Death of a Chancellor (24 page)

‘Problem, my lord? I don’t think so. It would be tremendous, a great honour for the paper.’

‘I don’t wish to sound disrespectful towards your readers, Mr Butler, but how many of them do you think would understand it?’

Patrick Butler was at a loss. ‘Just at the moment, my lord, I must confess it is I who doesn’t understand your reservations. Of course, if you feel that a serialization would be
inappropriate, then I shall withdraw the suggestion. But with great regrets.’

The Bishop sighed. ‘I know that educational standards are rising all the time, even in remote parts of the country like Compton, but I think most, if not all, your readers, would find it
difficult to understand.’

Then Patrick Butler knew what the problem was. ‘Forgive me, my lord. How silly of me not to have seen the misunderstanding. We would have to translate the document from the original Latin.
Perhaps you could make a translation yourself, my lord, or suggest another scholar you feel would be fit for the task. But I am sure it would be much more widely read if we could advertise that the
translation was the work of our very own Bishop. That would be a great coup for the paper.’

He would insert a great strapline into the text, Translated by the Bishop of Compton, the Very Reverend Doctor Gervase Bentley Moreton. It wasn’t every day you could number a bishop among
your correspondents. He wondered how often it happened in
The Times.

‘An excellent plan, Mr Butler,’ the Bishop brought him back to Compton, ‘I should be delighted to make the translation for you nearer the time. And I think you could also say,
bearing in mind the reservations I have already expressed, that I intend to refer to the document in my sermon on Easter Sunday when we celebrate one thousand years of Christian worship in this
community. I feel that would be perfectly proper.’

Patrick Butler was feeling elated as he made his way back to the cathedral for his second meeting of the morning. Two excellent stories discovered before twelve o’clock in the morning. A
great accident overnight in the cathedral, falling masonry lying all over the place, a miracle nobody was hurt. One of the canons had given him the details earlier in the day. He wondered if he
could hint that the ghost was walking again through the minster, a pale cleric clad in black robes said to come from the time of the Civil Wars when he lost his head to hostile soldiery. He would
have to go to the County Library and look up the story of the ghost. There was, he remembered, a rather dramatic description of the spectral figure floating high above the choir around the time of
the flight of King James the Second. And now this, the minster monk’s last words, found in the crypt three hundred and fifty years after his death. And translated by the Bishop himself.
Patrick Butler felt his cup was overflowing.

‘Lord Powerscourt, my goodness me, sir, you don’t look at all well. Have you been in an accident?’

Patrick Butler found his friend seated at the back of the nave, his face pale, the bandage clearly visible beneath the curly hair. He was leaning on his alcoholic walking stick and looking at
the stained glass.

‘Good morning to you, Patrick, and thank you for coming. I am going to tell you what happened to me, but I don’t want it published in your newspaper at present.’

Powerscourt rose slowly from his seat and began a limping progress up the nave towards the main body of the cathedral, the sound of his stick tapping on the stone floor echoing up towards the
roof.

‘I don’t feel happy telling you about it in here,’ he said, ‘I think we could go to the chapter house. They must have had lots of conspiratorial meetings in there over
the centuries.’

Patrick Butler noticed that Powerscourt was carrying a large black notebook, rather larger than the ones his reporters used. He didn’t think he had seen Powerscourt with such a thing
before.

‘Here we are,’ said Powerscourt, lowering himself into a great stone seat opposite the entrance to the chapter house. In front of them the slender central pillar rose like an
umbrella of stone, surrounded by carvings of foliage and unknown faces from long ago. In the centre of the tympanum above the doorway, the seated figure of Christ in Majesty, surrounded by the
symbols of the Four Gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The story of the Book of Genesis unfolded on the walls around them, Cain slaying Abel, the drunkenness of Noah, the city and tower
of Babel, Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac. Powerscourt wondered about taking a sip from his walking stick to ease the pain. He desisted, fearing that he might be turned into a pillar of salt.
There were several such pillars ten feet to his left.

‘I presume,’ he said, ‘that a man in your position must know most of the details of the accident in the cathedral last night?’

Patrick Butler nodded. ‘Except for the time it happened,’ he said, checking that nobody was coming to disturb them.

