Death of a Chancellor (39 page)

‘I think it might be this one,’ he said, inserting an enormous key into the lock. ‘Damn,’ he said. ‘Backed a loser there. Hold on, Francis, sorry about the
delay.’ The second key didn’t work either. Neither did the third, Powerscourt feeling desperate by his side. The fourth did. Johnny Fitzgerald handed Powerscourt a lantern and they set
off together up the nave, dramatic shadows falling across the tombs and the chantry chapels of the dead. They kept together by long custom, remembering from years of experience that two might make
quicker progress separately, but that one person on their own is easier to kill. The sound of their boots went echoing up into the roof. They spoke in whispers. Powerscourt felt relieved when they
passed the high altar and found it empty. He had been wondering if the murderer’s macabre imagination could have left Lucy on top of it, like the victim of a human sacrifice. He tried to
remember if his historians had talked of any women being put to death during the agonies of the Reformation. There was only one he could recall, a woman widely believed to have been a witch who had
been burnt at the stake. He shuddered as they passed into the Lady Chapel behind the altar. A host of medieval saints and sinners peered down at them from the stained glass. But of Lady Lucy there
was no sign.

Lady Lucy was on the fourteenth step now. Just one more to go before the end. The tears were back in her eyes as she thought of her children growing up without her. She would
never see Thomas and Olivia married, she would never hold their children in her arms. Perhaps Thomas would become a soldier like his father and ride off overseas in some resplendent uniform to
fight his country’s battles. She felt very cold, shivering now as the waters approached. Then she thought she could hear some faint noise outside the door. Down at the bottom of the crypt, in
amongst the pillars and the thick stone arches, you could hear nothing at all. But higher up it was different. She decided to make one last try for life. ‘Help!’ she shouted.
‘Francis! Francis!’ She thought it would be fitting if she perished with her husband’s name on her lips. But there was no reply, only the mocking swirl of the waters that were
coming to envelop her. She carried on regardless. ‘Help! Help! Francis! Francis!’

It wasn’t Powerscourt who heard the noise but Johnny Fitzgerald. He stopped suddenly and held Powerscourt back with his hand. ‘Listen, Francis, I thought I heard a
noise, coming from down there somewhere to the side of the choir.’ They strained forward. They were over a hundred yards away from the entrance to the crypt. The next time they both heard it.
‘Lucy! Lucy’ they shouted at the tops of their voices as they sprinted down the south ambulatory, bumping into the tomb of Duke William of Hereford as they went. They stopped in the
south transept and listened once more. This time they heard it more clearly. ‘Francis! Francis!’ There was hope in the voice now. Lucy thought she heard the sound of footsteps drawing
near to the crypt.

‘The crypt, Francis, the crypt. Over there in the corner. God knows which one of these bloody keys it is. Christ, why do they have so many? There’s enough here to maintain a
decent-sized prison.’

Powerscourt was banging on the door, calling out to Lucy inside. Johnny found the key at last. They rushed down a narrow passageway of twelve large steps to the second door. Water was now
swirling round their feet. Johnny took one look at the second door and pulled out a vicious-looking iron crowbar.

‘To hell with this bunch of keys, Francis,’ he said. ‘God knows what the divine punishment is for damaging cathedral property but I’ll take my chance.’

With that he struck two mighty blows at the lock. Then he produced another instrument from his bag and wrenched the lock out of place. The door fell forward and with it a very wet Lady Lucy. She
was crying. Powerscourt took her in his arms and carried her back up to the body of the cathedral.

‘It’s all my fault, Francis, it really is. If only I had listened to your advice about the choirboys.’

‘Don’t worry, my love,’ said Powerscourt, stroking her hair, and striding fast towards the west door. ‘You’re safe now. You can tell us what happened later.
We’re going to take you to Anne Herbert’s house. I’m sure you can have a bath and borrow some dry clothes.’ Johnny Fitzgerald was packing up his tools. Powerscourt suddenly
remembered his conversation with Chief Inspector Yates in the cloisters where the policeman had told him about the diverted stream and the sluice gate.

