Powerscourt leaned back in his chair and gazed up at the fleshy features of Raphael’s Renaissance Pope. Most probably somebody took the missing pages after the death. But why? A dark suspicion crossed Powerscourt’s mind. He took two more pages from the sermon. Then he looked back and took a page from Lazarus, preached three years before, and from the parable of the fig tree, written five years earlier in 1896. Handwriting, he knew, changes slightly over time. The next time he went into Compton he would take his pages from the sermons of the late John Eustace into the offices of Drake and Co. and compare them with the scripts of the various wills. He thought he knew what he would find.
‘So what are you going to do about that young man?’ Hilda Davies, previously Hilda McManus, had been Anne Herbert’s best friend at school.
‘What do you mean, what am I going to do about that young man?’ said Anne defensively. The two were having early morning tea in the little house on the edge of the Cathedral Close. Anne thought she was uncertain about her feelings for Patrick Butler, the editor of the Grafton Mercury, so she had invited her best friend around for an exchange of views.
‘You know perfectly well what I mean, Anne. Let’s not beat about the bush. What are you going to do about Patrick Butler?’ Hilda Davies had been described in one of her school reports as a forceful personality in class. The passing years, the acquisition of a rich husband and three children and a large house, had made her almost domineering. Her servants called her a bully behind her back.
Anne felt she was under attack. ‘Well,’ she said defensively, ‘I like him well enough.’ A month before, the three of them had attended a concert together and Patrick had taken them out to dinner in the town’s finest hotel.
‘Such a pity, I always felt, that your first husband died on you, Anne.’ Hilda made it sound as though Anne was personally responsible for his passing. ‘Such respectable people, clergymen. And such prospects too in a place like this. I’m sure Frank might have become the Dean at least.’
‘Are you saying that newspaper editors aren’t respectable people?’ Anne was beginning to feel cross.
‘I grant you he is good-looking, that Patrick,’ condescended Hilda, ‘but why can’t he find a proper job like other people?’
‘What’s wrong with newspaper editors?’
Hilda Davies felt it was not the time to mince words. ‘For a start,’ she said, ‘I don’t think they’re quite respectable. Lots of the county people round here’- Hilda obviously thought of herself as being at the very epicentre of county and Compton society – ‘wouldn’t dream of asking one of them to dinner. You’d have to check the silver after they’d gone.’
‘If you’re suggesting that Patrick is in the habit of going out to dinner and pinching other people’s spoons, then you’re sadly mistaken.’ Anne, normally so placid, was in danger of losing her temper. She remembered that their schooldays had been punctuated by occasional very vicious rows.
‘It all depends on the society one keeps,’ said Hilda, casting a superior glance at the fairly humble furniture in Anne Herbert’s little drawing room. ‘If you want to consort all your life with the minor clergy and the poor vicars of Compton, then I suppose it might be all right.’ She paused briefly before firing another salvo. ‘It’s not just that they’re not quite respectable. Journalists are known for having a number of serious deficiencies in their character.’
‘And what might those be?’ said Anne.
‘Horace has had a lot of dealings with them, especially when he goes up to London on business for the firm.’ Horace was Hilda’s long-suffering husband. He was a partner in a firm of Compton solicitors. Once a year at most, to the best of Anne’s knowledge, he ventured forth to the metropolis. She suspected he would have gone more often if he could for a respite from his domestic bliss.
‘Drink,’ said Hilda firmly, shaking her head at the hazards of a reporter’s life. ‘They all drink far too much. Maybe not when they start, but it gets most of them in the end. Horace said he knows of a number of them who have ended up destitute, their poor families abandoned for the spirit bottle.’
‘Patrick doesn’t drink very much,’ said Anne defensively.
‘He may not now, but he will. They all do in the end. And they’re unreliable. Never home at a respectable hour like my Horace. Think what appalling parents they must be.’
‘Patrick is very good with the children, he couldn’t be kinder.’
‘That’s only until he gets his hands on you, my dear. Then it will change. You can’t possibly contemplate being married to such a creature.’
Anne Herbert wondered suddenly what it would be like if Patrick Butler got his hands on her. She thought it might be rather agreeable.
‘And what about his family? Are they proper sort of people?’ said Hilda with a sneer on the word proper.
‘They’re a perfectly respectable family Patrick’s people. His father is a schoolmaster in Bristol.’
‘My dear, I think the position is quite clear,’ said Hilda Davies, drawing the meeting to a close. ‘You should break things off with this young man. He sounds most unsuitable. You must wait for a better offer to come along. I’m sure there must be a regular supply of unmarried clergy passing through the cathedral. One of them will turn up.’
‘Wait? Wait?’ said Anne Herbert angrily. ‘I am now twenty-eight years old. I have two small children. As for waiting, you couldn’t wait at all. You threw yourself at the first rich man who came into view. I don’t think you’re in any position to talk to me about waiting.’
‘I certainly am in a position to talk to you about unsuitable young men. And this Patrick or whatever he’s called seems to me to be most unsuitable. Now I must go. I have an appointment to keep. When you have had a chance to reflect in peace I am sure you will see that I am right.’
