Death in a Scarlet Coat

2

‘At least we’ll be able to get our hands on some money now the old bastard’s dead.’ Edward Dymoke, tubby third son of the late Lord Candlesby, was addressing his elder brother Henry in the saloon of Candlesby Hall, a mangy dog with three legs lounging at his feet. Richard the redhead, the eldest son, the new Earl, was reading a newspaper at the far side of the room, as if he wished to put as much space as possible between himself and his brothers. Most of the space between them was occupied by a disused billiard table with two pockets hanging out and a rug concealing whatever damage the young of Candlesby had managed to inflict on the playing surface over the years.

‘Absolutely,’ said Henry. ‘I’m up for a spot of money too. I’ll be able to place some decent bets at the races at last. Do you know, I think I might take a holiday in Monte Carlo and have a flutter at the tables. What are you going to do with yours?’

‘I thought I would escape from all this dreary countryside for a start,’ said Edward, kicking a decrepit stuffed fox by the side of the hearth. ‘I’ve had enough of fields and grass and wheat and harvests and rain and trees and wet leaves and beefy women who look as if they’ve done nothing but bake and wash clothes all their lives. It’s the city life for me. London? New York? Paris? I’ve been told there are plenty of gorgeous whores on the Champs-Elysees and the Boulevard Saint-Michel.’

‘I wonder how much there is,’ said Henry reflectively. ‘Money, I mean.’

‘God knows,’ said Edward, reluctant to return to Candlesby Hall from his trysts with the good-time girls of Paris, ‘but if you stand at the highest point near here up by that dreary mausoleum on the hill – it’s not what you’d call high but it’s the highest thing for miles around – all the land you can see belongs to us. Maybe we should sell some of it.’

There was a cackle that might have been a snarl from the far side of the room. Richard put down his newspaper, revealing a large damp patch on the wall behind him, and advanced towards his brothers.

‘You stupid pair!’ he began. ‘Who in heaven’s name do you think you are, to start talking about money and how you’re going to spend it? What makes you think you are going to inherit any money?’

Richard had reached the other side of the room and was now in spitting distance of his brothers. He glanced at them both in turn in a gesture of supreme contempt.

‘How do you know there is any money, for God’s sake? Or are you just assuming there must be some because you’d like to get your hands on as much of it as you can? Well, let me tell you one or two things that might not have occurred to you.’

Richard sat down and continued to address his brothers as if they had just failed the entrance test for England’s stupidest regiment.

‘Let me remind you for a start of the batting order round here. I am the eldest son. I inherit the title. You don’t. I inherit the estate. You don’t. I inherit this house. You don’t. You don’t inherit a thing. Quite soon I shall be called to London to be installed as a member of the House of Lords, where I shall make my views known to my fellow countrymen. I shall do everything in my power to make life difficult for that vulgar little commoner Lloyd George. You two’ – he stared balefully at his brothers – ‘are younger sons. Younger sons, unless they are very lucky, do not inherit. They do not inherit anything at all. That is why so many occupations like vicars and wine merchants and those people who play with money in the City of London were invented; it’s all to give younger sons something to do, something that can stop them being a drain on their families. Monte Carlo? The prostitutes of Paris? I think not, brothers!’

As he made his way to the door Richard turned for a parting shot. ‘There’s one other thing you should be aware of,’ he said. ‘You talk as if there was money, as if the estate and everything is solvent. Well, I had a talk with our steward this afternoon. There isn’t any money. There are only debts, mortgages, loans that could add up to as much as seventy or eighty thousand pounds, maybe more. We don’t know the final figure yet. That’s not money we’ve got. That’s money we owe other people. There’s absolutely nothing for younger sons!’

An elderly verger was lighting the candles in the church of St Michael and All Angels as Drake and the Powerscourts arrived. An erect old lady with white hair was dusting the pews one last time, paying particular attention to the two front rows, where distinguished visitors could be expected to sit. Specks of dust, after all, might be clearly visible on the Episcopal purple. Kneeling by the rail in front of the altar as if he were a candidate for communion, the vicar, the Reverend Peter Moorhouse, could be heard faintly, praying for deliverance.

When the introductions were made and he realized that here were a new tenor and a new soprano, risen from the ditch by the humpbacked bridge to solve the problems of the Candlesby Messiah, he seized them both by the hand.