‘I think I may be able to help you there,’ said Powerscourt with a smile. ‘It happened in the gap between the end of Evensong and the closing of the cathedral. It must have
been about twenty minutes to six.’

‘Good God, Lord Powerscourt, how do you know that? Nobody else has any idea at all about when it happened.’ Then he looked at the bandage on Powerscourt’s forehead, the walking
stick by his side. ‘You don’t mean to say . . .’

‘You’re very quick this morning, Patrick. I do mean to say. I was here when it happened. I was nearly killed by that falling masonry. I hurled myself into the choir and banged my
head on one of the wooden carvings. I must have twisted my ankle in the fall. Somebody was trying to kill me.’

‘But this is terrible,’ said Patrick Butler. ‘How did you get out? Did somebody lock all the doors?’

‘Yes,’ said Powerscourt, pausing to look at a stone Adam and a stone Eve fleeing from the Garden of Eden, ‘somebody did lock the doors. I don’t yet know if it was the
murderer in person or the member of staff who normally shuts the place up for the night. Lucy that’s my wife, came to find me shortly after eleven o’clock. But this isn’t
important now.’

‘Somebody trying to kill you, Lord Powerscourt? I’d say that was very important.’ He stopped to let a figure in clerical robes make his way down the steps into the cathedral,
his boots loud against the stone. ‘If I hadn’t printed that story about your being here to investigate the death of Arthur Rudd, this might never have happened. I could never have
forgiven myself if the murderer had succeeded.’

‘Just remember, Patrick, that I asked you to print that story. I went out of my way to tell you to print it, if you remember.’

‘Is there anything you have learnt from this horrible episode, my lord? Anything that can take your investigations further forward?’

Powerscourt paused. He could hear the rain falling on the roof. He looked round at all the empty seats where members of the Chapter had sat centuries before. He wondered if they could help
him.

‘Yes and No is the answer to your question, I’m afraid. I had quite a lot of time to think in here last night, wandering up and down with all those corpses and the chantry chapels. I
am sure that there is a terrible secret here in this cathedral or in this community. I am sure the murderer is afraid I may discover it. The secret, or the revelation of the secret, may lie in the
future rather than the past. That may be why he tried to kill me. And I need your help, Patrick.’

Powerscourt opened his black notebook at the two central pages. Butler saw that it was a plan of the cathedral and the Close. The minster itself was in the centre and the streets ran round it in
a rough square, with an inlet opposite the east end of the cathedral for Vicars Close and Vicars Hall. Every house on there had a number, from the Deanery at Number One to the South Canonry at
Number Twelve and Exeter House at Number Twenty-One.

‘After the murder of Arthur Rudd up here,’ Powerscourt pointed to the Vicars Hall on his map, ‘I was virtually certain that the murderer must live very close to the cathedral,
must be intimate with its workings, must know every detail of what goes on in the minster and the Close. The events of last night merely confirmed that. The murderer must have known how to get to
the upper reaches of the great transept without being seen. Either he had himself a set of keys, or he knew precisely what time the place would be closed. If he didn’t have the keys, then he
must have allowed himself enough time to get down from the high place where he tried to tip the masonry over me.’

‘Just as well the murderer didn’t get locked in too, my lord,’ said Patrick Butler.

‘That would certainly have been interesting,’ Powerscourt smiled. Single combat in the nave. Powerscourt’s Last Stand on the edge of the high altar. Wrestling match to the
death among the choir stalls. Anthem of celebration for the victor. Requiem Mass for the Dead.

‘Assuming that most of the people involved with the cathedral live round here,’ Powerscourt drew a great circle, an outer ring round all his numbered houses, ‘then the murderer
must live inside this territory here.’ He drew a finger round the inner circumference of his map. ‘I need to know the name of everyone inside it, servants, cooks, butlers, coachmen,
clergy, cleaning staff, I probably need to know the names of every last cat and dog as well. Can be pretty sinister things, cats. There’s a very evil looking one halfway up a pillar in the
nave. Can you help me with that, Patrick?’

