Death Called to the Bar

13

Mrs Henderson had finally managed to get Edward entirely on his own. This feat, which Edward had asked Sarah to prevent before his first visit to the Henderson household, had been accomplished by the simple ploy of throwing away the milk and the tea. Sarah, when asked to pop down to the shops for replacements, thought her mother must have been consuming tea at an incredibly rapid rate, but had no idea of the deception, or of what was planned in her absence. Edward, his earlier anxieties allayed by the satisfactory nature of his previous visit, had no idea what was coming either. But for Mrs Henderson, this was a duty she owed both to herself and, as she reminded herself sternly, to Sarah’s father. Her visit to old Dr Carr that morning had been far worse than she had feared. She, Mrs Henderson, had thought her illness was not getting any worse. True, she found it more difficult to climb the stairs and she now had to lean more heavily on Sarah than she had before. True, even without ascending to the upper floor, she often felt very short of breath. Sometimes even sitting by the fire and reading one of the magazines Sarah bought for her, the quick wheezy breaths told her something was wrong. The doctor had examined her carefully, not speaking as he did so. When he had finished, he put down his instruments and sat down opposite Mrs Henderson. Dr Carr took one of her hands in his and inspected it carefully, as if the lines on the back might help him to foretell her future. Looking at his sad face, she knew things were bad. That was the same expression the doctor had when he told them her husband had not long to live. Now he told her, in the gentlest voice he could, that the illness was progressing faster than he had thought it would. Things seemed to be deteriorating more quickly than he would like. Of course, the process might go into reverse, everything might be arrested and her position stabilized. Part of Mrs Henderson did not want to ask the obvious question at this point. Had she been single, or a widow, she told herself later, she would have walked out without the inquiry.

‘How long do you think I have, doctor?’ she asked in a very subdued voice.

‘I could not say, Mrs Henderson,’ said Dr Carr, still holding her hand. ‘I can only guess. When you saw me before, I said two or three years, probably. If things continue as they are, I should have to change the figure. Nine months? Twelve months? I could be wrong.’

Mrs Henderson felt, perfectly rationally, that nobody had ever taken away a whole year of her life before, and that it should take more than only fifteen minutes in a doctor’s surgery to do it. As she hobbled slowly and painfully out of the surgery, less than a hundred yards from her house, Dr Carr’s next patient had to wait some time before being admitted. The doctor was staring out of his window, looking at the distant railway tracks that led to Ealing station and out towards the west of England. When he was younger these encounters upset him, but not for long. Now, after his decades of doctoring, they were heavier and heavier to bear. He felt desperately sad every time he sentenced one of his patients like Mrs Henderson to death and sent them out alone into an unfriendly world. Now he felt there was a part of him under sentence too, that whatever portion of life he had left to him had been diminished. That evening, he said to himself, he would speak to his wife. The practice would be sold. The retirement cottage in Dorset, close to the coast near Lyme Regis, had been bought some time ago. He would spend his last years in contemplation of another of life’s great mysteries, not the painful deaths of his patients in this new century, but the ever-changing movements of the sea and the unpredictable movements of the birds above it.

So Mrs Henderson had only one thought left in her mind. Sarah must be settled. Sarah’s future must be secure. And soon. Whatever was going to happen to her, Mrs Henderson had to know that her daughter’s future was assured. She felt that she would have to approach the matter in a roundabout fashion or Edward might simply bolt, or say he was going to help Sarah carry the shopping. Mrs Henderson had no belief in the ability of young men to last out this particular course. But she knew that she had only a limited time. The shops were not far away, and Sarah moved fast. She and Edward were sitting by the fire in the little sitting room in the house in Acton.

‘So, Edward,’ she began, with what she hoped was a friendly smile, ‘Sarah tells me you had a great triumph in court very recently, when you spoke in the great fraud case.’

