Death of a Chancellor

16

‘God bless my soul,’ said Lord Francis Powerscourt. ‘Are you sure?’

‘I can only go by what the butler said, my lord,’ William McKenzie replied. ‘And I didn’t want to press him too hard about the Thursday services. It might have seemed suspicious when I was meant to be working on a book about the moated houses of England.’

‘What exactly did he say about the Thursday services, William?’

McKenzie turned back a few pages in his notebook. ‘I wrote all this down in the train on the way back. He said a Jesuit came to celebrate Mass every Thursday.’

Jesuits, thought Powerscourt. The shock troops of the Counter Reformation, the Imperial Guard of the College for Propaganda in the battle for the hearts and souls of the unconverted. Christ Almighty. What on earth was going on in this sleepy cathedral town?

‘It makes sense of the bag, my lord. He must carry his Jesuit vestments to and from Melbury Clinton every week.’

‘It certainly does,’ said Powerscourt. ‘William, you have done magnificently. I shall have another assignation for you in the morning.’

That night Powerscourt had a dream. He was in a church, not the Cathedral of Compton he knew so well, but a large church that might have been in Oxford or Cambridge. The pews were full of young men, every available seat occupied, latecomers standing at the back. The organ was playing softly. At first there were no priests to be seen. Then Powerscourt saw a figure floating above the congregation like a ghost from the other side. He knew that the spectre was the wraith of John Henry Newman, the most famous defector from the Church of England to the Church of Rome in all the nineteenth century. The ghost of Newman was beckoning the young men to follow him out of the side door into the world outside. Gradually the pews began to empty. Then it became a rush. Finally it turned into a stampede as all the young men followed Newman’s lead and abandoned their pews, and presumably their allegiance to the Church of England. At Newman’s side was another spectre, arms outstretched to summon the true believers. The other spectre was the Archdeacon of Compton Cathedral.

Early the next morning Powerscourt was seated at the desk in John Eustace’s study, train timetable to one side of him, writing paper to the other. He wrote to the Dean, requesting the name and home addresses, if possible, of the two dead members of the community of vicars choral. Powerscourt was trying to avoid all human contact with members of the cathedral for fear it might endanger their lives if they were not the murderer, and endanger his own if they were. He still had occasional flashbacks to the falling masonry, his night vigil with the dead in their stone and marble. He wondered about the Bishop, apparently so unworldly, but with a record, Patrick Butler had informed him, of distinguished service in the Grenadier Guards. He wondered about the Dean, so impassive as he watched the horror being unveiled in the morgue. He wondered about the Archdeacon and his weekly pilgrimages to Melbury Clinton. He wrote to his old tutor in Cambridge, requesting the name and an introduction to the foremost scholar in Britain on the Reformation and the Dissolution of the Monasteries. He wrote to the Ferrers family of 42 Clifton Rise, Bristol, asking if he could call on them at four o’clock in the afternoon in two days’ time. He explained that he was looking into the strange deaths in Compton and wanted to talk to them. He did not specify the reason for his visit. He wrote to his old friend Lord Rosebery former Prime Minister in the liberal interest, saying that he proposed to call on him in five or six days to discuss his latest case. He particularly asked Rosebery if he could secure him, Powerscourt, a meeting with the Home Secretary. He wrote to Dr Williams asking for his co-operation in a very delicate matter.

‘So which Archdeacon is the real one, Francis? The Protestant one or the Catholic one?’ said Johnny Fitzgerald.

His correspondence complete, Powerscourt had joined the others over breakfast. Thomas and Olivia had gone to climb the trees in the garden.

‘God only knows,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Maybe even God doesn’t know.’

‘Can you be a Protestant Archdeacon and a Jesuit Father at the same time?’ said Lady Lucy. ‘Doesn’t each side think the other one to be heretics, if you see what I mean?’

‘I don’t know the answer to that one either,’ said Powerscourt. ‘But I’m going to find out’ He made a mental note to write a further letter to Cambridge requesting an interview with a theologian. ‘The other question, of course,’ he went on through a mouthful of bacon and eggs, ‘is whether it is just the Archdeacon who is a Jesuit or a Roman Catholic. Maybe there are other members of the Cathedral Close who are secret adherents of the old religion.’

‘Maybe they all are,’ said Johnny Fitzgerald. Everybody laughed.

‘Seriously though,’ said Powerscourt, ‘this investigation has become exceedingly difficult. I dare not ask questions of the Bishop and his people. I feel it would be too dangerous, either for me or for any of us here, or for them if they were known to have been asked those kind of questions.’

William McKenzie had been working his way through a small mountain of toast, thinly coated with butter but without marmalade, at the far end of the table.

