David Dickinson - Death of a Chancellor

Powerscourt shook his head. When was this murderer going to stop? he said to himself. John Eustace, Arthur Rudd, Edward Gillespie. He’d tried to kill Powerscourt once. Now he’d tried, perhaps, to kill Lady Lucy. Let Easter Sunday come quickly, he thought. Then there may be an end of it.

Two days later Lord Francis Powerscourt was walking up the cobbled street of the Vicars Close. Two rows of ancient houses, with pretty little gardens in the front, ran up the hill away from the cathedral. Not Compton Cathedral this time, but Wells, a couple of hours away by train. For two days Powerscourt had sat at Lucy’s bedside. The long exposure in the crypt, the cold and the water, had left her weak and feverish. Privately Powerscourt blamed himself. They should have left her in Anne Herbert’s house rather than bringing her on yet another journey back to Fairfield Park. Dr Blackstaff was a regular visitor and prescribed a couple of medicines and a lot of rest. When the fever was running high Lady Lucy would plead with Francis to find out about the music. She was certain that the Protestant choirboys were being forced to learn the tunes and the words of the Church of Rome. She was sure the boys were not allowed to tell their parents for fear of some terrible punishment. Only that morning, Palm Sunday, as the procession of palms made its way round the cathedral and then up to the high altar inside, she had pleaded with him again.

Powerscourt had not told her about the singing he had heard on the way to the rescue. But it had stayed in his mind. Dr Blackstaff, a veteran of many West Country choirs, had written on his behalf to the assistant choirmaster in Wells. The doctor understood only too well why Powerscourt might not wish to pursue his queries in Compton.

Michael Matthews opened the door himself. He was a cheerful young man, almost six feet tall, with curly blond hair and merry brown eyes.

‘You must be Lord Powerscourt,’ he said, ‘Welcome to Wells. Do come in. We should have time to sort out your problem before Evensong.’

He showed Powerscourt into a little sitting room. His house was at the top of the Close, looking down towards the chapter house and the north transept of the cathedral. The first thing Powerscourt noticed was a large piano which occupied most of one wall of the tiny room. The second thing was a wall full of books, many of them lives of the composers. And the third thing was that the floor was covered with musical scores, Byrd and Thomas Tallis, Purcell and Handel, Mozart and Haydn, the great choral tradition of Western Europe scattered in random piles across the fraying carpet. In one corner of the room Powerscourt thought he saw some Gilbert and Sullivan, a touch of the profane hiding among the sacred.

‘Please forgive me, Lord Powerscourt,’ said Michael Matthews, waving towards his floor, ‘I’m in the middle of a tidying-up session. If you’d been half an hour later, all of this lot would have gone.’

‘Don’t worry at all,’ said Powerscourt with a smile, ‘there’s always a lot of confusion when you’re in the middle of a clear-out.’

‘How can I help you, Lord Powerscourt?’ said Matthews, ushering him to a small chair by the side of the piano.

‘I believe Dr Blackstaff told you I am investigating a series of murders in Compton,’ said Powerscourt.

‘He certainly did,’ said the young man. ‘I pray we may never be afflicted with anything similar here in Wells.’

‘Things in Compton at present, how should I put this, Mr Matthews, are rather delicate. We have not found the murderer, though I hope we shall do so soon. However strange it may sound, I must ask you to keep our conversation absolutely confidential. You have not seen me. We have not spoken. We did not meet.’ Powerscourt knew he was sounding melodramatic, perhaps a little mad, but just one scribbled note from Wells to Compton might spark another round of murder.

The young man began to laugh, then stopped when he saw how serious was the face of his visitor.

‘Secrets,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Have no fear, Lord Powerscourt. I shan’t tell a soul about today. Now then,’ he moved away from his mantelpiece and sat down by the piano, ‘what is this piece of music you want to have identified? Perhaps you could hum it or sing it if you can remember it.’

Powerscourt hummed about six or seven bars. Matthews tapped them out on his piano with his right hand. Then he added an accompaniment with his left.

‘Something like that, Lord Powerscourt?’

Powerscourt shook his head. ‘The last three or four notes sound right, but not the beginning.’

‘Try to remember exactly where you were when you heard this piece. Now close your eyes. Now try again.’

Powerscourt delivered another opening, slightly different from the first. Again the young man picked out the notes with his right hand.

‘Just one more time, if you would, Lord Powerscourt. I think I’ve got it.’

Powerscourt closed his eyes again, remembering the noise coming to him across the Close from the choristers’ house as he searched for Lady Lucy. This time the young man was delighted.

‘Splendid, Lord Powerscourt, splendid. Not exactly the piece of choral music you would expect to hear floating across an English cathedral close.’ Michael Matthews played a very brief introduction. Then he sang along with a powerful tenor voice.

‘Credo in unum Deum

Patrem omnipotentem, factorem caeli et terrae.’

I believe in one God the Father Almighty, creator of Heaven and earth, Powerscourt muttered to himself.

‘You might think it’s a musical version of one of the Anglican creeds, words virtually identical,’ said Matthews, abandoning his singing but keeping the tune going on his piano. ‘But wait for the great blast at the end.

‘Et unam, sanctam, catholicam et apostolicam Ecclesiam.

Confiteor unum baptisma in remissionem peccatorum.

Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum,

et vitam venturi saeculi. Amen.’

Michael Matthews played a virtuoso conclusion, a great descant swelling through the higher notes.

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church, Powerscourt translated as he went, we acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins and we look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.

‘The music you heard, Lord Powerscourt, is the Profession of Faith of the Catholic Liturgy, to be used on Sundays and holy days. When the congregations get to the line about one holy and apostolic and catholic church, they belt it out as if they were singing their own National Anthem. No, better than that, it’s their equivalent of the Battle Hymn of the Republic’

Powerscourt looked closely at Michael Matthews. Matthews didn’t think he was at all surprised. As Powerscourt made his way out of the little house and back down the Vicars Close to Wells station, the assistant choirmaster stood at his window and watched him go. What on earth was going on down there in Compton? Why were the choir singing the music of a different faith? Ours not to reason why, he said to himself and sat down once more at his piano. The window was slightly open. Powerscourt could just hear the strains of ‘Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring’, played with great sadness, pursuing him down the street.

There was a telegraph message from William McKenzie waiting for Powerscourt on his return to Fairfield Park. It seemed to have taken rather a long time to reach Compton, despatched from the Central Telegraph Office in Piazza San Silvestro on Wednesday morning and only arriving at its destination on Friday afternoon. Maybe, said Powerscourt to himself, the wires were down somewhere along the route.

‘Subject reached destination safely,’ the message began, couched in the normal cryptic of McKenzie’s despatches. ‘Subject has spent his days in conclave with high officials of the parent organization.’ Christ, thought Powerscourt, McKenzie could have been describing the activities of a bank manager rather than a priest in conspiratorial meetings with the College of Propaganda. ‘Evenings in restaurants with prominent citizens dressed in strange colours?’ What in God’s name was a prominent citizen dressed in strange colours? Powerscourt asked himself. A member of the Swiss Guard charged with the protection of the Pontiff? A member of the Italian Upper House – did they wander round the streets of Caesar and the Borgias looking like members of the British House of Lords? Was McKenzie’s prey, Father Dominic Barberi, dining with one of the cardinals, the scarlet robes of the descendants of St Peter tucking into some Roman speciality like carpaccio tiepido di pescatrice, brill with raw beef, or mignonettes alla Regina Victoria, veal with pate and an eight-cheese sauce? Then Powerscourt reached the most important part of the message. ‘Subject and two colleagues returning London, arriving Monday night. Meeting would be beneficial.’