‘What about the time it was administered? What did Dr Stevenson say about that?’
‘You know as well as I do, my lord, what these medical gentlemen are like. He said it could have been as little as fifteen minutes before death, but he doubts that. If pressed he would say about one hour to one hour and a half before the fatal accident.’
‘So,’ said Powerscourt, ‘Dauntsey probably took the fatal dose at that drinks party in the Treasurer’s rooms before the feast. He could have taken it in his own rooms just before six o’clock but we do not know if he had any visitors. Do we know, Chief Inspector, if Treasurer Somerville had one of the Inn servants in attendance on his guests, or did he do it all himself?’
‘I checked that in our transcripts but half an hour ago, my lord,’ said Beecham. ‘It seems the servants were all tied up with the preparations of the feast. Either the gentlemen helped themselves or Mr Treasurer Somerville poured the drinks.’
11
And still, Powerscourt thought, irritated now by his inability to solve the mystery, there was Maxfield. Or rather, there wasn’t Maxfield. Surely a man couldn’t just vanish off the face of the earth and defy the efforts of the police, solicitors, private inquiry agents to find him. One of his junior officers, Jack Beecham had told Powerscourt with a grin, had thought of the House of Lords solution very early on. It had been checked. Maxfield wasn’t there. The police had now extended their search to all the mental hospitals and asylums in the North of England, to all persons recruited in the last three years into the armed forces, the Merchant Navy and the coastguard. Johnny Fitzgerald had put forward the theory that Maxfield had joined the French Foreign Legion and would never be seen again.
Powerscourt was walking up and down his drawing room now, wrestling with the problem. Something from his very first meeting with Matthew Plunkett was floating elusively at the edge of his brain. It was something to do with a name. No, it wasn’t a name, it was a nickname. Plunkett’s uncle answered to the name of Killer Plunkett, that was it. No doubt, in the same way that his own close friends referred to him as Francis, this Plunkett was hailed and greeted as Killer. Did Maxfield have such a name? A name, or rather a nickname, he must have had for so many years that most of his close friends would not have known or had forgotten he was called Maxfield at all? How did that help to find him?
Powerscourt sat down at the little desk by the window where he sometimes wrote his letters. There were two things he felt sure of about Maxfield, even though his mind told him they were completely irrational. One was that he had to do with cricket. The second was that he had been in serious financial trouble, that Dauntsey’s money was to bale a friend out of debt, gambling debts perhaps. Even on the Stock Market, he did not think Maxfield could have lost that much money. Perhaps he would check with William Burke. He began writing a series of letters to different parts of the organizations already visited by Plunkett Marlowe and Plunkett. They had written to the bursar of Dauntsey’s old school, to the admissions tutor of his Cambridge college, to the adjutant of his regiment in the Army and so on. They had merely inquired about a past member called F.L. Maxfield. Powerscourt wrote to the senior groundsman at the same places, asking after a boy or a young man who had been known throughout his time with them by his nickname. Powerscourt had to admit that he had no idea what the nickname might be, but that the person’s real name was F.L. Maxfield. He added that this person was a keen cricketer and had possibly played in the same team as one Alexander Dauntsey. Only at the end of the letter did he mention that Dauntsey had been murdered. He stopped when he had reached five and was about to address his envelopes when he thought of one last shot. He wrote a final letter and popped it in its envelope. It was addressed to the Head Groundsman, Calne, Maidstone, Kent.
It was odd, Sarah Henderson reflected to herself, how the presence of a man changed the atmosphere so considerably. She supposed you would have to count her Edward, as she now mentally referred to him, Edward himself not yet informed of the change of ownership, as a man, though she usually thought of him with his gangling frame and innocent face as a boy. But here he was, sitting in front of the fire in her home at Acton, with her mother on one side and herself on the other. Everything about this evening had been totally unexpected. Sarah had told her mother days before all she had learnt from Edward, about his train crash, about his speech difficulties, about living with his grandparents. She was resigned to a long inquisition. None came. She thought her mother would be her normal crabby self, ever ready with a sharp interjection or a put-down. None came. It was as if Edward brought a change of personality to her mother. And that, in turn, made Sarah feel irritated. Why she should feel irritated because her mother was going out of her way to be pleasant to her young man she did not know. Deep down, she suspected, she might feel – not jealous, that would be too strong, peeved perhaps that somebody else was trying to captivate her Edward. Her mother had developed a deep interest in the forthcoming Puncknowle trial.
‘Remind me, Edward,’ she said, smiling kindly at the young man, ‘when exactly is it coming to court? I know you’ve told me, but I’ve forgotten. My memory isn’t what it was.’
Playing for the sympathy vote, Sarah said to herself.
‘It starts on Thursday, Mrs Henderson,’ said Edward.
‘And how wicked has Mr Puncknowle been? Is he as wicked as the Ripper or that terrible fraudster Jabez Balfour, Edward?’
She’s getting bloodthirsty in her old age, Sarah thought. Suddenly she wondered if she herself was going to end up like this. She rather hoped not.
‘Well, he’s pretty wicked,’ said Edward cheerfully, ‘but he didn’t actually kill anybody, as far as we know. He’s not been charged with murder or anything like that. But he’s defrauded a great many people, Mrs Henderson, that’s pretty wicked.’
Edward was showing admirable patience, Sarah thought, seeing he had answered all these points at least once before.
‘Just tell me again how he defrauded them, Edward. I don’t think I quite got the hang of it first time round even though you explained it so beautifully.’
Poor Edward, Sarah thought, having to explain everything three times and then once more for luck.
Edward picked up a teaspoon, one of a number lying on the tea trolley. He winked at Sarah when he was out of the line of sight of her mother. That made her feel better.
‘Think of this as Company Number One, Mrs Henderson. Mr Puncknowle asks people to invest, or buy shares in a great company called the Freedom Building Society. Lots of people buy them. But Mr Puncknowle and his friends are greedy. They take lots of the money for themselves rather than using it to help people buy houses. The promise made to the people when they bought the shares was that they would get a dividend, a share of the profits, twice a year. But after all the money he’s stolen, Mr Puncknowle doesn’t have any money left. So he launches another company, Company Number Two.’ Edward picked up another teaspoon. This time he blew Sarah a kiss. ‘More people subscribe or buy shares. That new money goes to pay the dividends of the old company. And so on,’ said Edward, realizing that Companies Four, Five and Six in the Puncknowle house of cards might be too many for Mrs Henderson to grasp. And there weren’t enough teaspoons.
‘How beautifully you explain it, Edward,’ said Mrs Henderson.
Flatterer, thought Sarah. Even Edward may be susceptible to flattery.
‘So he really is quite wicked,’ said Mrs Henderson, who seemed to get some special satisfaction out of the word wicked. ‘How long will he be sent to jail for?’
‘He has to be found guilty first,’ said Edward with a smile.