‘Truly,’ he said, ‘salvation is come to us here. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make the light of his countenance shine upon you and be gracious unto you and give you his peace … Heavens, I’m confusing the prayers for Evensong with my thanks for you; how silly of me. It is surely as the poet says: more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of. And I had thought it almost presumptuous of me to ask God to send us reinforcements. Now then, I’m talking too much. My dear wife always tells me I talk too much – what were you saying, George, a little rehearsal, was it?’ The vicar still had the lithe figure of the long distance runner he had been at university. The Reverend Moorhouse also held the record for the longest sermon ever delivered from the pulpit at St Michael and All Angels at one hour twenty-seven minutes. The more sporting members of his choir and congregation placed bets on the duration every week.

‘I think our guests would find a little rehearsal helpful, Vicar,’ said George Drake. ‘Just the solo arias they will have to sing this evening, not the whole thing.’

‘Of course, of course,’ said the vicar, virtually running to the organ and ferreting about among the sheet music.

‘Now then, let me give you both a little word of advice, if I may.’ The vicar was turning over the pages as he spoke. ‘Most people’, he waved a hand upwards in the general direction of the roof, high above, ‘think they have to try really hard to make their voice carry all over this church, because it’s so high. But for some reason – you wouldn’t have thought late medieval stonemasons would have known about the reach of the human voice, would you – that’s not so. The acoustics are almost perfect, so you can sing well within yourself and it’ll carry beautifully. Now then, Lord Powerscourt, I think you open the batting. I’ll give you the cue with my right hand, so.’

The vicar began playing. Powerscourt didn’t need the cue. I was only seventeen years old the last time I sang this, he said to himself, taking a deep breath and launching into ‘Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem …’ Soon he was so lost in the beauty of the music and his own memories that he forgot to work out how many years had passed since he sang this aria with the local choir in his parents’ church in Ireland, his mother watching proudly from the second row.

‘Excellent,’ said the vicar as they reached the end. ‘That will do splendidly. I don’t think we need try out any more in case your voice grows tired. I’m sure Lady Powerscourt will be even better. Which aria would you like to sing, Lady Powerscourt?’

‘The shepherds? Would that do?’ asked Lady Lucy.

The great organ boomed forth. Lady Lucy sang. The vicar was delighted. George Drake was conferring with the cleaning lady about the Bishop.

‘Seven o’clock start,’ said the vicar. ‘I expect everybody to be here in good time. Thank you so much, Lord and Lady Powerscourt. I cannot tell you how much we owe you.’

The three eldest Dymokes were back in the saloon, bickering among themselves over drinks before dinner. They were about to embark on a fruitless argument about the size of the family debts when the door opened and a pale youth with blond hair and good looks that were almost feminine came in and sat down by the fire.

‘Good evening, brothers,’ he said to the company.

‘My God,’ sneered Edward, ‘look what the cat’s brought in from the madhouse upstairs!’

‘Bedlam has closed its doors for the evening,’ said Henry. ‘Have you left your jailer upstairs? You haven’t come down here to eat with us, have you? Heaven forbid! Why don’t you just head back up the stairs to your own apartment and lock the door behind you?’

James Dymoke was fifteen years old. He was the youngest of the five sons. His mother had died having him and the elder brothers always maintained that she hadn’t had time to finish James off properly before she passed. Bits of him were certainly missing. The doctors thought he was suffering from an incurable form of epilepsy about which they knew very little. On many days he was perfectly normal and showed no signs of illness at all. On others he would have fits, he would be withdrawn and behave briefly like a mad person. He lived in private rooms far from the rest of the family on the top floor with a medical assistant to look after him. Very few people outside Candlesby Hall knew of his existence. He had never been to school.

‘I just thought’, James said hesitantly, ‘that we should be together on the day we lost our father.’

‘We should be together,’ Henry said, pointing in an arc that included his elder brothers but did not include James, ‘but that doesn’t include you. You’re not proper family. You’re not even a proper person. You’re just a freak from the upper floor.’

After all his years in Candlesby Hall James knew that he could expect little better from Henry and Edward. Richard would pretend to be above the fray but would never take his side. James suspected the other two had a private contest to see who could make him cry first. His only supporter was the brother who wasn’t there.

‘He was my father too, you know,’ said James defiantly.

‘She was our mother, too,’ Edward snapped, ‘until you killed her being born.’

‘That’s not true, you know that’s not true,’ James shouted, tears beginning to form in his eyes. His brothers had known for years that their mother was the weakest spot in James’ armour.

