The Unburied

by Charles Palliser

  ‘Good heavens! Which one?’

  ‘Hollingrake, the Librarian.’

  ‘That is astonishing,’ I exclaimed, remembering Dr Locard’s own allegation that the two men had collaborated over the forged deed. ‘Was he not the Treasurer by that date?’

  ‘You’re right, he was! You know the history of the Chapter better than I do. Freeth was trying to knock over a lamp in order to set fire to the Treasury.’

  ‘Freeth was trying to burn it down? That’s extraordinary!’

  ‘You can imagine why the story was kept secret. He succeeded in starting a fire and Cinnamon tried to put it out. Hollingrake broke away from Freeth and while Cinnamon restrained the Dean, went to a chest and unlocked it and took out what looked like a document. When he saw that, Freeth threw himself at Hollingrake and the two men started fighting for possession of it. Freeth was punching Hollingrake and screaming abuse at him. The canons had to flee from the building because it was now in flames. Once they were outside, the soldiers intervened and dragged Freeth off Hollingrake but he rushed at him again and kicked him while he was lying on the ground and it was then that one of the soldiers unfortunately fired at him.’

  I could not prevent myself bursting out: ‘I’m astonished that you can dismiss Mr Stonex’s story and yet believe this!’

  ‘I believe it, Dr Courtine, precisely because it is so improbable and so shaming to the Chapter. The fact that it was remembered and passed down therefore lends it weight.’

  ‘The logic of that is always to accept that the most discreditable account is the truest.’

  ‘Why should Cinnamon lie? What did he have to gain?’

  ‘Who knows? But he said that Freeth ran to the Treasury and not the Library?’ I remembered how Mr Stonex had dismissed the evidence of Pepperdine’s eyewitness because the Library could not be seen from the dining-room window.

  ‘What was at that time the Treasury is now part of the Library. The Treasury was so seriously damaged that it was moved to another building.’

  So Pepperdine’s eyewitness might have been right! Following a train of thought provoked by this, I asked: ‘Was Cinnamon the Precentor by any chance?’

  ‘Yes, he was. Do you think that has any significance?’

  ‘Possibly.’ In fact, I had a theory about what might have been going on, for I had been trying to imagine the politics of the Chapter at that time by reflecting on how, in my own College, resentments and misunderstandings had festered over many years within an enclosed group of men with somewhat abstracted interests.

  At that moment the Cathedral clock struck the hour and Dr Locard rose to his feet. ‘Unfortunately, I must attend to my duties.’ At the top of the stairs he turned: ‘I do hope that your testimony will do nothing to discourage the jury from finding the truth: that Perkins ransacked the house in search of the will.’

  ‘I have to describe what I saw, Dr Locard. That is the obligation of a witness.’

  He hesitated and then said: ‘I understand that Fickling does not corroborate your evidence?’

  ‘He noticed the disorder rather less than I did. That is all.’

  ‘Nevertheless, don’t you think it would be a little embarrassing if you were to contradict each other in court?’

  He took leave of me with a final ‘Good morning’ and descended the stairs. As his footsteps faded into the echoes of the ancient building, I sat and stared at the manuscript. He had drained my enjoyment of it and I felt resentment towards him for that. I was also annoyed that he had teased me with his superior knowledge and insight into the story of Burgoyne. I had the feeling that he had been playing with me like an angler with a fish. What was the significance of the boy dying the same night as Burgoyne? Were the two deaths connected, and if so, how? I could not perceive what the Librarian was implying. And I was haunted by the image of the Dean setting fire to buildings in his own Close and struggling violently with another canon just moments before his death. If it had really happened, what could possibly be the truth behind that?

  If I was to arrive at the inquest in time I had to have luncheon now. As I left the Library I looked across the Close and could just see the New Deanery. So Pepperdine’s witness had not been mistaken and his version of events could not be discounted. I went to the usual inn, reflecting that it was strange that I found the food and the service barely adequate and yet I went back each time. I supposed it was the reassurance of a known evil that influenced me and the fear that I might find something even worse. I wondered where Austin was and how the outcome of the struggle within the Chapter affected him.

