Death of a Chancellor

20

Ever since their engagement in the storm on the summit of Glastonbury Tor Patrick Butler had taken to dropping in on his fiancee at all hours of the day. Their earlier trysts over afternoon tea had been broadened into coffee in the mornings, chocolate in the early evenings and occasional suppers with the boys. But it was a perplexed Patrick Butler who joined his fiancee the morning after Powerscourt’s conversations with Dr Blackstaff.

‘I don’t understand it, Anne,’ he said. ‘Weeks ago the Bishop more or less told me we could get married in the cathedral. I asked him for the date we discussed, a month or so after Easter Monday, as I am sure you remember.’

Anne Herbert nodded.

‘Now he’s saying,’ Patrick Butler went on, ‘that it will be impossible for us to be married that day in the minster.’ Bishop Ruins Wedding, was running through his mind. Happy Couple Distraught. ‘He says we could have the service in St Peter under the Arches instead.’

‘But that’s impossible, absolutely impossible, Patrick,’ said Anne Herbert with unusual vehemence. Her late husband had been rector of St Peter’s. ‘He can’t possibly think I’m going to marry again at the very altar where my dead first husband held his services. It would make a mockery of the service. Just think of what the congregation would say.’

‘Maybe he’s made a mistake,’ said Patrick. ‘But why the cathedral should be out of bounds beats me. All the commemoration services will be over by then.’

‘This should cheer you up, Patrick,’ said Anne. ‘We’ve been asked out to dinner this evening. Lady Powerscourt dropped the invitation in on her way to rehearsals for the Messiah.’

‘Is it going to be a very grand affair, Anne? Do I have to dress up?’ Patrick Butler was the proud owner of two perfectly respectable suits. But they betrayed, here and there, the marks of his profession, ink spilt in unfortunate places, a permanent air of wear and tear. They always looked in need of cleaning. He had promised Anne he would buy a new one after they were married.

‘I think it’s only us and Johnny Fitzgerald,’ said Anne.

‘I say,’ Patrick Butler was back to his normal excitable self, ‘do you think he’s solved the murder? Is he going to tell us who the villain is?’ The headlines raced through his mind once more. Sleuth Solves Mystery Over Salmon Mousse. Compton Killer Unveiled Over Veal Viennoise.

The last course had been cleared away in the dining room at Fairfield Park. Powerscourt had given instructions to Andrew McKenna that they were not to be disturbed. Patrick Butler had chatted happily with Lady Lucy, telling her outrageous stories about the misbehaviour of journalists. Johnny Fitzgerald had discovered a common interest in birds with Anne Herbert and they had ended up discussing the different varieties of binoculars. Powerscourt himself said little during the meal. He had told Lady Lucy the upshot of his conversation with the doctor before she rushed off to choir practice. Lady Lucy had turned white. She was so shocked that she sang the wrong note in three different places during ‘Unto Us a child is Born’ and received a number of stern looks from the choirmaster.

Three different riddles, he said to himself, surveying his guests. One to do with the death of John Eustace. One to do with the cathedral. One to do with the murderer. He thought he could answer the second, but not the third. He looked down his table, Lady Lucy smiling at him from the opposite end. She knew what was coming. He tapped a fork on the side of his glass.

‘Lucy, Anne, if I may be permitted to call you that,’ he smiled broadly at Mrs Herbert, soon to be Mrs Butler, ‘Patrick, Johnny. I would like to tell you what I think has been going on here. And to ask your advice about what we should do next. For the time being, Patrick, this must remain private, however difficult you may find it.’

Patrick Butler bowed his head in acknowledgement. Anne felt rather proud of him.

‘I was called here originally, as you will recall, to investigate the death of John Eustace. I want to leave that to one side for the present. I want to concentrate on one thing only, on what has been and is going on in the cathedral. I’m afraid I should warn you before I start that my conclusions may seem incredible. I found them so myself in the beginning. Let me try to bring the evidence forward in chronological order.’

Patrick Butler had a notebook and pen in his pocket. He found it difficult to resist the temptation to start scribbling straight away. Johnny Fitzgerald was drawing imaginary pictures of birds on the tablecloth.

‘Let us begin with the mystery of the Archdeacon and his visits to celebrate Mass in the private chapel in Melbury Clinton. He is either an Anglican pretending to be a Roman Catholic or a Roman Catholic masquerading as an Anglican. I think the truth lies with the latter proposition, that he is a Catholic pretending to be an Anglican. He is joined by the Canon of the cathedral found by Johnny also celebrating Mass in the outlying village of Ledbury St John. In my opinion, we can be virtually certain that two members of the Chapter are Catholic. There is a third, the young man Augustine Ferrers from Bristol, come to sing in the choir. His parish priest told his mother, even as the reports of the Compton Cathedral murders were filling the newspapers, that he would be perfectly safe coming to Compton if he was a Catholic. The implication of that, of course, was that he might not be so safe if he were a Protestant.’

