord, what these medical gentlemen are like. He said it could have been as little as fifteen minutes before death, but he doubts that. If pressed he would say about one hour to one hour and a half before the fatal accident.’
‘So,’ said Powerscourt, ‘Dauntsey probably took the fatal dose at that drinks party in the Treasurer’s rooms before the feast. He could have taken it in his own rooms just before six o’clock but we do not know if he had any visitors. Do we know, Chief Inspector, if Treasurer Somerville had one of the Inn servants in attendance on his guests, or did he do it all himself?’
‘I checked that in our transcripts but half an hour ago, my lord,’ said Beecham. ‘It seems the servants were all tied up with the preparations of the feast. Either the gentlemen helped themselves or Mr Treasurer Somerville poured the drinks.’
11
And still, Powerscourt thought, irritated now by his inability to solve the mystery, there was Maxfield. Or rather, there wasn’t Maxfield. Surely a man couldn’t just vanish off the face of the earth and defy the efforts of the police, solicitors, private inquiry agents to find him. One of his junior officers, Jack Beecham had told Powerscourt with a grin, had thought of the House of Lords solution very early on. It had been checked. Maxfield wasn’t there. The police had now extended their search to all the mental hospitals and asylums in the North of England, to all persons recruited in the last three years into the armed forces, the Merchant Navy and the coastguard. Johnny Fitzgerald had put forward the theory that Maxfield had joined the French Foreign Legion and would never be seen again.
Powerscourt was walking up and down his drawing room now, wrestling with the problem. Something from his very first meeting with Matthew Plunkett was floating elusively at the edge of his brain. It was something to do with a name. No, it wasn’t a name, it was a nickname. Plunkett’s uncle answered to the name of Killer Plunkett, that was it. No doubt, in the same way that his own close friends referred to him as Francis, this Plunkett was hailed and greeted as Kil
ler. Did Maxfield have such a name? A name, or rather a nickname, he must have had for so many years that most of his close friends would not have known or had forgotten he was called Maxfield at all? How did that help to find him?
Powerscourt sat down at the little desk by the window where he sometimes wrote his letters. There were two things he felt sure of about Maxfield, even though his mind told him they were completely irrational. One was that he had to do with cricket. The second was that he had been in serious financial trouble, that Dauntsey’s money was to bale a friend out of debt, gambling debts perhaps. Even on the Stock Market, he did not think Maxfield could have lost that much money. Perhaps he would check with William Burke. He began writing a series of letters to different parts of the organizations already visited by Plunkett Marlowe and Plunkett. They had written to the bursar of Dauntsey’s old school, to the admissions tutor of his Cambridge college, to the adjutant of his regiment in the Army and so on. They had merely inquired about a past member called F.L. Maxfield. Powerscourt wrote to the senior groundsman at the same places, asking after a boy or a young man who had been known throughout his time with them by his nickname. Powerscourt had to admit that he had no idea what the nickname might be, but that the person’s real name was F.L. Maxfield. He added that this person was a keen cricketer and had possibly played in the same team as one Alexander Dauntsey. Only at the end of the letter did he mention that Dauntsey had been murdered. He stopped when he had reached five and was about to address his envelopes when he thought of one last shot. He wrote a final letter and popped it in its envelope. It was addressed to the Head Groundsman, Calne, Maidstone, Kent.
It was odd, Sarah Henderson reflected to herself, how the presence of a man changed the atmosphere so considerably. She supposed you would have to count her Edward, as she now mentally referred to him, Edward himself not yet informed of the change of ownership, as a man, though she usually thought of him with his gangling frame and innocent face as a boy. But here he was, sitting in front of the fire in her home at Acton, with her mother on one side and herself on the other. Everything about this evening had been totally unexpected. Sarah had told her mother days before all she had learnt from Edward, about his train crash, about his speech difficulties, about living with his grandparents. She was resigned to a long inquisition. None came. She thought her mother would be her normal crabby self, ever ready with a sharp interjection or a put-down. None came. It was as if Edward brought a change of personality to her mother. And that, in turn, made Sarah feel irritated. Why she should feel irritated because her mother was going out of her way to be pleasant to her young man she did not know. Deep down, she suspected, she might feel – not jealous, that would be too strong, peeved perhaps that somebody else was trying to captivate her Edward. Her mother had developed a deep interest in the forthcoming Puncknowle trial.
‘Remind me, Edward,’ she said, smiling kindly at the young man, ‘when exactly is it coming to court? I know you’ve told me, but I’ve forgotten. My memory isn’t what it was.’
Playing for the sympathy vote, Sarah said to herself.
‘It starts on Thursday, Mrs Henderson,’ said Edward.
‘And how wicked has Mr Puncknowle been? Is he as wicked as the Ripper or that terrible fraudster Jabez Balfour, Edward?’
She’s getting bloodthirsty in her old age, Sarah thought. Suddenly she wondered if she herself was going to end up like this. She rather hoped not.
‘Well, he’s pretty wicked,’ said Edward cheerfully, ‘but he didn’t actually kill anybody, as far as we know. He’s not been charged with murder or anything like that. But he’s defrauded a great many people, Mrs Henderson, that’s pretty wicked.’
