Death Called to the Bar

by David Dickinson

  ‘Good morning, my lord,’ said the Chief Inspector. ‘I’m sorry the news about Newton reached you so late last night but I thought you would like to know.’

  ‘I am most grateful to you, Chief Inspector. Do you have any more information about his disappearance? Any leads?’

  ‘We know now that the last time he disappeared he went to stay with a younger sister in Kent. There he went for walks, played with the children, acted out the role of favourite uncle to perfection. But he hasn’t gone there this time, not so far.’

  Powerscourt remembered his last interview with Porchester Newton, the point blank refusal to answer questions, the veins throbbing in his forehead, those huge hands moving forward into what might have been an attack and strangle position.

  ‘Do you suppose that he had come to learn about your inquiries, that one of them might have really alarmed him? Sorry, Chief Inspector, I’m not expressing myself very well.’ Powerscourt found it hard to think and talk in this noisy inferno. ‘Is it possible that you were pursuing a line of inquiry which would have revealed to Newton that you now knew him to be the murderer? And that, therefore, he had to disappear?’

  ‘Well, we might have been,’ said Beecham morosely, ‘but if we were, it was an accident.’

  Edward and Sarah had finalized the details of the theft the night before. Sarah had agreed that the typewriter should be successful in drawing the gorgon from her lair, as Edward put it. As it happened, Sarah had in her attic a number of box files that had come from the gorgon’s cave, and had labels attached to them in the handwriting of the gorgon herself. Sarah was confident that with a bit of practice she could do a passable imitation of the handwriting to be found on the boxes with the account files.

  The first stage of Operation Theft, as Edward liked to call it, was due to take place shortly before nine thirty. Maxwell Kirk, head of the chambers where Edward and Sarah worked, had agreed surprisingly easily to ask for a visit from Barton Somerville on being told that the scheme was really Powerscourt’s and might have a minor role to play in the murder investigation. A porter was sent with the request from New Court across to Fountain Court where the Treasurer’s rooms were. Edward watched him go, a middle-aged porter with the steady walk of one who had travelled this route many times before. Sarah’s room mate was away for the morning so Sarah was contemplating the ruin of her typewriter with some satisfaction. The ribbon had got stuck somewhere in the bowels of the machine, bits of it were wrapped firmly round various keys and would, Sarah thought, take some time to sort out.

  Nine forty came and the beginning of the exodus of barristers towards their day in court. There were always a few who departed earlier than they needed to, anxious perhaps to arrange their papers properly before judge and jury. The great mass would go about nine forty-five and it was this throng that Edward hoped Somerville would join. As he watched anxiously at his window, Edward saw the clock move on with agonizing slowness. Ten to ten, five to ten. Maybe Somerville wasn’t coming. Maybe he had simply refused as the request threatened his dignity. He was, after all, a man who asked his colleagues to address him as Treasurer. Five past ten. Edward began to feel like a soldier all geared up for battle, bayonet at the ready, who is told by his commanding officer that the battle has been postponed until another day. He wondered if he should go upstairs and tell Sarah. Then he might miss the arrival of Somerville. Sarah, in the attic floor, leaning out of the window, probably had the best view of the lot.

  ‘It’s always seemed to me to be perfectly possible that Porchester Newton was the murderer,’ said Powerscourt, ‘though I am somewhat confused about the motive. Was it a continuation of the feud that carried on right up to the benchers’ election? Was it fury that he would not now enjoy the fruits of being a bencher? Did he know more than we do about how rewarding those fruits might be?’

  ‘It’s a great pity we never found out what the row was about,’ said Beecham. ‘Not one of them would speak to us about it and not one of them would speak to you, Lord Powerscourt.’

  ‘I think I have the better of you there,’ said Powerscourt, suddenly animated, ‘and I apologize most sincerely for not telling you beforehand. It slipped my mind. I got the information by handing over a considerable sum to the Head Porter. It’s amazing how notes can make people talk. Now then, the main bone of contention in the feud was as follows.’

