Death of a Chancellor

15

There were no reports concerning the rest of the body that morning. Shortly before midday the Dean reported to Chief Inspector Yates that a member of the choir, one Edward Gillespie, was missing. Powerscourt wandered between the Close, the cathedral and the police station. He wondered if you could write an architectural history of Britain based on the houses around the Close, their construction spanning five or six hundred years, the changing fashions in domestic design still standing around the cathedral. Just after lunch a report came in from Bilton, one of the neighbouring villages, that another leg had been discovered in the churchyard. The limb was being brought to the morgue in Compton with all speed.

Powerscourt went down to the offices of the Grafton Mercury and found Patrick Butler surrounded by his normal chaos. The editor informed Powerscourt that he was reserving a space for the details of the next Minster Murder. If they had the details before ten o’clock the following morning, he could include the story in the next edition. Otherwise it would be too late. He would, of course, have an alternative story ready to fill the space, probably a report on the rehearsals of the Messiah. Powerscourt found himself wondering if Patrick Butler would place his own engagement, assuming he ever got round to it, in the appropriate section of his paper. He took away with him Butler’s best recollection of the Ferrers address in Bristol, 42 Clifton Rise, he had said, not far from that huge suspension bridge over the river.

At a quarter to three he called on Chief Inspector Yates at the police station. ‘We’ve found the head, I think,’ said the Chief Inspector, ‘on the side of the road just outside Shipton. One of my men is bringing it in now. That only leaves the trunk and the arms, my lord.’

‘When is Dr Williams going to examine it, Chief Inspector?’ asked Powerscourt.

‘At six o’clock in the morgue, my lord. The Dean is coming as well to see if he can identify the corpse.’

Powerscourt wandered off again. Faint outlines of a plan were beginning to form in his mind. He remembered an earlier case involving a morgue in the Italian city of Perugia, the corridor leading to it lined with pictures of the Virgin, where he had to identify the body of Lord Edward Gresham, the man who had confessed to Powerscourt that he had killed Prince Eddy, the eldest son of the Prince of Wales. There might have been a great deal of blood on that occasion, Powerscourt reflected bitterly, but at least the body was left in one piece.

He stood under the west front of the cathedral, staring up at the statues once more. He wondered if Cain’s killing of Abel was somewhere in the limestone above, Abraham raising his knife for the sacrifice of Isaac. He felt angry with himself at his inability to catch the murderer. How many more mothers and fathers, wives and children were about to have their lives ruined for ever by the madman stalking the streets of Compton? By now Powerscourt felt sure that the murderer must be mad, not in the sense that he should have been incarcerated in an asylum, though the world would be a better place if he were, but mad with a consuming passion, a hatred that came from a source so deep that Powerscourt could not yet comprehend it. This was not a madman who saw visions or heard strange voices in his head or thought he was Napoleon or Ghenghis Khan or believed he could walk on water or jump safely from a high building. This madman, thought Powerscourt, is consumed with hate, with an obsession so strong that it drives him to terrible acts. A madness that permits of no remorse, no shred of human or Christian compassion even in a city devoted for a thousand years to the worship and the glory of Almighty God. Powerscourt felt sure now that the normal motives for murder, greed, jealousy, vaulting ambition even, did not apply to his particular madman. He was of a different order of madness.

Powerscourt abandoned the west front and wandered off, his brain far away, to the railway station where he absent-mindedly collected some train timetables. He was to tell Lady Lucy later that he was scarcely aware of doing this and only realized what he had done when he found the papers in his pockets later on that evening.

Powerscourt and Chief Inspector Yates were shown into an anonymous office deep inside Compton’s little hospital shortly before six o’clock that evening. The Dean was staring moodily out of the window, pausing occasionally to look at his watch.

‘Monthly meeting of the Diocesan Finance Sub-Committee at a quarter to seven,’ he told the newcomers, still staring at the little garden outside. ‘I hope this disagreeable business isn’t going to make me late. They’re always difficult, these financial meetings.’