  As I ate I thought about how, as the canon responsible for music, Cinnamon must have hated Freeth for what he had done. Assuming he was telling the truth, what had the canons been fighting over? Suddenly something Dr Locard had said the day before yesterday came back to me: The best proof of a forgery is the original on which it is based. If Hollingrake possessed the original of the deed which he and Freeth had forged in order to prevent Burgoyne from suppressing the college, then he had immense power over the Dean. He would have kept it locked in his Treasury. Could it be that when Freeth had seen the soldiers entering the Treasury he had seized his opportunity to free himself from blackmail by destroying the original deed under cover of the soldiers’ looting?

  I paid my account and made my way to the Guildhall.

  Friday Afternoon

  I was directed into a big draughty chamber lined with black oak panelling and only poorly lit by a few gas-lamps in the dark afternoon. Around the walls were huge canvases of past mayors – ludicrously dressed in military uniform as members of the local yeomanry or even more grotesquely seated on horseback. The largest was a painting of a visit by the last king which portrayed the Mayor and the entire Corporation kneeling in a line before His Majesty.

  I had left my arrival rather late and a number of people were already occupying the benches at the front, among whom I recognized Sergeant Adams and Major Antrobus. I found a space a little to their rear, rather hoping they wouldn’t notice me. A few minutes before the proceedings were due to start, Austin arrived with Slattery. They seemed not to see me and seated themselves on the other side of the aisle. Moments later, the jury of fifteen soberly dressed men was ushered in by an attendant and led to its box. And then the Coroner arrived – a small man a few years my senior with fine features and a reddish complexion – and sat down facing the audience. At that instant, Dr Locard hurried in, accompanied by a bald man of about fifty. He noticed me, smiled and, rather to my surprise, took a seat beside me with his companion on his other side.

  ‘This is Mr Thorrold,’ he whispered. ‘The late Mr Stonex’s solicitor.’

  We shook hands across Dr Locard, but had no time to speak before the proceedings began. I wondered why Dr Locard should be with the lawyer for the estate until I remembered what Quitregard had told me about the old gentleman’s interest in the Choir School.

  The Coroner began by saying that he and the jury had been that morning to the mortuary to view the body and to visit the New Deanery to have sight of the place of death. Evidence of identification had been taken in the presence of the body from the chief clerk to the deceased – Mr Alfred Wattam. Testimony as to the cause of death would be taken this afternoon from Dr Carpenter who had, unfortunately, been summoned to an urgent consultation and would therefore give his evidence later than was customary.

  Major Antrobus was the first to testify. He stood confidently in the witness-box, his big hands resting on the ledge.

  ‘Superintendent, what did you find on arriving at the house?’ the Coroner asked.

  ‘It had been ransacked and it was immediately clear to me that a murder had been committed whose motive was robbery. The evidence of the two gentlemen who had been having tea with Mr Stonex earlier that afternoon proved that the deed occurred in the half-hour before six o’clock. The two witnesses conveyed to me that they heard the waiter, Perkins, arrive at the front-door as they were leaving by the back at exactly half
-past five – the hour at which he had been asked by the deceased to bring beer. I therefore sent two officers to find Perkins and when I questioned him later the same day he denied all knowledge of the crime. He said that he had gone to the house at four o’clock as usual but had found a note on the front-door instructing him to enter and had found the door to be unlocked – all of which was unprecedented. But he said that he performed his duties in the customary manner: he set out the dinner and took the dirty dishes from the previous day and left. And he flatly denied that he had returned at half-past five.’

  ‘Did he mention receiving instructions from the deceased about coming back?’

  ‘He denied that. However, a witness came forward later that evening to say that he had seen him at the front-door of the house at exactly half-past five.’