‘Not sure about the cats, my lord,’ said Butler, pausing again while another pair of clerical boots trudged up the steps and out of the door leading to Vicars Close. ‘I can
help with some of the people, but I know somebody who would be even more useful. He pointed to Number Nineteen on Powerscourt’s map. ‘That’s Close Cottage, my lord. I have a very
particular friend who lives there. She has lived in Compton all her life. We could try calling on her now, if you wish, my lord. I’m sure she would love to meet you.’

As they walked across Cathedral Green Powerscourt learned more about the young woman they were going to see: that Patrick Butler had known her for an incredibly long time,
eight and a half months; that she was extremely pretty with a smile that could light up the county; that he often called on her for tea between four and five in the afternoon, no, often was not the
right word, it was nearly every day and when business took him out of the town he tried to leave very early in order to make his rendezvous with Anne Herbert and her teapot.

‘The Bishop hinted this morning that he would put the cathedral at our disposal,’ Butler said. ‘He didn’t actually mention the word marriage, but that’s what he
meant.’

‘And are you going to propose to the young lady Patrick?’ asked Powerscourt with a smile.

‘That’s my problem, Lord Powerscourt. I know it seems odd for somebody who makes their living using words, but I don’t know really know how to do it.’

‘Tricky things, proposals,’ said Powerscourt, pausing to look back at the statues on the west front. ‘I knew a man once who collected bets to the value of two hundred pounds
that he could get engaged on the Underground Railway in London.’

‘Which line?’ asked Butler, with a journalist’s interest in detail.

‘The District Line, I believe. The story goes that he began his proposal between Gloucester Road and South Kensington. Perfectly respectable neighbourhood up above if you see what I mean.
He could have made his offer somewhere much less salubrious, maybe between Wapping and Shadwell or some place like that in the East End.’

‘And what happened?’ asked Patrick Butler.

‘I don’t think it went very well, actually. You see, they weren’t the only people in the carriage for a start. All the other passengers were listening in to this strange
conversation. The young lady rose to her feet as the train pulled in to the next station, Earls Court, I believe. She uttered just one word to her suitor. “No,” she said, and got off
the train. He never saw her again.’

‘And he never saw his two hundred pounds again either, presumably,’ said Patrick Butler. ‘Rather an expensive ride on the District Line. Think how much better he might have
been if he’d hired a posh carriage above ground. She might have said yes then.’

‘Well, she might have said yes. She might still have said no. But you can see some of the picture, Patrick. Privacy. Romantic setting certainly. I can’t see even the most ardent
devotee of the Underground Railway thinking it a place of romance, even between Gloucester Road and South Kensington. Some men favour candlelight and champagne, that sort of thing.’

The subject of these possible proposals opened her door and showed the two men into her little drawing room.

‘I am delighted to meet you, Lord Powerscourt,’ said Anne Herbert. ‘I’ve heard so much about you from Patrick.’

‘I made so bold as to tell Lord Powerscourt that you could help him in his work, Anne,’ said Patrick Butler. He explained the attack the previous evening in the cathedral and
Powerscourt’s wish to learn the names of all who lived in or around the Cathedral Close.

‘How very wicked of somebody to try to kill you, Lord Powerscourt. And in our cathedral too. I’m so glad you have survived. And I’ll help in any way I can.’

Powerscourt opened his large black book at the centre pages and placed it on the table. ‘I need to know the names of everybody who lives inside this ring here,’ he said, outlining
the area of interest with his finger. ‘And anybody else who has business in the cathedral if they live outside this magic circle.’

Anne Herbert looked up at him, her green eyes troubled. Powerscourt thought she was pretty, very pretty indeed. It was easy now to see the appeal of tea every day at four o’clock.

‘Do you mean to say, Lord Powerscourt, that the murderer lives inside this circle of yours?’

‘I have to confess that I think it likely, Mrs Herbert, but I’m not sure.’

‘Could I make a suggestion?’ Anne Herbert felt quite excited at the prospect of helping to solve a murder mystery. Patrick would be so proud of her.

‘If you leave the book with me for a day or so, I can fill in all the details for you. I’ll write out the people who live in every house, numbered in the same way as you have them
here. The ones I don’t know about I can ask around about.’