Death of a Chancellor Read online

  ‘I presume,’ he said, ‘that a man in your position must know most of the details of the accident in the cathedral last night?’

  Patrick Butler nodded. ‘Except for the time it happened,’ he said, checking that nobody was coming to disturb them.

  ‘I think I may be able to help you there,’ said Powerscourt with a smile. ‘It happened in the gap between the end of Evensong and the closing of the cathedral. It must have been about twenty minutes to six.’

  ‘Good God, Lord Powerscourt, how do you know that? Nobody else has any idea at all about when it happened.’ Then he looked at the bandage on Powerscourt’s forehead, the walking stick by his side. ‘You don’t mean to say . . .’

  ‘You’re very quick this morning, Patrick. I do mean to say. I was here when it happened. I was nearly killed by that falling masonry. I hurled myself into the choir and banged my head on one of the wooden carvings. I must have twisted my ankle in the fall. Somebody was trying to kill me.’

  ‘But this is terrible,’ said Patrick Butler. ‘How did you get out? Did somebody lock all the doors?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Powerscourt, pausing to look at a stone Adam and a stone Eve fleeing from the Garden of Eden, ‘somebody did lock the doors. I don’t yet know if it was the murderer in person or the member of staff who normally shuts the place up for the night. Lucy that’s my wife, came to find me shortly after eleven o’clock. But this isn’t important now.’

  ‘Somebody trying to kill you, Lord Powerscourt? I’d say that was very important.’ He stopped to let a figure in clerical robes make his way down the steps into the cathedral, his boots loud against the stone. ‘If I hadn’t printed that story about your being here to investigate the death of Arthur Rudd, this might never have happened. I could never have forgiven myself if the murderer had succeeded.’

  ‘Just remember, Patrick, that I asked you to print that story. I went out of my way to tell you to print it, if you remember.’

  ‘Is there anything you have learnt from this horrible episode, my lord? Anything that can take your investigations further forward?’

  Powerscourt paused. He could hear the rain falling on the roof. He looked round at all the empty seats where members of the Chapter had sat centuries before. He wondered if they could help him.

  ‘Yes and No is the answer to your question, I’m afraid. I had quite a lot of time to think in here last night, wandering up and down with all those corpses and the chantry chapels. I am sure that there is a terrible secret here in this cathedral or in this community. I am sure the murderer is afraid I may discover it. The secret, or the revelation of the secret, may lie in the future rather than the past. That may be why he tried to kill me. And I need your help, Patrick.’

  Powerscourt opened his black notebook at the two central pages. Butler saw that it was a plan of the cathedral and the Close. The minster itself was in the centre and the streets ran round it in a rough square, with an inlet opposite the east end of the cathedral for Vicars Close and Vicars Hall. Every house on there had a number, from the Deanery at Number One to the South Canonry at Number Twelve and Exeter House at Number Twenty-One.

  ‘After the murder of Arthur Rudd up here,’ Powerscourt pointed to the Vicars Hall on his map, ‘I was virtually certain that the murderer must live very close to the cathedral, must be intimate with its workings, must know every detail of what goes on in the minster and the Close. The events of last night merely confirmed that. The murderer must have known how to get to the upper reaches of the great transept without being seen. Either he had himself a set of keys, or he knew precisely what time the place would be closed. If he didn’t have the keys, then he must have allowed himself enough time to get down from the high place where he tried to tip the masonry over me.’

  ‘Just as well the murderer didn’t get locked in too, my lord,’ said Patrick Butler.

  ‘That would certainly have been interesting,’ Powerscourt smiled. Single combat in the nave. Powerscourt’s Last Stand on the edge of the high altar. Wrestling match to the death among the choir stalls. Anthem of celebration for the victor. Requiem Mass for the Dead.

  ‘Assuming that most of the people involved with the cathedral live round here,’ Powerscourt drew a great circle, an outer ring round all his numbered houses, ‘then the murderer must live inside this territory here.’ He drew a finger round the inner circumference of his map. ‘I need to know the name of everyone inside it, servants, cooks, butlers, coachmen, clergy, cleaning staff, I probably need to know the names of every last cat and dog as well. Can be pretty sinister things, cats. There’s a very evil looking one halfway up a pillar in the nave. Can you help me with that, Patrick?’

