David Dickinson - Death in a Scarlet Coat

‘The new Earl,’ said the Inspector. ‘Look, my lord, in a minute or two we should be able to see the house. I feel sure that we must be on the route Jack Hayward took with the horse the day of the murder. There’s a fork in the road back there where one branch leads off towards the coast. The other one goes back to the main entrance a couple of miles behind us on the Spalding Road.’

As their carriage took them up the mild incline Powerscourt saw the house sliding into view. Chimneys and a flagpole first, then a top storey, a middle storey, then one slightly raised above ground level and presumably basement quarters for the servants and the staff below. Everywhere the stone was discoloured, cracked in places, the grass in the grounds around the side of the house unkempt and unmown. Roses that once trailed round two sides of the house had gone wild, looping over and round and under each other in a glorious chaos of disorder.

They could see the great circle of grass in front of the house now, the gates in the centre of the railings, the two pavilions connected to the main body of the house by walls with niches where the horses of the hunt had stood and pawed the ground such a short time ago.

‘If you look over to the left, my lord,’ the Inspector had not been here before but was recreating events from the information he had been given, ‘that must be the stable block where Jack Hayward took the horse with the corpse. The point where he turned off must be very close to where we are now.’

‘I’m sure you’re right,’ said Powerscourt, staring intently at the house where a face had just been withdrawn from a window on the first floor.

‘Could I make one suggestion about these interviews?’

‘Please do,’ replied the Inspector.

‘I propose we interview them one at a time, rather than all in a body. And I suggest that you take the lead in all the interviews and ask what you want. I’ll just chip in when you’ve finished. I think that should make it more formal.’

‘Just as you say, my lord. I’ll be happy to go along with that.’

Detective Inspector Blunden jumped out of the carriage, closely followed by Powerscourt, and he pulled vigorously on the doorbell of Candlesby Hall.

Mrs Baines had scarcely left her post by the doctor’s bedside all through the evening. One visitor had called to see him quite late but he had departed in rather a cross mood, saying that he couldn’t get any sense out of the doctor at all and would come back the following afternoon. In vain did Mrs Baines suggest that the morning was the best, if not the only time the doctor might be lucid. The visitor had other appointments in the morning.

The doctor drifted off to sleep, shortly after eleven o’clock. He might, in Mrs Baines’ limited knowledge, be in a coma; she couldn’t be sure. What she did know was that there was very little anybody could do for Theodore Miller in his present state. She could make him comfortable and keep him warm and clean until the end. And she didn’t think the end was very far off now. She resolved to ring the other doctor, as the older citizens always referred to the upstart newcomer Dr Campbell, at seven o’clock in the morning.

She had lost count of the number of these vigils she had kept now, Bertha Baines, vigils with members of her own family, four of whom she had watched over into the next world, vigils with people who had employed her, she now realized, so they would not leave this world alone, terrible vigils with sick children whose parents had asked her to help out and found they were too busy with their other children or too exhausted to keep watch on their little ones as they slipped away, vigils with friends and neighbours who sent for Bertha because she was known to be good at that sort of thing.

She supposed watching over people as they died had become as much a part of her now as her other work as a nurse or a housekeeper. Just before midnight she went upstairs to sit with the doctor, fortified by an enormous pot of tea clad in three separate tea cosies, and a plate of biscuits. The doctor was always fond of a biscuit when he was well. Mrs Baines looked at him carefully as she began her vigil. She wiped the beads of sweat from his brow. He seemed comfortable with his blankets and his pillows. His breathing was regular but shallow. His hands wandered about over the bedclothes every now and then and Bertha seized one and held it in her own. The doctor looked content. How often had she looked in on these scenes. How often had she thought the patient was secure in their hold on life only for them to slip away a moment later. Truly, she had thought on many occasions with the terminally ill, it must be as hard to die sometimes as it is to stay alive.

Shortly before three o’clock in the morning, when her reservoir of tea was almost exhausted, she thought Dr Miller had stopped breathing, he seemed so still. Leaning forward she realized that his breath, though fainter than before, was still going. Just before dawn she plumped up his pillows once more, mopped his brow, tiptoed downstairs and came back with her Book of Common Prayer . She had checked years before with the vicar, who assured her it was perfectly all right to read the Lord’s Prayer and the Catechism and the Collect of the Day aloud to her patients. ‘Our Father, which art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name …’ She held one of the doctor’s hands as she spoke the prayer. There was a very slight rustling in the bed as if Dr Miller might be on the verge of waking up, but it came to nothing.

‘Fulfil now, o Lord, the desires and petitions of thy servants as may be most expedient for them: granting us in this world knowledge of thy truth and in the world to come life everlasting.’

Looking at him, the deathly pallor, the deep wrinkles on his face and on the backs of his hands, Mrs Baines thought the doctor was much closer to life everlasting than he was to knowledge of God’s truth.

At seven she tiptoed downstairs to telephone Dr Campbell. He said he would be over straight away. They always come quicker for their own, Mrs Baines said to herself crossly, remembering a nine-hour wait by the bedside of a dying child before the doctor appeared and then the child going before he had time to open his bag.

The doctor took Dr Miller’s pulse and checked his breathing and all the other futile things doctors do by the bedsides of those they know are passing away. Their performance becomes a ritual to give comfort to the living rather than the dying.

‘It could be any time, Mrs Baines,’ he said finally, ‘or he could linger on till tomorrow. I don’t think he will wake again but I could be wrong. You have nothing to reproach yourself with – you have looked after him very well. Don’t worry, Mrs Baines, I’ll see myself out. Your place is here, I feel. Not long to go now.’

At half past ten the breathing became very shallow. Just after eleven Dr Miller breathed his last. Mrs Baines made sure he was gone and then she cried. She always cried when they left her. Then she went downstairs to send for all the people she had to involve now: the police and the undertakers and the solicitor. She made some more tea. She knew that Dr Miller had written a very short note to the lawyer early yesterday evening. She remembered suddenly the visitor from the evening before who wanted to call in the afternoon. Strange, Mrs Baines said to herself, he seemed a well-spoken man, the doctor’s visitor, but he never left his name.

Detective Inspector Blunden firmly but politely rebuffed all Lord Candlesby’s proposals after they had been escorted into the saloon on the first floor. The three eldest brothers were waiting there. On the way up Powerscourt’s eye had fallen on a ceramic pig with only three legs and a stag on the walls whose left eye had fallen out. He was astonished at the general air of chaos the Candlesbys seemed to live in.