The door to the saloon was suddenly flung open. ‘B-b-brothers! P-p-please! Could we not have some family harmony on the day of Father’s death? Arguing is so p-p-pointless these days!’

Charles Dymoke, twenty-two years old, was the fourth in line to the indebted estate. He had become rather a dandy down in London, sporting on this sad day a light brown hunting jacket with a crisp white shirt and a blue cravat.

‘I’d have been here hours earlier, my dears, except some b-b-beastly p-p-porter lost my luggage. So tiresome! Tell me about the arrangements, p-pray. Is Father going to be buried in that divine mausoleum on the hill? I do hope the vicar is going to show up in his finest vestments, lots of p-p-purple rather than that drab grey he seems to wear most of the time. I’ve always thought it would be worth dying if one could be laid to rest in the mausoleum.’

‘Do shut up, Charles.’ Richard was rather enjoying the role of paterfamilias. ‘We should all go in to dinner. It’ll be the first time all five of us have been together for years. Who knows, maybe it’ll be the last.’

The St Michael and All Angels choir’s performance of Handel’s Messiah began exactly on time. The vicar was conducting now, and the headmaster of the local school was in charge of the organ. The choir was about sixty strong with a surprising number of young people in the ranks. Powerscourt wondered if the vicar had worked hard at this element of his team so the choir would become known as a promising place to meet members of the opposite sex.

‘Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill laid low.’

‘And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.’

Tenor and bass, soprano and alto, full choir – all took their turn to drive the music on. Powerscourt, after two solos near the beginning, was not needed to sing on his own for some time.

‘O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion, get thee up into the high mountain …’

The choir was growing in confidence as the evening progressed. When they reached the chorus, ‘For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace,’ it was as if they had forgotten the audience and the organ and the church and the vicar and were communing directly with Georg Friedrich Handel himself.

Then it was Lady Lucy’s turn.

‘There were shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.’

Suddenly Powerscourt remembered where he had heard her sing like this before. It had been the previous year, in France, and they had gone to visit an ancient Cistercian abbey south of Bourges called Abbaye de Noirlac. It was a beautiful summer’s day and the site was virtually deserted. The ancient abbey with its enormous nave was completely empty. Lady Lucy, he remembered, had gone to stand where the monks would have stood centuries before. She sang ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth’, the same aria that she would sing later this evening near the end of the Messiah. Her voice had filled the huge church. It came out clean and clear and soared around the space, like liquid gold being poured into a phial, or a goblet of perfect Chassagne Montrachet glittering and winking in its glass in the sunshine. Powerscourt had stood perfectly still, tears running down his face, until some fresh visitors arrived and Lady Lucy’s concert came to a sudden end. Her voice had the same clarity tonight.

Powerscourt looked around the church once more. The Lord Lieutenant of the County with his sword was in the front row beside the Bishop in his purple. The local MP was here. People said his wife was very fond of music. The citizens of Candlesby and the surrounding villages were out in force. This church is England, Powerscourt said to himself. England’s dead of centuries past are buried here. The buildings have survived the change of rule from a crimson cardinal and a choleric Henry the Eighth to a queen who burnt heretics at the stake and later kings who cared not for religion at all. Candlesby has lived through Civil War and Restoration and the loss of the American colonies. The church bells above me, Powerscourt thought, will have rung for the defeat of the Armada and the victories of Malplaquet and Trafalgar. The latest casualties of Britannia’s wars have just had their own memorial built, to those who died in the Boer War. There are other Englands, of course, he said to himself, the daily throng marching across London Bridge to work in the city of London, the workers toiling in some huge factory in Manchester or Bolton, the crowds at one of the great race meetings, the Derby or the Oaks, the sailors on some modern warship of the Royal Navy, patrolling the cold dark waters of the North Sea to keep their country safe. There were so many Englands, he thought. Suddenly he realized that he had lost his place in his score and that he was going to have to sing again quite soon. The vicar sent him a secret smile as if to say it’s all right to dream dreams every now and then.

The audience had fallen very still. The Hallelujah Chorus was upon them, an aria as glorious for those who sing it as for those who hear it. ‘Hallelujah! for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.’

It was Easter time when I sang this before in Ireland, Powerscourt remembered, and the daffodils were all out round the edge of the lawns and that soft light of Ireland made everything look magical, as if the dream of that great house between the mountains and the sea would last for ever.