He turned back to face the Chief Inspector. ‘Have you managed to recover all the body now?’ He made it sound as though he believed Yates was personally responsible for the event.

‘We have, Dean,’ said the Chief Inspector. ‘The other two sections were discovered in Slape late this afternoon. They are with Dr Williams now.’

Bilton, Shipton, Slape. Powerscourt wondered where he had seen these names before. In one of the past editions of the Grafton Mercury he had read in Patrick Butler’s office? On one of the walls or on the floor of the cathedral perhaps, past dignitaries from these neighbouring villages interred behind or beneath? No, he said to himself, and a feeling of great sadness overcame him as he remembered that these were some of the names on the choir stalls, names of the livings and the parishes belonging to the cathedral that had so enchanted him with their poetry earlier in his time in Compton. Maybe the corpse was the missing chorister whose body had been dismembered and sent to the very places that gave their names to the choir stalls where he had sat and sung the anthems of the Lord.

‘Forgive me if I am a trifle late.’ Dr Williams was wearing a white coat and looking rather tired. ‘Perhaps you gentlemen would like to come this way.’

He led them about fifty yards along a dark corridor and opened a very heavy thick door at the end. The walls were painted an antiseptic green. A couple of feeble bulbs in the ceiling cast a fitful light over the room. In the centre of the little morgue was a long table, about eight feet long and five feet wide with a package that might have been a body on it, covered with white sheets. There was a very strong smell, carbolic and blood, disinfectant and death, Powerscourt thought.

‘This should only take a moment, gentlemen,’ said the doctor, positioning himself at the top of the table.

‘I must ask you, Dean,’ said Chief Inspector Yates, ‘if you recognize this person.’

The doctor pulled the sheets at the top of the package away. ‘We have assembled all the sections of the body now,’ he said. ‘I should tell you as a matter of record that the private parts have been cut off and the stomach and intestines appear to have been hacked out.’ Dr Williams was pale but composed as he spoke. ‘We have tried to clean up the head as much as we can. It is little consolation to anybody but I believe it was the knife to the throat that killed him. He was dead before the mutilation.’

The Dean stared in horror at the severed head revealed beneath the sheets, marks of his wounds purple and livid around the throat. ‘I do recognize this person,’ he said calmly. ‘That is Edward Gillespie, one of our vicars choral.’

The Dean bowed his head in prayer. Dr Williams pulled the sheet back over the corpse. Powerscourt found himself thinking about the words of Old Peter who had watched the services come and go in the cathedral for fifty years or more. Every day, he had said, the Dean and the canons referred to an act of bloody savagery, wounds in the side, nails through his hands and feet, Christ bleeding to death on his cross to save mankind. Now they were inspecting a real butchered body in a hospital morgue at six o’clock in the evening.

‘Dean, Chief Inspector,’ Powerscourt and the two men were back in the little waiting room, ‘I would ask you to consider how this information should be presented to the public. It is entirely in your hands. I spoke to Patrick Butler this afternoon and I believe he is aware that there may have been another murder. Should he be allowed to print all the details? Would it be of more assistance to you in your investigations, Chief Inspector, if the full facts were made public or not? And, Dean, you must speak for the cathedral.’

The two men paused. ‘Let me say,’ the Chief Inspector began, ‘that we have, as it were, made a lot of noise today not only in Compton but all around these other villages, not just, I would remind you, in the ones where we found parts of the unfortunate Mr Gillespie, but in the ones where we didn’t. I think it would be difficult to contain the truth. A lot would depend on how the information was presented, of course. But the more the public are on our side, dare I say it, the more frightened they are, the more they will be willing and eager to help us in our inquiries.’

Powerscourt wondered if the dead man would be referred to for ever after as the unfortunate Mr Gillespie.

‘Lord Powerscourt,’ the Dean was looking at his watch, winding himself up for his later meeting perhaps, ‘what would your advice be?’

‘I’m sure,’ said Powerscourt, ‘that the Chief Inspector is correct when he refers to the way the information is presented. Patrick Butler is a responsible fellow, after all. He won’t want to offend his readers, especially the women, with the gory details. To say that the body had been cut up is much less offensive than what actually happened.’