Edward found the smile slightly disturbing. Something about it reminded him of the wolf in the nursery story who consumed the grandmother and sat up in her bed waiting for the arrival of Little Red Riding Hood, intending to eat her as well. And he, Edward, was Little Red Riding Hood. ‘It was nothing, Mrs Henderson,’ he said, ‘anybody who had been researching that case could have done it. And I was so glad Sarah was there.’

This admission, although Edward did not know it at the time, gave a slight opening and, it must be said, some hope to Mrs Henderson. The idea that Edward could not have managed his success without Sarah’s presence was grist to her mill.

‘Are you going to do more work in court, Edward? I know Sarah thinks you should.’

‘I’m not sure yet, Mrs Henderson, not sure at all. I want to wait until things have cleared up at Queen’s Inn.’

‘But if you did more speaking work, Edward, would you be better paid? Would you be able to settle down?’

Edward had a faint suspicion now of where the conversation was going. He supposed that if there were no fathers around to ask a girl’s young man his intentions, then it fell to the mother. But he wasn’t going to make life easy for the old lady. Sarah should be back soon.

‘Settle down?’ said Edward, as if this was a custom followed in some remote Patagonian island rather than in Acton, London W3. ‘I’m not sure what you mean, Mrs Henderson.’

The old lady was taken slightly taken aback. Surely everybody knew what settling down meant. ‘I don’t know, Edward,’ she said sadly, ‘in my young days people meant getting married, finding somewhere to live, that sort of thing, starting a family, all that was settling down.’

Something in the sadness of her voice touched Edward. He was now absolutely sure what she wanted to know. He thought she was looking rather ill. Just then they heard a slamming of the front door and a cry of ‘I’m back’ from Sarah.

‘It’ll be all right, Mrs Henderson.’ Edward had just time to speak before Sarah came into the room. ‘I promise you.’

Edward and Sarah had called round to Manchester Square and Edward had deposited a great pile of documents for Powerscourt to read. These were the remaining wills of the benchers and Edward had promised to come and discuss their contents in the next few days. Powerscourt began to work through them. He was sitting on the sofa in front of the fire in the drawing room on the first floor of the house in Manchester Square. Josiah Beauchamp, died 1861, he read, had left five thousand pounds and two houses in Holborn to the Inn for the relief of poor retired barristers. Horatio Pauncefoot, passed away 1865, had bequeathed seven thousand pounds for the upkeep of poor persons in pupillage. John James Tollard, died 1870, left five thousand pounds for bursaries for poor pupils. The names and the figures were swimming in front of him now. He wondered if he wouldn’t be more comfortable lying out on the sofa. Richard Woodleigh Fitzpaine. Peter Stirling Netherbury. Christopher John Knighton. Gradually the names faded from view. He was seeing huge numbers now, dancing across the courts of Queen’s Inn, besporting themselves over the Temple Gardens. A giant eight was walking south down Middle Temple Lane towards the river. On the far side of the road a pair of threes who looked as though they might have been hand in hand were dancing their way into the Royal Courts of Justice. A spindly eleven was mincing its way north through the gardens of Gray’s Inn. A fat four was wobbling east from the Inns of Court towards the City of Numbers above Ludgate Hill. Then the numbers disappeared. There was a strange distant noise that might come from a funfair. And then he was in the funfair, staring at one of those steam-driven roundabouts where people ride round on wooden horses adorned in bright colours that go up and down in regular patterns. Here was Mrs Dauntsey, still dressed in black, smiling enigmatically at him as she rode sedately around, her position never changing. Behind her on a ridiculously small pony was Porchester Newton, those butcher’s hands enormous as they held the reins, glowering at Powerscourt as his horse carried him round and the up-and-down motion rocked him on his way. There was Mrs Catherine Cavendish, riding in chorus girl costume, arm in arm with a friend, their long legs kicking out towards the spectators. Behind them on a black horse Barton Somerville himself, decked for some reason in fool’s gaudy, as if he was an aged Fool in attendance on the demented Lear. Round and round his suspects went. Behind the fool he saw another strange figure he did not at first recognize. It was clad in a very long white coat with a knife in its hand. Powerscourt realized it must be Dr Cavendish, come to lighten his last months with a spell on a wooden horse. The only person absent from this funfair of suspects was the missing Maxfield.