Powerscourt paused and took a sip of water. Anne Herbert was looking alarmed, Johnny Fitzgerald seemed to be working on the outline of some enormous bird, maybe an eagle. Patrick Butler could not take his eyes off Powerscourt’s face.

‘And then there is the mysterious visitor to the Archdeacon who is a regular guest in the Archdeaconry. I now know that he too is a Catholic priest called Father Dominic Barberi, who often stays with the Jesuits in Farm Street in London. He is also a member of a mysterious and secretive body called Civitas Dei, dedicated to the greater glory and success of the Roman Catholic Church in this world rather than the next. I was told of a rumour that circulated in Rome by our previous Ambassador, Sir Roderick Lewis, a rumour that he discounted but which I suspect might be true.’

‘What was the rumour, Lord Powerscourt?’ Patrick Butler was unable to stop himself asking questions.

‘I’m coming to that, Patrick.’ Powerscourt smiled at the young man. ‘The substance of the rumour was that Civitas Dei were mounting a great operation in England which would cause a sensation when it was revealed. And there’s more to the Compton Catholic connection, as your newspaper might like to headline it, Patrick. There is another piece of evidence, flimsy in itself perhaps, but significant I believe in this context. Twenty years ago John Henry Newman, the most famous defector to Rome of the last century, was invited back to a special dinner or feast in his old Oxford college, Trinity. All those present signed the menu. One of the signatories is now the Dean of this cathedral. The other, who spent a lot of time talking to Newman, is the Bishop.’

Powerscourt took another sip of his water. He was saving his port till the end. Patrick Butler stared at Powerscourt open-mouthed. Anne Herbert had turned pale. Johnny Fitzgerald had suddenly abandoned his imaginary bird drawings on the Fairfield linen. He was working on an enormous crucifix. Lady Lucy kept her eyes fixed on her husband’s face, trying to send whatever encouragement she could from one end of the table to another.

‘So there we have some of the pieces of the puzzle,’ Powerscourt went on. ‘Ever since I have been here I have felt that there is a secret right at the heart of the minster. And the key to it, I would suggest, lies with the celebrations for the thousandth anniversary of the cathedral as a place of Christian worship. All along I have wondered about the secrecy. Why has the Archdeacon gone on his solitary communions to Melbury Clinton? Why does the other man ride out at the crack of dawn to Ledbury St John? Why don’t they just come out in their true colours? I think they are waiting for something. I think they are waiting for the same thing as the members of Civitas Dei in Rome who are looking forward to a sensation that will shock England.’

Powerscourt stopped. His hand moved from the tumbler of water to the glass of port, a rich ruby red in front of him.

‘What is it, Francis?’ Johnny Fitzgerald whispered. ‘For God’s sake, what is it?’

Powerscourt looked directly at Lady Lucy as he spoke.

‘On Easter Sunday, I believe,’ he said, speaking very quietly, ‘the Bishop and the Dean and the Chapter are going to rededicate the cathedral to the Catholic faith. The minster will be restored to its old religion before the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Compton will be made Catholic once again. It’s not just a question of the Archdeacon and the Canon and the young man from Bristol, you see. They’re all Catholics now, every single last one of them. Even the mice and the rats have probably taken their vows by this stage.’

Patrick Butler had turned pale. Anne Herbert stared at Powerscourt open-mouthed. Lady Lucy was feeling rather proud of her Francis. Only Johnny Fitzgerald did not seem very surprised. But then he had been working with Powerscourt for years.

‘Where does this fit in with the murders, Francis?’ Johnny asked.

Powerscourt took a sip of his port. ‘I would guess, and it’s only a guess, that the victims were all signed up for the enterprise. Then they changed their minds. Maybe they threatened to go public about the whole scheme. Maybe they said they would go and have a cosy little chat with Patrick here. In any event, they were all killed. The secret had to be kept until Easter Sunday. I think it all ties in with John Eustace’s wills. The first one, dated 1898, left almost all his money to the cathedral. The second one, from early last year, left it all to his sister Mrs Cockburn, but I’ve always suspected Mrs Cockburn herself was responsible for that will. And the third, from last December, left everything, more or less, to the Salvation Army. But the Dean was very persuasive that Eustace intended to leave his money to the cathedral, that he had talked to various people about how he wanted it spent. The point is that he intended to leave it to a Protestant cathedral, not one that was about to turn Catholic. Once he knew about that he changed his mind.’

