Death in a Scarlet Coat

by David Dickinson

  There was one final blast in the penultimate paragraph. Lady Lucy was ready for anything now. ‘Just one last admonition. I trust you will not be bringing any children or pets with you. You will, no doubt, be familiar with the old saying that children should be seen but not heard. My own view is that they should be neither seen nor heard in any properly run household. My own – how I regret ever having had them – were largely reared by the staff in the domestic outbuildings and only allowed in the main house for a spell of fifteen minutes a week on Sunday afternoons.’ Perhaps the children had turned into monsters, locked away in the bedrooms above the stables, fed on a diet of rhubarb and beetroot, grown crabby and dyspeptic before their time. Perhaps they had run away. Or asked for more. Probably not that, she told herself.

  The final paragraph was refreshingly conventional. ‘I look forward to seeing you for luncheon tomorrow at twelve thirty. If you should desire drink – another fatal poison in Britain’s bloodstream – I am told the vicar’s wife makes a passable version of something known as dandelion wine. I have some in one of the outhouses. Yours etc., Leticia Hamilton.’

  Lady Lucy screwed up her eyes and read it once more. She would ask Johnny Fitzgerald what wine he would recommend to have with the beetroot. Bull’s Blood from Hungary or wherever it came from? Lacryma Christi?

  Johnny Fitzgerald was fond of vicars and curates and gentlemen of the cloth but he did not share his friend’s absolute fascination with the breed. Powerscourt had once said that he wished it were possible to preserve some of the more eccentric specimens and keep them in an attic, to be brought back to life at his pleasure. The curate of St Matthew and All Angels, Candlesby, the Reverend Tobias Flint, was a balding man in his middle thirties, clean shaven, with mournful eyes. He carried about with him an air of worry and general distraction as if he felt God was calling him to service in some other place but he wasn’t, for the moment, quite sure where that other place was.

  ‘Of course, of course, only too pleased to be of some use,’ he had said in reply to Johnny’s general request for help concerning the Candlesbys and Jack Hayward. ‘How precisely can I help you?’

  ‘To my way of thinking,’ said Johnny, hoping his stay would not be too long in these uncomfortable chairs with the protruding springs that graced what the curate was pleased to call his study, ‘the Earl may have sent the Hayward family away to some of his relations elsewhere in the county or the country. Mr Drake down at the hotel said you were a great man for their family history. Can you think of any place he might have sent them?’

  ‘I see, I see,’ said the curate, pointing suddenly to shelf after shelf of ancient books and files. ‘It’s my hobby, you know, the Candlesby family history. I’m never sure people in my position should have hobbies when we are meant to be doing God’s work, but my wife always points out that lots of my colleagues ride to hounds or play politics in the House of Lords. Anyway I’ve made a list somewhere of all the people they’ve married and where they came from. That should help. If only, if only, I could remember where I put it.’

  The Reverend Flint peered helplessly at his shelves. Then some practical rather than divine inspiration seemed to strike him.

  ‘How foolish of me,’ he apologized to Johnny Fitzgerald. ‘Wives, filed next to Wills in my system. Of course.’ He pulled down a folder and began to read.

  ‘I think the beginning of the last century would be a good place to start, don’t you? The family got into a lot of trouble during the Civil War, you know – managed to fall out with both sides at the same time. Miracle they came through, really. Let me see, let me see.’ The curate sent his index finger skimming down the page. ‘First marriage of that time, 1809, eleventh Earl, Thomas Dymoke, married a Herbert, Henrietta Jane, of Bag Enderby quite near here, June fifteenth. She was buried in the Mausoleum in 1862, distant relation of the Wilton Herberts, I believe. No indication of the two families remaining close. Something tells me that the girl’s family didn’t approve of the match. Next Earl, William Edward, 1845, married a Winifred Maria Horne of Louth, August ninth. I think this Winifred was an only child so unlikely to be many family connections left there.’

  The curate ran a despairing hand over his balding head and turned a few more pages. ‘This looks more promising: 1865, thirteenth Earl, Randal Henry Alexander Dymoke, married Margaret Alice Harrington of Silk Willoughby Hall, Silk Willoughby, on July twelfth. Now this bride was an only daughter with three brothers who must, therefore, have also been called Harrington.’

