The silkmen of the Jesus Hospital may have drunk in the Rose and Crown, Thomas Monk may have patronized the Duke of Clarence, but Johnny Fitzgerald was staying in the expensive hotel on the island in the river a quarter of a mile from Marlow. The new owners originally wanted to call it the Champs Élysées after the great thoroughfare in Paris. They settled for the Elysian Fields instead, a name they thought brought a touch of glamour, a suggestion of divine food and wine and maybe a faint hint of naughtiness, Turkish belly dancers perhaps, or girls imported from the Moulin Rouge.
Lord Francis Powerscourt left home early to take breakfast with Johnny Fitzgerald. He planned to visit all his key players in one day to tell them about the Silkworkers codicil, for this, he thought, put the whole case in a different light.
‘Good God, Francis,’ said Johnny, pausing in his progress through a small mountain of kedgeree, ‘you’re not trying to tell me that the whole case may revolve round a piece of paper over hundreds of years old written by some bloke who had just escaped the Black Death? And that the bloody thing may be a forgery?’
‘I am,’ said Powerscourt. ‘And there’s more. You will recall that stuff I just told you about there being a vote and that eight out of ten of the members had to approve any alterations to the rules?’
‘I do.’
‘Well, all of your old gentlemen have a vote. They have to become members of the Silkworkers Company when they sign up for the Jesus Hospital. Twenty votes is quite a lot. They could be more important than we think.’
‘Nineteen, actually,’ said Johnny indistinctly through a final mouthful of kedgeree. ‘Dead men don’t vote.’
‘Sorry,’ said Powerscourt.
‘For God’s sake, Francis, won’t you eat something? You’re making me nervous sitting there like a high court judge at the Old Bailey not having anything at all apart from a tiny slice of toast. Have a poached egg or two, in heaven’s name.’
Powerscourt began to work his way through the eggs dumped on his plate by his friend.
‘I suppose you want me to run this lot up the flagpole with the old boys,’ said Johnny, glancing at a very pretty young American lady at the next table whose husband was complaining loudly to the waiter about the coffee. ‘I wonder why they haven’t talked about it before. I don’t recall a single mention of it in all the time I’ve been marooned down here.’
‘Valuable work you’ve been doing, Johnny, valuable work.’ Powerscourt grinned at his friend. ‘I suspect they have all been sworn to silence, the old men. The one thing Sir Peregrine can’t have is publicity. His whole scheme might collapse once it got into the papers.’
Johnny stared silently at a couple of slices of ham. ‘I don’t think it’ll be any good asking them about it in the Rose and Crown,’ he said finally. ‘I’ll have to try them one at a time. The man Wood, Number Twelve, maybe that’s who I’ll start with. He’s got a pretty suspicious mind.’
‘One other thing, Johnny,’ said Powerscourt.
‘Oh yes?’ said his friend. ‘What is it now?’
‘Could you tell Inspector Fletcher about the codicil and all that? I’ve got to go back to London.’
‘Yes, yes, I’ll do that,’ said Johnny. ‘Don’t mind about me. Here I am abandoned on the island like that bloody woman from Crete whose name I can never remember. There was her bloody lover on his bloody boat, just visible from the shore, hull down on the horizon.’
‘Never mind, Johnny. At least the abandoned Ariadne was in the company of Bacchus, the god of wine. They tell me there’s some pretty good stuff in the cellars here. It’s said to come from the Elysian Fields themselves.’
Powerscourt found Inspector Miles Devereux in the council chamber of the Silkworkers Hall, a beautiful room where the inner circle of the company held their meetings.
‘If you’ve got to have a bloody office,’ Devereux drawled, ‘you may as well have it in a place like this.’ He waved a hand at the tall windows looking out over the Thames and a number of full-length Silkworker prime wardens lining the walls.