Powerscourt shook his head. When was this murderer going to stop? he said to himself. John Eustace, Arthur Rudd, Edward Gillespie. He’d tried to kill Powerscourt once. Now he’d
tried, perhaps, to kill Lady Lucy. Let Easter Sunday come quickly, he thought. Then there may be an end of it.

Two days later Lord Francis Powerscourt was walking up the cobbled street of the Vicars Close. Two rows of ancient houses, with pretty little gardens in the front, ran up the
hill away from the cathedral. Not Compton Cathedral this time, but Wells, a couple of hours away by train. For two days Powerscourt had sat at Lucy’s bedside. The long exposure in the crypt,
the cold and the water, had left her weak and feverish. Privately Powerscourt blamed himself. They should have left her in Anne Herbert’s house rather than bringing her on yet another journey
back to Fairfield Park. Dr Blackstaff was a regular visitor and prescribed a couple of medicines and a lot of rest. When the fever was running high Lady Lucy would plead with Francis to find out
about the music. She was certain that the Protestant choirboys were being forced to learn the tunes and the words of the Church of Rome. She was sure the boys were not allowed to tell their parents
for fear of some terrible punishment. Only that morning, Palm Sunday, as the procession of palms made its way round the cathedral and then up to the high altar inside, she had pleaded with him
again.

Powerscourt had not told her about the singing he had heard on the way to the rescue. But it had stayed in his mind. Dr Blackstaff, a veteran of many West Country choirs, had written on his
behalf to the assistant choirmaster in Wells. The doctor understood only too well why Powerscourt might not wish to pursue his queries in Compton.

Michael Matthews opened the door himself. He was a cheerful young man, almost six feet tall, with curly blond hair and merry brown eyes.

‘You must be Lord Powerscourt,’ he said, ‘Welcome to Wells. Do come in. We should have time to sort out your problem before Evensong.’

He showed Powerscourt into a little sitting room. His house was at the top of the Close, looking down towards the chapter house and the north transept of the cathedral. The first thing
Powerscourt noticed was a large piano which occupied most of one wall of the tiny room. The second thing was a wall full of books, many of them lives of the composers. And the third thing was that
the floor was covered with musical scores, Byrd and Thomas Tallis, Purcell and Handel, Mozart and Haydn, the great choral tradition of Western Europe scattered in random piles across the fraying
carpet. In one corner of the room Powerscourt thought he saw some Gilbert and Sullivan, a touch of the profane hiding among the sacred.

‘Please forgive me, Lord Powerscourt,’ said Michael Matthews, waving towards his floor, ‘I’m in the middle of a tidying-up session. If you’d been half an hour
later, all of this lot would have gone.’

‘Don’t worry at all,’ said Powerscourt with a smile, ‘there’s always a lot of confusion when you’re in the middle of a clear-out.’

‘How can I help you, Lord Powerscourt?’ said Matthews, ushering him to a small chair by the side of the piano.

‘I believe Dr Blackstaff told you I am investigating a series of murders in Compton,’ said Powerscourt.

‘He certainly did,’ said the young man. ‘I pray we may never be afflicted with anything similar here in Wells.’

‘Things in Compton at present, how should I put this, Mr Matthews, are rather delicate. We have not found the murderer, though I hope we shall do so soon. However strange it may sound, I
must ask you to keep our conversation absolutely confidential. You have not seen me. We have not spoken. We did not meet.’ Powerscourt knew he was sounding melodramatic, perhaps a little mad,
but just one scribbled note from Wells to Compton might spark another round of murder.

The young man began to laugh, then stopped when he saw how serious was the face of his visitor.

‘Secrets,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Have no fear, Lord Powerscourt. I shan’t tell a soul about today. Now then,’ he moved away from his mantelpiece and sat down by the
piano, ‘what is this piece of music you want to have identified? Perhaps you could hum it or sing it if you can remember it.’

Powerscourt hummed about six or seven bars. Matthews tapped them out on his piano with his right hand. Then he added an accompaniment with his left.

‘Something like that, Lord Powerscourt?’

Powerscourt shook his head. ‘The last three or four notes sound right, but not the beginning.’

‘Try to remember exactly where you were when you heard this piece. Now close your eyes. Now try again.’