Mrs Hilda Davies departed into the morning air of Compton. Anne closed the door firmly behind her. Well, she said to herself, I may not have been altogether sure of my feelings towards Patrick before this morning but I am much more certain now. She wondered wistfully if he would come round for tea that afternoon.
Lord Francis Powerscourt was smiling to himself as the Fairfield coachman drove him into Compton early in the morning three days after his encounter with the sermons. He had a recent letter from Lady Lucy in his hand. The first page expressed the hope that his mission was going well and that the case wasn’t going to prove very difficult. There was news of her vast tribe of relations, two of whom, elderly aunts in their late eighties, Powerscourt learned, had recently passed away. He had once worked out that with the sheer numbers of Lucy’s extended family, at least six should perish every year according to the law of averages. Replacements were arriving even faster to fill up the numbers at the other end of the age scale.
But it was the second page that lifted his spirits. ‘There has been a most moving meeting in the drawing room this afternoon,’ Lucy had written. ‘The two children had asked specially to see me. They came in hand in hand, Thomas looking very solemn, Olivia looking as though she had been crying. I asked them what the matter was. “It’s Papa, Mama,” said Thomas. “Yes, it’s Papa,” said Olivia in a doleful voice. “What about Papa?” I said. “We don’t think he’s coming back soon like you said. We think he’s gone back to the war.” “We think,” Olivia went on, sounding as if the two of them were a Cabinet committee just emerged from a special private session, “we think he’s gone back to South America. Where he was before.” “South Africa, Olivia,” Thomas corrected her, “it’s South Africa we think he’s gone back to. And we think he’ll be gone for another year like he was last time.” “A year or more,” said Olivia who had no idea how long a week is, let alone a year. I showed them your letters, Francis. I promised them you were in England. I got out the map to show them where Compton is and how there was a symbol on there for the cathedral. Part of me wanted to laugh, they were so serious about it all. So you see, when you do come back, and I pray God it is very soon, you’ll
have to tell them you haven’t come back from the wars, only from the west of England.’
Powerscourt had now arrived at the offices of Drake and Co., solicitors, with their fine views over the Cathedral Close.
‘Wills?’ said Oliver Drake, shaking his visitor warmly by the hand. ‘You said you wanted to look at those. Do you mind doing it in my office? With all due respect I don’t think I should let you take them away.’
‘Of course,’ said Powerscourt as he drew out the pages of his three sermons, Lazarus, the tongues of men and of angels, and the parable of the fig tree. Drake took out the three wills and handed them over to Powerscourt. The easiest one to forge, Powerscourt felt sure, would be the one that came from the firm of London solicitors, Matlock Robinson in Chancery Lane. With the text typewritten there were only three signatures to add. He peered closely at John Eustace’s signature. The hand looked almost identical to the text of the tongues of men and angels. He could see no difference either in the Eustace signature on the other two wills and the sermons he had brought with him. He knew that there were people, particularly on the Continent, who claimed that they could analyse personality from handwriting and definitively state whether or not a signature was genuine. But he knew too that no English court would accept such evidence. He was not likely, he decided, to make any progress here.
‘Mr Drake?’ Powerscourt handed back the three wills. ‘Thank you so much. I have to confess I am none the wiser after comparing these various bits of handwriting. Now I must make for the station.’
Powerscourt was settling himself into a first class compartment on the London train when a familiar figure, clad in clerical black, swept past. The Dean was carrying a large and impressive-looking briefcase. He looked, as usual, as though he felt the world would not function properly, might indeed fall off its axis, if he was not managing as many of its affairs as possible.
‘Powerscourt, good morning to you. Can’t stop, I fear. I have a compartment reserved up ahead. There is much to do.’
‘Good morning to you, Dean. Are you going to London on the Bishop’s business?’
The Dean snorted. ‘The words business and our Bishop do not sit together well, Powerscourt. Do you know the story? It is old now, but everybody in Compton knows it.’ The Dean paused and looked at his watch. ‘I have just time to tell it you. We do not leave for a couple of minutes.’
The Dean abandoned his position by the door of the compartment and sat down opposite Powerscourt.
‘Nine or ten years ago it must have been now, the previous Bishop died. Salisbury was Prime Minister, normally very good at ecclesiastical appointments. Not like that old rogue Palmerston who couldn’t tell a crucifix from a chasuble. No idea at all. Salisbury takes his time. Eventually he slips the name past the Queen. Moreton’s the man for Compton. Moreton. Salisbury tells the happy news to his Private Secretary, leaves him to get on with it. Only one problem, Powerscourt, there are two Moretons at large in the upper reaches of the Church of England. There’s Professor Gervase Bentley Moreton of Oriel College Oxford, expert on the textual differences in the early versions of the Four Gospels and precious little else. And there’s William Entwistle Moreton, then headmaster of one of our great public schools, Marlborough or Rugby, can’t remember which. Private Secretary Schomberg McDonnell looks up Moreton in his church directories. Finds the Oriel Moreton. Writes to him with news of his appointment that very day. Always admirably brisk in the way of executing business, that McDonnell. I sometimes think he’d have made an excellent dean. Oriel Moreton replies by return of post, accepting the position. Tells his college. Tells his friends. Tells The Times. Only thing was, McDonnell had got the wrong Moreton. It was Headmaster Moreton who was meant to be Bishop of Compton. But by then it was all too late.’