Lady Lucy called his name as she was entering the room, unaware that her husband had fallen asleep. ‘Francis,’ she began, then stopped when she saw that his eyes were closed. She smiled at him.

‘Lucy,’ he began, ‘I’ve been having a most peculiar dream. All the suspects were going round on wooden horses at a funfair.’

‘Did any of them whisper in your ear that they were the murderer?’

‘I’m afraid not, my love. If only they had.’

‘This has just come for you, Francis.’ She held out a letter for him, the writing slightly shaky.

‘Half past twelve tomorrow morning, Lucy. My appointment in Harley Street with Dr Rivers Cavendish.’ He gave Lady Lucy a firm hug. At the back of his brain those fairground horses were still going round and round.

There were two lions on the left-hand side of the fireplace, their stuffed features looking quizzically at the patients as if nothing would give them greater pleasure than to return to life and make a quick meal of the nearest humans. On the right-hand side was a tiger, a rather weary tiger, who looked as though the long journey from his place of capture to the waiting rooms of Harley Street had exhausted him. On the left-hand wall there were merely a couple of stags’ heads, complete with enormous antlers, looking rather mundane and civilized compared with the other wild life. And on the remaining wall Powerscourt saw what he presumed was a cheetah, the fastest of them all. He wondered if his children would like to come and inspect these savage heads. He wondered too if it was Dr Cavendish or his predecessor who had captured this collection on safari in Africa. Maybe he had some more at home to keep Catherine Cavendish in order, though Powerscourt suspected the animals would have had to be alive to have much impact on that young lady.

He was rather disappointed in the reading matter on display. Surely this room warranted magazines for explorers or geographical journals with detailed accounts of the latest expeditions to the lands where tigers roamed. Instead there were the normal daily newspapers and a religious magazine that had no details of any foreign ventures at all, not even to a missionary station. As the last patient before him went into the consulting room, he wondered how Catherine and Rivers Cavendish had actually met. He should have asked her. Lucy had been most indignant, he recalled, when he had been unable to answer her question on that point.

‘Lord Powerscourt.’ The receptionist was waving him through to the holy of holies. The woman before him in the queue seemed to have disappeared. Perhaps she had been eaten by one of the lions. Dr Cavendish’s consulting room had two huge windows looking out into the garden. The decoration on these walls could not have been more different from the waiting room. Here reproductions of the religious masterpieces of the Renaissance held sway. Powerscourt thought he recognized a Filippo Lippi Annunciation from San Lorenzo in Florence, a crucifixion by Tintoretto and the Noli Me Tangere from the Accademia Gallery in Venice.

‘Good morning, Lord Powerscourt. How may I be of service?’

Rivers Cavendish was a small thin man, with white hair, a tightly trimmed white beard and a nervous way of looking about him. If you were feeling unkind, Powerscourt said to himself, you could describe him as a frightened rabbit. All he needed was the tail.

‘My business is personal rather than professional, Dr Cavendish, but before we get down to details, may I ask if you were responsible for the remarkable collection of wild life in your waiting room? I was most impressed.’

The little man roared with laughter. ‘My goodness me, Lord Powerscourt, what a compliment you pay me! I’m afraid that was my predecessor in these rooms. He was always going to Africa and shooting things. It was the death of him in the end, mind you. He went on one final expedition and missed his shot. Rather than his taking the lion, the lion took him instead. Not very much of him left at the end, the native bearers said, certainly not enough to bring home.’

Powerscourt thought the story of his predecessor’s unhappy demise seemed to bring great pleasure to the little man. ‘My business, Dr Cavendish, concerns the death of a barrister called Alex Dauntsey, poisoned at a feast at Queen’s Inn, and the subsequent shooting of his colleague Mr Stewart. Perhaps you are aware of the business, Dr Cavendish?’