‘I’ve been thinking about the time, my lord. If the butler at Melbury Clinton is right, the subject has been celebrating Mass there for eight years. He travels in his Protestant clothes, if you like, and changes when he gets there. He’s like a spy in some ways, isn’t he, Johnny? But who is he spying on? It doesn’t seem likely that the Protestant authorities in Compton want secret information about what goes on in Melbury Clinton. Nor does it seem likely that the Catholic family in Melbury Clinton want secret information about what happens in the cathedral at Compton. It’s all very difficult.’

McKenzie consoled himself with a further intake of toast.

‘It comes back to my original question,’ said Johnny Fitzgerald cheerfully. ‘Which one is the real one?’ He picked up a fork and speared a sausage which he held up for general inspection. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is the Protestant Archdeacon sausage.’ With his left hand he impaled another sausage with his spare fork. ‘And this is the Jesuit sausage. It seems to me that the Protestant sausage,’ he waved the fork around in a menacing fashion, ‘is taking a lot of risks going off to Melbury Clinton once a week for eight years to turn into the Jesuit sausage. No doubt he picked the place because it’s so far away but somebody from there could easily have come to Compton and recognized him.’

‘Unless,’ Powerscourt interrupted the charcuterie display ‘the people from Melbury know all about his role in Compton and would not be surprised. We can assume from the distance and the precautions that the right-hand sausage, the Protestant Archdeacon, does not want anybody to know about his role as the Jesuit in Melbury.’

‘Consider another factor,’ said Johnny, bringing his two sausages side by side, ‘what a strain it must be to alternate between these two lives.’ He swapped the two sausages round at bewildering speed. ‘We’ve all done bits of spying in our time, pretending to be somebody else for the greater good of Queen and country. It’s an exhausting business. At any moment the whole thing can go wrong.’ He dropped the two sausages back on to his plate and began to consume the Protestant Archdeacon. ‘So why the eight years? Is he going to continue the pretence until his dying day? Is he waiting for a signal to emerge into his true colours?’

Powerscourt was running his right hand through his hair, a gesture Lady Lucy knew only too well. It meant that he could not see the answer. Johnny Fitzgerald had now carved the Jesuit sausage into small pieces. McKenzie was still eating his toast. Lady Lucy was sipping her tea.

‘We’re in the dark,’ said Powerscourt, smiling at her as he said it. ‘All I would hazard is that the Jesuit Archdeacon is more likely to be the real one. If you were going to betray one faith in the cause of another I’d be much more frightened of the Jesuits than of the Bishop of Compton. Today I’m going to have another rummage in John Eustace’s papers. I may even go and call on Dr Blackstaff again. Tomorrow I am going on a journey. I think I’ll be away for a couple of days. William,’ he turned to McKenzie who had finally finished his consumption of toast, ‘I think you should turn your attention to this Italian gentleman who stays with the Archdeacon. I’m not sure if he’s there at the moment.’

‘He’s there all right,’ said Johnny Fitzgerald. ‘I saw him creeping about the town yesterday.’

‘Excellent,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Follow him when he goes, William. Follow him wherever he goes. Find out where he comes from. I don’t care if you have to go back to London with him.’

‘Maybe he comes from Melbury Clinton,’ said Johnny cheerfully. ‘Maybe he’s another bloody Jesuit. Pops over to Compton to keep the Archdeacon on the straight and narrow.’

‘Johnny,’ Powerscourt went on, ‘I want you to try the impossible. We need to know if any other members of the Close are secret Roman Catholics. God knows how you do it. The last thing you can do is ask any of them.’

‘I’ll try,’ said Johnny, picking up the last of his Jesuit sausage and popping it into his mouth, ‘I’ll certainly try.’

Later that morning Lady Lucy found her husband pacing up and down the drawing room.

‘Francis,’ she said quietly, ‘I wish you weren’t going away.’ Powerscourt turned at the far end of the room, just past the piano, and stared back at her, his eyes still a long way from Fairfield Park.

‘What was that, Lucy? Sorry, my love, I was miles away.’

Lady Lucy put her arm round her husband’s waist and marched with him back down the room towards the doors into the garden.

‘Let me come with you, Francis, this part of the way anyway. I said I wished you weren’t going away.’

Powerscourt stopped and stared out into the garden. ‘That child is very far up the tree down by the church,’ he said anxiously.

‘Is it Olivia?’ said Lady Lucy. ‘Don’t worry about her. She’s like a monkey in those trees. I’d be much more worried if you said Thomas was at the top of one of the big oaks.’

‘I wish I wasn’t going away either, Lucy. I don’t think I’ll be gone very long.’

‘At least I’ve got the choir to keep me busy Francis. Did I tell you, I’ve made friends with two of the little choristers, Philip and William? I think I’m going to ask them to tea to meet the children.’