‘Do you know who the murderer is now, Lord Powerscourt?’ said Patrick Butler, looking at his host as if he were a miracle worker.

‘No, I do not,’ said Powerscourt. ‘I have no more idea about the identity of the murderer than I did the first day I set foot in Compton. And there’s one enormous problem with this theory.’

Powerscourt stopped as if he expected that everyone present would know the answer. The one man who could support his theory, Dr Blackstaff, would never speak in public out of loyalty to his dead friend.

‘What’s that, Francis?’ said Lady Lucy, coming to his rescue.

‘It’s very simple,’ Powerscourt replied. ‘It’s incredibly simple when you think about it rationally. You see, I can make theories, join things together, a piece of damaged string here, a frayed rope there, maybe make two and two add up to eighteen. But I can’t prove a bloody word of it.’

‘Why do you have to be able to prove it, Lord Powerscourt?’ Patrick Butler was already thinking about how he would tell the story in his newspaper, if he was ever able to tell it.

‘Forgive me, Patrick, I’m not making myself clear. It seems to me that I have a responsibility to try to prevent this thing happening if I can. Compton going back to the Catholic faith will cause a sensation, not just here but all over the country. The newspapers will be full of it for days. There will be questions in Parliament. Nobody, least of all, I suspect, the Anglican Church, will have any idea what to do about it. I think the Bishop and his friends may be able to pull this thing off for a couple of days, but then some form of authority will have to intervene. Whether it’s the Church or the State I don’t know. Perhaps in these circumstances they are one and the same, I’m not sure. But what can I do? I can write to the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Bishop of Exeter, being the nearest see to Compton. I can write to the Prime Minister in Downing Street or the Lord Lieutenant of the county here. And what will they do? They may talk to the Bishop or the Dean. What nonsense, they will say. Powerscourt has gone mad. Pity really, he was quite a good investigator when he was younger. Ought to be locked up now, mind you. Poor Lady Powerscourt and the little Powerscourts, having a madman for a husband and a father. And then they will carry on with their plans.’

Lady Lucy smiled up at the maniac at the other end of the table. ‘Surely, Francis, there is some evidence. There’s the Archdeacon going to Melbury Clinton for a start. And the Canon celebrating Mass in Ledbury. And all these dreadful murders.’

‘Of course there is some evidence, Lucy,’ said Powerscourt, taking a further sip of his port, ‘otherwise we wouldn’t have got as far as this. But I’m sure the Archdeacon and the Canon could cook up some perfectly reasonable explanation. They’ve got all those Jesuits in Farm Street at their beck and call, not to mention the Civitas Dei people in Rome. Something would be concocted. But the scheme could still go on.’

‘What about John Eustace, Francis, where do you think he fits into all of this?’ Johnny Fitzgerald had finished doodling his crucifix on the tablecloth. He seemed now to be working on a cathedral spire.

Powerscourt sighed. ‘I didn’t want to go into the murders at this stage, but I think I’d better. There have been three of them.’

His little audience stared at him. Two, surely, not three. Perhaps he was losing his wits after all.

‘Sorry,’ said Powerscourt, ‘I only learnt very recently – please don’t ask me how – that John Eustace, last owner of this house where we sit, was also murdered. His head was cut off and placed on one of the posts in his great four-poster bed. Then there was Arthur Rudd, murdered and roasted on the spit in the Vicars Hall. Third but not least was Edward Gillespie, his body hacked to pieces and left lying all over the county. There is a connection, of course. I should have seen it sooner. I must have been blind.’

‘What is the connection?’ said Patrick Butler.

‘The connection, believe it or not,’ Powerscourt replied, ‘is the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Let me make myself clear. For six hundred and forty years what is now the cathedral was a Roman Catholic abbey, devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The break came with the Reformation and the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1538. Compton was one of the last to be dismembered. Some time after that it became the Protestant cathedral we know today. A number of people in Compton opposed the transfer from one faith to another. They were put to death in a variety of ways. One was burnt at the stake, in the manner of Arthur Rudd. One was hung drawn and quartered in the manner of Edward Gillespie. The abbot himself, I believe, was beheaded and his head stuck on a pole at the entrance to the Cathedral Green. The fate of poor John Eustace. Whether his head was destined to go somewhere other than his own four-poster I do not know. So the murderer is after a certain symbolic symmetry, if you like. Three people who opposed the transfer from Catholic to Anglican all those years ago were killed in particular and very horrible ways. Three people who opposed the return from Anglican back to Catholic, presumably, have been killed in the last weeks in ways which echo those earlier deaths three hundred and seventy years ago. It’s a warped form of Catholic revenge in a way.’

