David Dickinson - Death in a Scarlet Coat

Powerscourt smiled. ‘You will remember, I’m sure, Inspector, the story of Nelson raising the telescope to his blind eye at the battle of Copenhagen so he couldn’t read the signal that told him to end the fighting. He went on, as you know, to win the engagement. Battles are mostly won in spite of, rather than because of, the orders of the commanders. I seem to recall that the Chief Constable only fought one battle and he only won that because the natives ran away before a shot was fired.’

‘To listen to him,’ said the Inspector sourly, ‘you’d think he’d been successful at Blenheim and Talavera and Gettysburg and one or two more. Only a day or so to go before the King invites him to have a triumph through the streets of London.’

‘Are you going to hold off making inquiries until there is some definite news about the exhumation?’

‘Yes and no, my lord. I’m not going to make any inquiries into a possible murder. But I am going to make inquiries into the disappearing Jack Hayward and his family. If we could find that man and talk to him properly we’d be a long way to solving the mystery, if you ask me.’

‘Good luck in your inquiries, Inspector,’ said Powerscourt. ‘I’m just going on a fishing expedition to Horncastle. To see the editor and chief reporter of the Horncastle Standard . Maybe they can provide us with a couple of murder suspects.’

Powerscourt’s first impression of James Roper, the editor of the Horncastle Standard , was that he had one of the longest beards he had ever seen. It was black and very thick and seemed to be an even more massive structure than the one sported by the earlier Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury. He looked to be in his middle forties with bloodshot eyes and a right hand almost permanently wrapped round a tumbler full of a pale brown liquid which Powerscourt presumed to be brandy.

‘Care to join me?’ he boomed, shaking Powerscourt vigorously by the hand. ‘Medicinal, you know. Doctor man recommends brandy in small but regular doses. Never asked me when I start, mind you. He might think’ – Roper checked a large clock on the wall – ‘that ten to twelve is a little soon into the gallops. Never mind. Let me introduce young Rufus here, our chief reporter, Rufus Kershaw.’

Rufus was certainly young. Powerscourt didn’t think this slip of a lad could be more than twenty-five, his slim features, lack of a beard and clear brown eyes a mighty contrast to his superior.

‘Please don’t look at me like that, Lord Powerscourt,’ the young man said with a smile. ‘I am nearly twenty-six years old, you know. And I have been a reporter on this paper for the past nine years. That’s a very long time, nine years. And it’s amazing how much more people will tell me because they think they’re only talking to a boy.’

‘Now then, my lord,’ Roper was refilling his glass with great care from an enormous decanter, ‘may I ask what is the purpose of your visit here?’

‘It is very simple,’ said Powerscourt, ‘but could I ask first of all that our conversation is off the record for now? It may be that the position will change over time – we shall see. Let me explain what brings me to Lincolnshire. I have been asked to look into the death of the last Lord Candlesby. Sorry to sound obstructive but are you gentlemen happy to be off the record for the present?’

There was a short glance and a quick nod between the newspapermen.

‘We have a story about that affair ready to appear in our next edition tomorrow,’ said Roper. ‘Young Rufus here had better tell you about it; he wrote the story after all. And assume that we are all off the record.’

‘I had heard you were here, my lord,’ said Rufus. ‘I bumped into one of Inspector Blunden’s men on the way to interview one of the hunt officials. I think they told me more than they told him, mind you, seeing I’ve talked to most of them a couple of times or more in the past few years.’

Powerscourt felt his card was being marked, very delicately, but marked all the same. He smiled at the young man.

‘Did you draw any conclusions from your interviews, Mr Kershaw? Anything firm? Anything meaningful?’

‘My very first boss, my lord, was forever asking if certain stories would make “a meaningful piece”,’ the young man said. ‘It makes me smile to this day to think of the phrase.’ He paused for a moment and whipped a notebook out of his pocket. ‘I think it’s all very clear, this story, up to a certain point. There’s the hunt milling around the front of Candlesby Hall. There are the servants handing round the stirrup cup, little conversations full of hope for the new hunting season. The Master is late but the Master is often late. It is cold and the breath of horses and hunters is making vapour trails in the air.’

Powerscourt wondered if the last phrase would get past the sub-editor’s pen.

‘So far, so good. Then the picture grows dimmer. There is a horse, led by the chief groom, Jack Hayward, with a body across it. The body is covered with a couple of blankets. Quite soon, I don’t yet know how soon, everybody gathers that the corpse is that of the Master of the Hunt and Earl of Candlesby. The death party turn off into the stables. Beyond that nothing is clear. The doctor is summoned. Jack Hayward and his family disappear the next day or the day after. Various outsiders begin to appear: yourself, my lord, the Chief Constable, a shady legal gentleman from a firm of solicitors in Bedford Square. The cabbie who drove him from the station to the Hall told me that, my lord. Man gave the cabbie his card in case he ever needed the best legal advice. Silly man! Most of the local cabbies go to Campbell Moreton amp; Marsh in the High Street here. Cheaper than Bedford Square, I’m sure.’

‘Does your article come to any conclusions, Mr Kershaw?’ Powerscourt observed out of the corner of his eye that a giant’s refill was being poured very carefully into the editor’s glass.

‘Please call me Rufus,’ said the young man. ‘I feel very old if you call me Mr Kershaw. No, I most certainly did not come to any conclusions for the simple reason that I didn’t have any. I still don’t have any. Do you, my lord? Have any conclusions, I mean?’

‘No, I haven’t,’ said Powerscourt. ‘May I ask you, were you aware that Dr Miller, the doctor in attendance on the dead man, is also dead? Mind you, he was very old.’

‘Do you think there was anything suspicious about his demise?’ So far the editor’s brain seemed untouched by his brandy intake.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Powerscourt, ‘but let me try to move our conversation in a slightly different direction, if I may. I have been asked to investigate the death of the late Lord Candlesby. The person who asked me is certain it was murder. Therefore, I ask myself, is there anything in the man’s past that could have led to his death? So I come to ask you gentlemen for your advice and counsel.’

Rufus Kershaw wrote something very suddenly in his book. The editor lifted his gaze from his decanter to Powerscourt’s face.

‘Now I see, Lord Powerscourt, now I see what you have come for. Well, I’m sure we can give you a few clues. Rufus, could you begin with the most recent story that might be relevant?’

‘Yes, sir. I presume you are referring to the suicide of Lady Flavia Melville last summer. This, my lord, was a most frustrating story. You may think it is difficult to find out the truth about the body that joins the hunt. Well, it was even more difficult with this one. There is, I think, one rule that used to hold but no longer does. Its day may have passed already, I don’t know. Certainly I don’t think it’ll last another ten years. And this rule is that servants don’t talk. They may talk to the police in confidence but they won’t appear in court in case they lose their job or their house or their farm or all three together. In the Lady Melville case they must have said something but who it was or to whom it was said we still don’t know. I have to tell you, my lord, that I am trying my hand at fictional short stories. I have had two published so far in The Strand Magazine and I hope for further success in the future. But I firmly believe that my account of the Lady Melville affair still owes more to fiction than to fact.’