‘Look at this rogues’ gallery,’ he said, pointing at the paintings. ‘They look as though oysters wouldn’t melt in their mouths. I bet you they were as slippery as eels, mind you, lying about where the silk had come from, the precise location on the Silk Road, just like today, probably.’ Devereux scrabbled about in the papers in front of him and pulled out a couple of sheets.
‘I’m thinking of staying here,’ he said, ‘making this my permanent office. As long as we haven’t solved the case, that’ll be fine. Once we have been successful, a grateful company might leave me here as a thank you for services rendered. If you get bored you can always go downstairs and jump in the Thames or wait for some assassin to come and slit your throat.’
Powerscourt smiled. He thought boredom might be a permanent problem in the life and times of Miles Devereux.
‘Sorry for the waffle,’ Devereux said, sitting up straight in his chair. ‘This is an account of what happened at the grand dinner the other day. I don’t think there’s anything unusual except for the amount of Haut Brion they seem to have got through. I’ve checked with the company manciple and he assured me it was nineteen bottles of the stuff, most of them drunk by only five or six people. My papa would have approved of the Haut Brion, though never in those quantities.’
Powerscourt glanced through the paper. There was little of interest there. He told the Inspector about the Silkworkers codicil and its implications.
Devereux whistled and began pacing about the room. ‘This is like something out of a penny dreadful,’ he said. ‘And Sir Rufus Walcott was the leader of the opposition inside the company? Fascinating.’
Eventually Miles Devereux sat down on the edge of his desk and voiced a concern that had been in Powerscourt’s mind since the previous evening. ‘I say, Lord Powerscourt. This could be the motive for all the murders. Suppose there was opposition to the changes at the Jesus Hospital as well as in the livery company itself. Suppose there was more opposition at Allison’s School up there in Norfolk. Three places where the supporters of Sir Peregrine or indeed Sir Peregrine himself might have had a motive for murder. Maybe they said they were going to make it public, or write to The Times or their MP or something like that. There is one further possible consequence.’ He stopped suddenly and stared at Powerscourt. ‘This might mean that the strange marks on the bodies are a diversion, that they were stamped on the victims to draw attention away from the true motive, greed or preservation of your own position, whatever you might want to call it. Sir Peregrine had in his possession whatever strange instrument caused the marks. Either he or his accomplices then stamped it on the victims, hoping we would all be sidetracked away from the real murderer. Which, in a way, we have been.’
‘Exactly so,’ said Powerscourt, nodding at the young man. He had been surprised that Johnny Fitzgerald hadn’t reached the same conclusion an hour so earlier. Maybe the Elysian cellars had befuddled his wits.
‘However,’ said Miles Devereux, ‘this, as my superior officer would say, is speculation, little better than guesswork. Guesswork, he says about three times a week, never won a conviction at the Bailey. Is it time to interview Sir Peregrine yet, do you think?’
‘I think it’s too soon. I must be off in a moment. I have to tell our friends in Fakenham about the latest developments. Before we talk to Sir Peregrine I think we need to talk to the experts about that codicil. I don’t think we should rely on my brother-in-law’s view of the thing, even if he has talked to the man who thinks it’s a fake. I’m going to ask him to send you the names of the principal experts who thought it was genuine. I’ll call on the man from Cambridge on my way back from Norfolk. I’m not sure we’ll end up any the wiser, but we’ve got to do it.’
‘I say, what fun,’ said Inspector Miles Devereux, rising from his chair and dancing a little jig in front of a sixteenth-century prime warden dressed from head to toe in black. ‘I wouldn’t dare say it to my fellow policemen, Lord Powersc
ourt, but I can say it you. Black Death! Ancient codicils! Murder most foul! What fun! What tremendous fun!’
Inspector Albert Fletcher, the officer in charge of the investigation into the death in the Jesus Hospital, was a worried man. Even the news of the Silkworkers codicil did little to cheer him up. He could see that there was at last a motive, a clear motive, but the thought of fourteenth-century documents and clever modern forgers filled him with gloom. He had so far failed to solve his first murder case. He was not living up to his promise, the bright future so many had predicted for him. Nothing he had tried so far seemed to have yielded very much. He summoned his sergeant and gave more instructions.
