Death in a Scarlet Coat lfp-10 Page 13

  ‘“Dear Chief Constable, I would remind you that under the Burial Act 1857 permission is required from all living relatives before the authorities can even consider an exhumation order. I refuse you such permission. My brothers will be writing to you in the next few days to refuse you their permission too. Then I trust that this outrageous and unjustified request can be abandoned and the family left to grieve in peace, Yours etc. etc., Candlesby.”

  ‘“Dear Chief Constable, We act for the new Earl of Candlesby. It has come to our attention that a recent request has been submitted for an exhumation of the body of the late Lord Candlesby. Close inspection of the relevant legislation leads us to believe that this request is spurious and has no meaning in law. To the best of our knowledge none of the surviving children of the late Earl, all except one past the age of consent, will accede to this request. It is, therefore, going to be refused by the Home Office. We have written to the Permanent Secretary asking for copies of any further correspondence to be sent to us so we can monitor future proceedings. Yours etc. etc. etc. Mark Sowerby, Hopkins Pettigrew amp; Green, Bedford Square.”

  ‘My goodness me,’ said Powerscourt with a smile, handing the correspondence back to the Inspector, ‘these people could get through an awful lot of ink before they’ve finished. And I’d be fairly sure that those solicitors in Bedford Square would be the last to quit the field. I don’t know how much they charge but it’ll be a pretty penny.’

  ‘If I might say so, my lord,’ said Inspector Blunden, ‘you don’t sound very concerned about these letters.’

  ‘Well, that’s because I’m not,’ said Powerscourt cheerfully, ‘and neither will you be when you hear what I’ve got to say. You may remember I said last time we talked about this that I needed to find out more abut exhumations?’

  The Inspector nodded.

  ‘I tried a local library and that was no good. But I did ask them who the local coroner was. So I popped back into the car and set off to Spalding to find the good Dr Chapman, His Majesty’s coroner for South Lincolnshire. I bought the fellow lunch, as a matter of fact. Very fond of fish, the coroner, fish and rather expensive hock. Never mind. The key thing he told me was this: in important police matters, like possible murder cases, where the suspects may include the relatives of the deceased, the coroner can take the decision on his own. No need to hang around waiting for faculties from the bishop and approval from Sir Bartleby at the Home Office; he can fire the starting pistol all on his own. We have to make sure that there’s a chap from the undertakers there, and the coroner himself, and the man doing the post-mortem, and we have to do it in the dark when nobody can see. Quite what anybody would imagine was going on when they saw a body being dug up in the middle of the night doesn’t bear thinking about. Still, the late Earl isn’t going to be dug out of the ground, is he, just slid out of his shelf in that mausoleum. Much less alarming all round. And my coroner friend, over a large glass of brandy in the restaurant, recommended the best man in the country for the post-mortem. Fellow by the name of Carey, Nathaniel Carey at Bart’s in London. Nobody’s going to argue with his findings apparently. I’ve taken the liberty of dropping him a line.’

  ‘Are you saying, my lord, that all we have to do is to write to this coroner and say we think the Earl was murdered?’

  ‘Well, Inspector, I think we have to be a bit more specific than that about the very unusual circumstances of this case. Three members of the late Earl’s family are suspects after all. There is the fact of the body being brought up across the horse with nobody able to see his face apart from three people, the doctor who is dead, the steward who has disappeared, and the new Lord Candlesby who is ambiguous, if you recall, on whether he actually looked at the body or not. There is the matter of the doctor, according to himself, being bullied to provide the verdict of death by natural causes, when he knew it wasn’t true. Then, of course, removed from the pressure in the Candlesby stables, the doctor recants and says he believed the man was murdered. I think we need to stress that if any responsible person from the police force had seen the dead man they would have been able to form a view as to whether he was murdered or not. On balance, I would say we believe he was murdered by person or persons unknown. If not – and if the body is untouched, unmarked, inviolate – then we shall still be performing an act of public service by removing the rumours and gossip that are already swirling round the Earl’s death.’

  ‘That all sounds very persuasive to me,’ said the Inspector.

