David Dickinson - Death Called to the Bar

‘Did everybody call him Squirrel, Mr Jenkins?’

‘Somebody told me the other day, sir, that they thought even his own family must have called him Squirrel. But I’m losing my way, Lord Powerscourt. The reason I asked to meet you here was that Mr Dauntsey and Squirrel played cricket together. They opened the batting for the junior team, then the senior team, they even had a trial together for the County. And the scorer for the Calne cricket team was the estate steward, a miserable man who’d been in the Army called Buchanan-Smith. A real stickler for formality, he was, sir. There was no way he would have put just Squirrel in his score book.’

Matthew Jenkins bent down and picked up a faded green volume. ‘Here we are, sir, A.M. Dauntsey, caught Pollard, bowled Keyes, thirty-four, Squirrel Maxfield, bowled Hawkins, forty-two.’

Powerscourt picked up another book for another year and found more records of successful partnerships between the two men.

Powerscourt was as interested as the next man in cricket records but he felt he should press on.

‘Is he still here, Squirrel Maxfield? Is he still opening the batting for Calne?’

Matthew Jenkins looked so sad, Powerscourt thought he might burst into tears. ‘No, my lord, he’s not here. He left soon after the catastrophe. You know how they say some people are marked out for disaster, for the vengeance of the gods – well, I think he was one of them.’

The white head was off again. Powerscourt waited. ‘He married late, this Squirrel,’ Jenkins went on, leafing absent-mindedly through another of the score books, ‘must have been about five or six years ago. They had a son, lovely little boy he was, with blond hair and big green eyes. Until he was one and a half, nearly two, everything was fine. Then things began to go wrong with the boy. They took him to a lot of doctors but there was no cure. Epilepsy and mental deficiency, that’s what they said it was. Just when they were taking all that in, the wife was pregnant again. Same thing. Another little boy, same problem, same illness. The doctors shook their heads. They needed extra help to look after the little ones. Worst thing was, these children would never get better, they’d need looking after all their lives. People said there were special hospitals and places you could send them. Squirrel Maxfield said nobody ever came out alive from those places. He said if they could just keep them alive long enough somebody would come up with a cure. Squirrel said he didn’t believe God could send people out into this world who weren’t well without intending to cure them.’

‘Did they receive help from anywhere, Mr Jenkins? Financial help?’

‘Well, my lord, you know how it is in small communities like ours. Gossip going everywhere, like a weed. People said Mr Dauntsey gave them money, a lot of money, but nobody knew. They all went off to the South of France. Maybe the climate would be better, I don’t know. People say it’s cheaper to live there, I wouldn’t know, I sometimes think I haven’t much time left here myself.’

‘Nonsense, Mr Jenkins,’ said Powerscourt, ‘you’ll be here for years yet. But tell me, what did you make of the two of them, Dauntsey and Maxfield?’

The old man looked at him carefully and began extracting pipe, tobacco pouch and matches from various pockets.

‘Squirrel Maxfield, I didn’t know him well. He worked in the town as a carpenter so we did see him here from time to time. Very pleasant gentleman, always polite to me. Mr Dauntsey, mind you, I watched him grow up. I never knew a more considerate man, always happy to help the people on the estate in bad times. He was a real loss, sir.’

‘I don’t suppose,’ said Powerscourt, anxious to remove all possible ambiguity, ‘that Mr Maxfield has been back here in the last couple of months or so?’ Not on a feast day in Queen’s Inn at the end of February, he said to himself.

‘No, sir, he’s not been back. I’m sure he would have come back for the funeral if he’d heard about it in time. Don’t suppose the posts and things work very well over there. And if he’d been back he’d have come down to see his old mother who’s still alive in the town and we’d have heard all about it.’

On his train back to London Powerscourt felt relieved that F.L. Maxfield could at last be removed from their inquiries. And he wondered again about the nature of his first murder victim, Alexander Dauntsey, a man whose generosity to his friends extended beyond the grave.

Edward found Lord Francis Powerscourt pacing up and down his drawing room with the twins nestling against his chest. Edward could have sworn he was talking to them about Pericles’ funeral speech in Book Two of Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War .

‘You’ve got to talk to them about something,’ said Powerscourt cheerfully. ‘Johnny Fitzgerald has told them already about all the birds of London and their breeding habits. Would you like one?’

Edward told Sarah later that evening that his host offered him a twin as he might have offered a cucumber sandwich or a slice of cake at afternoon tea. Very gingerly he took a small, well-wrapped bundle in his arms, holding it very delicately.

‘They look about quite a bit now,’ said Powerscourt happily. ‘Sometimes they grab hold of your finger as if they’re a monkey. The nurse will be coming to take them away for their bath in a minute, Edward. You won’t have to last out for very long.’

‘Which one have I got?’ asked Edward.

‘You’ve got the boy, Christopher. The other children are calling him Chris already. I’d much rather he had the full name. If we’d wanted to call him Chris, I keep telling Thomas and Olivia, we’d have christened him that. But they don’t pay any attention. Do you have a view on this?’

Edward had no wish to tread into some diplomatic imbroglio between parent and children. ‘Well,’ he said tactfully, ‘you don’t have to decide yet, do you? Christopher himself might have a view on this?’

At that point a middle-aged nurse, spotless in white, appeared in the doorway. She had two large white towels over one arm.

‘Nurse Mary Muriel,’ said Powerscourt, ‘you have come for the twins, I see. Allow me to introduce Edward, a great friend of the family.’

‘How do you do,’ Mary Muriel said to Edward, and advanced to claim her charges. ‘It’s bath time,’ she said, as if it were some ritual fixed by Royal Decree or Act of Parliament, and swept out of the room towards the upper floors, her tiny charges firmly under her control.

‘Well,’ said Powerscourt, parking himself in his favourite armchair to the left of the sofa in front of the fire, ‘I sometime want to suggest to Mary Muriel that she postpone bath time for ten minutes so I could have more time with the twins. I am their father, after all. And I pay her wages, come to that. But she is terribly good at her job. She looked after Thomas and Olivia when they were little. But her world runs like clockwork. If you check your watch, Edward, I think you’ll find that it is about one minute after six. If bath time does not commence at exactly six o’clock, London will sink below the Thames, there will be a plague of locusts and the waters shall cover the face of the earth.’

Edward smiled. ‘I’m glad I’ve met this titan of the nursery,’ he said, ‘and it is just coming up to two minutes after six.’

‘Now then, young Edward,’ said Powerscourt, ‘time to be serious for a moment. I’ve been reading those wills and I’m very confused. There are a number of people supposed to be receiving money from the Inn who aren’t. Have you ever come across any poor pupils or students being maintained by the munificence of Queen’s and the generosity of its past benchers?’