Patrick Butler was drumming his fingers on the table. He longed to reach inside his pocket for notebook and pen. Anne Herbert was feeling rather faint. Lady Lucy found herself humming one of the arias in the Messiah to herself under her breath. Johnny Fitzgerald had not touched his port for at least a quarter of an hour. Outside a lone owl hooted into the night.

‘Surely Francis,’ Johnny said, ‘this makes the case for the Archbishop and the authorities all the stronger. All this history and stuff about the monasteries before.’

‘That’s the problem.’ Powerscourt surveyed his little audience one by one. ‘I don’t think it does. You see, it seems quite possible to me that the people organizing the return to Catholicism are not the murderers. They may be just as upset and confused by it as we are. The murderer may be somebody completely different, though I doubt it. I suspect the two are so closely linked you couldn’t get a hair between them, but I can’t prove it.’ Powerscourt suddenly realized, looking at Anne Herbert, that she might faint at any moment. Perhaps it had been a mistake inviting them here.

‘And there, I suggest,’ he said, smiling at Lady Lucy, ‘we leave things for now. I was going to ask your advice but that can wait for another time. Just one last point. I think we should all pray very hard that none of those involved in the Catholic Compton conspiracy change their minds between now and Easter Sunday.’

‘Surely, Francis,’ said Johnny Fitzgerald, ‘we should be praying the other way round, that they should repent of their ways and remain as Anglicans.’

‘On the contrary,’ said Powerscourt, ‘if they change their minds, then the murderer will treat them in the same way he has treated their predecessors. Anglican or Catholic, even in Compton you’re better off alive than dead.’

As Powerscourt rode into Compton the next morning to confer with Chief Inspector Yates he began thinking about the letters he knew he had to write to the Bishop of Exeter, the Lord Lieutenant and the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Private Secretary. ‘Please forgive me if the contents of this letter seem rather extraordinary,’ he said to himself as his horse trotted down the country lanes. No, that wasn’t quite right. ‘Please rest assured that however bizarre the contents of this letter may appear, I am still in full possession of my faculties.’ That wouldn’t do either. Powerscourt was convinced that once he began telling people he wasn’t mad, they would instantly jump to the opposite conclusion. Maybe he should confine himself to the facts. But a bald narrative of events might not be credible either. One letter he had written before his breakfast that day to one of his employers, Mrs Augusta Cockburn, sister of the late John Eustace, currently residing in a small villa outside Florence. He regretted very much, he told her, having to confirm her suspicions that her brother had been murdered. He did not give details of the manner of his death. He promised to write again shortly with the name of the murderer. He hoped that the Italian postal service was not too quick.

Chief Inspector Yates was reading a pile of reports in his little office at the back of the police station and making notes in a large black book. Inside, Powerscourt knew, the Chief Inspector was collating the movements and the alibis of every single resident of the Close. Powerscourt had already told him about the death of John Eustace. Now he told him about the plans for the mass defection to Rome on Easter Sunday. The Chief Inspector was astonished.

‘God bless my soul, my lord, are you sure? This will tear Compton in half.’

Powerscourt went back over his reasons, the secret of the Archdeacon’s visits to Melbury Clinton, the Canon’s pilgrimages to Mass in Ledbury St John, the connections with the late Cardinal Newman. Above all, he told him about his conversations with Dr Blackstaff.

‘Isn’t it all illegal, this sort of thing?’ said the Chief Inspector vaguely, only too aware that his previous training and experience did not equip him to quote section or subsection of Act of Parliament.

‘I’m sure it’s illegal,’ said Powerscourt. ‘But God knows which Act of Parliament it is. Before Catholic Emancipation I think it was illegal to celebrate Mass in an Anglican church, but I don’t know if this still applies. But at the moment nobody has actually done anything illegal. You can’t arrest people on suspicion of being about to do something in a week’s time.’

‘Do you think it helps with the murders?’ asked the Chief Inspector.

‘I’m not really sure that it does,’ said Powerscourt. ‘It may be that the Catholic conspirators are as upset about the killings as we are. What terrifies me is what the killer may do if we start asking around about the mass conversions. I think he may kill again. I’m sure he might kill again. He’s not like any murderer I have ever come across before, Chief Inspector. I feel he’s driven by a kind of madness that ordinary mortals simply wouldn’t understand.

‘You know as well as I do,’ Powerscourt went on, ‘about the most common motives for murder. Money. Greed. Hatred. Jealousy. Revenge. I’m not sure that any of those work in this case. Hatred perhaps. Revenge maybe.’

