David Dickinson - Death in a Scarlet Coat

‘So you didn’t really have much of a conversation with Jack Hayward then? What happened next?’

‘Hayward went off to bring the doctor and the undertaker’s people. I was keen to get the formalities under way. After I’d seen them I went up to the house to tell the family.’

‘Of course,’ said Powerscourt, ‘how very proper. Let me ask just one more question if I may. When you were in the stables, it was just you and Jack Hayward, nobody else?’

‘That is correct.’

‘Very good, my lord,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Now I think the Detective Inspector will want to ask you a few questions about the disappearance of Jack Hayward. Missing people are more in the police line than mine.’

‘This won’t take long, my lord.’ Blunden was trying to be pleasant. ‘Do you know when Jack Hayward disappeared?’

‘I’ve no idea, I’m afraid. The first I heard of it was the day before yesterday. Damned nuisance – the man was a genius with horses.’

‘And you’ve no idea where he is? He can’t have just disappeared, surely.’

‘As far as we’re concerned, that’s just what he has done – disappeared.’

‘And you don’t recall any previous occasion where he asked you about working in Wales, say, or your saying to him that he might like Yorkshire, that sort of thing?’

‘I don’t think anybody at Candlesby’, said Richard, sounding for the very first time like the lord of the manor he now was, ‘would ever have suggested he went anywhere else. He was needed and very much valued here.’

Powerscourt and the Inspector collected their belongings and prepared to leave, Powerscourt confirming before they left that a visit to the stables on their way out wouldn’t pose any problems.

‘Feel free to look around as much as you like,’ said Richard affably. ‘I don’t think anybody needs to come with you.’

That was Richard’s big mistake of the day. His coaching of his brothers, if a trifle excessive, had caused no problems. He felt his own performance had been convincing, though he wondered just how much Powerscourt knew about what went on in the stables. But there was one factor he had forgotten to control and this factor was now engaged in conversation with the Inspector and Powerscourt inside the stables.

‘I’m Charles, the b-b-black sheep of the Candlesbys,’ said Charles, introducing himself, ‘cursed with being the fourth son and a stutterer. They keep trying to p-p-pack me off out of sight, my b-b-beastly b-b-brothers.’

‘You don’t live here, Lord Charles, do you? I don’t recall seeing you about the place.’

‘I escaped to Cambridge for three years,’ said the young man, ‘ et in Arcadia ego .’

‘I was in Paradise too,’ Inspector Blunden chipped in, keen to show off the remains of his Latin.

‘My b-b-brothers tried to p-p-persuade me that I was too stupid to pass any exams. That would have meant no trip to the Senate House at the end to collect a degree. But I p-p-passed all my exams. I got my degree. Everybody dressed up for the occasion. Doctors wore scarlet.’

‘And where do you live now, sir?’ asked Powerscourt.

‘I eke out a p-p-precarious living in London, teaching small boys at a p-p-prep school. The headmaster and his staff put on a great facade of caring for the p-pupils but it’s more like Dotheboys Hall than anywhere else with the headmaster as Wackford Squeers.’

‘What can you tell us about your father’s death, sir?’ said Inspector Blunden. ‘Were you here when he was brought up on his horse or did that come later?’

‘I was in London when it happened. Latin b-b-beginners class. Amo amas amat . Earnest little eight-year-olds in their crisp white shirts. I took the train as soon as I heard. I arrived about seven.’

‘And what impressions did you form about what had happened?’ asked Powerscourt, suspecting that they might at last have found a more truthful witness than the ones encountered so far.

‘Well,’ said Charles, ‘there was a great deal of anxiety. And I thought some story was being cooked up which wasn’t true.’

‘What do you mean?’ Powerscourt, speaking very quietly, took a discreet look up at the Hall to check nobody was coming down to join the party.

Charles retreated a couple of paces into the shadows. ‘I don’t know what had happened to my father, but I thought he had p-p-probably been killed. And I think he must have looked frightful. Jack Hayward told me so the evening b-b-before he left. And whatever my b-b-brothers told you is p-probably a p-p-pack of lies. Richard’s been rehearsing Edward and Henry in what they were to say to you.’

‘Are you saying your father was murdered?’ Inspector Blunden sounded incredulous.

‘Yes,’ said Charles. ‘I mean, I don’t know it as I wasn’t here, but I think that’s the most likely explanation. There was a lot of talk about the death certificate. I think they b-b-bullied Dr Miller into signing it saying death was by natural causes.’

‘And Jack Hayward,’ said Powerscourt, ‘when did he tell you about your father looking frightful? And did he say he was leaving, going right away?’

‘I saw him the evening of the death. I’d come down here to talk to the horses. I like horses. Jack was here. He loved horses too. He didn’t tell me he was leaving though.’

There were faint noises of people coming towards the stables. Charles seized Powerscourt’s arm. ‘My father was a tyrant. Like some Central European despot who impales his enemies, thousands at a time, stake in at the bottom and out at the mouth. He’d have done that, my father. But I don’t think he should have been killed. I haven’t got much money, Lord P-powerscourt, b-b-but I want you to find his killer. I want you to investigate his death for me.’

With that he let go of Powerscourt’s arm and drifted off. Powerscourt and Inspector Blunden made their way out to the drive to pick up their carriage. When Edward and Henry reached the stables the only noise to be heard was Charles, crooning quietly to the horses.

The drive and the gate lodges were well behind them when Powerscourt began to tell the Inspector the reason for his reticence with the inhabitants of Candlesby Hall.

‘I think there were two reasons, Inspector, for not showing our full hand at this stage. The first has to do with Dr Miller. I wouldn’t put it past them to send out another bullying expedition to make him change his mind. I wouldn’t want to put him through that again. He was shaking, literally shaking, when he told me what had happened about the death certificate. And the second reason is more diffuse. Assuming the doctor was telling the truth, and Charles Dymoke confirms some of it, we now know that they are all lying about what went on after Richard met Jack Hayward and they turned off the road into the stables. They don’t know that I have talked to Dr Miller and if I had divulged any of that information about the three of them bullying the doctor, they would know immediately where it came from. There was only one other person present, apart from them, after all. So we know they lied about who talked to the doctor; we know from Charles that they have been lying about the manner of the old man’s death. We don’t know who looked at the body. So, I think we have a slight advantage from withholding the fact that I talked to the doctor, though what we do with it for the moment I’m not altogether sure. I do wish we knew what killed the old man; it must have been something pretty unusual.’

A brief message was passed to Inspector Blunden when they arrived back at the police station. His face fell as he read it.

‘This is sad news, indeed, my lord,’ he told Powerscourt. ‘Dr Miller passed away this morning. Peaceful, they say it was, whatever that means.’