  The Reverend Flint became animated, rubbing his hands together as though his life depended on it. ‘Now then, Mr Fitzgerald, we need another couple of folders. Baptisms and Deaths, that’s what we need. My predecessors always kept a record of the people from the big house and their friends and relations who came to funerals and baptisms, that sort of thing. Often they were godparents or pallbearers. We have two families of Harringtons making regular appearances up until two or three years ago. One of them still lives at Silk Willoughby Hall and the other is at The Limes, Wrangle Lowgate, very near the coast south of here. Does that help?’

  ‘Indeed it does. I am most grateful to you,’ said Johnny, anxious to escape ordeal by chair spring. He did wonder if this habit of recording the names and addresses of members of the gentry who came to family milestone services was a regular custom in the Church of England. He suspected it smacked of the behaviour of the oleaginous Mr Collins, rector of Rosings and humble and grateful recipient of the bounty of Lady Catherine de Bourgh in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

  Walter Savage, steward of the Candlesby estate, was a solid-looking man of about sixty years of age with white hair and a very ruddy complexion that might, Powerscourt thought, be the result of years spent in the open air, or it might be the result of many years partaking of the solace of grape and grain. He had a very deep voice and a habit of wiping a hand on his trousers every now and then as if it needed cleaning.

  ‘Well, Lord Powerscourt,’ Walter Savage began, ‘this is a pretty business and no mistake. I’d be pleased to help in any way I can. My father was steward here before me so you could say we’re fairly well acquainted with the place by now. Perhaps you could tell me what you would like to know.’

  Powerscourt had wondered before the steward came about whose side he would be on. Would he be a loyal supporter of the family, saying nothing that might do them harm? Or would he bear a grudge against them for some ill treatment in the past and pour out his venom in Mr Drake’s finest sitting room with the prints of the Lake District on the walls?

  ‘It would be very useful for me to know the general financial position here, Mr Savage. I don’t want any figures or anything like that, of course, but it would be useful for background. Money in all its forms plays such an important part in all our lives these days, don’t you think?’

  Walter Savage grunted. ‘Could I ask you a question before we go any further, Lord Powerscourt? Do you think the late Earl was murdered?’

  Powerscourt stared for a moment into the dark eyes opposite. Better tell the truth, he said to himself. It had always been one of his mother’s instructions to him and his sisters when they were growing up.

  ‘I do, as a matter of fact, Mr Savage. But just at this moment I can’t prove it and I’d be grateful if you’d keep that piece of information to yourself for the time being.’

  ‘Of course, my lord, I shan’t say a word. Now then, you asked me about the condition of the estate. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say I don’t think it could be worse.’

  ‘Really?’ said Powerscourt.

  ‘I’m sure an intelligent man like yourself knows the background to big landed estates like this one, my lord. They say things move in cycles, good after bad and bad after good. Well, the last good times round here were years and years ago. It’s bad after bad after bad these days. Now rents are going down all the time. Foreign produce from abroad, even from as far away as Australia, is cheaper than what we can produce on our own land.
Estates are worth less and less per acre. Fads keep coming along that suck the money out of big estates like this one. Twenty years ago drainage was all the rage. Get your land properly drained and the crops will improve, the value of your land will go up, everything will be rosy. People like the Earl here borrowed money to carry out this drainage work. It may have made a bit of difference, I was never convinced myself, my lord, but the debts to the bank were real enough and they had to be repaid. We still haven’t finished paying them off today, now I come to think about it.’

  Walter Savage paused for a moment and shook his head. ‘It’s not as though there weren’t enough debts already, my lord. Cast your mind back to the good times. Let’s say you needed quite a lot of money to improve your house or look after your widowed mother or pay off your gambling debts or maybe, God help us, a mixture of all three. Your income is going up year after year and everybody thinks that will go on for ever. So you think that whatever you borrow now will seem a great deal less in ten years’ time than it does today. But then the wheel turns or the bad fairy smiles on you or whatever happens when fortune changes. Your income does not rise. It falls. The loans do not seem smaller. They seem bigger, much bigger. What is a landowner to do?’