The doctor bowed. ‘My wife has told me all she knows, Lord Powerscourt. And I believe she has spoken at length to you, is that so?’

‘It is indeed, Dr Cavendish. I hope you will forgive me if I begin with a most unusual question. It is not meant to sound rude, I have no wish to pry into your affairs, but it is something which would, if true, colour every other facet of our conversation. Your wife tells me you have but a short time to live. Pardon me, Dr Cavendish, but is that true?’

The doctor’s reaction was the last one Powerscourt would have expected. He smiled, no, he beamed with pleasure.

‘It is indeed, Lord Powerscourt. Three months left, maybe a bit less. I’m afraid I don’t wish to go into the details of my condition in any way, but that is the time I have left, thank God.’

Powerscourt was astonished at the attitude of the little man. ‘Dr Cavendish,’ he said, with a puzzled frown on his face, ‘most people grow fearful, apprehensive, terrified sometimes at the prospect of death. You look delighted. May I ask why?’

‘Of course,’ the doctor said. ‘I believe.’

‘You believe?’

‘I believe in the Anglican faith. Always have.’

‘One God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten son of God, who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was made man and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate?’

‘Totally. You left quite a bit out there by the way, or you’ve forgotten your Creed.’

‘And the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father and he shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead?’

‘Completely.’

‘One Catholic and Apostolic Church?’

‘Yes.’

‘One Baptism for the remission of sins?’

‘Of course.’

‘And you look for the Resurrection of the dead?’

‘I do,’ said Dr Cavendish, ‘and the life of the world to come.’

‘Christ!’ said Powerscourt.

‘Him too.’

‘God bless my soul,’ said Powerscourt, leaning back in his chair. ‘No sad cadences from Dover Beach for you then, Dr Cavendish.’

‘“Dover Beach”. . .’ You could see the little man’s brain pursuing the poem as if it were some erratic tumour. ‘Author Matthew Arnold, most moving and famous verses about the loss of faith in Victorian England.’ He closed his eyes for a second. ‘The eternal note of sadness in the movement of the waves, heard by Sophocles long ago, reminding him of the turbid ebb and flow of human misery,

‘The Sea of Faith

Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore

Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.

But now I only hear

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar . . .’

‘Let me tell you a little story about “Dover Beach”, doctor, if I may,’ said Powerscourt. ‘It concerns a young man reading for the Anglican priesthood at one of those Oxford theological colleges. After a year or two, the young man becomes afflicted by doubt. Did God create man or did man create God? Book of Genesis can’t be true if the geologists are right. Creation story can’t be true if Darwin is right, can one person be man and God, the usual cocktail of doubt. And he is terribly affected by “Dover Beach”. If he can only recite the poem on Dover Beach itself, at the evening time mentioned at the start of the poem, he says to himself, then surely his doubts will be resolved. So, he takes the evening train bound for Maidstone, Ashford, Canterbury, Dover. By Ashford or thereabouts the young man is word perfect on the verses. There he is at last on the beach. He advances to the water’s edge and begins his recital in his most powerful voice. I should say that the wind is coming in fairly hard from the Channel at this point so the Matthew Arnold is being carried back towards the town. By the end he is nearly in tears with the beauty of the words and the idea that this world which seems a land of dreams,

‘Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.’

‘What happened to him, Lord Powerscourt?’ said the doctor eagerly. ‘Did his faith come back?’

‘I’m afraid his faith didn’t come back, doctor. What came instead were two burly members of the Kent Constabulary who were on patrol looking out for smugglers. They heard these, to them very strange, words and couldn’t decide whether the young man was a lunatic or not. They clapped him in the cells for the night – would you believe an explanation like his must have been? – and he was bound over to keep the peace by the magistrate the next morning for a period of thirty days. They say that by the time he got to Maidstone on his return journey, his faith had completely disappeared.’