  ‘Not sure about the cats, my lord,’ said Butler, pausing again while another pair of clerical boots trudged up the steps and out of the door leading to Vicars Close. ‘I can help with some of the people, but I know somebody who would be even more useful. He pointed to Number Nineteen on Powerscourt’s map. ‘That’s Close Cottage, my lord. I have a very particular friend who lives there. She has lived in Compton all her life. We could try calling on her now, if you wish, my lord. I’m sure she would love to meet you.’

  As they walked across Cathedral Green Powerscourt learned more about the young woman they were going to see: that Patrick Butler had known her for an incredibly long time, eight and a half months; that she was extremely pretty with a smile that could light up the county; that he often called on her for tea between four and five in the afternoon, no, often was not the right word, it was nearly every day and when business took him out of the town he tried to leave very early in order to make his rendezvous with Anne Herbert and her teapot.

  ‘The Bishop hinted this morning that he would put the cathedral at our disposal,’ Butler said. ‘He didn’t actually mention the word marriage, but that’s what he meant.’

  ‘And are you going to propose to the young lady Patrick?’ asked Powerscourt with a smile.

  ‘That’s my problem, Lord Powerscourt. I know it seems odd for somebody who makes their living using words, but I don’t know really know how to do it.’

  ‘Tricky things, proposals,’ said Powerscourt, pausing to look back at the statues on the west front. ‘I knew a man once who collected bets to the value of two hundred pounds that he could get engaged on the Underground Railway in London.’

  ‘Which line?’ asked Butler, with a journalist’s interest in detail.

  ‘The District Line, I believe. The story goes that he began his proposal between Gloucester Road and South Kensington. Perfectly respectable neighbourhood up above if you see what I mean. He could have made his offer somewhere much less salubrious, maybe between Wapping and Shadwell or some place like that in the East End.’

  ‘And what happened?’ asked Patrick Butler.

  ‘I don’t think it went very well, actually. You see, they weren’t the only people in the carriage for a start. All the other passengers were listening in to this strange conversation. The young lady rose to her feet as the train pulled in to the next station, Earls Court, I believe. She uttered just one word to her suitor. “No,” she said, and got off the train. He never saw her again.’

  ‘And he never saw his two hundred pounds again either, presumably,’ said Patrick Butler. ‘Rather an expensive ride on the District Line. Think how much better he might have been if he’d hired a posh carriage above ground. She might have said yes then.’

  ‘Well, she might have said yes. She might still have said no. But you can see some of the picture, Patrick. Privacy. Romantic setting certainly. I can’t see even the most ardent devotee of the Underground Railway thinking it a place of romance, even between Gloucester Road and South Kensington. Some men favour candlelight and champagne, that sort of thing.’

  The subject of these possible proposals opened her door and showed the two men into her little drawing room.

  ‘I am delighted to meet you, Lord Powerscourt,’ said Anne Herbert. ‘I’ve heard so much about you from Patrick.�
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  ‘I made so bold as to tell Lord Powerscourt that you could help him in his work, Anne,’ said Patrick Butler. He explained the attack the previous evening in the cathedral and Powerscourt’s wish to learn the names of all who lived in or around the Cathedral Close.

  ‘How very wicked of somebody to try to kill you, Lord Powerscourt. And in our cathedral too. I’m so glad you have survived. And I’ll help in any way I can.’

  Powerscourt opened his large black book at the centre pages and placed it on the table. ‘I need to know the names of everybody who lives inside this ring here,’ he said, outlining the area of interest with his finger. ‘And anybody else who has business in the cathedral if they live outside this magic circle.’

  Anne Herbert looked up at him, her green eyes troubled. Powerscourt thought she was pretty, very pretty indeed. It was easy now to see the appeal of tea every day at four o’clock.

  ‘Do you mean to say, Lord Powerscourt, that the murderer lives inside this circle of yours?’