  ‘More to the point, Mr Savage, what did this family do about it?’

  ‘Well,’ replied the steward, rubbing his hand along the side of his trousers once more, ‘there were a number of things you could try. You could economize for a start. Cut out all unnecessary expenditure. No more grand balls. No more racehorses. No more expensive trips to Paris or Rome to spice up a jaundiced palate. Just quiet country living. They didn’t do that here, of course. Or you could dispose of enough land to pay off your debts. No man likes to do that, selling your future to pay for your past. They didn’t do that here either. They’ve got the worst of all possible worlds – enormous debts, tens and tens of thousands of pounds, and the debts are getting bigger, not smaller, as they can’t always pay off all the interest. It’s really sad sometimes, my lord. We had a record wheat harvest a couple of years back and the late Earl watched it all being packed up and taken away. “Do you know, Savage,” he said to me, “that huge harvest won’t even pay half the interest on our debts at the blasted bank.” There are more exotic answers, of course. One very indebted landowner over at Barnby in the Willows down Newark way took himself off to the tables at Monte Carlo with money borrowed from his uncle. He told a few close friends it was, quite literally, do or die. Either he was going to make enough money to pay off the debts or he was going to shoot himself just as the casino closed.’

  ‘And what happened?’ asked Powerscourt, fascinated by the thought of rescue at the roulette table.

  ‘The man was lucky. He won a fortune, far more than he needed, at baccarat and chemin de fer. Do you know, he’s never gambled a penny since, not with his children or on the Derby or at the races or anywhere. He says, apparently, that he used up a lifetime’s luck in two evenings at the tables.’

  ‘He could have lost the lot, I suppose,’ said Powerscourt. ‘And then he’d have lost his brains as well. Are there any more conventional methods for easing the debt burden, Mr Savage?’

  ‘I fear there are only the two proper ones I mentioned before, my lord. Spend less, or sell your way out of trouble. Or you could marry an heiress and her money would take care of everything. There have been those who’ve advertised in America for wives, you know. I remember someone sent us one of these from a newspaper in Kansas years ago, wherever Kansas is. I’ll make you a lady, you pay off my debts, how about it, that sort of thing.’

  ‘I’ve got a brother-in-law who knows all about money,’ said Powerscourt. ‘I think his firm owns a couple of banks actually. He always says that if you are going to borrow from a bank you should borrow an enormous amount.’

  ‘Why is that, my lord? Doesn’t seem to make sense.’

  ‘Well,’ said Powerscourt with a smile, ‘his line, my brother-in-law’s, that is, goes something like this. If you owe the bank a little bit of money, they sort of own you. They can sell off your land or your goods if you don’t pay them back. But if you owe them an enormous amount, then you sort of own them. They’ll go bankrupt if you don’t pay back the money, you see, so they’ve got to keep you afloat.’

  Walter Savage laughed. ‘I reckon these Candlesbys must own the banks then,’ he said.

  ‘Can I ask you a question, Mr Savage?’ Powerscourt had grown to like the steward, himself and his father toiling in vain in the service of their masters who refused to take advice.

  ‘Of course, my lord.’

  ‘Do you think the late Earl was murdered?’

  That hand crept down to be wiped on the trouser leg once more. ‘I do,’ said Savage with scarcely a pause.

  Powerscourt waited for him to say some more but he didn’t. ‘What makes you think that, Mr Savage?’

  ‘What I’m going to say isn’t very rational, my lord. I wasn’t present at the meeting of the hunt or the arrival of the body on the horse and the diversion into the stables. But I’ve been around that house when people have died before. I know what the atmosphere is like. This time it was different. Those brothers weren’t sad, they were anxious, they were worried, they weren’t in mourning at all. And anyway, my lord, think about it. A body wrapped up so nobody can see it, brought back to the house by a faithful servant. How did he come to be dead? Why did nobody see the body apart from the eldest son and the doctor as I’ve been told? He was killed, I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Let me ask you another question, as you’ve been so helpful answering my first one, Mr Savage. Who could have wanted him dead? Who could have hated him so much they decided to murder him?’

  This time Walter Savage did pause. He looked at Powerscourt very carefully, as if he was thinking of buying him at auction like a horse.