‘The Kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ.’

Some of the audience had closed their eyes. The boys and the men, Powerscourt noticed, had their eyes firmly fixed on a small group of very pretty girls, deployed by the vicar in the front row of the choir. One middle-aged lady, dressed entirely in black, in the fourth row of the congregation was weeping uncontrollably, tears rolling down on to the stone floor. Maybe the last time she had been to the Messiah had been with a loved one, a lost husband perhaps, a dead child.

‘And he shall reign for ever and ever, King of Kings, Lord of Lords.’

The vicar was a vigorous sort of conductor, not one of those minimal ones who make the smallest possible movement to attract the attention of choir or orchestra. His arms moved in great arcs, as if he were sending semaphore messages to the back row. Way above him a couple of gargoyles, merchants or masons perhaps at the time the church was built, stared down at the proceedings, their mouths wide open for evermore.

‘For ever and ever. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hall-e-lujah.’

Powerscourt had always wondered why the Hallelujah Chorus wasn’t the last aria in the Messiah. But it was Lady Lucy’s turn now to sing ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth’, which she did with the same conviction she had brought to it in that French abbey a year before.

Then it was all over and everybody made their way back to Mr Drake’s hotel for refreshments. Powerscourt found himself talking to an elderly medical man who told him proudly that he had attended on the death of the Earl of Candlesby that very morning. The doctor was fascinated to hear that Powerscourt was an investigator with a long track record in solving murders and mysteries. He insisted, Dr Miller, on writing down Powerscourt’s address very carefully in his little black book.

Up at Candlesby Hall the candles were still lit in the dining room. It was harder to see the cracks in the walls in the dark. It was very late. Only Henry and Edward were left – the others had all retired for the night. One decanter of port stood in front of them; another was waiting in the wings. Their eldest brother Richard had left a bell on the table for them to ring if they became incapable of making their way up the stairs on their own and needed help to get to bed.

‘Can you guess what I would like to know more than anything?’ There was a pause while Edward hunted the thought down in his brain. ‘What killed the old bugger. Can’t have been anything normal. Not the way they all carried on. Not gunshot. Not sword or spear. Not blunt object. What the hell was it?’

Henry stared intently at his brother and poured himself another glass of port. They were using extra large glasses this evening.

‘Tha’s a good question,’ he said, slurring his words slightly. ‘Very good question.’ He too paused until his mind stopped spinning and came to rest on a new theory.

‘Not human at all,’ Edward managed. ‘What killed him, I mean. Wild thing. Animal. Mystery beast. Hiding in the forest since Hereward the Wake or whatever his name was. Lethal bite. Huge claws.’

‘That’s good. Oh yes, that’s good. Couldn’t have put it better myself. Picture the scene. Papa on foot. Lincolnshire monster feels peckish. Long time since breakfast. Leans forward to seize Papa.’ As Henry leant forward in the manner of the monster he found he couldn’t stop. He collapsed face forward into the table. Edward rang the bell

3

The next day the Silver Ghost was restored to health and the Powerscourts continued on their way. Mr Drake of the Candlesby Arms insisted that they could stay at his hotel for the rest of their lives for nothing. The vicar gave them God’s blessing and promised to send advance notice of the next recital. He had, he told them confidentially, already ordered the sheet music for Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis. They caught a brief glimpse on their way north of the Candlesby mausoleum, a tall, circular neoclassical building perched on a little hill that looked rather like a lighthouse, illuminating the journeys of the dead on their voyage to another world.

Two days after that, their mission to witness the christening of one of Lady Lucy’s relations’ newborn baby in Lincoln Cathedral complete, they were heading back to London. Their family in Markham Square had recently received a temporary addition, in the person of the daughter of one of Lady Lucy’s sisters from Scotland. Selina Hamilton was twenty years old with bright blue eyes, curly blonde hair and a figure that could have advertised clothes in the women’s magazines. She had cut a swathe through the young men of Melrose and Hawick and the neighbouring villages in the Scottish Borders. They might have fallen for her, but she did not fall for them. A world where the height of fame was an appearance for Scotland on the rugby pitch, the summit of ambition for the local young men, was not enough for her. There might have been thirty players on the field but Selina’s heart did not miss a beat for any of them. Her father was a respectable solicitor and her mother had brought up Selina and her sisters. They were good people, her parents, pillars of the local community, devoted patrons of local charities for the poor and destitute. But Selina wanted a broader stage. She felt she needed wider horizons than the Rugby Club dances and the Mothers’ Union. Glory and glitter and glamour were in her mind, evenings spent at fashionable soirees where the wealthy young men would fall for her beauty, weekends spent in unimaginable luxury at the country houses of England.

