David Dickinson - Death in a Scarlet Coat

‘Yes, yes,’ said the doctor, wrestling briefly with one of his pillows. ‘Do you know, I’ve thought about this moment such a lot, and now I’m not sure how to begin.’

The doctor paused. Powerscourt waited.

‘It has to do with Lord Candlesby,’ the old man said finally, and another coughing fit struck him, longer than the last.

‘Which one?’ asked Powerscourt as gently as he could.

‘Sorry, my mind isn’t what it was. It has to do with the one who died while you were here the last time. For the Messiah .’

The doctor looked hopelessly at Powerscourt as if his will could pass on all the information he wanted. Still Powerscourt said nothing.

‘It has to do with the death certificate, you see.’ Powerscourt thought that had taken a great effort. He suddenly thought the matter might be speeded up if he started asking questions rather than imitating the Sphinx.

‘Perhaps you could just tell me, Dr Miller, how you first became involved?’

‘I was called to the stable block at Candlesby Hall round about nine thirty maybe ten o’clock in the morning. I didn’t see what had happened before, but apparently the members of the hunt were all gathered in front of the house. Candlesby himself was dead when I got there, carried up his drive on the back of his horse and covered with blankets.’ The doctor rested once more, his eyes closing for a moment as if to shut out the painful truth.

‘So you didn’t have to treat him in any way? There was nothing to be done?’

‘That’s right,’ said the doctor, looking slightly more cheerful now his story was properly under way. ‘He was dead all right, very dead.’

Powerscourt racked his brains to think what sins the doctor must have committed if he hadn’t had to treat Candlesby at all. Medical negligence seemed out of the question. But something very serious must have happened to bring him all the way from London.

‘The problem … the problem has to do with the death certificate.’

‘What did you put on the death certificate, doctor?’

Temporary relief for Dr Miller was provided by the arrival of tea. Mrs Baines looked sternly at Powerscourt as she poured two cups. ‘I don’t think you should be tiring the doctor out too much, Lord Powerscourt. I’ll be back in half an hour and then you must let him rest for a while. You can always come back later on or first thing in the morning.’

The doctor refused a scone and a slice of Mrs Baines’ home-made chocolate cake. Powerscourt succumbed.

‘They were all on at me about the death certificate,’ the doctor said as the housekeeper sped out of the room, closing the door firmly behind her.

‘Sorry, who were they?’ said Powerscourt indistinctly through a mouthful of chocolate cake.

‘Sorry,’ said the doctor. ‘The three eldest brothers were on at me.’

‘You’ve lost me,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Could we just go back to where we were before tea? What did you put on the death certificate, Dr Miller?’

There was that beseeching look again. Powerscourt noticed that the doctor’s body was shaking beneath the bedclothes in irregular spasms. He suddenly stared at a print of Venice on his wall, boats swirling round the basin of St Mark, the Doge’s Palace and the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore keeping watch over the waterway. He was whispering now.

‘They made me say – oh, how I wish I’d never agreed to it – they made me say the Earl had died of natural causes.’ Another coughing fit, a fit of remorse maybe, consumed him. Powerscourt thought suddenly that it wasn’t youth, but age, that grows pale and spectre thin and dies.

‘And he hadn’t? Died of natural causes, I mean? Is that right?’ Powerscourt thought he could see the whole thing now. It’s my damned profession, he said to himself. If I weren’t a bloody investigator I wouldn’t be rushing to conclusions so fast.

The doctor nodded miserably.

‘So Lord Candlesby died of unnatural causes then. Was he murdered? Had somebody killed him? And was that why the sons were so keen for you to put natural causes as the cause of death?’

The doctor nodded again. The Venetians in their gondolas and their sailing boats seemed to be bringing little comfort now.

‘How was he killed, doctor? You must have had a good look at him.’

‘I can’t tell you that, Lord Powerscourt. They made me swear to keep that secret.’

‘This isn’t a case of a sprained wrist or ingrowing toenails, Dr Miller. We’re talking about the most serious crime on the statute books of England.’

‘I know, I know, but I can’t tell you that. They made me swear.’

Dr Miller coughed violently, spasms shaking his body. Powerscourt took a hasty look at his watch. There were only minutes left before the dragon of a housekeeper was to return.

‘Let me recap if I may, doctor. The hunt was meeting at Candlesby Hall. Before they could start – am I right? – the body was brought up, laid across a horse and covered in blankets.’ The doctor nodded. ‘The corpse is then diverted into the stables away from prying eyes. You are summoned. I presume you inspect the dead man. Then the brothers force you to say he died of natural causes before there is any possibility of a post-mortem and a scandal that will fill the national press for days. Is that right?’

The doctor nodded once more.

‘So who brought the body up to the house? And how many people knew about the real cause of Candlesby’s death?’

Suddenly a light seemed to go out in the doctor’s system. He sank back on his pillows, eyes closed. Powerscourt pulled a black notebook from his pocket and began writing as fast as he could. If he was to make any sense of this strange affair he needed something more concrete than the ramblings of a dying doctor.

‘I, Dr Theodore Miller,’ the words sped from Powerscourt’s pen, ‘do hereby declare that on October the eighth, 1909, I signed a false death certificate. I said that the Earl of Candlesby had died of natural causes. He had not. He was murdered by a person or persons unknown.’

The housekeeper swept back into the room. Dr Miller woke up from his reverie. He smiled at Powerscourt.

‘Please forgive me, Mrs Baines, I beg you to grant us a little more time. Lord Powerscourt and I have nearly finished discussing our business. This business is the most important thing I have to settle before I die. Don’t make that face, please, I know I haven’t long to go. I am a doctor after all.’

‘Very well,’ said Mrs Baines, ‘but not too long now, or you’ll be sorry.’ And with a menacing look at Powerscourt she left the room once more.

‘You know, Lord Powerscourt, it’s a pleasure to talk with an educated and cultivated man like yourself. Most of my friends are dead now, and not many people come to see me these days.’

Powerscourt leant forward towards the bed with his notebook.

‘I’ll sign that for you in a moment, whatever it is,’ the doctor went on. ‘When you get to my age,’ he continued, ‘the past comes in on you like the tide. It just washes away what happened recently, last month, the day before yesterday. I can feel my memory going, you know. Trying to recall what happened a week ago is like trying to pull up a bucket from a well with no bottom to it. Sometimes I think I’m going right back to the beginning. I thought I remembered sitting up in my pram in my parents’ garden the other night. Maybe at the very end we just go right back to where we came in.’

‘That’s very interesting,’ Powerscourt began, but the doctor interrupted him. The beads of sweat were back on his forehead, glistening like dew, and another coughing fit seized him.

‘I know, I know,’ the doctor said at last, ‘you want me to sign this piece of paper.’