  ‘Well, my lord,’ he said finally, ‘he certainly wasn’t killed for his money. Even in these changing times I’ve never heard of anybody being murdered for his debts.’ Walter Savage paused, as if he wasn’t sure where to go. ‘I’m assuming, my lord,’ he looked at Powerscourt once more, ‘that what I am about to say will be treated in the strictest confidence.’

  ‘You have my word on that,’ said Powerscourt firmly.

  ‘You see, my lord, it’s like this, I’m not quite sure how to put it … He was a truly horrible man, the late Earl. There, I’ve said it now. But it’s true. I think he was the worst human being I have ever met and I did spend a year or two before I was married visiting people in prison. The vicar said it might help their immortal souls if they talked to some normal citizens. Well, some of those people in Lincoln prison didn’t seem to belong to the human race at all. The late Earl was horrible to his children, he was horrible to his tenants, he was horrible to his neighbours, he was horrible to any visitors who came his way. Anybody could have had a reason to kill him, anybody at all who came into contact with him.’

  Powerscourt thought that the steward certainly wasn’t narrowing the possible range of suspects.

  ‘Did you know Jack Hayward well, Mr Savage?’

  ‘I did, my lord. He came to see me the day he went away, about three in the afternoon that would have been.’

  Once more Powerscourt waited for more information, but none came.

  ‘Did he say anything about what had happened on the morning the body came back?’

  ‘Not really, my lord. He just said it was terrible.’

  ‘Did he say he was going away?’

  ‘He did. That’s why he came to see me. He came to say goodbye. We’ve known each other for nearly twenty years, you see.’

  ‘Did he say where he was going? Did he say if he was coming back?’

  ‘The answer to both these questions is no, my lord. I’ll tell you what he did say, though. I don’t think he’d mind. He’s the last person on this earth I would want to betray or let down, Jack Hayward. “This has all been absolutely too terrible for words,” he said, staring into the fire in my li
ttle living room. “I can’t tell you anything about it, Walter. One day, please God, I will tell you, but not now. Please don’t ask me where I’m going. I can’t tell you that either.” With that he got up and left. When he reached the door, he stopped to say one last word. “Goodbye, Walter, and God bless you. Pray for us all. Pray for us every day as long as you live.” And with that he was gone, my lord. I haven’t seen him since.’

  Powerscourt was lost for words. ‘Thank you for telling me that,’ he said finally. ‘I am most grateful.’ There seemed little left to say. The two men sat quietly for a while, lost in their own thoughts.

  ‘Is there anything else I can tell you, my lord? I should be getting back soon.’

  ‘Not for the present, I don’t think,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Just one thing, though. Did the late Earl ever mention anybody who might want to kill him? Was there anyone he was frightened of?’

  ‘Not that I remember, my lord. Mind you, there was one person he was always frightened of. You recall we were talking about banks earlier?’

  ‘I do,’ said Powerscourt, wondering if the bankers of Lincolnshire had taken to murdering their heavily indebted clients.

  ‘When I was assistant steward to my father, it must have been nearly thirty years ago, the bank manager was a great brute of a man, six feet four if he was an inch and a fist the size of a blacksmith’s. When he came over to meet the Earl, he would virtually lie down on the floor and grovel. Yes, my lord. How are the children, my lord? And your lady wife, my lord? This sort of thing could go on for five or ten minutes. The late Earl lapped it up, probably thought that was how everybody should address him. The bank manager today is a little tubby man with very strong glasses. Unlike most of them, he does actually look like a bank manager. I don’t think he even got to his feet when the late Earl entered the room. “Well then, well then,” he would say, waving a piece of paper from his bank – he always came with a piece of paper, maybe it was the same one – “things haven’t got any better since I was last here, have they? They’ve got worse. What do you propose to do about it?” And he would look up at my late master as if he was some schoolboy who had just been caught cheating at exams. The Earl didn’t like him. He didn’t like him at all. He didn’t like the message either. I think he was actually frightened of the tubby bank manager. “You know, Savage,” he said to me once, “that ridiculous little man is the only person in the world who could take all this away – house, lands, horses, furniture, the lot. Can you believe it?’