The doctor smiled. ‘Very fine story, Lord Powerscourt. But no Dover Beach for me. I still believe. I believe I shall see God. I believe I shall be reunited with my dead parents and my dead first wife. Now, how can I help you?’

‘Could I ask where you were on the evening of Friday, the 28th of February?’

‘The evening poor Mr Dauntsey was murdered, you mean? Well, I was here in my consulting rooms until the early evening. I’m sure my secretary could give you the name of the last patient on that day. That would have been about five or half past five. Then I made some notes for an address I had to give at a conference in Oxford the following day. At seven o’clock or thereabouts I took a cab to Paddington station and the train to Oxford. I’m sure Wilfrid Baverstock, the Professor of Medicine who was organizing this conference, will vouch for the time I arrived at his college, Hertford, shortly after nine, I think.’

Powerscourt was doing lightning calculations. If a man walked fast, or if he took a cab and was lucky with the traffic in both directions, he could just about get to Queen’s Inn and leave a little something for Alex Dauntsey and be back in time to set out for Oxford.

‘In the time you were here, Dr Cavendish, between the departure of the last patient and your own departure for Oxford, was there anybody else about or were you completely alone?’

‘Well, there will have been other doctors here in other parts of the building but I didn’t see any of them, if that’s what you mean.’

Powerscourt took a brief look at the books in a small circular bookcase just to the left of the doctor. His heart started racing very fast.

‘I’m afraid I have to ask you about your wife and her relations with the dead man Dauntsey, Dr Cavendish. Could I ask you first of all how you met?’

The little man laughed. ‘It’s an interesting question as to who picked up whom, Lord Powerscourt. I make no apologies for enjoying the music hall shows. Good enough for the King, then it’s good enough for me, that’s what I say. I’d been to see this show she was in at the Alhambra, just called The Gaiety Girls, if my memory’s right, three times. The third time I was fifty yards from the theatre on my way home and Catherine comes up and starts talking to me, bold as brass. Hadn’t she seen me in that box before, once or was it twice? Anyway, things went on from there. I may be a believer in the Almighty and all his works, Lord Powerscourt, but I thought I could still enjoy some feminine company in the last months of my life. My first wife is dead. We didn’t have any children. I didn’t want to leave my money to a collection of medical charities. So there it was. And I told Catherine right from the start that there were certain physical functions relating to marriage that I could not perform because of my illness. I didn’t mind if she found outlets for those with other people, as long as she kept coming back to me until I died.’

Once again Powerscourt wondered if the man was telling the truth. Maybe the human capacity for jealousy disappeared when desire faded. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe you could marry somebody much younger and tolerate them sleeping with other men. But he wasn’t sure. And he had noticed a faint flush on the doctor’s face as he gave that account of himself. Maybe it had to do with the sensitive nature of the subject matter. Suddenly Powerscourt remembered Catherine Cavendish telling him that she had met Alex Dauntsey when he was the last patient of the day, in her husband’s waiting room.

‘I think you knew Alex Dauntsey, Dr Cavendish,’ he said. ‘I believe he was a patient of yours.’

‘He was indeed. He had been a patient of mine for some years.’

Powerscourt wondered if length of service would make it more or less likely that you would murder somebody.

‘What did you think of him?’

‘Dauntsey?’ said the doctor reflectively, looking at the Annunciation on his wall as if there might be a message in there for him as well. ‘I liked him very much. He had a certain grace about him, a certain style that you don’t often see in today’s barristers. They’re all too concerned with making money.’

Of all the people whose deaths he had investigated, Powerscourt thought, Dauntsey was the one he would have most liked to meet. He thought of the portrait, now presumably lurking in some basement in Queen’s Inn, and wondered fancifully if he could buy it off them. He was sure Lady Lucy would have liked Dauntsey too, with those good looks and the charm that had bewitched Catherine Cavendish. He would even have been forgiven the love affair with cricket.