‘Very well,’ said the Dean, preparing to leave, ‘I shall send for the young man at once. If I have to interrupt my meeting, so be it. If I may so express it, finance may have to wait for death. There’s just one other matter, gentlemen.’ The Dean had suddenly lost a fraction of his normal composure, running his hands through his hair, looking anxiously at his watch. ‘It’s about Edward Gillespie,’ he said nervously. The Chief Inspector was fiddling about in his pockets, looking for a notebook. ‘It’s bound to come out sooner rather than later. I’d rather you hear it from me rather than as a piece of chapter gossip.’

Powerscourt wondered what was coming. Was Gillespie also in debt, like his fellow chorister, the late Arthur Rudd? Was he about to be kicked out of the choir?

‘I think, no, I am certain . . .’ The Dean paused, as if he wasn’t quite sure how to deliver his message. He was, Powerscourt noticed, turning rather red. ‘Gillespie was carrying on with the wife of one of the shopkeepers in the Square,’ he blurted out at last, ‘a very pretty young woman called Sophia. He told me the other day that the husband had found out about it. He was a very worried man.’

‘Had the husband threatened Gillespie with violence?’ asked the Chief Inspector, looking up from his notebook.

‘I’m not sure. I think he probably did. Now, if you’ll excuse me I must go and chair my finance meeting. I’m late already.’

‘Just two very quick questions, Dean, before you attend to your duties,’ said Powerscourt quickly. ‘The Chief Inspector and I will accompany you to the front door. What is the name of the shopkeeper, and what was the nature of his trade?’ All three were now striding up the corridor towards the main entrance, their boots echoing on the stone floor.

‘The man’s name was Fraser, James Fraser,’ said the Dean. He marched on. Chief Inspector Yates thought he knew the answer now, but he asked the second question once again.

‘And his occupation?’

Again that pause from the Dean of Compton. Then he whispered it very softly. ‘He was a butcher. The best butcher in all of Compton.’

‘Oh, my God,’ Powerscourt said very quietly. His brain was full of images of carcasses hanging on great hooks on the wall, of butchers’ blocks and butchers’ knives, long ones, thin ones, short ones, all of them honed to a pitch of sharpness that could dissect cows or sheep or pigs or lambs or humans. The best butcher in all of Compton.

‘My wife has been a customer of Fraser’s for over five years now,’ said the Chief Inspector. ‘His meat is excellent. But let me deal with this, my lord. Gillespie’s affair with Mrs Fraser may have nothing to do with his death. I shall make inquiries now and let you know.’

Powerscourt stared at the disappearing figure of Chief Inspector Yates. Had John Eustace met a perfectly innocent death? Were the butler and the doctor telling him the truth after all? Had Arthur Rudd been killed for his debt? And Edward Gillespie, had he been butchered by a cuckolded husband? The best butcher in all of Compton?

Powerscourt was on his way to reclaim his horse from the police station and return to Fairfield Park when he bumped into Patrick Butler, just leaving Anne Herbert’s cottage on the edge of Cathedral Close. Patrick already knew most of the story of Compton’s latest murder. He grimaced with distaste when Powerscourt filled him in on the final details.

‘I couldn’t possibly print all that, Lord Powerscourt. Old ladies would be fainting in their beds. I’ll have to keep it very simple.’

‘You’re about to receive a summons from the Dean, Patrick. I think he’s going to ask you to be responsible.’

‘I’ll be responsible all right,’ said the young man. Then he cheered up considerably. Powerscourt wondered for a moment if he had proposed over the Assam or the Darjeeling. He hadn’t. ‘I’ll tell you one thing, Lord Powerscourt. I thought of the most fantastic headline while I was taking tea with Anne. I couldn’t possibly use it, of course. But I think it’s almost perfect.’

‘What is this Platonic headline, Patrick?’

The young man laughed and whispered very softly into Powerscourt’s ear.

‘Hung, Drawn and Quartered.’