Edward was showing admirable patience, Sarah thought, seeing he had answered all these points at least once before.
‘Just tell me again how he defrauded them, Edward. I don’t think I quite got the hang of it first time round even though you explained it so beautifully.’
Poor Edward, Sarah thought, having to explain everything three times and then once more for luck.
Edward picked up a teaspoon, one of a number lying on the tea trolley. He winked at Sarah when he was out of the line of sight of her mother. That made her feel better.
‘Think of this as Company Number One, Mrs Henderson. Mr Puncknowle asks people to invest, or buy shares in a great company called the Freedom Building Society. Lots of people buy them. But Mr Puncknowle and his friends are greedy. They take lots of the money for themselves rather than using it to help people buy houses. The promise made to the people when they bought the shares was that they would get a dividend, a share of the profits, twice a year. But after all the money he’s stolen, Mr Puncknowle doesn’t have any money left. So he launches another company, Company Number Two.’ Edward picked up another teaspoon. This time he blew Sarah a kiss. ‘More people subscribe or buy shares. That new money goes to pay the dividends of the old company. And so on,’ said Edward, realizing that Companies Four, Five and Six in the Puncknowle house of cards might be too many for Mrs Henderson to grasp. And there weren’t enough teaspoons.
‘How beautifully you explain it, Edward,’ said Mrs Henderson.
Flatterer, thought Sarah. Even Edward may be susceptible to flattery.
‘So he really is quite wicked,’ said Mrs Henderson, who seemed to get some special satisfaction out of the word wicked. ‘How long will he be sent to jail for?’
‘He has to be found guilty first,’ said Edward with a smile.
He doesn’t have to smile at her every time he speaks, Sarah thought to herself, maybe the stuttering would have been better. Then she told herself off. That, she said, was bad. Edward talking properly is a great advance. If he goes on like this he’ll be perfectly normal in another six months.
‘And will you be in court, Edward? Will you have a ringside seat?’
‘Some of the time, I will, Mrs Henderson. I won’t have to say anything, though. I’ll only be there to give advice to our barristers.’
It was Mrs Henderson’s parting shot that was the most astonishing of all. As Sarah was helping her upstairs to bed, she turned in the doorway and said, ‘I want you to remember, Edward, that you have two very good friends in this house. I hope you will feel free to come and see us as often as you can.’ And with that mother and daughter began the slow ascent of the stairs. Sarah hoped it wouldn’t put Edward off, the prospect of further lengthy interrogations every time he came to Acton. Edward was wondering if he could find the courage to kiss Sarah when she came back downstairs.
Lord Francis Powerscourt did not give the impression of having been unduly alarmed by Johnny Fitzgerald’s report that there might be a contract on his life. He had, after all, been in danger for much of his adult life, with the Army in India, as Head of Intelligence in the Boer War, in the pursuit and apprehension of various murderers. But this time he did take it seriously. Ever since that day he had revived a practice he had followed religiously in India. There, usually at the end of each day, he had written down his findings for the past twenty-four hours, where he believed the enemy to be, what strength they had, what reinforcements they might expect. In this way, if he was killed, his successor would not be denied the benefit of his knowledge. The Daily Will was how Johnny Fitzgerald used to describe it. Now, in this time of civilian danger, he had first put down a description of the murders and brief records of all his interviews during the case. He entered too his suspicions, the lines of inquiry he wished to pursue over the next few days. He would have entered the name of the murderer if he felt sure of it.
That task completed, and a letter despatched to the Financial Steward Bassett, saying he proposed to call on him the following afternoon, he went to join Lady Lucy in the drawing room in Manchester Square. She was seated at the piano, playing, very softly, ‘Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring’. Powerscourt loved to hear her play. She began to stop but he waved her on. He wondered if she was going to sing when Johnny Fitzgerald walked in, clutching a fistful of s
heets of paper covered in drawings. Lady Lucy turned round and greeted the two of them. ‘Don’t stop, Lucy, please,’ said Johnny.
‘If Music be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it that surfeiting
The appetite may sicken and so die.
That strain again! It had a dying fall.
It came o’er my ear like the sweet sound
That breathes upon a bank of violets . . .’
Johnny had been making melodramatic gestures as he spoke. Lady Lucy smiled at him. Powerscourt had turned pale.
‘Just confirm this for me, if you would, Johnny. Those are the opening lines of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night?’
‘They are indeed,’ Fitzgerald replied cheerfully. ‘Shouldn’t I know that as I played your man Orsino at school. My housemaster thought I should have been Sir Toby Belch and the headmaster said I should I have been Sir Andrew Aguecheek, who’s even more of a drunken layabout than Sir Toby. Quite why I should have been identified with the fruits of the god Bacchus at such an early stage I have no idea. The man who did the drama thought I should be Orsino so that’s who I played. But look here, Francis, I’ve brought an early draft of The Birds of London.’
Normally this would have been the focus of intense study and excitement, but Powerscourt seemed to have no interest in birds or anything other than his own thoughts. He was pacing up and down his drawing room like Nelson on his quarterdeck, muttering to himself from time to time, shaking his head, pausing to look out of the window into Manchester Square.
Death Called to the Bar Page 19