  It was ten past ten before the tall, silver-haired figure of Barton Somerville could be seen, marching slowly across his court towards Maxwell Kirk’s chambers. Edward watched him come in, just beneath his window. Half an hour was the figure he had given Kirk for the length of time required for the meeting. Sarah was to wait one minute before setting out for the gorgon’s lair. Even watching from behind, Edward could tell she was upset. She seemed to have wrenched her hair into a condition of confusion rather than the well-planned order it normally displayed. She was running, if not at full speed, then at a steady pace.

  ‘Miss McKenna,’ Sarah panted, ‘I’m so pleased you’re here. It’s my typewriter, it’s broken, the ribbon, I can’t fix it and I’ve got this work for Mr Kirk that has to be handed in and I don’t know what to do. Will you please come and help me?’

  The gorgon inspected Sarah carefully. Her hair was indeed a mousy colour and she was wearing a suit that Sarah did not believe could ever have been fashionable, in a colour once memorably described by Edward as Repugnant Brown.

  ‘Take it more slowly, Sarah. Your typewriter is not functioning?’

  Sarah nodded.

  ‘The ribbon is malfunctioning?’

  ‘It’s come off,’ Sarah said, ‘it’s wrapped round some other part and I can’t undo it. I’m sure you could sort it out for me, Miss McKenna, it would only take you a minute or two.’

  By now, in the master plan, the gorgon should have been out of her lair and halfway down the stairs. Edward was rooted to his window. Barton Somerville had been in with Kirk for over ten minutes. It was four minutes since Sarah had set off for the gorgon’s cave. The operation was not going according to plan.

  ‘Did you say you had some work that has to be completed for Mr Kirk?’

  Sarah nodded. ‘Why don’t you borrow another machine?’ Miss McKenna suggested brightly. ‘We could get one of the porters to bring it up for you.’

  This possibility hadn’t featured in Sarah’s conversations with Edward at all, but she rose to the occasion magnificently.

  ‘I thought of that but it wouldn’t do, Miss McKenna. Mr Kirk has a special machine which produces slightly bigger type on the page. I think his eyes must be going. It’s the only one of its kind in Queen’s. And,’ here Sarah looked at her watch and groaned, ‘it’s meant to be handed over by lunchtime and I’ve got pages and pages to do. I’ll get sacked if I don’t finish it. It’s for that big fraud trial, you see. Please, Miss McKenna, won’t you come and help me. You’re the only person in the Inn who can save me now! Please! We must be quick!’

  ‘Well,’ said the gorgon, ‘it’s most unusual for myself and the Treasurer to be out of the office at the same time but it can’t be helped.’

  Sarah half dragged her out of the office and down the stairs, the gorgon pausing only to close the door. Nineteen minutes had elapsed since Barton Somerville entered the Kirk chambers. Twenty had passed before Sarah and Miss McKenna were sighted approaching Sarah’s rooms. Twenty-two had elapsed before they had clattered up the stairs and Edward reckoned they were fully engaged with the errant typewriter ribbon. After twenty-three minutes Edward, with three black box files under his arm, set out across the path leading to Fountain Court. He wanted to run but he knew he couldn’t. Walking across the court like this was perfectly normal. Running, unless a man was extremely late for court, was most unusual.

  ‘I think the reason the barristers refused to speak to us, Chief Inspector,’ said Powerscourt, ‘is that they were ashamed of themselves. Even the Head Porter, not a man famous for criticizing his lords and masters, said that their language was often w
orse than that of Billingsgate Fish Market and the behaviour bad enough to have some of them up in front of the justices for breaches of the peace.’

  ‘I suppose,’ said Beecham, ‘that if you make a living by being prepared to insult people in a courtroom occasionally, you won’t find it too hard when it comes to events back in your own chambers.’

  ‘Exactly so,’ said Powerscourt. ‘The contest appeared to be going along with little advantage to one side or the other until about ten days before polling day. You must remember, Chief Inspector, that the porters were most intimately involved in the event. They were following the gentlemen’s bets on the outcome very closely and they themselves had a variety of wagers at different odds with the unofficial bookmaker, covering bets, bets on the size of the majority, bets on the total number of votes that would be cast, that sort of thing. Anyway, as I say, with ten days to go Newton and his people decide it’s time to take the gloves off. They start putting it about that the barristers should not be electing a bencher who would only be able to serve from Monday to Wednesday. This was a clear reference to Dauntsey’s nervous depressions, his days off, as it were, the inexplicable occasions when his great talent seemed to desert him.’

