David Dickinson - Death of a Chancellor

‘Well,’ said Archibald Matlock, running the hourly check on his bald patch with his right hand, ‘for the Eustace will, there was no signature in this office. Mrs Cockburn brought in her brother’s dispositions and we prepared them in the normal way. She asked if I could go to the house to witness the signature and make sure everything was in order. She said her brother was unwell.’

‘Why could it not wait until he was better?’ said Powerscourt.

‘I’m coming to that. Mrs Cockburn explained that he had to return to Compton very soon, but that he was anxious to sign the will before he left London. She said it was preying on his mind, that he would make a better recovery once he had finished the business.’

‘Did any of this strike you as odd, Mr Matlock?’

‘After twenty-five years in this profession, Lord Powerscourt, nothing strikes me as odd any more. Subsequent events, I have to say, were odder still. May I tell you something in confidence?’ Powerscourt nodded. He thought he knew what was coming. ‘I have never found Mrs Cockburn to be one of my easier clients. She can be very difficult. At this time, I recall, she was very excited, almost hysterical, particularly about her brother’s will. But Matlock Robinson have looked after the family’s affairs for as long as I can remember. Obligations have to be respected. It was not the custom to go to the clients’ houses for the signing of wills. Much better for them to come here.’ And the lawyers can remain in their offices, earning their fees, Powerscourt thought, rather than wasting their time travelling through the crowded streets of the capital.

‘At this time,’ Matlock went on, ‘the Cockburns were living somewhere in West Kensington or Hammersmith, well out in the west. Mrs Cockburn showed me into what might at one time have been her husband’s study. Mr Eustace was wearing a large coat with a muffler round his neck. His sister said he was feeling the cold because of his illness. There was very little light in the room as Mrs Cockburn said it was hurting his eyes. She brought in a couple of neighbours as witnesses. Mr Eustace signed it, I signed it and the whole thing was over in less than three minutes. I brought the will back to the office, of course, and despatched it, as requested, to my colleague Mr Drake at the appropriate time.’

‘Did John Eustace speak at all?’ said Powerscourt.

‘He may have muttered good afternoon, I’m not sure. Apart from that, if indeed he did say that, he said nothing at all.’

‘Did you see his face?’

‘Not properly, no.’

‘If he walked into this office now, Mr Matlock, would you recognize him?’

‘I very much doubt it. He was so heavily wrapped up.’

Powerscourt wondered if Matlock had reached the same conclusions as himself.

‘Did you think at all about what had happened, Mr Matlock?’

‘I can’t say that I did, Lord Powerscourt. I was in a great hurry that day. It was my wife’s birthday and I had sworn to be home early. Then the firm was very busy with a very difficult case. But can I ask you, Lord Powerscourt, what you think was going on?’

Powerscourt looked carefully at Archibald Matlock. He decided to take him into his confidence. ‘I think it perfectly possible that the man who signed the will that day was not John Eustace.’

‘God bless my soul,’ said the solicitor. ‘Why do you say that?’

‘It’s only conjecture, Mr Matlock, not hard facts that lawyers like yourself are so fond of. The key thing, it seems to me, is the signature. I have compared the signature on that will with John Eustace’s hand and I cannot tell the difference. I doubt if anybody could. But suppose you had found a forger. Suppose the forger could reproduce John Eustace’s hand, or anybody else’s, perfectly. But he could not reproduce his voice. If the man wrapped up against his illness, with the muffler round his neck, had talked to you in a foreign accent, or an East End accent, would you have believed he was John Eustace? You would not. So the lights are low, he is heavily wrapped up, but the signature on the will seems authentic. The will is false. But that is almost impossible to prove.’

‘God bless my soul,’ said the solicitor. His left hand this time checked in vain for the return of the hairs on his head. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘I wish I knew, Mr Matlock,’ said Powerscourt, beginning to take his leave. ‘Thank you so much for your time. I must return to Compton without delay.’ He knew perfectly well what he was going to do but he felt he had said enough already. As he walked down the stairs towards Chancery Lane, he saw another of those prints on the wall. It showed three lawyers seated round a table. The surface is invisible for the piles and piles of heavy coins heaped upon it. The lawyers are counting the coins and putting them into little bags. All three are smiling.

February 1901

The English countryside is turning into fairyland, Powerscourt thought, a white and rather mystical fairyland. Snow was falling fast over the hills and valleys of the county of Grafton, settling on the roads and lanes, smoothing and obliterating everything beneath it. Distant farmhouses looked like the blobs on a child’s painting. The horses were treading carefully now as the snow piled up. Soon, reflected Powerscourt, it would be time for the fairies to go home. Perhaps they already had, darting or flying back to their magical castles through this world of enchanted white.

It was shortly after five o’clock in the morning. The Dean’s man, a human giant, well over six feet of brawn and muscle, had called for him at Fairfield Park with a cryptic message. ‘The Dean says you’re to come at once,’ was all he would say. Powerscourt’s attempts to glean further intelligence on the short journey into Compton had been in vain. The man was a silent giant. In the two days since his return to Compton Powerscourt had not been idle. He had walked yet again the short route between the house and the residence of Dr Blackstaff. He had called on the Chief Constable to announce his presence in the county and to request assistance, should that become necessary. He had walked several times all around Compton itself, spotted on one occasion by Patrick Butler, who had made a mental note that the man who might be an investigator was still in the locality.

Powerscourt didn’t think it was the habit in English cathedrals to start the day with a service at five thirty in the morning. Perhaps, centuries before, the Benedictine monks would have been up for hours, with a couple of Masses already under their belts, but not now in this first year of the twentieth century. So what could have happened for him to be summoned at this ungodly hour of day? Another body? Another corpse? Not far to go now. Powerscourt realized that they were approaching the walls that ran around the Cathedral Close. Then he saw a light burning in the Deanery which lay opposite the minster in a handsome eighteenth-century house.

‘Good morning, Powerscourt. So glad you’re here. Please come in.’ The Dean, Powerscourt noted with interest, was wearing an enormous blue dressing gown. Beneath it, glimpsed occasionally as he walked, were a pair of white flannel pyjamas with dark blue stripes. He had a pair of battered slippers on his feet. He led Powerscourt into a large drawing room. A fire was beginning to splutter in the Dean’s grate but it had not yet warmed the room. The Dean’s drawing room was bitterly cold.

‘The Chief Constable you know, I believe.’ Powerscourt bowed slightly to William Benson. Benson, he noticed, had found the time to put on a dark suit, although Powerscourt saw that in his haste and possibly in the dark the Chief Constable had put on an odd pair of socks.