  ‘I have to confess that I think it likely, Mrs Herbert, but I’m not sure.’

  ‘Could I make a suggestion?’ Anne Herbert felt quite excited at the prospect of helping to solve a murder mystery. Patrick would be so proud of her.

  ‘If you leave the book with me for a day or so, I can fill in all the details for you. I’ll write out the people who live in every house, numbered in the same way as you have them here. The ones I don’t know about I can ask around about.’

  ‘I’m afraid,’ said Powerscourt gravely ‘that I should advise you to be very careful who you talk to. If word gets back to the murderer that you are helping me collect the names of every single person who lives around the Close, your life – let us not mince words here – could be in danger.’

  ‘Rest assured, Lord Powerscourt, I shall be most discreet. I could say that I am compiling a list for one of the cathedral charities I am involved with. Nobody could object to that.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Powerscourt. ‘But please be careful. I am going to see how up-to-date the electoral register is in the County Hall. But I fear it may be years out of date. They often are.’

  ‘You’re right there,’ said Patrick Butler, ‘we at the Mercury have simply given up on it as an accurate and up-to-date record. Somebody in County Hall should take the matter in hand. But then, nothing ever moves very fast over there in County Hall.’

  ‘Could I ask you one general question, Mrs Herbert?’ said Powerscourt. ‘I presume that most of the servants and other auxiliaries are local people, people from Compton or the surrounding countryside, I mean?’

  ‘I don’t think that’s quite right, Lord Powerscourt, although it’s what you would expect. The clergy, of course, come from all over the place. But there are quite a lot of foreigners in the servant population. The Dean has a French cook who’s married to that enormous servant of his. The Precentor has a Spanish couple, one a cook, the other the butler, I think. The Archdeacon has an Italian friend who comes to stay for a week or so every month. He’s always beautifully turned out, but rather superior in his manner.’

  Anne Herbert paused and looked out of her windows, as if reminding herself of who lived in which house. ‘There’s another foreign couple somewhere, I remember now, it’s the Sub-dean, he’s also got a French cook with a wife who acts as housekeeper. And there are Irish everywhere, not just in service, but singing with the Vicars Choral. There’s two or three of them from Ireland.’

  The only common thread Powerscourt could wrap round this strange miscellany of foreign persons was that they all seemed to come from Catholic countries. He couldn’t see the writ or the decisions of the Bishop of Compton cutting much ice in Turin or Tipperary or Toledo. But he thought little of it.

  ‘I tell you what, Lord Powerscourt,’ said Anne Herbert. ‘You ought to go and talk to Old Peter. I can’t even remember his surname. Do you know what it is, Patrick?’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t. I’ve only ever heard him referred to as Old Peter.’

  ‘No relation of the apostle?’ said Powerscourt.

  ‘No,’ Anne Herbert laughed. ‘But Old Peter was Head Verger in the cathedral for almost thirty years. Before that he worked as the Bishop’s coachman, I think. He’s lived in Compton all his life. He must be nearly ninety now.’

  ‘He’s ninety-one, actually,’ said Patrick Butler. ‘We featured him last year in an article on Compton’s ninety-year-olds. There are only three of them left. The other two are sisters and live down by the railway station.’

  ‘Anyway Lord Powerscourt, I’m sure Old Peter would be able to help you. He’s known everybody round here for years. He lives in a little cottage at the far end of the garden in the Bishop’s Palace. I think the Bishop’s servants keep an eye on him. I could come with you and make the introductions if you like.’

  Powerscourt was doing rapid arithmetical calculations as he put his coat back on and collected his walking stick. ‘Old Peter must be old enough to be the Bishop’s grandfather,’ he said cheerfully. ‘He would have been five at the time of Waterloo, well into his forties by the Crimean War. Let’s hear what this Methuselah of Compton has to say for himself.’

  14

  The most remarkable thing about Old Peter was his hair. He didn’t seem to have lost any of it through his decades of service to the Cathedral. It was snow white and flowed down the sides of his face, giving him the air of a Druid functionary rather than a man who had spent his life in the service of the Church of England. His eyes were light brown and he fiddled constantly with an aged pipe that looked as if it might have been older than he was. He pointed Powerscourt to a battered sofa in front of his fire and returned to a faded leather armchair by the side. Anne Herbert had effected the introductions and returned to her cottage. Like many elderly people Old Peter gave his visitor a preliminary bulletin on his health.