  ‘That was a pretty filthy tactic,’ said Chief Inspector Beecham. ‘Did it work? Surely the barristers knew all that already?’

  ‘It seemed to work for about a week,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Whether it took Dauntsey’s people that long to do their research, or whether they thought Newton’s tactics might backfire, I don’t know. But they certainly fought back in kind. Newton wasn’t a gentleman, they said. His father kept two grocery shops in Wolverhampton. His grandmother had been a junior parlourmaid. They produced a rather vicious but very effective cartoon, apparently. Across the top was the legend “Our New Bencher” with many exclamation marks beside it. Underneath were two drawings, one showing a younger but very recognizable Newton counting out the change in the grocery shop, and the other showing him helping an elderly lady, presumably his grandmother, to fold the ironing in some great airing room. A hundred years ago or less, people fought duels for stuff like this.’

  ‘Have you thought, Lord Powerscourt, that it may be that the people here still haven’t stopped fighting duels for this kind of smear?’

  ‘I see what you mean, Sarah,’ said the gorgon, inspecting the loops of typewriter ribbon festooned across the top of the machine. She tugged, lightly at first, then harder and harder until the veins on her neck began to stand out. ‘Do you have any scissors? And a spare ribbon, I’m sure you must have one or two of those.’

  Edward was less than a hundred yards away from the Treasurer’s staircase.

  Sarah realized to her horror that the gorgon’s solution would see her out of the door in a minute or so. Edward might not have enough time. He might be caught by the gorgon in person and confined in some monstrous prison.

  ‘Surely it won’t work if we cut it,’ she said. ‘That bit of ribbon that’s stuck around those two keys means that we won’t have the letters p and l at all.’

  ‘I think you’ll find,’ the gorgon said rather sharply, seizing the scissors firmly as if she was going to slit someone’s throat, ‘that if we cut the ribbon as close as we can to the keys, they will be released as the ribbon falls down into the machine.’ She began clipping the ribbon firmly. Edward was now at the entrance to the staircase containing Barton Somerville’s quarters. Twenty-five minutes had elapsed. The Treasurer might even now be on his way back to his quarters but Edward did not dare look round.

  With a particularly vicious snip the gorgon freed the reluctant keys of p and l. ‘There,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t as bad as all that. Do you have a new ribbon, Sarah?’

  Edward took the stairs up to the first floor two at a time. The door was closed. Oh, no, he said to himself, peering back down the stairs. Very gingerly, as if the door might explode in his face, Edward turned the handle and pushed. He was in.

  ‘I think I’ll be getting back now,’ said the gorgon, watching Sarah unwrap another roll of typewriter ribbon. ‘We can’t leave the Treasurer’s office unmanned for too long, can we.’

  Sarah was not sure if Edward had had enough time. She wondered desperately if there was some other ruse that might keep the gorgon in her attic a little longer.

  Edward had brought down the three files relating to 1899 and the first six months of 1900. He slipped the three dummy files he had brought into the place where the originals had been, checking they were correctly aligned with their fellows.

  Miss McKenna waited no longer. With a businesslike ‘Goodbye’ she was down the stairs, heading rapidly back towards her lair.

  ‘We’ve checked all those places, of course,’ said Beecham. ‘Newton’s parents in Wolverhampton and the grandmother. No sign of him. My colleague who went to talk to the parents said how proud they were of their son, gone from a Midlands back street to Queen’s Inn and maybe even a bencher’s chair.’

  ‘Did they have any idea where he was?’ asked Powerscourt.

  ‘No, but this is the interesting thing, Lord Powerscourt. My colleague who questioned them said he was sure the parents thought their son was the killer. They looked very rattled when told about the two deaths. And when he asked them if Newton had a temper they both said he did. The father began rubbing his hand round some mark on his forehead as if Porchester had clocked him one in his youth.’

  ‘God bless my soul,’ said Powerscourt. ‘How very interesting that the parents should think he was the murderer. Not that they’d ever say anything in court.’