A musical medley, a rather confused musical medley, greeted Powerscourt on his return. He could hear one piano note, played very loudly. Then there were voices, singing out of tune. He wondered if Lady Lucy had managed to steal a couple of choirboys for the evening and then he thought better of it. Choirboys couldn’t possibly be that out of tune. The piano note sounded once more.

‘Hal,’ sang a voice, in tune, which he recognized as Lucy’s.

‘Hal,’ sang a second voice, out of tune.

‘Orr,’ sang a third voice, nearly in tune.

Then he remembered that his children were due to arrive that afternoon for a short stay. He listened on outside the drawing-room door. The piano and therefore the singing party were at the far end of the room.

‘You’re doing very well,’ he heard Lady Lucy say. ‘Let’s just try to put the whole thing together.’ She sounded out four notes on the piano. Then she played them again.

‘One, two, three,’ said Lady Lucy.

‘Hallelujah,’ sang the three voices, although Powerscourt thought Olivia was singing Orrerujah rather than Handel’s preferred text.

‘Hallelujah’ they sang again, Thomas still out of tune. Powerscourt opened the door and ran to embrace Thomas and Olivia. He could still remember all those long evenings in South Africa when he would have paid thousands of pounds for an armful of his children.

‘We’ve been singing, Papa,’ Olivia told him proudly. ‘It’s called the Orrerujah Chorus.’

‘It’s from Handel’s Messiah, actually,’ said Thomas Powerscourt in his most grown-up voice.

‘That’ll do for today,’ said Lady Lucy, smiling at her very own choir. ‘We’ll do some more practising tomorrow.’

‘Can we come and watch you singing in the church?’ asked Thomas. ‘When you sing in front of everybody?’

‘We’ll have to see about that,’ said Lady Lucy tactfully. ‘You might put me off.’

‘Why was that man called Handel?’ asked Olivia. ‘I thought that had something to do with opening doors.’

‘It does,’ said Powerscourt, ‘have something to do with opening doors. But Handel the composer, the man who wrote the music for the Messiah, came from Germany originally. George Frederick Handel was his name.’

‘Time for bed now,’ said Lady Lucy briskly. ‘Off you go. Papa will come and read you a story later.’

It was just before ten o’clock when a weary William McKenzie returned from his travels and took a seat in the drawing room, armed with a cup of tea and a plate of biscuits. Powerscourt remembered that McKenzie’s reports were always couched in rather unfathomable prose in case they fell into enemy hands.

‘I first encountered the subject at the railway station, my lord,’ McKenzie began. Powerscourt mentally substituted the word Archdeacon for subject and listened on.

‘He took a first class ticket to Colthorpe on the seven thirty-five train and spent the journey perusing various papers in the large bag he carried with him. I must confess I was curious about the bag, my lord. It was of much larger dimensions than gentlemen usually employ for purposes of business. He might have been going away on a visit.’

McKenzie paused and looked down at a tiny notebook. ‘The journey from Compton to Colthorpe takes an hour and twenty minutes, my lord. At Colthorpe the subject alighted from the train and waited fifteen minutes for a local service going to Dunthorpe, Peignton Magna and Addlebury The subject took a cup of Indian tea in the restaurant while he waited, and two slices of toast with marmalade.’

Powerscourt wondered where McKenzie secreted himself during all these activities. Did he peer in the windows? Did he conceal himself in the corner of the room? Could he make himself invisible?

‘The subject did not make the full journey to Addlebury my lord. He left the train at Peignton Magna at nine fifty-five,’ McKenzie checked the precise time in his notebook, ‘and was collected by a carriage. They must have known what time to expect him for those local trains are infrequent, my lord, and, I was told, rather unreliable. I nearly lost him there, my lord, for he was out of the station in a flash. Fortunately a cab drew up just after he had left, driven by a most reckless young man who said he knew where the clerical gentleman was going as he had taken him there several times in the past. At the far end of the village we caught up with them, my lord.’

William McKenzie paused and took another drink of his tea. Powerscourt was trying to guess where the final destination might have been. So far the gossips of Compton could have been right. The subject might have a wife hidden away in the depths of the countryside.