Selina had, in theory, come south to improve her mind at the great art galleries of London. She had already enlisted for an evening class in art appreciation at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Lady Lucy suspected that the real reason for her sojourn in the south was a young man called Sandy Temple she had met at an exhibition in Edinburgh. He worked for The Times in Parliament, Selina’s young man, writing reports of the day’s debates and occasional comment pieces on recent political developments. Selina dreamt that his proximity to the great world of politics and power would, in due course, reap a rich harvest of invitations.

Sandy was a son of the vicarage. His father, William Temple, had an adequate living in Chalfont St Giles, or rather it would have been adequate if he had not fathered so many children. Sandy had eleven sisters and one brother. Such money as could be saved with so many to feed and clothe had gone on his education at Winchester and Oxford. Mindful of his family responsibilities like a dutiful son, he sent regular subventions from his salary back to his mother in the country. Sandy was obsessed with politics. He always had been. His first lessons had come studying the debasement of Athenian democracy during the Peloponnesian War with Sparta, and the fights to the death that disfigured and destroyed the last days of the Roman Republic. When he said his prayers, which he usually managed a couple of times a week, he always remembered to thank God for giving him such a perfect job. For political obsessives, working in the Parliamentary and Political Department of The Times was to work in your very own corner of paradise. He didn’t think Selina realized just how important his position was.

Sandy had been invited to tea twice in Markham Square, and on neither occasion had the hostess managed to be present in person. Family emergencies had detained Lady Lucy elsewhere. Now, as the Silver Ghost ate up the miles and her husband could not escape to his study or his club, Lady Lucy seized her moment.

‘Francis,’ she said, in that tone of voice that indicates an important topic is about to be broached.

‘Yes, my love,’ said Powerscourt, wondering what was coming.

‘You know that young man Selina is friendly with, Sandy is he called, the one who works for The Times?’

‘I do.’

‘Well, I’ve been wondering, you see – I’ve only met him for a minute or two as I had to go out when he called. What did you think of him? You must have spent much more time with him than I have.’

Powerscourt could see it all now. This was in the nature of a scouting mission, a preliminary report to be posted to Selina’s mother about the young man, later despatches to follow at regular intervals rather like the publication of the Court Circular in The Times.

‘Well, Lucy,’ he began, deciding that he wasn’t going to make life too easy for her as he rather liked the young man, ‘what do you want to know?’

‘Come along, you know precisely what I want to know. What’s he like, this Sandy? Can he handle himself in society? Does he know how to behave or he is one of these aesthetes with very strange clothes and even stranger manners you see sometimes these days?’

‘You know what he looks like: six feet tall, light brown hair, blue eyes, dresses rather older than his years but that may be because he works in the Palace of Westminster. Manages to eat with knife and fork and spoon like the rest of us. Educated, I believe, at Winchester and Merton College, Oxford, where he claims to have spent more time on the river than in the library but still managed to collect a first class honours degree in Greats. Maybe it’s all that time on the river, but it’s hard to imagine him getting overexcited about anything. He seems languid, but I suspect he could move pretty fast if he had to.’

‘You’re talking as if you’re writing his obituary, Francis. What’s he really like?’

Powerscourt pulled out to overtake a couple of cyclists. He felt his defences were being worn down.

‘He’s fascinated by politics, my love, the way other people are by form on the turf or the football scores. Sandy can tell you who’s up and who’s down across the main political parties the way other people could report on the batsmen in form by reading the cricket reports. He’s obsessed by Lloyd George’s Budget at the moment. He’s got some rather unusual views on the matter.’

‘Is he some sort of revolutionary person? I don’t think Selina’s family would approve of that.’

‘He’s not a revolutionary man, Lucy. I’m not quite sure what his politics are, to be precise. You remember this Budget, Chancellor of the Exchequer Lloyd George proposing higher taxes on the rich to pay for more battleships and old age pensions for the poor? It’s become a real bone of contention, with the rich in the House of Lords saying their way of life is being destroyed and that they’ll fight to the death to stop the Budget becoming law. One day when Sandy was talking about it in Markham Square he began to quote great chunks from a speech Lloyd George had made months before in Limehouse in the East End, about the rights of the poor. Sandy said it was one of the finest speeches he’d ever heard.’