‘Seems to me, my lord,’ said the Chief Inspector, ‘that there’s domestic murder, and then there’s state killing in war if that’s the right word. Millions must have been killed in wars in the name of religion, isn’t that right?’

Powerscourt thought of the Christians massacred in the Colosseum, of purges and pogroms throughout the Middle Ages, Cathars despatched in their mountain fortress of Montsegur in the Pyrenees or slaughtered wholesale in the amphitheatre at Verona, the ruinous wars of religion that swept over Europe in the sixteenth century, the list went on and on.

‘I’m sure you’re right, Chief Inspector,’ said Powerscourt. ‘It’s only that the wars of religion seem to have returned to Compton a century or two after they finished everywhere else.’

‘This has just come for you, Lady Powerscourt.’ Andrew McKenna handed over a rather battered envelope with the address written in a childish hand. ‘Lady Powerscourt, Fairfield Park.’

‘Did you see how it got here, McKenna?’ Lady Lucy asked, slitting open her missive.

‘No, I did not, madam. It was found lying inside the front door. It must have been delivered by hand.’

‘Dear Lady Powerscourt,’ Lady Lucy read. The letters were large and sprawled across the page. ‘Could you meet us in the south transept to the side of the choir just before five thirty this afternoon. William and Philip, choirboys.’ McKenna took his leave. Lady Lucy was rejoicing. These were the two choirboys she had managed to speak to on a number of occasions after the rehearsals for the Messiah. Now they were asking for a meeting. Now perhaps she would discover the secrets of their fear and their unhappiness. Now perhaps she would be able to improve their situation. Never had she seen a collection of little boys so constantly crestfallen, so much in need of love and proper food and attention. She checked her watch. It was shortly after half-past four. Should she wait for Francis to return from his visit to the Chief Inspector? She knew how worried he had been about her interest in the choir, how often he had spelt out how dangerous it could be. She knew he might insist on accompanying her. Then she made up her mind. They were her special interest, these children. She had gone out of her way to try to get close to them. The presence of a man might put them off. Maybe the boys would say nothing at all. She scribbled a brief note to her husband, saying she had popped into Compton and hoped to return by half-past six at the latest. She did not specify precisely where she was going.

Lord Francis Powerscourt thought he could manage the first paragraph of his letter to the Prime Minister’s Private Secretary on his ride back to Fairfield Park. He remembered Rosebery telling him that the Prime Minister himself was unwell, his mind now so exhausted by the pressure of work that he had had to give up his beloved Foreign Office, his mighty frame so weary that he frequently fell asleep in cabinet meetings. Schomberg McDonnell, Private Secretary, confidant, intimate, the man who knew where all the Prime Minister’s political enemies were buried, he was the man to write to.

Powerscourt sat himself down at the desk in John Eustace’s study and began his letter. Lady Lucy’s note was still sitting, unseen and unread, on the table in the drawing room.

‘I am currently engaged,’ he began, ‘on an investigation into some very bizarre deaths in the Cathedral City of Compton in the west of England.’ Begin with the intelligence that is easy to understand, he reminded himself of his days in the Army, and move on slowly to the unpalatable conclusions. ‘In the course of my inquiries,’ he went on, ‘I have discovered a plot so unusual and so potentially divisive in the country as a whole, that I felt duty bound to lay the details before you.’ Make them curious, he said to himself, make them want to keep reading.

‘But before I do, however disagreeable I find it to advertise my previous achievements, I felt I should remind you of my own earlier involvements in the fields of detection and some of my past services to Crown and Country.’

Lady Lucy was humming the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ to herself as she walked up the nave of the cathedral. The late afternoon sun was casting great beams of light across the body of the cathedral, some of it multicoloured as it was filtered through the stained glass. What a pity we couldn’t sing the Messiah here, she said to herself as she peered into the choir stalls to the left of the south transept. The building appeared to be completely deserted. There was no sign of the two boys. Perhaps they were late, or were hiding somewhere to give her a surprise. Then she saw a light coming round an open door in the corner. Perhaps they’re over there, she said to herself, and set off to investigate. As she reached the bottom of the steps she called for them by name.

‘William,’ she said softly, ‘Philip, I’m here.’

There was no answer. She moved forward, away from the door and tried again.

‘William, Philip, I’m here.’

Then two things happened virtually simultaneously. The light went out. There was a loud bang as the door slammed shut.

It was only a matter of moments before the minster was closed up for the night. And Lady Lucy Powerscourt was locked in the crypt in total impenetrable darkness.