‘It’s such a pity he’s gone,’ said Powerscourt. ‘One last question, and forgive me if it is personal once again. Did you and Mrs Cavendish ever talk about what would happen after you had died?’

The doctor thought Powerscourt apologized too much. Bloody man’s nearly strangling himself with good manners, he said to himself. But then he reflected that while he dealt with the reality of death every day, Powerscourt did not.

‘I don’t think we have discussed it, actually,’ said Dr Cavendish. ‘Do you think we should?’

Powerscourt smiled. ‘I think that’s entirely a matter for yourselves,’ he said and rose to take his leave. As he stepped out into the cold air of Harley Street he saw again in his mind’s eye those two volumes on Dr Cavendish’s revolving bookcases. Poisons and Their Treatment was the first one in a brown binding. The Impact of Poison was the other, bound, appropriately enough, Powerscourt felt, in black. There was only room for the surname on the spine, not the full details of the writer and his qualifications which would appear inside. On both books the author was the same. His name was Cavendish.

All of the Maxfield replies were now with Powerscourt in Manchester Square with the Army and Calne bringing up the rear. No from Cambridge, he read, no from the Army, no from his old school. Only one reply offered any sort of hope and even that looked pretty slim. It came from the head groundsman at Calne. He himself, he wrote, was unable to be of assistance as he had only been in the post for five years and had no knowledge of Mr Dauntsey growing up. He had, however, discussed it with his predecessor, who believed he might be able to help. If Lord Powerscourt could confirm by return of post, Matthew Jenkins, who had been head groundsman for almost fifty years, would meet him at the Calne cricket pavilion at three o’clock in the afternoon in two days’ time.

Johnny Fitzgerald had almost persuaded Powerscourt that Maxfield was a blackmailer, spacing out his demands over the decades to avoid detection. Chief Inspector Beecham’s theory was that Maxfield had lent Dauntsey a great sum of money to pay off youthful indiscretions and the cash was now being returned with interest. Lady Lucy believed the bequest was a reward. Maybe Maxfield had saved Dauntsey’s life in the past and this was a thank you from beyond the grave. Powerscourt just hoped that this was his last trip to Calne. I should have bought a season ticket when this investigation started, he said to himself, peering anxiously round the estate for armed assassins come to finish him off.

Matthew Jenkins had brought two chairs and a small table on to the verandah of the cricket pavilion. There were a number of notebooks lying roughly beside one of the chairs. Jenkins was a small wrinkled old gentleman with a full head of white hair. His hands and his arms were very brown from years in the open air. His face was clean-shaven and looked to Powerscourt like a nut with human features attached. He spoke slowly and seemed to think quite hard before he opened his mouth.

‘Good afternoon, Mr Jenkins,’ said Powerscourt, opening the batting. ‘Thank you very much for seeing me.’

‘If there’s anything I could do for Mr Dauntsey, sir, I’d walk through hellfire to do it for him, I would.’ And with that, Matthew Jenkins nodded his white hair for what seemed to Powerscourt to be almost a minute.

‘You told John James, your successor, that you might be able to help me with this missing Maxfield, Mr Jenkins.’

‘I can, sir.’ The old man stopped there and stared out at the pitch as if remembering matches from long ago. A couple of deer were inspecting them from the far boundary. ‘You mentioned nicknames in your letter, sir. Well, that was what set me thinking. You see, we did have a boy and man, contemporary of Mr Dauntsey, with a nickname. Squirrel, he was called. I can’t remember, if I ever knew, why he was called Squirrel. Maybe he hoarded things and buried them in secret places. He was born here, his father worked on the estate. He must have been about the same age as Mr Dauntsey. They grew up together, played together, chased the deer together.’ This brought another of those long-drawn-out noddings of the Jenkins head. Powerscourt watched it move slowly up and down, the eyes still staring out at the wicket.