‘Is he a supporter of Lloyd George, then? He’s not exactly one of us, is he? Lloyd George, I mean.’

‘No, he’s not,’ said Powerscourt, changing into top gear as a long straight section of road opened up in front of them, ‘but I don’t think Sandy is a supporter of any of them. He just likes watching the sport. I do know he thinks Lloyd George is the future, not necessarily Lloyd George in person, but people like him. He believes they’ll have to go on widening the franchise until everybody adult has the vote so men of the people rather than aristocrats and people in the upper classes can become Prime Minister. Oh, and he thinks the landowning classes are finished, done for. It all comes down to Rhys the butler in the end.’

‘Our Rhys the butler, Francis?’

‘Our Rhys the butler.’

‘What about Rhys the butler? This isn’t some sort of parlour game, is it?’

‘No, I’m deadly serious, Lucy. There is a question, mind you. Should Rhys the butler have the vote?’

‘Well,’ said Lady Lucy, ‘I suppose I think he should have the vote. So should I, mind you.’

They both laughed.

‘Another thing Sandy’s very keen on is the decline of the landed interest. Possession of broad acres now in England brings very narrow returns financially or politically. The link between land – I think he’s quite original on this point – and political power is gone and will never return. Or so Sandy says.’

‘Do you think we’re doomed, Francis?’ said Lady Lucy with a smile. ‘Bound to disappear under the rising proletarian tide and the onward march of the militant suffragettes?’

‘I don’t think we’re doomed, Lucy. Not for a moment. There will always be one or two survivors left, clinging to the wreckage and complaining that things aren’t what they used to be.’

Three days later, shortly before four o’clock in the afternoon, the vicar and the choir led the way out of the Church of St Nicholas in the Candlesby estate towards the bridge over the lake to the mausoleum where Arthur George Harold John Nathaniel Dymoke was to rest for evermore. At the very front of the little procession was the curate from the neighbouring parish, carrying a cross. Then came the vicar and the choir. Behind the choir came four black horses with black plumes pulling the coffin, then the family, then the friends and neighbours with the senior servants bringing up the rear. It was a family tradition that the body of a dead Earl was brought to the church for the funeral service from the Hall on a roundabout route that went through Candlesby village, past Candlesby school and on into St Nicholas. The tradition said that the shops would close, wreaths would line the route, and the villagers stand in respectful silence, caps or bonnets in hand, as the hearse passed by. The schoolchildren would congregate in a great block by their gates and watch the coffin on its journey. On this day the village seemed to be empty. No villagers were lining the streets, no wreaths were propped up on windows, no children were waiting to stare at the last Lord Candlesby who had controlled their family fortunes for so long. The servants were the only people walking behind the coffin on this part of the route and they resolved not to tell their new master that the coffin of the old one had passed through a deserted village. They dreaded to think what form of terrible revenge he might exact.

A fine rain began to fall as the procession made its way up the hill towards the mausoleum.

‘Didn’t think I’d come today,’ one mourner said to his neighbour at the rear of the party. ‘Still don’t know why I’m here, to tell you the truth.’

‘I know how you feel,’ said his companion. ‘I only came to make sure the old bastard was really dead. Got my tools in the back of the car ready to open the coffin up if it looks necessary, screwdrivers and things. Seems fairly certain he has left us, don’t you think?’

‘Pretty rum way to go,’ said the first mourner. ‘I wasn’t here that morning but a chap who was at the hunt told me Candlesby’s body was brought up to the house lying across his horse covered in blankets as if he was El Cid or some medieval warrior.’

His companion grunted. ‘Hardly anybody saw the body, that’s what I was told. Doubt if we’ve heard the end of it. So typical of the bloody man to go on causing trouble after he’s dead, don’t you think?’

‘Were you here when he did that railway swindle?’ The first mourner was in unforgiving mood. ‘Not sure whether it was him or his father, now I come to think about it. They bribed the railway surveyor and the railway lawyer to send the bloody railway not through my land or your land where it was supposed to go, but through their land, Candlesby land. Must have made a fortune, the bastards.’

The procession was now halfway towards the mausoleum. Charles Candlesby was keeping an eye on his younger brother.

