David Dickinson - Death Called to the Bar

‘Well,’ said the gorgon, ‘it’s most unusual for myself and the Treasurer to be out of the office at the same time but it can’t be helped.’

Sarah half dragged her out of the office and down the stairs, the gorgon pausing only to close the door. Nineteen minutes had elapsed since Barton Somerville entered the Kirk chambers. Twenty had passed before Sarah and Miss McKenna were sighted approaching Sarah’s rooms. Twenty-two had elapsed before they had clattered up the stairs and Edward reckoned they were fully engaged with the errant typewriter ribbon. After twenty-three minutes Edward, with three black box files under his arm, set out across the path leading to Fountain Court. He wanted to run but he knew he couldn’t. Walking across the court like this was perfectly normal. Running, unless a man was extremely late for court, was most unusual.

‘I think the reason the barristers refused to speak to us, Chief Inspector,’ said Powerscourt, ‘is that they were ashamed of themselves. Even the Head Porter, not a man famous for criticizing his lords and masters, said that their language was often worse than that of Billingsgate Fish Market and the behaviour bad enough to have some of them up in front of the justices for breaches of the peace.’

‘I suppose,’ said Beecham, ‘that if you make a living by being prepared to insult people in a courtroom occasionally, you won’t find it too hard when it comes to events back in your own chambers.’

‘Exactly so,’ said Powerscourt. ‘The contest appeared to be going along with little advantage to one side or the other until about ten days before polling day. You must remember, Chief Inspector, that the porters were most intimately involved in the event. They were following the gentlemen’s bets on the outcome very closely and they themselves had a variety of wagers at different odds with the unofficial bookmaker, covering bets, bets on the size of the majority, bets on the total number of votes that would be cast, that sort of thing. Anyway, as I say, with ten days to go Newton and his people decide it’s time to take the gloves off. They start putting it about that the barristers should not be electing a bencher who would only be able to serve from Monday to Wednesday. This was a clear reference to Dauntsey’s nervous depressions, his days off, as it were, the inexplicable occasions when his great talent seemed to desert him.’

‘That was a pretty filthy tactic,’ said Chief Inspector Beecham. ‘Did it work? Surely the barristers knew all that already?’

‘It seemed to work for about a week,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Whether it took Dauntsey’s people that long to do their research, or whether they thought Newton’s tactics might backfire, I don’t know. But they certainly fought back in kind. Newton wasn’t a gentleman, they said. His father kept two grocery shops in Wolverhampton. His grandmother had been a junior parlourmaid. They produced a rather vicious but very effective cartoon, apparently. Across the top was the legend “Our New Bencher” with many exclamation marks beside it. Underneath were two drawings, one showing a younger but very recognizable Newton counting out the change in the grocery shop, and the other showing him helping an elderly lady, presumably his grandmother, to fold the ironing in some great airing room. A hundred years ago or less, people fought duels for stuff like this.’

‘Have you thought, Lord Powerscourt, that it may be that the people here still haven’t stopped fighting duels for this kind of smear?’

‘I see what you mean, Sarah,’ said the gorgon, inspecting the loops of typewriter ribbon festooned across the top of the machine. She tugged, lightly at first, then harder and harder until the veins on her neck began to stand out. ‘Do you have any scissors? And a spare ribbon, I’m sure you must have one or two of those.’

Edward was less than a hundred yards away from the Treasurer’s staircase.

Sarah realized to her horror that the gorgon’s solution would see her out of the door in a minute or so. Edward might not have enough time. He might be caught by the gorgon in person and confined in some monstrous prison.

‘Surely it won’t work if we cut it,’ she said. ‘That bit of ribbon that’s stuck around those two keys means that we won’t have the letters p and l at all.’

‘I think you’ll find,’ the gorgon said rather sharply, seizing the scissors firmly as if she was going to slit someone’s throat, ‘that if we cut the ribbon as close as we can to the keys, they will be released as the ribbon falls down into the machine.’ She began clipping the ribbon firmly. Edward was now at the entrance to the staircase containing Barton Somerville’s quarters. Twenty-five minutes had elapsed. The Treasurer might even now be on his way back to his quarters but Edward did not dare look round.

With a particularly vicious snip the gorgon freed the reluctant keys of p and l. ‘There,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t as bad as all that. Do you have a new ribbon, Sarah?’

Edward took the stairs up to the first floor two at a time. The door was closed. Oh, no, he said to himself, peering back down the stairs. Very gingerly, as if the door might explode in his face, Edward turned the handle and pushed. He was in.

‘I think I’ll be getting back now,’ said the gorgon, watching Sarah unwrap another roll of typewriter ribbon. ‘We can’t leave the Treasurer’s office unmanned for too long, can we.’

Sarah was not sure if Edward had had enough time. She wondered desperately if there was some other ruse that might keep the gorgon in her attic a little longer.

Edward had brought down the three files relating to 1899 and the first six months of 1900. He slipped the three dummy files he had brought into the place where the originals had been, checking they were correctly aligned with their fellows.

Miss McKenna waited no longer. With a businesslike ‘Goodbye’ she was down the stairs, heading rapidly back towards her lair.

‘We’ve checked all those places, of course,’ said Beecham. ‘Newton’s parents in Wolverhampton and the grandmother. No sign of him. My colleague who went to talk to the parents said how proud they were of their son, gone from a Midlands back street to Queen’s Inn and maybe even a bencher’s chair.’

‘Did they have any idea where he was?’ asked Powerscourt.

‘No, but this is the interesting thing, Lord Powerscourt. My colleague who questioned them said he was sure the parents thought their son was the killer. They looked very rattled when told about the two deaths. And when he asked them if Newton had a temper they both said he did. The father began rubbing his hand round some mark on his forehead as if Porchester had clocked him one in his youth.’

‘God bless my soul,’ said Powerscourt. ‘How very interesting that the parents should think he was the murderer. Not that they’d ever say anything in court.’

There was a knock at the door and another of the Chief Inspector’s young policemen came in with a note for Beecham. He read it very fast and looked up at Powerscourt. ‘Death calls again, I fear. Not in Queen’s Inn but for that former employee you went to see, a Mr Bassett, Mr John Bassett, of Petley Road, Fulham. They only found him today. The sergeant isn’t sure if the death is due to natural causes or not. The police surgeon is on his way. I have to stay here for now, Lord Powerscourt, with the various strands of inquiry into Newton still coming in . . . ’

‘Of course,’ said Powerscourt. ‘I shall go at once to pay my last respects to Mr Bassett. I rather liked the little man.’

Edward saw the large diary lying open on her desk. Quickly he swung the pages back to the week before the murder of Alex Dauntsey. There it was, six days before the feast, a meeting with Dauntsey and Stewart, at Dauntsey’s request, underlined in the gorgon’s hand. Edward wondered what other clues might be hiding here. Then he turned and walked as fast as he could down the stairs, his three files under his arm, until he realized he had forgotten to close the door. As he headed back up the stairs, his heart pounding once more, the gorgon was emerging from the main entrance to Edward’s chambers in New Court. He came down the steps two at a time, turned right and was out of the back door of the Inn a full thirty seconds before the gorgon came into view. Within a minute Edward and his files were in a cab, heading for Manchester Square. He hoped Lord Powerscourt would be pleased with him.