‘You be very careful with that choir, Lucy. I think everything’s very dangerous in Compton at the moment.’

‘Can I ask you a question, Francis?’ said Lady Lucy, resuming their joint march up and down the drawing room.

‘Of course,’ said Powerscourt, giving her waist a firm squeeze. ‘What is it?’

‘Are you frightened?’ said Lady Lucy, in a very serious voice.

‘Do you know,’ said Powerscourt, ‘I don’t think you’ve ever asked me that before.’

‘Well, I’m asking it now.’

Powerscourt stopped by the side of the piano and sat down on the stool. His fingers picked out random notes with no pretence of a tune. They sounded rather melancholy in this grand room with the sun now streaming in through the windows.

‘I think the answer is Yes and No, if I’m allowed to say that.’ Lady Lucy put her hands on his shoulders. ‘Yes, I am frightened in the sense that I find this killer so difficult to understand, so unpredictable, so terribly violent. And I can’t find any sign of a motive at all. I feel as though we are all walking on eggshells. If we say or do the wrong thing, or our inquiries upset the madman, then he may kill again. So that makes me frightened, very frightened sometimes.’ He paused and strummed some more random notes from the piano. Outside a battalion of rooks were flying across the ornamental pond, their harsh cries acting as a counterpoint to the black keys on Powerscourt’s piano.

‘I think, Lucy,’ he turned to smile up at her, ‘that it has to do with the combination of reason and imagination. Sometimes I think I’m lucky enough to solve these cases through reason, deducing how things must have happened. Sometimes it’s imagination, trying to see how the emotional connections between the various parties must have worked. But imagination cuts both ways. It can help. But in this case it’s often a hindrance because your imagination dwells on the terrible things this mad person has done and what he might do next.’

Powerscourt paused again. ‘In another sense,’ he went on, ‘I’m not frightened. I think perhaps you can be frightened and courageous at the same time. I’ve seen some acts of terrifying bravery in battle, Lucy. The bravest people are the ones who admit they are terrified but carry on all the same. I’m not as brave as they are. But I think you must keep up your courage, whatever the circumstances. If I didn’t, I think I’d feel I was betraying myself, betraying you, betraying the children, betraying all those families involved or yet to be involved in these terrible events.’

Powerscourt rose from the piano stool and embraced his wife. ‘You know, Lucy, people are meant to have these kinds of conversations very late at night when the wine and the port may have been flowing freely. Certainly not at half-past eleven in the morning.’

The eight thirty train from Compton to Bristol seemed extraordinarily slow to Powerscourt, impatient to further his investigation. It stopped regularly at what seemed to be hamlets rather than villages. At one point, peering crossly out of his first class carriage window, he thought a horseman on the adjacent road was making faster progress than one of the great symbols of the modern age. A military-looking man joined him, turning immediately to the Births Marriages and Deaths columns of The Times and remaining enraptured there for over an hour. Powerscourt wondered if he was learning every entry by heart. He wondered too about the marriage prospects for Patrick Butler and Anne Herbert and whether the proposed trip to Glastonbury would enable Patrick to pull it off. Somehow he doubted it. He suspected he would have to propose to her by letter. Perhaps he could take out a quarter page in his own newspaper and propose marriage to her there alongside the advertisements for soap and bicycles. A suitable headline could be adapted from the nursery rhyme, Editor Wants a Wife. Anne, he felt, might find that rather embarrassing. At a small town on the county border a middle-aged lady joined them and began reading the latest Henry James. Powerscourt remembered Lucy telling him about an article she had read very recently which gave a clue to the central problem of Henry James’ later novels – why were the sentences so long? This article claimed that he had stopped writing his books by hand and now dictated them to teams of typewriter operators. It was easy, Lucy had said, to imagine the Master wandering up and down his study, dictating exquisite phrase after exquisite phrase and totally forgetting to insert the full stops. Powerscourt read again the note he had received that morning from Chief Inspector Yates, telling him that it was most unlikely, but not absolutely impossible for James Fraser, the best butcher in Compton, to have killed Gillespie. They were still checking his alibi. Powerscourt’s thoughts went back to the cathedral and its inhabitants.

After six and three-quarter hours the train finally arrived at Bristol Temple Meads. A cab brought Powerscourt quickly to 42 Clifton Rise, a respectable-looking house at the bottom of a hill. A maid showed Powerscourt into the little drawing room. Patrick Butler was certainly right about one thing, Powerscourt said to himself, looking at the Blessed Virgin Marys and the religious tapestries on the walls, the family Ferrers owed their religious allegiance to Rome rather than Canterbury.

‘Lord Powerscourt, how very kind of you to call.’ A handsome middle-aged woman came into the room and ushered him into a chair. ‘Now would you like some tea?’

