David Dickinson - Death in a Scarlet Coat

A fine rain began to fall as the procession made its way up the hill towards the mausoleum.

‘Didn’t think I’d come today,’ one mourner said to his neighbour at the rear of the party. ‘Still don’t know why I’m here, to tell you the truth.’

‘I know how you feel,’ said his companion. ‘I only came to make sure the old bastard was really dead. Got my tools in the back of the car ready to open the coffin up if it looks necessary, screwdrivers and things. Seems fairly certain he has left us, don’t you think?’

‘Pretty rum way to go,’ said the first mourner. ‘I wasn’t here that morning but a chap who was at the hunt told me Candlesby’s body was brought up to the house lying across his horse covered in blankets as if he was El Cid or some medieval warrior.’

His companion grunted. ‘Hardly anybody saw the body, that’s what I was told. Doubt if we’ve heard the end of it. So typical of the bloody man to go on causing trouble after he’s dead, don’t you think?’

‘Were you here when he did that railway swindle?’ The first mourner was in unforgiving mood. ‘Not sure whether it was him or his father, now I come to think about it. They bribed the railway surveyor and the railway lawyer to send the bloody railway not through my land or your land where it was supposed to go, but through their land, Candlesby land. Must have made a fortune, the bastards.’

The procession was now halfway towards the mausoleum. Charles Candlesby was keeping an eye on his younger brother.

‘How are you b-b-bearing up, James? Funerals can be quite b-b-beastly sometimes. Only if you care, mind you. Don’t suppose anyone minds at all about Father.’

‘I care,’ said the youngest Candlesby, and began to cry.

‘P-p-please don’t do that, it’ll start me off too. I care too, you know. The whole thing is too horrid for words.’

James took a series of deep breaths, as instructed by one of his doctors. The front of the procession was now filing into the great height of the mausoleum.

‘Have you b-b-been in here b-b-before?’ asked Charles.

James shook his head.

‘It’s quite special, really. If you ever wonder what the p-p-place the Delphic Oracle lived in was like, this is it. I always wonder if the architect had been to Greece and seen the real thing.’

The pallbearers were now lifting the coffin off the hearse and carrying it inside to be placed on a temporary stand while the vicar said a few prayers. Then it was carried down the stairs into the crypt where it was slid into one of the sixty-nine empty niches carved in the walls.

‘We meekly beseech thee, O Father, to raise us from the death of sin unto the life of righteousness; we may rest in him, as our hope is this our brother doth: and that at the general Resurrection in the last day, we may be found acceptable in thy sight; and receive that blessing which thy well-beloved son shall then pronounce saying, Come, ye blessed children of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world.’

As the priest’s last words echoed round the low walls of the crypt the pallbearers placed the coffin in its niche, closed the great iron door at the front of the vault and secured it with an enormous padlock. There was a brief moment of silence before they all filed out into the light of day and back down the hill. Richard, the new Earl of Candlesby, was wondering if he could choose which niche to occupy when his time came. Henry and Edward were wondering how soon they could get away to the inn on the outskirts of the village. James had decided to go to his apartment on the top floor where he lived with his medical attendant for a period of quiet. Charles had decided to talk to the neighbours who had come for the funeral. You could never tell, he said to himself, when a little bit of local gossip might not come in useful. The first mourner gave it as his opinion to his neighbour that the chances of the late Earl of Candlesby being received into the Kingdom of Heaven were so remote as to be inconceivable. He would rather, he went on, bet on the nag who pulled his milk churns winning the Grand National.

Five days later Powerscourt received a letter from Lincolnshire written in a rather shaky hand.

‘Dear Lord Powerscourt,’ he read, ‘I wonder if I could ask a great favour of you. It concerns a recent action of mine as a doctor of medicine where I fear I have done the wrong thing. The matter is weighing very heavily on my mind. I do not wish to put the details in a letter, but I have to ask that you should come and call at the above address at your earliest convenience. I have recently contracted this terrible influenza and fear I may not be long for this world. I do so hope that you will be able to come before it is too late. Yours sincerely, Theodore Miller.’

‘My word, Lucy,’ he said, passing her the letter, ‘I’ve heard of deathbed repentances from villains and murderers before, but never from a doctor. It must be some sort of record.’

‘What are you going to do? Do you think this doctor is a mass murderer, wanting to tell you how many citizens of Lincolnshire he has done away with?’

‘We met the chap after the Messiah , at the hotel. Very old character with wispy white hair, if you remember. He seemed perfectly law-abiding to me. God knows what he’s been up to. He was very keen to take my address now I come to think about it. I’d better send him a telegram to say I’m coming and catch a train.’

By the middle of the afternoon Powerscourt was knocking on the door of the doctor’s Georgian villa on the outskirts of Candlesby. The house was large with an enormous garden and a tennis court at the back. The doctor was poorly today, the housekeeper Mrs Baines told him, worse than yesterday and worse than the day before. But, she went on, he had repeatedly asked if Lord Powerscourt was coming and that seemed to bring him some relief. She brought him up to a room with great windows on the first floor where an elderly gentleman sitting up in bed in a red silk dressing gown and bright blue pyjamas was waiting to talk to him.

‘My dear Lord Powerscourt, how very kind of you to come all this way. Did my letter arrive today?’

‘It did.’

‘Then you have made admirable speed. Can you tell me one thing and then we can get down to business?’

Mrs Baines tucked the doctor firmly into his bedclothes and left the room, promising to bring tea in about half an hour. The doctor was deathly pale and a film of perspiration covered his forehead only minutes after the housekeeper had wiped it.

‘I have been making inquiries about you, Lord Powerscourt, and I discover that you have a most remarkable record. But tell me this. I learnt about some of your cases. The last one I came across was the Blickling wedding murder which ended up in the Old Bailey a couple of years back with one brother tried for the murder of another. Is there a more recent case which I have not heard about?’

He paused and panted, as if this speech had taken him close to the limits of endurance. He coughed for a moment or two and lay back on his pillows.

Powerscourt wondered briefly if the old man thought detectives resting between engagements were rather like doctors having a long gap between patients, that it meant their clients no longer trusted them.

‘There have been a couple of cases since then, doctor,’ said Powerscourt with a smile, ‘but I’m afraid I can’t talk about them. They were secret work, work for the government.’

‘I see,’ said the doctor, ‘secret work. That sounds very special.’

Powerscourt had no wish to linger in the shadows of government employment. It had been unpleasant enough while it lasted. ‘Perhaps you could tell me your problem, doctor, the one that brought me here.’