Mr Fraser paused and looked carefully at his audience. They were spellbound, even the eldest bencher of Queen’s, who was reputed to be ninety-six years old, hanging on his words.
‘And if the house was his dream unfulfilled, then the cricket pitch was where some of his dreams came true. Alex never played very well on away matches, he was, as he said to me in the slips once, only happy at home with his own deer watching over him. Even those of you who do not know much about cricket and cricketers will know that the tribe is divided, on the whole, into bowlers and batsmen. Bowlers are more prosaic, they are instruments of speed and cunning and attrition and, occasionally, guile. You do not imagine that bowlers would be poets or composers. Batsmen, on the other hand, can display grace and style and class that can take your breath away. Giorgione would have been a batsman if cricket had ever arrived in Cinquecento Venice. Keats, I am sure, would have been a batsman. He would have played some beautiful strokes and got out for a disappointing but exquisite thirty. Alex was a batsman. I once saw him score a hundred and fifty and then get himself out. He refused to let the scorer enter his total in his book, insisting his runs be attributed to someone else. ‘They were hopeless,’ he said to me, ‘unworthy opponents.’ On another occasion I saw him score twenty-five not out at Calne with the light fading and two of the fastest bowlers I have ever seen racing in to bowl at him like the Charge of the Light Brigade. ‘Best innings of my life,’ he said to me after that.
‘One of my children once asked me, in that disconcerting way that children have, if I thought Gladstone was a great man. I was on my way to court at the time so I just told him Yes. He never asked me about it again. Was Alex a great man? I think that’s the wrong question in his case. Greatness was not what he was about. But he was a man of enormous personal charm, a man with a mind that worked like a rapier, the finest companion I ever knew and the best friend I ever had.’
There was complete silence in the church as Mr Fraser returned to his pew. If you listened very carefully, you could hear some of the women crying. Powerscourt wondered if Sarah, so devoted to Dauntsey, was among them. After that there was an anthem from the choir, ‘I Know that My Redeemer Liveth’ from Handel’s Messiah. Try as he might, Powerscourt was unable to find any references to judge or jury, earthly or celestial in it. A bencher from Queen’s Inn spoke about Dauntsey’s contribution there. Powerscourt thought the man must have given the same speech before. Then a final prayer from the vicar and the congregation, with that look of relief people often have when leaving church services, streamed out into the windy sunshine. Powerscourt saw that the porters were being particularly assiduous in their duties. He observed, but did not disturb them, that Sarah was leaning heavily on Edward’s arm as if the service was still upsetting her.
Exactly one hour after the last person had departed, Powerscourt presented himself, as stealthily as he could, in the back parlour of the porter’s lodge. A fire burned brightly in the tiny grate and a junior porter was despatched to hold the fort while Roland Haydon, the Head Porter, conferred with Powerscourt.
‘Please take a seat, sir, and I’ll tell you what we found out.’ Haydon was a surprisingly youthful Head Porter, just into his thirties, easily the youngest man in that position in any Inn of Court. He had begun his career in the hotel trade and then become a junior porter in Queen’s five years before. His quickness and discretion made him a natural choice when his predecessor finally retired at the age of seventy-one, not, he said, because he was getting old, but because he’d always believed in giving youth a chance.
‘That’s very kind of you,’ said Powerscourt, taking his place by the left side of the fire.
‘Well, sir, there’s two pieces of intelligence, I suppose you could call them. And I’m not sure what to make of either of them. You remember you asked us to look out for any young women who might be scouting round before the service but not actually attending it? Well, we found one of those, about an hour before kick-off, sir, if you’ll pardon the expression. Young Matthews spoke to her, he’s very good at being polite when he wants to be, is young Matthews. She told him her name was Eve Adams, sir, and she gave her address as Number 7, Eden Street in Finsbury.’
Powerscourt laughed. ‘I’m glad to see you agree with me, sir,’ said Haydon. ‘I told Matthews he’d been sold a pup, a biblical pup from the Book of Genesis, mind you, but still a pup. I had to make him look it up on the street map to show him there was no Eden Street in Finsbury.’
‘Well, she showed some spirit, this female, Mr Haydon. What was she like?’
Haydon smiled. ‘He’s got an eye for the ladies, young Matthews has. I will not repeat the precise words of his description or what he said he would like to do to the young lady, sir. When you decode his statement, she was about thirty years old, well spoken, blonde hair, brown eyes and a shapely figure, sir, that might be the best way to translate the Matthews version.’
‘Had he ever seen her before?’ asked Powerscourt.
‘No, he hadn’t, but he very much hopes he’ll see her again. Matthews says what she needs is a younger man, sir. He’s only nineteen.’
‘I’m sure,’ Powerscourt said with a smile, ‘that he’ll keep a good lookout for her. And how about the other piece of news?’
Roland Haydon scratched his head at this point. ‘That’s more curious still. You’ll recall that two of the people who saw the mysterious visitor saw his back only. They didn’t get a front view at all. They both of them thought they saw the visitor today around the time of the service, but realized later that they must have been mistaken.’
‘Why was that?’ asked Powerscourt, sensing that anything that puzzled such a capable man as Haydon must be hard to grasp.
‘It’s this, sir,’ he said. ‘They thought Mrs Dauntsey was the visitor, seen from the back. Once they realized who it was, they knew they must be mistaken, but it’s strange all the same.’
Powerscourt looked curious. ‘How odd that they should have made the same error,’ he said, reaching for his wallet. ‘Your men have done splendidly, Mr Haydon, and so have you as officer commanding. May I present you with another five pounds for distribution as you think fit? No, I insist. Just one last thing, Mr Haydon. Could you let me have the address for the previous Financial Steward, Mr Bassett?’
Haydon disappeared into his seat of custom and came back with an ancient ledger. ‘Here we are, Number 15, Petley Road, Fulham. Funny thing, Lord Powerscourt, Mr Dauntsey asked me for the address, must have been a week or so before he died. It went right out of my mind.’
Powerscourt was on his way to talk to Edward in New Court when he almost bumped into Chief Inspector Beecham.
‘Come, my lord, I have news, but I would rather not impart it here.’ He led the way out of the porter’s lodge and on to the Embankment. Jack Beecham remained silent until they were well away from Queen’s Inn.
‘We’ve got the report from the government analyst, Dr Stevenson, about what was used to poison Mr Dauntsey, my lord. The reason it took so long was that he had been on holiday in France, Dr Stevenson.’
‘Well?’ said Powserscourt.
‘Strychnine, sir, that’s what it was. He found 6.39 grains of it in the stomach and its contents. He wasn’t taking any chances, our murderer, my lord. It only takes half a grain to kill you.’