  There was a knock at the door and another of the Chief Inspector’s young policemen came in with a note for Beecham. He read it very fast and looked up at Powerscourt. ‘Death calls again, I fear. Not in Queen’s Inn but for that former employee you went to see, a Mr Bassett, Mr John Bassett, of Petley Road, Fulham. They only found him today. The sergeant isn’t sure if the death is due to natural causes or not. The police surgeon is on his way. I have to stay here for now, Lord Powerscourt, with the various strands of inquiry into Newton still coming in . . . ’

  ‘Of course,’ said Powerscourt. ‘I shall go at once to pay my last respects to Mr Bassett. I rather liked the little man.’

  Edward saw the large diary lying open on her desk. Quickly he swung the pages back to the week before the murder of Alex Dauntsey. There it was, six days before the feast, a meeting with Dauntsey and Stewart, at Dauntsey’s request, underlined in the gorgon’s hand. Edward wondered what other clues might be hiding here. Then he turned and walked as fast as he could down the stairs, his three files under his arm, until he realized he had forgotten to close the door. As he headed back up the stairs, his heart pounding once more, the gorgon was emerging from the main entrance to Edward’s chambers in New Court. He came down the steps two at a time, turned right and was out of the back door of the Inn a full thirty seconds before the gorgon came into view. Within a minute Edward and his files were in a cab, heading for Manchester Square. He hoped Lord Powerscourt would be pleased with him.

  At first sight Petley Road looked exactly the same as any other Victorian terrace in the capital, most of the front doors clean, a few flowers beginning to come out in the tiny front gardens, one or two ambitious residents trying to grow trees on their section of pavement. But when you looked closely, things were different. There were little groups of women, three at least, Powerscourt thought, conversing quietly on their front porches and casting furtive glances from time to time at the late Mr Bassett’s residence at Number 15. Outside that house, looking as though he had been planted there many years before, was a six-foot, fourteen-stone policeman, his task to keep the prying eyes of all and sundry away from what lay within. And then, as Powerscourt was just a few feet away from the front door, he saw a team of four black horses pulling an undertaker’s carriage, also draped in black, turning into Petley Road from the other end. They had come, presumably, to take the body away.

  Powerscourt found the police surgeon c
ircling the body in the first-floor bedroom. Even here, Powerscourt saw, John Bassett’s love of the distant places of the earth had taken hold on the walls. Downstairs in the living room it had been views of Mount Everest and the Sahara desert, the Arctic and the vast steppes of Siberia. Up here there were pictures of a very long train climbing up what Powerscourt presumed to be the Rocky Mountains, a breathtaking illustration of Niagara Falls and a vast panorama of ruins that Powerscourt thought must be the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. He made his introductions to the police surgeon who, he gathered, was called James Wilson.

  ‘Your reputation precedes you, Lord Powerscourt,’ said Wilson, when he had been given the briefest of summaries of the Queen’s Inn case and Powerscourt’s close alliance with Detective Chief Inspector Beecham. ‘You and the Chief Inspector must make a formidable team. I presume,’ he went on, turning to look once more at the body of John Bassett, ‘that you want to know if there was anything untoward about this old man’s death. He used to work at Queen’s, I gather.’

  ‘That is correct,’ said Powerscourt. At first sight it seemed obvious that John Bassett had died in his sleep. He had gone to sleep on his back, something must have happened in the night, and he was gone. A spare pillow was lying halfway down the bed.

  ‘There is every reason to think that Mr Bassett died of natural causes, Lord Powerscourt. None of the examinations I have been able to perform suggest anything else. He was very old. The system decided to shut down. The heart simply stopped beating. He wasn’t hit over the head, or shot, or poisoned like your unfortunate legal gentlemen. There is only one thing you could, just possibly, think of as being suspicious if you were that way inclined.’

  ‘And that is?’ said Powerscourt.

  ‘It’s this pillow,’ said the doctor. ‘Why do you have a pillow halfway down your bed? The police were the first people into this house so we can be sure nothing has been moved. Do you know anybody, Lord Powerscourt, who sleeps with a pillow halfway down the bed?’