‘How are you b-b-bearing up, James? Funerals can be quite b-b-beastly sometimes. Only if you care, mind you. Don’t suppose anyone minds at all about Father.’

‘I care,’ said the youngest Candlesby, and began to cry.

‘P-p-please don’t do that, it’ll start me off too. I care too, you know. The whole thing is too horrid for words.’

James took a series of deep breaths, as instructed by one of his doctors. The front of the procession was now filing into the great height of the mausoleum.

‘Have you b-b-been in here b-b-before?’ asked Charles.

James shook his head.

‘It’s quite special, really. If you ever wonder what the p-p-place the Delphic Oracle lived in was like, this is it. I always wonder if the architect had been to Greece and seen the real thing.’

The pallbearers were now lifting the coffin off the hearse and carrying it inside to be placed on a temporary stand while the vicar said a few prayers. Then it was carried down the stairs into the crypt where it was slid into one of the sixty-nine empty niches carved in the walls.

‘We meekly beseech thee, O Father, to raise us from the death of sin unto the life of righteousness; we may rest in him, as our hope is this our brother doth: and that at the general Resurrection in the last day, we may be found acceptable in thy sight; and receive that blessing which thy well-beloved son shall then pronounce saying, Come, ye blessed children of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world.’

As the priest’s last words echoed round the low walls of the crypt the pallbearers placed the coffin in its niche, closed the great iron door at the front of the vault and secured it with an enormous padlock. There was a brief moment of silence before they all filed out into the light of day and back down the hill. Richard, the new Earl of Candlesby, was wondering if he could choose which niche to occupy when his time came. Henry and Edward were wondering how soon they could get away to the inn on the outskirts of the village. James had decided to go to his apartment on the top floor where he lived with his medical attendant for a period of quiet. Charles had decided to talk to the neighbours who had come for the funeral. You could never tell, he said to himself, when a little bit of local gossip might not come in useful. The first mourner gave it as his opinion to his neighbour that the chances of the late Earl of Candlesby being received into the Kingdom of Heaven were so remote as to be inconceivable. He would rather, he went on, bet on the nag who pulled his milk churns winning the Grand National.

Five days later Powerscourt received a letter from Lincolnshire written in a rather shaky hand.

‘Dear Lord Powerscourt,’ he read, ‘I wonder if I could ask a great favour of you. It concerns a recent action of mine as a doctor of medicine where I fear I have done the wrong thing. The matter is weighing very heavily on my mind. I do not wish to put the details in a letter, but I have to ask that you should come and call at the above address at your earliest convenience. I have recently contracted this terrible influenza and fear I may not be long for this world. I do so hope that you will be able to come before it is too late. Yours sincerely, Theodore Miller.’

‘My word, Lucy,’ he said, passing her the letter, ‘I’ve heard of deathbed repentances from villains and murderers before, but never from a doctor. It must be some sort of record.’

‘What are you going to do? Do you think this doctor is a mass murderer, wanting to tell you how many citizens of Lincolnshire he has done away with?’

‘We met the chap after the Messiah, at the hotel. Very old character with wispy white hair, if you remember. He seemed perfectly law-abiding to me. God knows what he’s been up to. He was very keen to take my address now I come to think about it. I’d better send him a telegram to say I’m coming and catch a train.’

By the middle of the afternoon Powerscourt was knocking on the door of the doctor’s Georgian villa on the outskirts of Candlesby. The house was large with an enormous garden and a tennis court at the back. The doctor was poorly today, the housekeeper Mrs Baines told him, worse than yesterday and worse than the day before. But, she went on, he had repeatedly asked if Lord Powerscourt was coming and that seemed to bring him some relief. She brought him up to a room with great windows on the first floor where an elderly gentleman sitting up in bed in a red silk dressing gown and bright blue pyjamas was waiting to talk to him.

‘My dear Lord Powerscourt, how very kind of you to come all this way. Did my letter arrive today?’

‘It did.’

‘Then you have made admirable speed. Can you tell me one thing and then we can get down to business?’

Mrs Baines tucked the doctor firmly into his bedclothes and left the room, promising to bring tea in about half an hour. The doctor was deathly pale and a film of perspiration covered his forehead only minutes after the housekeeper had wiped it.

‘I have been making inquiries about you, Lord Powerscourt, and I discover that you have a most remarkable record. But tell me this. I learnt about some of your cases. The last one I came across was the Blickling wedding murder which ended up in the Old Bailey a couple of years back with one brother tried for the murder of another. Is there a more recent case which I have not heard about?’