  ‘One other thought,’ said Powerscourt. ‘I leave it up to you and the Chief Constable whether to act upon it or not. I think I should say that we propose to bring in the new Earl, the red-headed chap, for questioning. If we do it at the right time, we could arrest him immediately after the post-mortem and the inquest.’

  ‘Do you think he did it, my lord?’

  ‘I’m not sure about that. It all seems rather elaborate, if you follow me, the hunt meeting, the despatch of Jack Hayward to collect the body, all that business in the stables which looks so suspicious you think he can’t possibly have done it. Why not just push your father down some stone staircase when nobody’s looking? “He must have tripped, Inspector, what a shame.”’

  ‘I shall go and talk to the Chief Constable now, my lord. This is one of the days when he’s causing chaos with us rather than with the people in Lincoln.’

  ‘I am going to pay a visit to the unfortunate Lawrences, who have had to sell their worldly goods. I wonder what they will have to say for themselves.’

  Johnny Fitzgerald had called on one lot of Candlesby relations already. These Harringtons lived at The Limes, Lower Wrangle Lowgate, very near the coast. They had not heard, or pretended not to have heard, the news of the death of Lord Candlesby. Johnny supposed it was just about possible if they didn’t read any newspapers and hadn’t been out into town or into society since the death. He had found the reactions to the death unusual, to say the least.

  ‘I say,’ said Rupert Harrington, the paterfamilias, ‘I know we’re not supposed to put it like this, but this is the best news I’ve had for ages. Have you heard, Agnes,’ he called out to his wife who was arranging flowers in the next room, ‘that bastard Candlesby is dead!’

  ‘Are you sure?’ replied a rather feeble female voice.

  Harrington looked at Johnny who nodded vigorously.

  ‘No doubt at all,’ he yelled through the wall. ‘Definitely dead.’

  ‘What marvellous news, darling,’ the distant wife said. ‘I’ll ask Simmons to bring up some champagne straight away.’

  So, over a glass or two of Dom Perignon, the Harringtons told Johnny their story. They had never gone willingly to any of the christenings or funerals where their presence had been recorded by the Reverend Tobias Flint. Mrs Harrington, she explained, had been brought up to regard the family as the centre of the world, its rituals sacrosanct, its requests for attendance at family events to be obeyed at all times.

  ‘So, you see,’ Mrs Harrington explained, ‘I would have been letting the family down if I hadn’t gone to those functions. Thank God, we won’t have to go to any more now. But, Mr Fitzgerald, I can’t believe you came over here just to tell us the Earl is dead.’

  ‘How right you are, Mrs Harrington. Let me explain.’ Johnny told them about the corpse being brought up the drive to join the hunt by Jack Hayward, of the diversion of the body into the stables, of Jack Hayward’s disappearance. Was he, perhaps, with them, helping out with horses maybe, being generally useful about the place? He was not, they told him. They only had two horses and they were old now, not fit recipients of the equine experience of a man such as Hayward. They wished Johnny good luck but had no suggestions for him.

  The Harringtons of Silk Willoughby Hall had certainly heard of the death. Their reaction had been similar to that of their cousins near the sea. They had celebrated by going out to dinner in the most expensive hotel for miles around.

  ‘I did go to the funeral, I admit that. Maybe it was hy
pocritical,’ St John Harrington told Johnny, ‘but I did want to see how the other mourners behaved. Mourners? I’ve seldom seen so many happy people in my life, rejoicing that the old bastard was dead and come to make sure he was put away in that chilly mausoleum for good. One fellow told me it was one of the finest days of his life. Rarely can death have brought so much joy to those remaining.’

  These Harringtons had horses, plenty of horses. Johnny could see them trotting round one of the fields outside the windows. But they were not entertaining Jack Hayward and his family.

  ‘I knew Jack Hayward quite well,’ Daisy Harrington told Johnny. ‘He used to come over sometimes and advise me about which horses to sell, that sort of thing. If you’re trying to find him you’re having to guess if he went where he was told by the Candlesbys, or where he decided to go himself, aren’t you? Well, if you’ve come to us because you think Jack was sent here by the family, then you’re wrong.’

