David Dickinson - Death of a Chancellor

Augusta Cockburn was still in fighting form. ‘It seems to me, Mr Drake,’ she said with a rare lack of venom, ‘that the easiest course would be to declare the Matlock Robinson will the authentic one and proceed accordingly.’ Then normal service was resumed. ‘I cannot believe that my brother would have wished to leave fifty thousands to a humble country doctor. Nor do I believe he would have wished to leave a million pounds to a heap of ancient stones that are merely a memorial to a long-dead religion. And I think it is quite simply inconceivable that he would wish to leave a million pounds to be wasted on the human scum who infest our great cities.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Cockburn,’ said Oliver Drake wearily. He wondered if all the women in London behaved like this. If so it must be an even more dreadful place than he thought. ‘Dean?’ He glanced at the figure in black to his right.

‘I have nothing but contempt for the insults we have just heard to our cathedral and, dare I say it, our God. However, I need to take advice. I expect the cathedral will wish to employ legal representation.’ Privately the Dean was deeply troubled, but not by all the complications about the will, nor by the insults of Mrs Cockburn. He was going to have to take advice from his Bishop. It was virtually unheard of.

‘Mr Eustace?’ Oliver Drake turned to the twin brother. ‘Do you have anything you wish to say?’

‘Nope,’ said James Eustace. ‘Bloody meeting has gone on far too long. I want to get out of here. I need a drink.’ With that he headed for the door and the saloon bar of the White Hart, two doors away.

Five minutes after the last departure Powerscourt knocked on the door of the downstairs office of Oliver Drake.

‘Mr Drake? Could you spare me a few minutes of your time? And may I speak in confidence?’ Drake pointed to a comfortable armchair beside his desk. Powerscourt couldn’t help observing that not a single piece of paper, file or legal reference book was to be seen on the green leather surface. Mr Oliver Drake, he felt, must be an obsessively tidy man.

Powerscourt explained that he was in Compton under false pretences. He was not a family friend of the Eustaces’, as represented. He was not a family friend of Mrs Augusta Cockburn’s. He was an investigator, hired by Mrs Cockburn to look into the death of her brother. He gave details of some of his previous cases to lend authority to his position. He now found himself, he told the solicitor, in the bizarre situation of harbouring misgivings about his employer.

‘Never thought it likely you’d be a family friend of the Cockburns’, Powerscourt,’ said Drake with a smile, ‘don’t suppose the bloody woman has any friends at all. Hell’s too cold for that woman, if you ask me. I speak in confidence, of course. But tell me, why does she want her brother’s death investigated? Do you think there was anything suspicious?’

‘I am not in a position to answer that at present. There are three main grounds for her suspicions. She thought the butler was lying. She thought the doctor was lying. She thought it most unusual that the coffin was closed so soon. But consider what we have heard this afternoon. Pretend, for a moment, Mr Drake, that you are also an investigator. Money, like jealousy, is one of the most potent motives for murder. Enormous sums of money, like those possessed by the late John Eustace, are an even more powerful motive. Start counting, Mr Drake. The doctor could have wanted him dead for the fifty thousand pounds. Mrs Cockburn could certainly have wanted him dead to lay her hands on the lot. In her present circumstances even twenty thousand might be worth killing for. The cathedral, taken as a human institution rather than a transmitter of God’s truth, could have wanted him dead. You can replace a lot of roof slates with one million pounds. The Salvation Army could have wanted him dead. And the twin brother, almost certainly secreted away in the public house next door as we speak, could certainly have done with the money. That’s five, for starters.’

‘Good God, man, you’re not saying that John Eustace was murdered, are you?’ said Oliver Drake, rising to his full height and staring out of his window.

‘No, of course not. I think it is extremely unlikely, but not impossible. However, Mr Drake, there are certain aspects I wish to investigate where I need your approval. Talking to the solicitors Matlock Robinson in Chancery Lane, for example. They would wish to know if I had the executor’s permission before they said anything. And I should like to bring in some examples of the late Mr Eustace’s handwriting, to compare them with those in the various wills in your possession.’

‘Lord Powerscourt,’ said Drake, ‘I feel absolutely certain that you are a man to be trusted. If you wish to say, as part of your inquiries, that you are assisting the firm of Drake and Co. in their handling of these wills, please feel free to do so. There’s only one condition.’

‘And what is that?’ asked Powerscourt.

‘That you endeavour to keep that bloody woman out of my office for as long as you possibly can.’

‘I take it that you are referring to my current employer?’ said Powerscourt with a smile.

‘I most certainly am,’ said Oliver Drake.

Solicitor and investigator shook hands.

Patrick Butler was sitting once more in the living room of the little house on the edge of the Cathedral Close. It was strange how frequently he found himself in this part of the city between the hours of four and five in the afternoon. Anne Herbert was making tea in the kitchen. The children had gone to their grandparents’ house where the two little boys could watch their grandfather’s trains come and go to their hearts’ content.

‘Anne . . .’ Patrick came through to the kitchen. He didn’t think his news would wait. ‘I’ve made a very exciting discovery.’

Anne Herbert smiled indulgently at her friend. Anybody who came in regular contact with Patrick Butler was the recipient of very exciting discoveries two or three times a day. ‘What is it this time?’ she said.

‘I shan’t tell you anything if you’re going to be like that, treating me like a child,’ said Patrick, lifting the tea tray to carry it into the other room.

‘I’m sorry, Patrick. Please tell me about your discovery.’

Patrick looked at her suspiciously. But he couldn’t help himself.

‘You know that man who’s staying at the Eustaces’ house at Hawke’s Broughton? The one we saw at the funeral service?’

‘Was he a tall fellow with dark curly hair and an expensive-looking coat?’

‘The same,’ said Patrick, helping himself to a homemade biscuit. ‘His name is Powerscourt, Lord Francis Powerscourt. I looked him up in Debrett’s. They keep a copy over in the cathedral library. He’s supposed to be a friend of the Eustace family.’

‘How did you discover his name, Patrick?’ said Anne Herbert, pouring two cups of tea. She sometimes suspected that Patrick and his staff would stoop to almost anything to find out what they wanted.

‘One of the servants at Fairfield Park told me,’ Patrick said, managing to spill some of his tea as he spoke. It was a diversionary tactic. He did not care to mention that since the death of John Eustace regular sums of money, moderate but not inconsequential, had been entrusted to the care of the butler in exchange for information. ‘But that is not the point, Anne. I was talking to one of those London reporters last week.’

Five of Fleet Street’s finest feature writers had been despatched to this obscure part of the country to entertain their readers with tales of the death and funeral of the Chancellor of Compton. His house, in these accounts, had been magnified in size until it was considerably larger than Knole or Chatsworth or Blenheim Palace. The wealth had been increased too, rising to sums of almost unimaginable size as if Eustace had been richer than the Carnegies and the Vanderbilts and the Rockefellers combined. And the grief of the town was portrayed on a truly Homeric scale, frail old men, strange peasant hats on their venerable heads, leaning on their rustic sticks as they lined the coffin’s route, clay pipes held in reverential tribute by their sides, weeping mothers holding up their children to watch and mourn as the funeral cortege went past, public houses empty and deserted in tribute to the dead. This last touch appealed particularly to the scribes from the capital. There was no greater testimony to the depth of mourning that they could imagine.