David Dickinson - Death of a Chancellor

‘Maybe I should involve the local police, Lord Powerscourt. Perhaps they will be more effective in questioning him than you are.’

Powerscourt didn’t reply. The fish bone seemed to have accomplished a task way beyond the powers of most ordinary mortals. It had reduced Augusta Cockburn to silence. But the relief was short-lived. The offending bone, like so many of her enemies, was trampled underfoot.

‘Really,’ she said, ‘I shall have to speak to the cook.’ She had turned slightly red. ‘Why the servants cannot perform a perfectly simple operation like filleting a fish I do not understand. Any fool could do it.’ She paused to take a mouthful of tea, still spluttering slightly. The incident had not improved her temper.

‘And how much longer, Lord Powerscourt, do you intend to stay in this house, consuming our victuals, sleeping in one of our beds, using up valuable fuel?’ Powerscourt thought she might have been addressing the under butler. But he was prepared for this one.

‘Mrs Cockburn,’ he said, ‘I regret to have to inform you that there has been a murder in Compton. One of the vicars choral was found strangled in the kitchen of the Vicars Hall. The Bishop has asked me to look into it.’

‘Another murder?’ Mrs Cockburn spat out. ‘Another murder? Why are you so quick to take on new cases, Lord Powerscourt, when you have not found the answer to the first one? Is it because you believe it to be beyond your abilities?’

Powerscourt wondered if he should mention the roasting on the fire, a fate he felt sure deserved to happen to Augusta Cockburn after her departure from this life, but he did not. ‘If I could just finish,’ he went on. ‘I am content to continue my investigations into both cases. And I have asked Mr Drake, as the executor of the will, if I could rent this house for the duration of my inquiries. I have offered him a generous sum. I believe he intends to discuss it with you, madam, before the meeting about the wills this afternoon.’

The prospect of money seemed to cheer Augusta Cockburn up. ‘I shall certainly discuss it with Drake,’ she said. ‘But rest assured, Powerscourt, I shall make a full inventory of all the valuables.’

The Dean was reading an early edition of the latest issue of the Grafton Mercury. He was so pleased with it he read it three times. It was true that the story was placed in a prominent position in the paper. But the account of the death was short and simple. It merely said that Arthur Rudd, a senior member of the vicars choral, had been found strangled in the kitchen of the Vicars Hall. There were various tributes to the dead man, including one the Dean had given personally to Patrick Butler. There were paragraphs on the antiquity of the foundation of the vicars choral and their role in the services of the cathedral. Chief Inspector Yates, the paper went on, was the officer responsible for the investigation. He was reporting directly to the Chief Constable himself. But of fires and roasted flesh, of the spit that turned all night in the kitchen, there was no mention. The Dean went so far as to congratulate himself on his success. Without his intervention, he told himself, the matter would not have been properly handled at all.

The Bishop was wrestling with a thorny problem about the authenticity and origin of a late Hellenistic text of the Gospel according to St John. Some troublesome German scholars from Tubingen or Heidelberg, he couldn’t quite remember which one, had been making the most ridiculous claims about this document. But he too paused from his textual labours and read his copy of the Grafton Mercury when it arrived. The Bishop did not congratulate himself. He could see the attractions of concealing the details of the roasted body. But he wondered where it fitted in with his own appeal for the Church to tell the truth. The Bishop was troubled. Maybe the Dean had got the better of him again.

Anne Herbert normally waited until the afternoon for her copy of the paper. Patrick would bring one round with him when he happened to drop in for a cup of tea. But on this occasion she went to the shops and bought her own. Her initial reaction was like the Dean’s. She was pleased that she had been able to play her part. But then she too grew troubled, although not for the same reasons as the Bishop. She wondered how much it must have hurt Patrick to leave out the gory details. Here was a man who prided himself on his paper’s ability to find things out, to tell the truth to the citizens of Compton and the county. She had even heard Patrick talk once about how important newspapers and the free flow of information were to the proper functioning of democracy. Now he had forced himself to leave something out, not to tell the truth. She wondered if it would prey on his mind.

They were, Powerscourt thought, the three largest briefcases he had ever seen. All three were temporarily parked on the long table in the boardroom on the first floor of Oliver Drake’s offices in Compton while their owners rummaged inside for their papers for the meeting. The black one, Powerscourt realized, as Drake made the introductions, belonged to Mr Sebastian Childs of Childs, Goodman and Porter of Lincoln’s Inn Fields in London. Mr Childs was representing the interests of Mrs Augusta Cockburn and had the good fortune to be seated beside her. The dark blue one was the property of Mr Benjamin Wall of Wall and Sons of Bedford Square, London, representing the interests of the Salvation Army. Powerscourt had peered briefly into the street as if a marching band in military uniform might have accompanied him on his mission. The dark red briefcase contained the papers of Mr Stamford Joyce of Joyce, Hicks, Joyce and Josephs of Ludgate Hill, also from London, there to guard the interests of the Cathedral of Compton and the Church Commissioners. Stamford Joyce sat at the Dean’s right hand.

‘Gentlemen,’ said Oliver Drake, ‘the last time the will or wills were discussed I said that I had to take advice on the question of the various wills left, or purportedly left, by the late Charles John Whitney Eustace of Fairfield Park in the county of Grafton. I have been to London to take advice from Chancery counsel. I propose to inform you of my conclusions at this meeting. You have copies of the three wills in front of you – I’m sure you are all acquainted with these various documents.’

There was a vigorous nod from Childs, a barely perceptible inclination of the head from Joyce and no acknowledgement at all from Wall. Powerscourt thought that was rather ungracious seeing the man was representing the Salvation Army.

‘Just to make sure there is no possible confusion,’ Drake went on, his thin and bony frame twisting slightly as he spoke, ‘I propose to name the three different wills in the order of time of composition. Will A, the oldest, of which I am the executor, left the bulk of the estate to the Cathedral of Compton. Will B, the second most recent, left the estate to Mr Eustace’s sister, Mrs Cockburn. Will C, the most recent, left the bulk of the estate to the Salvation Army.’

Three gold pens scribbled very fast across the notepads in front of them. The London lawyers were watching Oliver Drake very carefully. One mistake, Powerscourt thought, and they’ll eat him alive.

‘The substance of my advice is that the first will, Will A, the one that leaves the bulk of the estate to the cathedral, should be regarded as the most appropriate record of the deceased’s intentions. I propose to apply to the Principal Probate Registry in London for it to be proved in common form. If the supporters of Wills B and C wish to contest that, all you have to do is to lodge a caveat at the Registry. Then the case will come before the Probate Divorce and Admiralty Division of the High Court in due course.’