  ‘I can still see,’ he said, pointing the pipe dangerously close to his eyes, ‘and I can still smell. Hearing not what it used to be, my lord, so you may have to speak up a bit. The legs still work though the left one’s going a bit rickety at the knee. Doctor says I may be getting a touch of gout.’

  ‘I wanted to ask you about the people who live round the Cathedral Close, Peter,’ said Powerscourt raising his voice slightly. ‘Mrs Herbert told me you would know if there was anything unusual about them.’

  ‘Unusual, my lord?’ said Old Peter with a cackling laugh. ‘If you think going to church every day at the same time morning and afternoon and wearing the same funny clothes and saying the same prayers each time for forty or fifty years is usual, then you’re a better man than me.’

  ‘You’re not a believer, then, Peter?’ asked Powerscourt.

  ‘I’m not saying I am and I’m not saying I’m not,’ said the old man diplomatically, ‘but there have been some strange goings-on at this place, long before all this terrible murder.’ He paused and began to refill his pipe with some strong black tobacco.

  ‘When I started here, my lord, the whole place was more like a family business than a house of God. You’ll have heard of the Fentimans, I suppose. One of them the bishop, another the Dean, every time there was a vacant canonry or prebendary, another bloody member of the Fentiman family popped up to take the position. Liveried servants behind every seat in the dining room of the Bishop’s Palace every night, whether there were visitors or not. Fentimans taking every valuable living that fell vacant and putting in vicars to hold the service and paying them a pittance. Nobody could work out how to get rid of them, my lord. Had to wait for the grim reaper to do his work in the end.’

  ‘I was wondering about more recent members of the Close, Peter,’ said Powerscourt, reluctant to embark on a historical survey of Compton Minster, decade by decade, ‘I was wondering about some of the foreigners. There seem to be quite a lot of them.’

  Old Peter looked at him suspiciously. ‘Plenty of foreigners here, my lord. Never did hold much with foreigners myself. Don’t see why they can’t stay wher
e they were put, if you see what I mean. Still, I suppose Jesus Christ himself would be a foreigner round here so maybe we shouldn’t complain. If you ask me,’ Old Peter paused to fiddle with a match to light his pipe, ‘the strangest one is that Italian who comes to stay with the Archdeacon.’ There was a further pause as a cloud of smoke threatened briefly to make Old Peter temporarily invisible. ‘Every month he comes, my lord, regular as clockwork, second week usually, and he stays for a week or ten days each time. He’s got his own room on the top floor of the Archdeacon’s house. Keeps himself to himself. And do you know the strangest thing about him? Every Tuesday I take my dinner with them over at the house and Bill, the Archdeacon’s coachman, told me this only the other day.’

  Old Peter paused and blew a great mouthful of smoke into his fireplace. ‘Nobody’s ever seen him at a service in the cathedral, this Italian. Not once in the eight or nine years he’s been coming here. Wouldn’t you say that was strange?’

  Powerscourt was keen to move on. ‘What about the French people, one with the Dean, I think, and another with the Subdean on the other side of the Close?’

  Old Peter rummaged around in his pockets for his matches. The pipe, in spite of its earlier clouds of smoke, appeared to have gone out. ‘Whoever heard of a man being a cook, my lord. It’s not natural. Women were meant to do the cooking ever since we all lived in caves if you ask me. Antoine, the Subdean’s cook, is very thick with Mrs Douglas over at the Deanery. She’s French too, you see. Local shops not good enough for them, my lord. Every couple of months they go off to London and come back with hampers and hampers of smelly oils and funny looking herbs and potions they put all over their food. They’ve even got some special French mustard they put on the Dean’s rabbit. They say he’s very partial to this Frenchified rabbit, the Dean. Maybe they even give him those frogs’ legs with that horrible garlic, my lord.’