‘Did everybody call him Squirrel, Mr Jenkins?’

‘Somebody told me the other day, sir, that they thought even his own family must have called him Squirrel. But I’m losing my way, Lord Powerscourt. The reason I asked to meet you here was that Mr Dauntsey and Squirrel played cricket together. They opened the batting for the junior team, then the senior team, they even had a trial together for the County. And the scorer for the Calne cricket team was the estate steward, a miserable man who’d been in the Army called Buchanan-Smith. A real stickler for formality, he was, sir. There was no way he would have put just Squirrel in his score book.’

Matthew Jenkins bent down and picked up a faded green volume. ‘Here we are, sir, A.M. Dauntsey, caught Pollard, bowled Keyes, thirty-four, Squirrel Maxfield, bowled Hawkins, forty-two.’

Powerscourt picked up another book for another year and found more records of successful partnerships between the two men.

Powerscourt was as interested as the next man in cricket records but he felt he should press on.

‘Is he still here, Squirrel Maxfield? Is he still opening the batting for Calne?’

Matthew Jenkins looked so sad, Powerscourt thought he might burst into tears. ‘No, my lord, he’s not here. He left soon after the catastrophe. You know how they say some people are marked out for disaster, for the vengeance of the gods – well, I think he was one of them.’

The white head was off again. Powerscourt waited. ‘He married late, this Squirrel,’ Jenkins went on, leafing absent-mindedly through another of the score books, ‘must have been about five or six years ago. They had a son, lovely little boy he was, with blond hair and big green eyes. Until he was one and a half, nearly two, everything was fine. Then things began to go wrong with the boy. They took him to a lot of doctors but there was no cure. Epilepsy and mental deficiency, that’s what they said it was. Just when they were taking all that in, the wife was pregnant again. Same thing. Another little boy, same problem, same illness. The doctors shook their heads. They needed extra help to look after the little ones. Worst thing was, these children would never get better, they’d need looking after all their lives. People said there were special hospitals and places you could send them. Squirrel Maxfield said nobody ever came out alive from those places. He said if they could just keep them alive long enough somebody would come up with a cure. Squirrel said he didn’t believe God could send people out into this world who weren’t well without intending to cure them.’

‘Did they receive help from anywhere, Mr Jenkins? Financial help?’

‘Well, my lord, you know how it is in small communities like ours. Gossip going everywhere, like a weed. People said Mr Dauntsey gave them money, a lot of money, but nobody knew. They all went off to the South of France. Maybe the climate would be better, I don’t know. People say it’s cheaper to live there, I wouldn’t know, I sometimes think I haven’t much time left here myself.’

‘Nonsense, Mr Jenkins,’ said Powerscourt, ‘you’ll be here for years yet. But tell me, what did you make of the two of them, Dauntsey and Maxfield?’

The old man looked at him carefully and began extracting pipe, tobacco pouch and matches from various pockets.

‘Squirrel Maxfield, I didn’t know him well. He worked in the town as a carpenter so we did see him here from time to time. Very pleasant gentleman, always polite to me. Mr Dauntsey, mind you, I watched him grow up. I never knew a more considerate man, always happy to help the people on the estate in bad times. He was a real loss, sir.’

‘I don’t suppose,’ said Powerscourt, anxious to remove all possible ambiguity, ‘that Mr Maxfield has been back here in the last couple of months or so?’ Not on a feast day in Queen’s Inn at the end of February, he said to himself.

‘No, sir, he’s not been back. I’m sure he would have come back for the funeral if he’d heard about it in time. Don’t suppose the posts and things work very well over there. And if he’d been back he’d have come down to see his old mother who’s still alive in the town and we’d have heard all about it.’

On his train back to London Powerscourt felt relieved that F.L. Maxfield could at last be removed from their inquiries. And he wondered again about the nature of his first murder victim, Alexander Dauntsey, a man whose generosity to his friends extended beyond the grave.