  Johnny wondered if he could enrol Daisy Harrington as a colleague in his quest.

  ‘You see, he was very independent, Jack,’ she continued. ‘I don’t think he’d have felt happy going somewhere he was told to go to; I don’t think he’d have felt his family were safe and secure.’

  ‘So where do you think I should be looking, Mrs Harrington?’

  ‘I don’t know. But I don’t think you’ll find him with any of the Candlesby relations.’

  ‘Which means I shall have to try his wife’s relations or his friends or places where he worked before.’

  Daisy Harrington was frowning. ‘I do know where he worked before he came here,’ she said, ‘but I can’t remember the name of the trainer, I really can’t. It was in Newmarket, that’s all I can remember, you know, where lots of racehorses are bred and brought up. Jack used to tell me about those days sometimes.’

  ‘Thank you very much,’ said Johnny. ‘I’m most grateful. I shall set off for Newmarket.’

  As he made his way out of the house Daisy Harrington’s voice followed him down the path. ‘I say, Mr Fitzgerald, why all this interest in a groom who’s disappeared? You don’t think the Earl had a stroke or a heart attack or anything like that, do you?’

  She waited in vain for Johnny Fitzgerald to answer. ‘You think he was murdered, don’t you?’

  Her voice followed him down the drive and round the corner at the bottom. Daisy Harrington stood very still at her door for some time, staring at her empty drive and listening to the silence of the late afternoon.

  10

  There were sad signs of transience at the front of Lawrence House as Powerscourt arrived. A platoon of servants were carrying a selection of boxes, tea chests, portmanteaus, chairs, small tables and household bric-a-brac on to a couple of carts. Every now and then a plate or a glass or a bowl would escape from its container and smash to pieces on the ground, leading to fearful oaths and blood-curdling threats from the butler, who was conducting operations from the top of the steps wearing an enormous moustache and a magnificent red apron. A junior footman detached himself from his moving duties and brought Powerscourt to a drawing room at the back of the house, a splendid room with an elegant bay window looking out on a tennis court and a shrubbery. Even here the melancholy work of moving was proceeding. A rather nervous young housemaid was wrapping ornaments in newspaper and placing them carefully in a tea chest. Behind her two men were manoeuvring a long table out of the room. It seemed as though it could not fit through the opening but it was steered through with inches to spare on either side.

  ‘Lord Powerscourt, I presume.’ A tall white-haired man with a winning smile had come in and was shaking Powerscourt by the hand. ‘Lawrence, Harold Lawrence at your service. We’re moving, as you can see. We’ve got some men from Candlesby village in to help. It’s amazing how clever they are with their hands.’

  ‘How do you do, sir,’ said Powerscourt, noting the man’s very clear blue eyes and the lines across his forehead growing deeper with the passing years.

  ‘Grace,’ Lawrence turned to address the housemaid, ‘you may go now, and thank you for your good work.’

  The maid curtsied and departed. ‘I have no idea if her work here was any good or not,’ Lawrence told Powerscourt, ‘but she looks so nervous all the time, poor girl; I’ve always thought it pays to be kind.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right,’ said Powerscourt politely.

  ‘I see from your note that you are looking into the death of the late Lord Candlesby,’ said Harold Lawrence. ‘Would you permit me to ask a question or two before you question me, which I feel sure must be the purpose of your visit?’

  ‘Of course,’ Powerscourt replied, sensing that there might be steel here, lurking behind the good manners.

  ‘As I understand it, the official record of the Earl’s death said it was due to natural causes. Nobody has yet come forward to contradict that. And yet we have the local Detective Inspector, a man widely respected in these parts, still making inquiries among the hunt and the Candlesby villagers. And we have yourself, Lord Powerscourt. Inquiries have been made. You may have been discreet in your career, I’m sure you have been, but word gets out about your activities. Investigators like yourself do not stay in little places like this unless they are looking into cases of murder. I do feel we have a right to know. So which is it, Lord Powerscourt, murder or death by natural causes?’