Powerscourt delivered another opening, slightly different from the first. Again the young man picked out the notes with his right hand.

‘Just one more time, if you would, Lord Powerscourt. I think I’ve got it.’

Powerscourt closed his eyes again, remembering the noise coming to him across the Close from the choristers’ house as he searched for Lady Lucy. This time the young man was delighted.

‘Splendid, Lord Powerscourt, splendid. Not exactly the piece of choral music you would expect to hear floating across an English cathedral close.’ Michael Matthews played a very
brief introduction. Then he sang along with a powerful tenor voice.

I believe in one God the Father Almighty, creator of Heaven and earth, Powerscourt muttered to himself.

‘You might think it’s a musical version of one of the Anglican creeds, words virtually identical,’ said Matthews, abandoning his singing but keeping the tune going on his
piano. ‘But wait for the great blast at the end.

Michael Matthews played a virtuoso conclusion, a great descant swelling through the higher notes.

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church, Powerscourt translated as he went, we acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins and we look for the resurrection of the dead and
the life of the world to come.

‘The music you heard, Lord Powerscourt, is the Profession of Faith of the Catholic Liturgy, to be used on Sundays and holy days. When the congregations get to the line about one holy and
apostolic and catholic church, they belt it out as if they were singing their own National Anthem. No, better than that, it’s their equivalent of the Battle Hymn of the Republic’

Powerscourt looked closely at Michael Matthews. Matthews didn’t think he was at all surprised. As Powerscourt made his way out of the little house and back down the Vicars Close to Wells
station, the assistant choirmaster stood at his window and watched him go. What on earth was going on down there in Compton? Why were the choir singing the music of a different faith? Ours not to
reason why, he said to himself and sat down once more at his piano. The window was slightly open. Powerscourt could just hear the strains of ‘Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring’, played
with great sadness, pursuing him down the street.

There was a telegraph message from William McKenzie waiting for Powerscourt on his return to Fairfield Park. It seemed to have taken rather a long time to reach Compton,
despatched from the Central Telegraph Office in Piazza San Silvestro on Wednesday morning and only arriving at its destination on Friday afternoon. Maybe, said Powerscourt to himself, the wires
were down somewhere along the route.

‘Subject reached destination safely,’ the message began, couched in the normal cryptic of McKenzie’s despatches. ‘Subject has spent his days in conclave with high
officials of the parent organization.’ Christ, thought Powerscourt, McKenzie could have been describing the activities of a bank manager rather than a priest in conspiratorial meetings with
the College of Propaganda. ‘Evenings in restaurants with prominent citizens dressed in strange colours?’ What in God’s name was a prominent citizen dressed in strange colours?
Powerscourt asked himself. A member of the Swiss Guard charged with the protection of the Pontiff? A member of the Italian Upper House – did they wander round the streets of Caesar and the
Borgias looking like members of the British House of Lords? Was McKenzie’s prey, Father Dominic Barberi, dining with one of the cardinals, the scarlet robes of the descendants of St Peter
tucking into some Roman speciality like
carpaccio tiepido di pescatrice,
brill with raw beef, or
mignonettes alla Regina Victoria,
veal with pâté and an eight-cheese
sauce? Then Powerscourt reached the most important part of the message. ‘Subject and two colleagues returning London, arriving Monday night. Meeting would be beneficial.’

Powerscourt looked up and saw that Johnny Fitzgerald had come in and was reading the
Grafton Mercury
on a chair by the garden. There was a final sentence, straight from McKenzie’s
heart. ‘Local food inedible. Much worse than Afghan.’ Powerscourt smiled. The unfortunate McKenzie suffered, indeed he had suffered all the time Powerscourt had known him, from a weak
stomach. It was his only failing. Powerscourt remembered him surviving six weeks of an Indian summer on a special diet of hard boiled eggs for breakfast, hard boiled eggs for lunch and yet more
hard boiled eggs for supper. Johnny Fitzgerald always maintained that McKenzie only attained dietary peace in his native Scotland where he survived on home-baked scones and a regimen of lightly
boiled fish with no sauce.