  ‘That witness is here today?’

  ‘He is. And he is Mr Appleton, the Headmaster of the Cathedral Choir School.’

  ‘Did you confront Perkins with your proof that he was lying?’

  ‘I did and he changed his story completely and admitted that he did go back at half-past five.’

  ‘To deliver beer?’

  ‘No. He claimed that the old gentleman had left him a message simply telling him to return for further instructions. I now went to Perkins’s house – this was at nearly midnight – and found a parcel hidden in a cupboard.’

  ‘That is what you found?’ The Coroner pointed to a package in brown paper which was lying on the desk in front of him.

  ‘Yes. It was opened and was found to contain banknotes amounting to the sum of twenty pounds. The notes were smeared with blood.’

  There were gasps from the jury and the audience, and heads craned to see this horrible object.

  ‘How did Perkins account for this?’

  ‘He changed his story yet again and said that when he had delivered the old gentleman’s dinner that afternoon he had found the package on the table in the houseplace with a message beside it.’

  ‘What did it say?’ the Coroner asked with a sarcastic smile.

  The Major looked at his notebook: ‘I copied his words exactly. He claimed that it said: I am busy. Do not disturb me. Lay my dinner as usual. Here is a package for you. Keep it by you and don’t tell nobody. If a man comes to you this afternoon to ask for it, give it to him. If he don’t, bring it back to me at exactly half-past five this evening and I will reward you.’

  ‘What action did you take?’

  ‘I arrested him and charged him with the murder.’

  ‘Is it possible that he left without committing the murder and that in the remaining half an hour, someone else did so?’

  ‘Quite impossible, given that the deceased was so obsessed by the danger of being robbed that he only opened the door at fixed times to persons he was expecting. That is why I can state with confidence that he must have let his murderer into the house himself.’

  ‘Could someone have obtained a key?’

  ‘No, Mr Attard. He had only a single copy of each of the keys to the two doors of the house. He carried them with him on a ring at all times.’

  ‘Has that key-ring been found?’

  ‘It has not, although my Sergeant is at this moment making a thorough search of Perkins’s house because it’s certain that the murderer took the keys.’

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘Because both the street-door and the back-door of the house were secured. Whichever door he left by, he locked it behind himself.’

  ‘What a cool customer! Presumably his intention was to delay the discovery of the crime. Thank you for your testimony, Major Antrobus.’

  Just before the Major had finished, Dr Carpenter had hurried in and seated himself. He now took the stand and testified that he was Mr Stonex’s personal physician and that he had examined the body on arriving at the house at about seven o’clock. He had performed a full post-mortem examination later that evening.

  ‘And what, Dr Carpenter, did you establish to be the cause of death?’ the Coroner asked.

  ‘I found that the hyoid bone was fractured and in view of that my conclusion is that the deceased died by strangulation.’

  There were gasps from the audience. The Coroner said: ‘Not by the blows to the head and face?’

  ‘No, sir. Those blows were inflicted after death.’

  ‘Are you sure of that?’

  ‘There can be no doubt on that point.’

  ‘How was the damage to the face effected?’

  ‘I believe a garment was placed over the head – in fact, a blood-stained topcoat was found nearby – and the face was then hit repeatedly with the axe which was also found beside the body.’

  ‘How many blows were delivered?’

  ‘I estimate between seven and eight. These were very heavy blows which completely smashed the nose-ridge and upper jaw and the teeth and dislodged both eyes.’

  ‘Would the murderer have been splashed with blood?’

  ‘The person who smashed the face’, the doctor said carefully, ‘would not have been splashed with blood because the victim was already dead. Consequently the violent flow of blood that would have resulted had the deceased been alive did not take place. That fact – together with the absence of bruising – is my evidence for saying that death had already occurred.’

  ‘If the blows were not inflicted in order to kill, what was their purpose?’