‘A mile and a half outside Peignton Magna, my lord, there is a long avenue of lime trees leading off to the left. My cabbie informed me that this was always the destination of the clerical gentleman. I paid him off and proceeded as rapidly as appeared prudent up the drive. The house is most handsome, my lord, Elizabethan in construction, I would hazard, set out in the form of a square with a courtyard in the centre and a moat running round all four walls. The moat appeared to be well maintained, my lord, unlike some you might see these days. I was just in time to see the subject disappear through the main entrance. The time was ten fifteen. I secreted myself in the trees and continued to observe, my lord.’

McKenzie was perfectly capable of waiting for his subjects for hours or even days at a time, Powerscourt remembered. One vigil in India, checking on the movements of the agents of a particularly vicious Nawab, had lasted three days and nights.

‘There was limited activity I could observe from my position, my lord. One or two servants going to and fro, some produce being delivered from the home farm, a vet come to attend to a sick horse. All activity seemed to stop just before twelve o’clock, my lord, and there were strange noises from inside the house I could not quite catch.’

‘Were there any bells at twelve, William? Ringing out from the neighbouring church perhaps?’ asked Powerscourt.

‘I heard no bells, my lord,’ said McKenzie, beginning work on another biscuit and turning a page in his book. Powerscourt thought the fire needed more logs but he did not want to break the spell of McKenzie’s narrative.

‘Movement seemed to begin again shortly before one o’clock, my lord. There were cooking smells being blown my way and very pleasant they were too. At two thirty-five the carriage drew up again at the front door. At two forty-five the subject appeared again and was driven away.’

‘Was he wearing the same clothes, William? Had he changed into something from his bag?’

‘He was in the same clothes, my lord. The subject seemed in better humour from the brief glimpse I could get of him. The carriage took him back to the station. I ran after them as fast as I could, my lord. I was able to watch the subject board the train to Colthorpe at ten past three. There is a connection there back to Compton. The subject had purchased return tickets. He should have been back here by four fifteen. I remained in the village, my lord, and made some inquiries.’

William McKenzie paused in his report. He looked at several pages of his notes and proceeded.

‘I must confess, my lord, that what follows is to some extent speculation. I have three main sources for my information. The young cabbie directed me to the village postmaster for information. The cabbie claimed that he was a notorious gossip who knew everything that went on in Peignton Magna and quite a lot that probably didn’t. He was very informative. The vicar was tending his garden when I passed. The vicar, a most reliable witness I should say, had no knowledge of these regular visits by the subject. I found that most curious. He did not seem to be aware that the clerical gentleman from Compton was in the habit of making regular visits to his own parish. Late in the afternoon I presented myself at the house. I said I was working with a colleague on an architectural volume chronicling the moated houses of England. The butler gave me a brief tour of the house, my lord. It was most instructive.’

Powerscourt wondered why William McKenzie was taking so long to deliver his conclusions. Perhaps he didn’t believe them.

‘The house is called Melbury Clinton, my lord. It has been in the Melbury family for about twelve generations. They are an old Catholic family, my lord. They have priests’ holes all over the place, enough to fox Sir Francis Walsingham’s agents for days at a time, my lord. That’s what the butler told me.’

Powerscourt had been more than impressed with McKenzie’s knowledge of the key players of Elizabethan history.

‘They’re still Catholic, my lord. There is a little chapel where the Jesuits used to hide on the first floor. It’s about as far from the front door as you could get. Mass is celebrated in there twice a week, the butler told me. Once on Sundays when a priest comes from Exeter. And once on Thursdays at twelve o’clock. Those noises I heard in the woods, my lord, must have been the service.’

‘Are you telling me, William, that the Archdeacon goes all the way from Compton every Thursday to attend Mass in the little chapel at Melbury Clinton?’

‘No, I am not telling you that, my lord. The subject does not go all that way to attend Mass. He goes to take the service. The subject has been officiating at Mass at Melbury Clinton for the past eight years.’