David Dickinson - Death of a Chancellor

‘Very good, Francis,’ said Fitzgerald. ‘Maybe I’ll just take a turn or two down the hill before I go. I don’t suppose you managed to see if there’s a decent inn near the undertakers where a thirsty fellow might go after he’d finished packing the dead into their coffins?’

Powerscourt laughed as his friend departed up the hill. ‘I think you’ll find it’s called the Stonemason’s Arms, Johnny. Good local beer.’ Then he saw that a deputation was coming his way. The two children were pulling their sledges up the hill towards him. Lady Lucy was with them, with a rather larger model. She was smiling at him. She knew what was coming.

‘Papa,’ said Thomas seriously.

‘Yes, Thomas,’ replied Powerscourt.

‘It’s time you took a ride in one of these sledges. You can’t just stand around in the snow talking to Johnny all the time. Mama has brought one for you.’

‘And it’s great fun,’ Olivia chimed in, ‘you can go really fast.’

‘Well, I’m not sure,’ said Powerscourt, looking down at the two faces beside him. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever done it before. We didn’t have much snow in Ireland when I was growing up, you know. It’s against the rules.’

Thomas looked at him suspiciously. ‘That’s not true, Papa. There must be snow in Ireland.’

‘Course there’s snow in Ireland, Papa,’ said Olivia, who had no idea where Ireland actually was.

‘Anyway,’ said Powerscourt, moving on to a second line of defence, ‘I’m far too old for it. Didn’t you see the sign in the stables where the sledges are kept? People over thirty are forbidden to use these sledges, it said.’

He looked down at his children with his most serious face.

‘That’s not true! You’re making it up,’ said Thomas defiantly.

‘You’re not too old at all, Papa,’ said Olivia. ‘You’re only sixty-five or whatever it is. That’s a lot less than thirty.’ Olivia had always been confused by big numbers. ‘Very well,’ said Powerscourt, ‘I give in. Lucy,’ he went on as the three of them began their ascent of the hill, ‘I hold you personally responsible for this. You will find my will in the bottom left-hand drawer of my desk in Markham Square.’

The workmen found the body in the crypt late that afternoon. Ever since the archivist and the architect decided that the ancient crypt must be slightly larger than it appeared, they had been taking down a low wall at the eastern end of the structure. Once a section of the stones had been removed they could see that there was a space extending away from the main structure for about eight to ten feet. Closer inspection revealed a very ancient wooden coffin. Behind the coffin, as if concealed by it, was a small wooden box, about three feet square. Both were heavily covered with dust and mould.

‘Another bloody coffin,’ said William Bennett, the foreman in charge of operations. ‘That makes six we’ve found in the last ten years. I’d better tell the archivist and he can decide what to do with this one. I’ll bring him the box as well. Maybe it’s got buried treasure inside.’

‘Soup,’ said Powerscourt. ‘I think I’ll have the soup, and then the lamb.’ He smiled at the waitress in the dining room of the Queen’s Head. ‘Will you join me in some wine, Mr Butler?’

The newspaper editor and the investigator were seated at a corner table of the room. Behind them the snow was beginning to melt in the hotel gardens. A flock of sparrows were hopping busily among the bushes.

‘That would be very kind,’ said Patrick Butler, feeling rather grown up. He felt sure that the great newspaper editors and feature writers must often have lunch with distinguished people. Maybe he’d be entertaining cabinet ministers in ten years’ time. Powerscourt had already given the young man the details, in confidence, of some of his previous cases. He had also told him that he had been asked by the Bishop to look into the death of Arthur Rudd. Now he was scanning the wine list. A slight look of pain crossed his features as he surveyed the offerings of the Queen’s Head. He didn’t think Johnny Fitzgerald would approve of any of it. Then he found salvation hiding at the bottom of the page.

‘Nuits St Georges, please,’ he said, smiling again at the waitress. ‘That should warm us up on a day like this.’

‘Mr Butler,’ he turned to his companion, ‘I need to ask you for some assistance.’ Flattery, he felt, would not do any harm at all. ‘I am a stranger here in Compton. A man in your position must know everything that goes on here.’

‘I have to tell you, Lord Powerscourt,’ said Patrick Butler, still slightly overawed, ‘that I have not been here very long, only about nine months or so. But I’d be only too pleased to help in any way I can.’

Two enormous plates of the Queen’s Head’s finest country vegetable soup were laid before them. The bottle of red wine was placed carefully in the centre of the table so they could help themselves.

‘Let me ask you about the cathedral, if I may, Mr Butler. Are there any secrets up there? Any feuds? Any of those long-running disputes about ritual and vestments and so on that have caused such trouble in recent years?’

Patrick Butler was eating his soup very quickly. ‘They say, Lord Powerscourt, that there is only one insoluble mystery up at the cathedral.’

‘And what might that be?’ said Powerscourt, leaning forward to refill the young man’s glass.

‘Where does the Archdeacon go on Thursdays?’ said Patrick with a laugh. ‘Sorry to be flippant, Lord Powerscourt, but that is what most people in Compton would tell you. It’s become a sort of running joke in the community. Every Thursday Archdeacon Beaumont leaves Compton on an early train. He says he is going to visit the outlying parishes in the diocese. But there are never any reports of him being seen in any of these places. He usually returns in time for Evensong up at the cathedral.’

‘And what,’ said Powerscourt, tucking into his lamb, munificently adorned with gravy and mint sauce, ‘does informed opinion in Compton say is going on?’

‘I don’t need to tell you, Lord Powerscourt, that gossip can be quite frightful in a little place like this. The least popular theory is that the Archdeacon has another job on Thursdays, teaching Hebrew or Greek in a school or college, maybe, because he needs the money. The second is that he keeps a married woman hidden away somewhere in the country and goes to see her every Thursday. The most salacious rumour – none of these, needless to say, have any foundation in fact – is that the Archdeacon goes to visit the prostitutes of Exeter.’

Patrick Butler took another sip of his Nuits St Georges. Outside one of the waitresses was throwing the rejected bread on to the grass. A battalion of sparrows were circling overhead.

‘Forgive me, Lord Powerscourt, for giving you a totally useless piece of information. It’s not something I would ever consider publishing in the Grafton Mercury. ’ Butler paused to dissect an enormous roast potato. ‘You ask about secrets and feuds and obscure theological disputes. I have no other cathedral to compare it with, so I cannot say how typical our situation here is. There is a certain amount of friction between the Dean and the Bishop. That is well known, but I think it’s only the mutual irritation that could arise between one man whose chief bent is efficiency and proper administration and another whose main interest is in scholarship.’

Powerscourt was impressed with the maturity of the judgement. He was beginning to take to Patrick Butler.

‘I don’t think there are any real feuds or vendettas up there in the Cathedral Close,’ he went on, ‘not like some of those you hear of elsewhere. Maybe that’s the curious thing. You see, Lord Powerscourt, I have quite a lot of dealings with the members of the Chapter in one way and another. They always seem to me to be a bit enclosed, locked up in their own world. Maybe they are all really close to God and that sets them apart.’