  ‘Let me give you a truthful answer, Mr Lawrence, and I would ask you to keep it as close as you can. I believe the Earl was murdered. Until I have found the means to prove that, I have to pay lip service to the natural causes theory, even though I don’t think it’s true. There, does that satisfy you?’

  ‘Perfectly, Lord Powerscourt. Now I presume you want to ask me the usual questions about where we were on the day of the murder and so on. On the night in question the whole family, all of us, were in London. We went to see a play and we stayed a couple of nights in White’s Hotel. I’m sure the people there will vouch for us if it should come to that.’

  ‘Was the play good?’ asked Powerscourt.

  ‘Well, it was interesting, I suppose, if you like industrial disputes all over the West End stage. The wife is very taken by that fellow Galsworthy and his book The Man of Property about a bounder called Soames Forsyte that came out a couple of years ago. This play at the Savoy called Strife was also by Galsworthy but there weren’t any Forsytes in it. I think the wife was disappointed. She had high hopes of Irene and Bosinney disgracing themselves behind a pillar.’

  ‘I’ve heard a lot, Mr Lawrence, about the relations between your family and the late Lord Candlesby. Perhaps you could you tell me about it in your own words. Rumour and gossip, as you well know, have a habit of distorting or exaggerating the facts with these sort of events.’

  ‘I don’t think there’s any exaggeration at all,’ said Lawrence sadly. ‘I really don’t like talking about it very much. Our family were going to get the benefit of the railways running through our land all those years ago. Candlesby managed to make off with the contract instead. He grew rich, or he should have grown rich. We got poor. We’re in no position to survive this agricultural depression in our present state, so we’re cutting back. Smaller house, fewer acres, that sort of thing. It finished my father off, as you probably know, but I don’t think he was long for this world anyway. He’d not been well for some time. There, is that what you need to know?’

  Another loud crash from the front of the house indicated a falling down rather than a cutting back of the Lawrence property. There was a tremendous bellow from the butler in his red apron. ‘What on earth are you doing? You stupid stupid man!’

  ‘Tell me, Mr Lawrence, and I apologize in advance if this is a difficult question to answer. Ignore it if you wish, I would fully understand. In some families, the dislike, maybe even the hatred for a man who has behaved like Candlesby abates over time, it grows less as the memory fades. But with others, the anger grows inside the family like a tumour. As the years pass it does not grow less, it grows greater s
o that the hatred for the perpetrator can be as strong, if not stronger, forty or fifty years on as it was at the start.’

  Powerscourt looked closely at Harold Lawrence as he made his reply. ‘I don’t think anything of that sort has happened here,’ he said. ‘It was all a very long time ago. I don’t think any of us think about it from one month to the next.’

  ‘I’m very pleased to hear it. Tell me, this is one of those questions people in my profession are always asking. Can you think of anybody locally who might have wanted Lord Candlesby dead?’

  ‘It’s easier to answer that question the other way round, Lord Powerscourt. Far more people wanted the wretched man dead than wanted him to stay alive. You’ll have heard about the duel and the adultery with the poor woman who walked into the sea and drowned herself. There are a number of other cuckolded husbands around but I wouldn’t want to give you their names as I only heard about them in confidence. There’s a farmer with land just north of Candlesby Hall who swears Candlesby poisoned his cattle. There’s a retired general not far from here who claims that Candlesby raped his daughter and refused to make any provision when the girl became pregnant. You may find somebody with a good word to say about him. If you do, please let me know at once.’

  Harold Lawrence pulled a watch rather ostentatiously from his waistcoat pocket. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must get on with the business of supervising this move. My wife has taken to her bed with nerves; it’s all so upsetting. If there’s any way I can help, please let me know.’

  With that he shepherded Powerscourt to the front door. One of the carts, drawn by a fine pair of horses, was gathering speed down the drive en route to the Lawrences’ new home. The last Powerscourt heard was another mighty bellow from the butler. ‘See here, you useless footmen, all the dining-room chairs were meant to be out here by now, ready to go on the next cart. So where the bloody hell are they?’