‘I know we’ve asked house to house for anything strange or any strange persons seen on the morning of the murder,’ Inspector Fletcher began. ‘I think I got the times wrong. And the ring around the hospital was probably too small. I want you to get all the men you can find and begin house-to-house inquiries in a five-mile radius of the hospital. And ask about the two days before the incident as well as the morning of death, could you? Some visiting murderer could have hidden himself away down there in those boathouses. Look sharp about it now.’
The sergeant always knew when his master was in a bad mood. It was pointless to raise any objections. He saluted smartly and left the room as fast as he could. Inspectors, he said to himself, bloody inspectors. Surely they could remember their own trials and tribulations when they were mere sergeants. Begging for uniformed men from their superiors to take part in what the superiors would regard as ridiculous fancies was one of the most difficult things in a sergeant’s life. And the keeper of these good men and true, one Superintendent Maurice Trotter, had a very pretty daughter who sang in the sergeant’s church choir. He was thinking of striking up a conversation with her the next time they met.
Johnny Fitzgerald was entertaining Number Twelve to lunch in the Elysian Fields. The members of the hospital had been to the funeral of Abel Meredith the day before. The medical men had finally given up hope of finding anybody who could identify the strange marks on the chest and delivered the body up for burial. The old men had enjoyed the service, singing the hymns with gusto, some of them even managing to kneel down for the prayers, the stern words about the body of Abel Meredith being committed to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, cheering and reassuring to the old men who were still alive.
The dining room in the Elysian Fields was only half full and Johnny had secured a table next to the tall windows looking out over the river. Henry Wood, Number Twelve, wearing his official uniform of blue coat with white buttons and tricorne hat, was pleased to be asked to such a luxurious establishment but slightly suspicious of Johnny’s motives. He was the man who had worked in the fish trade before coming to the hospital. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of Johnny. Maybe, Number Twelve thought, he was a pike with those teeth. Sometimes he wondered if he mightn’t actually be a shark.
His host was charming, urging more hock with the fish course, and ordering an expensive bottle of Beaune with the veal. They chatted amiably enough over the first course with Johnny encouraging Henry Wood, Number Twelve, to tell him more about what went on in the hospital. Over the apple pie, seeing that the subject seemed unlikely to come up of its own accord, Johnny made his move.
‘What are you all going to do about the Silkworkers ballot and those plans to sell off the assets?’ he inquired.
‘How do you know about that?’ replied Number Twelve.
‘I’ve a cousin who belongs to the livery,’ Johnny lied cheerfully, ‘not that he’s ever been near a silkworm in his life. He said there was a lot of argument going on.’
‘Well, that’s certainly true with us.’ Number Twelve looked round him as if he thought he might be under surveillance of some kind. He took a large gulp of Beaune and Johnny knew he was hooked. ‘Fact is,’ Number Twelve went on, ‘we’ve all been sworn to secrecy. We’re not meant to breathe a word about it to anybody.’
In his long experience of human nature working with Powerscourt, Johnny knew that there is nothing some people sworn to secrecy like better than telling somebody else about it at the earliest possible opportunity.
‘Were you all united in your opinions then, up there at the hospital?’
Number Twelve laughed a sarcastic laugh. ‘We were not. Absolutely not. I’ve never known the men so divided as they were about this vote. People came to blows once or twice.’
‘Really?’ said Johnny.
‘It was that bad.’ Number Twelve, Henry Wood, finished his glass and looked expectantly at the Beaune. Johnny topped him up and ordered another bottle.
‘So where does opinion stand now?’
‘I’m not quite sure, actually. To begin with, nearly everybody seemed to be in favour of selling up. Warden Monk was particularly keen on the plan. I’ve often wondered,’ Number Twelve leant forward at this point and whispered, ‘if he wasn’t in the pay of that horrible man Sir Peregrine Fishborne!’