  ‘I can only speculate. Violence in excess of what is needed to kill usually suggests that the murder has been carried out by a relative, lover, or close friend.’

  That was very interesting. He had no close friends, a lover was hard to believe and so I began to speculate about his brother. I was convinced that the motive was the key to this murder and that so far Perkins did not seem to have an adequate one – unless he had acted very stupidly on an impulse. What the doctor had just said, taken with the fact that if no will was found the estate would pass to the next of kin, suggested that that was the direction in which to seek the murderer.

  ‘At what hour did death take place?’ the Coroner asked.

  ‘By the time I examined the body at seven o’clock, Mr Stonex had been dead for at least two hours, probably three.’

  I leant forward in my seat. I had been impressed by the young surgeon’s professionalism – if not by his manners – but this was clearly nonsense. The Coroner obviously shared my view: ‘Dead for two hours or even three? That is quite impossible.’

  Dr Carpenter said quietly: ‘Nevertheless, my estimation by simple palpation was that the deceased died at about four o’clock. In arriving at this judgement, I drew on experiments conducted a few years ago at Guy’s Hospital by two highly respected surgeons.’

  ‘That is wholly absurd,’ the Coroner exclaimed. ‘The deceased was seen and spoken to as late as half-past five.’

  ‘I can only report on what I have observed,’ the doctor said calmly. ‘This estimation was confirmed during the post-mortem autopsy which I conducted late last night. Rigor mortis had started by ten o’clock, which implies that death was at or before four o’clock.’

  ‘You’re not suggesting that the old gentleman with whom Dr Courtine and Mr Fickling had tea was a ghost?’ The young doctor stared back in sullen and, I thought, arrogant silence while the audience tittered. When they had stopped laughing, the Coroner asked: ‘When and where did you qualify, Dr Carpenter?’

  ‘Two years ago at St Thomas’s.’

  ‘And how many murdered bodies have you seen in that time?’

  ‘Two.’

  ‘Were either of them cases of strangulation?’

  ‘No. One of them was stabbed and the other killed by a shotgun. However, while I was a medical student I had the good fortune to walk the wards for six months as a dresser to Dr Tallentire who is frequently consulted by Scotland Yard. During that period I learnt a very considerable amount about forensic pathology.’

  ‘While you were a medical student?’ he enquired sarcastically. Without waiting for
a reply he said: ‘Thank you for your evidence, Dr Carpenter.’

  The young man flushed at the Coroner’s tone and stood down. Mr Attard then asked for Mr Thorrold and he rose and took his place in the witness-box and was sworn in. He explained that he was the lawyer who acted for the deceased and that he had drawn up his will about twenty years before. Under its terms his entire estate was left to the Foundation of Thurchester Cathedral to be used for the benefit of the Cathedral Choir School, which he had attended as a boy.

  ‘Has the will been found?’

  ‘It has not.’

  ‘Who had custody of it?’

  ‘The deceased himself. He usually kept it in a private strongbox at the Bank, but he recently mentioned adding a codicil and presumably had taken it home to consider it at his leisure. Both the Bank and his house have been searched. I should say that my late client was in the habit of hiding things in strange places, and so the attempt to find it is continuing.’

  ‘What will be the destiny of the estate if the will is not found?’

  ‘If Mr Stonex is declared to have died intestate then his heirs will be his next of kin.’

  ‘And what is known of them?’

  ‘The only relative he is known to have had is a sister. She would inherit, or if she is herself deceased, any heir she might have.’

  I was struck by Mr Thorrold’s failure to mention that the old gentleman had a brother. Could it be that his existence had been forgotten? Quitregard had never heard of him.

  ‘Is anything known of her?’

  ‘She left the town at a very early age and nothing has, so far as I know, been heard of her for over thirty years. Mr Stonex referred to her once only in my presence when, about eight years ago he mentioned that she had sent her son to him to – as he expressed it – pester him for money. I received the impression that he had refused the request and he never spoke of the matter to me again.’