David Dickinson - Death Called to the Bar

Puncknowle stopped now directly opposite Powerscourt’s position on the sofa. Outside, two peacocks, confident in their residence in one of the most unusual houses in England, were strutting arrogantly towards the garden.

‘But my enemies are wrong, Lord Powerscourt, to say that in the years of the shadow, theft and larceny were taking place, that I, Jeremiah Puncknowle, was robbing the honest citizens who had entrusted their savings to my care. That was not so! That was the trade cycle! Had my enemies not pulled the wool over the eyes of the police, my positions would have been restored, more than restored, when the sun came out again. Which it did, of course,’ Jeremiah Puncknowle had gone quieter now, almost speaking to himself, ‘only I was not here to profit from it, forced to flee the land of my fathers, and barred from trading on the Exchange.’

Powerscourt wondered if he was going to break down. But anger returned to fire his spirits.

‘The police! God help us all, Lord Powerscourt, the police! I am sure,’ he cast a crafty look at Powerscourt as he said this, ‘that you have had a lot to do with them over the years and they may be perfectly satisfactory in your line of business. But in mine? Hopeless, completely hopeless!’ Puncknowle began walking again, his hands now clasped firmly behind his back as he headed off towards a gorgeous Gainsborough of a society beauty. ‘One inspector did not know what the word dividend meant. He thought it had something to do with the Football Pools. One man, more senior yet, thought that if a firm made a loss in any given year, somebody, probably me, must have been stealing the amount of the deficit. And yet another, a Chief Inspector would you believe, a Chief Inspector, thought that double entry bookkeeping meant that you wrote up the notes from those little books they’re so fond of once, and then you wrote them up again! That’s why it was called double entry. Really, Lord Powerscourt, I ask you, what is to be done? I look forward to seeing them in the witness box, I tell you, I really do.’

The little man returned from his forced march and sat down opposite Powerscourt. ‘I’ve got Sir Isaac Redhead as my lead counsel, you know,’ he went on, ‘and I’ve got that young silk Charles Augustus Pugh. They say he’s a fearsome cross-examiner.’

Puncknowle referred to the pair as if they were leading stars in his favourite football team.

‘I know Charles Augustus Pugh, Mr Puncknowle. A tiger in the courtroom!’ Powerscourt had long since ceased being surprised at what he thought of as the moral neutrality of the Bar. Even with the little he knew he did not think he could go into court and defend Jeremiah Puncknowle. The man was too obviously a fraudster. Yet here were two highly respectable barristers, happy to take his shilling. Maybe it was more than a shilling. The lawyers, he had decided, were like the rows of cabs you could see outside the great railway termini, they were just waiting for the next fare to come along. Now seemed as good a time as any to raise his own business in Paradise.

‘It is of lawyers that I wish to speak to you, Mr Puncknowle, to ask your advice, really.’ Powerscourt was at his most emollient.

The white billiard ball bowed slowly to Powerscourt. ‘Please continue, Lord Powerscourt. Of course I shall be happy to help.’

‘You know only too well, Mr Puncknowle,’ Powerscourt purred, ‘that you are not alone in your forthcoming trials in the Royal Courts of Justice. There are a number of other characters appearing who do not appear to have any known connection with your companies or indeed with yourself.’ God forgive me, thought Powerscourt. If I were a Catholic I would have to go straight to confession after leaving this house. It was an offence for which his Irish grandmother, now long in her grave, would have told him to go and wash his mouth out with soap at once. But he was relieved to see that there was no eruption from the billiard balls. They seemed to be nodding in agreement. He plunged further in.

‘And people say, Mr Puncknowle, though I have no means of knowing whether this is true or not, that one or two of these gentlemen – and I could be completely wrong here – are none too scrupulous in dealing with their opponents.’ Privately Powerscourt was certain that these men were intimately linked with the Puncknowle activities. He referred to them in his mind as the enablers, the enforcers and the extractors.

‘At present,’ Powerscourt went on, ‘I have been engaged by the benchers of Queen’s Inn to investigate two murders. The first, fairly recently, was a man called Dauntsey, poisoned at a feast. The other, only a few days ago, a man called Woodford Stewart, shot twice in the chest.’

Jeremiah Puncknowle made suitably sympathetic mutterings. Powerscourt could not decide whether his host was a consummate actor or not. For he seemed to be hearing this news for the first time. Powerscourt felt it hard to believe that a man who took such pride in Sir Isaac Redhead and Charles Augustus Pugh would not know of the destruction of their opponents in court.

‘The point is this, sir. These two lawyers were the ones chosen by the Treasury solicitor to prosecute you and your companions. Now they are both dead. The reason for my visit is to ask you to make inquiries, discreet inquiries as only you would know how, as to whether any of your associates, in what we might call an excess of zeal for their own defence, arranged or organized for these two barristers to be put out of the way.’

Powerscourt held his breath. But there was no explosion of fury. Instead, to his astonishment, Jeremiah Puncknowle leant forward and seized his hand.

‘My dear Lord Powerscourt, of course I will make those inquiries for you. I shall start this very day. You can rest assured of my full support, my full support.’ With that he released his hand and sank back in his chair. ‘What wicked times we live in, Lord Powerscourt. I have often said that morality simply disappeared from public life with the death of our late Queen. How can you have proper standards from a sovereign with mistresses, an arbiter of behaviour in public life who consorts with grocers and money brokers?’

Powerscourt desisted from pointing that kings without mistresses were virtually unheard of. He thought he should retreat while the ground under his feet was still firm.

‘Mr Puncknowle, I am so grateful for your assistance. And I look forward to hearing from you in this sad and unhappy affair. Let me say how much I have enjoyed meeting you, and what a wonderful mansion you have built here. It is a masterpiece, sir, a masterpiece.’

Powerscourt was to tell Lady Lucy afterwards that he thought his host literally swelled with pride at this point. The sepulchral butler glided silently across the carpet to escort Powerscourt to the front door. As his cab rolled back down the hill towards the railway station he reflected that there was always a problem in Paradise. There was a serpent. In this case a rather chubby serpent in the person of Jeremiah Puncknowle. Powerscourt shivered slightly as they clattered their way down the hill. For he felt sure that if Puncknowle wanted people out of the way, be they barrister or investigator, he would not hesitate. The serpent would strike.

‘Two day returns to Oxford on the special offer, please.’ ‘Oxford, special offer, day return for two, please.’ ‘Special offer to Oxford, two for today, please.’ ‘Two day returns, special offer, Oxford, today please.’ Edward had been repeating these formulas and variants on them to himself for nearly two days now. He knew he would have to make his request in a busy ticket office. He imagined a large and tyrannical ticket man, far worse than Barton Somerville and wearing an intimidating uniform, mocking his efforts and laughing at his silence. If he couldn’t get the words out, then the people in the queue behind him would grow angry and start to shout at him. Edward had already written the words out in large letters on a piece of paper which he could send over the counter if speech failed him. It was all too irritating.