‘Mrs Ferrers,’ Powerscourt could not imagine this person to be anybody other than Mrs Ferrers, ‘I am sure you have made the journey from here to Compton by train. There were times when I thought I could have walked it quicker. Tea would be delightful.’

‘Now, Lord Powerscourt, you must be having a terrible time investigating these horrid murders back there in Compton! So upsetting to read about them in the newspapers!’

The adjectives, Powerscourt noticed at once, were delivered with remarkable force. Terrible and Horrid were underlined three or four times in Mrs Ferrers’ diction. He wondered briefly how Mr Ferrers coped with it.

‘They are certainly most distressing,’ said Powerscourt diplomatically. ‘And they must be deeply worrying for you with your son so close to the centre of events.’ He just managed to resist the temptation to stress the word deeply.

‘I’m sure all the mothers find it a great anxiety at this time, Lord Powerscourt. Anthony, that’s my husband, and I have been most concerned.’ Even simple words like great and most could be struck with the force of a great bell. She began pouring the tea.

‘Forgive me, Mrs Ferrers,’ said Powerscourt, his eye drawn to a picture of the Pope on the opposite wall, ‘I have no wish to pry into your family’s personal or religious affairs. But I must confess I am curious as to why Augustine comes to be singing in a Protestant choir.’

Mrs Ferrers laughed. ‘Lots of people have asked us that. But it is perfectly simple really. Augustine, how should I put this, he is a dear dear boy, Lord Powerscourt, but he is not very bright. He was our seventh child.’ Powerscourt noted the massive emphasis on the word seventh as if it had some cabbalistic significance. ‘My husband says we had too many children and there weren’t enough brains to go around. The one thing Augustine excelled at was singing. There aren’t any choirs in Catholic cathedrals where he could be well paid, but Compton does pay moderately well, considering it’s a rural place. Augustine has been on the reserve list for the vicars choral for some time and when that poor man Arthur Rudd died, they sent for him.’

Powerscourt took a cup of tea and a slice of chocolate cake. ‘Were you worried about him going there,’ he asked, ‘with all the trouble?’

‘Oh No,’ replied Mrs Ferrers with a mighty stress on the No, ‘Father Kilblane said he would be perfectly safe there. Father Kilblane is our parish priest at St Francis of Assisi up at the top of the hill.’

Did he indeed? Powerscourt said to himself. How could a Catholic priest in Bristol be sure that one of his flock would be perfectly safe in Compton where the roll call of the dead and the disappeared was so long? Was he privy to the secrets of the cathedral?

‘Did Father Kilblane say how he was so sure?’ he asked.

‘He didn’t give any reasons, Lord Powerscourt. He gave us his word that Augustine would be as safe in Compton as if he were still under our own roof here in Clifton.’

‘Just one last question, if I may, Mrs Ferrers, and then I shall be on my way. Did the Cathedral authorities in Compton raise any objections on the ground of Augustine’s religious beliefs?’

‘I don’t think so, Lord Powerscourt. Father Kilblane fixed it all up with the Dean or the Archdeacon, I can’t remember which.’

Powerscourt felt the ground shifting slightly under his feet. He thought he should make his excuses and leave as soon as he decently could. The last thing he wanted was any message going back from Bristol to Compton about his inquiries. He wondered if there was some perfectly innocent explanation. Perhaps Father Kilblane had been at school with the Dean or the Archdeacon or had had some dealings with them in the past. Perhaps he was the priest who served Mass on Sundays at Melbury Clinton. Christ, Powerscourt said to himself, I’d better stop speculating in here with Mrs Ferrers.

‘Is he an experienced man, Father Kilblane?’ Powerscourt tried to make it sound as innocent as he could.

‘Oh No,’ Mrs Ferrers replied. ‘He’s quite young, I should say in his late twenties or early thirties. I think he came to the priesthood slightly later than some. He was at the English College in Rome for three or four years. There was a rumour, but I’ve never heard it confirmed, that he was a convert from the Anglican Church.’ Mrs Ferrers eyes lit up at the mention of conversion. ‘He’s been with us for about a year and a half.’

His eyes reeling from the Virgins on the walls, his ears still ringing with the force of Mrs Ferrers’ adverbs and adjectives, Powerscourt took his leave of 42 Clifton Rise. God in heaven. A Catholic priest advising a member of his flock to take up a position singing the heretic hymns and anthems in a Protestant cathedral. A Catholic priest who felt able to assure the family that their son would be safe in a city rent with murder and dismemberment. Did he know the dark secret of Compton Minster? Part of Powerscourt dearly wanted to make the short journey up the hill to question Father Kilblane in his sanctuary at the Church of St Francis of Assisi. But he felt it was too dangerous. Cambridge next, he said to himself, at least I shall feel on surer ground in Cambridge.