‘Seriously?’ said Johnny.
‘Very seriously. That man is capable of anything. I wouldn’t be surprised if he turned out to be the murderer.’
‘You said informed opinion was initially for selling up. Did some people change their minds?’
‘Well,’ said Number Twelve, admiring the colour of the wine in its splendid bottle, ‘the opposition were very clever. They said they could see all the attractions, money in our pockets from our share of the sale of the assets, that sort of thing. But, they said, there was no guarantee about what was going to happen to the Jesus Hospital later on. If the Silkworkers effectively ceased to exist, even though some people said it would come back again when the war was over, who was going to look after us in the meantime? Who was going to pay all the bills? They said, the opposition, that our situation would become untenable. The Prime Warden and his cronies could kick us out and sell the hospital off to the highest bidder and turn it into houses or flats. We would become notorious, they said, decrepit old men walking the streets of Marlow and Maidenhead with begging bowls in our hands and nowhere to rest our weary heads at night.’
‘That must have put the fear of God into some of the men,’ said Johnny. ‘But tell me, what of your own position? Which side were you on?’
Johnny thought he knew the answer to that. He did.
‘I was with the opposition, myself. Any change in the position of something as marginal as an almshouse must be risky. People probably wouldn’t pay for them to be built if they didn’t feel they had to. The founder, the original Gresham back in sixteen whatever it was, must have thought it would improve his chances of getting into heaven. Otherwise he wouldn’t have bothered. I wouldn’t think Sir Peregrine and his friends think they might be going to hell. They wouldn’t behave like this if they did.’
‘And who was the leader of the opposition, as it were, the main voice against Sir Peregrine?’
‘Well, it was Number Twenty, actually. He was very persuasive when he was alive, Abel Meredith.’
And now he’s dead, Johnny said to himself. He opposed the changes and now he’s dead, just like that other one, up there in the Silkworkers Hall.
9
Powerscourt felt like a naughty schoolboy waiting for an unpleasant interview with the headmaster. He was indeed in the outer office of the headmaster of Allison’s School, but the naughty boys, three of them, he was told, were in the inner sanctum, facing the wrath of the authorities for drinking two bottles of prohibited wine behind the cricket pavilion. The headmaster, however, was affable as Powerscourt was ushered in and the miscreants sent back to their classrooms.
‘Lord Powerscourt, how good to see you. And Lady Powerscourt is at her station, I trust?’
The Powerscourts had arrived in Fakenham the evening before and were comfortably settled in the Crown Hotel a few minutes’ walk from the school.
‘I hope so,’ said Powerscourt. ‘She was certainly going in the right direction when I last saw her. Do you have an
y further news, Headmaster? Are the boys still refusing to talk?’
‘I’m afraid they are,’ replied the headmaster. ‘Let’s hope they change their minds soon.’
‘There is one development on which I’d like to hear your opinion,’ said Powerscourt. ‘It concerns the constitution, if that’s not too grand a word, of the Silkworkers Company. We did talk about it when I was here before, but without mentioning one key legal fact. As I understand it, Sir Peregrine Fishborne, in his role as Prime Warden of the Company, wants to sell off the assets and distribute the proceeds among the members, with a view to reacquiring the assets at a later, unspecified, stage. He claims, so I’m told, that the justification for this course of action is an ancient codicil, only recently discovered, which gives him the right to do this in times of great peril, like a possible war with Germany. That, I think, is the key legal fact we did not discuss at our earlier meeting, Headmaster. I wonder what you feel about this, as head of a school which has been in the care of the Silkworkers for centuries?’
‘I have to tell you, Lord Powerscourt, that we at Allison’s were divided about the plan. We still are. Some people thought it most unwise. According to the bursar, who was, if you like, the leader of the opposition, it could endanger the future of the school.’
Death at the Jesus Hospital Page 13