He paused and panted, as if this speech had taken him close to the limits of endurance. He coughed for a moment or two and lay back on his pillows.

Powerscourt wondered briefly if the old man thought detectives resting between engagements were rather like doctors having a long gap between patients, that it meant their clients no longer trusted them.

‘There have been a couple of cases since then, doctor,’ said Powerscourt with a smile, ‘but I’m afraid I can’t talk about them. They were secret work, work for the government.’

‘I see,’ said the doctor, ‘secret work. That sounds very special.’

Powerscourt had no wish to linger in the shadows of government employment. It had been unpleasant enough while it lasted. ‘Perhaps you could tell me your problem, doctor, the one that brought me here.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said the doctor, wrestling briefly with one of his pillows. ‘Do you know, I’ve thought about this moment such a lot, and now I’m not sure how to begin.’

The doctor paused. Powerscourt waited.

‘It has to do with Lord Candlesby,’ the old man said finally, and another coughing fit struck him, longer than the last.

‘Which one?’ asked Powerscourt as gently as he could.

‘Sorry, my mind isn’t what it was. It has to do with the one who died while you were here the last time. For the Messiah.’

The doctor looked hopelessly at Powerscourt as if his will could pass on all the information he wanted. Still Powerscourt said nothing.

‘It has to do with the death certificate, you see.’ Powerscourt thought that had taken a great effort. He suddenly thought the matter might be speeded up if he started asking questions rather than imitating the Sphinx.

‘Perhaps you could just tell me, Dr Miller, how you first became involved?’

‘I was called to the stable block at Candlesby Hall round about nine thirty maybe ten o’clock in the morning. I didn’t see what had happened before, but apparently the members of the hunt were all gathered in front of the house. Candlesby himself was dead when I got there, carried up his drive on the back of his horse and covered with blankets.’ The doctor rested once more, his eyes closing for a moment as if to shut out the painful truth.

‘So you didn’t have to treat him in any way? There was nothing to be done?’

‘That’s right,’ said the doctor, looking slightly more cheerful now his story was properly under way. ‘He was dead all right, very dead.’

Powerscourt racked his brains to think what sins the doctor must have committed if he hadn’t had to treat Candlesby at all. Medical negligence seemed out of the question. But something very serious must have happened to bring him all the way from London.

‘The problem … the problem has to do with the death certificate.’

‘What did you put on the death certificate, doctor?’

Temporary relief for Dr Miller was provided by the arrival of tea. Mrs Baines looked sternly at Powerscourt as she poured two cups. ‘I don’t think you should be tiring the doctor out too much, Lord Powerscourt. I’ll be back in half an hour and then you must let him rest for a while. You can always come back later on or first thing in the morning.’

The doctor refused a scone and a slice of Mrs Baines’ home-made chocolate cake. Powerscourt succumbed.

‘They were all on at me about the death certificate,’ the doctor said as the housekeeper sped out of the room, closing the door firmly behind her.

‘Sorry, who were they?’ said Powerscourt indistinctly through a mouthful of chocolate cake.

‘Sorry,’ said the doctor. ‘The three eldest brothers were on at me.’

‘You’ve lost me,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Could we just go back to where we were before tea? What did you put on the death certificate, Dr Miller?’

There was that beseeching look again. Powerscourt noticed that the doctor’s body was shaking beneath the bedclothes in irregular spasms. He suddenly stared at a print of Venice on his wall, boats swirling round the basin of St Mark, the Doge’s Palace and the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore keeping watch over the waterway. He was whispering now.

‘They made me say – oh, how I wish I’d never agreed to it – they made me say the Earl had died of natural causes.’ Another coughing fit, a fit of remorse maybe, consumed him. Powerscourt thought suddenly that it wasn’t youth, but age, that grows pale and spectre thin and dies.

‘And he hadn’t? Died of natural causes, I mean? Is that right?’ Powerscourt thought he could see the whole thing now. It’s my damned profession, he said to himself. If I weren’t a bloody investigator I wouldn’t be rushing to conclusions so fast.

The doctor nodded miserably.

‘So Lord Candlesby died of unnatural causes then. Was he murdered? Had somebody killed him? And was that why the sons were so keen for you to put natural causes as the cause of death?’

The doctor nodded again. The Venetians in their gondolas and their sailing boats seemed to be bringing little comfort now.