The Dean, after this splendid example of brotherly love and Christian charity, looked at his watch again. The train was beginning to move.
‘Must go now, Powerscourt. I have much business to attend to.’ He glanced at his briefcase as if he could see the papers inside through the dark blue cover. ‘I should be through with all this by Reading. Probably just on the far side of Reading to be on the safe side. Do come and see me then.’
‘And who do you think I am?’ Lord Francis Powerscourt was crouching down in his own drawing room in Markham Square later that evening.
‘You are Papa, Papa!’ said the voices of Thomas and Olivia Powerscourt in unison.
‘Do you think I am here in our house?’
‘Yes, Papa, yes!’ shouted the children.
‘Am I in South Africa?’ Powerscourt shouted back.
‘No, Papa!’
‘Are you sure, Thomas? Are you sure, Olivia?’ Powerscourt prodded each of them in the chest.
‘Yes! Sure!’ The noise must have carried as far as Victoria station.
‘Am I here in London?’ Powerscourt shouted once more.
‘Yes, Papa!’
‘Not anywhere else?’
‘No, Papa! No!’
‘Very good then,’ said their father, rising to his feet. He thought the children could have carried on shouting all night. ‘Off you go now. I’ll come and see you later.’
‘I hope that may reassure them a bit,’ he said, readjusting his waistcoat and smiling at Lady Lucy. Johnny Fitzgerald was looking closely at a wine label on the sofa. Powerscourt had told them both about the strange goings-on in Compton just after he arrived back in London. Now he wanted to take their advice.
‘Lucy Johnny,’ he began, ‘what do you think I should do about Augusta Cockburn? Should I tell her that I think her suspicions were justified, that there was something strange about her brother’s death?’
‘It’s a contradiction in terms,’ said Johnny Fitzgerald, still inspecting the writing on his bottle. ‘Couvent des Jacobins, it says here. I know my French isn’t world class but couvent says convent, nunnery to me, lots of ladies in black habits and wimples praying all day and all night, that sort of thing. Jacobins says French revolutionaries to me, violent and unstable fellows, their brains addled with cheap red wine and garlic, endlessly denouncing their colleagues and sending them off to the bloody guillotine. What are they doing on the same bottle, Francis? If the nuns had their way they wouldn’t have let any Jacobins inside the nunnery, if the Jacobins had got in there wouldn’t have been any nuns left alive. I don’t understand.’
Lady Lucy smiled as she handed him the corkscrew. ‘Maybe you can tell from the taste, Johnny. As to Mrs Cockburn, Francis, I think you are morally obliged to pass on your suspicions. I’m not sure but I think that must be the right thing to do.’
‘You haven’t met the woman, Lucy. Please God you can get through the next few months without that privilege. Augusta Cockburn is a monster.’
Johnny Fitzgerald now had a dreamy look on his face. ‘I think the Jacobins must have won out against the nuns,’ he said. ‘It’s sort of spicy, raring to go. Just the thing to sample before you charged a few barricades. I don’t think you have to do anything at all about the Cockburn connection, Francis. Let it wait. Any number of things could happen in the next couple of weeks. You haven’t been engaged on the case for very long. And,’ he went on cheerfully ‘you haven’t had me around to help you. Things are about to look up.’ And with that he took another large mouthful of his Jacobin Couvent.
‘Think of it this way,’ said Powerscourt, still wrestling with his conscience. ‘What if the brother did commit suicide? I still think that’s the most likely explanation. Or, much more unlikely, what if he was murdered, though I can’t for the life of me work out how that might have been done. If it was murder, there may be more murders. And if it was suicide and it was your brother wouldn’t you want to know?’
‘Francis,’ said Lucy, trying to ease her husband’s way, ‘you don’t actually know any more than this Mrs Cockburn woman. She had her suspicions. You have yours. But there’s nothing more than that, is there? You haven’t got any evidence at all. So why not tell her that you are c
ontinuing with your investigations and leave it at that?’
Powerscourt didn’t look happy with that. Johnny Fitzgerald was looking at the fire through the red in his glass. ‘I’m ready for anything, Francis,’ he said. ‘One or two more glasses of this stuff and I’ll be fit to storm the Bastille single-handed. I do wonder, mind you, if it mightn’t be necessary to sample another bottle of this revolutionary brew. It mightn’t taste quite as uplifting as this one. You do have some more of this stuff, don’t you, Francis?’
‘Lots more,’ said Powerscourt, grinning at his friend. ‘But look here, Johnny. There’s the business with the wills. Oliver Drake implied quite strongly at the last meeting that there was something fishy about the Cockburn will that left her all the money. It was as if he didn’t quite believe in it.’
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